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Archives for April 2017

In the marketplace

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You must warn each other every day, while it is still today, so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. – Hebrews 3: 13

Last weekend, we managed to spend an entire afternoon speaking to people on the streets, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We feel it is always beneficial, as so few have any real clue as to what that Gospel really entails, and we have no idea how God will use the seed we plant.

We managed to speak to 3 young teenagers as we spoke first about skateboarding, and then about Jesus. We’re hoping that they will start attending a Discovery Group which we have started in our home for young people who want to know more about Jesus Christ. We are praying, and we shall see. If you’ve never tried it, then let me tell you there is nothing more fulfilling than sharing the Gospel with someone who knows nothing about it.

There are many ways to do that of course, but we prefer to go slowly, as we have always felt the Gospel takes time to share. You can share your own testimony, or a simple Bible passage, or simply talk about why Jesus had to die, and the different sides of God’s character, Holiness and Love. That in particular, seems to always intrigue people. Whatever you do though, make Jesus the front and centre of anything you present. He is always, always the attraction.

Over the years, we have watched and listened to presentations that emphasise certain elements of scripture, usually tied in closely with the person’s denomination or church background. In the end, I always sense there is demand being made on the person that overshadows the Gospel, whatever that is. Groups that promote a particular brand of Christianity, tend to exclude certain passages and highlight others that support their views. These are often the same people that insist on those interested in Christ, coming along to “their church”, as they raise their own extrabiblical belief and church practice to the level of Scripture.

In our experience though, this ends up being a failure. The people we talk to are intrigued by Jesus Christ. The intensity in their listening, willingness to be prayed for, discussed with and even followed up bears this out. We don’t need to insist on catechism, baptism, speaking in tongues, confirmation, church attendance or anything else that we might deem essential to Christianity. We forget that Christ left a group of illiterate, uneducated people to fulfil his work of spreading the Gospel. There was no money, no building, no priests, no New Testament – only the very real presence of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

So we encourage each of you to speak the person of Jesus Christ into your neighbourhood, wherever that may be. This week we spoke to a young Czech man; he was very curious and willing to listen, even though there was no immediate response. Was that a wasted half an hour? We never think so, who knows what will happen in his life. Most people sail through life never thinking about why they are here, or where they come from or are going, and we get a chance to introduce them to their creator for just a few moments. If he then came across you the reader, you would have the opportunity to build on what had already been said. We never know.

The good news is, there are other Discovery Groups forming and we are beginning to network and connect into other areas in the city. We can go out with them in their area, train them and share fellowship, the very real church where Jesus is the head. It seems in the last days, that God is starting to stir people in the West, moving them out into the marketplace to proclaim his Son.

As we continue onto our goals of ten new converts this year, we have always found one thing to be true; if we will take the first step toward doing something for God, he always sends the resources and people to help accomplish the job. We are not alone.

The Mechanics Challenge

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So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it. For the message God delivered through angels has always stood firm, and every violation of the law and every act of disobedience was punished. So what makes us think we can escape if we ignore this great salvation that was first announced by the Lord Jesus himself and then delivered to us by those who heard him speak? – Hebrews 2

A good mate of mine runs a mobile mechanic business. I’ve watched him grow it over the years, such that it is now has a few dozen mobile mechanics, driving hither and thither around the country each day. Like all good businesses, there is people and process, systems and method that each day make the wheels turn. It’s got to be reasonably harmonious to work.

But, here’s the rub. His mechanics have to achieve a certain workload each week, for them to be able to stay on. The business provides them all the tools, systems and leads for them to achieve their weekly targets, but they have to do the work. If they don’t, well there’s a waiting list. You see, there are quite a few people now in the business who have families and mortgages, and everyone has to keep on track to make sure the business can feed everyone.

It’s simple really isn’t it. Around the world today, millions upon millions will wake up and get out of bed, go to work, to meet certain requirements in our lives. For some, such as sports people who play at peak levels, the requirements can be very arduous indeed. All of us have expectations, demands on our lives.

Which brings us rather nicely to a Holy God.

It is the Holiness side of God’s character that demands from us, and very few people in the world want to face that prospect, believers included. Yet it is there, and will not go away. But in the book of Hebrews, it says also that Jesus is God, both God and man, and that means he too, has certain demands on us, especially as believers. Salvation is not the end of the story, it is the beginning.

I don’t want to get into a big works debate here, but to say simply this as believers we are not saved by works, but for good works. James would take that a step further, and say if there was no evidence of good works, then perhaps we should be looking hard at our faith in Christ. So, why then do most believers think that once they are saved, nothing further is required. Maybe nothing further is from the truth.

So, another very good friend of mine sent me an email a few weeks ago, that I have been thinking about ever since, and I wanted to share it with you. There’s a mission organisation in a large developing nation that runs a programme for church planters. This mission has only locals doing the work, and it is a tough gig, comparable to any peak sports performance requirement. Each missionary is trained for a year, at a cost of several times the national average salary (which though, is peanuts to most of us) and then they are cut free.

They also, like the mechanics, have a mandate and it is this. Every year, they must commit to planting two churches, consisting of 10 new converts each, and then train those converts to repeat the business. To do that, they are likely going to have to talk to 600 non-believers about their faith. As you might expect, the cost of doing that is high indeed. There will be persecution and hardship.

If they don’t? Well, believe it or not, there is queue of others a mile long waiting to do the same. All they lack is funds.

They have the entire resources of heaven behind them, because friends, this is the work that is top of God’s mind every single day. We get to co-partner with him, if we choose to do so.

So, as a small gathering here, we are looking at setting ourselves a similar challenge. A new church of 10 new converts just from our village. We will do the work, but we expect Jesus to turn up. He has given us the method, the systems and most of all himself through the Holy Spirit to make sure we achieve that goal. Surely the odds are in our favour.

You see friends, Jesus has made certain demands on our time and life, and he has given us clear commands. There is an expectation. Years of soft-peddling the Gospel in the West has led most to believe that they can accept Jesus into their hearts and then carry on living as they always have, but nowhere in the Gospel does it say that. It just about says the contrary.

So, after Easter, let each of us ask the question, what are we going to do to obey him? In your local community, wherever you are, commit prayerfully to such a goal of going out and finding ten new converts and bringing them together, teaching them to do the same.

In doing so, it would seem you will be right at the very heart of what Jesus wants to do in this world before he comes again. How good is that?

 

PS for anyone who is interested, the mission organisation are also interested in a small team who will give, pray and even consider visiting those church planters; if they had the funding right now, they could double at least, the current number of church planters in that country. Email me if this moves you, and we can perhaps do something.

Happy Easter

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Thorns

Christ is Risen! We must celebrate it while we can, for as I was reading this weekend, even this it seems, our most sacred of Christian festivals, is slowly being removed from our society. To many, the message of Easter, God’s promise of eternal freedom through his Son Jesus Christ, is simply too much. They deem that we should not be allowed to celebrate such things and are doing all they can to dismantle it.

Our friend, Steve Addison has written an excellent blog entitled ‘The Blasphemy of Easter.’ Steve runs a mission organisation, Move, that trains believers to go out and make disciples. Please find time to read it, it is a good thermometer of the state of many who would seek to remove Jesus altogether from our society. Time is short, we must do all we can to be obedient to his calling.

For us, let us celebrate always, what God has done through his Son. Salvation is found nowhere else. He is risen indeed.

Happy Easter.

Easter with Isaiah – 3

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He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death – Isaiah 53:9

For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin – Rom 6: 7

“Living he loved me, dying he saved me, buried he carried my sin far away” – Hymn

The greatest failing in people’s belief, is the lack of any real difference in their lives, once and if they ever express any faith in Jesus Christ. With no difference or change in our lives, we soon tire of trying to maintain the façade, and before long, any faith will simply be a memory. With such a high calling to be light in darkness, why is that so few experience any real change. Yet Paul tells us that we have been set free from sin?

After the death of Christ came the burial of Christ, and it is most important. In Romans 6, Paul says we are buried with him in his death, through baptism. Historically, Jesus should not have been buried; in Jerusalem, bodies of criminals were thrown outside of the South side of the City, a place known as ‘Gehenna’ (from which we get our place Hell). It was a garbage dump, where a fire burned continuously and where criminals were thrown, along with the rubbish and dead animals.

Most importantly, Jesus was not placed there and the reason is significant. In the early Easter morning, the Jewish Sanhedrin counsel met to decide what to do with his body post-crucifixion – there were 71 members plus a chairman, or High Priest. The decision though, was not unanimous there were 2 against; Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:43) and Nicodemus (John 3).  They had advanced warning Jesus was going to die, so Joseph approached Pilate to take the body away, and the remarkable prophecy in Isaiah 53 was fulfilled. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but it was with the rich man that he was placed in a tomb.

Why is this significant?

Well, there is a finality to burial. When a person dies, between that time and their burial, we often speak of the person in the present tense. When they are buried, we speak of them in the past tense. Burial is final, it is complete.  When something is ‘dead and buried’ we mean it is over and done with. We don’t just say it is dead.

In Isaiah 53:9, the prophet is talking about what is happening with our sin.  It is our being buried with him, that releases us from our sin so that it is remembered no longer. Properly repenting from our sin, then being baptised and filled with the Holy Spirit is a significant factor in this process, there is no doubt. We also need to believe though, about what the Bible tells us about our state when we put our faith in Christ.

We don’t believe this though do we, we fear that our sin is still there and we remain in fear, or walk away empty handed. We find it difficult to agree with Rom 8:1, “therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

If we understand justified, if we understand the Son, if we understand buried then we will understand there is nothing left for us to be accused of.  We must remember there are two who speak to us of our sin, the devil and the Holy Spirit. There is a difference. The devil condemns us while the Holy Spirit convicts. Condemnation wraps us like we are enveloped in cling film, conviction leads us to cleansing and forgiveness. In Isaiah 53:12, we are told that he, Jesus, was numbered with the transgressors (he was identified as one of us in front of God) so that he might make intercession (he stands on our behalf between us and the Father, speaking on our behalf). It is a beautiful picture to dwell on this Easter.

It is remarkable to consider that Paul, the converted Pharisee who wrote half the New Testament, never penned any confession of sin. Nowhere is there any mention of defect, or shortcoming, or failure in his duty to those he served. On the contrary, his authorship vindicates himself more towards a faultless life before both God and men. “you are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed” (1 Thess 2:10, 2 Cor 1:12).  This was no aspiration either, it was an admission of what his actual life had been. How could that be?

Surely it points to a life lived out in both the power of the Holy Spirit, as well as total understanding that with Christ’s death and burial comes utter freedom for all who would believe without any doubt.

We must grasp this about the Easter story, such that we be set free. All we end up with otherwise is religion. While we maybe justified before God, we might never be changed towards the likeness of his Son.

This Easter, let us seek our transformation towards his likeness above all else.

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