nobrokenreed

A Twisted Grace

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This is what the Lord says:

“Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.

Blessed is the one who does this—the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”

Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”

For this is what the Lord says:

foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord

    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it

    and who hold fast to my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

  –Isaiah 56

In my daily devotion, I am reading the Psalms, Isaiah and Matthew together. It is beautiful. Here is what they say. The Spirit in the Psalms, the Father through Isaiah and the Christ in the Gospel all of them say this; if you say you love the Lord, if you want to be saved then you will pursue righteousness. Labels do not apply here.

I was struck by this passage in Isaiah, where God says he will save the foreigner who does right, rather than the Jew who didn’t. To the Jews, this would have been anathema, even blasphemous. As Jews, they could do what they liked, and salvation was still theirs. Yet across the entire Scripture, the triune God crushes that notion as being empty, something made up by man. God wants righteousness and obedience in our lives. I wonder if we could apply the same to Christianity today?

A girl we are discipling was looking for a flat, and she wanted to find a Christian flat share. Eventually she found one, but came to us surprised as the ‘other girl’ said she had her boyfriend around to stay quite a lot. The ‘other girl’ who was prominent in a large local church, also said, “whatever you do, don’t tell the pastor.”

A week before that, another Christian girl who had been witnessing to her unbelieving flatmate, came home to find the unbeliever sitting around with a group of believers, all on the way to getting drunk. Apparently this is the great thing about modern-day Christianity, as opposed to all that old fashioned sort; you can simply believe in Jesus, carry on living how you want, and still get to heaven. How good is that!

Christianity in the West is dying. Numbers are down, and we live in a post-modern society. In our rush to stem the flow, we have softened the Gospel, lowered the bar and differentiated the God of the Old Covenant, with the God of the New. We paint an easy faith, one with few demands. We now say that belief equates to faith, that faith is a noun not a verb and that Christ’s dying on the cross got rid of all that old ‘needing to keep the law stuff.’ In so doing, we have twisted the notion of Grace.

For one who always has an eye on disciple making, I am able to evaluate in my own life, the truth of what happens. When I am too cosy with the world, then my passion to tell others of Christ diminishes, I start talking about business, or politics or even worse. The Spirit will usually offer me a sound warning when this is happening and admonish me to correct the focus in my life. If I choose not to correct it, then the righteousness in my life – that is, my passion to do the things of the Lord rather than the things of the world, begins to slip. Eventually, as the Israelites were like in Isaiah’s day, my spiritual life is one of just going through the motions, of living a duplicitous life before God.

But, here’s the thing. God will always catch up with us for his sake and ours. He will pursue us until there is a shift, unless – unless of course, like the Israelites of old, we continue to ignore him. Then collectively, like the Israelites, our delusion becomes so great that he has to destroy things and rebuild. For the Israelites it was exile, for the church, well who can imagine. Something though, is coming.

One thing is for certain. God is going to rid us of any idea that we can proclaim his grace in our midst, while continuing to blatantly sin. He will never tolerate that. What on earth does the world think, when they see us like that? A twisted form of Grace, how abhorrent.

How hard can it be?

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Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is! – Jesus (Matthew)

Over the past 3 years, we have been out into our neighbourhood, shamelessly sharing Jesus with whoever would listen. We’ve shared on almost a weekly basis, on the streets of our local Sydney village where during the height of summer, some 40,000 visitors from all over Sydney pour in each weekend. We have spoken to people of many different races, faiths, genders and persuasions. In amongst it all, we have spoken to many church goers as well.

At times, we have been able to spend several hours in discussion about Jesus to people who are genuinely interested in what Jesus has to offer. That in itself is reward for the effort. But on the whole, we were reflecting last night in a festival gathering, about how hard it has been. The festival gathering is for a whole group of people across Sydney who are out in their communities, trying to make disciples. Considering the prayer, the effort that goes on, really the fruit is sparse. You wouldn’t know we were out there.

At this moment in our lives, we have a few people; one, an addict, just out of detox was offered prayer and a laying on of hands by a group of believers, but rejected it. All along, he has shunned a relationship with Christ, preferring instead to ‘find peace within himself.’ Only one is ever going to free him from his addiction. Another woman, baptised and half committed to Christ keeps coming back to ‘there must be more than one God’ and in doing so misses out on the relationship Jesus offers. Her salvation is certainly not guaranteed. I could go on with literally dozens of examples.

What has happened?

We live in a society where we have received the benefits of adhering to Christian values, and having a basic Christian foundation. As a society though, we have kicked out the God who provided us with those benefits, but the residual lives on. God still ‘lives on’ at least for now, in the fabric of our society. But it won’t last, eventually God will withdraw entirely as people pursue every God but the one true God, found alone in his Son, Jesus Christ.

The church with all its glorious traditions is certainly another aspect; it refuses to break out of its four walls, change from its patently un-Biblical structure, stop worshipping money and status (as the world around it does) and go on perpetrating the lie that Jesus will save you, even if you don’t make him Lord. It is this lie, above everything else, that has caused many in our society to think that it doesn’t matter how I live, Jesus will still save me. He was after all a good bloke just like me.

The total consequence of this? We are in the glorious position of having the remnants of God’s blessing without needing any of the commitment required to diligently pursue him. That is, both church and society! My sense though, and I feel this is prophetic, is that the price we will pay as a nation for daring to test God like this, will be extortionate. We will end up with a God not of our choosing, and they will be a tyrant. For those with eyes to see, we can see the beginnings already.

Regardless, we continue on with what we are doing. We are convinced beyond all measure, this is what needs to be done. We just wish others could see, as it certainly isn’t just for us. Where are the fellow labourers in Christ? In spite of all the hardships, we can say we have never felt so fulfilled in our lives, doing what he has commanded us. We know him more than we ever have, and we sense his pleasure when we obey.

Further, as Jesus admonishes us, we must think carefully about where we store our treasure. This world is certainly fleeting and beyond this awaits – for those who are faithful, and only those who are, a treasure beyond anything you or I can imagine. What is it?

Simple, it is being with Christ and his Father in person, seeing him as even some of the angels cannot see him, listening, worshipping, laughing and being made glorious ourselves.

We won’t know ourselves such will be the change; but we must do the work that is before us here. Let us tarry, we don’t have long any of us.

To Almost Follow Jesus

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Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. – Matthew 10

I’ve begun to use a simple tool, 3-Circles to explain the Gospel message to people on the streets. It’s not perfect, but it conveys a simple and visual message to listeners. It says, we are broken, that God originally had a perfect design but through our own bad choices we have become broken, and that Jesus can restore us. We just need to turn and follow.

When we go out on the streets today, I carry a little pad and pencil so I can draw the 3-Circles with people and explain things along the way. At the end, I ask, “which circle do you think you’re in?” which usually elicits a response, ‘brokenness.’ Which circle would you like to be in, and again we usually get the response, ‘God’s perfect design’. Then, to be frank, comes the stumbling block.

This weekend I met Toshi, a young Japanese student drawing on the streets – he will write your name in beautiful Japanese calligraphy, and chat at the same time, for a small donation. I asked him if he had heard the name ‘Jesus Christ’ which surprisingly he hadn’t until he looked it up in his translator. Then ensued the discussion, Buddha or Jesus, which seemed a natural point to introduce Jesus through the 3-Circles. As we walked through a simple Gospel message, we had a great discussion, and Toshi wrote Jesus beautifully in Japanese.

But it’s where people – many people, get stuck that intrigues me. I read it in their face, or they simply stumble or walk away.

You see, to get from ‘brokenness’ to ‘God’s perfect design’ we actually need to do something. We need to ‘turn and follow’ modern day parlance for repent and believe. Turning and following is where people stumble. In an instant, people seem to weigh up the demands that are ahead and consider the cost. Almost always, it is too much.

Think it ends there? Not at all.

Around the world, millions of believers sit in their churches, never having considered what it really means to ‘turn and follow.’ I have been one of them. The turning means to stop what we are doing, stop doing the things that offend Jesus profoundly. I think in the past 12 months, above everything I have come to realise the horror of the human situation. Not one of us will even remotely stand before a Holy God, we should all of us, be on our faces in the dust.

The follow occurs after the turn, it means simply that we do the things our Lord asks us to do. If he is our Lord, we will obey. If we recognise the horror of who we really are and what he has done, out of sheer gratitude, we will obey.

So few, so very few ever get to this, and so we end up almost following Jesus. To almost follow Jesus is what so many want; it means that we can carry on in the same vein, doing the same things that we did when Jesus first came to us. Little changes. Then, when he turns to us, raising his hand beckoning us to follow him to total obedience, we instead turn and go in a different direction.

How tragic for Jesus, how tragic for us. We see, we read about the freedom in the Gospels; we hear the stories even today, stories of those who are totally set free and then give their lives to him. But for us, for so many it seems so hard to give up. Is it because we have so much?

For those who do, what of them? Well, Jesus promises here that if we lose our lives for his sake – that is, if we truly turn and truly follow him, make him our Lord, we will gain our lives forever.

Surely it is time for us to take notice of that. If we will do it, consider too, others might notice.

The Dilemna for God

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Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool – Isaiah the Prophet

I had a Job moment last week. God so confronted me through a situation, that it left me reeling at the time, and has been turning over in the back of mind ever since. He has spoken out of the storm.

A man named Rob walked up our drive some months ago, he bought a surfboard. We talked to him, prayed with him and started Discovery Group. He was introduced to Jesus and we were thrilled. Then Rob fell off the wagon.

Initially, I thought it was alcohol, but as it turned out drugs were there too. A 3-day high consisted of a mix of heroine, cocaine and ice. The come down was not pretty. In between, the texts became abusive, insulting. What do you do, are we responsible for our actions or not? Our current no-fault society would say not. Still, we felt the Lord led him up our driveway, and so we tried to help.

After 3 months of cajoling on every side, we managed to get him in front of a someone who runs a rehab centre in Perth. This man oversees 200 addicts over 2 years, integrating them back into the workforce slowly, while breaking their dependence on hard drugs. He is a believer, and his success rate is unmatched anywhere. The only issue is, you do things his way, and his way is akin to a drill sergeant.

All this sounds easy of course, but it has been tumultuous for all concerned, a storm in our lives. Finally though, we had a 3 way conversation; me, Rob and Peter who runs the centre. Here’s how it went.

“Michael I want you to listen to this please. Rob, are you ready to turn your life around?” asks Peter

“I think so”

“Rob, I don’t deal in ‘think-so’s’ just answer yes or no. Are you ready to turn your life around?”

“Yes”

“So you will do whatever it takes to turn your life around then Rob?”

“Yes”

“Do you have the first 3 weeks rent you will need to stay at one of our homes? Do you have the money for the airfare to get here?”

So the conversation went. Until it came to the point where Peter explained the rules to Rob, carefully explaining that those who join and leave, don’t ever get a second chance. They leave because it is strict. There are simply too many people in the queue to get in in the first place.

“So what do you think of all that Rob, are you committed?”

“I think you sound like a f***wit mate,” came the response back.

“Don’t ever call me again please.” Click, gone. Forever.

I sat holding the phone to my ear for a few minutes, stunned. How could someone do that, throw away an opportunity, choose death over life, through their own arrogance, pride, reject the very offer of a way out of the turmoil in their lives? 1 in 30 people who applied, got to speak to this man.

Over the week, God has shown me gently what he deals with every moment. The sacrifice of his Son came at an enormous personal cost, yet through it we have a turn at life. The great God of the second chance. All we must do is humble ourselves enough to accept the terms. The healing, the turnaround begins immediately, sometimes dramatically. It lasts into eternity. One thing is for sure, we absolutely do not deserve it, and we cannot get our heads around how God gives it to us.

Yet, for so many, we throw it back in his face. The church changes the terms of the agreement, which are simply to turn and follow the Son. Instead, we dream up some ticket to heaven and then carry on living such that we become more identified with the world than we ever do with the Son. The world waves 2 fingers in the face of God, crying out, ‘how dare you tell me you’re going to judge me, I haven’t done anything wrong.’ The world is blinded, in denial.

God is left to do the only thing he can do, judge us for our terrible corruption. In the end, God will destroy us if we don’t turn and follow. Our label, whatever it is, will not save us.

The silver lining? We withdrew from Rob entirely, and he has since confessed his pride. We will take him, next week, to a rehab centre outside of Sydney. Not what we wanted, but who knows. If you remember, please pray. Up until the end, God doesn’t give up.

 

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