Out in the Desert but not Alone!

Well I thought I would dust off the cobwebs of this here blog and write something since it is a ridiculous amount of time since I last posted anything.

Just thought I would share briefly where I am at. Yes I know you probably don’t care but it is simply for the reason of sharing two songs that I find so helpful when I am spiritually as dry as a bone baking in the desert sun. Which I am right now! We all go through dry times at various points in our spiritual walk and I am certainly no exception. In fact for me it is more a rule than an exception. Sometimes I am there out of my own doing because I am lazy and sinful and often chose the easy worldly options to feel better than the Road Less travelled of spiritual discipline in prayer and meditation on the Bible. Sometimes life kicks you there unexpectedly and before long you are walking round in circles in the sand. Currently both of those are probably true. I got kicked here at the beginning of the year and have stayed there because of the aforementioned.

So what keeps me going in these parched and weary lands that I walk far too often. Firstly the grace of God. Simply if God did not keep me I would have walked away years ago. He sustains me somewhere deep down and stops me from walking away. Where else would I go? (John 6:66-69)

However I have two songs that I find bring me light in the darkness of the soul. First is the aptly titled ‘Desert Song’ by Hillsong. It is an honest statement of declaring praise to God in the midst of hunger and thirst and in spite of it. It reminds me not to rely on my feelings and to rest on the truth of who God is. Take my eyes of circumstances and lift them to the one who sustains all things.

Second song is ‘In Christ Alone’ by Stuart Townend. There is not a greater recent song that declares such deep biblical truth as this does. From beginning to end it encapsulates the Gospel of Jesus Christ so succinctly. For that reason alone it brings water to my soul and reminds me of the profound truth that I am saved by Grace Alone, through Faith Alone in Christ Alone! That is the rock upon which I stand knowing nothing I do can change that truth. How I feel does not change that truth. I cannot earn salvation so I need to flippin well stop acting like I can.

Anyway from one traveller to another I commend these songs to you. The Versions in the You Tube videos are by Natalie Grant simply because I like these versions best! Read the Words and listen to the songs and bathe in the eternal truths of scripture!

Desert Song

This is my prayer in the desert
When all that’s within me feels dry
This is my prayer in my hunger and need
My God is the God who provides
This is my prayer in the fire
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flame

CHORUS:

I will bring praise, I will bring praise
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice, I will declare
God is my victory and He is here
This is my prayer in the battle
When triumph is still on its way
I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ
So firm on His promise I’ll stand

CHORUS

BRIDGE: All of my life in every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship

CHORUS

This is my prayer in the harvest
When favour and providence flow
I know I’m filled to be emptied again
The seed I’ve received I will sow

 

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

 

A Review of the audio book ‘Churched’ by Matthew Paul Turner

I first became aware of the writer Matthew Paul Turner (MPT from now on) when someone I follow on Twitter re-Tweeted one of his tweets. I was curious to read more about him, not because I agreed with what he said, quite the opposite in fact. I don’t remember exactly what the comments said but I seem to remember it was making fun of either Reformed Theology or possibly John Piper. Anyway it was enough to peek my curiosity so I started to follow him on twitter and read some of his Blog 'Jesus Needs New PR' (The blog title may give you a hint of his agenda).

It wasn't long before I stopped reading his blog and some time later I stopped following him on Twitter. The reasons will become clearer.

Any way a few months ago Christian Audio gave away his book ‘Churched’ as their free monthly download. So, since it was free, I downloaded it to see if I could try and understand where MPT was coming from. The book has the following description:

He spent his childhood trapped within the confines of countless bizarre, strict rules. And lived to tell about it.

In this first-hand account, author Matthew Paul Turner shares amusing–sometimes cringe-worthy–and poignant stories about growing up in a fundamentalist household, where even well-intentioned contemporary Christian music was proclaimed to be “of the devil.”

churched is a collection of stories that detail an American boy’s experiences growing up in a culture where men weren’t allowed let their hair grow to touch their ears (“an abomination!”), women wouldn’t have been caught dead in a pair of pants (unless swimming), and the pastor couldn’t preach a sermon without a healthy dose of hellfire and brimstone. Matthew grapples with the absurdity of a Sunday School Barbie burning, the passionate annual boxing match between the pastor and Satan, and the holiness of being baptized a fifth time–while growing into a young man who, amidst the chaotic mess of religion, falls in love with Jesus. (Cited from amazon.co.uk)

The Audio Book version that I listened to was read by MPT himself which I guess added to the experience as His reading of his own book clearly added extra weight and humour to the words.

Several things struck me after I had finished listening to the book:

Firstly I have no experience first hand of that kind of Fundamentalism. The only thing that comes close was an evening when my first church invited some man to talk about secular music to the youth group. I was about 18 at the time. He was a nutter quite frankly and saw the devil in everything. I quickly learnt to filter out that kind of nonsense.

I have heard about that kind of US fundamentalism and have read the odd article from people with that kind of viewpoint. Not growing up in a Christian home I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a child in a grace filled Christian home let alone one so rigidly moralistic and graceless.

There are some areas of UK Christianity that are very moralistic in nature but I have not personally come across that level of Fundamentalism, described by MPT, in my 22 years as a Christian believer. There were some friends at university that came from a fairly moralistic, Baptist upbringing and struggled to cope living outside of that bubble. With some predictable results of going off the rails a little.

Secondly, although I do not in any way doubt the sincerity in which the book was written, I struggle to accept that much of what was written has not been embellished by MPT’s adult self. I struggle to remember conversations that happened last week let alone detailed conversations I had as a child. Since this book is a series of narratives of various stages of MPT’s growing up it is full of these conversations.

We all filter and interpret our memories through the life lenses we are currently wearing. That is not to accuse MPT of lying or making stuff up. However he has clearly been deeply affected by growing up in such a strict environment and many of the subtle points he is making come through narratives that are time wise his childhood but message wise most certainly his adult self.

Thirdly it can only be by the Grace of God that he is even a believer today. Some of the incidents described are literally ‘you could not make this stuff up’ stories. Enough to crush and stifle the life and soul out of any person.

However, back to the reason I could no longer stomach reading his blog or following him on Twitter. It is fully understandable to be angry and frustrated with the Fundamentalism in which he grew up. Who wouldn’t be? But much of his twitter stream and blogging is filled with poking fun at and maligning anyone who could be broadly categorised as Reformed or Calvinist. Particular targets are the likes of John Piper and Mark Driscoll (which is odd as the fundamentalism that MPT experienced, Driscoll pokes fun at all the time). That is not of course to say that they are above criticism as no one of course is. However Piper, Driscoll and the pastors, teachers and groups they are associated with are as far from MPT’s fundamental experience as you can get. Their whole message is ‘Grace’ which of course is anathema to moralistic fundamentalism.

What saddened and yes annoyed me most was the comments that others made on his blog. Now Calvinists have a reputation for being harsh, but I have never read more angry, insulting and blatantly Un-Christian views than I read from people on his blog comments against anyone in the Reformed camp.

I use twitter and read blogs for one main reason, to learn more about and grow in my Christian faith from gifted and wise teachers and writers. If I find the blogs of the people I follow on twitter no longer serve that purpose or in fact have a negative affect on that purpose I no longer give them my attention or time. Different views on theological issues are welcome, but when those views are nothing more than childish digs why waste time with them.

MPT if a gifted writer and communicator. Sadly however his childhood experience has so blinded him that he seems to now lump anyone who he does not agree with and is on the more conservative side into one category, Fundamental.

No MPT, Jesus does not need new PR, that is a very arrogant. The Church is Jesus’ body on earth despite itself. What everyone needs is to know, understand accept and experience is the unconditional Grace which he freely offers to all. That is the message of true Reformed theology which you seem to so dislike!

Do not Quench the Spirit

We are currently working through 1 Corinthians in our Sunday Sermon series at church and last Sunday we hit 1 Corinthians 12:10-11. You can listen HERE.

10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

The focus was working miracles and distinguishing between spirits and then on v11. Prophecy and tongues etc will be dealt with in a different sermon later in the series. We also had a lively debate, last night, in our small group. This is not uncommon when the spiritual gifts are being discussed.
(Please note the dove picture representing the Holy Spirit is posted slightly tongue in cheek)

Where do I stand on Spiritual Gifts?

For the record I will lay out where I stand on what are often called ‘The Charismatic Gifts’. That is the supernatural gifts given in scripture by The Holy Spirit:

• I believe the gifts of the spirit are for today and did not cease at the end of the Apostolic age. Therefore I am NOT a Cessasionist at all. The best term to use would be ‘Reformed Charismatic’.
• I believe God can and indeed does heal people today and know people who have been miraculously healed.
• I believe in prophecy (as in words of knowledge from God about others as well as words from God including pictures etc.. Also words for specific people or the church that are from God about what God wants to do in the future. By way of some examples) I have operated in these gifts myself. NB: With the Caveat the prophecy is always subject to Scripture and is in NO way equivalent to it!
• I believe speaking in tongues is valid, as is interpretation of tongues. I however do not speak in tongues myself.
• There are many other gifts mentioned in scripture and I do not have any issues with them being a normal part of the Christian life and experience.
• The greatest spiritual gift is the gift of Regeneration of the unbeliever to being a believer. The creation of a new Christian life. The must surely be the greatest miracle of them all!

I became a Christian at 18 and have always attended churches where the spiritual gifts were practiced. It has always been part of my Christian experience. I was witness first hand to what became known as ‘The Toronto Blessing’ (look it up). I have seen some pretty whacky stuff over the years it has to be said.
With that being said why did I find Sundays sermon challenging? I’ll come on to that!
On one hand we have the above on the other, I am a self confessed cynic . I very rarely just accept what people tell me without question. If people claim to have been healed I want proof. Very often one must just accept the word of the person and trust their integrity. However I do sometimes wonder why God does not heal more obvious problems rather than the obligatory back ache, arm ache, head ache’s etc… All those are great and fantastic to be healed from. I suffer back problems and would love to not have to worry about it recurring again. We do have testimonies of more obvious physical symptoms being healed. Like legs growing, backs straightening, the deaf hearing. Those I get more excited over as they baffle doctors and are clear undeniable miracles. In my previous Church in Crawley there was a wheelchair bound lady with ME and other disabilities, dependant on medical and financial help, who had been in her chair for years. One night she was healed and to this day I believe is now walking about. A walking talking miracle!
So I am constantly in this tension between cynic vs believer. It is certainly not a helpful place to be and is often lack of faith or just plain unbelief on my part.



I certainly have issues with some of the more wacky things people are claiming and much of this comes from Bethel mania among others, see below. Gold dust and Angel feathers for example just say to me distraction from God rather than glorifying God which ultimately all spiritual gifts must do. I know the bible does not list in exhaustive detail all spiritual gifts or miracles but I find such things unhelpful.
So what was so challenging in Sundays message? The following passage was cited:

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:16–22 (ESV)

Now v21 is often used as a defence against some of the more out there spiritual manifestations and rightly so. However preceding it is v19. We are often in danger of quenching the spirit when we throw out everything, if we detect even one thing that may set off our alarm bells. I find this is exactly what I do. As soon as I detect the slightest hint of theology that I would consider ‘off’ then I switch off.
My biggest example of this is in the case of Bill Johnson from Bethel Church in Redding California. Now there seems to be little doubt that God is moving spiritually in that church in some amazing and miraculous ways. The long list of testimonies of healing is amazing. However I cannot listen to Bill Johnson preach. I have tried and cannot get through an entire ‘sermon’ of his without being very annoyed by it. I certainly have theological differences with him and with his use of scripture and these create a huge barrier. Yet God is using him in ways that are undeniably amazing.

Main two Tension Points!

What I massively struggle with is the tension between the fully realised Kingdom of God in the new creation of Jesus return and the now, cursed fallen world that God’s kingdom breaks into occasionally. The already and not yet of the Kingdom. How much can we expect of the miraculous in this age?
The other is the line between how much a part faith plays vs the absolute sovereignty of God. V11 of 1 Corinthians 12 says:

All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

The spirit decides who gets what, when, where and how much.

Conclusion

So on the one hand we MUST ‘test everything’ as I believe there is much counterfeit faux spirituality out there within the Christian church. One example of which I heard recently was an event where the preacher/teacher didn’t once open his bible and it was all about the ‘experience’. Run away, run a mile and don’t look back at that sort of thing. If Gods word is not taught and supporting what is experienced or lip sevice is paid to the word then at least question what you are seeing. Be a Berean (Acts 17:10-11)!
Yet on the other hand we must NOT let our own prejudices and fears of the supernatural ‘quench’ what God is doing even through people I may disagree with theologically. I need to be open to God using me for the miraculous. I need more faith to be honest as I struggle to believe supernatural things will happen when I pray. My struggle with the tension points mentioned above often causes me to choose safe faith over stepping out and taking risks. I must learn to be humble realising how little I understand and trust God always that whatever happens He is Sovereign and works all things together for Good (Romans 8:28).

The Fathers Cup – A Crucifixion Narrative

Just before Good Friday this year I saw John Piper link to This MP3 by Rick Gamache. It is a narrative of the biblical events of the Thursday evening and Friday leading up to and including Christ’s crucifixion.

This narrative utterly floored me and brought alive the agony and suffering of Jesus like nothing else since seeing ‘The Passion of the Christ’ film.

It is a very graphic portrayal of the physical suffering that Jesus went through from weeping tears of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane to His death on the cross. It is not easy to listen to in any way. If you have seen Mel Gibson's film you will certainly have had a similar experience with seeing in all its gory detail this same representation of our Lord’s suffering.

However what I have previously failed to entirely, if at all, grasp was what the full meaning of ‘drinking the Father’s Cup’ meant for Jesus.

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:42-44)

So what had caused Jesus such anxiety as to sweat drops of blood? Certainly He new the physical suffering he was to face. However I think the greater stress was caused by peering in to ‘the Cup’. I think I had always assumed the Cup was the horrendous physical suffering of the cross itself. No, the Cup was much more than that.

The narrative brings in to focus the cost to Jesus himself of the subsitutionary atoning side of what He did on Calvary. I had never before thought about it how this narrative describes it.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says: ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’. Never had I realised what this really meant for Jesus. Of course this is only a tiny speck, a splinter compared to what it really meant.

The Son of God, the Perfect spotless lamb, Holy, Righteous and sinless becomes Sin. For those hours He hung there every sin of those whom are His became part of Jesus. He became the filthy, dirty, abominable evil that sin is. Not only that God the Father looked upon Jesus, His beloved Son and poured out His full, complete and terrible, judgement and Wrath against sin upon Him until it was fully spent. For that time the eternal relationship between Father and Son was broken and the Father turned from Jesus in disgust at the sin upon Him. That was the Cup that Jesus drank for the sake of His Glory and our Salvation.

Read the words of that narrative, weep, repent, rejoice and worship at what Jesus did for us. (The PDF can be found HERE)

Then Jesus is startled by a foul odour. It isn't the stench of open wounds. It’s something else. And it crawls inside him. He looks up to his Father. His Father looks back, but Jesus doesn't recognize these eyes. They pierce the invisible world with fire and darken the visible sky. And Jesus feels dirty. He hangs between earth and heaven filthy with human discharge on the outside and, now, filthy with human wickedness on the inside.

The Father speaks: “Son of Man! Why have you sinned against me and heaped scorn on my great glory? You are self-sufficient and self-righteous—consumed with yourself and puffed up and selfishly ambitious. You rob me of my glory and worship what’s inside of you instead of looking out to the One who created you. You are a greedy, lazy, gluttonous slanderer and gossip. You are a lying, conceited, ungrateful, cruel adulterer. You practice sexual immorality; you make pornography, and fill you mind with vulgarity. You exchange my truth for a lie and worship the creature instead of the Creator. And so you are given up to your homosexual passions, dressing immodestly, and lusting after what is forbidden. With all your heart you love perverse pleasure. You hate your brother and murder him with the bullets of anger fired from your own heart. You kill babies for your convenience. You oppress the poor and deal slaves and ignore the needy. You persecute my people. You love money and prestige and honour. You put on a cloak of outward piety, but inside you are filled with dead men’s bones—you hypocrite! You are lukewarm and easily enticed by the world. You covet and can’t have so you murder. You are filled with envy and rage and bitterness and un-forgiveness. You blame others for your sin and are too proud to even call it sin. You are never slow to speak. And you have a razor tongue that lashes and cuts with its criticism and sinful judgment. Your words do not impart grace. Instead your mouth is a fountain of condemnation and guilt and obscene talk. You are a false prophet leading people astray. You mock your parents. You have no self-control. You are a betrayer who stirs up division and factions. You’re a drunkard and a thief. You’re an anxious coward. You do not trust me. You blaspheme against me. You are an un-submissive wife. And you are a lazy, disengaged husband. You file for divorce and crush the parable of my love for the church. You’re a pimp and a drug dealer. You practice divination and worship demons. The list of your sins goes on and on and on and on. And I hate these things inside of you. I’m filled with disgust, and indignation for your sin consumes me. Now, drink my cup!

And Jesus does. He drinks for hours. He downs every drop of the scalding liquid of God’s own hatred of sin mingled with his white-hot wrath against that sin. This is the Father’s cup: omnipotent hatred and anger for the sins of every generation past, present, and future—omnipotent wrath directed at one naked man hanging on a cross. The Father can no longer look at his beloved Son, his heart’s treasure, the mirror-image of himself. He looks away.

Jesus pushes himself upward and howls to heaven, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Silence. Separation.

Jesus whispers, “I’m thirsty,” and he sags.

The merciful centurion soaks a sponge in sour wine and lifts in on a reed to Jesus’ lips. And the sour wine is the sweetest drink he ever tasted.

Jesus pushes himself up again and cries, “It is finished.” And it is. Every sin of every child of God has been laid on Jesus and he drank the cup of God’s wrath dry.

Thoughts on Spiritual Gifts!

I was reading 1 Corinthians 12 today and a few things jumped out at me:

29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

http://esv.to/1Cor12.29-31

No is the answer to those statements. Not everyone gets each gift since all gifts are given according to Gods sovereign will (see v18).

We are to seek the higher gifts that build up the body of Christ!

The issue Paul is dealing with here and one that is still quite prevalent in the Charismatic church is the gift of tongues or rather it's over emphasis. Clearly from this text not everyone has the gift. The higher gifts are those that build up the body. Since tongues is largely a personal gift unless brought publicly with interpretation it should not be considered a higher gift here.

Paul of course then goes on to explain that ALL of them without a spirit of Love motivating their use are worthless and that is the most important issue to consider.

It is so easy for us to get carried away with certain gifts we see as more important that it can make people with less obvious gifts feel second rate. This chapter 12 stands against that and we should always check ourselves against both chapters 12 & 13 regularly to see if we are in line with scripture.

Most of all remember that it is God we seek first and foremost not His gifts. God is our ultimate treasure to be sought after!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

When Biblical Truth and Experience clash!

Ok, I know that is a provocative Title and of course it is intended to be ;-). Last week I attended an evening where a well-ish known Christian was speaking, who has a ‘Healing Ministry’. This was the second of Two evenings put on by a local church.

Firstly this Blog post is not meant in any way to personally criticise a fellow brother in Christ. This is simply me trying to work my faith out and when I come up against something that I find a contradiction I need to get my head round it.

The evening consisted of a singing time of Worship. Then a ‘talk’ followed eventually by what I am going to call ‘doing the stuff’. Sadly just as the ‘doing the stuff’ started I had to leave, as it was 9:40 and the car park I was in shuts at 10:00, but I digress. The ‘talk’ consisted of stories where this person had been used by God in various situations for miraculous healing of others, interspersed with ‘teaching’ from the Bible. Herein lies the issue. It is good to hear stories of God healing people as this builds faith and that is not where I had a problem. It was the ‘teaching’ that was brought that I was, to put it mildly, astonished to hear.

There was one important thing that the person said that I totally agreed with. That when praying for healing you don’t have to tell God what to heal and you don’t need to convince God to do so by many words. A simple ‘be healed in the name of Jesus’ is all that is needed, the rest is up to God. This is largely what Jesus did and what the Bible records the Apostles doing. Great we can agree on that! The whole issue of how ones faith interacts with God’s sovereignty and the resulting healing or lack thereof is another issue entirely. I am not going to go into that here as I don’t have any semblance of a coherent understanding of it theologically.

However apart from that one point, what was taught as being from scripture seemed to me wrong on so many levels and I have not heard a mangling of scripture like that in quite a while. However what is clear is that after I left there were several medically verifiable miraculous healings that I am certainly not going to credit to any power apart from God Himself.

So what do you do with that? Clearly incorrect biblical interpretation yet God powerfully using this person in the area of healing. My approach to these things is always to measure anything I see by the plumb line of scripture. Or be a Berean (Acts 17:10-11). For me if I don’t see it in scripture at least in principal then I do not accept it. I absolutely, 100% believe that God can and does heal today miraculously, I have seen it.

My theological view point is most definitely Reformed and I truly believe it most accurately reflects what scripture teaches. But clinging so close to the importance of right doctrine can have the effect of quenching the spirit. This is possibly why churches that hold to reformed doctrine tend to be very conservative and not actively move in the power of the spirit. New Frontiers churches seem to be fairly unique in this area. NFI is rooted in Reformed doctrine yet is clearly charismatic in its expression of the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit.

I totally believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. I totally believe that the gifts through the Holy Spirit seen in the New Testament are for today's church in whatever measure God sees fit to pour out and on whomever He desires. I would even go as far to say that holding a reformed view of scripture does not contradict or stand against the active gifts of Holy Spirit in healing, prophecy, tongues etc.. and actually supports it. It is the holding to certain traditions, viewpoints or teachings of the Reformed Giants of the faith so tight that possibly quenches the spirit.

Therefore whilst I may disagree with much of the teaching and emphasis that comes out of the likes of Bill Johnsons ministry at Bethel Church who this person speaking was certainly related, God is clearly using the ministry to perform amazingly miraculous healings. So I give God the Glory for that!

So where does this leave us? Someone wiser than myself offered these points:

• Miracles only endorse the power of God not the man.
• Miracles only endorse the power of God not the mans teaching.
• Miracles only endorse the power of God not the mans life or lifestyle.

All I can say again is that God is sovereign and who am I to question who He chooses to use as part of His divine redemptive plan. I will continue to hold to the closed handed issues that the Bible is very clear on and I will endeavour to passionately seek and treasure God alone as my ultimate and only source of true joy and only way to salvation. I most definitely want to have a far deeper experience of knowing God more intimately and being open to the working of the Holy Spirit in as yet unimaginable ways, but without throwing my intellect and brain out the window. I repeat we must always measure any and all spiritual experience we may have against the unmoveable benchmark of Gods word. Let none of us, whatever doctrinal position or tradition we hail from, just believe what we have seen or heard without testing the spirits (1 John 4:1-3) and examining the scriptures daily (Acts 17:11).

I know I have only scratched the surface of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and I pray we never become satisfied with where we are in all God has for us and all He wants to do through us. Let us remain humble, bearing with one another in Love (Ephesians 4:2) while we work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12-13).

When Should/Shouldn’t we leave a Church!

I have been pondering this thought a lot recently and have been meaning, for some time, to write some of my thoughts down about it. It probably would have been a very controversial post for a number of reasons that I will not go into on a public space (but I linked to a nicely balanced viewpoint on the subject below, instead of getting myself in trouble ;-) ). People come and go in a Church congregation for many reasons, it is just the way it is. We cannot force people to stay though the reverse may occasionally be necessary. However recent events have made me think about what are ‘legitimate’ or positive reasons for leaving a church and what should be considered ‘insufficient’ or negative reasons.

There are two broad ‘categories’ of people who leave churches. Those that leave and do move on to another church and those that leave, effectively never to return. I think very broadly speaking those that move on to another church would be considered true believers and those that leave and don’t return to the body of Christ ‘could’ (emphasis on could) be considered to not have been true believers. They partook in Christian stuff for a while but were never truly submitted and regenerate.

Please don’t hear what I am not saying. I want to make clear it is only for God to know who are His unto salvation, sheep, and who are not, goats, to use a biblical terminology. We are not to go through our churches looking to route out goats in the congregation. However it is clear from scripture that there should be fruit in a persons life if they are saved and it ‘may’ be a sign of a persons not surrendering their life to God if they show no long term fruit (but by no means the only reason). There is much more that could be said about that but that is not the point of this post (No doubt I will be accused of being judgemental etc….). But where do I get the distinction and my line of reasoning from? Well the parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. More on that below to give insight into why people may leave the body of Christ for all intents and purposes permanently.

Reasons to Leave a Church

• Category 1 – Those that move on to another Church. This has been written HERE far clearer and probably less controversially than I may have written it. So that link is really the answer to the question posed in the heading.
  
  What is clear from this is that there are actually few ‘good’ reasons to leave a church that you have committed to in membership and much of the time leaving has more to do with your own wrong heart attitude and pride than any actual perceived ‘good’ reason. Harsh I know but the list given under ‘Insufficient Reasons’ are all basically wrong attitudes of the heart and pride fuelled.
  
  That being said God is Sovereign and if a person decides to move on whatever the reason then they should go with blessing in the hope that God will use them and bless them wherever they end up. We also must examine our hearts to make sure pride and self righteousness is not causing us to think negatively towards that person. They are still our brother or sister in Christ irrelevant of church choice.
  
• Category 2 – Those that ultimately fall away/leave never to return.
  
  Looking at this second group of people is really a deviation away from the question in the heading which is mainly in regard to those that move churches.
  
  However it is a sad truth that over the now 21 years of being a Christian I have seen so many friends, who, for all intents and purposes appeared to be saved, turn their backs on God and His church. People that when I became a Christian and joined the youth group, seemed to be so on fire for God. Some even going on mission trips to foreign lands etc… People who I looked up to and who taught me much about God as a new believer. They Challenged me where I had incorrect thinking or actions and seemed to worship God far more enthusiastically than I did. Many of these are now living lives with no participation in the Body of Christ and with no active spiritual relationship with God. Some are even hostile to the church, full of criticism and accusation.
  
  Much of the criticism may in fact be true. It is true that often the late teen early twenty something age group is not catered for well in many churches. The transition from youth to adult in a church is often a difficult one. When the temptations of the World are suddenly opened up in all their life sucking glory. Suddenly the young person is no longer closely shepherded by the youth leader and can be cast adrift a bit if there is nothing in place to help the transition into the main adult congregation.
  
  However is it equally true that much of what is given for reasons to walk away from God are simply thinly veiled excuses to go and do your own thing. A heart truly submitted to Christ, yes can and does rebel and can live that way for a time, but will ultimately realise that living this way is foolishness and totally unsatisfying if you have truly tasted the Life Christ offers.
  
  It has always saddened me deeply seeing this, especially people I considered good friends. I of course don’t know their position before God. But I do know God is the father of the prodigal and will always welcome stray children home. I pray that they return and surrender to God again and that God reaches into their lives and brings them face to face with His awe inspiring majesty and beauty.
  
  Going back to the Parable of the sower. Where could these folks fit in with Jesus’ teaching. They seemed to respond to the Gospel so they are not the seed falling on the path, Matthew 13:4. So they must be either the Rocky Ground or thorny ground.
  
  [5] Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, [6] but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. [7] Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.
  (Matthew 13:5-7 ESV)
  
  But what does that mean. Who are the Rocky ground people and who are the thorny ground people? Jesus interprets this parable for His disciples.
  
  [20] As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, [21] yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. [22] As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
  (Matthew 13:20-22 ESV)
  
  My understanding of these two is that the rocky ground people are those that give a response to the Gospel upon hearing it but that it is only a head/heart response. There is no spiritual soul regeneration within the person by God. Therefore they appear to be saved and do all the Christian stuff but having no root turn their backs when either pain and sorrow and hardship strike or simply find the shiny temptations of the world apparently more satisfying than Christ because they never truly saw Him to start with.
  
  The Thorny ground people I think are actually saved and have their soul made alive in Christ but ultimately bear no fruit because they never get much further than being saved and settle there because they are deceived  into being satisfied with the things of this world rather than with God. We all are to a point in this category and all go through our lives making idols of things other than God. I think it is a warning from Jesus to not be satisfied with trivial Christianity but in order to bear fruit we must be buried in and stand on the deep roots of the word and be nourished and empowered by the Holy Spirit as we are gradually Sanctified.
  
  Now the above two may look quite similar and only God knows the difference. They may leave the church for any number of reasons. Be it hardship in life or the hot potato of suffering, a relationship, sex, money, career but all ultimately because they have never truly been captivated and fallen in love with the beauty of Christ.

As I have said already ultimately only God knows the state of a persons heart towards Him and we must not go around making judgements about the actions and heart of our fellow brothers and sisters wondering if they are really saved. Be FAR MORE concerned with our own hearts and work to removing the huge planks in our own lives before judging the speck in someone else's.

So there you have a brief look at why people leave a church and may or may not return or go elsewhere. Hopefully I haven’t said anything too out of line or controversial here!!

My First Sermon - Suffering, Sovereignty and Security in Christ

This is a sermon I gave at a cell cluster meeting. It is a very personal story and written as someone in it rather than looking in. It is as much aimed at me as anyone who reads it. It is a heart laid bare and vulnerable. Yes it is quite dark and probably depressing but hey, it’s real life. Enjoy is probably the wrong word!!

Introduction

Good evening everyone. Before I start please open Romans 8.

Tonight the title of my talk is Suffering, Sovereignty and Security in Christ. In order to give you an understanding of why I chose to talk on this difficult topic I would like to share some events that happened in my life that are relevant to my journey with suffering.

To balance what I am about to share there have been wonderfully joyful and blessed times as well. It isn’t all doom and gloom.

• My dad left when I was 12 years old to live with another woman.
• At secondary school I suffered 3 years of persistent emotional bullying up to and including my O level year.
• At age 16 I developed severe acne which meant I had open weeping sores on my face and back for over a year.
• By the time I was 17 I was depressed, face down and alone with the feeling no one, apart from one or two very good friends, cared.
• Two weeks before my 18^th Birthday God sovereignly stepped into my life and saved me.(Click here for that Story).
• (Edit from Original) The intervening 21 years filled with various trials and personal struggles. Some too recent and personal to share on a public forum such as this.
  

I say none of this for sympathy or to claim I have a monopoly on suffering. I don’t! There are people who have gone through far deeper suffering than I have and I am sure some of you are in this room tonight. I tell you this simply to say I have grappled with the question of why suffering exists and what is its purpose?

This is such a huge topic and I cannot hope to tackle the subject in any depth and I don’t have all the answers. What I offer is where I stand today in my walk with God and the questions I have wrestled with in the past few weeks.

The heart of the issue is this:

Do I believe that God is good and just and that I can trust him with my heart in the face of what life throws at me or am I better off on my own protecting myself?

It’s a question everyone asks at some point. It is at the heart of the fall and at the heart of the very core of sin.... Pride!!

But let’s step back and take a few minutes to look at why there is suffering in this world. I then want to look briefly at the Sovereignty of God in suffering and finally to approach that question and look at how we can be Secure in our hope in Christ during times of trial. All in 25 minutes, or maybe 3 hours!

Why is there Suffering in this World?

When faced with a world filled with the horror of both Natural and Moral evil, we need a firm foundation on which to stand or when suffering hits us, which it will, we will choose that latter option in the question and decide God can’t be trusted.

Turn on the news to hear stories of Natural disasters and the death and suffering that ensues, like the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti recently. Then there is the Staggering evil that humans are capable of doing to one another and on and on it goes. Is it any wonder that you so often hear the cry ‘If God is good, why is there all this suffering in the world?’ You may have asked that?

So let’s bring some biblical context to the existence of suffering.

Romans 8:18-25 gives us an idea of why suffering exists.

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved.

There are a few things to point out here:

· The whole of Creation, not just man, is in bondage to corruption and is subjected to futility and this covers the majority of History.

· There was a point when it wasn’t like it. In Genesis 1-2 creation was called Very Good by God. No death, suffering etc... So something happened to change Very Good to death, decay, disease, global disasters and suffering etc...

· v20 says that creation was subjected to futility by someone, it didn’t just happen by itself. It was good then it wasn’t. Who did that? God did it, God subjected. God is the ‘him’ of verse 20.
You see, Adam and Eve had committed an act of Cosmic Treason against God and as Sovereign Judge and creator He had to pass sentence.

The sentence passed could seem like a staggering overreaction and totally unfair.
But if you take an infinitely Holy, Glorious and Just God in one hand and the Sin of Adam and Eve let alone the entire world in the other, the scales of justice balance towards Him. God was right and appropriate in His sentence.

We are called to Love God 100%, with all our heart (Matthew 22:37). First Commandment! I’ve failed in that every minute of this day let alone my whole life, a sin no less grievous than eating the apple which brought down the entire universe. Every one of us stands in rebellion to God. No one is innocent and it is only by Gods Grace that there is any good in the world.

Romans 6:23 states the punishment for sin is death. Everyone will die! With the when and how decided by God!

All Suffering, not just ours is designed to point us to the Horror, outrage and seriousness of moral evil before an infinitely Holy God. We should be broken in repentance when we see suffering and staggered by Gods unmerited Grace.

In Luke 13 Jesus is asked, if the people who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them were more sinful than others. He indicated that WE should have been under that tower. “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

All suffering in the world has its ultimate root as a direct result of Sin.
That gives a brief overview of the Global Picture of Suffering from a Biblical perspective. It gives us a framework within which to shape our view suffering. Now I want to zoom in on God’s Sovereignty in and over our suffering.

Gods Sovereignty in and over Suffering

So what do I mean by God’s Sovereignty. There are various views on this in the Christian church. Ranging from a liberal fairly powerless ‘Sovereignty’ to Sovereign authority deferring to mans absolute Free Will. My working definition is this:

· God is absolute Sovereign over the entire Universe and nothing, Nothing happens in the Universe without God’s ultimate permission.

Each view, whichever you have, creates a whole host of theological questions if you follow their respective logic. I’ll briefly detail two biblical examples to lend some support to my view.

Take the story of Job! He was a man of great wealth, with 7 sons, 3 daughters, many servants and livestock. In one day Job lost all his children and property in 2 natural and 2 man made disasters.

Two reactions from Job point to God’s sovereignty. Job 1:20-22 reads:

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

And Job 2:10: Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

Job held to God’s absolute providential will as primary cause and worshiped God.

Job never finds out why these things happened, but we do. Satan approached God and twice asked for permission to challenge Job’s Godly obedience. God first gives Satan permission to take Job’s wealth and family and then to take Job’s health, but not his life. It is hard teaching but we’ll see some of God’s providential purposes in it later.

I have three points to make about Gods sovereignty over suffering:

1. God is Sovereign over all things including Life & death, Natural and moral evil and over Satan. Things would be far worse without God graciously limiting Satan’s ferocious appetite for evil.

2. Satan clearly has a hand in all manner of suffering but is a secondary cause. He is the one that actually carries out and is therefore accountable for many evil acts and intends them for our harm, but God has a primary purpose in all things and uses what Satan means for evil for our Good and His Glory.

Another example is Joseph’s story! In Genesis 50:20 he says to his brothers “what you meant for harm God meant for good”

Here it can be said that Joseph’s brothers carried out an evil act and are entirely to be held accountable for it, yet at the same time, God had a plan in it to bring about a greater good through it.

God cannot be held responsible for Evil but does use and permit evil acts for his redeeming purposes and ultimately for His Glory! See James 1:13-14

Scripture clearly teaches that on the one hand God causes all things to happen but he does so in a way that somehow preserves our ability to make real choices that have real results and that we are fully accountable for. How God does this is not clear in scripture but the overwhelming evidence in scripture is that both are somehow true.

The ultimate demonstration of this sovereignty is the death and resurrection of Christ. Planned from the beginning of time. Not as plan B in response to the Fall but the centrepiece to the demonstration of Gods Glory, Justice, Love, Grace and Mercy and absolute ruling authority over all of history.

3. This brings me to my final point about Sovereignty. If we are not careful we could end up viewing God in His sovereignty one the one hand as being like an uncaring capricious father who does what he wants for no rhyme or reason or on the other as mere robotic Fatalism? But they both totally miss the meaning of Gods Sovereignty.

Spurgeon commented:

What is fate? Fate is this – whatever is, must be. But there is a difference between that and Providence. Providence says, whatever God ordains must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some great end. Fate does not say that.... There is all the difference between fate and Providence that there is between a man with a good eye and a blind man.

God works all things according to the counsel of his will! Ephesians 1:11

We can take great comfort in Gods sovereign purposes even when we cannot see the whole picture.

Eternal Security and our Sanctification in Christ

So Suffering is in the world on account of Sin and all things are governed by Gods Sovereign Providence, including our suffering.

So what do we do with all of this? How does it help when the storm strikes?

The logical conclusion of my expressed view is that it was God’s will that my Dad left home, that I was bullied and had acne; and God has some great purpose in it. On the one hand those things are abhorrent to God from his revealed word yet at the same time in God’s providence He willed they should happen. As much as that is a hugely difficult concept to grasp I believe it absolutely biblical.

How you deal with suffering entirely depends on your view of God. To go back to my original question:

Do I believe that God is good and just and that I can trust him with my heart in the face of what life throws at me or am I better off on my own protecting myself?

I have five observations I would like to make about coping with the storms of life, in order to help answer that question?

1. It is ok to feel pain. If we take Job 1:20, which we often overlook for verses 21 and 22:
20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 “Naked I came etc...”

There is deep pain in that verse; he mourned his loss to the core. His 10 children were dead, what deeper pain can there be than that for a dad? For seven days he sat silent as did his friends with him. The only thing they got right. Yet in his pain he acknowledged and found security in Gods sovereignty and gave God glory. Not singing a happy clappy praise song or quoting “greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world”.

Trusting God doesn’t anaesthetize pain. It is true we should never despair as we are not without hope but don’t ever pretend that God desires some stoic self resolve to carry on as normal. Pain is meant to disrupt and be felt.

Western Christianity seems to avoid the problem of pain. Some even claiming that it is never God’s will for us to feel pain or suffer if we are saved. They’ve clearly never read Paul. We’re uncomfortable around those who are in pain. Maybe it’s just me but we instinctively feel that we shouldn’t feel pain as joy filled evangelicals. We can feel we’re somehow failing God because we don’t feel better and aren’t full of joy. We’re allowed a week maybe, but then we feel we should be better and it’s back on with the mask of: “How are you?”, “I’m fine”! Afraid to reveal our weakness.

The song stained Glass Masquerade by Casting Crowns, sums that up perfectly:

With walls around our weakness, And smiles to hide our pain. The performance is convincing, And we know every line by heart, Only when no one is watching, Can we really fall apart. But would it set me free, If I dared to let you see, The truth behind the person That you imagine me to be? Would your arms be open? Or would you walk away? Would the love of Jesus Be enough to make you stay? ((c) Casting Crowns, Written by Mark Hall)

Please don’t go paddling up that river in Egypt! Denial is dangerous to the heart and body. Repressed Pain will work its way out in other ways. Addictions, compulsive disorders, cynicism, angry outbursts from nowhere, bitterness to others, or escapist pursuits designed to anaesthetise painful emotions. Ultimately long term denial of pain leads to a dead heart unable to feel Joy, happiness even Love. Repressing –ve emotions leads to ALL emotions being taken down and ultimately depression. Trust me!

But Read Psalm 88! It is a psalm that is so dark and desperate and uniquely has no happy ending. It is there to tell us it is ok to feel pain. To cry out to God when we don’t feel He is there.
There is a time to weep and mourn. You must work it through and let God bring Grace in it and eventually healing. If not now, fully in heaven.

We will groan inwardly in this life as Paul says in Romans 8:23, and outwardly because we are only sojourners in this world, it is not our home. This is only temporary. This leads me to the second point.

2. We do Have Glorious HOPE! Hope deferred makes the heart sick, Proverbs 13:12. God knows we need hope to survive. In Jesus’ resurrection we find our ultimate hope for new life. But that’s another sermon!

Going back to Romans 8:18-25, it is full of glorious hope:

V18 Jesus will return and we will see a beauty so Glorious and all satisfying, finally seeing Him as He really is.

V19 & 23 We will be transformed. These bodies of ours, with all their disease, sin, suffering will be changed into His likeness, fully redeemed. Glorified bodies, able to enjoy God and creation the way we were meant to. No more tears or suffering!

But not only our bodies the entirety of creation is transformed, like nothing we have ever imagined.

Suffering and death holds out no hope for a non Christian but for those who are in Christ it is no longer a curse. Death has lost its sting and is redeemed. It is a passageway to Glory. We have hope!

But if our heart is not set on Jesus and this future hope, we will set our hope in what we can see and control. In an endless list of idols like TV, sex, drugs, comfort, Church, family, house, job, spouse, holidays. See Jeremiah 2:13

Do we Settle for muddy cess pits now, or look to our future all satisfying eternal hope in Christ.
Future hope helps us see our suffering in the perspective of Gods eternal plans.

3. Three Observations about the purpose of Suffering for a Christian.

a. Firstly Suffering is never futile for a Christian.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

No amount of good theology is able to take the pain out of suffering. However it does give hope and enable us to suffer well and persevere.

We sometimes do not know the purpose for our suffering and we will wrestle with questions like: Why me? Why now? What’s the point? How does this help? But we must remember we don’t have the whole picture, as Job didn’t.

Asking why is not wrong but the truth is, we may never see what the purpose was this side of heaven.

Corrie ten Boom, who suffered much during World War II when she was imprisoned for helping Jews said:

‘the suffering of the world is like looking at the bottom of a tapestry. God is weaving it from the top down, and he sees the picture developing. We're looking at it from the bottom up, and we're seeing all of these tangled threads. It doesn't look like it's making any sense at all, but it's the same tapestry’.

b. Secondly Suffering is for our Sanctification

In the absolute darkest moments we cling to God because there isn’t anything else to cling to. We know nothing else brings us any true hope at all. Ultimately that is Gods good purpose. Suffering is permitted and used by God to graciously wean us off of dependence on ourselves and onto trusting fully in Him. Away from idolatry to true worship. It’s all about sanctification.

This was God’s purpose with Job. Satan’s goal was to show that Job would disown God if he didn’t have his wealth, family and health. That Job only loved God because of the blessings he had received and if he lost it all he would disown God. It was a challenge to God’s goodness and infinite worth.

This is always Satan’s goal in blessing or suffering. To challenge our need of God in plenty or our faith that God is good and trustworthy in suffering.

Either way, in suffering or blessing, to draw us away from holding God as the highest treasure in our lives and to take away our Joy in Him.

God’s purposes are the exact opposite. (James 5:11. Romans 5:3-4)

In losing his health and prosperity God demonstrated both that Job held God as all sufficient and also revealed the lurking pride in his heart.

When things go wrong God is not punishing you if you are a believer, it is not punitive. It may be discipline if you are suffering because of your own sin. But either way it’s the Grace of a loving father going to any length to restore his children to wholeness!

To reiterate, God’s purposes when times of suffering come are to graciously reveal sinful pride in our own hearts and draw us to dependence on Him.

But in order to understand what God would teach us we need to examine our heart and souls response to suffering. How does your heart respond to suffering? Ask yourself that question when things go wrong. It is a great gauge to how much you trust God with your heart.

1 Peter 1:6-7: In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

When faced with suffering we have a choice! Get angry with God, wave our fist and choose option two of my question; ‘If that’s the way you treat me I’m better off alone!’ or engage with your heart and realise that what God is doing in our suffering is to refine and purify us. To remove the dross in the furnace of suffering like a surgeon targeting and cutting out the disease; yes it hurts, but the result is greater wholeness and ability to draw near to God.

Let us not be afraid of searching our hearts, scared that we are becoming too self preoccupied. There is a big difference between looking inward, being brutally honest and wrestling with God about how you feel than to navel gazing for self pity’s sake. One is self centred the other is for the sake of learning what God would teach you about Him and about yourself in the midst of suffering. It requires humility and results in repentance.

Don’t waste the opportunity trials bring for you to learn and be further transformed into the likeness of Christ.

c. Thirdly Suffering for the purpose of Helping others and to Glorify God

2 Corinthians 1:4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

The final thing I want to say about the purpose of suffering is that when we are suffering and if/when we are through it we are enabled to help others and Glorify God in the process. I can testify to God using my story to enable me to come alongside those with similar history.

James Tiberius Kirk once said ‘How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life’. (Yes that is a Star Trek reference)

How we approach suffering and ultimately death says much about who it is we place our hope and trust in. When the world sees us honestly wrestling with suffering of any sort and not losing hope that is one of the greatest pointers to our Saviour we can make.

4. We must never take Grace for Granted or put God on Trial.

When things go wrong, I think it fair to say, we tend to presume upon His Grace instead of being amazed by it and we forget he is Just in everything He does.

We put God in the dock when things go wrong; we put Him on Trial as Job did! I look back over my Christian life and can see several times when I have set myself as Judge over what God has allowed to happen, even small things. “What are you doing God? That’s not the way to deal with that person. That will just turn them away from you, if you just did this and that”.

Or we wave a fist shouting “That’s not fare!” demanding that God give an account of himself to explain his treatment of us. Stamping our feet like spoilt children. Can you hear the arrogance in that? This highlights the core of what God wants to reveal and remove in our Sanctification, Pride!

We are not the centre of the universe. God is not a Genie to be called upon to make us comfortable.

Romans 11:33-34 says: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”

Go back to what I said about the correlation with Suffering and Sin. When we see or experience suffering we must remember the outrageousness of sin not the injustice of God.

Eternity in hell is fair. Death is fair. Jesus nailed to a cross..... that’s undeserved Grace.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!

5. God is not indifferent to our suffering. We are fully Secure in Him!

1 Peter 4:19 - Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

Hebrews 4:15-16 - For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Jesus went through more suffering than we can ever imagine. Take the enormity and outrage of the Sin committed against God that I have tried to communicate and remember that on the cross Jesus took the punishment that was deservedly ours upon Himself.

Multiply the sin of Adam and Eve by the thousands that we have committed then by the whole number of the human race and know, that Jesus’ suffering and death matched every one of those universe crushing sins, demonstrating His infinite love and worth in the process.

Though God may seem so silent and so distant in our darkest times He is 100% for us. The Cross shouts that to us.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? ...Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword...

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39

Conclusion

Hopefully I haven’t depressed you all. I pray that you hear God’s heart for you. We all have seasons of plenty and blessing as well as seasons of sorrow, sometimes all mixed up. How we respond and let God shape and change our hearts in both seasons is of equal importance. It is all part of the journey of Sanctification we are all on. Your willingness to engage with that determines how much God is glorified and you are sanctified.

So Do I believe that God is good and just and that I can trust him with my heart in the face of what life throws at me?

In all honesty, Yes... and No. We have fickle hearts. Just a few years ago I would have reacted very differently, “It’s so unfair” would have been my cry! But because of how I now view God’s sovereignty and because last year in my search for understanding what Joy in God meant I was challenged by and took to heart Matthew 13:44

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

God is the ultimate Treasure in the universe and source of Joy! It is Him we must cling to when the storms come. If I reject God there is nothing else. There is no one who truly understands us, enters our suffering and who will never leave or forsake us.

Who will walk through the valley of the shadow of death and give us hope and a future, Jesus will. God is in absolute sovereign control of all things. We can trust Him with our hearts! We can trust in his perfect justice! We can trust in His glorious undeserved Grace and Mercy. He sent Jesus. He IS Good!

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2

Thank you for listening!

Sam Storms and Adrian Warnock on being a Reformed Charismatic

Great interview and Wisdom from a couple of wise men of God on bringing together two camps of Christianity that haven’t always seen eye to eye.

Or put it more simply, seeing what the Bible sais about it!!!

Sam Storms On Pastoring As A Reformed Charismatic from Adrian Warnock on Vimeo.

Hope in Loss

I just came across this on the Internet. In 2005 the daughter in law of Wayne Grudem, who is a wonderful bible scholar (Wayne that is), was killed instantly in a car crash after just 3 months of marriage to Alex Grudem, Wayne’s son. The link below is a recording of the funeral service. Now this may seem awful that they published this but having just listened to three of the small MP3’s it is not. Listen first to Wayne Grudems message, then to Alex Grudems Thoughts and finally John Pipers message.

It is painful to hear it, especially if you have suffered loss yourself that is not yet worked through. It will break into your heart and outpour in tears or you don’t have a heart. But the hope in the midst of grief and sorrow in these messages is staggering. This is real Christians working out their salvation in a fallen world and holding fast to the promises of God in scripture. Clinging to the Hope to which we are called as followers of Jesus Christ.

Link HERE

May God be your strength in the depth of your sorrow and lift your eyes to see the glorious future that is available for those that Love Christ.

What do you Treasure most in Life?

The question of what we treasure most in this life is probably the single most important question that any person can ask! What/who is the person, object or activity that for you is the most important thing in your life?

This is another post prompted by my reading of John Piper’s Desiring God. He refers to Matthew 13:44 at one point and that verse stuck with me:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding a one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

I include verse 45 and 46 as it also makes the same point that struck and challenged me. I have heard and read that verse many times over the years but the full meaning of it has never really jumped out at me before. What is Jesus saying here? What is this kingdom of heaven that he is referring to? Why should it be our ultimate treasure that we would give up everything else to gain it?

So what is the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus is referring to here? As I would understand it the Kingdom of Heaven is where the King resides. A desire for the Kingdom here is not a desire to just live there and enjoy the benefits, but a desire to be with the King himself. The Treasure therefore in the Kingdom is intimate fellowship with God in Christ. The thing that is worth giving up everything else in the the world for to have that treasure is Christ Himself. Not His gifts, blessings or any of the other benefits lavished on us by God, but Christ alone.

Paul put it brilliantly in Philippians 3:7-11:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

The translation in the King James of ‘rubbish’ in verse 8 is ‘dung’. This to me is a more powerful image of the comparison between what he has gained in Christ to what he had before.

But going back to Jesus’ words. Notice another word used here describing the way in which the man sells all that he has in order to gain the treasure. In ‘Joy’ he does it. I had never noticed that word before. Or rather it had never jumped out at me. To gain Christ is a Joy. Not only that, I would suggest the greatest Joy any human can ever know. The joy of fellowship, relationship, intimacy and being fully known by our wonderful Creator God is comparable to nothing else. It was what we were created for and is what was broken by the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. From then on we settled for treasure that was under our control. Our thirsts and desires became corrupted. Instead of desiring intimacy with God as our greatest source of pleasure, joy and satisfaction we turn to created things to satisfy that longing for what only God can provide. Be it sex, money, power, recognition, relationships, kids, drugs, pornography, alcohol, religion. Whatever becomes the central thing in our lives that fills that gap.

The trouble is these are dung. Some in and of themselves are not sinful. It is not wrong to want friendship, to do well at work, to have a happy marriage etc… but when those things become primary or pre-eminent then they have become idols. Something created in the place of God the creator. This is a bad thing indeed and far more insidious than many realise. Satan's greatest achievement is to get us to worship and idolise anything apart from God. That is the root of Sin in our lives, idolatry!

Our desires have become so corrupted and weak that we no longer desire God. Our thinking has become foolish Jeremiah 4:22, Jeremiah 5:21 and Romans 1:21:

For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Also Psalm 14:3

They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.

So left in our sinful states we will never seek God for satisfaction. We in fact are incapable of doing so since we are in darkness because of Sin and actually prefer to stay that way given the choice.

John 3:18-20

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

So left to our own devices we will never choose God as our treasure. Like in the film Wall-E he finds a box with a diamond ring in it. He does not know that the diamond ring is beautiful and valuable, so throws the ring out being more enamoured by the box that contained the treasure. It is a work of God to open our eyes to the beauty of Christ by the process called regeneration. Our dead hearts are made alive and we, for the first time, see Christ for who He really is. The most important and beautiful treasure we have ever seen. Our hearts can do nothing but respond in repentance and faith and with Holy Joy trust in Christ. What once seemed boring and irrelevant becomes the greatest desire of the heart. Not health, wealth, prosperity but God. This is the new birth of a person passing from death to life. From Hell bound to Heaven bound. From a heart of stone to a heart of flesh, Ezekiel 36:26 and Jeremiah 24:7. The birth of a new Christian!

To quote John Piper from Desiring God, page 73, Chapter 2 – Conversion (see link below):

Saving faith is the confidence that if you sell all you have and forsake all sinful pleasures, the hidden treasure of holy joy will satisfy your deepest desires. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable. It is the confidence that He will come through with His promises and that what He promises is more to be desired than all the world.

So is that you? Would you say that you treasure Christ in this way? It is easy to say you believe in Jesus. Many people ‘believe’ in Jesus. But unless you have and know Christ as your ultimate treasure then you just know facts and your ‘faith’ may not be a saving faith. For when we are converted we gain a new taste, a new desire. That of knowing Christ Crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Worship and praise becomes a natural response to this new desire for we praise what we find glorious. Gratitude for what Christ did for us on the Cross and through the resurrection. Only a true believer can understand and experience what Matthew 13:44 is really talking about.

Psalm 63:1-8 gives us a feel for what it means to thirst after and be satisfied in God:

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
4 So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will a lift up my hands.

5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
6 when I remember you upon my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
7 for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

Is that the depth of feeling you have when you open your heart and allow it the freedom to cry out its deepest desire? For God is most Glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him (John Piper). God’s first and foremost desire is that He is Glorified above all things. Our purpose in this life is to Glorify God by enjoying Him forever as the Westminster Catechism states, slightly altered by JP. So we are satisfied and God is Glorified. In fact God commands that we be satisfied in him:

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

Where those desires are the renewed desires post conversion. I don’t believe this means God just gives us what we ‘want’. He may do out of His divine goodness and has certainly promised to give us what we ‘need’. However I believe the desires of our heart that the Psalm is talking about are in fact God himself in Christ. If God is our supreme treasure then it follows that the desires of our heart will be Him. Our Joy is found in delighting ourselves in Christ where He responds by giving Himself to us as our hearts deepest desire.

If this is something Alien to you then may I suggest you ask God to reveal who He is to you. You need to be saved from, to be blunt, an Eternity in Hell. This is not an eternity away from God, or Annihilation, it is a conscious and justified eternity of punishment and torment. However to just want to avoid that is not enough. I am sure everyone would want to avoid that but apart from Christ where doesn’t become you saving treasure. In order to enter Heaven for eternity you need to desire Christ as your ultimate saving treasure and want to spend eternity with Him. Ask God to renew your heart and enable you to see Christ fully. Get a Bible and read it. Join a church of like minded believers who treasure Christ and live to Glorify Him.

This is a journey I have only just begun. At the beginning of the year I stated my goal was to learn what it means to find Joy in God. Now, in December, I am starting to see the faint embers of understanding what that actually means. It is an exciting journey to start. After 20 years of being a Christian God is calling me to a deeper level with Him that I could not have imagined 20 years ago when I first placed my trust in Christ as my saviour. I pray, God willing, that the next 20 years see me cling to God and fight for Joy in a way that Glorifies Him and deeply satisfies the cry of my heart.

Brilliant teaching on John 6:44 – Why do some Choose Christ and others Don’t?

Ok long title but this is some of the best and straightforward teaching I have heard on what Theologians call Divine Election. Basically regarding why do some people come to Christ and others do not. All this is taught from John 6:41-51 without dipping into the more obvious verses on Election in Ephesians and Romans.

This is such a difficult and controversial subject in Christianity. Whichever side of the argument you fall it has consequences for how you view what God’s Sovereignty means practically and how you interpret free will. I think he deals fairly and clearly with the issue.

In the sermon JP deals with what would be termed the Calvinistic viewpoint and why he thinks it is the correct biblical interpretation, as do I and next week will deal with the alternative viewpoint, often referred to as Arminianism. Whichever view you have I would so recommend you take the time to listen to this teaching. If only to hear a different viewpoint if you disagree which is always a good thing to do anyway.

Click HERE for the website with the notes and link.

Click the link below for the Video:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/4404/Video/

Click here for just the audio:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/4404/Audio/

Spiritual Depression in the Psalms

This is a great sermon by John Piper, based on Psalm 42, on dealing with difficult times in your life in a very real but God honouring way. Very down to earth spiritual practicality without any unhelpful uber/hyper super charismatic spirituality. Not that JP does that at all. Just plain old using the word of God and clinging to Truth in the face of tough trials that threaten to overwhelm you and most of all being brutally honest about where you are at.

The points that struck me are where Piper list 6 practical things from the Psalm to do when struggling.

1. Asking god why is a legitimate question.
2. Affirm God’s Sovereign Love. Recognising that God is in Sovereign Control of all things and that His love is beyond anything we can fully grasp yet must cling to.
3. Sing! Yes Sing! Not happy clappy joyous stuff that may not be inappropriate to where you are at but songs that affirm truth and that are brutally honest. Many modern worship songs just don’t go there which is very sad.

For example, Isaac Watts wrote these verses to be sung:

How long wilt Thou conceal Thy face?
My God, how long delay?
When shall I feel those heav’nly rays
That chase my fears away?

How long shall my poor labouring soul
Wrestle and toil in vain?
Thy word can all my foes control
And ease my raging pain.

4. Preach to your own soul. This is a key theme from John Piper and is so helpful. It is also a very good reason to memorise scripture. Preach helpful key truths from the word at yourself. The power of the Word through the Holy Spirit is not something to be underestimated.
5. Remember past experiences of close and intimate times with God.
6. Thirst for God as the Deer Pants for Water. This for me is the key to hanging in there when all things around have gone bad and when they are going well. Keeping absolutely focussed on clinging to and thirsting for God alone. Recognising that without God there is nothing else. Where else would you go? Clinging to God and gaining intimacy with the Lord is more important than relief from your circumstances. It is ok to desire relief but not at the expense of clinging to God.
   
   First you need to recognise the thirst inside you for God. Accessing that thirst and not minimising the feelings that come when you do. It is a deep desire that can be uncomfortable for many who live on the surface of their emotions because it is at the heart of who we are as Image bearers of God. We were created so that only God can satisfy that thirst. Therefore to get in touch with it is to uncover a profound ache deep in the soul longing to be satisfied. If you go to the wrong place for it you are in deep trouble.
   
   The word of Habakkuk 3:17-19 are apt here. That is my prayer in all things. To gain a depth of trust and faith in God that holds me firm in all circumstances.

Anyway CLICK HERE for the sermon link and enjoy some wonderful biblical teaching.

For the VIDEO CLICK HERE!

Worship in Spirit and in Truth

I have been reading, on and off, ‘Desiring God’ by John Piper. It is one of those books that I can only read short bits of because there is so much to take in. Re-reading sections is often necessary to grasp what JP is trying to communicate. Not because he is a bad communicator, but because the concepts are so deep to grasp.

The chapter I want to look at here is on Worship. It start with the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:7-26

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

After engaging with the woman Jesus, in a series of leads tries to draw the woman towards who He is. She is very slow to grasp what he is saying and sees only the practical and not the spiritual. So Jesus goes for the heart and addresses her adultery. Not out of cruelty but because often the only way into a persons heart is through a wound. Backed into a corner the woman responds in a common way, by changing the subject. As Piper puts it “Why, yes as long as we are talking about my adultery, what is your stance on the issue of where people should worship?”. Amazing isn’t it how we can try to so easily take the focus off ourselves, when the light is shined upon us and place it on something totally unconnected. However Jesus follows her rationale and takes us to the heart of the issue. The issue is not where we worship but far more important is how and whom we worship.

The Samaritan woman did not ‘know’ the One she worshipped. Worship must be based on having a true understanding of who God is as well as being deep and passionate in the heart.

The two paragraphs at the bottom of page 81 in my version are brilliantly insightful and I will quote them:

Worshipping in spirit is the opposite of worshipping in merely external ways. it is the opposite of empty formalism and traditionalism. Worshipping in truth is the opposite of worship based on an inadequate view of God. Worship must have heart and head. Worship must engage emotions and thought.

Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full of artificial admirers. On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship.(page 81-82, Desiring God, John Piper, Inter-Varsity Press)

Piper then lays out the following picture: The Fuel of worship is the truth of God. A true understanding of who God is as revealed in scripture. The furnace of worship being the regenerated human spirit. The heat of worship being the stuff of the heart. Like the joy, gratitude, trust, reverence etc… One thing is missing in that picture. The fire! This is where the Holy Spirit comes in. Until the Holy Spirit turns an unregenerate soul, which is dead in spirit and unable to worship God, into a living spirit there is no true worship. ‘That which is born of the Spirit is spirit’.

So our vision of God’s true greatness, fired by the flame of the Holy Spirit in the furnace of the renewed human spirit brings the resulting outpouring of our affections in worship with song, tears, longings and obedient lives.

What is then pointed out is that all things can be done in vain.

Piper then quotes Isaiah 29:13

Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men

Worship here is seen as Honouring God. Not increasing God’s honour since that is impossible. It is rightly reflecting the honour He already has. But the core point is that it must be done with gladness or else it is not worship. It is more than just willing the heart to try and worship. For without real desire there can be no real worship.

We can outwardly go through all the ‘acts’ of worship however they are performed in the church by an act of the will. This is dead worship where the heart is not engaged.

So what makes worship authentic?

The psalms give a whole array of reasons to worship God. From stunned silence at the holiness of God, Psalm 46:10, Habakkuk 2:20, Psalm 33:8

Or in reverence at our sinfulness faced with Gods power. Isaiah 8:13, Psalm 5:7

This leads to brokenness and grief for out sinfulness, Psalm 51:17, Isaiah 57:15

Then a longing for God in the brokenness. Psalm 42:1-2, Psalm 73:25-26, Psalm 63:1

God brings relief from the burden of sin and lifts our hearts Psalm 30:11-12 and turns our gratitude into Hope Psalm 42:5-6 and Psalm 130:5

Our heart will, in the end, long not for God’s gifts but for God himself. Psalm 27:4, Psalm 16:11, Psalm 37:4

These are the things that turn worship in vain to true worship. A heart captured by God which responds in the only way it can. Worship becomes an end in itself. John Calvin puts it like this: “If God contains the fullness of all good things in himself like an inexhaustible fountain, nothing beyond him is to be sought by those who strike after the highest good and all the elements of happiness” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion)

If we see the reality of God arrayed in front of us through His word and His world and our hearts do not respond with any grief, longing, hope, fear, awe, joy or thankfulness then any outward act of worship is dead. We cannot honour God if our ‘heart is far from him’.

We must worship God! This is not a ritualistic must, out of duty, but one of deep heartfelt desire to worship. For instance, I must tell my wife I Love her. Not out of duty, or I think it the right thing to do, but because deep in my heart I feel passionately in love with her and that causes me to want to say it. If I say it out of duty then it is meaningless. So it is with the worship of God. It is utterly meaningless unless motivated by a heart captivated by God alone. We come to God humbly recognising our desperate need of Him knowing that He alone can satisfy the deep heartfelt longing to be happy.

Piper then goes on to describe three stages of worship that I found to be terribly helpful. The above could leave us feeling like we are, either not Christians, or that we have such dead spirits that we cannot worship God truly.

The first stage is where it all starts. A barrenness of soul that can scarcely feel any longing but yet feels that sorrow for having so little love. Psalm 73:21-22

I think we would all recognise this stage and is one I certainly seem to return to far too often.

The second stage is where we feel deep longing and desire yet are not feeling the fullness of the banquet. We can recall, maybe, times when we did and felt Gods goodness close.

I would say this stage is where most of us end up. In this world, where God’s kingdom has come yet is not yet we are caught between two realities. No matter our satisfaction in God in this life we will still lack fullness and therefore will feel that deep longing having tasted yet not been sated. The more we taste, the more insatiably we will feel our thirst and longings for that which can only be fully satisfied in heaven.

The third stage Piper describes as being one where we feel unencumbered joy in Gods perfection. Being satisfied with Gods excellency and overflowing with the joy of fellowship.

I am not sure if JP is hinting that this is possible in this life or that it is the ultimate goal of the Christian yet is only achieved in heaven. I personally would err on the side of heaven, but with the caveat that God could break into our reality in such a way as to bring a temporary taste of this third stage.

God is glorified even by a spark of longing in our hearts. Again this spark can not be manufactured or willed into existence. It only comes from a heart renewed and touched by the Holy Spirit.

The chapter then moves on to look at how we are too easily pleased and settle for far less than could be achieved. He quotes a brilliantly insightful sermon by C. S. Lewis that talks about how our thinking has been influenced too much by the stoics and Kant. That enjoyment or worship is a bad thing. Lewis points out that if we look at the rewards promised in the Gospels it would indicate our desire is too weak not too strong. Half heartedly fooling about with drink, drugs, sex when infinite joy is offered. As Jeremiah 2:11-13 puts it. We walk past a spring of living water and dig about in muddy cesspools looking for satisfaction.

Finally Piper takes us back to the ‘Truth’ part of the worship in ‘spirit and in truth’. There must be a balance between spirit which much of the above tackles and truth. He makes the point that the only affection that honour God are those rooted in the rock of biblical truth.

Without the revealed word of God in scripture we can know nothing of the true nature of who God is. Without the word we cannot know the whom we worship. As the Samaritan woman did not know.

Without the heat of the Holy Spirit our worship will be dead and lifeless. Without the light of the word then worship becomes a fervent, corrupt out of control mess leading wholly in the wrong direction. A deep passion for truth and sound doctrine need not create dead lifeless worship as is often said by those who are unwilling to see this connection. If the feast of worship is rare in the land, it is because there is a famine of the word of God (Amos 8:11-12)

So worship should engage both the mind to grasp the truths of God’s reality and for the heart to respond to the beauty of that truth. This is why I like worship songs that declare wonderful truths about God and take our eyes off ourselves and focus them on Him. Then my heart responds to the truth with a longing to draw closer and experience the satisfaction of honouring God in worship. For in doing so ones soul finds the only source of true lasting joy in the universe. To know God and be known by Him.

The Chief end of man is to Glorify God

by

enjoying Him forever.

All scripture quoted is from the ESV

This is a review and paraphrase of Chapter 3 of

Desiring God
John Piper
Inter-Varsity Press
ISBN: 978-1-84474-044-4
© 1986, 1996, 2003 by Desiring God Foundation