30. Partnership

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.30: Partnership

Rom 10:9 “if you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

As we draw to the end of this series, let’s note something rather obvious but which should cause both praise and worship as well as solemn reflection, the partnership of God and us that goes to create this thing we call our salvation through the gospel.

First of all, let’s sum up the God side of the Gospel, for by any definition that fills most of the equation. God created the world and us (with free will) and, knowing that sin would prevail, decided on the one way that could open a way back to Him for these foolish human beings that we are. And He decided it before He even uttered those famous words, “Let there be light.” (Gen 1:3) It was at the most opportune moment in history His Son would enter the world, coming into a nation prepared by two thousand years of interaction with Him, to reveal more of His loving nature to the world, and then to die in the place of every sinner to appease Justice.

That was Part 1 of the God side of the equation, making it possible. Part 2 was the ongoing work of His Son through His Spirit, drawing individuals back to Him, by speaking to them (mostly without their awareness) and bringing them to a place of conviction, awareness of need and realization of what the Son had done on their behalf, a place of surrender.

And that brings us to Part 3, the human side of the equation that believes and surrenders and seeks forgiveness and the salvation God offers. In many ways it is a small part of the equation, although an essential one.

Part 4 is God’s ongoing work in the now-believer, Jesus by his Spirit teaching, guiding, inspiring, encouraging, equipping, and enabling the individual. That’s another big part of the equation. Part 5 is the human response to both His word and His Spirit that brings about ongoing changes in character and ability to be both used by Him in His service and in becoming more and more the individual that God originally designed us to be. Part 6 is His ongoing activity through us in words or revelation, power, or simple goodness as we respond and make ourselves available to Him. Part 7, the final, perfect part that takes place at our death, is again a work of God that carries the real us into eternity to be with Him for ever. This whole package, or equation as I have described it is ‘The Gospel’, the good news of God.

Now I said that these things should cause both praise and worship as well as solemn reflection. The praise and worship SHOULD (and I don’t often use ‘should’ as it leans towards legalism) be the response to ‘seeing’ these truths, the wonder of them as we actually enter into them.

But there is also the solemn reflection bit.  I think it was J.B.Phillips in his book ‘Your God is Too Small” who wrote something like, “even a chit of a girl can hold Almighty God at a distance.” The frightening truth is that God never forces Himself on us so the Gospel is all about us freely taking hold of, believing, and constantly responding to the truth found in His word and administered by His Spirit – BUT we have the ability NOT to respond. The more we respond, the more He blesses. The more we hold off, the less we receive. Our final starter verse holds two simple keys into the kingdom of God, into experiencing all the wonder of what God has for us. First, to believe AND declare that Jesus is Lord and is to be our Lord. How do we know he’s Lord? Because we know he died and rose from the dead. He died to carry our sins, he rose to prove to us that he was and is God, approved by the Father. We ARE now reconciled to the Father. This is the Gospel and through it the way is open for the fruits of it to flow in and though our lives for as long as He grants us to live on this planet before coming to Him. Hallelujah! This is the gospel in a nutshell, the gospel in a few lines. It comes from Him and is to be responded to by us. First at our point of conversion (Acts 15:3) and then every day throughout the rest of our lives here on earth. Receiving the gospel opened the door for us to receive the ongoing fruit of it every day. May we ‘see’ that and live it. Hallelujah!  

29. The kingdom, God’s will

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.29: The kingdom, God’s will

Mk 1:15 “‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’

We’re on the downhill run, the finish is in sight, we need to start preparing for the finish. I want to do it by reference to two things that the Bible reveals. First God’s hatred of Sin and, second, the cost to the Godhead of Christ’s death.

First, God’s hatred of sin. Listen to Moses challenge to his people of the Plains of Moab: “You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshipping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.” (Deut 12:31) Hatred is a strong revulsion. It is not a mere turning away but a right intellectual and emotional response to evil. Moses described pagan worship as detestable, repugnant abominable, vile. Observing idolatry that involved sacrificing their children, could anyone disagree with that description? This was God’s response to all such false worship (Deut 16:21,22).

David the ‘man after God’s own heart’, declared, “The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion. On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulphur; a scorching wind will be their lot.” (Psa 11:5,6). If we had any doubt about ‘hates with a passion’ then we only have to look at the judgment He speaks of. God’s hatred implies some challenges, e.g. Prov 6:16. We may try to water it down to suggest just a strong feeling that causes God to turn away, but the texts show it is much stronger than that, it is strong feeling that causes God to act.

Now why do we follow this path of thought? Because there is nothing so strong seen in scripture that could possibly be the cause of the perfect Son of God having to go to the Cross. Yes, we have emphasized the cry of Justice but unless there was this revulsion against sin by the Godhead, that would not be sufficient to account for what THEY experienced. The various expressions of Sin, we have listed again and again and all of them are conflicts with the will of God, the design of God for mankind, God’s rule – i.e. the kingdom!

But I said we would consider the cost to the Godhead. Consider the wonder of the perfect experience of Father, Son, and Spirit in heaven. And then there is the first division, the parting of the Son to come down to earth (see Jn 6:33,50, 51,58) and then a further division or separation as he took the Sin of the World in his body on the Cross. So immense and intense was this that it made the human side of him cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46) At that moment in time his awareness of the sins of the world was so devastating he lost sight of his Father’s presence, there watching over him. There, for that moment in history, Father, Son and Spirit were together BUT that awareness was lost to the Son under the weight of your sin and mine. THAT is why we are still alive today!

Some say the Father turned away from Son at the moment, being unable to face such sin, but I believe there are three reasons that mitigate against that. First, the Scriptures never say that. Second, love will never turn its back. We may hate the sin or the lifestyle of some we may love in our family who do not follow Jesus, but we still love them. God hates the sin but not the sinner so, third, if God couldn’t face the sin in his Son, then we to may wonder if He can still face us with our imperfections.  

The design of God is what created the world – including free will in us – and the rule of God works to redeem mankind. This is what ‘the kingdom’ is all about so when Jesus declared, “‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’ he was declaring, “God’s rule is here in your midst conforming to His design, make the most of it, respond to me, turn from your self and your sin and believe me, I’ve come to save you, come to me.” From his side, it meant the death on the cross; from our side it simply required repentance and belief, repentance that acknowledges our sin and turns away from it to God, belief that that is possible because of Jesus’ death for us, and his power to live now available through his Spirit, so we too may come in line with the rule and design of His kingdom. Wow!  

28. Back to…

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.28: Back to….

Jn 17:3 “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”

Perhaps it’s time for a recap. The whole series has been about the NEED for the gospel, the good news about Jesus dying for us to give us new lives. Now we have been trying to expand our understanding to see that ‘the gospel’, the ‘good news’, doesn’t just stop at the point of commitment that the evangelist is so good at bringing people to, it goes beyond that to include the wonder of the life Jesus wants to lead us into for however many years we have left on this planet – and then into eternity. 

For the evangelist the crucial thing is getting the person ‘over the line’ or ‘into the kingdom’ and to achieve that requires the presenting of the two things we’ve looked at again and again in this series – our sin and Christ’s work on our behalf. But once over the line, so to speak, once we’ve ‘given our heart to Jesus’, or ‘committed our life to him’, or ‘given him our life’ or whatever other language we tend to use about this, then comes the outworking of that surrender, a receiving of a new life – with purpose and power – that Jesus wants to go on giving us.

Those two things – the crisis commitment and the outworked life – are what make the gospel and the Christian Faith unique in the world. There is nothing else in the entire world that compares with this and it is only a person’s ignorance of the wonder of these things that makes the world deny this. We must see these two truths afresh and challenge the jaundiced ways of wrong thinking that abound in our modern world. Only then will we see a change in the fortunes of the Church (unless the Lord comes in sovereign world revival!)

But as we draw near the end of this series, we must try to round it all up by focusing on the crucial heart of the Gospel, reminding ourselves of what went before our commitment and the outworking of our lives, in the ways we have been considering.

We must keep on saying it until it is ingrained within us, or runs through us like the wording in a stick of rock at the seaside or funfair. We are saved ONLY – repeat ONLY – because Jesus was and is the unique Son of God who left heaven to come to earth to reveal the Father’s love and die in our place on the Cross, taking any punishment that justice demands of us for all those things we listed yesterday.

Because he was and is God in the expression of the Son, he is ‘big enough’, if we may put it like that, to take and cover every single one of those things on the list of ‘wrongs’ we’ve previously considered, however many times they have happened or yet will happen before we pass through death.

When you walk into heaven (or fly or however it happens!!!) you will appear there utterly spotless because every single item of that list right up to the moment of your death, will have been removed because of the Cross. Let’s run that list again, just in case the enemy or our ‘old self’ would try to belittle the need: our faults, our failings, our wrongs, our mistakes, our errors, our missing the mark, our falling short, our sins, our transgressions, our unrighteousness, our disobedience, our rebellion, our indifference.

If there was a heavenly scribe (and in one sense there is) whose job it was, was to observe us every moment of every day of our lives and make a transcript of every single thing we thought, (yes it includes thoughts), said (and most certainly includes our words), and deeds (every action and reaction), and then another angel, let’s say, was given the job of going through that minutely detailed record of who I was and am and with a red pen circle every not perfect thought, word or deed – let’s be honest – there would be a lot of red, and at every moment the accuser would be standing there shouting – “failed, punish them!” (see Zech 3:1) THAT’S why Jesus had to go to the cross to take the punishment that Justice demands should be yours. So, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The name of this lamb (see Rev 5:6-12) is Jesus, the Son of God. He is the ONLY reason you can stand before the throne of God, spotless. THIS is the gospel.   Got it? Believed it? Accepted it? Received it? Hallelujah!

27. More on unity & oneness

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.27: More on unity & oneness

Jn 15:5 “ I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Affluent young people today often seem to have a ‘personal trainer’, someone who can focus them physically and mentally. In doing this I believe they demonstrate both good and bad. The good is the willingness to be taught, the bad is lack of confidence in who they are. In the (now) old Star Trek Deep Space Nine TV series, there was a character, Jadzia Dax known as ‘a joined Trill’. Though she appeared to be a young woman, Jadzia lived in symbiosis with a long-lived creature, known as a symbiont, named Dax inside her. A somewhat weird idea in reality, having another being living inside you, isn’t it, but the idea being conveyed was that she took on something of the character and memories and wisdom of previous people that this ‘trill’ has previously inhabited.

And then we come to the description in the Bible of who and what a Christian really is. They are not merely people who believe a set of facts and order their life by them. It’s not just that they have been forgiven their sins and put right with God by the work of Christ on the cross, as wonderful as that is. No, there is a much bigger concept revealed to do with unity with God. We’ve referred a number of times of being ‘indwelt’ by the Holy Spirit, who God gives to us when we are ‘born again’ (Jn 3). So His Spirit joins with our spirit, bringing life, bringing guidance, direction, wisdom, insight and expressing the characteristics we call the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ – love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Gal 5:22,23)

But then we come to Jesus’ teaching found in our starter verse that we referred to yesterday which adds a whole new perspective to this unity idea. So yesterday we spoke of a new hope-filled life that will carry us through into eternity with God and we said it came by being united with God through Christ. This picture of Jesus being a vine and us being branches that grow ‘out of’ him emphasizes this unity and harmony with Christ that the gospel offers. It is this same concept of a unity with another Being that we referred to when we used the example of Dax in the fiction sci-fi series.

It’s not just about a time of crisis and commitment, it’s also about the nature of the incredible life that he offers us that flows out from that one-time moment of crisis and commitment that is possible because of what Christ did on the cross for us. Now we live out the wonder of it. This IS really good news. Are we, I ponder, living in the wonder of that? Let’s think some more on this because it is so easy to just read the words once, pass on and not really take them in or appreciate the depth of meaning they convey.

So we are joined to Jesus, he indwells us by his Spirit. That is the basic teaching we are looking at. Imagine a graphic video conveying what goes on between the trunk of a tree and the branches of it. We know that the tree (in this case, a vine) takes moisture, mineral and nutrient goodness out of the soil via its roots, which are carried up the trunk to the branches to enable them to grow and produce leaves which also then, through a process called photosynthesis, pull in carbon dioxide and water and use the energy of the sun to convert this into chemical compounds such as sugars that feed the tree. Interesting picture isn’t it, the branches get their initial feeding from the trunk but are then designed to produce leaves AND fruit which enhance growth more and enable future reproduction. Jesus went on to speak about the fruit-bearing nature of the branches, so we take our life from Jesus and he enables us to ‘bear fruit’. It is that which gives us this sense of fulfilment in life, we find a new purpose in life that naturally flows out of our relationship with Jesus, and without that relationship we can never know that proper sense of fulfilment. Have you ever realized that all this is part of what we call ‘the gospel’. It wasn’t just about God getting me over the line, or me leading my friend to Christ, for that was only the starting point. The gospel starts with that but then shows us the nature of a whole new life that God was leading us into, after He drew us to Himself.  Don’t just stop at the starting point; there is so much more! Hallelujah!   

26. United & New

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.26: United & New

2 Cor 5:17 Msg “anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges!”

For many people life is summed up by, “Same old, same old.” i.e. rather like Solomon suggested, it just keeps on going with regular if not boring monotony. Solomon declared, “Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever,” (Eccles 1:4) and as he warmed to his somewhat jaundiced view of life, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (v.9) Oh yes, God was there somewhere in the background, but mostly his view of life was filled with things and activities and the end result was a feeling that it was all pointless.

So what do people do when they get to this point? Just hunker down and dig in for the long-haul of survival – and that’s it? Perhaps, and this is very common today, we can fill our lives with new experiences (if we can afford them), new food and drink, new clothes, anything to cover up the emptiness. Yes, there are those like Solomon who fill their lives with projects, with achieving bigger and better. And yet at the end of it, there is a wondering that sometimes hits in the forties or fifties, that we call the midlife crisis, a wondering that says, “What was that all about?” and if it doesn’t strike then, it certainly does in the ‘twilight years’ of older age, when we look back questioning what we have achieved.

Does this sound pessimistic, gloomy, cynical or even, to use the words we used before, jaundiced? I would rather suggest it is realistic – this life without God! Yes, that is at the heart of this dilemma behind the meaning or purpose of life. Perhaps, for many of us, we have never seen the gospel in this light but that is really what it is all about. It is summed up in three words: godly or godless. Does God have a meaningful part of my life, or do I run my life all alone – God-less?

I have always liked Paul’s amazing comment found in out starter verse, 2 Cor 5:7 which in older versions reads, “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” or “if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation: the old has gone, the new is here!” That term ‘in Christ’ or as our starter Message version puts it, ‘in the Messiah’ means united and made one with.

The Messiah was and is God’s anointed one, decreed from before the world began, the Son of God who would leave heaven to save us from our old godless ways of life and enable us to be reconciled to God, to live an utterly new life of relationship with Him. Thus the gospel is all about a new hope, that each and every one of us can be given, a new fear-free and hope-filled life that will carry us through death into eternity with God. That is the package God presents to us, so accept nothing less than this.

Let’s say it again, in case we haven’t really taken it in. The gospel declares that we can be united with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, whereby we have such a close relationship with Him that there is this amazing oneness. Let me give a human analogy. My wife and I, I believe, are blessed with a close and strong marriage – we’ve been at it a long time! We do things together (and apart), we talk together, pray together, eat and drink together, go places together, share our hearts together.  There is a oneness born out of an initial commitment and forged through years of trials, tribulations, and blessings. The oneness we have in Christ came about with that initial commitment, a response to what he had already done for us, and then became a Spirit-indwelt daily life where I share with him and he shares with me. He puts new things before me, and I take his leading, encouraging, and enabling for me to enter into them.  Older age doesn’t hinder this, it just changes the nature of these things. So no longer do I have tasks that demand great physical exertion, but I am as busy and as active as I have ever been. This is what the gospel offers each and every person, a new life united with God through Christ, that has not only a new power source, but also a new purpose and direction. It’s not necessarily one that is a clear lifelong purpose (although it may be) but it is a daily living out a fulfilled life as we allow HIM to make the running, show the way and the way to do the stuff. Yes, it’s all about being forgiven and set free from our Sin, but it’s actually much bigger than that; that’s just the starting place to a new adventure that is, to use the name of the film, a ‘Never Ending Story’. 

25. The Essential Doorway

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.25: The Essential Doorway

Jn 3:3 “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

Possibly one of the greatest dangers facing the seeker or even the new believer is the possibility of reaching out with a “what can I do?” or even a “what should I do?” outlook or attitude. In other words what thoughts, words or deeds does God want from me to satisfy Him and make me up to the standard where He can accept me? Everywhere else we turn in life, we find an expectation on us to ‘perform’. At school we have to work to achieve in accordance with school or exam board requirements. At work we have to learn skills, trades, abilities etc. to perform the tasks that our job, our work, our career demands of us.

When we go looking for a partner, dating sites give the game away by requiring you to describe yourself and the sort of person you are looking for as a mate. If you join a club of any kind, you quickly learn the requirements for you to be an ‘acceptable’ member. Certain behaviours will not be tolerated. In fact belonging to any group, any gang, requires you to know the things that make you acceptable to that group or gang, and so when it comes to faith – and church can be just another ‘club’ – we may see it in exactly the same way – what is required of me to make me acceptable?

The Gospel is both wonderful and impossible. When we see what it is all about – our Sin versus God’s love through Jesus – that unbelief we considered yesterday says, “Yes, but…..” It seems too good to be true that God could love me unconditionally while I am still messed up. I can’t be good; I can’t make myself become a new person. I can’t live up to the standard of perfection that seems behind all this talk about sin and a holy God!

And that’s where the wonder gets even more wonderful, for it’s HIM who brings it about. Without being aware of it probably, His Holy Spirit wooed me, put questions in my mind, made me uncomfortable about who I was and the life I was leading, started putting spiritual thoughts before me, whether in my mind or through the words of others.  Bit by bit He drew me to a place of conviction where I knew I had to make a decision. For some of us it happens on our own, for many others (?most) it happens face to face with a preacher or a friend sharing the good news about Jesus, and then, there it is, crunch point when I NEED to make a decision, I need to say yes to Him, NOT doing, simply believing.

So what happens? He just needs my permission, given from a surrendered heart on my knees (literally or figuratively). And that is the door that every single person on earth needs, and without it they remain outside ‘the kingdom of God’ that brings the blessing, life and wonder of God. As we come to that crisis point, that point of decision, when He sees the genuineness of our surrender, various miraculous things take place. The moment we say, yes I am a sinner please forgive me, I believe in Jesus as my Saviour, please take me and lead me and give me a new life, HE does just that.

From a physical/material/spiritual point of view He gives us His Holy Spirit. We are suddenly indwelt by His Spirit. Let’s be quite clear about this for this is what Jesus was referring to when he spoke to Nicodemus about being ‘born again’. A new person comes into being at that second (and only He knows exactly when that is) for we are suddenly a new Spirit-empowered being. From a wider perspective, and it usually takes time for us to learn and take this in, God does a number of other miraculous things, things that He can only do because Jesus has made it possible on the cross. First He forgives us ALL our sins. Second, He adopts us and declares us part of His family, a child of God. We now have a new identity, but we also have a new future. From this moment on, He starts a new process in me that we call sanctification where bit by bit – and it will continue throughout every year that I have on this planet before death takes me into His presence – He is gradually changing me to become more and more the person He designed me to be, a person in the image and likeness of Hs Son, Jesus, (2 Cor 3:18) a person more at peace with themselves, a person more enjoying being ‘them’ in the best way possible. The door was our surrender, then His work of conviction and then new birth, all because of Jesus death for us. THAT is the gospel. Hallelujah!

24. The struggle with unbelief

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.24: The struggle with unbelief

Mk 9:24 “the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

There is one aspect of these things we’ve been considering for this past month, something we simply haven’t touched upon, something we might simply sum up as ‘the resistance to the gospel’. For a variety of reasons, it is not as simple as ‘hear it, believe it and be changed’. It should be if it wasn’t for the truth of various ‘agencies’ at work, working to resist that simple dictum. Let’s say it again: hear it, believe it, and be changed.

So what are the things that hinder it being that simple?  Well, in our starter verse this father revealed his problem – unbelief. Unbelief is one symptom of this thing we call ‘sin’. ‘Unbelievers’ are enveloped by it; we struggle with left-over remnants of it in our own lives. We want to fully believe… and yet…..  We struggle, we worry, we fear, we doubt and all of them are expressions of unbelief. If we truly believed there would be no worry, no fear, no doubts because that belief in Jesus and the Father’s love for us would flow in us and back to God Himself.

What happens when we turn to Christ? We receive His love, our hearts are released, faith flows, belief become sure, and praise returns it to heaven. But perhaps we have to first pray, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

But there are also two other ‘agencies’ apart from our own sin that are working to put us off believing. First there is the ‘being’ that the Bible refers to as Satan or the devil, a fallen angel who leads other fallen angels (see Rev 12) and who’s outlook is based on person pride, and expresses it as rebellion against all God’s works, including us human beings. He comes and whispers lies (for he is a liar – Jn 8:44) and seeks to deceive (Rev 20:10) us and lead us away from the truth, away from the gospel, away from God.

But then there is what the apostle John simply calls ‘the world’ (1 Jn 2:15-17) which, summing up the godless, self-centred, unbelieving attitudes of the unsaved person, he describes as “wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important,” (1 Jn 2:16 Msg), expressions of that old sin-nature, that propensity we were born with. While we hold on to those three expressions of self, we find they are in direct conflict with the call of the gospel that declares, “God’s way is the only way, His design and His will for your life is the best, He is to be the all-important One in your life.” Everything about ‘self’ responds with rejection of the gospel. It is only when, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we come to a point of crisis in life where we find ourselves having to look at ourselves, weigh up the sort of person we are, realise that, in respect of God we are struggling with our faults, our failings, our wrongs, our mistakes, our errors, our missing the mark, our falling short, our sins, our transgressions, our unrighteousness, our disobedience, our rebellion, our indifference, all things we’ve tried to ignore, tried to cover up. Each and every person has to come to what we might call a crisis of revelation, when we see ourselves as we truly are. Only at that moment when, at the same time the truths about Christ – his divinity, his coming to earth, his life revealing the Father, his death in our place on the cross, his resurrection and his ascension back to heaven – are presented to us, do we ‘see’ that these truths are the answer to the problem that those negatives about ourselves reveal – that we are hostile to God, separated from Him, needing His forgiveness, needing to be reconciled to Him,  and needing His help to live our daily lives differently. It is only when these two things come together – the revelation about ourselves and about Christ – that unbelief comes crumbling down and the stronghold that had held our lives captives is destroyed. THIS is the Gospel! 

23. Welcomed Home

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.23: Welcomed Home

“Lk 15:20 while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms round him and kissed him.”

You may, understandably, almost get a little fed up with me constantly referring back to the previous study. Well the reason for that is threefold. First, we need constant reminding of all these issues. Second, we need continually reminding what the big picture is, the fuller perspective of all of this. Third, all of these things are related and really cannot be allowed to stand on their own; they are all inter-related.

As we have said numerous times, they have to be seen in the perspective of God overseeing all these things, they are the many related facets or expressions of our Sin, and they are the many related outworkings, effects and consequences of that Sin, the way it is expressed, seen and observed in our daily lives. They are the many facets of these things that the gospel addresses.

The nature and effects of Sin are in the nature of the life of the unbeliever and it is the thing to be rejected and battled against in the believer. For the unbeliever it is the Big Issue that needs addressing to save them from ultimate judgment, while for the believer, it is the thing we need reminding is dead and buried (Rom 6) and needs our conscious rejection in the way we think and live out our lives, the ongoing gospel if you like.

Our starter verse comes from the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son, perhaps one of the best known of Jesus’ parables (maybe alongside the Parable of the Good Samaritan) and it is a parable that equally shows several key issues. First, it shows the folly of mankind that wants to live without restraint, inhibition, or needing to answer to authority, the picture of mankind that wants to be able to say, “I did it my way.” Second, it shows the consequences of living like that and, third, it then goes on to show the incredible love of the Father.

Now the lost world just cannot comprehend the love of God (let’s face it, we struggle to accept it!). IF they believe in a God, it is one who is far off, challenging their self-rule and therefore appearing as a threat. Seeing Him as a loving Father with His arms outstretched in a loving welcome, a welcome of total acceptance, ready to give them a wonderful new life, well that is just a bridge too far, for the moment! Be patient, persevere in prayer, be there for them when they need it. Let His love come to them through you.

But this is how it so often is, isn’t it. It’s too good to be true! It can’t be that good. I used to run a short course called ‘Receiving your inheritance’ and sometimes – and it was for new people coming to our church – they would ask, “Do we have to do this and believe this to be a member of your church?” My replies? Well a) it’s not ’my’ church and b) we don’t have church membership, but c) I will say this – if when you truly see the wonderful truths of God’s love, acceptance and care for you, which is what this course is about, if you don’t think this is the best thing since sliced bread (sorry about the modern expression), then we’re not the people for you.

What was I saying? When we will spend a little time taking note of what the Bible says about all these things and really let them touch our hearts, we’ll never be the same again. When we apply it in our local church – the reality of Jesus’ love, forgiveness and acceptance worked out in every aspect of our corporate life – we won’t need ‘membership roles or rules’ or ‘commitment courses’ (of which we’ve done more than one in the past), for nothing will be able to keep you away! You, your unsaved family, friends, neighbours or workmates, may struggle to understand and accept the wonder of the loving acceptance of the Father and the Son (and the Spirit) but that doesn’t change anything; it is true and perhaps the best thing you can do is pray, “Lord please open my eyes to see the truth,” and then sit and work your way through the Gospels and let Him touch you. Amen? Amen!

22. Found

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.22: Found

Lk 19:10 “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

 Forgive me if I harp back to something I said yesterday when I sought to remind us of the purpose of this series: we are seeking to remind ourselves why we, the human race, believer, seeker, and unbeliever, desperately need to take note of, appreciate and apply the ‘gospel’ to our lives. As we said at the beginning of the series, we might sum up the gospel in three lines, referring to the work of the Son of God dying on the cross to pay the penalty of death for each and every one of us because of our sin – but it is more than that.

Now it is at this point that it suddenly blossoms like a mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion, for there are so many facets of our sin AND so many ways that sin affects us, and so the gospel not only deals with the guilt and punishment of that sin but it also delivers us from the many outworkings of that sin, hence it is about life transformation.

With a subject as big as this – and it is much bigger than most of us think most of the time – it is easy to lose perspective. We started this series focusing on God and only then turned to consider ourselves. But then the bulk of this series has been about us, because it is our plight that the gospel addresses.

Again, if I may reiterate what I said in the previous study, the average middle-class person, living in the materialistically affluent West, may claim, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing,” (Rev 3:17a) but fail to realise that spiritually they are “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (Rev 3:17b) Both quotes, of course, come from Jesus’ assessment of the church at Laodicea that some commentators suggest reflects the world of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But look again at the language that Jesus uses here.

Prisoners, oppressed, poor, blind and now lost???? Yes, these are the realities of the person who has not come to Christ to receive the Gospel – however much we may love them. They are lost because like the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-) they are not ‘at home’ with the Father, but out wandering, seeking for meaning and purpose out of their own limited resources, and they don’t know how to get home. Facing the truth and coming to repentance, for the moment may seem too far off. Pray regularly for those you know who ‘look good’ but are, in reality, lost. Pray that Jesus will seek them out as he did with the church at Laodicea.

Now that passage is one that I have heard preachers using as a strong condemnatory warning of our present plight because that letter to the Laodicean’s starts off with the alarming declaration, “because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (v.16) It sounds like the time was up for this local church and when Jesus then added the descriptions of them that we’ve recently been observing, it looked doubly bad. He has their number, he knows exactly what they are like and it looks like they need to ‘shut up shop’ and go and join another church somewhere, one that has got it together. They are done for, utterly condemned! That’s what the reality of our situation, when our spiritual eyes have been opened, leaves us feeling. Perhaps you’ve never yet come to that point where you truly see your plight. If this is merely words, then pray and ask the Lord to open your eyes to help you see, that you may then respond accordingly. But this is not the end, this is not where life finishes, we are not going to be utterly condemned, written off, and destroyed in the judgment of God. How can we say that? Read on in that letter to that particular church and you find THE most incredible words: “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (v.20) This is Jesus saying, if you open the door of your heart and mind to me, I will come in an establish a new relationship with you that is pictured or epitomized by Jesus coming and sharing a meal with you. Mealtimes are when people relax together, share their hearts together, perhaps come closer than at any other time. THAT is what the gospel offers, that is the life being offered. All it needs is the willingness to face the truth of your state, and open the door and say, Jesus, please come in and change it all. 

21. Sudden Sight

GOSPEL NEED Meditations No.21: Sudden Sight

Lk 4:19“he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…..    and recovery of sight for the blind.”

There is an old expression about ‘not being able to see the wood for the trees’ which means we are so involved in the details of something and thus do not notice what is important about the thing as a whole. I fear as we progress through these ‘studies’ or ‘meditations’ that that may be the case, we look at the challenges of the page but forget to see the context, the big picture, or the main point of the series. Just in case that is the truth, may I reiterate what we are doing: we are seeking to remind ourselves why we, the human race, believer, seeker, and unbeliever, desperately need to take note of, appreciate and apply the ‘gospel’ to our lives. Within this exercise we will, of course, declare the gospel, not just as a one-aspect work of God but as a multi-faceted work of God, for our need of it, has so many facets. So, having said that, let’s look at yet a further facet of this need that we have.

As we said yesterday, our unsaved friend might be annoyed if we call them ‘poor’ and ‘blind’ yet that is the truth for any person until they turn to Christ. The average middle-class person may claim, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing,” (Rev 3:17a) but fail to realize that spiritually they are “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (Rev 3:17b)

Oh, how we measure ourselves wrongly in this life. We look at our material well-being and think we’re fine, but as the whole person, we’re far from that. This is the truth the Gospel confronts us with!

So let’s take a step back and ask two questions: first how is spiritual blindness manifested and, second, how does Jesus bring recovery of sight to the blind. These are two crucial questions today.

Now I’ve just emphasized that I believe these two questions are crucial for today, but why today particularly? Well, a hundred years ago, life was very different. Observe life today. First it is utterly materialistic. We are possessors of ‘things’, our lives are taken up with things, acquiring things, using things, experiencing things. In the West at least we are the most prosperous people of all of human history. We have plundered the planet for materials and we have made ‘goods’ and our life is spent using and experiencing these ‘goods’. The focus of our lives are material things and when Jesus said, “you cannot serve God AND money,” (Mt 6:24) he was saying if you make material things the focus of your life, you will lose sight of God, i.e. you will be blind to Him. In fact whenever you make ‘self’ the centre of your life – and materialism makes that happen, spiritual blindness reigns.

How does Jesus bring sight to the blind? Well, first he makes them aware of their blindness, aware that there is something major missing in their life, aware that there is something more to life, something that they are not seeing. Then as he presents the truth of himself, it comes like a shaft of light that penetrates the darkness so the Holy Spirit brings what we call ‘conviction’, realization of guilt, of failure, of missing the mark, of falling short. That conviction then brings a NEED to DO something about it, to respond to God, and ONLY THEN do the scales fall away and people are sometimes heard to say, “Oh, I see!” We read of the apostle Paul, as he became, that “something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again,” (Acts 9:18) but now he perceived a different world from that of a few days ago. Now he had encountered Jesus with a power encounter that rendered him helpless until he could ‘see’ when Ananias prayed for him. We need to see ‘blind’ people being prayed for so they cry, “Oh, I see it!” That blindness may on occasion be literal, but more often it will be spiritual. The godless neighbour is blind to the reality of God, blind to the reality of their own Sin, blind to the reality of being held accountable by God at the Last Judgment when we all face Him and have to account for our lives. The gospel addresses all these things and brings resolution, and without it, we remain blind. Pray against that in your unsaved friends or family!