The Downwardly-mobile God

“God is the God of the humble, the miserable, the afflicted, the oppressed, the desperate, and of those who have been brought down to nothing at all.” Martin Luther

Really? Would this God be welcomed at your church, and my church? And would His friends?

Change

"We often doubt God, not because He has been unfaithful to the promises of His Kingdom, but because He has not faithfully endorsed the priorities of our kingdom." Paul Tripp

Now reread that statement. And then read it a third time. It's true, isn't it? We are all kingdom builders. Every thought, attitude, desires, gift, opportunity, effort, is a brick in the building of a kingdom. But whose kingdom? Is it ours, or is it God? And which kingdom is God investing Himself in building in our lives?

Disciples are learners. As followers of Jesus we are committed to learning from Jesus. We are committed to exposing ourselves to His Word. That can be a painful and sometimes a humiliating exposure. God's Word judges the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts (Hebrews 4.13). God's Word shows us up for who we really are, and what we really desire. God's Word shows us that each of us has an idolatrous heart. The plain and unvarnished truth is that we love ourselves too much! As long as we can build our kingdoms - of happiness, pleasure, success - then we care very little for anyone else's, God's, included.

Of course, as Christians, we have a new heart, and a new nature. We are nothing less than new people, saved by the blood of Christ, and recreated by His Holy Spirit. But there is an ongoing process of transformation for every follower of the Christ. The Holy Spirit wants to take God's Word and to apply it to the labyrinthine depths of our hearts, to shine new light on our undiscovered, corrupted desires. God wants us to see how much we are still in love with ourselves, and how much more He wants to change us into committed followers of Jesus. God wants to make us just like His Son, Jesus. Jesus Alone was the only man who ever lived with a heart fully for His Father. As such, He was the only truly free and perfect man who ever lived. His life exhibits the beauty of a heart free from corrupting and enslaving desires. The wonder for us is that God wants to make us just like Him. He wants us to long that His kingdom will come, and that He will use us in the furthering of His kingdom purposes, that He will build His kingdom in our lives.

if we begin to grasp these purposes, God's purposes for us, our lives will take on a new energy and direction. We will look at our natural desires with a new scepticism, and new readiness to be aware, and critical. We naturally are experts at justifying ourselves and all of our passions and actions. But if we truly know and believe that we are naturally selfish, we will look to God with a hunger that He would work to change us, not with just outward change which will be fleeting, but with change from within. Only that change will have lasting fruit.

If we are serious about living for God's kingdom, we will feel differently, too, about the disappointments which come our way. Let's face it, all of us battle with failure and disappointment. Often, though, our disappointments are ten thousand times more painful to us because they are the failing of our own kingdoms. What do I mean?

Say, for example, someone criticises you. And let's say that it's entirely unjustified criticism. They have no reason to say what they did about you, How do you feel? Do you feel humiliated, wretched, very angry, perhaps? You can't let that slight go; you can't relate to that person in the same way again? But ask yourself, why is that criticism such a big problem to you? Why do you nurse so much anger? Might it be because you were actually so intent on building your kingdom, of your reputation? Could it be that the kingdom you were working for was the kingdom of your image in the eyes of others? And now someone has the audacity to challenge you, you feel that the kingdom is wobbling, it's vulnerable. And so you fume and rage! You are angry, because that person wouldn't endorse the way you want to be seen by others.

To go further, what about justified criticism? What if someone says something to you which has the ring of truth about it, but it's desperately uncomfortable to you? What do you do then? You may rage outwardly (few of us do, we are British, thankyou!); but most of us will retreat. We will slink off to replay the scene in our minds, and to nurse our wounded and battered egos. Again, that person wasn't endorsing our kingdom. They weren't worshipping us in a way which our hearts were demanding of them. How dare they! And rather receive an opportunity to grow in self-understanding and Christlikeness, we spoil the opportunity by running off to repair what we feel is an assault on our kingdom.

Let's just take one more step. Look back to the quotation. Paul Tripp says that the experience of problems in life can often lead us to doubt God's goodness. And nowhere do we doubt God's goodness more than with the people He has put around us! Who doesn't at some point long for a change in their family, friendship circle, church or colleagues? Then life's problems would disappear, we tell ourselves. Would they heck!! God has put in our lives just those people He intended to in order to perfect His work in us through them. That testing neighbour, that quarrelsome church member or boss, might well be the very instrument God has prepared for your life to help you to learn essential lessons in your discipleship. Oh make no mistake, time and again they will prevent you from building your kingdom of personal peace and happiness. In countless ways you'll find them exasperating, draining and difficult. But God has not put them into your lives to endorse the vision of yourself which you might want to achieve. Nor does God plan that you will build your own kingdom through them. No, they are God's instruments to help you instead to look to build His kingdom. Your heart struggles with them will, if the Spirit is at work, lead you to a greater pursuit of God's Kingdom. For that we will one day learn to be eternally thankful.

The Death of the Righteous

John Donne, 1572-1631, poet, preacher, thinker, sufferer. He saw life's hardships in ways few of us ever do, enduring poverty, persecution, and numerous deaths of family members, including his wife and several children. His working life was a series of battles and broken dreams. In all of it, though, he discovered the certainties of God's promises, and the sure hope of resurrection life in Christ.

Several years before he died Donne commissioned the picture above which he put in his study. It is Donne in his grave clothes, the body he knew Christ would come to claim, and take to a place of peace and joy. Our shallow, death-denying world needs the outlook of a John Donne, and the wise admonition of this gentle friend to remind us that we are but dust, and shall soon to dust return.

Enjoy these words, and feel the power of their Christian comfort. Of those who are in Christ Donne says,

"they shall awake as Jacob did, and say as Jacob said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and this is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven,” and into that gate they shall enter, and in that house they shall dwell, where there shall be no cloud nor sun, no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light, no noise nor silence, but one equal music, no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession, no foes nor friends, but one equal communion and identity, no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity. Keep us, Lord, so awake in the duties of our callings, that we may thus sleep in Thy peace, and wake in Thy glory."

Sermon XV

Will the Real God please stand up?

1 Samuel 5 is a classic OT story – it’s got everything!

Obscure and obsolete place-names
Strange-sounding god, complete with a statue
Tribal conflict
A big fight over a religious artefact
Things that go bump in the night
A just-so story
A vengeful God
A very nasty plague
A clear claim about the authority of the God of the Bible

Here are at least 9 reasons why people don’t read the Old Testament, or the Bible at all. It just seems to be tall stories. Even if we could believe them, they have no relevance on our lives, and little which attracts us to what they’re saying.
Or so we think.
Actually, this passage tells us everything about Biblical Christianity. The God of the New Testament is the same as the God of the Old Testament. What you see here is the God of the Bible, and the human heart. And God’s response to it. That’s Christianity. 1 Samuel 5 is a perfect place to start if you’re going to see what Christianity’s all about.

The passage poses two questions,and shows us their answers:

1. Why do people worship things which aren’t real?

We worship what works for us

Dagon, the god of agriculture, had always worked for the Philistine. It was natural to worship him, then. Now we live in the years AT – After Tesco, and Tesco got agriculture and food all taken care of. So we worship a different food god in a different way. Back then, to ignore Dagon would make you a fool.

And for these 11th Century BC Philistines, Dagon worked. He’s won the battle, He’d beaten this god of Israel. He had taken the ark. Remember the Ark, the special box which contained the 10 Commandments? The chapter before tells us that the Israelites put so much trust in it that they took it into battle. Now it was stolen. And the Philistines thought that they had got this god in a box. ‘Where’s the evidence for God?’ they could have shouted: ‘look at our gods, our values have beaten him. Let’s celebrate!’

What’s working for you right now? What’s an idol for you? Not sure? Ask yourself, what must I have in life, above all-else? Approval, success, romance, wild sex, power over others…..? You’re looking at your idol. And you’ll understand, then, that you’re like everyone else – religious.

We ignore the facts

Picture the scene: the Philistines had fought, and won. Dagon had come up trumps, now it’s party time! Come day 2 they get a rude awakening – they weren’t the only ones who’d crashed out after a night’s partying – Dagon had, too. Their god had toppled over. They panic, and pick him up. Day 3 comes, the same things happen, except now Dagon’s head and hands – his wisdom and strength – were cut off, and he was prostrate before the Ark. The historian’s message couldn’t be clearer.

So they didn’t do the sensible thing – after the second time – of breaking it up; they set it up again. Oh dear, it’s a sad picture, isn’t it?
But it’s not so different from life as we so often try to live it. Our gods fall over. The things we live for, the things we put our trust in, have a way of falling over, don’t they? Our gods don’t work, but yet we still turn to them, again and again. We set up the Dagon, broken though we know it is. And we ignore the despair of our hearts, because we think that next time the god won’t fail us…

It wasn’t a broken Dagon alone which showed that the real God had shown up, the facts were all over the nation of Philistia. There’s this dreadful plague – tumours and rats sounds exactly like the bubonic plague: ‘Devastation’ (v. 6) doesn’t seem too strong a way of putting it.
And then it gets more frightening, more dreadful – wherever they take the Ark death goes with it. If it weren’t so terrifying it would be comical – Ashdod, Gath, Ekron – all suffering from something which make swine flu look like a blessing! All this until our historian tells us, in v. 12, ‘their cry went up to heaven’. What started out as a victory party turned into a living hell.


2. Why don’t people worship the Living God?

They didn’t; they had seen His power. Their god was broken; their catastrophic plague. They knew that this God was Living, powerful, true; they clung to what they trusted in. Come on, they knew just what was happening. But they wanted a broken god rather than the real one, even after their minds told them how wrong they were.

The real God is too much for us

Episode tells us three things about the God of the Bible, the God of true Christianity: God is Living; God is Powerful; He’s a God we can’t play around with.

He’s Living – ask Dagon- better still, ask the Philistines. A God you can’t see – that’s scary. You never know where He is; you knew where Dagon was – right there, in his temple; in that place you could chose to go to or not to go to. You could involve him in your life if you wanted to; you do a few things and you can believe that you’ve made him happy, you’re in His good books. That’s religion. It’s about having the gods where you want them, getting them to do what you want them to do. Christianity’s all different: It’s not about trying to control God, but recognising that He’s in control.

He’s Powerful – you can’t put Him in a box. Think of the Philistines’ pride: they’d beaten his armies, they’d captured His magic box; now they had Him just where they wanted him. He was powerless- surely? People make that same mistake today. They think they’ve got god safely in dusty church buildings; outdated hymns; fading memories of school assemblies, Sunday school lessons. He’s a god for the children; a god for the elderly. A god for people of an earlier age. A god for other people, in other worlds. That’s Philistine theology! How wrong we are. This God is real, and He’s the God of all people, all places.

You can’t play around with Him. You can’t pass Him off, as a problem you just don’t’ want to deal with. That’s what the Philistines did, shunting the ark round the country, only to see their problems increase with every attempt they made to avoid the Living God. We need to face up to Him.


We want to live life our way

Remember Romans 1.21, 25: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened….They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.”

We don’t want to admit that we’ve been wrong: our pride just can’t handle it. Bernard Madoff wasn’t the only man to be ensnared by his pride – we all are, and it’s made fools of us all. We claim that ‘there’s no evidence’ – the repeated claim from the atheist scientist at our recent debate. But the evidence for God is all too clear. Heaven and earth cry out, as Augustine once put it, God made us! Remember the television camera with its 60,000 photo-electric elements, and then think of the human eye, with 137,000,000. One of our ears has 24,000 strings, whereas a piano has a mere 240 strings. Nobody claims that camera and pianos are accidents, mere random mutations? They’re evidence of design. Our God proclaims Himself in our world and in our minds and hearts. And His reality in gloriously proclaimed in the Bible and there in the Lord Jesus Christ. As with the Philistines long ago, it’s not the evidence that’s lacking, but the humble willingness of the people who are faced by it to make the right deductions about it. Men and women don’t’ want evidence for a God who proclaims Himself the Lord – we vainly struggle on, content to do it our way.



1 Samuel 5 makes for part funny, part terrifying reading. And it leaves us with little comfort, if we end it there. But we need to see it in the bigger and fuller picture of the revelation of all of God’s purposes, and there is a message of grace for us, for all. We remember that the invisible God has made Himself visible for all people, and that not in plagues, but in a Person. Jesus Christ, the One who is ‘in very nature God’ has stood amongst us, proclaims the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2, to be touched, studied, listened to, and trusted in. Try to think if you can on this. Eternal Deity in human flesh: this is the true and Only God. He doesn’t allow rivals. He can’t be tamed; you can’t keep Him in a Temple, or put Him in your pocket. He is the God – if we can put it like this – who ‘works’, who alone makes sense of life, and alone can root out our deepest controlling idols in order to set us free. And yet this God-man, astonishingly, was broken for us, cut down, laid in the dust of death as He took upon Himself our sins, and God’s punishment of our sins. He bore it all, and was laid as our substitute before God’s holy justice. And He lives now, He lives to raise us from the death of idolatry, to reveal truth to our blind eyes, and to give indestructible life to our mortal bodies.
He is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5.20). We trust in Him, we are delivered to the freedom of His service. We run in the path of His commands, because He has set our hearts free (Psalm 119.32).

Some Debate

Last weekend we had our debate on the question ‘what can science tell us about God?’ with Professors Lewis Wolpert and Russell Cowburn, an atheist and a Christian respectively. At my estimate about two hundred and fifty came along. It was the biggest proportion of faces unknown to me that I think I’ve ever seen at a Gunnersbury event, and the largest proportion of nonChristians, too.

We had a good time. ‘Good’, that is, meaning that the question of God was being engaged with by two excellent minds, one of them a convinced and mature Christian, with a full building listening to this exchange, whilst making their own points and asking questions in the allocated time. It was a wonderful privilege to welcome so many, a good number of whom were friends or contacts who had come onto our premises for the first time. The warmth of the welcome and the quality of the refreshments underlined, we hope, the welcome of Christ.

And yet, the event had its real frustrations. Uppermost, to my mind, was Lewis Wolpert himself. Professor Wolpert was not so much under-prepared as not even wanting to engage seriously with the question. For him it was axiomatic that science can tell us nothing about God, as God does not exist. His oft-repeated mantra was ‘but where’s the evidence?’ When presented with the challenge of the Bible’s witness to the revelation of God, and that supremely in Jesus Christ, he was entirely dismissive. Along the way he showed an alarming ignorance of the contents of the Christian faith, at one point asking why we should believe in reincarnation. His arguments against the authority of the Bible, such as they were, were a collection of far-fetched and ludicrous received ‘scholarly’ opinions which have long been discredited.

This might sound unfair to Professor Wolpert. He is a man of undoubted brilliance who has made landmark progress in his scientific specialities. Why should we demand of him that he’s au fait with the case for the historicity of Scripture? In essence, that’s not what I’m asking of him. I do, though, think that he has a responsibility to do a whole lot better than just say ‘where’s the evidence?’ when asking about God’s existence. The evidence, claims the Christian believer, is in the text of Scripture. It is evidence in events which cannot be repeated, any more than any other historical event could be repeated in order to be verified according to the criteria of scientific method. And so, yes, we do find ourselves looking back to the events of 2000 and more years ago in order to assess the claims of Christianity.

It is not an intellectual retreat for the Christian to say that God has evidenced Himself in Scripture, a record of the past. We believe that He has acted definitively in human history in a way which has been accurately recorded. We believe that that revelation is complete, sufficient and compelling in the Person of Jesus Christ. We also believe that the nature of the evidence for God, in Scripture and Christ, is of a kind with all historical evidence: ask it to be repeated in your own experience to match your own criteria of what constitutes scientific verifiability and you’re making demands which are as impossible as they are foolish.

Lewis Wolpert gave reasons which he felt were evident to anyone as to how God cannot exist. Well, he didn’t give a reason which I hadn’t thought through by the time I was eighteen. I used to convince myself that they were sufficient in order to dismiss what I knew were the Christian claims for God’s existence in Christ as recorded in the Bible. At nineteen I went to the Bible with extreme reluctance and massive scepticism. What I met there challenged my view of reality, and my confidence that I really could avoid the claims of Jesus Christ and have any intellectual integrity. I was no longer convinced that there was no evidence for God. At that time in my life I was a Classics student, and was well used to reading ancient texts from the Mediterranean and Near Eastern World. I knew that in the New Testament I wasn’t meeting myths, legends and fables. Incredible as the narrative of the New Testament was, especially in the teaching, acts and miracles of Christ, I knew that I was reading the writings of men who wrote what they were convinced was true. My assessment was that, like the one they reported, they weren’t deceitful, tying to lead a new movement from wicked motives, nor were they misguided, suffering a collective delusion about Jesus Christ. They were men who courageously testified to events and recorded them with painstaking accuracy. The challenge to us is clear: what will we do with their witness to Christ?

Russell Cowburn’s contribution to the debate was a quite a contrast to Professor Wolpert’s. Russell had prepared carefully, and was keen to engage in each point which he heard. What came through clearly in Russell’s presentation and handling of Lewis’ and the audience’s questions was that he did have a confidence in the Bible’s witness. He didn’t believe that our universe is merely the sum total of the discovered and as yet undiscovered phenomena of existence and the scientific laws which seem to govern them all. He was convinced that the Bible gives a totally reliable guide for discovering the One who created and sustains this and all worlds, and who can be personally encountered in Jesus Christ. Lewis Wolpert was unwilling to engage with the details of what Russell said. It didn’t do to say ‘there’s no evidence’ when Russell brought forth both the strong clues for an Intelligent Designer and the challenge of the Scriptures. One man’s evidence can only be dismissed if it’s shown to be inadequate. Anything less smacks of poor science, and possible prejudice.

As with all debates, there was a tangible sense of frustration in different quarters at different times. Frustration when the speakers or questioners said something which others disagreed with, and frustration, too, that there were no conclusions. It’s the standard atmosphere of debates. If one thing came home strongly to me again after the debate it’s that people love their opinions, and will hold passionately to them when faced with the challenge of looking at evidence which might be uncomfortable. To many there Russell Cowburn was the clown, the otherwise brilliant scientist who had this tragic religious ‘thing’ which he couldn’t or wouldn’t shake. I would disagree: I think he’s looked at the evidence for himself in a spirit of genuine scientific inquiry, and has concluded that all of his professional scientific endeavour is simply the quest to know more about the God who has so graciously and definitively revealed Himself in Christ.

After the debate I walked back with Lewis to his car. It was a genuine pleasure to chat with him. I sensed that the debate had wearied and probably irritated him (he’s in his eighties, and so surely lacks a little of the energy and patience he once had!). I do hope and pray that what he heard will give him reason to consider his convictions carefully. In Jesus Christ there is life, and without him there is only a fearful eternity.

Preached!

God's Word comforts, heals, disturbs and breaks, sometimes all in the same sermon.
Last Sunday morning we thought about the new humanity which God is building through His Son, Jesus Christ.

'God's New Humanity' - Ephesians 2.11-18

An Excellent Ruse!

This weekend we're hosting a debate: 'What can science tell us about God?'

This is an excellent article by Michael Ruse about the hubris of those who profess to be the voice of sane and learned inquiry as they defend and propagate an atheistic worldview. Timely words from an atheist who refuses to let them speak for him!

In Full Retreat

This week I took two days out on Tuesday and Wednesday to have a prayer retreat. I took my Bible, spending time in Ezekiel and 1 John, an i-pod with some excellent sermons to listen to, a favourite Puritan and a notebook, and headed to a cottage in the Sussex countryside. For nearly 48 hrs I was on my own with just the nature around to enjoy (kestrels, a hooting owl at night, and an industrious and deadly stoat outside the kitchen window).

So I had a break, then? Yes and no.
Yes, it was a welcome relief to put down ministry responsibilities, and a huge privilege to enjoy quiet time and space in which to think and pray. We all need this sort of space far more regularly than most of us ever make time for, whether in ministry or not. And at the same time, it was a ministry essential, with its own challenges. For those of us called to full-time Gospel ministry the need to have times alone is, to my mind, absolutely essential. I think, read, write and pray. I seek to see my sins and struggles; I also seek to review God's grace in my life, and to think clearly about my present personal and ministry life as well as to look ahead and be ready for future responsibilities. As I have more time to ponder God's Word and to seek His face He unfailingly draws close to refresh and renew. This week, yet again, He was unfailingly kind.

Not that taking a retreat is always comfortable, though. It's a genuine struggle to take the two days out of all that's going on in the normal routine, and always much to catch up on on returning. There have been times when it's not been comfortable really to bring my heart before the Lord and to be searched by His Word. Frequently I've felt bewildered and downhearted looking at the problems of my own life and those in the church. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. In a different sense, when the Lord examines us and shows us our sins often we would rather not be there. And yet; and yet God call us into fellowship with Himself in the Gospel. He wants all of us, not just some parts of our lives. Above all, He wants our hearts for Himself. He wants hearts which are so joyful to be walking with Him. He wants to examine us, to identify sin, and then to set to work on fighting against it by His Holy Spirit. You can neither pretend with God, nor can you hide from His purposes. But when the Lord reveals the glory of His love to us in Christ why, we should ask, would we ever want to keep a distance from Him? They were good days.