Lk 10:25-37 NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH

There’s a whole genre of movies that basically aim to re-tell history – to tell the untold story behind the well-known tale. The most recent that comes to mind is one with possibly the longest title I’ve ever heard: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. There’s something pretty appealing about looking at a familiar story in a very different light.

Jesus was a master storyteller. In Luke’s Gospel, we see one lawyer on a mission to test him, and Jesus turns the tables on the lawyer – simply by not giving a direct answer. I’m pretty sure the lawyer blinked hard a couple of times at that. It’s what lawyers are famous for, isn’t it?
“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“In the Law, what has been written? How do you read it?”
The lawyer is suddenly answering his own question. And he’s good with the answer, too. His reply comes from two different books of Moses’ law – widely spaced but equally recognized by Pharisee and Sadducee. Deuteronomy 6:5 “You will love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength.” Leviticus 19:18; “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus twists the lawyer’s tail a bit, too – “You have given the right answer; do this and you shall live.” The lawyer, out to trap, gets his own answer approved by his target.
The lawyer’s been considerably embarrassed. Jewish society put a lot of store in word-plays and cleverness with language – and a lawyer should be at the top of his game. Jesus has just flipped him, though, and he’s wearing a little egg.
It’s hardly surprising that his next question is put out there to justify himself. “'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ And who is my neighbor?”
At this point, Jesus tells a rather surprising tale. We’re all used to it, we’ve known it since Sunday School or Kids Church or Scripture – the Good Samaritan. My guess is that if you all had a sheet of paper, you’d be able to scribble the main line of the story down pretty quickly, and maybe even word-for-word.

Here’s a surprise. Jesus’ listeners would have been able to do the same (well, those who could write), and their answer would be longer than yours. It wasn’t called the Good Samaritan, but it was a well-known Greek story. And Greek stories were popular, even in Jewish Palestine.

There was a guy, and he was really down on his luck. He was walking from Jerusalem to Jericho, and the one thing guaranteed to happen to a guy down on his luck… happened. He got robbed, stripped, beaten to within an inch of his life and left for vulture-bait.
Man number one walks past and does exactly the right thing – he gives him a wide berth. Jesus adds the element that he was a priest who ran the risk of becoming unclean. An unclean priest would be as welcome in Jerusalem as one of Bob’s breakfasts – so he does the sensible thing. Jesus’ audience would have approved. A Levite does exactly the same thing, for the same reason. Good call.
But along comes the stumblebum – Jesus adds a local touch for good measure; the stumblebum’s a Samaritan. This guy is the butt of more jokes than a Kiwi sheep farmer. He’s actually considered an unperson – worse than a Gentile. He’s the idiot, he’s the fall-guy of the story.

As evidence of his stupidity, he is filled with compassion at the sight of this beaten-up man lying on the road. He does some field first-aid with oil and wine and bandage, picks up the man, slings him over the donkey, takes him to an inn, and pays for the guy to stay until he’s better.

Familiar? Sort of…

The well-known story would continue. Bad luck was contagious. You never went to help someone who was unlucky enough to be robbed and left in the nude. You only lent an out-of-luck person a tiny bit of money. Bad luck was actively contagious, and would – at this point in the story – literally jump from the victim to the Samaritan, and the audience would cheer as a good storyteller would pile on the misfortunes that would follow the idiot that stopped to help. This was the turning-point in the story. Not just for the Samaritan, either. The guy who was beaten up would wake up in a hotel, fully paid-for, and would stay a long, long time. His bad luck had left him! Free holiday!
This is the point in the story when everyone would be leaning forward, listening in for the catalogue of woe that was about to descend on this Samaritan’s head. But Jesus is no ordinary story-teller. Right at the climax, he chops the story dead.

Right at the point where the Samaritan leaves himself open to be financially fleeced – “Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend” – Jesus shuts the story down, turns to the lawyer.

“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
He said, “The one who showed him mercy.”
And Jesus said to him, “You go, and you do the same.”

And twice the lawyer has the question come back at him. Once gently, and once with a lot of force. Who is my neighbor? Wrong question, champ. Who is that person’s neighbor? Who is that person’s?

The one who shows him mercy.

You go, and you do the same.

Reg has been encouraging us to begin to start praying for our neighbors – to pick three neighboring families, and to pray for them. Not just pray for them, but pray that they will be receptive to the Gospel, receptive to the moving and powerful Word of God, receptive to the saving love of our Saviour. I think that that’s one of the best things that we can do – long-term, planned prayer for our neighbors so that their hearts will be softened to the Good Message of our Lord’s grace.

But they’re not the only ones, are they? When we go out that door, we’ll re-enter the world of men, and the world of men is a place where the bruised and the mugged and the robbed and the crippled are lying on the ground. Occasionally physically, sometimes chemically, mostly spiritually. We know who they are.

We know that the wisdom of the world hasn’t changed. Leave them alone. Stay focused on your career – a workmate with a tarnished reputation can harm your own image, and these days your image is your worth. Step around them, do what you must do, but do not pity. It’s weakness, and it’ll be seen, and the bad luck will flow. You’ll lose value in the transaction. Save your reputation, only spend when there’s something in it for you.

The true, untold story of the Good Samaritan hasn’t stopped. It still rumbles on. If we listen, it’s very, very familiar – particularly in the world of men.

Jesus has marked out our place. Who is our neighbor? Wrong question. Who is that person’s neighbor? And that person’s?

The one who shows him mercy.
We go. And we do the same.
In Jesus’ name...

Amen

Artwork: Gustave Dore: Arrival of the Good Samaritan at the Inn (Woodcut) taken from http://reformedfaith.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/is-the-good-samaritan-no-more/ which is an interesting story, too...

Note: Scripture quotes from the UBS4 Greek.

Luke 15:11-32... LOUDER THAN JETS

MEN'S BREAKFAST
16th September, 2008

St Bede’s Anglican Church in Drummoyne meets in a magnificent old building. It’s a 1930’s design, built with very solid dark brick; the place is toweringly tall-ceilinged, with a pipe organ that you almost need abseiling gear to reach. It was about half-way through a service there on Sunday when two other features became apparent.

Acoustics. And location. St Bede’s is right under a flightpath.

A big old 747 with a full fuel-load makes one heck of a din. And the noise inside a big old church just echoed and boomed around the high brickwork. It was like listening to a V8 in a washing machine. One of the skills you need at St Bede’s is the vocal power to out-shout a Boeing.

I love the picture we find in the Gospel of Luke – chapter 15 – of one man who would’ve shouted louder than a jet. The father of the Prodigal Son. He’s never joking when He roars in joy, “Let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” And here we are – a collection of sons who were dead, and are alive again.

It’s one of the best-loved stories in any of the Gospels, and rightly so. I think most of us can see something ourselves and our walk in that parable… sad and badly battered, finally remembering our Father and attempting to find our way to fall at His feet… only to realise that He’s already come running up the driveway to us, he’s scooped us up and kissed us, and in his great love and mercy and grace He lets the world know – loudly – that we live again..

We can feel the combination of humiliation and gratitude when we realise that. We know what it feels like to be given our lives back. We know that great and awful cost that Jesus paid so that we who were desperately lost can come back home with our Father.

When we step out the door this morning, we’re going to walk out and into a world of Prodigal Sons. Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands… I think most of us can recognise some of them by instinct. We can see the great, great heartbreak when someone realises that they are sitting with the pigs, looking at the slops, wondering what happened to the world that they were enjoying so much of just a couple of weeks or days ago. We recognise them, and our hearts do go out to them, and we pray for them – even when there’s not much else that we can do.

Confession – I hate calling the parable “The Prodigal Son.” It’s about the only time we use the word prodigal at all. It means “The son who spent a lot,” and that’s true enough. But it doesn’t quite cover it. We’re almost too familiar with the story to realise what a horrendous picture He was painting.

When Jesus told this parable, he picked out one of the worst social situations that anyone in that day could imagine. This would be a disaster. A son – a younger son at that – actually had no right to ask for his share of that inheritance. He had a duty to his family. But this arrogant little upstart quite deliberately decided to shed himself of all responsibility. Get the old man to cough up his life savings, then simply walk out. This was a family’s nightmare. There would be shame on the family, that a son of theirs could do such a thing.

Because there would be no mistaking what the boy was doing. He was showing utter contempt for his father. There’s an obvious question for the father - what kind of son did you raise? A father of that kind of son really had only one option in the face of such contempt, and that would be to turn his back on the boy and disown him. Completely. That was understood, and – certainly in the society that Jesus was speaking to – it was the expected, respectable thing to do.

Even worse, the boy went to a far country – in with the Gentiles, in with the heathens. And he blew it all – the wealth of his father’s hard work. He blew it all to hell. Smoking it up, drinking it up, screwing it up. To people listening to Jesus, this son has pretty much spat in his father’s face, turned on his heel and walked.

Here’s the dangerous part. We live in a society that really encourages our young sons and daughters to follow this son. This is… pretty normal these days. It’s an expected story, and very much the Australian experience.

In one sense, it’s considered part of growing up. The Aussie rite of passage. Schoolies week. Three months in London that suddenly turns into three years of working in a pub to try to buy a ticket home. Moving out of home to get a party-flat and a Commodore ute and a job to pay for the beers…

I honestly think that the most dangerous part for us is how we look upon the Prodigal Sons (and Daughters) out there who are having the time of their lives. Especially when we’re doing it tough, especially since we’ve had to grow up a bit, especially since we’ve got kids and a hard job, and we can’t afford to play anymore… And, of course, we’re now good sons of our Father, so we can’t play like that anyway…

How easy is it for us to both quietly despise them and envy them at the same time? To wait quietly for them to have The Crash? Even though it’s happened to us, and we’ve had our Father run out to us and embrace us and kiss us… how easy is it for us to find ourselves with a heart like the older brother in that parable?

There’s a word in German that doesn’t really have an English counterpart. Schadenfreude. Look it up. Sound familiar?

I can guarantee you one thing. If we’re looking at someone with a heart like that, it’s going to be pretty hard to pray for them. It’s hard to pray for someone to be welcomed back by our Father when part of us feels that they deserve to stay with the pigs. It’s pretty hard to lay a table for them here when part of us actually still wants to be out there in that heathen place with them.

As we go out the door into the world of men, I want us to keep an eye out for those Lost Boys and Girls who haven’t come to grief yet, who haven’t had to hire themselves out to feed the pigs. Guard our hearts from thinking like men. Pray that we remember how to think like a rescued son. Pray that as we’re dealing with people today, that we’ll never think that they’re too far away for our Father to love. Pray that we’ll hear God shouting with joy in that great voice that’s louder than jets: “This, my son, was dead – and is alive again!”


Painting: Charles Mackesy, The Prodigal Son. Charcoal and gouache on board
http://www.artnet.com/artwork/425274646/132476/charlie-mackesy-the-prodigal-son.html

Romans 12:1 FATHER'S DAY...

ROMANS 12:1
MEN’S BREAKFAST

2/9/2008

We’ve survived winter. It’s the second day of spring. The mornings are getting lighter. Summer’s on the way... you can tell; only one of Bob’s chefs had a beanie on this morning… And it’s Father’s Day on Sunday. I like Father’s Day. I love Father’s Day. I’m hardly a veteran of these things – Grace is only six… but Father’s Day gets better and better each year.

Which is really odd, because the presents are getting worse and worse.

It goes like this. Gracie is getting older. As she’s getting older, she’s able to make some choices and some guesses as to what makes a good present. She’s able to make cards all by herself. So now, instead of either a really funny card or a really poignant card (and my wife is brilliant at finding exactly the right card), I get a yellow bit of paper with a strange wild scribble in the middle. That looks like a cross between a wombat and a tyrannosaurus. That’s a drawing of… me, is it? Okay, she might be better at portraits than I gave her credit for. But for Father’s Day, do you really want to be reminded that you’re a large and hairy dinosaur? Do you really think the truth will set you free?

That’s just the cards. The presents are going to get worse, too. I promise you, they are going to get worse. My fault – I’ve been spoiled; my wife is one of the best present-buyers ever. Girls know about buying presents, because they listen and remember. If us guys think they only have brilliant memories for grudges, keep this in mind – they store plenty of good information, and they’re better at it than we are.

But my wife won’t be doing the buying. Gracie will be. And then the other two kids will when they get old enough. So presents like really good obscure books and CDs, and underpants and socks (I actually LIKE getting socks and underpants! A sock should only have one hole, and undies should only have three. Mine end up with enough holes to keep a squid comfy) – they’ll start to disappear. And be replaced by pretty strange stuff that Grace has seen in a shop and thought “Daddy would love that”. Probably in pink, too.

But… but… I’ll love it. It’s something that I really look forward to. And when Benny and Maggie get started, I’ll get more strange things. I asked my dad; what the strangest Father’s Day present that I got him? Apparently I made him a pottery ashtray. Shame he hadn’t had a smoke in ten years…

You see, part of the charm of kiddies and their presents is that they give us something that they see as great. They haven’t tried to calculate what will appeal to us the best. They’re better than that. They give us their heart. And we wouldn’t have them any other way.

Grace is bringing me a present. She knows that whatever she brings for me is going to make me smile. She wants to please me. She loves me, and she loves telling me.

Grace isn’t getting me a present because I need a present. She’s not giving me a present in the hope of making me love her more. She’s giving me her heart.

I wonder what we’d give God if we could give Him a Father’s Day present. What would we give? I’m not talking about money – I want to get that straight. But I am talking about what we bring before our Father in heaven. If you could give God a Father’s Day present… why am I asking a bunch of blokes about giving presents, anyway? We’re terrible at presents! Shops love us guys at Christmas time – because we panic, and when we panic we bleed money. One Christmas I had no idea what to buy my wife. I went into one store with my hands raised and said “HELP! I’m a stupid male!” And I was in a panic because I knew Fiona had dropped a couple of really big hints…

So – guys – here’s Fiona’s guide to present-buying. It starts with “listen”. She listens to what I say I want, even if I wasn’t actually asking. And she’ll drop hints near certain days, and she’ll let me know it if I’m not listening. So she should…

Has God dropped hints? What does God say that He wants? The Book of Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament, and it’s about bringing God the wrong present. I’m going to make a really strong suggestion. Before you get to Father’s Day, read Malachi. It’s a really short book. Four chapters. Two-and-a-half pages. Read it.

But what is the right present? Not the easiest question! What do you get the man who has everything? What do you bring the One who not only has everything but has made everything? It makes it pretty hard to know where to start.

Paul picks up on how ridiculous this notion is, and he collects a line from the Book of Job: “Who has given a gift to Him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through Him and to Him are all things. (Rom 11:34) So what can we give our Lord and Master?

God provided an answer through the Old Testament; sacrifices. But even then, the sacrifices were really a demonstration of a state of heart. Whether a man was truly thankful or repentant was how God saw how acceptable the sacrifice was. Look at Cain and Abel, and the tragic consequences. I did a really quick survey last night on the word sacrifice, and what came up, over and over again, was… well, you pick up the theme.
1 Sam 15:22 – Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice.
Ps 40:6 – You do not delight in sacrifice and offering…
Ps 51:16-17 – Were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise.
Hs 6:6 – I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Jesus picks up this quote and hurls it at the Pharisees twice in Matthew. Go and learn what this means; “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”

As he so often does, it’s Paul again who gives us the answer – what a good present for our Heavenly Father is… I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1 – right after he’d noted the silliness of trying to offer God a gift.

Is it adequate? No – it’s like a present that Grace buys and hand-wraps. It’ll never look anything like a DJ’s catalogue, but it’s all that she has, and it’s all she can do, and my heart sings.

Is it adequate? No - but, really, it’s all we have, and it’s what God wants. And it makes His heart sing, because finally – finally – we start to do the thing we were created to do. To worship.

We’re not giving ourselves to God because He needs us to. We can’t calculate a way to please Him so we can sneak into His good books – there was only ever one way that could be done, and Jesus did that. We never could, and we must never think that we can.

But - We do it because we love Him.

So this Father’s Day, as we think about what to get for our dads – or as we get given things… look at the heart behind the present. And take the time to talk to our Heavenly Father about Father’s Day.

Artwork from http://shop4men.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=13&products_id=55&osCsid=a78131efc77e1c1d5fef240bb5c154d7 I won't complain if anybody sends me some.

Proverbs 30:8-9 OUR DAILY CHOCOLATE...?

Proverbs 30: 8-9, Philippians 4:19

I love bananas. I don’t actually eat that many of them myself, but they are brilliant when you have kids. It’s one of the few things that my little Ben isn’t allergic to, it has its own wrapper, and it’s pretty easy to mop off the furniture when the kids decide to copy Jackson Pollock’s artwork on the lounge. I love them. So it came as a shock last year when the price of bananas went from about $4 a kilo to (at least at my local shop) $16 a kilo.

Cyclone Larry blew through Queensland in March 2006, and in a 12-hour period wiped out 80% of their banana industry. As a result, the supply of bananas evaporated within a few weeks, and the prices rose unbelievably – to the point that the Federal Government of the day blamed the first interest rate rise in years on banana price increases. I doubt that the nation's economy will be plunge into the abyss because of bananas, but it does point out one of the big fundamentals of the world: demand and supply. Are bananas a want, or are they a need?

One of our greatest problems is that society, as a whole, has no idea what needs are anymore. There's a non-stop, high-intensity war being waged by marketing departments. The side-effect is the pressure that's put on us by a world that demands that we appear a certain way, eat or drink certain products, buy certain clothes. The pressure demands that we spent money to do this. Strange to say, with it comes the sad fact that we are almost forced to think that it could never be any different.

Here in a nutshell is the distortion that that we must consider:

*Needs are considered as rights, or entitlements. If your needs are not met, then somebody is to blame – someone has fallen down on the job.

*Wants are considered to be needs. Mobile phones are now so much a part of society that most of us would have trouble functioning socially without one.

*Luxuries are now wants. Look no further than iPods. Basically it’s the new Walkman – it plays music. It’s no better than most other MP3 players, twice as expensive, requires its own software in order to work (now making a computer a necessity to simply program a luxury device)… and it’s about the most desirable electronic device since colour television. It's so desirable, and so well-packaged that it's really re-defined the term must-have.

*Absolute extravagances are marketed as “you deserve it” indulgences and rewards – high-end sportscars, resorts to cater to your every whim and first-class accommodation to fly you there.

Marketing gurus earn their keep by making things that are not, strictly speaking, NEEDS into can’t-live-withouts. That’s their job. And the cleverest ones hit us right on the envy button. Basically we know we’ll feel a little better once we have it – whatever it is. And (here’s the subtle and dangerous bit) we won’t quite be as happy as we were… until we have it. Avarice is congratulated and praised as ambition.

We live in a world of demands and wants – but we live in a world of needs, too. It’s one of the most amazing and ironic things that two of the best-known Bible passages outside the Church contain a REAL need and the answer…

“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins… and deliver us from evil…”
“The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down…”

Along with John 3:16, these are probably the two most-turned-to passages in Scripture; one is a request so stripped of anything other than raw need, and the other contains God’s answer.

Praise to our wise Lord who knows us – really knows us – and knows our needs better than we do. We need to pray earnestly that we can tell the difference between our needs and our wants. Personally, I need to trust His wisdom when He doesn’t supply all my wants. Daily bread is far better for me than daily Mars Bars. And – and this is a big and­ ­– I need to pray that the Lord will teach me how to be content when He provides what He deems to be my needs.


The world actively encourages a spirit of discontentment, of dissatisfaction. Never, it says, be satisfied with what you have, where you are, what you are given, who you are, the quality of the things you do, or the quality of your life. Strive for more. Never settle for second-best… with the implication that best is always ahead of us, not yet – perhaps never – within our furtive graspings.

Until we allow God to disconnect us from the world’s irrational rationale we will never really find comfort in the beauty of Psalm 23. He knows our needs, and he will supply them. He knows we need rest and nutrition and hydration – He makes us lie down, He leads us to green pastures and to quiet and still waters. This is what the Good Shepherd does. And He reaches beyond the physical needs of our mortal bodies to give us the things our spirits need – safety, deep security… “He restores my soul.” But right up front is the unsaid condition that so many crave: “I shall not want…”

And yet… and yet we insist on choosing our own path. We chase our own desires, and fool ourselves into thinking that satisfaction is just a hill away… the grass is just that bit greener over there… and then we wonder how on Earth we got ourselves into the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Humans crave satisfaction. We don’t want to be little Mick Jaggers complaining that we can’t get no satisfaction (we can’t get no grammar lessons, either). But we need to be able to be satisfied with HOW God provides for us. That’s so hard when the world has trained us to be unsatisfiable. It will take a transformation to renew our minds like this!

I have a favourite verse tucked away in Proverbs, and it popped up again when I started gathering thoughts for this – and it amazed me (again and again) how the question and the answer come so brilliantly. Testament ping-pong! Here’s one of the best prayers I’ve ever come across, one that I’ve tried to use as a prayer guide for myself:
“Two things I ask of you, O LORD; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; Give me neither poverty nor wealth. Yes, provide me with just the food I need today; for if I have too much I might deny you and say ‘Who is the Lord?’ And if I am poor I might steal and thus profane the name of my God.” Proverbs 30:8-9 (Proverbs of Agur)

James Macbeth sent the answer as a text message a few months ago (which makes me reconsider the cell-phone - maybe it's a need after all...), and I chewed on this for ages;

And here’s the answer – “My God shall supply all your needs, according to His riches in glory by Jesus Christ.” Philippians 4:19. His riches – not my riches, or riches that any accountant, billionaire or government can begin to comprehend. God’s riches are so vast that meeting every possible need could never dent the supply… and, if we consider the old law of supply and demand, God gives us priceless gifts freely.

Sometimes it is not so easy to see the answer – to see God supplying the need. Not so long ago, our one-year-old, Maggie, was injured. Our boy Ben was playing around, and he threw a video case - and it hit Maggie by accident. But it hit her right on the eyeball. She screamed - and kept screaming. We rushed her up to the Children's Hospital at Randwick, and the doctors there found a great rip across her cornea. And right then and there, we realised how horribly close she was to losing sight in that eye. At the very least, she was looking at a life of compromised vision.

What I wanted was – well, I wanted it to un-happen, I wanted everything to be all right if I clicked my fingers or prayed hard enough. What I needed was to be a support for Fiona, a calm one in a crisis, and a comfort to the rest of my little family who were getting very distressed with all the noise. In short, I needed to be a husband and a father. What I wanted to be was a super-hero. And you know what God supplied… It’s very easy for me to say that my needs aren’t being supplied – but I have to take the time to work out that most of what I want… I want, not need. And I need to be thankful.

Because that’s one of the things that must mark us as men defined by grace – that we are thankful. In a world of dissatisfaction and discontentment, we who are satisfied, contented – and thankful – stand out like a clean green oasis in the middle of the desert. And you won’t believe how an oasis will draw every creature that craves water. Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life, said our Lord, and our job is always to take people to the water. Let’s go into the world today, being thankful, trusting that God will always do as he says He will in supplying all our needs.

Artwork: Detail from School Of Athens, Sanzo Rafaello. From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Heraklit.jpeg

It's The End Of The World...

MEN'S BREAKFAST
October 2007

We are in the world but not of the world.

It’s a sentence of ten words, but it powerfully places us. And it gives us quite a few headaches along the way. Where is the dividing line between IN and OF? Should we be monks? Residents on the planet’s surface, but totally removed from any corrupting influence of modern society? Should we be right in the middle of the fire, at constant risk of smoke inhalation, doing our level best to insulate our souls while attempting to save others around us from burning too? That’s pretty well where we men are at the moment. Suburban Australia is truly the belly of the beast – worldly in ways both overt and subtle.

In the world but not of the world… and we know that the world as we know it will end. Strange as it sometimes seems, the world has realised this too. Climate change is the biggest “hot-button” topic going. Everyone is looking at ways to save the world… and here we stand, trying desperately to tell anyone who will listen that we CAN’T save it.

Going green has now become the greatest priority – at least in political and corporate Australia, the greatest priority is to be SEEN to be going green. We are encouraged to mind our carbon footprint, to pay an extra couple of bucks so that we can “carbon offset” our purchases.

It’s the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine. I’ll borrow the song title from REM for a couple of minutes, because it reflects rather loudly what people see as the Christian response to the increasing worldwide panic surrounding global warming.

Here’s what we know. Christ will come again. There will be a new heaven and a new Earth. So we take it as a given that the Earth will pass away – and we look forward to this day. And so we should.

Strangely enough, the world around us finds this to be a terrible reaction.


Don’t you care what happens to the planet?

It’s a double-edged question, and we can cut ourselves on the answers. Don’t you care?

If we think about a new heaven and a new Earth, and if we assume that God is the Lord of His creation (and we put our trust in His ability to keep the world running until the return of His Son), we can honestly say “no.” I’ll invite you to think about the repercussions of that response…

Let’s be honest, now – it’s how the world sees a Christians response at the moment, and it only reinforces the view that we are all old, neo-conservative hypocrites living in the past with our heads buried in the sand. And, most likely, our views on everything else will be considered just as irrelevant. This is not very helpful when we NEED to talk to them about Christ in order to save their lives…

Don’t you care?

If we consider that the Lord has given us dominion over the Earth and all of His creation that’s in it, and we want to be excellent stewards of His resources, and we answer “yes,” then the next question (logically and rightly) will be “well, what are you doing about it?”

And here is the problem. The Church as a whole appears to be just plain confused. On the one hand, George Cardinal Pell (Catholic Archbishop of Sydney) said this –
I am deeply skeptical about man-made catastrophic global warming, but still open to further evidence. I would be surprised if industrial pollution, and carbon emissions, had no ill effect at all. But enough is enough. A few fixed points might provide some light. We know that enormous climate changes have occurred in world history, e.g. the Ice Ages and Noah’s flood, where human causation could only be negligible.
(Column, Sunday Telegraph 18/2/07)
He also said in his 2007 Easter message that Jesus said nothing about climate change.

At the national Anglican synod in Canberra on October 24th, 2007, the Anglican Bishop of Canberra, George Browning, attacked Cardinal Pell.
“I wrote him a letter saying Jesus had an awful lot to say about the rich taking what belonged to the poor and about the heritage of the children, and as he spoke about both of these things he spoke about climate change.”." He concluded his Synod address by saying that “I want all of you to leave the synod today believing this is our core business, it's not something [that just] greenie Christians do."


And Christians like me can attack both points of view, and very quickly, too.
But in making my own reaction public, I merely demonstrate that I can argue too. I haven’t improved anything, and I’ve just proven my own point… the church looks confused in the face of something that, for the rest of the world, is a deadly serious threat.

So what should we do? What should we say?

As with anything, the first thing we must do before we have an answer for all men is to pray. People who ask need to hear God’s wisdom, not our own.

Ask the Lord for the right reply – a reply that not only answers the question accurately, but a reply that opens the way for the saving Gospel. I have no set suggestions for this – we should all take the time to get acquainted with the problem enough to give a reasoned, clear and cogent answer.

The first part of our answer is in how we live our lives – what we are seen to do, how men see how we live. We need to be above reproach in our word, our morals and our actions.

There are several things to consider;

We have been given dominion over the Earth (Genesis 1:28-30), but that still implies a great deal of stewardship. It is still God’s creation, over which He has ultimate sovereignty. Further, many of Jesus’ parables were focused clearly on stewardship – it is an issue clearly in God’s heart. How we use our money – and for that matter, any of the Earth’s resources – must be seen in this light. It is NOT ours to use, abuse and discard. It doesn’t matter whether we call it “reducing carbon footprints” or simply wisely (not wastefully) using whatever resources God has provided for us.

Think before we buy an overpackaged item. Buy what we NEED rather than what we WANT or DESIRE. Be conscious of how much petrol we use. Switch off the lights in rooms we’re not in. Don’t waste, don’t spend frivolously, don’t be mindless consumers. Buy clothes or cars because we NEED them, not because they are due to go out of fashion at eight o’clock next Wednesday. Andrew Cameron pointed out in one of his excellent Social Issues Briefings (#69) that living frugally used to be a recognised hallmark of a Christian life, at least until recently.

Is this saving the planet? No – but it is reducing the damage caused by excess waste, as well as freeing up God-given resources to accomplish His work. Reg raised a lot of these points to consider a couple of months ago when he brought John Wesley to our attention, and he didn’t bring it to our attention for reasons of saving the planet. It’s unbelievably ironic that the lifestyle that the Green Movement now encourages has already been championed by Christian reformers. It’s unbelievably sadder that the world sees us uncaring because we’re lagging behind.

But above all we must use this opportunity to show people how to be saved from the end of the world. Our friends and family around us, our workmates, neighbors, protesters on street corners, people carrying surfboards or chairing boardrooms are beginning to wake up to the fact that the world is going to die – and they are beginning to get serious in their anxiety. How long have we been praying for an opportunity to talk to these people about Christ and His salvation? What better opportunity can there be to show them the only way mankind can be saved? This is the Ultimate Inconvenient Truth – there is nothing that Man can do by his own efforts to save the Earth, or himself.

Like the Philippian jailer in Acts, the world has felt the first tremors, and is in dread of a great earthquake. The world is genuinely scared, and is rightly asking in a trembling voice “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And, like Paul, our answer has to be both unexpected and bold; “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, both you and your household.”

Very unfortunate photo taken from http://officespam.chattablogs.com/archives/forklift-bomb-thumb.GIF

1Ptr 2:1-3 A MATTER OF TASTE

1 Peter 2:1-3, Psalm 34:8

MEN'S BREAKFAST

5th August, 2008


I’ve had a great breakfast. Tasted great. Thanks to Bob and the boys again!

My little girl Maggie generally has a bit of brekky at about two in the morning.
Maggie’s one, and she still has a few bottles of formula. She knows that the milk isn’t just nice, she knows without thinking that it’s good for her. She knows that it’ll pack her out and make that empty feeling go away. And I can tell you something that Tim Beilharz is going to find out fairly soon, and Phil Glendenning might be learning right now… if you don’t get the milk to her in a reasonable time, she’s going to insist… and they can do that loudly. There’s nothing polite about it – they long for it, and that word – long – has a fair bit of force behind it. Especially at two in the morning.


LIKE NEWBORN BABIES DO, LONG FOR THE SPIRITUAL, THE PURE (lit. the guile-free) MILK, SO THAT BY IT YOU MAY GROW INTO SALVATION – IF [INDEED] YOU HAVE TASTED THAT THE LORD IS GOOD.
Sometimes a verse needs very little explanation – this one has a mental picture that’s so vivid… at least to anyone who’s had to deal with a hungry baby at two in the morning. Peter was telling some of the churches in Asia Minor – call it Turkey and you’ll get a rough idea – how to live. To them it was news; to us, it’s not exactly news, but it’s still pretty challenging stuff. Put away things that we used to feed off. Put away things that the world outside sees as food…
PUT AWAY… ALL MALICE AND ALL GUILE AND HYPOCRICIES AND ENVIES AND ALL SLANDER.
Malice – I was reading a biography of the Whitlam government, and I’ll never forget a description of an old politician by the name of Vince Clair Gair – a good hater. That was an attribute that political parties would encourage and nurture, and I’m pretty sure it’s still something that’s fostered – we just call it a killer attitude.
Guile – the art of using truths to tell a lie, and presenting lies as the truth. An essential in any office if you don’t want to bleed to death.
Hypocricies – Envies – resenting the success of others…
Slander – lit. evil speakings, or as Paul Barnett translates it, “bad-mouthing”.
Food for the world. If you want a guide - not to get ahead in the world, but to merely hold your own – here’s one right there. And here are foods that, when they get into our spiritual life, when they get into our church life, when they get into our family life, will pretty well kill us.

Peter looks at this list of food, and says “scrap it”. Put away – get rid of it. Detox. And instead, look at a newborn baby. . Like newborn babies do, LONG for the spiritual, the pure - literally, the guile-free – milk, so by it you may grow into salvation. There’s a couple of times where milk gets mentioned, usually by Paul, and it tends to mean gentle teaching to people who’ve just come to a knowledge of Christ. Peter wants to give us a different mental picture. Do what babies do, he says. Desire this pure food, this milk. Desire it, want for it badly, loooong for it. In maternity wards, they really encourage breast-feeding, because that’s the best possible food for babies… So that by it you may grow into salvation…

But what do newborn babies really need? They don’t scream for hamburgers or water or coffee… they absolutely need the milk, because the milk gives them everything they need. I wonder why we don’t hunger and ask for our milk too often… I wonder if we’ve forgotten what it tastes like. We live in a world that has a flavour for any possible appetite… but no nutrition. It’s like we’ve forgotten what purity tastes like.

I spent six weeks in the Solomon Islands after I left Year 12. And you know what I missed the most? Mars Bars. Here was a place where an organic shop would be useless – this food was some of the freshest on the planet. And I wanted what? It took me a while to lose my cravings for Mars Bars, though. Until one thunderously hot day fixing roofing, and someone went to get a bucket of rainwater. It was monsoon-time, and the water was as fresh as water gets – straight out of a pollution-free sky. And that water was the best thing I’ve ever, ever tasted. It didn’t just replace lost fluid. It didn’t just quench a hard-earned thirst… it satisfied, and satisfied deeply. It was beautiful. And it tasted… can’t describe that.

Long for this milk – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Peter lifts a line out of Psalm 34; taste and see that the Lord is good. It’s an odd phrase; taste and see that the Lord is good We’ve tasted. We’ve seen how good He is. And when we stop eating the world’s junk food, we will long for the spiritual milk – and to get others to drink deeply, too.

I love what Wesley wrote about this verse, and I’ll share it with you in closing;
The milk of the word - That word of God which nourishes the soul as milk does the body, and which is sincere, pure from all guile, so that none are deceived who cleave to it. That you may grow thereby - In faith, love, holiness, unto the full stature of Christ.

Photo of my daughter. Taken by my mum. Great, isn't it?

Eph 6:13 ...TO STAND!

EPHESIANS 6:13

MEN'S BREAKFAST,
May 2007

For some reason this Anzac Day seemed to be more prominent than others of recent memory. Perhaps it was the release of Charles Bean’s diary and archived photos of the Gallipoli shoreline. Whatever reason, the public paid attention… and, rightly, paid deep respect.


One of the almost-forgotten stories of the campaign on the Western Front came to light very recently in an ABC poll of the 20 greatest speeches ever made. Although it wasn’t voted into the top 20, quite a few commentators mentioned “Bethune’s Orders.”


A Tasmanian minister who signed up for the First World War, Lieutenant Frank Bethune found himself and his seven men in a horribly exposed position in a place called Passchendaele. He was no stranger to war at this point – he had received the Military Cross, had been wounded twice and gassed once. His orders were to hold this position. And this is what he told his men:


1. This position will be held, and the section will remain here until relieved.
2. The enemy cannot be allowed to interfere with this programme.
3. If the section cannot remain here alive, it will remain here dead, but in any case it will remain here.
4. Should any man, through shell shock or other cause, attempt to surrender, he will remain here dead.
5. Should all guns be blown out, the section will use Mills grenades, and other novelties.
6. Finally, the position, as stated, will be held.


Eighteen days later, the seven men of Number 1 Section, 3rd Machine Gun Company were finally relieved. Lieutenant Bethune’s orders summed up courage, tenacity and dedication to the mission so vividly that they were rapidly circulated through Allied France, and were formally embodied in British Army Orders until 1940. Following Dunkirk and Churchill’s “We Shall Fight” speech, the six points were reprinted millions of times on leaflets and posters – “the spirit that won the last war” was held high for all to see. The Australian War Memorial has Lieutenant Bethune’s hand-written original, torn from his gridded notebook – that’s in front of you now.


It raised a couple of questions in my mind… partly because it is so dramatically different to the pre-battle speeches that I’ve grown up with in books and movies. Homer gave his characters elegant and eloquent speech, and today Gibson, Spielberg and Bruckheimer excel here. One of the important ingredients in the formula is the Inspiring Speech as the men prepare to commit themselves to combat. Screenwriters truly earn their crust at this point, but – if Bethune’s orders are any guide – they are more fictional than we’d like to believe.


The biggest question that came to mind was simply this. What would I say to someone about to enter the battlefield? What would you tell a man before he faces the certainty of great injury and loss? Soldiers generally know what they have to do, where they have to be, when they have to begin the fight – the tactics have been worked out and rehearsed and trained already, so you’re not going to be giving them anything new there – but… What would you say if they were your men?


Well, you’ve said it; you’ve been sitting next to men who are about to do exactly this. As we go out of that door into the real world each of us will step onto a battlefield, and unlike the troops of the 3rd Machine Gun Company we will not have the luxury of comrades at our sides. We go to war, gentlemen. It isn’t a war of our making, we didn’t declare war. Soldiers don’t declare war, but we do fight.

Paul wrote to the Ephesians, and along the way he uses the language of war. Reading Bethune’s orders aloud reminds me very much of this passage:


“Put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
Ephesians 6:13


I talked to an old man not long ago. He was looking for a piece of leather thonging, to replace one for a necklace. He showed me what was hanging round his neck. One bullet, and one shell casing. The bullet flew out of the bushes from a Japanese Arisaka rifle, and lodged in his thigh. The shell casing came from his own rifle – he sent a bullet back into the bush, heard a yell – but he never found the sniper that tried to take him out. He retreated along the Kokoda Track with the brass in his body. He never heard another shot the whole way, but walked the 96 kilometres never knowing if he had stopped his enemy, or if his enemy was lurking in the bushes waiting for him again. Somehow he found this just as terrifying as combat itself. And yet… at the end of that long and deadly walk, his proudest achievement was being able to… stand.


And to me it sums up our war. Paul phrases it well – and he doesn’t use the war language of massed troops standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our comrades. All we have is the armour that the Lord offers us and the prayers and support of each other. Our enemy knows the rules that we live by, and fights with no rules to restrict him. He fights dirty. We get attacked by surprise, by ambush. At work we have the battles of office politics, of little lies, of compromise, of putting self-interest above truth. But we, like the men of Number1 Section, must stand our ground – and after we have done everything, to stand.

Some of us find the battle outside relative easy to fight, only to find that the insurgency has put a roadside bomb in our minds. Again, Paul:


“For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my own body, waging war against the law of my mind…”
Romans 7:22-3


And some of us in the room will find this one the hardest one to fight. It’s my hardest battle. God has blessed me with a good job and a work atmosphere like a large family. God has blessed me with a beautiful wife, and a household that (on May 9) will definitely be a large family. So where does the landmine go off? Exactly.


I have no doubts that Paul was describing the battle that a lot of mature Christians go through, and the battlefield where a lot of good Christian men bleed and lie broken.


So make no mistake. We go to war. But… we go to war, knowing well that the war is won, that the victory was made possible by the death – and the return from death – of our Lord Jesus. No matter how bloody the battle, we are saved by shed blood and by love and by grace. But it’s still our job to help each other stand, to listen to each other, to talk and to pray with and pray for each other. The author of Hebrews phrased this beautifully:


“Exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin”
Hebrews 3:13


“While it is called Today” - what a great phrase. The word exhort… well, it’s an older word. Most translations give encourage, and that’s a word that we’ve wussed-up over the years. Encourage isn’t like “Little Timmy played his first game, and mum gave him lots of encouraging smiles.” To encourage here is to give courage to each other. It’s a muscular word. Give Courage! Now! Churchill used to look over all sorts of minute details and plans throughout the length of both world wars, and if he saw one that required some urgency, he would belt it with a big rubber stamp – “Action This Today.” Giving each other courage is one of the most important things that as Christian men we can do for one another. And this is something that we must stamp heavily with “Action This Today.”


This is why I love mornings like this – this is where we get to meet, to share with other men how our battles have gone, to ask for prayer and to pray for each other before we go back into the fray. It’s like a cease-fire, a break from battle. And it’s where we give each other strength, and get strength from each other. It’s not just coming to listen to James or Tim or myself speak, and it’s not just about having a warm, hearty breakfast. So thank you for coming! Mornings like this help me to stand, and they help to bring peace.


Because, although we go to war, we go in peace. We go to a fight but we bring love. The world of men demands ruthlessness and cold efficiency to get results (or at least achieve satisfactory outcomes) – we bring mercy and forgiveness to the battle’s floor. I’ll finish, again with Paul, who wrote some of the best mission orders to hear before battle:


“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other, and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”
Colossians 3:12-17

Action this today!

Gen 2:7 INSPIRATION

“… then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7

MEN'S BREAKFAST
March 2007

What a beautiful beginning. The Lord, the One who had just used might beyond our imagination to create this planet and everything in it, stoops low, scoops up the red earth and begins to sculpt. And when He had formed Man, He went one step further and brought His masterpiece to sentience by breathing into his nostrils. Not mouth-to-mouth as an adult rescuing an adult – but into the nose, as one would do giving life back to a tiny child.

Consider the sense of smell for a second. James has alluded to the sense of smell a couple of times – encouraging us to get a fistful of loam and SNIFF, and to go forth and reek.
Smell is the unsung gift. It is the sense most keyed to our memory. A baby instinctively bonds – and knows –its mother and father by smell. And with this strange and beautiful act, the first thing that Man ever smelled was the breath of the Living God.

INSPIRATION is an old word, and it means, simply, to inhale – to breathe in. Adam, the first Man, was, in the most literal and intimate sense, inspired by the Living God. And, as the sons of Man, so should we.

I want us to think very carefully about who we allow to be our inspiration. As men in a world of men we are encouraged to be inspired by many people. There’s an enormous industry in providing inspiration to others, ranging from framed photographs with quotations about being winners to self-help literature to lengthy (and expensive) seminars. People who are seen as winners in the world are held up before us as people who should inspire us and motivate us. The Steve Waughs, the Jack Welches, the Lance Armstrongs, the Anthony Robinses…

I wonder if there’s a very subtle danger to this. In allowing others to be our inspiration, are we allowing others to take the place of the One who gives us the oxygen for our day? Are we allowing men to usurp a place that God alone should have?

Look very carefully. By all means, read the books – take all the ideas that will work for us in business, learn from the examples given, use the models that are suggested… but be very careful who we allow to inspire us.


Look very closely at the captains of industry, politics, entertainment – and ask yourself if they are really fit to be giving us the mental air that we need. Do they fit this model?



“Lovers of themselves… boasters, proud… unloving, unforgiving… headstrong… haughty, lovers of pleasures…having a form of godliness but denying its power” (excerpts from 2 Tim 3:2-5). These were traits that Paul spoke of, before adding this injunction – “From such people turn away!”


And yet clearly these are traits that are celebrated as traits of winners. The last of Paul’s list of traits is the one that should ring the most alarm bells as we look at the inspiration revolution. Much is now spoken in spiritual terms – the power of your dreams, unleash your spirit… and the most hollow message of all; believe in yourself.



As men of God we know better. We know to “trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

Of course, the other thing about breathing is that once we breath in, we must breathe out. And what we breathe in – what we allow to inspire us – we will also breathe out. Again, look at Paul. Note Acts 9:1; a man who drew the oxygen of passionate, zealous Judaism was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord ” What do the men who surround us in the office, the golf-course, the classroom – what do they think of what we exhale? Does our speech carry the freshness of the Breath of Life? To be inspired by nothing but God will be a good guard against lying, half-truths and the art of office politics.

How do we survive office politics? We cannot ignore it, and we cannot wish it away. It will remain as atmosphere around us, whether we’re actually in an office or not – and ignoring it is not an option. It is gossip, and worse than the gossip that we all-too-frequently think of as a female issue. It is gossip with the added surge of personal gain. If we allow ourselves to be inspired by the words and actions of men, we’ll be pretty slick at this – but where does that leave us as Christ’s ambassadors? How do we help our brothers to the foot of the Cross whilst stepping on their fingers?

But if we take our inspiration from the Living God – and, knowing our own weaknesses, pray for the wisdom and strength that we haven’t got – we won’t have a choice. We’ll find ways of discouraging gossip and putting little credence in personal slander. We’ll find ways of defending those who aren’t there to defend themselves. We’ll be able to counter evil with good. We will be able to replace foul air with clean oxygen. Doubtless we will also be seen as weak, because the world of men doesn’t recognize our strength. We will be mocked, shunned by the main movers of the office power-play. And often we won’t be recognized for our moral courage, integrity and honesty until someone gives us a retirement speech.

But… we might just leave a trail of oxygen. And if the Lord moves others around us to crave the oxygen instead of the pollution…

“These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace, do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, says the Lord.” Zechariah 8:16-7

Go to today inspired, and inspired by the One who gave us life, and then gave our lives back to us.

Matt 11:28 ...AT HIS WORD

" Come to me, all ye who are heavy-laden..."
Matt 11:28

MEN'S BREAKFAST
August 2007

I’ve said before that I love mornings like this. I love a morning where men encourage men, where men give courage to each other. I love the encouragement and challenges that James regularly gives us. And I’ve loved the opportunity to be able to occasionally do the same.

Let me share a little secret. It’s hugely daunting when you prepare something like this… and it just doesn’t come together. The Lord has led me down some brilliant paths that actually never make it this far – He teaches me so much in these preparations. But sometimes everything in the world throws itself in the way, any distraction that can knock me off my train of thought has come my way.

Generally I write backwards – decide what I’d really like to walk away with, then reverse-build around the conclusion. It didn’t happen this time. I thought that in a fortnight in which a certain Bishop Spong was swanning around the country, I thought it would be too easy.

Wrong.

It’s been a very hard fortnight, and every single time that I’ve tried to collate some thoughts for this Breakfast, I’ve been knocked off track. Whether by strangely interrupting kids or by just getting distracted by nearly anything in the house, I’ve been knocked off track. So I’m going to share a bit of my fortnight with you.

We’ve just opened up a shop in Dapto; I’m driving straight back there after this. Normally if we hire a new person it takes about three months – I’ve had three weeks to get two people ready to run it. One of them is the most corrosive gentlemen I’ve ever encountered. He’s profoundly profane, arrogant and selfish. He has an acid tongue – and just to endear him even more to me, he’s quite loudly atheist. Nevertheless, both as his trainer and a fellow human, I have tried to deal well with him. He was interested to know about my mother’s website, picked up and played with a church bulletin… but something happened through the week that really burned me.

I honestly have no idea what happened. This man said something, and it was pretty funny. I laughed – and he turned to me with a sneer.
“Your mother might be a Christian, but you’re not – not really.” I stared at him for a second and said “what?”
“There’s no way that a Christian would laugh at that. You’re not one of them. Not really.” I was about to reply, and he just put up a hand. “Don’t – don’t say anything.” And with a quiet little snicker he walked off.

Pretty hard to find me lost for words – not this time. I was speechless. I dropped it for a time, basically because we needed to get back into training. But this was like a really violent carpet-burn. It stung some when this flew out of his mouth, but that night it kept coming back and back and back to me. Somehow or other in this man’s eyes I’ve denied my Lord. By the time I got to bed I began to understand some of the shame that Peter felt. I felt like I was waiting for a cock to crow.

I’ve said it before – Satan fights dirty. I don’t think that I’ve felt that much pain as a Christian. As an ambassador of the Lord Jesus I’d failed. As someone who could possibly influence this man positively for the Kingdom of God, I’d utterly got it wrong – who knows? Possibly to the cost of this man’s soul.

But the worst of it was this – I felt too ashamed to bring it to God in prayer in any form at all. And it continued to burn. It worked like a cheese-grater on my soul.

Guys, it’s the worst thing I could have done. By not taking this to God,
by carrying around this awful mess in my heart I’ve let it grow and grow. Like John Bunyan’s character Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, the burden on my back just got bigger and bigger. I was too ashamed to pick up my Bible, and so I missed the words of Jesus that Matthew recorded:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30“For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Matt 11:28-30

I was too ashamed to phone a friend or get word to my Blood Brother and ask them to pray over me. It eventually took Spurgeon’s pages to make me wake up to myself and go to God’s Word, and read it once more as God’s Word and to take God at His Word.

Because that is what the Bible is. The Lord is a God of words, and he is a God of His Word. Reg touched a little on this on Sunday morning (and I did note the subtle digs about knowing my Bible better – reading, marking, learning, inwardly digesting – you wouldn’t believe how close to the bone you can get!).
In Old Testament times and as the Gospel spread beyond Palestine, God’s people were surrounded by fake gods represented by the most impressive statuary, sculpture and architecture that man could devise. In ludicrous contrast, God has no interest in being represented by a statue – His word and His Name is sufficient. God is a God of words, and because of this, I must rely on my Bible. Not just to read, but to trust that what I read is His Own words. And when I read about grace, about God’s loving kindness, about forgiveness, I must put my unquestioning trust in it.

I think that is what makes me so mad at people like Bishop John Shelby Spong. Once upon a time I would have very little concern about a man like Spong. What he preaches will ultimately count for very little, and it will not stand any test of time. Next year, people will remember very little about James Cameron’s documentary about the bones of Jesus. This year, very few people talk about Dan Brown’s The da Vinci Code. I doubt that the teachings of Bishop Spong will carry any weight in the future, but if his preaching puts the seed of doubt into one Christian… If one Christian has a fortnight like I’ve had and feels he can’t go to his Bible and the Lord on account of this man… James was right to pray for Bishop Spong the other day.
But enough about this man. Back to truth. Before James comes up and prays for us this morning, I want to share with you what I found in Spurgeon’s Morning And Evening devotional. He focuses on Mark’s story of Jesus healing a leper – and that’s on your note for the fortnight.


In reading the narrative in which our morning’s text occurs, it is worthy of devout notice that Jesus touched the leper. This unclean person had broken through the regulations of the ceremonial law and pressed into the house, but Jesus so far from chiding him broke through the law himself in order to meet him. He made an interchange with the leper, for while he cleansed him, he contracted by that touch a Levitical defilement. Even so Jesus Christ was made sin for us, although in himself he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. O that poor sinners would go to Jesus, believing in the power of his blessed substitutionary work, and they would soon learn the power of his gracious touch. That hand which multiplied the loaves, which saved sinking Peter, which upholds afflicted saints, which crowns believers, that same hand will touch every seeking sinner, and in a moment make him clean. The love of Jesus is the source of salvation. He loves, he looks, he touches us, we live.

Pr 4:20-1 iPREACH...?

“My son, be attentive to my words, incline your ear to my sayings.
Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart.”
Proverbs 4:20-21

MEN'S BREAKFAST

July, 2008

My wife was playing with her mobile phone yesterday, and she made a little discovery. You can play music on it! There's a little MP3 device somewhere inside its tiny guts. It's a clever little widget. It plays high-quality music (at least, it plays music well – I won't vouch for the music that some people load into them). It can hold a lot of music, too. An old record collection that weighed twenty kilos can now fit into a device smaller that the toy telephones Maggie plays with. You see them on trains all the time – people can listen to just about anything on the train, and they do. Occasionally you can hear them twittering away, like some tiny band of ants trying to play Led Zeppelin covers.

They're also getting popular at Moore College, I've noticed. I was really surprised to learn that what a lot of students are listening to is not music, but... sermons. They're listening to sermons! Deliberately!There are a few of these things – no, a lot of these things – around at Moore College. The curious thing is that a lot of guys and girls aren't listening to music at all. They're listening to sermons. Deliberately! They're downloading sermons from some of the world's best preachers. Mark Driscoll, John Piper... Reg Piper... I wondered if the world had gone completely mad... was there a top-of-the-pops for preachers now? Sermon Top 20?

But it led me to consider one question... it's a question I've wrestled with, and most of my fellow first-year student will all wrestle with this year. And the question is this: How do we measure effective preaching?

Particularly in today's benchmark-obsessed environment, where there are ways of empirically measuring almost anything to see how cost-effective, how efficient, how effective things are, it could be considered a fair-enough question.
Let's look at one of the men we hold up as a great preacher – Saul Paulus of Tarsus. He was one who certainly earned the label euangellion - Evangelist. One who took the euangelion, the Good Message, around the world. I wonder what a preacher can learn from Paul's example?

And then I looked back over 1 Thessalonians. It's a book that we've spent a couple of Sundays in at the 7:45 and 9:30 services, and it's the book that has the Christian farewell that Reg has got us to memorise so well. Paul preached to the Thessalonians, we find in Acts 17, and while he was there he preached in the synagogue for three Sabbaths. Quite a few people came to accept the good message of Christ before Paul was forced to leave. But when he left, the most remarkable thing happened.

The Gospel flourished! It went bananas! By the time news could get back directly from his off-sider Timothy, he had heard reports from all over Macedonia about these Thessalonian Christians. News had spread all over the place, but so had something else; (1 Thess 1:8 “Not only has the Word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith has gone forth everywhere.”) Paul explains in here that they had imitated him and Timothy, and the Lord – but they then became examples to everyone around them.

I wonder, then, if we scared little first-years are asking the wrong question? Should we be asking how we measure effective preaching, or should be asking what real preaching is?

What Reg and Stu and Matt... and quite a few people in our church do... is to help teach and explain the Bible... and, traditionally, that's preaching. But there's another form of preaching, and that is, simply, teaching by living our lives as God would want us to live. The best preaching, really, starts in our houses. Being godly men to our families, to our wives, to our children, to our brothers and sisters and parents. Reg said something the other day that struck me; he said that his first job, before anything else, was to make sure that his wife and his children will be in Heaven with the Lord – nothing else was more important than that.

I've talked to people this week whose biggest problems with Christianity and Christians were... their fathers. Fathers who claimed Christianity, but in no way acted as imitators of Christ, have frightened so many of their children from Christ. And the really frightening thing is that it's not that hard to do!

I know, for me, one place where I can be the least Christ-like is at home. After a long day, when all the kids are wound-up, when there's bathing and nappies and dinner and washing-up and homework and garbage and chasing kids into bed... with visions of essays and Greek and research and history and exams... it is unbelievably easy to think that once the door is closed, and the world outside can't see...

Does my speech echo Christ? Do I love my wife as Christ loved the Church, sacrificing all for her? Do my children see me as an imitator of my loving Heavenly Father? At this point – as the father of my house, am I serving them and being an example to them that they can follow? Or am I a cranky, tired, short-fused man who (even if I don't say it out loud) demands to be left alone until I need something from one of them? I would love to tell you which one I am to my family... and I know which one I can be so often. If there's one area of weakness that the devil can attack, there it is – for most of us. When we're tired, when we're not so guarded with our mouths and our lives...

To a point, we're the iPods of our family – when the door's closed, all the outside noise is deadened, and what we speak and how we live still matters! Our little verse to carry around for the week is a bit of a reminder. It's from Proverbs. The writer says “My son, be attentive to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart.” The thing that we have to remember is that, whether we like it or not, our sons (and daughters, and wives, brothers, sisters, parents...) do incline their ears to our sayings. The next verse in Proverbs 4 tells us what our words should be – They are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. And if that's not telling us that we need to be imitating Christ as we talk with our families, I don't know what is.

Let's go this week broadcasting the love of Christ to our families in our words and our lives. Let's be imitators of Christ so they can imitate us.

Gen 2:7 BREATHE AGAIN

Genesis 2:7

MEN'S BREAKFAST
22 July, 2008

We get all sorts of hard questions at Moore College. I don't mean in the tests, although asking me for the time of day in Greek will probably kill me. One of the ones I still find strange (and surprisingly hard to answer) is this... “What's your favourite Bible verse?”
You want me to narrow this down to one verse? How many people actually have a favourite? Let's try... just raise your hand if you can honestly say that you have one favourite? I'm not going to ask anyone what they are...


I can really narrow it down to four, myself...
● GENESIS 2:7 THEN THE LORD GOD FORMED THE MAN OF DUST FROM THE GROUND AND BREATHED INTO HIS NOSTRILS THE BREATH OF LIFE, AND THE MAN BECAME A LIVING CREATURE
● JOHN 3:16 FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON, THAT WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE
● MICAH 6:8 HE HAS TOLD YOU O MAN WHAT IS GOOD; AND WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE OF YOU BUT TO DO JUSTICE, AND TO LOVE KINDNESS AND TO WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR GOD?
● PROVERBS 30:7-9 TWO THINGS I ASK OF YOU; DENY THEM NOT TO ME BEFORE I DIE: REMOVE FAR FROM ME FALSEHOOD AND LYING; GIVE ME NEITHER POVERTY OR RICHES; FEED ME WITH THE FOOD THAT IS NEEDFUL FOR ME, LEST I BE FULL AND DENY YOU AND SAY 'WHO IS THE LORD?', OR LEST I BE POOR AND STEAL AND PROFANE THE NAME OF MY GOD.

I started philosophy yesterday, and philosophy is (to a point) the art of asking the right questions. And our Philosophy lecturer opened proceedings with one question on the whiteboard... WHY ARE WE HERE? He gave us five minutes to discuss this one.



Well – the answers were all pretty interesting, because they all depended upon other things; who's WE? Where's HERE – the lecture theatre, Moore College, Sydney, the earth? For that matter – who's asking? Would we give a different answer if our friend asked us the question quietly than we would to a lawyer asking the same question. But -

But – here's the thing, our lecturer pointed out. The question should be answerable, and the fact that a group of clearly intelligent people couldn't come up with a clear answer is good for humour, but the fact remains that a large percentage of males between the age of 16 & 24 struggle so hard to find a sensible answer that this one demographic ends up as a massive bulge in the statistics of single-car accidents... females under the age of sixteen struggle with this simple question so hard that they take a horrible fascination with sharp knives and their forearms...
He had our attention at this point...

And it's true – as a society, it's a question that we really struggle with. Individually, it IS a question that occupies us: WHY ARE WE HERE? What are we doing here? It takes some thought.

It's one of the reasons why I love Genesis so much. It's why I love the opening chapters of the Bible so much. Because this is where we see Yahweh the Creative, Creating God at his labour of love. By his powerful spoken Word, everything came into existance. Light, water, land, soil, vegetation, animals... everything except one.

GENESIS 2:7 THEN THE LORD GOD FORMED THE MAN OF DUST FROM THE GROUND AND BREATHED INTO HIS NOSTRILS THE BREATH OF LIFE, AND THE MAN BECAME A LIVING CREATURE.

How powerful is this picture? God, stooping low, scooping the red soil and beginning to sculpt. The only one of His creation not spoken into being, but hand-made. Made not by the strange impersonal evolutionary accidents that the Richard Dawkinses of the world wants us to finally accept, made not by trial and error, but formed in the image of The Lord God Himself.

I think I've told this story before – a friend took me in to the Australian Museum for a debate about evolution vs intelligent design. Not much of a debate; there was no-one on the side of intelligent design. But I was introduced to a retired scientist beforehand, and (as I was introduced as “someone from Church”) he was very keen to hear ANY point of view away from the accepted norms, and if I acepted either side blindly, or thought it out. I simply said that I draw huge comfort from the knowledge that I am a masterpiece, fearfully and wonderfully made – and that in itself gives me far more solace when I'm alone than the thought that I'm the product of a billion accidents that went right.

WHY AM I HERE? Because, simply, the Lord God wants me to be - here. Of course, there's far more to it than that. But what a beautiful starting place.



The birth of Man was when God breathed into our nostrils the breath of life. And when Nicodenmus meets Jesus, Jesus tells him “You must be born again.” Nicodemus is obviously confused by this, so Jesus explains that “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. Here's a funny thing. The Greek word for spirit – pneuma – is the same word for wind and breath. The Hebrew word for spirit – ruach – is the same word for wind and breath. Jesus' words take us right back to our first birth... the breath of the Lord God in our lungs, giving us life. And Jesus goes further – “for God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.”

Why are we here? Because God loves us. Because God loves us so much that he gave us life, and then he gave our lives back to us. What gives our lives purpose? Our love for our Lord and His Son. “If you love me you will obey my commandments,” he said, and so we do – at least, we try to as best we can. Certainly, we're here to do His will, but we do it willingly. We love Him – but we love Him because He first loved us.

This is the Good Message that the world outside these doors desperately needs.

So here's a little bit of homework. And I'm going to do the same myself, as much as I find it a hard one. Find one verse – not just a favourite passage – but one verse that, for you, answers the question WHY AM I HERE?
Write it down.
And on the same piece of paper, write down a verse that might answer the question for someone at work, a neighbor, a mate – someone who you would love to see saved.
Write them down, and then LEARN THEM. Take the trouble, take the time. It might take some searching through, to find the best verse, but do it. Don't be satisfied with the first quick answer that comes to mind... really go to town on this.

And then use them in your prayers for that person. We've got to go out of those doors to work now, but let's also get to work for the Kingdom, for the Lord, and for the people He also lovingly made.

Ps 104 THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME

Psalm 104

MEN'S BREAKFAST
May, 2008

Taken from a devotional by
Keith Condie at Moore College, Chapel 20-5-08

When I first started coming to church in 1979 – 1980, there was a song that was very popular in church (and, I should imagine, in churches). Some of you may know it. I wonder how much of the song we can sing? "Jehovah Jireh – my provider” "My God shall provide all my needs..." "He gives his angels charge over me..."
"Jehovah Jireh cares for me..."

Is this true?
Can you sing the song? Would you sing the song?
Think of the desires of your heart – the real desires, the closely-held ones that we don't share... When a loved one is hurt, when we are badly hurt, right through the flesh into our bones and the marrow beneath...

What happens to us when we bring these things – on bent knee, with bent heart, with bent strength – what happens when we bring these things before our God... and all we get is silence? How do we handle the silence?

Psalm 104 praises God as mighty – and mighty well beyond the cliché we Christians use so often. A key word for the whole canon of the 150 Psalms is Kingship (possibly because they were, at least in part, written by kings). In Psalm 104, we start with the image of a king of unbelievably powerful king.

God goes forth as the Warrior – His achievements are matched by what he does on earth – v sees the chaos of waters do what they're told. To the ancient Hebrews (and even in Jesus' time) the chaos of the water was a thing of dread, and a terrifying reminder of the smallness of man next to real power. Remember the horror of helplessness in Jonah? We see the fear in the eyes of the disciples as the storm lashes their boat... and their absolute terror of the Man who masters and subdues the monster of chaos... with a spoken word. Y'know what hits me? How effortless this all is for Him.

God does it easy. How powerful is He? Look back to Genesis 1, and the sheer ease at which God does it all... Rolls Royce motor cars have a strange gauge on the dashboard, and it indicates the percentage of torque used.
The idea is that as you cruise along at 110km/h you can see that it's only using 10% of available power. Even if you overtake a truck at speed, you might still be using 35% of available power. As you ram the car from 160 to nearly 200km/h, you can see that you still have 50% of what the engine is truly capable up your sleeve. A powerful motor indeed.

But a man in a boat that speaks to the screaming wind... be still... a God who speaks to the blackness... Let there be light... there's power.

The Psalm isn't about Mother Nature - there's no such thing. It's all God.

"O Lord my God you are VERY great..."

And why does He do this? The writer tells us that one of the purposes of this might, this massive display of power is... to provide. In v10 and 11, the chaos of water is suborned for a very good purpose - to provide. To provide shelter, grass for animals. We see the rhythms of the planet and space (v19-23) set so that beasts – and man – can eat and rest. All this power, to just provide...

But... we keep coming up against the same question over and over again... if this mighty, unimaginably powerful God does this for cows and badgers and goats... why, why, why does He stay so silent when I shout to him in agony, in need, in great profound distress? Why is the Sovereign Lord incapable of simply replying?

Sooner or later, we'll be faced with people in this genuine distress – or we will face it ourselves. How do we deal with it? Will we sing about “My Provider?”

The Bible doesn't give the easy pious answer. King David wrote of his unbearable pain in Psalm 22. We all know it as the one that Jesus quoted on the cross, we know Eloi eloi lamech sabach-thani. But read on. (Read V2 – 6 )

Where do we go from here?

James Macbeth sent me a quick textie yesterday, urging me to read something. Yesterday's entry in Spurgeon's Morning and Evening held a really crucial thought. Let me quote:

Anxious worry often leads to acts of sin. He who cannot calmly leave his affairs in God's hand, but will carry his own burden, is very likely to be tempted to use wrong means to help himself. This sin leads to forsaking of God as our counsellor, and resorting to human wisdom. This is going to the 'broken cistern' instead of the 'fountain'; a sin which was laid against Israel of old. Anxiety makes us doubt God's loving-kindness, and thus our love to Him grows cold; we feel mistrust... our prayers become hindered... and our life one of self-seeking. Thus want of confidence in God leads us to wander far from Him.

Spurgeon continues... “but if through simple faith in His promise, we cast each burden as it comes upon Him, and are worrisome over nothing because He undertakes to care for us, it will keep us close to Him, and strengthen us against much temptation.

In Psalm 22, we see that David, never once, says that his burden just disappeared. But we see him – in the middle of his anguish – stop and ask for God to not be far away... to come quickly.

If we KNOW that God is our Provider - it frees us up. Frees us from worry – and allows Him tp gladden and sustain our hearts.

Sometimes this is the daily bread we need to ask for.
Life can be hard - and yet permeated by happy moments, too. Let's not forget that.
He is sovereign, and he does GOOD.

Take the two Psalms with you through the week. When you've got some time to sit and let them sink in, sit and let them sink in. He loves us. He who moves mountains and water for the benefit of goats and hyraxes loves us! And he treasures us more than birds or hyraxes.
“He who calls you is faithful – and He will do it!”
Jehovah Jireh cares for me.