There is a well known phrase in our country which reflects, in more than one way, the attitude of many Jamaicans in this time of economic crisis. " Nutten naw gwaan". Which when translated to standard English means that, "Nothing much by way of improvement in their lot in life is happening, and further, what can you do for me", thus reflecting a kind of dependency previously unheard of, in our once very proud society.
But even if we resist the dependency , the attitude of hopelessness can be very infectious as we face major social and economic challenges in our national and personal lives. The murder rate continues unabated, despite the election promises of the relatively new administration - in fact breaking news tonight is that the Commissioner of Police has resigned, and which departure, clearly has more than a little to do with the spiraling murder rate. Our economic management team may stumble for a while, at a time when we are busy negotiation with the IMF, as the Governor of the Central Bank resigned this week also, amidst speculation, in the media, that his actions and that of others at the bank exceeded the terms of his contract. Jobs are scare, industrial relations are under tremendous strain in many sections of the society, scandals about government officials are popping up in the media, and people are beginning to wonder to whom must they turn for economic and social salvation.
In the midst of this conundrum, this angst about the state of our nation, and the widespread perception that " nutten naw gwaan", a sermon by young priest in church this morning, was greeted with thunderous applause - an unusual occurrence in my very conservative Anglican church. What was her message? Perhaps she recalled the words of the prophet Habakkuk when he wrote thousand of years ago:
" Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no olives on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Sovereign God is my strength........" Habakkuk 3:17-19. NIV.
So in strength of the prophets of old, she declared that though many may say " nutten naw gwaan" " God a gwaan". In sense that the Sovereign God is still active in the lives of men and women in their personal lives and in the life of a nation. The young curate cited many examples of God's continuously goodness and mercy to His children and to this nation, and the one I recall is the fact that, every time a baby is born, it is God who acting in the life of a nation and of a people. But we can add others, despite the many trials that people are experiencing, every time we awake in the morning we need to give thanks. Give thanks for good news from the doctor, and safe recovery after surgery. Good news about our children at school. Safe travel when we go abroad, and even traveling locally - the news last night carried the story of three men perishing in a motor vehicle crash. Give thanks for the joy of a long and wonderful marriage; the privilege of having parents live for a long time; the joy that grandchildren bring. The performance of our athletes, the quality of our "conscious" music; the dedication of some of elected officials; the protection offered by vigilant and uncorrupted policemen who regularly place their lives on the line for us; the love and prayers of the ordinary and unsophisticated Jamaican people. So God a gwaan in many and various ways in the midst of trials - many have suffered much. And the tears reflect the same deep pain whether or not the family member who passed on, died of illness, on the roads or by the gun. Whether the relationship ended with or without violence. Whether or not the child who got into trouble was a model student or not.
In addition to the message from the young priest, Oswald Chambers in one of his meditations raised the issue of faith, in the midst of challenges, this week - the same point raised by Habakkuk many years ago.
FAITH OCTOBER 30
" Without faith it is impossible to please him." Hebrews 11:6
Faith in antagonism to common sense is fanaticism, and common sense in antagonism to faith is rationalism. The life of faith brings the two into a right relation. Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual; of impulse and inspiration. Nothing Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, it is revelation sense, and it reaches the shores where common sense fails. Faith must be tried before the reality of faith is actual. " We know that all things together for good," then no matter what happens, the alchemy of God's providence transfigures the ideal faith into actual reality. Faith always works on the personal line, the whole purpose of God being to see that the ideal faith is made real in His children.
For every detail of the common sense life, there is a revelation fact of God whereby we can prove in practical experience what we believe God to be. Faith is a tremendously active principle which always puts Jesus Christ first - Lord. Thou hast said so and so ( eg Matthew 6:33), it looks mad but I am going to venture on Thy word. To turn head faith into a personal possession is a fight always, not sometimes.
God brings us into circumstances in order to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make its object real. Until we know Jesus, God is a mere abstraction, we cannot have faith in Him; but immediately we hear Jesus say ---" He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father", we have something that is real, and faith is boundless. Faith is the whole man rightly related to God by the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Finally another part of the message of faith " in the midst of the storm". This time a hymn , the words of which have been in my heart all week, and even flooding my mind on my awakening in the mornings and influencing my prayers a whole lot.
O Jesus, I have promised
To serve thee to the end;
Be thou for ever near me,
My Master and my Friend:
I shall not fear the battle
If thou art by my side,
Nor wander from the pathway
If thou wilt be my guide.
O let me feel thee near me:
The world is ever near;
I see the sights that dazzle,
The tempting sounds I hear,
My foes are ever near me,
Around me and within;
But, Jesus draw though nearer,
And shield my soul from sin
O let me hear thee speaking
IN accents clear and still,
Above the storms of passion,
The murmurs of self-will;
O speak to reassure me,
To hasten or control;
O speak, and make me listen
Thou guardian of my soul.
O Jesus thou hast promised
To all who follow thee,
That where thou art in glory
There shall thy servant be;
And, Jesus, I have promised
To serve thee to the end:
O give me grace to follow,
My Master and my friend.
O let me see thy foot-marks,
And in them plant my own;
My hope to follow duly
Is in thy strength alone;
O guide me, call me draw me,
Uphold me to the end;
And then in heaven receive me,
My saviour and my Friend.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
President Obama, homosexuality and Sin
This week was dominated by President Obama. The award of the Nobel prize for Peace, caught the world , and I daresay himself too, completely off guard. My own personal and immediate view was that this accolade was a bit premature, but I was not unsympathetic to the reason (s)shared with the public why the directors of of such a prestigious body acted in the way that they did - impressed, like so many others across the world, with President Obama's ability to inspire hope, peace and justice and thus be able to usher in a refreshing new approach to International dialogue and co-operation in what hitherto had become an increasingly uni-polar and dangerous world.
But it was not the award alone that stimulated a lot of thought about President Obama, but rather his address to a Gay-Rights Lobby in Washing ton D.C. I saw it on CNN eventually, having not planned to watch it, but providence intervened. Inter alia, he assured the group, that in his opinion, the loving relationship between two men or women is of the same value as that between a man and a woman and equally so the different family arrangements. Against this philosophical backdrop I suppose, he announced the different policy initiatives that his administration had taken to remove some of the injustices which had been meted out to gays and lesbians. And compared their situation to that of black people and their struggles against injustice in white America.
Two thoughts came into my mind as I reflected on his speech and the rousing reception that it triggered from the audience. One, have we as Christians been guilty of, or party to, meting out injustice to gays and lesbians? In the sense that though most Christians, whose faith rests on the unchanging nature of God's Holy Word as ultimately manifest in Christ, the Word made flesh, regard homosexuality as a "sinful" lifestyle, have been sought to protect them and any other group from injustice, hate and neglect? Some of the issues raised by President Obama, as a secular leader; the right to serve in the army; the right to security of tenure in a job; the right to a civil union and the attendant social benefits - visitation in hospital and legacy rights for example: are issues that we as Christians need to reflect on deeply. The second question that arose in my mind, is how does one ensure justice for individuals whose lifestyle is clearly in defiance of God's command, and who are unapologetic, without encouraging such a lifestyle and also not being unmindful of some of the objectives of some of its leaders - the equating of a homosexual lifestyle with that of a heterosexual union as ordained by God. And that was my greatest fear for President Obama, a self confessed Christian.
So what did the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who is always ahead of us, preparing the way, say to His child this week.
The message began in the book of Galatians which our Bible study group completed this week.
" My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you...."
Gal.4:19 NIV
The most important doctrinal lesson that all who claim to be followers of Christ need to learn, including President Obama, is that we cannot have a right relationship with God, we have no claim to holiness before , we cannot be disciples of Christ, unless the Son of God is being formed in us more and more each day. So it is not our good intentions, not our interpretation of what constitutes justice or not, not our good works, not our ability to inspire hope in a world desperately in need of good news and hope for a better and more secure future that matters before God primarily, but whether or not His Son, who died that sinful man may be reconciled to a Holy God, is being formed in you and I.
And that's the living Gospel truth. Otherwise Christ's death on the Cross of Calvary would have been an irrelevant bit of history in the life of human kind. But we know better, that the events that took place on the Cross, has once and for all defined human history. What is confusing the world and an honestly caring, but nevertheless ill informed about his religion, President, is this issue of Sin and sins.
The following meditation helps to explain the difference which is the thrust of this message from the God of Jacob this week.
OCTOBER 5 OSWALD CHAMBERS MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST
THE BIAS OF DEGENERATION
" Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned". Romans 5:12
The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away ( Heb. 9:26) - an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization - I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and n=moral and upright, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.
Sin is a thing I am born with and i cannot touch it; God touches it in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. " And this is the judgement" ( the critical moment), " that the light is come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light."
As I write, the words of the song writer come into my mind. Words from the penultimate verse of that great hymn:
Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown
When thou camest to earth for me.....
Refrain: O come to my heart Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for thee
Thou camest O Lord with the living word
That should set thy people free
But with mocking scorn and a crown of thorn
They bore thee to Calvary
O come to my heart Lord Jesus
There is room in my heart for thee
One of our political leaders whose base was in the, now much feared Tivoli Gardens area, and probably where the very popular term " Don" emerged, once claimed that " everybody want to be a Don. Well there is only one Don". An outburst which was to earn him the dubious title and much lampooned sobriquet of " The One Don". An observation which sums up the reason behind sin which entered the world through Adam, and which lies at the heart of the debate about, not just homosexuality, but Sin. Mankind inherited the disposition to claim the right to be him or herself, or in other words to be his or her own god. To be his or her own "Don". And God says NO. And left His throne and His kingly crown, became man , incarnate, in Christ, and died on the Cross so that we may receive the disposition - to trust Him alone, the only truly God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob. And the problem with many of us, even within the church, much less the homosexual community, is that we are not prepared to relinquish our "sovereign rights" over our bodies, our minds, our souls, and our sexuality, to the God who created us in His own image and calls us to be Holy as He is Holy. An image which is marred, but not destroyed by Sin, and which can be made whole again, only in and through Jesus Christ.
It is the opposition to this world view that has fueled, among other things, the abortion debate - it is my body; the homosexual debate - it is my right to live how I please; the gambling debate - it is my right to use my money as I please.
Finally my eyes "happened upon" a meditation from The Complete Works Of Oswald Chambers which i would have read tomorrow but which is very relevant in our understanding of human nature and how to reach out to non-believers and passionate but ill informed Christians.
The Disposition of darkness.
" The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him. ( 1 Cor. 2:14)
The word " disposition" is used here in the sense of the mainspring that moves me. Apart from a knowledge of Jesus Christ, and apart fro being crumpled up by the conviction of sin, men have a disposition which keeps them perfectly happy and peaceful. The natural man is not in distress, not conscious of any disharmony in himself; he is not " in trouble as other men ", and is quite content with being once-born; the things Jesus Christ stands for have no meaning for the natural man. The Bible refers to this disposition as one of darkness --" being darkened in their understanding" ( Ephesians 4:18RV). We preach to men as if they were conscious of being dying sinners, they are not, they are having a good time, and all our talk about the need to be born again is from a domain they know nothing about...there in nothing attractive about the Gospel to the natural man; the only man who finds the gospel attractive is the man who is convicted of sin. Conviction of sin is produced by the incoming of the Holy Spirit because conscience is promptly made to look at God's demands and the whole nature cries out, in some form or another. " What must I do to be saved?"............
When Jesus comes He comes in he upsets the this false unity; he comes not as a Comforter, but as a thorough Disturber. " if I had not come...they had not sin" --- then why did he come? If I was peaceful and happy, living a clean upright life, why should Jesus come with a standard of holiness I never dreamt of? Simply because that peace was the peace of death, a peace altogether apart from God. The coming of Jesus to the natural man means the destruction of all the peace that is not based on a personal relationship to Himself.
And such a relationship does not come to once-born people. A hard message but one that we must not resile from presenting to the world, whether to Presidents or homosexuals, or those going to church for many years but living a disobedient lifestyle. Otherwise we are being traitors to the Cross of Christ, and therefore guilty of preferring the " darkness" over " the light", the basis for the final judgement from the God of Abraham. So let us pray without ceasing for ourselves, President Obama and all others with good and decent intentions for the upliftment of all mankind, that we may realize that God does not intend to redeem the world and make it right, but that in Christ, and through His death on Calvary, He has already accomplished that great task, and for which, and in return, all He requires is that we believe. Amen
But it was not the award alone that stimulated a lot of thought about President Obama, but rather his address to a Gay-Rights Lobby in Washing ton D.C. I saw it on CNN eventually, having not planned to watch it, but providence intervened. Inter alia, he assured the group, that in his opinion, the loving relationship between two men or women is of the same value as that between a man and a woman and equally so the different family arrangements. Against this philosophical backdrop I suppose, he announced the different policy initiatives that his administration had taken to remove some of the injustices which had been meted out to gays and lesbians. And compared their situation to that of black people and their struggles against injustice in white America.
Two thoughts came into my mind as I reflected on his speech and the rousing reception that it triggered from the audience. One, have we as Christians been guilty of, or party to, meting out injustice to gays and lesbians? In the sense that though most Christians, whose faith rests on the unchanging nature of God's Holy Word as ultimately manifest in Christ, the Word made flesh, regard homosexuality as a "sinful" lifestyle, have been sought to protect them and any other group from injustice, hate and neglect? Some of the issues raised by President Obama, as a secular leader; the right to serve in the army; the right to security of tenure in a job; the right to a civil union and the attendant social benefits - visitation in hospital and legacy rights for example: are issues that we as Christians need to reflect on deeply. The second question that arose in my mind, is how does one ensure justice for individuals whose lifestyle is clearly in defiance of God's command, and who are unapologetic, without encouraging such a lifestyle and also not being unmindful of some of the objectives of some of its leaders - the equating of a homosexual lifestyle with that of a heterosexual union as ordained by God. And that was my greatest fear for President Obama, a self confessed Christian.
So what did the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who is always ahead of us, preparing the way, say to His child this week.
The message began in the book of Galatians which our Bible study group completed this week.
" My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you...."
Gal.4:19 NIV
The most important doctrinal lesson that all who claim to be followers of Christ need to learn, including President Obama, is that we cannot have a right relationship with God, we have no claim to holiness before , we cannot be disciples of Christ, unless the Son of God is being formed in us more and more each day. So it is not our good intentions, not our interpretation of what constitutes justice or not, not our good works, not our ability to inspire hope in a world desperately in need of good news and hope for a better and more secure future that matters before God primarily, but whether or not His Son, who died that sinful man may be reconciled to a Holy God, is being formed in you and I.
And that's the living Gospel truth. Otherwise Christ's death on the Cross of Calvary would have been an irrelevant bit of history in the life of human kind. But we know better, that the events that took place on the Cross, has once and for all defined human history. What is confusing the world and an honestly caring, but nevertheless ill informed about his religion, President, is this issue of Sin and sins.
The following meditation helps to explain the difference which is the thrust of this message from the God of Jacob this week.
OCTOBER 5 OSWALD CHAMBERS MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST
THE BIAS OF DEGENERATION
" Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned". Romans 5:12
The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away ( Heb. 9:26) - an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization - I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and n=moral and upright, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.
Sin is a thing I am born with and i cannot touch it; God touches it in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. " And this is the judgement" ( the critical moment), " that the light is come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light."
As I write, the words of the song writer come into my mind. Words from the penultimate verse of that great hymn:
Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown
When thou camest to earth for me.....
Refrain: O come to my heart Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for thee
Thou camest O Lord with the living word
That should set thy people free
But with mocking scorn and a crown of thorn
They bore thee to Calvary
O come to my heart Lord Jesus
There is room in my heart for thee
One of our political leaders whose base was in the, now much feared Tivoli Gardens area, and probably where the very popular term " Don" emerged, once claimed that " everybody want to be a Don. Well there is only one Don". An outburst which was to earn him the dubious title and much lampooned sobriquet of " The One Don". An observation which sums up the reason behind sin which entered the world through Adam, and which lies at the heart of the debate about, not just homosexuality, but Sin. Mankind inherited the disposition to claim the right to be him or herself, or in other words to be his or her own god. To be his or her own "Don". And God says NO. And left His throne and His kingly crown, became man , incarnate, in Christ, and died on the Cross so that we may receive the disposition - to trust Him alone, the only truly God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob. And the problem with many of us, even within the church, much less the homosexual community, is that we are not prepared to relinquish our "sovereign rights" over our bodies, our minds, our souls, and our sexuality, to the God who created us in His own image and calls us to be Holy as He is Holy. An image which is marred, but not destroyed by Sin, and which can be made whole again, only in and through Jesus Christ.
It is the opposition to this world view that has fueled, among other things, the abortion debate - it is my body; the homosexual debate - it is my right to live how I please; the gambling debate - it is my right to use my money as I please.
Finally my eyes "happened upon" a meditation from The Complete Works Of Oswald Chambers which i would have read tomorrow but which is very relevant in our understanding of human nature and how to reach out to non-believers and passionate but ill informed Christians.
The Disposition of darkness.
" The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him. ( 1 Cor. 2:14)
The word " disposition" is used here in the sense of the mainspring that moves me. Apart from a knowledge of Jesus Christ, and apart fro being crumpled up by the conviction of sin, men have a disposition which keeps them perfectly happy and peaceful. The natural man is not in distress, not conscious of any disharmony in himself; he is not " in trouble as other men ", and is quite content with being once-born; the things Jesus Christ stands for have no meaning for the natural man. The Bible refers to this disposition as one of darkness --" being darkened in their understanding" ( Ephesians 4:18RV). We preach to men as if they were conscious of being dying sinners, they are not, they are having a good time, and all our talk about the need to be born again is from a domain they know nothing about...there in nothing attractive about the Gospel to the natural man; the only man who finds the gospel attractive is the man who is convicted of sin. Conviction of sin is produced by the incoming of the Holy Spirit because conscience is promptly made to look at God's demands and the whole nature cries out, in some form or another. " What must I do to be saved?"............
When Jesus comes He comes in he upsets the this false unity; he comes not as a Comforter, but as a thorough Disturber. " if I had not come...they had not sin" --- then why did he come? If I was peaceful and happy, living a clean upright life, why should Jesus come with a standard of holiness I never dreamt of? Simply because that peace was the peace of death, a peace altogether apart from God. The coming of Jesus to the natural man means the destruction of all the peace that is not based on a personal relationship to Himself.
And such a relationship does not come to once-born people. A hard message but one that we must not resile from presenting to the world, whether to Presidents or homosexuals, or those going to church for many years but living a disobedient lifestyle. Otherwise we are being traitors to the Cross of Christ, and therefore guilty of preferring the " darkness" over " the light", the basis for the final judgement from the God of Abraham. So let us pray without ceasing for ourselves, President Obama and all others with good and decent intentions for the upliftment of all mankind, that we may realize that God does not intend to redeem the world and make it right, but that in Christ, and through His death on Calvary, He has already accomplished that great task, and for which, and in return, all He requires is that we believe. Amen
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Rape in St. Lucia: Sin across the world
Socially, nothing dramatic happened in Jamaica last week that really touched my soul. Yes the murder continues - five men invaded a house and killed a female security guard and shot two children. And people were killed in the western part of the island and police killed three men, one of whom was reportedly wanted for stealing a coffin last year, apparently looking for hidden money. Sad but true. Murder most foul, and other socially destructive behaviours have become almost routine in my country. But on the other hand, I listened a radio broadcast of an interview with a young Jamaican girl who was savagely and cynically - apparently it is par for the course in that station - in our sister Caribbean island of St. Lucia. The pain and the terror that this obviously poor but proud Jamaican national - created like me in the very image of God - suffered, was almost palpable, and at one section of the interview it was as if she was about to" go mad" on account of her terrible ordeal. So the madness that is wreaking havoc in my country is spreading across the Caribbean, and if truth be told, across the entire world.
So our God, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is always ahead of us, warning, encouraging, teaching, judging but yet and always loving, led me to focus on Sin. Not just your every day acts of sinfulness, but the very foundation of the kind of madness which would move a policeman to so terrorise another human being placed in his care.
The first passage on this issue of Sin was found in my continued reading of that much celebrated theologian Oswald Chambers, famous for his " My Utmost for His Highest"
BIBLICAL ETHICS OSWALD CHAMBERS THE COMPLETE WORKS
SPIRITUAL CONSTRUCTION
The Divine and the Human - " But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power of may be of God, and not of us. ( 2 Cor. 4:7)
........The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation is not only that " God was manifest in the flesh," but that the same thing will take place in anyone who receives the Holy Spirit; he receives from God a totally new heredity, the life of the Son of God, " until Christ be formed in you". Human nature is the home where the Divine manifests itself. Holiness Movements are apt to ignore the human and bank all on the Divine; they tell us that human nature is sinful, forgetting that Jesus Christ took on Him our human nature, and " in Him is no sin". It was God who made human nature, not the devil; sin came into human nature and cut it off from the Divine, and Jesus Christ brings the pure Divine and the pure human together. Sin is a wrong thing altogether and is not to be allowed or a moment. Human nature is earthly, it is sordid, but it is not bad, the thing that makes it bad is sin. Sin is the outcome of a relationship set up between man and the devil whereby man becomes " boss" over himself, his own god ( see Genesis 3:8).. No man was ever created to become his own master, or the master of other men; there is only one Master of men and that is Jesus Christ.
One of the great tragedies of our times, orchestrated by the devil, is that we place a focus on the
the " branches" of sin, the easily seen, and much vilified, but yet superficial; but not much interest is placed on the "root", the very foundation of sin, from which all socially destructive behaviours flow. This is of paramount importance for two reasons. One, is that for those who do not transgress the superficial nature of sin, and therefore think that they are " decent and good citizens", the gospel of Christ's Incarnation, death and resurrection is of no value to them. Two, and this is related to the first point, unless we are convicted of how badly Sin has marred our souls and separated us from a Holy God, we will never understand how much the God of Abraham loves us, and how much that love is manifest in the death of Christ on the Cross of Calvary seek Salvation in and through Christ. To bring home the point very dramatically our young priest told the story this morning how a pastor, having borrowed his wife's spanking new SUV, had the misfortune to drop the keys in a toilet. he therefore had no choice but to reach down into the " mess" and rescue his wife's car keys. And in the same way God in Christ Jesus, out of love, not of need, reached down and " pulled us, every human being if we would just believe", out of the " mess" of sin and death.
The second passage is like some court cases - just a mention. No big trial, but the very mention sends creeps down spine when we consider the implications.
" Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. The Lord rebuke you, Satan!" The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?
Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, " Take off his filthy clothes."
Then he said to Joshua, " See I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garment so you."
Zechariah 3:1-2 NIV
Satan and evil are real issues in life and somehow for whatever reason God, allows them to exist.Thank God that this and other Old Testament passages, prophecy about the coming of Christ- in whom all sins are taken away. For those who have no protection from a loving God, because they have rejected His Son, Satan rules easily often with devastating consequences.
Finally, even for us who claim Christ, the devil is allowed some freedom to terrorize us, but only with God's permission, and for His express purpose. And He, when His purposes have been accomplished, will rescue us. But in the meanwhile life, because of evil, can be challenging.
CHRIS TIEGEN OCTOBER 2 SIFTED
" Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. Luke 22:31
IN WORD We wonder why we have trials sometimes. Jesus gives us a glimpse of one reason right here. Satan has asked it of Simon Peter. It is quite possible that he asks it of us as well. And this is no polite request; some translations of this verse capture it more strongly: " Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat". (RSV). The enemy of our souls boldly asserts his right to fight to retain what he has long held. We are targeted for sifting by the one we want to leave behind. And Jesus lets him do it.
The verse is rich implications for us. For example, isn't is interesting that Jesus gives no indication of having put up a fight for us? Certainly he prayed for Peter, but he apparently did not resist the demand in the first place. Jesus does not say that he prayed for Peter to be spared from the sifting. In fact, He seems quite willing to let it happen, as though Satan is actually doing the bidding of the Lord. What the enemy means for evil, God means for good. He lets the evil one behave his way with us -- for a time.
IN WORD Nowhere in the Bible does God promise to spare us from temptation. Our faith will be assaulted in numerous ways, ad while God is not the author of this, He specifically allows it.
The enemy of our souls, the evil one who has held this world in his grip from the early days of creation until now, fights against our trust in God. As he did with Job, he may insist to God that our faith is not genuine because it has not tested. If he can prove that it is not, he can slander the Almighty with his skepticism. God takes him up on the challenge.
Do you ever feel as if all hell is sifting your faith to see what remains? Hang on. You are in a process God has allowed, and that He will also strictly limited. Your sifting will not last. Your faith will, and there be no chaff to it. Trust in God's sovereignty over the enemy.
One of the striking things about the interview with the young lay who has her dignity trampled all over by this " child of the devil" was her assurance that " God naw sleep". Very much akin the the Psalmist's declaration:
" I lift up mine eyes to the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord
the Maker of heaven and earth
He will not let your foot slip --
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep...."
Evil will be conquered, whether now or at some other time. But until then it is a very real issue and is spreading its tentacles across the Caribbean. Why? In large part because, rather than hold on to the old time religion, tried and proven by our forebears, we have succumbed to the beguiling temptations of modernity and New Age, which are really "old age" manifestations of human rebellion against God "dressed up" in more sophistry. Many ordinary folks, even though not Baptised, still fear God and look to Him for justice in a land where human life and human dignity are of little worth to many. All on account of Sin. The challenge for the children of God, born not of human flesh nor of a husband's will, but born of God, and given that right on account of our belief in Christ, is to accept that we too will be sifted by Satan, in order that our faith may be proved genuine. For those who face Satan the accuser and the tormentor and the tempter, without Christ, it is not enough to pray that God may still have mercy on them, but in addition, we need to become 'broken bread and poured out wine' - allow the Christ within us push us to preach the gospel by word and deed, in love, in the same way Christ pursued us with His extravagant love. Then and only then will policemen, whether in Jamaica or St. Lucia; gunmen whether in Jamaica or in Antigua; kidnappers whether in Jamaica or in Trinidad will turn and repent and seek forgiveness from God in and through Christ. And so allow young and old women and men, to live in peace and with their dignity.
Lord renew thy church beginnning with me: Lord renew the church that the church may renew the nation(s)
So our God, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is always ahead of us, warning, encouraging, teaching, judging but yet and always loving, led me to focus on Sin. Not just your every day acts of sinfulness, but the very foundation of the kind of madness which would move a policeman to so terrorise another human being placed in his care.
The first passage on this issue of Sin was found in my continued reading of that much celebrated theologian Oswald Chambers, famous for his " My Utmost for His Highest"
BIBLICAL ETHICS OSWALD CHAMBERS THE COMPLETE WORKS
SPIRITUAL CONSTRUCTION
The Divine and the Human - " But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power of may be of God, and not of us. ( 2 Cor. 4:7)
........The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation is not only that " God was manifest in the flesh," but that the same thing will take place in anyone who receives the Holy Spirit; he receives from God a totally new heredity, the life of the Son of God, " until Christ be formed in you". Human nature is the home where the Divine manifests itself. Holiness Movements are apt to ignore the human and bank all on the Divine; they tell us that human nature is sinful, forgetting that Jesus Christ took on Him our human nature, and " in Him is no sin". It was God who made human nature, not the devil; sin came into human nature and cut it off from the Divine, and Jesus Christ brings the pure Divine and the pure human together. Sin is a wrong thing altogether and is not to be allowed or a moment. Human nature is earthly, it is sordid, but it is not bad, the thing that makes it bad is sin. Sin is the outcome of a relationship set up between man and the devil whereby man becomes " boss" over himself, his own god ( see Genesis 3:8).. No man was ever created to become his own master, or the master of other men; there is only one Master of men and that is Jesus Christ.
One of the great tragedies of our times, orchestrated by the devil, is that we place a focus on the
the " branches" of sin, the easily seen, and much vilified, but yet superficial; but not much interest is placed on the "root", the very foundation of sin, from which all socially destructive behaviours flow. This is of paramount importance for two reasons. One, is that for those who do not transgress the superficial nature of sin, and therefore think that they are " decent and good citizens", the gospel of Christ's Incarnation, death and resurrection is of no value to them. Two, and this is related to the first point, unless we are convicted of how badly Sin has marred our souls and separated us from a Holy God, we will never understand how much the God of Abraham loves us, and how much that love is manifest in the death of Christ on the Cross of Calvary seek Salvation in and through Christ. To bring home the point very dramatically our young priest told the story this morning how a pastor, having borrowed his wife's spanking new SUV, had the misfortune to drop the keys in a toilet. he therefore had no choice but to reach down into the " mess" and rescue his wife's car keys. And in the same way God in Christ Jesus, out of love, not of need, reached down and " pulled us, every human being if we would just believe", out of the " mess" of sin and death.
The second passage is like some court cases - just a mention. No big trial, but the very mention sends creeps down spine when we consider the implications.
" Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. The Lord rebuke you, Satan!" The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?
Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, " Take off his filthy clothes."
Then he said to Joshua, " See I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garment so you."
Zechariah 3:1-2 NIV
Satan and evil are real issues in life and somehow for whatever reason God, allows them to exist.Thank God that this and other Old Testament passages, prophecy about the coming of Christ- in whom all sins are taken away. For those who have no protection from a loving God, because they have rejected His Son, Satan rules easily often with devastating consequences.
Finally, even for us who claim Christ, the devil is allowed some freedom to terrorize us, but only with God's permission, and for His express purpose. And He, when His purposes have been accomplished, will rescue us. But in the meanwhile life, because of evil, can be challenging.
CHRIS TIEGEN OCTOBER 2 SIFTED
" Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. Luke 22:31
IN WORD We wonder why we have trials sometimes. Jesus gives us a glimpse of one reason right here. Satan has asked it of Simon Peter. It is quite possible that he asks it of us as well. And this is no polite request; some translations of this verse capture it more strongly: " Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat". (RSV). The enemy of our souls boldly asserts his right to fight to retain what he has long held. We are targeted for sifting by the one we want to leave behind. And Jesus lets him do it.
The verse is rich implications for us. For example, isn't is interesting that Jesus gives no indication of having put up a fight for us? Certainly he prayed for Peter, but he apparently did not resist the demand in the first place. Jesus does not say that he prayed for Peter to be spared from the sifting. In fact, He seems quite willing to let it happen, as though Satan is actually doing the bidding of the Lord. What the enemy means for evil, God means for good. He lets the evil one behave his way with us -- for a time.
IN WORD Nowhere in the Bible does God promise to spare us from temptation. Our faith will be assaulted in numerous ways, ad while God is not the author of this, He specifically allows it.
The enemy of our souls, the evil one who has held this world in his grip from the early days of creation until now, fights against our trust in God. As he did with Job, he may insist to God that our faith is not genuine because it has not tested. If he can prove that it is not, he can slander the Almighty with his skepticism. God takes him up on the challenge.
Do you ever feel as if all hell is sifting your faith to see what remains? Hang on. You are in a process God has allowed, and that He will also strictly limited. Your sifting will not last. Your faith will, and there be no chaff to it. Trust in God's sovereignty over the enemy.
One of the striking things about the interview with the young lay who has her dignity trampled all over by this " child of the devil" was her assurance that " God naw sleep". Very much akin the the Psalmist's declaration:
" I lift up mine eyes to the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord
the Maker of heaven and earth
He will not let your foot slip --
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep...."
Evil will be conquered, whether now or at some other time. But until then it is a very real issue and is spreading its tentacles across the Caribbean. Why? In large part because, rather than hold on to the old time religion, tried and proven by our forebears, we have succumbed to the beguiling temptations of modernity and New Age, which are really "old age" manifestations of human rebellion against God "dressed up" in more sophistry. Many ordinary folks, even though not Baptised, still fear God and look to Him for justice in a land where human life and human dignity are of little worth to many. All on account of Sin. The challenge for the children of God, born not of human flesh nor of a husband's will, but born of God, and given that right on account of our belief in Christ, is to accept that we too will be sifted by Satan, in order that our faith may be proved genuine. For those who face Satan the accuser and the tormentor and the tempter, without Christ, it is not enough to pray that God may still have mercy on them, but in addition, we need to become 'broken bread and poured out wine' - allow the Christ within us push us to preach the gospel by word and deed, in love, in the same way Christ pursued us with His extravagant love. Then and only then will policemen, whether in Jamaica or St. Lucia; gunmen whether in Jamaica or in Antigua; kidnappers whether in Jamaica or in Trinidad will turn and repent and seek forgiveness from God in and through Christ. And so allow young and old women and men, to live in peace and with their dignity.
Lord renew thy church beginnning with me: Lord renew the church that the church may renew the nation(s)
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Mourn with those who mourn but celebrate life with Christ through the Holy Spirit
It's was very heart breaking. She just lay there on the couch, mumbling , " They killed my son, they killed my son". Her son had been murdered recently. He had gone to visit his children's mother who had many children for him, and so he was well known in the community. But they killed him all the same. Why? Only God knows. Another young mother reported that her daughter had been killed by gunmen. Why? Another gunman for whom they had been searching, in a frantic attempt to save his life, during a chase, held on to her, a complete stranger in the wrong place at the wrong time, as a shield. But they killed both of them anyway. Yet another mother grieved over her child who had been savagely murdered. Why? They were after his brother, not her son, and could not find him, so they killed the next relative. And as I write the news on CNN is about young kids caught up in gang related violence dying on the streets of Chicago. Wow! This is the real world in which we live in Jamaica and in many parts of the world.
So who is to stem the tide of violence, the blood that runs on the streets, literally and metaphorically?
This week through a number of revelations and reminders the Lord led me to reflect on the essence of the Christian life and therefore those who are called to be "light and salt" in this dark and suffering world.
First up, at least in my memory, but not necessarily in the order of importance, were two passage of Scripture, which led me to send them out as two individual text messages to some folks on my phonebook. Actually I was a bit reluctant as the first one was " hard stuff", but the second one explained matters a bit more.
" I know your deeds, you have a reputation of being alive but you are dead" Rev. 3:1.
And the second one:
" He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life"
1 John 5:12 NIV
The Spirit of the Lord was addressing the status of those who seem to be in control of their lives, those who think they have power and influence, but who need to know that they have no power to help themselves much less to assist in rescuing Jamaica from the evil which is destroying our country.
The next Scripture passage which formed the basis for another text message - to different people who the Lord chose - was more palatable but no less demanding. And spoke to the very heart of how a Christian has to respond the crisis that threatens the very existence of our nation
" And without faith it is impossible to please god, because anyone who comes to him, must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."
Hebrews 11:6 NIV
And as I read and reflected and prayed deeply for the Lord to have mercy on the nation, through His Holy Spirit working in renewed church and by His Holy Angels responding to the cries of His people, the following passages from " The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers"
touched my soul, especially as one meditation added a new dimension to the " The Sower and his Seed" about which I wrote last Sunday:
THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL - 111
CONVERSION
The literal meaning of "conversion" is a change of mind after watching certain facts eg. we read in Acts 28 that the barbarians changed their minds about Paul. We are dealing with conversion here not so much on the religious side as the ethical. Beware of making conversion synonymous with regeneration. Conversion is simply the effort of a roused human being; the sign of regeneration is that a man has received something. When a man fails in Christian experience it is nearly always that he has never received anything. There are books which set out to give the psychology of new birth by saying that suddenly something burst up from a man's unconscious personality and alters him: a man is never born again by a subliminal uprush, but only by receiving something that was never there before, viz, the Holy Spirit.
Certain forms of sin exhaust themselves and we may say of a man " Now he is saved," but he may be nothing of the sort. According the New Testament the only evidence of a new birth is not merely that a man Ives a new life, but that the basis of that new life is repentance. The bedrock of the classic experience of the Apostle Paul was not only his enthroning of Christ as Lord, but his enthronement on the basis of a real ringing repentance wrought in him by the Holy Spirit.
1.Mental Conversion
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1:8
Instability is as appalling snare in the natural life, and is disastrous spiritually - " for let not that man think that he will receive anything of the Lord," says James. There may be conversions of heart which are not conversions of the mind; the last thing a man comes to is the conversion of his mind.. Our Lord refers to this His parable of the sower and the seed - they receive the word gladly, but they have no root in themselves - quicksilver Christians. They may have as many conversions as there are days in the year, and at the end of the year they remain the same unreliable emotional people incapable of resting in a stable point of truth, and they become eager adherents of every new interest. The main characteristics of young modern life today is an intense craving to be interested - literature, amusement, all indicate this tendency, and in religion we pander to the demand to be interested; consequently men won't face the rugged facts of the Gospel, because when the Holy Spirit comes in He challenges a man's will, demands a reconstruction of his whole life, and produces a change of mind which will work havoc in his former complacency.......
When people say, "Preach us the simple Gospel", what they mean is, " Preach us the thing we have always heard, the thing that keeps us sound asleep, we don't want to see things differently; the the sooner the Spirit of God sends a thrust through their stagnant minds the better. Continual renewal of mind is the only healthy state for a Christian. Beware of the ban of finality about your present views.
I was struck by the following things in the meditation, especially within the context of how can we as Christians help to rescue our country from the evil of crime and violence.
1. That individuals and churches need to review what they are accepting as Christian conduct and what they are being taught.
2. Further, we need to be especially clear that when someone declares himself or herself, or is declared by someone else converted, or is " saved" it is only a first step. The evidence of that conversion must be a regenerated life. And that only comes about by being born again in Baptism. And if one is truly born again, that person has to receive something - the Holy Spirit and therefore not only lives a different life, but the basis of that new life is repentance.
The reality is that there are any number of Christians out there who are " saved", "converted ", " Baptised" and "Confirmed", but only those who have this issue of repentance deep in their hearts, only those who have received something - the Holy Spirit, have the power to fight against evil in this or any other land. Only those who live by the Spirit and not by the flesh, can please God and live a live of faith. Only those who therefore have the Son of God, through the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit, really have life. As the others, sadly , " have a reputation for being alive, a reputation for being Christians, but have no root, have no life, and fall away at the time of temptation and persecution. And do not produce fruit. Fruit that can help to rescue the land.
And as if those instructions were not enough, the Lord put it in the mind of our Rector write the following words in his weekly newsletter to the church today:
What is expected of a disciple of Jesus is an important question for us to reflect on as Christians in our modern society. All who seek to be a disciple of Christ must first accept the price paid by Jesus Christ on Mount Calvary's cross and make a commitment to a life witness as a servant of God. Through the life of faith in the Father and obedience to the Father's will, Jesus was led to the Cross; through His redemptive suffering, all humanity and creation has been reconciled to the Father ( Romans 5:10; 2 Corinthians 5:19). The indispensable action of God that demands our constant attention and commitment is His redemptive work through Jesus Christ. In Christ we are reconciled to experience a new relationship of fellowship with God and each other; restored forgiven. This is God's mission and our vocation as disciples of Jesus.........
It is the indwelling presence of God through the Holy Spirit that deepens our faith, strengthens our commitment and moves our will to be responsive with our time and talents for the sharing of our our experience and encounter with the risen Christ. This was the central focus and experience of the first Christians of the early church and it impacted the culture of their time and changed lives. The axiom memo dat quot non habit ( one cannot give what one has not first received or possessed) is applicable to us. Our reluctance or resistance to the movement of the Spirit within us to grow in the faith and love of Christ and to share the faith and love of Christ is he litmus test our our commitment as disciples of Jesus. What gives meaning to our lives is our participation in the Mission of God. How are we fulfilling our commitment as disciples of Christ in God's Mission?.........
Rev. ( Major) Sirano Kitson
Finally a paragraph on the Transforming words of Jesus and His very presence.
Chris Tiegen
" Fill the jars with water" John 2:7
.............................IN John's writings, the ministry of Jesus begins with a wedding feast. It also ends with one ( revelation 19:7) The kingdom of God is all about celebration. And it begins when Jesus speaks a transforming word and provides new wine.
So despite the enormity of the task before us in challenging evil in this land, in Chicago and various parts of the world we can still celebrate and be of good faith, full of hope and joy, as wherever the Spirit of the Lord reigns in the human heart wonderful miracles can and do happen. Pray God that a deeper understanding of the faith will lead to repentance, the receiving of the Holy Spirit and a manifestation of the power of God, and in and through a renewed church, for the rescuing of this nation and the nations of the world, all to the glory and honor of God and His Son Jesus Christ. Amen
So who is to stem the tide of violence, the blood that runs on the streets, literally and metaphorically?
This week through a number of revelations and reminders the Lord led me to reflect on the essence of the Christian life and therefore those who are called to be "light and salt" in this dark and suffering world.
First up, at least in my memory, but not necessarily in the order of importance, were two passage of Scripture, which led me to send them out as two individual text messages to some folks on my phonebook. Actually I was a bit reluctant as the first one was " hard stuff", but the second one explained matters a bit more.
" I know your deeds, you have a reputation of being alive but you are dead" Rev. 3:1.
And the second one:
" He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life"
1 John 5:12 NIV
The Spirit of the Lord was addressing the status of those who seem to be in control of their lives, those who think they have power and influence, but who need to know that they have no power to help themselves much less to assist in rescuing Jamaica from the evil which is destroying our country.
The next Scripture passage which formed the basis for another text message - to different people who the Lord chose - was more palatable but no less demanding. And spoke to the very heart of how a Christian has to respond the crisis that threatens the very existence of our nation
" And without faith it is impossible to please god, because anyone who comes to him, must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."
Hebrews 11:6 NIV
And as I read and reflected and prayed deeply for the Lord to have mercy on the nation, through His Holy Spirit working in renewed church and by His Holy Angels responding to the cries of His people, the following passages from " The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers"
touched my soul, especially as one meditation added a new dimension to the " The Sower and his Seed" about which I wrote last Sunday:
THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL - 111
CONVERSION
The literal meaning of "conversion" is a change of mind after watching certain facts eg. we read in Acts 28 that the barbarians changed their minds about Paul. We are dealing with conversion here not so much on the religious side as the ethical. Beware of making conversion synonymous with regeneration. Conversion is simply the effort of a roused human being; the sign of regeneration is that a man has received something. When a man fails in Christian experience it is nearly always that he has never received anything. There are books which set out to give the psychology of new birth by saying that suddenly something burst up from a man's unconscious personality and alters him: a man is never born again by a subliminal uprush, but only by receiving something that was never there before, viz, the Holy Spirit.
Certain forms of sin exhaust themselves and we may say of a man " Now he is saved," but he may be nothing of the sort. According the New Testament the only evidence of a new birth is not merely that a man Ives a new life, but that the basis of that new life is repentance. The bedrock of the classic experience of the Apostle Paul was not only his enthroning of Christ as Lord, but his enthronement on the basis of a real ringing repentance wrought in him by the Holy Spirit.
1.Mental Conversion
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1:8
Instability is as appalling snare in the natural life, and is disastrous spiritually - " for let not that man think that he will receive anything of the Lord," says James. There may be conversions of heart which are not conversions of the mind; the last thing a man comes to is the conversion of his mind.. Our Lord refers to this His parable of the sower and the seed - they receive the word gladly, but they have no root in themselves - quicksilver Christians. They may have as many conversions as there are days in the year, and at the end of the year they remain the same unreliable emotional people incapable of resting in a stable point of truth, and they become eager adherents of every new interest. The main characteristics of young modern life today is an intense craving to be interested - literature, amusement, all indicate this tendency, and in religion we pander to the demand to be interested; consequently men won't face the rugged facts of the Gospel, because when the Holy Spirit comes in He challenges a man's will, demands a reconstruction of his whole life, and produces a change of mind which will work havoc in his former complacency.......
When people say, "Preach us the simple Gospel", what they mean is, " Preach us the thing we have always heard, the thing that keeps us sound asleep, we don't want to see things differently; the the sooner the Spirit of God sends a thrust through their stagnant minds the better. Continual renewal of mind is the only healthy state for a Christian. Beware of the ban of finality about your present views.
I was struck by the following things in the meditation, especially within the context of how can we as Christians help to rescue our country from the evil of crime and violence.
1. That individuals and churches need to review what they are accepting as Christian conduct and what they are being taught.
2. Further, we need to be especially clear that when someone declares himself or herself, or is declared by someone else converted, or is " saved" it is only a first step. The evidence of that conversion must be a regenerated life. And that only comes about by being born again in Baptism. And if one is truly born again, that person has to receive something - the Holy Spirit and therefore not only lives a different life, but the basis of that new life is repentance.
The reality is that there are any number of Christians out there who are " saved", "converted ", " Baptised" and "Confirmed", but only those who have this issue of repentance deep in their hearts, only those who have received something - the Holy Spirit, have the power to fight against evil in this or any other land. Only those who live by the Spirit and not by the flesh, can please God and live a live of faith. Only those who therefore have the Son of God, through the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit, really have life. As the others, sadly , " have a reputation for being alive, a reputation for being Christians, but have no root, have no life, and fall away at the time of temptation and persecution. And do not produce fruit. Fruit that can help to rescue the land.
And as if those instructions were not enough, the Lord put it in the mind of our Rector write the following words in his weekly newsletter to the church today:
What is expected of a disciple of Jesus is an important question for us to reflect on as Christians in our modern society. All who seek to be a disciple of Christ must first accept the price paid by Jesus Christ on Mount Calvary's cross and make a commitment to a life witness as a servant of God. Through the life of faith in the Father and obedience to the Father's will, Jesus was led to the Cross; through His redemptive suffering, all humanity and creation has been reconciled to the Father ( Romans 5:10; 2 Corinthians 5:19). The indispensable action of God that demands our constant attention and commitment is His redemptive work through Jesus Christ. In Christ we are reconciled to experience a new relationship of fellowship with God and each other; restored forgiven. This is God's mission and our vocation as disciples of Jesus.........
It is the indwelling presence of God through the Holy Spirit that deepens our faith, strengthens our commitment and moves our will to be responsive with our time and talents for the sharing of our our experience and encounter with the risen Christ. This was the central focus and experience of the first Christians of the early church and it impacted the culture of their time and changed lives. The axiom memo dat quot non habit ( one cannot give what one has not first received or possessed) is applicable to us. Our reluctance or resistance to the movement of the Spirit within us to grow in the faith and love of Christ and to share the faith and love of Christ is he litmus test our our commitment as disciples of Jesus. What gives meaning to our lives is our participation in the Mission of God. How are we fulfilling our commitment as disciples of Christ in God's Mission?.........
Rev. ( Major) Sirano Kitson
Finally a paragraph on the Transforming words of Jesus and His very presence.
Chris Tiegen
" Fill the jars with water" John 2:7
.............................IN John's writings, the ministry of Jesus begins with a wedding feast. It also ends with one ( revelation 19:7) The kingdom of God is all about celebration. And it begins when Jesus speaks a transforming word and provides new wine.
So despite the enormity of the task before us in challenging evil in this land, in Chicago and various parts of the world we can still celebrate and be of good faith, full of hope and joy, as wherever the Spirit of the Lord reigns in the human heart wonderful miracles can and do happen. Pray God that a deeper understanding of the faith will lead to repentance, the receiving of the Holy Spirit and a manifestation of the power of God, and in and through a renewed church, for the rescuing of this nation and the nations of the world, all to the glory and honor of God and His Son Jesus Christ. Amen
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Bolt's maturity and Christian maturity
The big discussion which had everybody talking this week in my country was the Prime Minister's decision to confer on world record breaking champion Usain Bolt, the nation's fourth highest award - OJ. Further, to name Highway 2000, the Usain Bolt Highway, and finally to make him an Ambassador-at-large with full diplomatic Status. So now, no longer is Bolt simply Bolt, but the Hon. Usain Bolt - at least when the honor is conferred officially later this year. Of course this decision by the PM triggered a raging debate of whether or not his action was premature and impetuous as Bolt is too young and its too early in his young career to shower him with such accolades. And of course the question of whether the PM was " using " Bolt for political purposes emerged in the discussions. Whilst on the other hand folks are contending that the magnitude of his accomplishments is so huge that no award is too good for this young man.
So while the nation was grappling with Bolt and his maturity and his ability to handle all this praise, and while we are still grappling with the effects of crime and violence, the Lord spoke through His Word about Christian maturity. As this ought to be the objective of all who are Baptised into Christ. And in this context the message was about bearing " much fruit". The kind of fruit that can help a nation hijacked by evil men with guns and knives and wickedness in their hearts, having no compassion on the young or the old, to recover some kind of sanity. This is the primary concern of a nation desperate for divine intervention. The kind of intervention that a mother with whom I spoke years for as her son was brutally murdered recently by gunmen at a construction site. Intervention for an aunt, with whom I spoke, whose nephew was held up and shot to death, even when the gunmen got what they wanted. What is needed is mature Christians who can carry out the Lord's work with power, faithfulness and love.
The message began with my waking up thanking God for His mercy for protection during the night using the words of the prayer by Jacob Boehme: " Your holy angels have protected me from all harm and pain. T o you, Lord, I owe life itself". Which then triggered the memory of the words of the opening verse of the well known hymn:
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee,
I give thee back the life I owe........
Then the Spirit of God led me to John 15, and I would imagine the link is " rest in thee", but who knows!
" I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."
John 15:1-2 NIV
It therefore means that, in this context, there are two kinds of Christians. Those who " bear no fruit" and those who " bear fruit". And for the one the judgement for bearing no fruit is to be
" cut off", whilst for the other the reward is " pruning so that they can be even more fruitful".
So right away we begin to appreciate,that this issue of Christian maturity is no simple matter. In fact, according to this text, it is a matter of eternal life with Christ doing good work, or being removed from the very presence of Christ - an awful thing to contemplate for those who expect to see God's face. So let us not fool ourselves, either we produce " good fruit" or we perish, no matter how much we sing and praise God in church and declare ourselves to be "saved and filled". The message here is that only those who produce " good fruit" can help Jamaica find its way in this time of darkness in the land.
Then the Lord led me to the two passages, one in Luke the other in Matthew, which tell the story of the farmer who sowed seed and what became of them. In both of the stories, the Bible makes the point that God reveals his secrets to his followers, those who believe, but to other He speaks in parables so that:
" though seeing, they may not see;
though hearing, they may not understand"
Luke; and in in Matthew the words:
" For this people's heart has become calloused,
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise, they might see with their eyes
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them".
This is a fitting description of what is happening to many intellectuals and cynics in Jamaica who have no understanding of God's plans and purpose and spend their time foolishly trying to engage the church in debates rather than " turn and be healed".
In fact just last night I read the following explanation by Oswald Chambers about " hardening of hearts".
BIBLICAL ETHICS MORAL INSTITUTIONS
.......Man is responsible to God for the government of the whole world, but if a man succumbs to the temptation of the his official position, that very position will have the effect of hardening his heart away from God. WE read in the Old Testament that Pharaoh hardened his heart ( Exodus 7:14); and we also that god hardened his heart. The difficulty of this apparent contradiction is that is purely superficial. It must not be interpreted that God hardens a man's heart and condemned him for being hardened. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart by himself and by God is is the expression of the working of one of God's laws, and God's laws do not alter. Any ruler or ordinary man who refuses to obey the right law will find himself distinctly hardened away from God. If a man is to govern right;y he must see that the institutions he builds up are based on the stabilities of human nature as God created it; otherwise havoc will be produced.
In this context then the question of gambling, whether on Sunday or not, as is the basis of the current in my country - the Government having permitted racing on Sundays, is not the issue. But whether or not it accords to God's will, otherwise there will be chaos in the long run.
The gist of the reflection above is that even as we seek to bear "good fruit" in our country, it is imperative that we believe otherwise God's secrets will never be revealed to us and we will continue to engage in, seemingly productive, but in the end, useless and pointless debates as a nation.
So now to the sowing of the seed. Those that fell on the path. Matthew says that in this case people hear the word about the kingdom, but do not understand, and the devil comes and
" snatches away " the word. Luke adds ..so that they may not believe and be saved.
Right away the following Roman passage from the book of Romans came into my heart.
" Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How then , can they call upon the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, " How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Romans 10:13-15 NIV.
The question is how many of us accept that we, like Christ, been anointed to bring good news to the poor. To those who do not believe. To those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
This is part of being a mature Christian. This is the one manifestation of " bearing good fruit".
Otherwise if we keep the good news to ourselves and rejoice in our own salvation, we might very well be judged for " bearing no fruit".
The seed that fell on rocky places. Matthew explains that this kind of individual receives the word with joy, but has no root, and so when trouble or persecution comes, because of the word, as inevitably happens, he or she falls away. Luke adds " in time of testing". The question here is what does it mean to have no root. One answer must be that these persons have not matured in the faith. So maturity is a critical part of the Christian journey otherwise we end up
" bearing no fruit". Also we can deduce that enduring testing and persecution, on account of our belief in Christ, forms part of the maturation process. So we cannot hope to mature, to bear fruit unless we undergo some kind of testing and or suffering, and the Bible is replete with examples.
The seed that fell among thorns. Luke is very explicit in his explanation......."they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature". And Matthew no less so as he adds the words ....."making it unfruitful". So Christian maturity is hindered by worrying, and seeking " all other things" before God's Kingdom and His Righteousness. The issue of
" seeking all other things" before God Himself is a complex question, as often the things that we seek and pray about are useful things in God's sight. So the following meditation which i read this week is relevant even before we get to the last seed.
OSWALD CHAMBERS GETTING PERSONAL SEPTEMBER 18
"Follow me". Matthew 9:9
IN WORD One of the greatest temptations Christians face is to avert our eyes from the person of Jesus and place them on the things of Jesus - His doctrine, His people, His Word, or His mission. This is a great temptation because there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these things. In fact, without serious attention to them we could not be His disciples. They are essential.
The fallacy that trips us up is our focus on these things as objective entities apart from a living fellowship with the person of Jesus. When we focus on the things of Jesus, such as His teaching, it can turn into a sterile, academic pursuit - like what is happening at many divinity schools in the USA pursuing a liberal understanding of the Bible which does nothing but fuels skepticism ( my words) - or a legalistic enterprise, sort of like following the law of Moses. It's an objective standard outside of ourselves, but from the mouth of Jesus rather than another lawgiver. Or if we focus on the mission of Jesus, it can become a personal venture with our strategic planning. We end up with zeal for a cause, but no fellowship with the Spirit behind the cause.
That's why Jesus doesn't call His disciples by saying ' Follow My teachings', or ' Follow my example', or ' Follow My reasoning'. It's always personal, " Follow me". Too many believers have a sterile faith that emphasizes the impersonal aspects of Jesus. But he will not let us be content with that. He confronts us with Himself, and we do not progress very far in our discipleship unless we're focused on a relationship rather than religious pursuits.
IN DEED As good and instructive as theology or doctrine can be, we must not turn to them as the substance of our faith. They are descriptions of the relationship we have the living Lord. Jesus is not a system of belief. Daily study and application are not enough. These must be built on daily communication - two way communication between the disciple and Jesus Himself. If this were not essential, Jesus would not have given us His Spirit to live with us and in us. Wherever your discipleship is today, make sure it remains intensely personal.
Finally: The seed which fell on good ground. Matthew highlights the understanding of the word in order to bear good fruit. Luke however is a bit more discriminating.......Stands for those with noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.
Compare this now with two examples of passages in the Bible which speak to Christian maturity, about which the Lord reminded me.
" I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind me an straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us who are mature should take such a view of things....."
Philippians 3:10-15 NIV
What a beautiful description of the kind of " perseverance" which bears good fruit.
The final passage is from Ephesians:
" It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and preachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach the unity the faith and in he knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
Ephesians 4:11-13. NIV
So while the world debates the maturity of Bolt and his ability to withstand the pressures of man's praise, God speaks to us about Christian maturity and our ability to produce " good fruit". In a land where people have turned away from God, and where the Word of God increasingly has fallen on paths, rocky ground, and among thorns and not enough on good soil. May we so humble ourselves before God Almighty, that our souls may become good soil, and as we persevere we may bear good fruit, and so help to sustain the desperate prayers of God's people:
" Will Thou not turn again and quicken us O Lord, so that thy people may rejoice in thee".
Will Thou not send your Holy Spirit into the hearts of mankind in this land, so that in and through Christ living in us, this land may be healed with power and with love.
Amen.
So while the nation was grappling with Bolt and his maturity and his ability to handle all this praise, and while we are still grappling with the effects of crime and violence, the Lord spoke through His Word about Christian maturity. As this ought to be the objective of all who are Baptised into Christ. And in this context the message was about bearing " much fruit". The kind of fruit that can help a nation hijacked by evil men with guns and knives and wickedness in their hearts, having no compassion on the young or the old, to recover some kind of sanity. This is the primary concern of a nation desperate for divine intervention. The kind of intervention that a mother with whom I spoke years for as her son was brutally murdered recently by gunmen at a construction site. Intervention for an aunt, with whom I spoke, whose nephew was held up and shot to death, even when the gunmen got what they wanted. What is needed is mature Christians who can carry out the Lord's work with power, faithfulness and love.
The message began with my waking up thanking God for His mercy for protection during the night using the words of the prayer by Jacob Boehme: " Your holy angels have protected me from all harm and pain. T o you, Lord, I owe life itself". Which then triggered the memory of the words of the opening verse of the well known hymn:
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee,
I give thee back the life I owe........
Then the Spirit of God led me to John 15, and I would imagine the link is " rest in thee", but who knows!
" I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."
John 15:1-2 NIV
It therefore means that, in this context, there are two kinds of Christians. Those who " bear no fruit" and those who " bear fruit". And for the one the judgement for bearing no fruit is to be
" cut off", whilst for the other the reward is " pruning so that they can be even more fruitful".
So right away we begin to appreciate,that this issue of Christian maturity is no simple matter. In fact, according to this text, it is a matter of eternal life with Christ doing good work, or being removed from the very presence of Christ - an awful thing to contemplate for those who expect to see God's face. So let us not fool ourselves, either we produce " good fruit" or we perish, no matter how much we sing and praise God in church and declare ourselves to be "saved and filled". The message here is that only those who produce " good fruit" can help Jamaica find its way in this time of darkness in the land.
Then the Lord led me to the two passages, one in Luke the other in Matthew, which tell the story of the farmer who sowed seed and what became of them. In both of the stories, the Bible makes the point that God reveals his secrets to his followers, those who believe, but to other He speaks in parables so that:
" though seeing, they may not see;
though hearing, they may not understand"
Luke; and in in Matthew the words:
" For this people's heart has become calloused,
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise, they might see with their eyes
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them".
This is a fitting description of what is happening to many intellectuals and cynics in Jamaica who have no understanding of God's plans and purpose and spend their time foolishly trying to engage the church in debates rather than " turn and be healed".
In fact just last night I read the following explanation by Oswald Chambers about " hardening of hearts".
BIBLICAL ETHICS MORAL INSTITUTIONS
.......Man is responsible to God for the government of the whole world, but if a man succumbs to the temptation of the his official position, that very position will have the effect of hardening his heart away from God. WE read in the Old Testament that Pharaoh hardened his heart ( Exodus 7:14); and we also that god hardened his heart. The difficulty of this apparent contradiction is that is purely superficial. It must not be interpreted that God hardens a man's heart and condemned him for being hardened. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart by himself and by God is is the expression of the working of one of God's laws, and God's laws do not alter. Any ruler or ordinary man who refuses to obey the right law will find himself distinctly hardened away from God. If a man is to govern right;y he must see that the institutions he builds up are based on the stabilities of human nature as God created it; otherwise havoc will be produced.
In this context then the question of gambling, whether on Sunday or not, as is the basis of the current in my country - the Government having permitted racing on Sundays, is not the issue. But whether or not it accords to God's will, otherwise there will be chaos in the long run.
The gist of the reflection above is that even as we seek to bear "good fruit" in our country, it is imperative that we believe otherwise God's secrets will never be revealed to us and we will continue to engage in, seemingly productive, but in the end, useless and pointless debates as a nation.
So now to the sowing of the seed. Those that fell on the path. Matthew says that in this case people hear the word about the kingdom, but do not understand, and the devil comes and
" snatches away " the word. Luke adds ..so that they may not believe and be saved.
Right away the following Roman passage from the book of Romans came into my heart.
" Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How then , can they call upon the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, " How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Romans 10:13-15 NIV.
The question is how many of us accept that we, like Christ, been anointed to bring good news to the poor. To those who do not believe. To those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
This is part of being a mature Christian. This is the one manifestation of " bearing good fruit".
Otherwise if we keep the good news to ourselves and rejoice in our own salvation, we might very well be judged for " bearing no fruit".
The seed that fell on rocky places. Matthew explains that this kind of individual receives the word with joy, but has no root, and so when trouble or persecution comes, because of the word, as inevitably happens, he or she falls away. Luke adds " in time of testing". The question here is what does it mean to have no root. One answer must be that these persons have not matured in the faith. So maturity is a critical part of the Christian journey otherwise we end up
" bearing no fruit". Also we can deduce that enduring testing and persecution, on account of our belief in Christ, forms part of the maturation process. So we cannot hope to mature, to bear fruit unless we undergo some kind of testing and or suffering, and the Bible is replete with examples.
The seed that fell among thorns. Luke is very explicit in his explanation......."they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature". And Matthew no less so as he adds the words ....."making it unfruitful". So Christian maturity is hindered by worrying, and seeking " all other things" before God's Kingdom and His Righteousness. The issue of
" seeking all other things" before God Himself is a complex question, as often the things that we seek and pray about are useful things in God's sight. So the following meditation which i read this week is relevant even before we get to the last seed.
OSWALD CHAMBERS GETTING PERSONAL SEPTEMBER 18
"Follow me". Matthew 9:9
IN WORD One of the greatest temptations Christians face is to avert our eyes from the person of Jesus and place them on the things of Jesus - His doctrine, His people, His Word, or His mission. This is a great temptation because there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these things. In fact, without serious attention to them we could not be His disciples. They are essential.
The fallacy that trips us up is our focus on these things as objective entities apart from a living fellowship with the person of Jesus. When we focus on the things of Jesus, such as His teaching, it can turn into a sterile, academic pursuit - like what is happening at many divinity schools in the USA pursuing a liberal understanding of the Bible which does nothing but fuels skepticism ( my words) - or a legalistic enterprise, sort of like following the law of Moses. It's an objective standard outside of ourselves, but from the mouth of Jesus rather than another lawgiver. Or if we focus on the mission of Jesus, it can become a personal venture with our strategic planning. We end up with zeal for a cause, but no fellowship with the Spirit behind the cause.
That's why Jesus doesn't call His disciples by saying ' Follow My teachings', or ' Follow my example', or ' Follow My reasoning'. It's always personal, " Follow me". Too many believers have a sterile faith that emphasizes the impersonal aspects of Jesus. But he will not let us be content with that. He confronts us with Himself, and we do not progress very far in our discipleship unless we're focused on a relationship rather than religious pursuits.
IN DEED As good and instructive as theology or doctrine can be, we must not turn to them as the substance of our faith. They are descriptions of the relationship we have the living Lord. Jesus is not a system of belief. Daily study and application are not enough. These must be built on daily communication - two way communication between the disciple and Jesus Himself. If this were not essential, Jesus would not have given us His Spirit to live with us and in us. Wherever your discipleship is today, make sure it remains intensely personal.
Finally: The seed which fell on good ground. Matthew highlights the understanding of the word in order to bear good fruit. Luke however is a bit more discriminating.......Stands for those with noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.
Compare this now with two examples of passages in the Bible which speak to Christian maturity, about which the Lord reminded me.
" I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind me an straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us who are mature should take such a view of things....."
Philippians 3:10-15 NIV
What a beautiful description of the kind of " perseverance" which bears good fruit.
The final passage is from Ephesians:
" It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and preachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach the unity the faith and in he knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
Ephesians 4:11-13. NIV
So while the world debates the maturity of Bolt and his ability to withstand the pressures of man's praise, God speaks to us about Christian maturity and our ability to produce " good fruit". In a land where people have turned away from God, and where the Word of God increasingly has fallen on paths, rocky ground, and among thorns and not enough on good soil. May we so humble ourselves before God Almighty, that our souls may become good soil, and as we persevere we may bear good fruit, and so help to sustain the desperate prayers of God's people:
" Will Thou not turn again and quicken us O Lord, so that thy people may rejoice in thee".
Will Thou not send your Holy Spirit into the hearts of mankind in this land, so that in and through Christ living in us, this land may be healed with power and with love.
Amen.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Trust in Jesus and not "The President": Fear God and not man
This week all of the talk in Jamaica, wherever you went, was all about " The President"; the Jamaican high profile " community leader" or Don, who, as the press reported, is wanted by the USA on several counts of criminal activity, and which country is awaiting a response from the Jamaican government. The word of the street is that there will be not only be rioting in the city but across the length and breath of the country, if he is extradited. The way people speak about this individual suggests that he is indeed the President of Jamaica and not the duly elected Prime Minister, as so many people depend on him for their daily living and the government is reportedly not able to match these provisions. And as one woman who spoke on national radio declared, she does not care where all his money comes from as long as she can get some. Such is the trust that some have in this individual.
In the midst if this madness, the Lord woke me up one day this week with St Paul's famous words, " I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven", as found in Acts 26:19. A message about obedience and trusting in God, that began in the Psalm appointed for this Sunday, and which stayed in my heart all week.
" I love the Lord for he heard my voice,
he heard my cry for mercy
Because he turned to me
I will call on him as long as I live.
Psalm 116:1-2 NIV
The Psalmist knew about God's rescue mission that He performed in Egypt and in " rolling back the Mighty Red Sea". He would have also recalled how Saul lost his kingdom on account of disobedience, as is recorded in the book of Samuel. This happened when he was given an explicit command to wipe out an entire tribe and animals who had been hostile to God's people, but brought back the best of the animals to " sacrifice to the Lord". And then he was told in the famous words of Samuel that:
"To obey is better than sacrifice
and to heed is better than the fat of Lambs."
1 Samuel 15:22 NIV
Finally the Lord led me to read again that famous passage in John that all of us and especially the Jehovah's witnesses need to spend some time in meditation:
"Trust in God; trust also in me."
John 14: 1 NIV
Here Jesus is saying to the Jews of that time that, yes they were to place their trust in God, but also that He was the promised Messiah about whom many of the prophets of old wrote, and for whom the children of Israel longed for. In essence that He was equal to God, and that people should place their trust in Him.
The problem that the Jews of that age, and even some of Jesus' disciples faced, and we also have the same problem, is that faith in Jesus is a gift from God. A gift given with divine power when we repent and are baptised and are given the gift of the Holy Spirit, as recorded in Acts 2:38. NIV
" Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
The problem is further compounded by the fact that there are only two spheres of influence in this world. One is darkness and the other is light. A fact which Jesus Himself reveals in a passage of scripture which I was led to read.
" I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." John 8:12 NIV
Hence the reason why in the famous Benedictus, that we Anglicans and other denominations use in morning prayer, we who have been freed by Jesus, are commanded to seek after those who live in darkness.
" Blessed is the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people;
And hath raised up a mighty salvation for us; in the house of his servant David.......
that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve him without fear.......
And thou child shall be called the Prophet of the Highest; for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people; for the remission of their sins.....
To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death...
Luke 1: 68-79 KJV
So back to " The President" and all who trust him, are obedient to his every command, and all who fear him and what will happen if he is made to face justice in the USA. The reality is that all these people live in spiritual darkness, even though they think that their experience is " reality".
But they can never know of the extent of their darkness unless they are convicted of sin, repent, be baptized and receive the many gifts of God's Holy Spirit. This now, and has always been every since Jesus ascended into heaven, is the challenge for the church, not to be paralysed by the threat of violence, if "The President" is extradited, but to mobilize its members to :
" give life to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death".
So that more and more people might come to :
Trust in God; trust also in me - Jesus Christ
That's why the Cross of Christ is central to the Christian faith. Without it there is no power to convict people of sin. That is why we need to continually meditate and reflect on the messages from the Good Friday and Easter. All preaching, all teaching, however interesting they may be, have no power to effect transformation of individuals, with power, as has happened throughout the centuries, unless it leads to a deeper understanding of the Atonement wrought on the Cross of Calvary.
And so the hymn writer sings with deep emotions:
Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
And did my Sov'reign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
Chorus: At the cross, at the cross
Where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!
2. Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity, grace unknown,
And love beyond degree!
Chorus:
3.
Well might the sun in darkness hide,
And shut his glories in,
When Christ the mighty Maker died
For man, the creature's sin.
Chorus:
4. Thus might I hide my blushing face
While Calvary's cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt mine eyes to tears.
Chorus:
5. But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away,
'Tis all that I can do.
Finally in this message from the Lord, He reminded me that once we are obedient, once we trust in His Son Jesus: " streams of living waters will flow out of us" - the promised Holy Spirit to do God's work in Jamaica and in the entire world.
The problem is that our time horizons are too limited and our knowledge of God even more so. How then can we as a people be more fearful of what this mere mortal, " The President", can cause and have no regard for disobeying the Creator of heaven and earth, who at His rebuke, seas are dried up, people die, nations go into exile, and who when he closes a door, no man can open it. How can we keep on ignoring a God, who says in the person of Jesus Christ, in the gospel lesson appointed for today:
" What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world but lose his won soul". Mark 8:36KJV
and further:
" if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with holy angels.
Mark 8:38 NIV
But again all of these things can only be revealed and believed through the power of the Holy Spirit. Hence we, the baptized, who have been empowered by God's Spirit, with our minds fixed on the Cross of Calvary, must seek and reach out to those who sit in darkness, those who only think about tomorrow, and about what man can provide for their physical being and have no regard for the soul which shall live unto eternal life - in darkness without Christ, or with the God of Abraham Isaac, Jacob and the hosts of Saints who now live in glory with Christ who is the light of the world.
And the God who is always ahead of us, led me back to this meditation from earlier in the week.
SPRINGS OF BENIGNITY OSWALD CHAMBERS SEPTEMBER 7
The water I shall give him shall be in him a well of water. John 4: 14
This picture our Lord gives is not that of a channel but a fountain. " Be filled," and the sweetness of vital relationship with to Jesus will flow out of the saint as lavishly as it is imparted to him. If you find your life is not flowing out as it should, you are to blame; something has obstructed the flow. keep right at the Source, and - you will be blessed personally? No, out of you will flow rivers of living water, irrepressible life.
We are to be centers through which Jesus can flow as rivers of living water in blessing to everyone. Some of us are like he Dead Sea, always taking in and never giving out, because we are not rightly related to the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive from Him, he will pour out through us, and in that measure He is not pouring out, there is a defect in our relationship to Him. Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything that hinders your belief in Him? If not, Jesus says, out of you will flow rivers of living water. It is not a blessing passed on, not an experience stated, but a river continually flowing. keep at the Source, guard well your belief in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow for other lives, no dryness and no deadness.
Is it not too extravagant to say that out of an individual believer rivers are going to flow? " I do not see the rivers," you say. Never look at yourself from the standpoint of - Who am I? In the history of God's work you will nearly always find that it has started from the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but the steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.
So let us begin, as the Pslamist did, by calling upon the mighty name of Jesus, day and night, hourly, minutely, and watch how the God of mercy responds to yet another challenge in our country. A nation that knows well but has forgotten how, with power, "Massa God" and "Puppa Jesus", rescued an enslaved people from darkness into light. And who according to His will and purpose, if we place our whole trust in Him, can with power transform this nation again back to a land of peace and discipline and a people who fear God, not The President, and love Jesus - not only because He is a provider, but more importantly because on the Cross of Calvary, He has rescued us from sin and death unto eternal life. And then poured out His Holy Spirit into us to enable us to live a new life, and to bring knowledge of this life to others.
Amen.
In the midst if this madness, the Lord woke me up one day this week with St Paul's famous words, " I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven", as found in Acts 26:19. A message about obedience and trusting in God, that began in the Psalm appointed for this Sunday, and which stayed in my heart all week.
" I love the Lord for he heard my voice,
he heard my cry for mercy
Because he turned to me
I will call on him as long as I live.
Psalm 116:1-2 NIV
The Psalmist knew about God's rescue mission that He performed in Egypt and in " rolling back the Mighty Red Sea". He would have also recalled how Saul lost his kingdom on account of disobedience, as is recorded in the book of Samuel. This happened when he was given an explicit command to wipe out an entire tribe and animals who had been hostile to God's people, but brought back the best of the animals to " sacrifice to the Lord". And then he was told in the famous words of Samuel that:
"To obey is better than sacrifice
and to heed is better than the fat of Lambs."
1 Samuel 15:22 NIV
Finally the Lord led me to read again that famous passage in John that all of us and especially the Jehovah's witnesses need to spend some time in meditation:
"Trust in God; trust also in me."
John 14: 1 NIV
Here Jesus is saying to the Jews of that time that, yes they were to place their trust in God, but also that He was the promised Messiah about whom many of the prophets of old wrote, and for whom the children of Israel longed for. In essence that He was equal to God, and that people should place their trust in Him.
The problem that the Jews of that age, and even some of Jesus' disciples faced, and we also have the same problem, is that faith in Jesus is a gift from God. A gift given with divine power when we repent and are baptised and are given the gift of the Holy Spirit, as recorded in Acts 2:38. NIV
" Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
The problem is further compounded by the fact that there are only two spheres of influence in this world. One is darkness and the other is light. A fact which Jesus Himself reveals in a passage of scripture which I was led to read.
" I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." John 8:12 NIV
Hence the reason why in the famous Benedictus, that we Anglicans and other denominations use in morning prayer, we who have been freed by Jesus, are commanded to seek after those who live in darkness.
" Blessed is the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people;
And hath raised up a mighty salvation for us; in the house of his servant David.......
that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve him without fear.......
And thou child shall be called the Prophet of the Highest; for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people; for the remission of their sins.....
To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death...
Luke 1: 68-79 KJV
So back to " The President" and all who trust him, are obedient to his every command, and all who fear him and what will happen if he is made to face justice in the USA. The reality is that all these people live in spiritual darkness, even though they think that their experience is " reality".
But they can never know of the extent of their darkness unless they are convicted of sin, repent, be baptized and receive the many gifts of God's Holy Spirit. This now, and has always been every since Jesus ascended into heaven, is the challenge for the church, not to be paralysed by the threat of violence, if "The President" is extradited, but to mobilize its members to :
" give life to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death".
So that more and more people might come to :
Trust in God; trust also in me - Jesus Christ
That's why the Cross of Christ is central to the Christian faith. Without it there is no power to convict people of sin. That is why we need to continually meditate and reflect on the messages from the Good Friday and Easter. All preaching, all teaching, however interesting they may be, have no power to effect transformation of individuals, with power, as has happened throughout the centuries, unless it leads to a deeper understanding of the Atonement wrought on the Cross of Calvary.
And so the hymn writer sings with deep emotions:
Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
And did my Sov'reign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
Chorus: At the cross, at the cross
Where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!
2. Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity, grace unknown,
And love beyond degree!
Chorus:
3.
Well might the sun in darkness hide,
And shut his glories in,
When Christ the mighty Maker died
For man, the creature's sin.
Chorus:
4. Thus might I hide my blushing face
While Calvary's cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt mine eyes to tears.
Chorus:
5. But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away,
'Tis all that I can do.
Finally in this message from the Lord, He reminded me that once we are obedient, once we trust in His Son Jesus: " streams of living waters will flow out of us" - the promised Holy Spirit to do God's work in Jamaica and in the entire world.
The problem is that our time horizons are too limited and our knowledge of God even more so. How then can we as a people be more fearful of what this mere mortal, " The President", can cause and have no regard for disobeying the Creator of heaven and earth, who at His rebuke, seas are dried up, people die, nations go into exile, and who when he closes a door, no man can open it. How can we keep on ignoring a God, who says in the person of Jesus Christ, in the gospel lesson appointed for today:
" What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world but lose his won soul". Mark 8:36KJV
and further:
" if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with holy angels.
Mark 8:38 NIV
But again all of these things can only be revealed and believed through the power of the Holy Spirit. Hence we, the baptized, who have been empowered by God's Spirit, with our minds fixed on the Cross of Calvary, must seek and reach out to those who sit in darkness, those who only think about tomorrow, and about what man can provide for their physical being and have no regard for the soul which shall live unto eternal life - in darkness without Christ, or with the God of Abraham Isaac, Jacob and the hosts of Saints who now live in glory with Christ who is the light of the world.
And the God who is always ahead of us, led me back to this meditation from earlier in the week.
SPRINGS OF BENIGNITY OSWALD CHAMBERS SEPTEMBER 7
The water I shall give him shall be in him a well of water. John 4: 14
This picture our Lord gives is not that of a channel but a fountain. " Be filled," and the sweetness of vital relationship with to Jesus will flow out of the saint as lavishly as it is imparted to him. If you find your life is not flowing out as it should, you are to blame; something has obstructed the flow. keep right at the Source, and - you will be blessed personally? No, out of you will flow rivers of living water, irrepressible life.
We are to be centers through which Jesus can flow as rivers of living water in blessing to everyone. Some of us are like he Dead Sea, always taking in and never giving out, because we are not rightly related to the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive from Him, he will pour out through us, and in that measure He is not pouring out, there is a defect in our relationship to Him. Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything that hinders your belief in Him? If not, Jesus says, out of you will flow rivers of living water. It is not a blessing passed on, not an experience stated, but a river continually flowing. keep at the Source, guard well your belief in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow for other lives, no dryness and no deadness.
Is it not too extravagant to say that out of an individual believer rivers are going to flow? " I do not see the rivers," you say. Never look at yourself from the standpoint of - Who am I? In the history of God's work you will nearly always find that it has started from the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but the steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.
So let us begin, as the Pslamist did, by calling upon the mighty name of Jesus, day and night, hourly, minutely, and watch how the God of mercy responds to yet another challenge in our country. A nation that knows well but has forgotten how, with power, "Massa God" and "Puppa Jesus", rescued an enslaved people from darkness into light. And who according to His will and purpose, if we place our whole trust in Him, can with power transform this nation again back to a land of peace and discipline and a people who fear God, not The President, and love Jesus - not only because He is a provider, but more importantly because on the Cross of Calvary, He has rescued us from sin and death unto eternal life. And then poured out His Holy Spirit into us to enable us to live a new life, and to bring knowledge of this life to others.
Amen.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Sermon at church September 6th - Jesus does all things well
Sermon for the 10:30 service on Sunday September 6th 2009 at the St Andrew Parish Church.
In preparation for this sermon, having read all the Scripture readings appointed for today, two passages stayed with me for the entire week, and a third one entered my mind as I began, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, to write. The first was a warning, and no doubt a reminder from the Psalmist:
“Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
the maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them
– the Lord who remains faithful forever.
Perhaps even as I mention the faithfulness of God, words of the songwriter come to mind:
Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassion, they fail not,
as Thou has been Thou forever wilt be.
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see:
All I have needed thy hands have provided,
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me to me.
This was the God whom the Psalmist knew. The God of Abraham, the God of Issac, the God of Jacob, who had been faithful to them in so many ways. In rescuing them from Pharaoh with great power through the plagues. In rescuing them from the pursuing Egyptians by turning back the mighty Red Sea, thus inspiring the words of the well known sanke:
How great is our God! How great is his name.
How great is our God! Forever the same.
He rolled back the waters- of the mighty Red Sea.
And He said, I’ll never leave you, put your trust in Me
And so the Psalmist was amazed that anyone could willingly chose to trust in mere man who according to the Scriptures, - is dust and unto dust shall he return. Compared to God, who the same Scriptures tell us - “is from everlasting to everlasting”.
The second one is passage of Scripture, which in essence, is a summary of the messages contained in all four readings today:
“He has done everything well”, they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak”.
This was the response of the people who had brought Jesus to a deaf and almost mute person and for whom Jesus had performed a great miracle of healing. So we too can identify with the crowd and exclaim that:” He has done everything well”. For we know the story well. How John declared that:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”.
That is God, became Incarnate, took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. And we all know the words that remind us that:
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God….and that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus”
And, further, we know by heart the most famous verse of scripture, in which Jesus assured a world ruled under the bondage of Sin and the fear of death that:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life “.
And now the gospel reminds us how Jesus at the beginning of His ministry as recoded by Luke declared that:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
And having declared that God had sent Him for this purposed, “Jesus became obedient, even to death on the Cross”. And we who believe and trust in Jesus, are assured that we have eternal life – which is forgiveness of sins, death to self, and a new life in and through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. All of this possible because He, Jesus has done all things well.
And so can sing with the saints in heaven and on earth the words of that wonderful hymn:
Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God shouldst die for me.
He left His Father’s throne above, so free, so infinite His grace,
Emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam’s helpless race.
‘Tis mercy all immense and free; For O my God it found out me.
The third passage of scripture that entered my mind forms the basis for our reflection today within the context of the fact that in Jesus God has done all things well.
Our Lord was addressing the people of Jerusalem with whom he had a special attachment as it was there he was to put to death on a Cross, after a mockery of a trial. So He said in haunting words which resonate across the centuries:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her children her wings, but you were not willing.
My friends at STPC this Sunday morning, do we not hear the voice of God calling out to the nation, O Jamaica, Jamaica, how long I have longed to see you worship my Son Jesus, who does all things well, but you were not willing. How many times have I sent prophets through the church, the body of Christ, to warn you not to place your trust in princes, in mortal man who cannot save, but you were not willing? How can you place your trust in don men, in community leaders, who share out money for school children and for pregnant mothers? Money gained when gunshots ring out, and knives are drawn and somebody’s blood stains the ground and a nation recoils in horror and in fear. How can you place your trust in these men who when they die or are extradited to the USA, their plans come to nothing, and mayhem returns to the area? How can you place your trust solely in the hands of your political leaders to rescue a nation under economic, moral, political and social stress, when they possess only limited wisdom, little strength, are struggling with their own moral failings and are only here for a season compared with the Lord God Almighty of whom the hymn writer declares in that wonderful hymn “My God how wonderful thou art”, a God who has:
“Endless wisdom, boundless power and awesome purity”
How can you spend so much hours listening to the music of your favourite entertainer, so much time allowing your favourite talk show host to penetrate your mind, so much time being entertained by various sporting activities, yet have so little time for prayer, for worship and to praise the Creator of heaven and earth and everything in them? O Jamaica, Jamaica. No wonder young shottas who fear neither God nor man are killing our people. No wonder children who fear neither God nor man are killing one another in the schools. No wonder men who fear neither God or man are raping and killing our women and children. All primarily because a large section of our population has turned their back on the God of Jacob, the Son God, Jesus Christ who does all things well, and placed their trust in princes, mortal men who cannot save.
But the God of whom the hymn writer declares:
O love that wilt not let me go….O joy that seekest me through pain.
The God who in Christ Jesus, who died on the cross for all mankind, is calling out to Jamaica once again through the church. The God of whom the Psalmist says:
He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities:
This God is who is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love”, will heal this nation if we turn back to him with a contrite heart and in repentance. This is the message that we the Baptised ones need to share with the nation in this time of trouble. We who fear God, and who know that , “the angels of the Lord encampeth around them that fear Him”, need to boldly share the good news that , even though the times are indeed evil, though the killings continue unabated, though the economy is in bad shape, though many young people and even the old are engaging in gross immorality, though many politicians act corruptly, though too many members of the police act as judge, jury and executioners, Jamaica can change, as Jesus, who is the same yesterday today and forevermore still does all things well – even what seems impossible.
The challenge for the us individuals in the church is to discern what is the will of God for each member of the body and then forgetting about self, to be obedient, even to the point of suffering. For each congregation to truly become a missionary church, as thus to be “going out” to those who have placed their trust in man or ultimately in themselves, and sharing the good news. For each denomination to live in fellowship with others, despite doctrinal, historical and cultural differences, so that the body of Christ may be built up, and those who look on may see a united body declaring the wonders of God, through a Christ who does all things well. And so begin to put their trust in the God of Jacob and not mere man.
But In order for that kind of transformation, and for that kind of unity to take place, the church, the body of Christ needs to be renewed. And the clear message that the Lord is sending this morning as we reflect on the Psalmist’s recommendation to trust in the God of Jacob, and the reminder from the gospel that Christ has done all things well, is that for renewal to take place, we the body of Christ, individually and collectively, out of love for God and neighbour, must deny self, and surrender completely to the Spirit of Christ which lives in us by faith and by grace. Because in the same way that the enthronement of self in the hearts of those on the outside of the church, has led to the dependence on mortal man, and thus causing havoc on the society, unless we who claim Christ, day by day, learn to deny self, the flesh ,which the scriptures tell us is “ at war with the Spirit”, there can be no transformation, no unity and no renewal which can then renew our society which in such desperate need of healing.
That is why the Epistle from James reminds us that:
“Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says, is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and , after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do so, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does.
And what does the Word of God say to us this morning:
“Thy word O God have I stored up in my heart that I may not sin against you”.
Which takes us back to the assertion from John that Jesus is the Word made flesh.
The fundamental fact therefore, that all Christians must learn and obey is that, it is only when we are in Christ that we can do all things well. When the Living Word is in our hearts. It is only the indwelling Spirit of God that can so alter our disposition to trust in mortal man, and in the self, that cannot save. And so as flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of God, neither can mere man worship God in Jesus Christ in Spirit and in truth. It is only when we live by the Spirit and not by the flesh, through Baptism, Confirmation, constant prayer, constant repentance, living in humble obedience to God’s Word, sharing in the fellowship of Public Worship, participation in Holy Communion and doing good deeds, that we will be renewed and help to renew and transform this nation. So today we give thanks to the God who can do abundantly and exceedingly more than we can ask and imagine, the God who does all things well in and through Jesus Christ. And that God, the God of Jacob, the faithful God, the God who is the same yesterday, today and forevermore, will always respond if, with a contrite heart, we invite Him into our hearts and ask for mercy. He will respond as He sent his Son, who does all things well to proclaim freedom for the captives, to rescue sinners not the righteous. So the shottas, the rapists, the corrupt politicians, the police who are guilty of extra judiciary killings, the immoral, the prostitutes, all of us who have sinned and fallen short of His glory can be assured of His forgiveness and His justice, if we truly repent, turn to His Son in faith and invite Him into our hearts. All because Jesus does all things well. So let us close by singing prayerfully the words of that powerful crusade hymn.
Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus; Come in today, come in to stay; Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.
In preparation for this sermon, having read all the Scripture readings appointed for today, two passages stayed with me for the entire week, and a third one entered my mind as I began, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, to write. The first was a warning, and no doubt a reminder from the Psalmist:
“Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
the maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them
– the Lord who remains faithful forever.
Perhaps even as I mention the faithfulness of God, words of the songwriter come to mind:
Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassion, they fail not,
as Thou has been Thou forever wilt be.
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see:
All I have needed thy hands have provided,
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me to me.
This was the God whom the Psalmist knew. The God of Abraham, the God of Issac, the God of Jacob, who had been faithful to them in so many ways. In rescuing them from Pharaoh with great power through the plagues. In rescuing them from the pursuing Egyptians by turning back the mighty Red Sea, thus inspiring the words of the well known sanke:
How great is our God! How great is his name.
How great is our God! Forever the same.
He rolled back the waters- of the mighty Red Sea.
And He said, I’ll never leave you, put your trust in Me
And so the Psalmist was amazed that anyone could willingly chose to trust in mere man who according to the Scriptures, - is dust and unto dust shall he return. Compared to God, who the same Scriptures tell us - “is from everlasting to everlasting”.
The second one is passage of Scripture, which in essence, is a summary of the messages contained in all four readings today:
“He has done everything well”, they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak”.
This was the response of the people who had brought Jesus to a deaf and almost mute person and for whom Jesus had performed a great miracle of healing. So we too can identify with the crowd and exclaim that:” He has done everything well”. For we know the story well. How John declared that:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”.
That is God, became Incarnate, took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. And we all know the words that remind us that:
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God….and that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus”
And, further, we know by heart the most famous verse of scripture, in which Jesus assured a world ruled under the bondage of Sin and the fear of death that:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life “.
And now the gospel reminds us how Jesus at the beginning of His ministry as recoded by Luke declared that:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
And having declared that God had sent Him for this purposed, “Jesus became obedient, even to death on the Cross”. And we who believe and trust in Jesus, are assured that we have eternal life – which is forgiveness of sins, death to self, and a new life in and through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. All of this possible because He, Jesus has done all things well.
And so can sing with the saints in heaven and on earth the words of that wonderful hymn:
Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God shouldst die for me.
He left His Father’s throne above, so free, so infinite His grace,
Emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam’s helpless race.
‘Tis mercy all immense and free; For O my God it found out me.
The third passage of scripture that entered my mind forms the basis for our reflection today within the context of the fact that in Jesus God has done all things well.
Our Lord was addressing the people of Jerusalem with whom he had a special attachment as it was there he was to put to death on a Cross, after a mockery of a trial. So He said in haunting words which resonate across the centuries:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her children her wings, but you were not willing.
My friends at STPC this Sunday morning, do we not hear the voice of God calling out to the nation, O Jamaica, Jamaica, how long I have longed to see you worship my Son Jesus, who does all things well, but you were not willing. How many times have I sent prophets through the church, the body of Christ, to warn you not to place your trust in princes, in mortal man who cannot save, but you were not willing? How can you place your trust in don men, in community leaders, who share out money for school children and for pregnant mothers? Money gained when gunshots ring out, and knives are drawn and somebody’s blood stains the ground and a nation recoils in horror and in fear. How can you place your trust in these men who when they die or are extradited to the USA, their plans come to nothing, and mayhem returns to the area? How can you place your trust solely in the hands of your political leaders to rescue a nation under economic, moral, political and social stress, when they possess only limited wisdom, little strength, are struggling with their own moral failings and are only here for a season compared with the Lord God Almighty of whom the hymn writer declares in that wonderful hymn “My God how wonderful thou art”, a God who has:
“Endless wisdom, boundless power and awesome purity”
How can you spend so much hours listening to the music of your favourite entertainer, so much time allowing your favourite talk show host to penetrate your mind, so much time being entertained by various sporting activities, yet have so little time for prayer, for worship and to praise the Creator of heaven and earth and everything in them? O Jamaica, Jamaica. No wonder young shottas who fear neither God nor man are killing our people. No wonder children who fear neither God nor man are killing one another in the schools. No wonder men who fear neither God or man are raping and killing our women and children. All primarily because a large section of our population has turned their back on the God of Jacob, the Son God, Jesus Christ who does all things well, and placed their trust in princes, mortal men who cannot save.
But the God of whom the hymn writer declares:
O love that wilt not let me go….O joy that seekest me through pain.
The God who in Christ Jesus, who died on the cross for all mankind, is calling out to Jamaica once again through the church. The God of whom the Psalmist says:
He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities:
This God is who is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love”, will heal this nation if we turn back to him with a contrite heart and in repentance. This is the message that we the Baptised ones need to share with the nation in this time of trouble. We who fear God, and who know that , “the angels of the Lord encampeth around them that fear Him”, need to boldly share the good news that , even though the times are indeed evil, though the killings continue unabated, though the economy is in bad shape, though many young people and even the old are engaging in gross immorality, though many politicians act corruptly, though too many members of the police act as judge, jury and executioners, Jamaica can change, as Jesus, who is the same yesterday today and forevermore still does all things well – even what seems impossible.
The challenge for the us individuals in the church is to discern what is the will of God for each member of the body and then forgetting about self, to be obedient, even to the point of suffering. For each congregation to truly become a missionary church, as thus to be “going out” to those who have placed their trust in man or ultimately in themselves, and sharing the good news. For each denomination to live in fellowship with others, despite doctrinal, historical and cultural differences, so that the body of Christ may be built up, and those who look on may see a united body declaring the wonders of God, through a Christ who does all things well. And so begin to put their trust in the God of Jacob and not mere man.
But In order for that kind of transformation, and for that kind of unity to take place, the church, the body of Christ needs to be renewed. And the clear message that the Lord is sending this morning as we reflect on the Psalmist’s recommendation to trust in the God of Jacob, and the reminder from the gospel that Christ has done all things well, is that for renewal to take place, we the body of Christ, individually and collectively, out of love for God and neighbour, must deny self, and surrender completely to the Spirit of Christ which lives in us by faith and by grace. Because in the same way that the enthronement of self in the hearts of those on the outside of the church, has led to the dependence on mortal man, and thus causing havoc on the society, unless we who claim Christ, day by day, learn to deny self, the flesh ,which the scriptures tell us is “ at war with the Spirit”, there can be no transformation, no unity and no renewal which can then renew our society which in such desperate need of healing.
That is why the Epistle from James reminds us that:
“Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says, is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and , after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do so, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does.
And what does the Word of God say to us this morning:
“Thy word O God have I stored up in my heart that I may not sin against you”.
Which takes us back to the assertion from John that Jesus is the Word made flesh.
The fundamental fact therefore, that all Christians must learn and obey is that, it is only when we are in Christ that we can do all things well. When the Living Word is in our hearts. It is only the indwelling Spirit of God that can so alter our disposition to trust in mortal man, and in the self, that cannot save. And so as flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of God, neither can mere man worship God in Jesus Christ in Spirit and in truth. It is only when we live by the Spirit and not by the flesh, through Baptism, Confirmation, constant prayer, constant repentance, living in humble obedience to God’s Word, sharing in the fellowship of Public Worship, participation in Holy Communion and doing good deeds, that we will be renewed and help to renew and transform this nation. So today we give thanks to the God who can do abundantly and exceedingly more than we can ask and imagine, the God who does all things well in and through Jesus Christ. And that God, the God of Jacob, the faithful God, the God who is the same yesterday, today and forevermore, will always respond if, with a contrite heart, we invite Him into our hearts and ask for mercy. He will respond as He sent his Son, who does all things well to proclaim freedom for the captives, to rescue sinners not the righteous. So the shottas, the rapists, the corrupt politicians, the police who are guilty of extra judiciary killings, the immoral, the prostitutes, all of us who have sinned and fallen short of His glory can be assured of His forgiveness and His justice, if we truly repent, turn to His Son in faith and invite Him into our hearts. All because Jesus does all things well. So let us close by singing prayerfully the words of that powerful crusade hymn.
Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus; Come in today, come in to stay; Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.
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