nobrokenreed

Have we failed?

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Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. “For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you. “Nations will come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising. – Isaiah 60

As I sit and write this of an evening, I am listening to Kings College Choir Christmas carols. Has so much ever been written or sung of one person, that is the Christ? Have hundreds, maybe thousands of songs and hymns been sung of Buddha or Mohammed? Have so many devoted themselves just to the study of the person of Jesus, and written tomes of thought on the experience? Is there any period in history where this person of Jesus has not had influence on a person or group of people somewhere to change for the better, the circumstance and lives of those around them? We do well to remember who is the real King, especially at such times as this. And what times we live in.

Last week we went onto the streets for several hours, and managed to talk to many about this person of Jesus. Not once in nearly a decade of witnessing on the streets have I been confronted with such confusion, such darkness of thought. Is our society changing I wonder?

Are we collectively no longer able to call wrong for what it is, or good for what it is? Have we so completely fallen for the lie that all paths lead to God, that Jesus was merely one of many great teachers and that each must find the path that suits them? I fear so. To so many, God’s holiness is a thing almost of scorn, after all, aren’t we gods ourselves, able to control our destiny and understanding all things in the light of our own wisdom and knowledge? If I believe in reincarnation, then it must be so and I will be able to will it into being. What need do I have of Jesus?

Friends, how did this thinking come to be part of our everyday society?

One thing is for sure, there will be consequences which our children and grand children will need to face and I feel very much after bringing this before the Lord, that we are to blame. My generation and those recently past, we who have been all too quiet on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Did we stand silent as in daily conversation, the person of Jesus Christ was put on a level with others, were we more concerned with our comfort rather than whether our neighbours are heading for hell?

Surely had your life been different, or mine then we would have seen Christ preached on the street corners, people healed, set free and the power of God move on our world as in times past. What, do we not believe that is as He wants? Surely Scripture would tell us otherwise, that our God is not a mute with nothing to say to this world. Do we forget that he alone, through his Son, has the only answers to this present tragic darkness. No friends, we have been the mute.

I fear then that soon, perhaps very soon, there will be moves to banish the name of Jesus Christ from our society altogether. Look at our schools, our laws, our governments, our very fabric of society. Have not the enemies of Christ done such a good job in persuading us that he is little more than a good man, yet still there might be better. If so, why ever pay him much attention?

So when we come to talk to everyday people, people with real needs in their lives, so many are so completely blinded not only to what is on offer, but what is to come.  Our work it seems, even if we start today will be so much harder than before. Decades of portraying God as a liturgy found only in a building, whom can only be approached while wearing our Sunday best has blinded an entire generation to the beauty and answer found in Christ alone.

Has not God already proclaimed that it would happen regardless, did I hear you say? Surely he has, but do we not think that for the sake of those around us, he will move heaven and earth to reveal himself so that they will be saved.

The question just remains, as it always has – what will you and I do, at what cost, to bring the will of God down to our earth such that his Son’s name might be proclaimed in the darkness, the only true Light of the World.

Will we wait until there are no believers left, till there is no example for the next generation to follow? Pray not, then move out and let the world know that this Christmas a Light has come to the world, one that saves as no other. He has no equal.

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.

Word and Truth

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The sum of your word is truth and every one of your righteous rules endures forever. – Psalm 119:160

I’ve been thinking what might be worth saying at the beginning of a New Year. Is there anything so important that it is worth writing about? More so, what might Jesus want to say to us?

We started writing nobrokenreed with just a single purpose, to encourage believers and especially new believers and those still wondering, about the singular importance of Jesus.  With nearly a lifetime of ‘churchdom’ behind me, I was slow to realise just how important Jesus really is, and that understanding only by God’s grace.

So, let me introduce this year with just a single statement that hopefully continues to guide us for the rest of the year, and it is this:

Positional truth is not the answer that sets men free – only Jesus Christ, the person, is able to set me free.

Why is that so important? Let me share two examples from just this week.

I visited a man this week, who shared our passion for street preaching. To be fair, I was there to learn about some of the methods and means by which they go about it, to see if we could apply some of their learnings to our own experience here in Sydney. It was a delightful time and I learned a great deal. Throughout though, I was aware that I was constantly being “sounded out” to see if my theology lined up; at one stage, I was told that in their circle, if it didn’t align with the truth, then I wouldn’t be allowed to preach. Simple as that, I might’n measure up.

On another day, when we were on the South Coast on holiday, we received a brief phone call that went like this; “hello it’s Joyce here, you prayed with us on the seat by the wharf. You prayed about my daughter being reconciled to our family and coming home to visit this Christmas. Well, I’m just ringing to tell you that there was forgiveness in our home before Christmas, and our family was reconciled and my daughter came home for Christmas. So thank you for praying.”

We honestly couldn’t remember who Joyce was or when we prayed with her. But I wonder, on reading these two stories, which one you think came directly from heaven? Which was important?

In the modern church, we place a great deal of store on “truth”, believing somehow we alone monopolise it. We tear Bible passages out of context at every turn to validate our version of the truth. Baptism saves, no it doesn’t, the miraculous happens today, and on it goes. The verse in the Psalms, tells us that we are to view Scripture as a whole, the sum, before passing comment and judgement. Only in doing so, do we get to the truth. Yet, here is the irony.

In the Gospels, we are reminded by Jesus that he alone is “truth”, that within him there is no need for interpretation or judgement. He singularly stands as the entire and complete truth. The Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day were so intent on having their version of the truth proclaimed, they missed the absolute truth that stood in their presence. We may have the same tendency today.

There is more though. We are told by John, inspired by the Spirit of God, that Jesus is the “Word” as well. The Word and Truth come together in the person of Jesus Christ. Scripture is not simply about Jesus, it is wrapped in his very presence, all of it originated in him. It is not just writings in a book, and so perhaps we should be careful, in our speech and willingness to jump in with our interpretation. Do I really feel confident enough to interpret God?

What does all this mean?

Simply this, that as I meet more and more ‘believers’ I am gravely concerned about how the great Gospel of God has been reduced by us to formulae and method. We are, in the modern day, no better than the Pharisees in replacing a beautiful, powerful relationship with the God of the Heavenly Lights, the one whom Jesus called ‘Father’ with a system, or doctrine to be followed. It seems, like the religious leaders of the day, we prefer our own rote to a living relationship.

Our Bible reading, prayer life, sharing the Gospel, even the fabric of our belief – all of it, has become dangerously mechanical, a 3-step formula to a better life. When you read the story of the relationship the early believers had with their risen Lord, the total devotion Paul had, Peter, the Apostles, those who were persecuted in the early church and on down through history, is the impression that it was anything other than being alive with a Holy God through Jesus Christ?

This year, as with every year, we hope to introduce people to a person who can save them and who loves them beyond belief. That is not just any person, but this Jesus we preach is the only person who can save you and me. It is a reminder that no doctrine, or system of “truths” can ever do that.

We know, once we are immersed in Him as he was in the Father, that we will start to gain a complete picture of both Word and Truth in our lives. Can you imagine anything more delightful?

 

Merry Christmas

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We received a Christmas letter this week from some people who are very dear to us. In it, they quipped that their part time hobby these days was going to funerals, which gave us a chuckle.

You pass into a phase in your life where death becomes more visible in daily life, and then the longer you walk through it, the more visible it becomes. Eventually, it walks beside you.

What struck us though, was the authority and assurance that the writer had of their future. I couldn’t help but feel as I read it, that the curtain, far from being brought down on their life, was coming up. They were looking forward to a new beginning. Life was about to start.

It’s such counter thinking in our world, that when you read it, it makes you sit up and think.

This world is in as big a mess as it has been since perhaps the beginning of the second World War. We have run out of answers of how to deal with major crises that threaten us on almost every street corner. Yet here were a couple who for most of their lives had lived humbly before God, serving him with the life he had given them. They had decided that their future was to be entrusted to one who could really be depended on. Not only that, but the death that was facing them at some point, was not the end of it all, but the beginning of everything. They would finally be able to live in the presence of the King and God they had chosen to serve all their lives.

This is all possible because of the person of Jesus Christ. We are told in the Bible, that we are saved into God, because of Jesus Christ. For those of us who believe, we have an inheritance in him that will never wear out. Our future is elsewhere.

Christmas is a worthy celebration of a deserving King and Saviour, despite it having been ransacked by godless people who trivialise everything. But peer behind the glitter and lights, and you will find the most incredible story. God saves us, literally, through his Son and through him, we can have an assurance and hope that one day we will live in his presence for all eternity, and that even death will not be able to hold us.

Our writings have only ever been about one thing, Jesus Christ. As far as we are concerned, what God has done through him for us all, takes our breath away. So, let us leave you with perhaps the greatest words ever written in history, as we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

No other words bring such Hope Eternal.

I bring you good news of great joy, that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord – Luke 2:10-11

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