Religious Observance or Faithfulness

Many Christians never really understand the true call of the gospel or the awesome blessings available for those who assent and pattern their lives upon it. God is not in anyway interested in our pastoral disengaged  religious practices. The true state of our heart is revealed in righteous action on behalf of His people. That behaviour reveals the authenticity of our faith and the actual condition of our relationship with Him.
In Isaiah 58:1-14, the prophet makes it very clear that this is the case. The people ask why God pays no attention to their fasting and worship? The Lord responds, "Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers...Is not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness...is it not to share your bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into your house, when you see the naked, to cover him and not to hide from your own family?  If you pour out yourself for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted...then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noon day" There is a undeniable link between a believer's behaviour and God's willingness to both hear and respond with blessing.
Jesus confirms this again in the gospel. "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe...and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. Those you ought to have done without neglecting the others...For you clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside are full of greed and self-indulgence. (Matthew 23:23-36)
Our righteousness is defined by God according to our response to the needs of the poor and homeless, the least and the lost, not by our religious fervour and liturgical observance.

Temptation

"Did God really say..." (Gen.3:1 ESV).  The age-old plan of the evil one and his servants has always been to sow doubt in the hearts and minds of the unwary faithful...to make us question the biblical validity of our faith.   I remember back to my time at Emmanuel & St. Chad Seminary...to so-called systematic theology classes where we were introduced to a "hermeneutic of suspicion".  This was a liberal presumption that everything the church had taught up to the present needed to be viewed with suspicion....and, if judged by present society as the result of ancient myths, be rejected out of hand as irrelevant.  Only that which could be supported by the narrow viewpoint of contemporary social and scientific thinking could be used to shape the mission and ministry of the church.  The seeds of destruction were sown in a whole generation of future church leaders.

Any who have walked through the last 15 years of Anglican church history can see the result of this "progressive" thinking.  The seeds have not only sprouted, but grown into invasive and faith-choking weeds.  Lives and ministries have been destroyed.  Thousands of North American believers have abandoned their faith and their church...and many more remain caught in the web of deceit, concealment and distortion woven by the Anglican Church of Canada and their ECUSA partners in sin south of the border.  As the US & Canadian denominations die, the faithful are vilified and blamed because they stood for truth.  

We should not be surprised by this. Jesus told us that it would happen. "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you." (John 15:20b)  Thankfully, that is not the end of it. We are a people of promise and know that the trial we endure today will be redeemed, and what the "locust has eaten will be restored." (Joel 2:25 ESV) . Jesus said, "...you will be hated by all for my name's sake, but the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:22 ESV) and..."So, everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven...but whom ever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 10:32-33 ESV)  

So...the quick answer to the question, "Did God really say?"  is YES!   It does matter what we believe and how we live out that faith in the community.  What we say and what we do matters. Our lips and our lives are a witness and a testament to the teaching, sacrifice and resurrection hope of Jesus.  The thousands who have just given up in the face of the struggle need to see that God does indeed have a hope and future for them. The millions who do not know Jesus need you and me to stand firm for them...to show them that God did indeed say...and his word is true.

 

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Witness

Our congregation is working through what it means to be an authentic Christian community...using Rick Warren's 40 Days material. At one point in the teaching, Rick uses a court room analogy to describe a believer's purpose. It is a powerful illustration of what is both wrong with much of the contemporary church, and how God intends it to be.

First, we are not called to be the judge. That task is God's and God's alone. Only He gets to decide who ultimately will be in the kingdom. While it is our place to discern which behaviours are consistent with God's laws and desires...based on what has been revealed in the scripture, it is not our place to judge who will or will not be accepted by God.

In the same vein, we are not to take on the role of prosecutor either. Satan does an overzealous and consistent job of that. When believers take on the role of condemnation, the result is always hopelessness. God's plan for all of creation is a hope and a future. Our role never involves prosecution and condemnation.

Neither are we called to be a lawyer or advocate for the actions of the accused...trying to prove that what God calls sin is actually righteous, making both the sinner and his/her behaviour innocent. When a church does that we simply end us participating in the sin and leading other lost and confused people to a place of condemnation rather than forgiveness and redemption.

The role of the church, the role of the forgiven sinner...that is, those who have through and by the grace and mercy of God, received forgiveness, is to be a witness. Our calling is to reflect and demonstrate the truth of the gospel, and tell how God's love has changed our lives, and to do it is such a way that those around us can come to understand that there is indeed something beyond the pain and struggle that they are now experiencing. Our calling is to be a consistent witness so that others will want some of what we have been given.

We are not called to be the Judge, the Prosecutor or the Advocate...only a faithful witness.

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The Sabbath & Obedience

There are many today in our frenetic society who pay little or no attention to the Sabbath. I am not referring here literally to the specific days of the week set aside by the Muslim, Jewish and Christian traditions, but the concept of Sabbath rest itself. This is a weekly day where work and concerns of the world are supposed to be set aside so that concentrated attention and thanksgiving can be given to the things that God has done in one's life. Sabbath rest is necessary for reflection, listening and formulation of godly response for the coming week. Without it we are just flailing around under our own less than sufficient and sin-driven power.
Hebrews four, though, goes even farther...suggesting that not taking a Sabbath is disobedience which demonstrates a lack of faith, a hardening of our hearts which results in an inability to receive and live the good news, falling back into our pre-conversion worldly ways. Sabbath isn't an optional unimportant choice. It is an imperative of faith.
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Hopelessness is an Optical Illusion!

Hopelessness is an Optical Illusion!

When life gets blurry, God wants us to see through the obstacle of our illusions to the kingdom reality.  One day, as Jesus and his disciple came upon a blind man, the disciples immediately saw an obstacle. They were captured by an illusion.  They didn’t even ask or expect Jesus to do something for the man. They didn’t ask if there was any hope for this guy. They didn’t ask Jesus to heal him. All they said was, “Who could we blame?”  They wrote the man off automatically. When you come upon a situation and the first thing you see is an obstacle that leads to a place of hopelessness, there’s nothing else to do but find someone or something to blame for it. Sadly, that is often the first response, even for Christians!  However, it is not a kingdom response. It is an elusion.

Jesus does not allow the disciples to go there. In John 9:3 (NIV) Jesus says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.  In many ways an optical illusion is a lot like an elusion, because, when we are captured by what we see, we often end up avoiding the reality…trying to turn what we see into something it isn’t. An optical illusion is when what you see doesn’t equal what is real.

 

Now…a caveat here…I am not saying that the obstacles we face in life are not real.  They are very real.  Nor am I saying that the pain associated with those struggles in is not real.  It is very real.  However, as believers…as Christians, in the moment that we find ourselves in a place of hopelessness, where there is nothing to do but assign blame, we are actually dealing with an illusion. What God wants us to do is to see through it to His glory and provision. When things get fuzzy and life throws you an obstacle, we are called to push beyond the illusion of hopelessness, because Christians are a people of hope. If we don’t have hope, and there isn’t something a lot better than this, what is the point in believing at all?

More on Multiplication Through Reproduction

Here is another interesting quote from Neil Cole's Organic Church.  "Christianity is always just one generation away from extinction....Yet because of the power of multiplication, we are also one generation away from worldwide fulfilment of the Great Commission."  (p.105). Cole's premise is that if a believer were to lead just one person a year to Christ, and then disciple them to do the same, the whole world could be reached within 35 years!  

Just one disciple...that shouldn't be all that difficult....and certainly within the realm of possibility. However, that would take intention and courage, sacrifice and perseverance.  It would need to become the single most important activity of our individual journey of faith.  I am not entirely sure of the math, but it seems to me that if our little congregation of 15 were to follow this principle and each new believer in turn lead one person a year to faith in Jesus, we would be 480 strong in five years and in ten years could conceivably make disciples of the whole present population of Squamish!   

Now think about what could happen if every believer in every church in our community were to take the Great Commission seriously.  The numbers are staggering and the possibilities are endless.  And yet we struggle, bound by fear of failure and weak faith.  Do we even believe that God could use us as His instruments?  Do we trust that the Holy Spirit will resource and empower us to fulfil this calling?   Perhaps not....for if we did, things would look a lot different around here.

So, my prayer today is that the perfect love of Jesus will so infuse each of us that all fear is cast aside and that we will be empowered and enabled to disciple disciples who will disciple disciples until the whole population within our sphere of  influence will come to an abiding and confident faith in Christ.     Amen

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Community

This week as I was thinking and praying about a teaching and ministry focus for our fledgling, but growing church, it occurred to me that we were probably ready for some in depth work around what it really means to be a community of believers. At work the wee hours of this first day of the New Year I was re-reading Neil Cole's  Organic Church and came across a wonderful quote that strikes at the heart of what I have been thinking about how to transform us from a small group who gather occasionally for worship and study, into a body marked by deep and enduring relationships.

Cole speaks of church reproduction rather than multiplication, and insists that we don't need seminars and courses to learn how to reproduce. It is in our DNA...a natural part of the human condition. "Inbred in all living things is a desire to reproduce. It drives us.".   He goes on to suggest that reproduction is the product of intimacy. "Even among churches, reproduction is the product of intimacy - with Christ, His mission, His spiritual family, and the lost world." (p.93) 

So, I am thinking I will spend some considerable time over the next couple of months teaching my brothers and sisters what it means to be in intimate relationship with Jesus, with other believers and with the community around us.

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