Powerful Lessons for 2013

I spoke tonight in church on King Jehoshaphat. What a great example for us as we move into a new year. Good examples of role models are hard enough to find – not many in media or popular culture. Though not perfect, he’s got some good lessons for us. He was grandson of Abijah, who had 14 wives and 38 children. His dad was Asa, who died from disease in the feet. Jehoshaphat became king of Judah at 35 and reigned for 25 years. Here was the key to his life......

“In his early years he walked in the ways his father David had followed. He did not consult the Baals but sought the God of his father and followed his commands rather than the practices of Israel”
(2 Chron. 17 vv 3,4)

This became the default position of his life – not consulting the false gods nor following the bad practices of the Israelites but instead seeking God and following his commands. For Jehoshaphat it did not matter what others did, he made it his guiding principle to seek God and listen to him.

Here’s what this meant for Jeshoshaphat.........

“He did not know what was going to happen but he knew

what he would do when it did”

So years later when the kingdom was being severely threatened by the Moabites and Ammonites what did Jehoshaphat do? He went to his default position - “Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the LORD” (20 v3) He proclaimed a fast, gathered the people together and led them in prayer “We do not know what to do but our eyes are upon you” (20 v 12) His influence on others was considerable – his prayer was simple, direct, honest and full of trust.

There are some powerful lessons here for us for 2013.

1. Determine to be different – listen to God , follow his commands, don’t be tempted to consult the false gods of the 21st C or the practices of those who don’t live godly lives
2. Think about your default position – is it panic? Is it fear? Or is it simple trust
3. You do not know what will happen in 2013 – but do you know what you will do when it does?
4. Remember your influence – use it wisely

Happy new year. May we all be God-honouring, Christ-centred and Spirit-filled.  

 

My Favourite Carol

We were once invited to provide a small choir to assist a local soccer team with some fundraising in a local shopping centre. Happy to help, we went through the repertoire of well-known carols until one of the organisers stopped us. He was a bit disappointed with our effort.  “Couldn’t you sing REAL carols – a bit more upbeat.”  Intrigued, I asked him what he meant. “You know real carols, like Jingle Bells, Rudolph etc”

Despite the poor man’s assertion, those aren’t carols. They are songs. Christmas carols have a clear purpose – they are to remind us of a deep theological truth – of the Word made flesh. We all need the annual reminder and a good carol expresses deep truth in a simple, rhythmical and easily singable way.  It tells us what God has done in Christ.

Some carols do this brilliantly.  “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” for example, by Charles Wesley, has lines of profound theological truth such as........ 

“Veiled in flesh the Godhead see

Hail the Incarnate Deity”

That is sheer genius! But my favourite carol is one which is not well known, hardly ever sung and in danger of being lost forever.  It was written by Emily Elliott in 1864 and was first used at St. Mark’s Church in Bright­on, Eng­land, where El­li­ott’s fa­ther was rec­tor. In 1870 it was pub­lished in the “Church Missionary Juvenile Instructor”, which El­li­ott ed­it­ed. It is called “Thou dist leave thy throne” and I try to read it again every year (or sing it to myself).  Here is the complete version.

Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown,
When Thou camest to earth for me;
But in Bethlehem’s home was there found no room
For Thy holy nativity.

Chorus

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,
There is room in my heart for Thee.

Heaven’s arches rang when the angels sang,
Proclaiming Thy royal degree;
But of lowly birth didst Thou come to earth,
And in great humility.

Chorus

The foxes found rest, and the birds their nest
In the shade of the forest tree;
But Thy couch was the sod, O Thou Son of God,
In the deserts of Galilee.

Chorus

Thou camest, O Lord, with the living Word,
That should set Thy people free;
But with mocking scorn and with crown of thorn,
They bore Thee to Calvary.

Chorus

When the heav’ns shall ring, and her choirs shall sing,
At Thy coming to victory,
Let Thy voice call me home, saying “Yet there is room,
There is room at My side for thee.”

My heart shall rejoice, Lord Jesus,
When Thou comest and callest for me.

Notice how the carol starts with Bethlehem, moves to his great step from the royalty of heaven to the earth, then talks about his life, his death on Calvary and His anticipated second coming.  A wonderful Christocentric theology. The chorus is a simple, uncomplicated response to all of this. You cannot ask for more from a carol.

Hope your Christmas is Christ-centred and God-filled. Here’s a link to the carol to assist you. 

Have a listen here

United We Stand

Many people ask me how did I come to support Manchester United?

I guess it goes back to 22nd May 1968 when as an 11 year old I watched mesmerised as George Best waltzed round the Benfica keeper to score the 2nd goal in United’s 4-1 victory in the European Cup final. Bestie was from East Belfast, the ultimate in ‘coolness’ before the word was invented – and used to drop in occasionally as a kid with my Aunt Jessie (who has lived in the same house in Cregagh estate for nearly 70 years). He became my hero that night.

At that time I was wearing the no 11 shirt for Lowwood Primary School in North Belfast and trying my utmost to perfect the Bestie swivel of the hips. But from then on it was to be United, not Liverpool and definitely not Chelsea. Even now I still live in hope of getting the call from Sir Alex to help out this weekend. Some chance!

Since that night there have been highs and lows, joys and sorrows, I remember them being relegated – sunk by a goal from Denis Law of all people, who had transferred to City (why Denis why?) and then the early struggles of Sir Alex (or plain Alex as he was then).

He nearly got the sack in 1990 and his job was saved by a late goal by Mark Robins in the FA Cup 3rd round. How big doors swing on small hinges! What if.....? Then the joy of the treble in 1999 - what a night against Bayern Munich – Sheringhgam and Solskjaer immortalised in red history for ever with those wondrous late, late goals in the Champions League final.

Football is both glorious and terrible. It can lift you high and drop you down. I try to think of it as a harmless hobby and not to get too involved until it gets down to the business end of the season. We are usually there or thereabouts and then it gets serious. Anyone care to doubt that. Oh Bestie rounding that keeper has a lot to answer for!

The Nature of Love

In the book “The Surprising Offense of God’s Love”, by Jonathan Leeman, he argues that often in history the church has veered too far, either towards what it thinks is holiness or what it thinks is love – thus setting up a false dichotomy between the two.

In the former camp might be, for example, the Puritans and the Fundamentalists and in the latter might be the Romantics, Liberals and maybe the Emergents of the 21^st century.  But in reality, Leeman argues, there is no conflict between love and holiness. They are in fact mutual.  Holiness is love and love is holy.  Phew – that’s heavy but is actually very practical and mightily relevant for 21^st C Christianity.

In our world we have a false view of love, a distorted view, which considers it “unloving” to draw boundaries and to exclude.  But in the Bible we find the very opposite eg there were boundaries between….. 

The inside of the Garden of Eden and the outside 
The inside of Noah’s ark and the outside

The inside of the house smeared with blood on Passover night and the outside
The inside of the Promised Land and the outside etc.

God makes that distinction.  Hence love can itself be separating and can be exclusive.  An example might be love you have for your spouse – you are separated unto him/her till death you do part.  The heart of the gospel is to show that some are in and some are out.  But the great hope is that those on the outside may come in through repentance and faith.
 

I’ve been trying to understand the gospel and all its implications for over 30 years of my life.  I’m going to keep trying to learn more.  That’s the way to keep growing and not stagnate.

Leeman’s book is challenging – so my next blog will be lighter – on a sporting theme!

A Poem

Here’s a poem my son sent me.

Amy Carmichael was born in Millisle, Northern Ireland in 1867.  She had a remarkable life and served as a missionary in India for over 55 years!  We showed a movie of her life in Newtownbreda a few months ago.  Among her many talents she was also a thought-provoking poet on the subject of suffering for the cause of Christ.

Consider this one.  It touches on the subject of “no pain; no gain”  The servants of Christ will be scarred and marked.  It was the case with our Saviour and “It is the way the Master went; Should not his servants tread it still”

No Scar 

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,
I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star,
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned:
Hast thou no wound?

No wound, no scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And, pierced are the feet that follow Me;
But thine are whole: can he have followed far
Who has no wound nor scar?

11 December 2012

A Book I'm Reading

One of the books I’m reading at the moment is “The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love” by Jonathan Leeman (Offense = American spelling. We spell it Offence).

It’s subtitle is “Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline”. Leeman is one of the pastors at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC which has a number of senators and congressmen among its members.

Mark Dever, the well-known Senior Pastor of the church, has written the foreword. That church initiated the 9 Marks series if you are familiar with that (9 Marks of a Healthy Church etc.)

The title in itself is thought provoking and it’s not an easy read. You need to concentrate on the argument. I’ve not done with it yet so here are a few initial ramblings about it.

Basically it tries to show how “love” and biblical requirements of church membership and discipline seem incompatible to the modern mind but which can be understood together. He argues that 21^st century society has made an idol of love (a New Romanticism) and overemphasised individualism, which means that every one of our attachments in life have become renegotiable to the point that we have “commitment phobia”. In other words, we view everything through the filter of what’s advantageous for me. And so we view churches like that. We become very convinced of our own ability to make wise choices about our lives and believe we should be accepted “as we are”. In fact since we have made an “idol of love” we feel that true love means we cannot be judged, challenged or questioned. In essence there has emerged a scepticism about all dogma.

As a result, argues Leeman, many churches have blurred the lines between themselves and the world, nervous of drawing boundaries around belief and behaviour , in fear of accusation of exclusivism or separation. Yet he argues this is the essence of true biblical covenant love – to mark off a holy people and to call the people of God to holiness. To deliberately let others know they are outside – for if they do not know that, why would they ever want to be in?. It also has profound implications for church discipline – which word in itself becomes a dirty word in a love idolatrous world.

This book’s not for the faint hearted – I’ll blog a bit more on it at another time.

4 December 2012

Dealing With Criticism

I read last week in Word for Today a quote by John Bunyan “If my life is fruitless it doesn’t matter who praises me; if my life is fruitful it doesn’t matter who criticises me”. That’s a very helpful comment. I’ve been mulling that over all this week.

Like most pastors, I have received praise that I never deserved and also been the subject of much criticism in my life – it comes with the territory. I’m sure much criticism has been deserved and been entirely justified. I’ve made plenty of mistakes and at times got priorities wrong and my communication skewed.

Leadership exposes all of that and highlights it all. So I’ve had to face many challenges in 26 years of ministry – on one occasion someone wrote me a letter with the word ‘Ichabod’ as part of the address (i.e.”The glory has departed”). I’ve been threatened, maligned and labelled “heretic”, received anonymous letters and been complained at, about and against. I’m sure that in every criticism there is probably some germ of truth that I have to learn and take away.

But I’m equally sure that some criticism is unfair, has not been deserved and has been the result of misunderstanding or personality clash or just plain mischief-making. Either way, deserved or not, it always hurts, stings and leaves a scar. You know that because you too, whoever you are, have also had to endure criticism along the way.

Even our Lord himself was called “Beelzebub” had his actions and motives questioned and in the end, his critics and enemies conspired to hang him on a cross.

When I need encouragement, I often listen to Robin Mark’s song with those haunting words

“When it’s all been said and done,

There is just one thing that matters

Did I do my best to live for truth?

Did I live my life for you?”

Why not take a few minutes and listen to it now click here

30 November 2012

A Date I Can Never Forget

I will never forget this date – 26^th November. It is burned into me and my soul forever.

The reason? On that Monday morning, my first wife Sheela, whom I  had married ”for better or worse” 27 years before, slipped into eternity at 8.20 am just as the sun was rising.  She was 50 years and 43 days old.  It was all a bit surreal – we stood there around her bed and realised she’d gone. The night before, we had sat and sung hymns of praise and wanted the Lord to take her.  But he didn’t – not then.  Another night of agonised suffering followed.

In the end it came suddenly.  All the months of suffering were over.  The pain, the stress, the anxiety, the loss of hair and the loss of dignity – morphine, syringe drivers, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, finally all over.   The silence was deafening but the peace was incredible.  Outside the traffic was building up – commuters stressing at another Monday morning, another week at work, oblivious to the drama in our house a few yards away.  I put my arms round my stunned children and gave thanks to God for their mother’s life.

I don’t know how I ever had the strength to do that. One verse of scripture hit me forcibly Philippians  1 v 23 “with Christ which is FAR better.   ”Not just better, but FAR better.  Funny – I’d never thought of it like that before but I took great comfort from it.  Sheela was in a FAR better place than she had ever been before and I knew that even if she could, she wouldn’t come back. Why would she? Leave a better place?  But I was angry too – angry that this had to happen at all.  And there is still a residue of anger within me about it. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, who I was angry with or why I was angry.  It was irrational then; it is irrational now.

Death by cancer is horrible. There is very little good to be said about it.  It spoils, ruins, destroys and hurts – really hurts.  But death is not the end. And this life is not all there is.  I knew that before that day and had given a good part of my life to preaching and teaching that very truth.  I knew it even more as I stood there with my broken heart, tears flowing.

Exactly one year later, on 26^th November, I read in my daily devotions “Though you have made me see troubles many and bitter, you will restore life to me again” (Psalm 71 v20). He did – oh He really did and I thank Him for it every day!

26 November 2012

Who Can You Trust

This past week 2 premiership football managers have lost their jobs – Roberto Di Matteo at Chelsea and Mark Hughes at QPR.  In come the new guys – 2 managers who have been repeatedly sacked for ‘failure’ at other clubs.

Am I alone in thinking that being a manager of a football club is the only job in the world where you can be a ’failure’, leave with a very handsome pay off and then be rewarded by being given another high profile, high paid job?  Bizarre! I might even give it a go myself.

For many people football is a religion; for them there is nothing else.  The managers/players are gods, the grounds are the cathedrals/ worship centres, the fanzines are their Bibles and the fans are the faithful worshippers who enjoy regular fellowship together.  The true devotees talk about football endlessly, discuss it, chew over it, plan for it, cry over it and rejoice over it.  When it goes well it’s great, but when it’s bad, it’s awful.  Relationships have been made and broken over it.  Who would have it?

So who can you trust?  How about this thought “Some trust in chariots (teams) and some trust in horses (players) but we will trust in the name of the Lord” (Psalm 20 v7).  There is no one better to put your trust in.  Unlike football, he will never disappoint.

24 November 2012

Learning To Lead

I was at a conference for leaders of larger churches in England last week.
We were small in number – no more than 18 of us altogether and most of the other guys led large C of E churches.  I was the lone Norn Iron voice in a 48 hour sea of Englishmen!

We looked together at stuff like vision, strategy, staff, preaching, communication, conflict resolution, time management etc.  There were a few nuggets in there like “Churches die when leaders die,” “we propagate what we celebrate” and…”Never neglect your marriage to make the church work.  If you have to, neglect the church to make your marriage work!” The latter is especially good advice. You’ve got to work at marriage and Christian leaders especially are prone to attack in this area, because the devil figures (rightly) that if he can take down the leader, he can do an awful lot of damage to the church.  As well as leading the church we have to lead our families and in fact that’s what qualifies us for leadership in the first place.

What I appreciated about this group was that it was led by men who have “been there, done that, got the t shirt”.  Pastors and ministers with many years of experience.
So many conferences are taught by (and books written by) people who have never ’done it’ themselves but have become ‘experts’ in telling others how to do what they have never done.  Watch out for those – and avoid them.

There was humour as well – at a meal one of the C of E guys asked about Baptist churches in Ireland.  “Do you have trouble with the diocesan bishop?” he asked naively.  “No,” I replied “we just do it by the Bible!!!”

19 November 2012

My First Blog

Well I’ve finally got round to the blogging business.

I hope you’ll read it from time to time as I hope to make it a mixture of theological reflection, personal anecdote and general musing about life. Even if no-one reads it, Ill probably just enjoy having a meander round life’s great mysteries.

I just became a grandfather last week. That feels strange because the image of a grandfather (which many have been quick to reinforce) is of slippers, zimmer frames, bus passes, mugs of Horlicks and early nights! But ignoring my sensitivities, my son and daughter-in-law produced baby Micah (8lbs 4 ozs) last week in Shanghai Family Hospital, China. Its just not possible for them to become parents without me becoming a grandparent – the one follows the other.

But wow – what a thought. Im more emotional than I thought and cant wait to see him. It seems only a short time ago that I held Micah’s father in my arms and cooed and smiled with the best of them.

The ensuing 27 years have passed quickly. Ive learnt a few things along the way, made lots of mistakes and had some victories but when Micah was born I was led to reflect again on those famous words of Moses in Psalm 90 “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom” Life is short – I’m trying to make it count.

Hope you are too. In the meantime, I’m away to apply for my bus pass and make myself a mug of Horlicks!!

17 November 2012