An Opportunity to join us in mission

This a reprint of a post I did on my blog The View From Here.

For the last couple of years we've been watching the progress of a project to build a new community just two miles from our village. Almost 10,000 homes will be built over the next 10 years or so and currently the infrastructure is being prepared. The first residents are expected to move in some time in 2008.

By comparison the village in which we currently and minister has 300 homes and the nearby village of Shortstown has about 1,000 homes (set to double in size in the next year or so). It seems obvious to me, and to others at church, that this is a God-given opportunity to engage with a new community from it's very beginnings. An opportunity to do mission in new ways with new people.

This has demanded a lot of thought and prayer about what thismight mean, and I believe it's really important that we get committed Christians into the community as early as we can. This is an opportunity to serve a new, emerging community. It's an opportunity to contribute to the DNA of a neighbourhood, a village, even a town from its beginnings and as it grows.

Will you pray with us that God will bring to these new communities Christians who will connect with their neighbours, Christians who will be able to connect with us and partner with us in reaching this new community?

If you're interested in what's happening in these developments, you can visit the main developers site here.

Prayer month (week 4)

Week 4 is available here.

David: A flawed leader

The life of David can be described in a variety of ways. We could talk about his rise to power and the role he played as the second king of Israel. We could talk about the way he took his skills as a shepherd and applied the role of leadership.

And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them. Ps. 78:72 

We could talk about his life as a mighty warrior, winning battles and defeating his enemies.

We could talk about his lapses, his moments when he failed. The times he  made mistakes of judgement and chose the wrong course of action.

The simple truth is this, David lived an ordinary life full of ordinary ups and downs, highs and lows. Just like all our other characters, David was a normal person, working out what it meant to live his life in God’s hands. He was just like you and just like me.

God’s plan for David

Where’s the first hint that we get in the Bible that God has a plan in mind for the youngest of Jesse’s sons? In 1 Samuel 16 we’ve reached a significant moment. Saul has been rejected by God as the king of Israel and has sent Samuel on a mission to anoint the king to succeed him. What is interesting at this point is that while God clearly chose Saul, he is equally clear in his choice of a successor. Secondly, there is no timescale announced. There is no hint that this newly anointed king is to straight to Saul and depose him as king. 

Once again we seemed to be facing the same question we faced with Abraham, with Moses and with Joseph: How long are you willing to wait for God to keep his promise? Abraham waited 25 years, Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness, Joseph spent 13 years in Egypt as a slave and a prisoner. 

But when God chooses David as the new king it’s not his leadership potential that brings him into close contact with the royal court, it’s his ability to play music that soothes Saul’s troubles mind. Of course there is the day that Saul throws a spear at David, it wasn’t all plain sailing.

But to answer my initial question: When do we get the first hint? The first hint comes of course in the story of Ruth. At the end of the story we read these simple words:

This then is the family line of Perez:

Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nashon, Nashon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.

Perez, in case you wanted to know, was the son of Judah.

So, in some ways, David’s rise to prominence begins with the grace of God working through the family line and through the life of Ruth, a Moabite, someone outside the line who chose to be part of the line.

The point I want to make is simply this: You cannot know the significance of your own life in the eternal purposes of God. You can only know the significance of our own life in the context of your relationship with God. Ruth did not know she was going to become the great grandmother of the king of Israel, mainly because they didn’t have kings on Israel in her day! Jesse didn’t it would be his youngest son, and David didn’t know that he would become the king to whom God would promise and everlasting link to the throne that would be fulfilled through his own son Jesus Christ. All you can know is your past and your present. All you can choose is how you live in the present. 

God’s plan for your life may be to use a son or daughter, a grandson or granddaughter or even a great-grandson or granddaughter to lead a ministry or take on a role that you cannot even imagine. Perhaps God want to influence a particular life through you. Are you willing to live for that single purpose?

Does anybody recognise the name: Mordecai Fowler Ham? No, I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t have know who he was unless I’d looked him up on the internet. There is no Wikipedia page about him, unlike one man who chose to follow Christ as a result of being at one of his evangelistic meetings.

Mordecai Fowler Ham was the preacher God used to finally bring William Franklin Graham to the point of repentance and faith. It was in 1934 that Billy Graham chose to make Jesus his leader and forgiver, but God chose someone we will never remember like we remember Billy Graham to be the person of influence in his life.

David’s highs and lows

Being chosen by God does not make us immune from mistakes. David had his ups and downs. Being chosen to be king; defeating Goliath; winning battles; being lauded by the people; seeing the ark returned to its rightful home. All great highs.

And he had his low points too: Being pursued by Saul; Pretending to be mad; adultery with Bathsheba; the murder of Uriah; the death of the son; Absalom’s rebellion; disobeying God by taking the census.

If only following God was a simple matter. We choose to follow; God gives us clear guidance, we always make the right the choice. But it isn’t that easy. We misread the signs, we misunderstand the guidance, we choose selfishness over sacrifice, self-will over God’s will. It is not easy to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, but then again it was never going to be.

The problem is that sin gets in the way. Sin means we choose to do our thing before we choose to do God’s, we choose to please ourselves before we please him. We ask’ “What’s best for me?”, rather than ,”What would Jesus do?” The question isn’t will we have high and lows, the question isn’t will we sin and fail, the question is: What will we do about it when we do?

The Difference between Saul and David

This is where I think we see the greatest difference between Saul and David. Rather like Judas and Peter, we see in David and Saul the difference between the person who chooses to throw themselves on the mercy of God and the person who simply hopes for the best and lives in denial of the truth.

When Saul found himself distanced from God, he turned to a medium for help. He did the exact opposite of that which a God-follower should do. David on the other hand, when he found himself far from God, confessed his sin, and sought God’s grace and mercy. Was David’s sin any less sinful than Saul’s? I don’t think so. God does not grade sin the way we grade it.

Secondly God looks at the heart:

the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts

The one person you cannot fool about your motives is God. 

What differentiates David from Saul is that David is described as a man who “Walked with uprightness of heart” (1 Kings 9:4)

Life lessons from David

Because he was a poet and musician, many of David’s life lessons are reflected in the Psalms he wrote. David learnt about many things: Grace; Provision; Guidance; Forgiveness; Purpose; Blessing; Mercy

Conclusion

A life lived in the hands of God is not guaranteed to be a life lived without problems and difficulties, without highs and lows. David lived just such a life.

Your highs, your lows, are not evidence of whether God loves you not, they are not evidence of whether God is blessing you or not. They are just evidence that you are living a normal human life. God has always loved you, always had a plan for you. You just need to choose to search it out and seek to live for him. You may never know the significance of what you do, you may never see the fruit of your faithfulness in this life, only in the life to come.

Rick Warren talks about living life in the light of eternity. In The Purpose Driven Life he says this: 

“The consequences of your mission will last forever; the consequences of your job will not. Nothing else you do will ever matter as much as helping people establish an eternal relationship with God.” [284]

We could add to that that the purpose of your life will last forever if it’s God purpose for your life. But only you can choose, so choose wisely!

Peter

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. John Powell

It’s possible to look at Peter’s life and see only a series of incredible highs followed by a series of incredible lows. He seems to go from mountaintop to valley floor with amazing speed and ease.

But maybe the thing about Peter is that he’s an enthusiast. He’s the kind of person you meet who sits in a foreign restaurant and orders the dish that sounds most interesting.

He’s not reckless of course. The truth is that being around Jesus gives him the confidence to step out of boats, fish from the other side and challenge the authority of the Sanhedrin when they try to stop him preaching.

As we’ve done with our other characters, let’s try to track Peter’s progress from his fisherman beginnings to his apostolic ministry.

Peter the Fisherman

In Mark’s gospel our first encounter with Peter is with his brother Andrew as they fish. Not as recreational fishermen, but as their business. John gives us a little more detail inasmuch that Andrew was a disciple of John who followed Jesus on John’s instruction and went to find his brother. Their hometown was Bethsaida, although it’s possible that they relocated to Capernaum to be nearer the sea of Galilee (both Mark and Matthew talk about Peter’s home in the context of Capernaum rather than Bethsaida).

The bottom line is this: Peter was a fisherman. He was not a scholar, hadn’t been to university in Jerusalem, he just worked in the family business. Jesus, of course, knew about the world of the family business, and he probably knew a thing or two about working for his father, both earthly and heavenly.

I guess, when it come to it, you probably wouldn’t have been able to pick out anything about Peter that set him apart from every other fisherman of his time. Better than some, not as good as others. Possibly a person with leadership qualities, but otherwise just an ordinary man going about his ordinary business.

Peter the follower

It’s when he meets Jesus that his life begins to change. Just as we can’t say what it was about Peter that set him apart, we really don’t know what it was about Jesus that commanded such immediate loyalty from Peter. But something did. Jesus says, “Come follow me,” and Peter does just that.

He only returns to fishing once, when he thinks it’s all over, but that return is short-lived as Jesus calls him back into a kingdom ministry that fishing would never replace.

The truth is that when you answer the call of Jesus to follow him wholeheartedly, there is no turning back.

The call is interesting too because Jesus says, “Follow me and I will teach you how to fish for men.” Is that what an evangelist does, or is it what a fisherman does?

Years later the apostle Paul would write to the church in Ephesus about apostles, prophets, pastors, teaches and evangelists as gifts given to the church by God himself, but was Jesus calling Peter to the ministry of an evangelist or a pattern of life and ministry that more like the fishing he knew than the evangelist we define?

Perhaps Jesus was simply calling Peter to engage in something that would have an impact in eternity rather than an impact on the barbecue.

The flyer and the faller

One thing we know about all the early followers of Jesus is that being with him, seeing the miracles he performed, hearing the stories he told, exploring the explanations he gave, didn’t stop them making mistakes along the way. They just as easily confused at the end of three years with Jesus as they were at the beginning! Oh so like us!

You’d think we’d learn wouldn’t you? Having seen one miracle, we’d find it easy to have faith for another. Having experienced grace once, we’d know that it was available the next time we fell or failed. But just like Peter, and James and John and Thomas and all the others, we too have our highs and lows.

Peter’s highs included:

Going up on the mountain and seeing Jesus transfigured first hand, and getting to see Moses and Elijah too according to the story.

Having a moment of truly amazing clarity and revelation about who Jesus is, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Being the only who could sit around the camp fire and tell the story if the night he stepped out of the boat and onto the water. Onto not into.

I wonder what that was like? Do you think he realised what he was saying or did it just come out? “Lord, if it really is you, call to me to come to you on the water.” “Peter, it’s me, come, walk with me.”

If it were you, what would your first thought have been?

“Actually Lord I was rather expecting you to say, it’s okay Peter it’s me but I’ll come to you in the boat, you don’t have to risk getting your feet wet.”

Or, “Peter, that’s the kind of faith I’m looking for, but you don’t have to take the risk, just being willing is enough for me.”

Maybe it would be the simple, “Why did I have to go and open my big mouth. Lord, what I actually meant was, ‘if it’s you, then call Judas to get out of the boat and walk on the water. That’s what I meant to say.’

Preaching on the day of Pentecost and seeing God’s amazing grace extended to the gentiles at them home of Cornelius must have been high points too.

And then there were the lows.

Sinking after having got out of the boat; having had his great revelation only to follow it with a great misrepresentation–blessed are you followed by “get behind me Satan.

And the lowest point of all, the denial of Jesus. Having been so brave (we will die with you) only to be undone by the persistent questioning of a servant girl.

The one thing you could not say about Peter was that he was lukewarm.

Peter the failure; Peter the fulfiller

Peter was not the only disciple who betrayed Jesus, who failed to follow through on his professed commitment. Thomas was full of worries, James and John had delusions of grandeur, and Judas gave Jesus up for a price in silver.

Judas and Peter share this common failure, that they denied the one they had been following and carried the pain of that failure with them after the arrest and trial and execution of the Jesus they’d denied or betrayed. But there is of course a major difference.

Judas decided to carry the weight of his failure alone. He decided to run and hide. I guess there was little else how could have done. I don’t suppose the others wanted him back, they probably didn’t understand why Jesus had chosen him and tolerated him anyway. He’d been given responsibility for the common purse, the accounts, and as far as we can tell from the gospels he wasn’t averse to helping himself from the money bag.

Peter on the other had, distraught as he was over his denial, when Jesus called his name after the resurrection, was quick to respond. He knew he failed, he knew he’d come up short, but I think he’d been enough to know too that in a relationship with Jesus there was always the possibility that something miraculous might happen.

And so Peter, unlike Judas, finds himself facing a simple question: Peter, do you love me?
Not, “Peter are you sorry,” or “Peter do you realise how much you hurt me,” or “Peter what were you thinking?” But, “Peter do you love me?”

“Peter, does you love for me, your commitment to me your determination to be a follower of mine and a worker in the kingdom outweigh all other concerns. Because of it does, feed my sheep, care for my lambs.”

Peter discovered through that question that forgiveness is real, and reconciliation is possible and service can continue. Peter discovered that failure does have to mean the end of everything.
You’d think that saying “I don’t know the man”, would have signalled the end of Peter’s possible role in anything Jesus was planning. After all hadn’t Jesus said something along the lines of if you deny me I’ll deny you (Luke 12:8-9– "I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God.”) It’s so easy sometime to take two and two and make five, Peter knew this and he knew too that Jesus was the great forgiver and not the great grudge keeper.

Judas never experienced this forgiveness and went to his grave carrying his own burden of guilt and shame. Peter on the other hand, rediscovered Jesus and let go of his personal burden. He found the rest for his soul that Jesus had spoken about, he found his place in God’s kingdom because he found Jesus.

Conclusion

If we were to lay out Peter’s life like a long line, where would you put yourself? Are you somewhere near the beginning, just going about your daily business quite unaware of the implications of ho this Jesus is who is about to interrupt your life?

Maybe you’re a bit further down the line. Jesus has called you name, he’s offered to change you life, but you’ve not yet taken any big risks with him, had any great revelations about him. You’re just following and learning.

It’s possible that in fact you’ve just reached the point of seeing Jesus for who he really is, the Christ the Son of the living God, and you know that everything hinges on the reality of this truth.

And it’s also possible that you find yourself having seen the glory of God but now you’ve messed up, and you feel like a failure. Welcome to the club of the those of us who made mistakes as we follow Jesus.

Where else might you put yourself? On the water, in the boat, on the beach, at the cross in the courtyard?

Wherever you might be, Jesus says the same thing to you that he would have kept saying to Peter:

Do you love me? Will you follow me? Come to me?

The question isn’t will Jesus keep loving you, will he keep forgiving you and calling your name, the question is will you answer him?

There once was a day when Jesus had something that had offended many of those who had begun to follow him. He turned to his closest friends, the disciples he called by name to form his circle of twelve close companions and asked too if they were about to leave him. It was Peter who turned to Jesus and said: “You have the words of eternal life, where else will we go?

Where else will you go?

Prayer month (week 3)

You've guessed it, week 3 is now available on the view.

Joseph

The story of Joseph is the story of a favourite son who falls out of favour with his brothers. Sold into slavery, things go from bad to worse before they get better. By the time we reach the point in the story from which our reading comes, Joseph has been sold by his brothers, falsely accused and imprisoned and now forgotten again.

How much worse could it get?

Joseph could be forgiven for wondering where was God in all of this. Had he been abandoned by the God of his forebears. Any stories his father may have told him about God’s intervention in his life, the life of his father and the life of his grandfather must have seemed like distant, remote and unreal as he sat in prison falsely accused and forgotten.

But God never forgets who we are and where we are. 

You keep track of all my sorrows.

You have collected all my tears in your bottle.

You have recorded each one in your book. (Ps.56:8)

God never forgets, and he never forgot Joseph.

Where does it all begin?

The favourite son

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons (Gen. 37:3)

If Joseph was in any way arrogant, his father did little to remedy his condition. He made it very clear that Joseph was his favourite. He gave him a coat,a tunic that set him apart. Now I don’t know if Joseph wore it to please Jacob or to wind up his brothers, but it certainly achieved both.

The dreamer

If his coat wasn’t a big enough reminder of Joseph’s sense of importance, there were also his dreams. If you have a dream that you family will bow down before you then you can be sure of one thing: If they didn’t despise you before, they will now.

The rejected brother

So, when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. 37:28

How must it have felt for Joseph to have listened to the plot his brothers hatched for him? How abandoned must he have felt, how much would you wanted pay-back?

A Slave in Egypt

Sold by his brothers, Joseph doesn’t exactly make a new life himself in Egypt, rather it is made for him. But what he does do is to keep faith with God.

How many people do you know who, when trouble comes, blame God and run from him? They will do almost anything except trust him and continue to walk the walk of faith with him. 

We get a glimpse of Joseph’s integrity as he resists the advances of Potiphar’s wife. Eventually it cost him what freedom he has earned, and once again an item of clothing is used in evidence against him. First his many coloured tunic dipped in goat’s blood, now his cloak left at the scene of the so-called crime.

Take a moment to contrast the integrity of this rejected brother with Judah. Judah leaves home of his own volition but he chooses a different path to follow. He lacks integrity, he acts dishonestly and appears to get away with it until an  identifying “item of clothing” reveals what he has done.

A prisoner in Egypt

I don’t know how long Joseph served Potiphar, but his slavery and imprisonment lasts 13 years.

That’s a long time to suffer a false accusation. But again, Joseph keeps faith with God and goes about his business the best he can.

All of this is preparation for what God will do, but as far as Joseph is concerned it simply the present tense of his experience. It’s all he knows, and he simply gets on with it.

Forgotten again

After 11 years in Egypt, Joseph finally sees an opportunity to make his appeal to the highest authority in the land. The chief baker and cup bearer were no mere servants in Pharaoh’s household. They had somehow displeased the king, found themselves thrown in prison,  and now they had both had dreams. 

It’s now that God begins to reveal his purposes for Joseph. In the midst of his suffering, his slavery and imprisonment, God begins to show his hand.

How often do we miss the intentional development of God’s purposes because we focus only on what we are enduring, rather that for which we might be being prepared? Remember Esther… for such a time as this.

This is not about knowing what God is preparing you to do, but being willing to be prepared. It’s turning suffering into something that has purpose rather than allowing to be something without purpose.

But once rescued, the cup bearer forgets about Joseph until the king needs him. I think forget means it was simply not convenient to remember him.

God’s purposes finally revealed

Pharaoh has his dream and Joseph’s time comes. But it’s not his charismatic ability to interpret dreams that is the ultimate goal for his life. God has not been working in his life in order to buid some great prophet ministry through Joseph. In reality it has been his ordinary demonstrations of faithfulness, good stewardship and trustworthiness that the attributes belonging to his long-term place in God’s unfolding plan.

What if, during all those years of captivity, Joseph had been good at interpreting dreams and bad at everything else? Do you think Pharaoh would still have put him in charge of all the land?

Joseph’s prime ministry was not the spectacular but the ordinary.

Lessons to learn

1. A matter of perspective.

We only see what surrounds us. We need God’s help to see beyond our circumstances and into his plan. Sometimes,like Esther, it’s the words of a friend, sometimes, like Joseph it’s just a matter of time.

2. No matter what the circumstances, Joseph’s life was always in God’s hands.

He may have been rejected by his brothers, sold into slavery, wrongly accused, falsely imprisoned, but always his life was in God’s hands.

3. Be the best, whatever the situation

Joseph did not know what God’s ultimate goal was for his life. So he had to get on with life as it came to him. He had to face disappointment and rejection and yet find the strength to carry on and do what he was good at and do it well.

4. Doing the right thing is always the right thing to do.

Actions, moral choices, do the right thing. Not based on outcomes, things did always go well for Joseph, but based upon honouring God.

Conclusion

Joseph makes two amazing observations about his circumstances. He says of his brothers actions: 

You intended to harm me,but God intended it for good. (50:20)

And of his time in Egypt: 

God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering (41:52)

Your circumstance may be challenging at this time, you may feel like you are living in the land of suffering rather than the land of promise (remember Joseph had left Canaan), but are you honouring God or doing what suits you.

Are you living like Joseph or are you living like his brother Judah?

Prayer month (week 2)

Week 2 of the prayer month is now available.

Month of prayer

I've posted week one from our month of prayer on my personal blog A View From Here. I will post the other weeks fairly soon so that you can see them online.

Book Club

We've just launched a Book Club at church. A small group of people have agreed to read the same book and then meet together to talk about it. The Book Club is open to anyone who wants to join. If you are interested in joining in via the blogosphere, our first book is 3:16 The Numbers of Hope by Max Lucado.

Jonah: The Reluctant Prophet

One thing you must understand is that Jonah is not the only reluctant prophet. Okay, so he was the only prophet to be swallowed by a large fish, and he was the only prophet to run away to another country in an attempt to get away from God. But taking God’s message to the people, any people, was a scary thing. Jonah, perhaps of all the prophets, did the most human thing when he tried to run away.

What is unique about Jonah?

I wonder what we might see as the defining moment for Jonah?

Was it right at the start when God said: Go to Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.

Certainly this is a clear and distinctive call from God. The job description is unequivocal, the task unmistakable.

Perhaps the defining moment came when Jonah decided to run away. Surely fleeing from the Lord under normal circumstances would have defined Jonah as the prophet who ran away.

In truth, life is full of defining moments.

Both the call and Jonah’s reaction are moments of great significance in the shaping of Jonah’s life and ministry. Let’s list out the other defining moments that shape this story.

There’s the storm in which God gets Jonah’s attention; the moment Jonah takes responsibility; his submission to God by being thrown into the sea.

God’s provision of a huge fish to rescue Jonah in a most remarkable way.

Perhaps the most significant moment of all is when Jonah prays from inside the fish: What I have vowed, I will make good.

There are still more moments to define the shape of Jonah’s ministry; the response of the Ninevites, Jonah’s anger at God, and his petulance over the weed.

But in all this, what defines Jonah most is not what he does or says, where he goes or where he doesn’t. What defines Jonah most is his relationship with God.

It is God’s call, God’s message, God’s persistence, God’s grace, God’s rescue plan, God’s granting of a second chance, God’s concern for Nineveh, God’s eternal purposes. These are the things that define Jonah. Not big fish and personal misery.

When God looked at Nineveh he saw the sin of the city and its people. He knew that the only logical thing to do was to judge the city and be done with it.

But our God is full of compassion and love. A compassion that Jeremiah reminds us is renewed every morning. So, when he sees sin he judges it, but he also looks for a way to bring the message of grace to bear upon it. He looks for a man, a person, who will speak his truth into the situation. And as he looks, he waits for a response.

Jonah’s message was simple: Forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown. The people of the city clearly understood what this was all about and the decree goes out: give up your evil ways, and they do, and God sees and God does not destroy them.

Jonah’s message, much to his surprise is a message of hope wrapped in the grace of God. A message that both Nineveh and Jonah needed to hear.

So where does that leave you and me?

Well we could ask ourselves where we would put ourselves in the story.

Are you:

Running away from God?

In the middle of a storm, but asleep, hoping it will go away?

Have you reached the point of taking responsibility and preparing to put yourself in God’s hands?

Do you feel like you are in the darkest place? 

If this is where you would put yourself then let me ask you this: Are you praying in that place?

Are you out of the fish, on dry land again and ready to do what God has asked you to do?

Are you doing it?

Are you angry with God, with other people?

Are you sitting under a weed, miserable with yourself and with God?

Where are you?