What Matters

Nothing but the Blood (Good Friday 2012)

On Good Friday 2012 we celebrated the wonderful reality that Jesus is our Scapegoat, our Passover Lamb and our Scarlet Worm.  You can listen to my message here: Download Good Friday 2012 _ Nothing But the Blood  Or you can read the manuscript here: Download Good Friday Manuscript

Paradise Restored (April 5)

Read: Revelation 21:1 – 22:6

Key Text: And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and he will live with them and be their God.” (Revelation 21:3)

Reflection: Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end.  Our story began forty days ago with the words, ‘In the beginning, God…’ It finishes with the words, ‘In the end, God.’  (Revelation 21:6) The bible is his-story – the story of God’s magnificent, universe defining redemptive rescue plan for a fallen humanity and broken world.  In the end God restores both earth and us – the Paradise of Eden is restored, now not a garden, but a city called New Jerusalem (21:10).

John’s vision, full of rich symbolism, communicates some serious truths about the hope we have for the future:

• Our souls do not escape to heaven, but heaven comes to earth.  (Revelation 21:2)  Jesus’ prayer is fulfilled completely; God’s will (reign) is on earth as it is in heaven.
• Our final destination is not heaven (yes, I did say that!), BUT a new heaven and new earth - even better still.  The groaning of Creation (the earth) for renewal and redemption (Romans 8:22) will be gloriously fulfilled.
• God will be in all and through all. (Revelation 21:3)
• Pain, suffering and mourning will be gone. (Revelation 21:4)
• God’s glory will be the city’s light and our delight (Revelation 21:22-23)
• The city will be known by the life that flows from the throne of God. (Revelation 22:1-3)

John’s vision concludes with a three-fold promise from Jesus that he is coming soon. (Revelations 22:7, 12, 20).  In response John cries out, ‘Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus.’  And we say amen and amen.

Question: Jesus promises that, ‘I am making everything new!’ (Revelation 21:5)  Where do you need to experience ‘newness’ in your life right now?  Ask Jesus to breathe life into that area or situation in your life.

Read: A fantastic article from NT Wright entitled ‘Heaven is not our home’ in Chrstianity Today: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/april/13.36.html (The article covers four screens)

Love that will not let go (April 4)

Read: Romans 8:18-39

Key Text: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Reflection: First a confession.  The eighth chapter of Romans is my favorite, most treasured passage in the scriptures.  Reading it never fails to move me.  It is a well that never runs dry.  Once when preaching from it at a youth service I concluded my sermon by re-reading the last few verses, blubbering like a baby as again I was struck by the length and breadth and depth of God’s love for me.  I know of one Pastor who for a whole year read Romans 8 every day as his devotions, discovering new truths every time as he wrote his reflections. 

Paul’s rhetoric is beautiful, but more than that the substance of his claims is breathtaking. Nothing can separate those in Christ from God and his love, including and most especially the greatest of life’s enemies – death. Paul’s central affirmation in all of his theology, and most wonderfully affirmed and argued in this passage, is that the life we have in Christ is life with God.  We receive life from God that is experienced as life with God.  Wow!  This is life we will never lose.  It cannot be stolen from us, nor once gripped by it can we wrestle ourselves away.  This is love that will not let go.

In his commentary on the last part of this passage (Romans 8:31-39), John Stott identifies five truths that Paul  affirms about our life in Christ as he asks and then answers five rhetorical questions.  ‘Absolutely nothing can frustrate God’s purposes (since he is for us), or quench his generosity (since he has not spared his Son), or accuse or condemn his elect (since he has justified them through Christ), or sunder us from his love (since he has revealed it in Christ).’  (John Stott)  As the hymn writer says, ‘On Christ the solid rock I stand.  All other ground is sinking sand.’  In Christ alone is life-everlasting.

Question: Which passage of scripture would you chose, or have you chosen to have read at your funeral?

Listen and Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRRhxvKMpQU

Abundant Life (April 3)

Read: John 10:1-21

Key Text: The thief comes to only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

Reflection: Jesus is a life-giver; in fact Jesus IS life.  John introduces his gospel by claiming, ‘in him (Jesus) was life and that life was the light of men.’ (John 1:4)  For John, the everlasting life that Jesus offers is both a future promise and a present reality.  Jesus is the bread of life who we can feed on (John 6:48), the way, truth and life (John 11:25) and the resurrection and the life (John 14:6).  The presence of Jesus brings life to a believer both now and forever.  The life that Jesus offers is far more than ‘pie in the sky when we die’; although in him we receive the promise of resurrection bodies. The life that Jesus offers is restored relationship with God both in this world and the world to come. 

Our culture defines the ‘good life’ in many and varied and dangerously illusory ways.  For many, the good life is collecting possessions or experiences or relationships.  Marketers attempt to convince us to strive for a particular product so that our life will be enhanced or even completed.  But Jesus said that life, the good life, is more than the sum of our possessions or experiences (Luke 12:15, 23).  The life we long and were created for can only be found through faith in the one who is Life - Jesus Christ.   At the beginning of his biography (Confessions), Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.  God knows our restlessness and the story of the Bible is of his life-restoring redemptive rescue plan for humanity, culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  And so we come to perhaps the most famous and quoted verse in the scriptures: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16)  This really is the only Good Life.

Question: Where and how have you experienced rest in or through your relationship with Jesus?

Read: A Bible Encyclopedia article on life as it is spoken of in the scriptures: http://www.biblestudytools.com/encyclopedias/isbe/life.html  (Nb. There are seven screens to scroll through)

Creed (Week Six)

The Apostles' Creed concludes by testifying to three pillars of the Christian faith - the scandal of amazing grace, the hope of bodily resurrection and the promise of eternal life.  To this, and all that precedes it, we are invited to say 'Amen!'  Listen in to find out more: Download Creed _ Eternal Life _ Wk 6  Or download the manucript here: Download The End Manuscript

Our Resurrection Body (April 2)

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:35-58

Key Text: When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:54)

Reflection: Somewhere along the way a myth emerged in popular Christianity that when we die our soul escapes our decomposing body and either floats up to heaven or drifts down to hell.  In this view, whichever destination our soul escapes to, we survive beyond death in a disembodied state.  In no way does such belief stand up to biblical scrutiny.  In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul first argues for the historical foundation of Christ’s resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-11), then for the centrality of resurrection to Christian faith and hope (1 Corinthians 15:12-34).  Now he spells out how our resurrection bodies will come about and what they will be like. 

The resurrection of our bodies will be a gift of God (v.38).  God will raise us up.  Our resurrection body will have some continuity with our mortal bodies (v.49), but will be different in the way a plant is different from the seed from which it came (v.36).  Like a seed ‘dies’ so our physical bodies dies, but to be raised in new form – perishable for imperishable, weak and now powerful, natural and now spiritual.  It is important to note that our spiritual bodies will be physical bodies animated by the Spirit of God (God’s resurrection power).  Our resurrection bodies will be like a new set of eternal clothes we put on (vv.53-54).  NT Wright puts it this way, ‘(Our) present body is a body animated by the ordinary human soul, and the future body will be a body animated by God's spirit and hence not corruptible.’

We can only imagine what our new bodies will be like.  This we do know; compared with the physical limitations we encounter now, they will be glorious.

Question: What current physical imitation you currently face are you most looking forward to leaving behind?

Watch: NT Wright speaks about resurrection belief in the early church: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl4nNiVt2n0

Dead men do rise (April 1)

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:12-34

Key Text: If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:17)

Reflection: As we best we can determine, the Apostle’s Creed appeared in its earliest form in the mid second century.  Through it the early church sought to concisely re-state biblical Christianity in the light of ongoing confusion and controversy about doctrinal matters, especially relating to the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Then as now there were friends and foes alike who questioned the validity of the resurrection.  After all, dead men don’t rise.

In this passage the Apostle Paul confronts this thinking in the church in Corinth.  Corinth was a city caught up in the emerging cult surrounding the Roman Caesar.    Caesar was thought responsible for salvation amounting to present blessings of safety, health and wealth of what was a very rich city in the empire.  For many in Corinth, salvation was to be celebrated in this life and is associated with the coming of Caesar.  For Paul, salvation is not just celebrated in this life, but the life to come and such salvation only comes through Jesus Christ.  In this, Paul directly links the resurrection of Jesus with the hope we have for our resurrection.  In fact Paul is saying simply and directly, no resurrection – no hope.

Ben Witherington summarizes the Paul’s persuasive argument for the centrality of belief in the physical resurrection for Christian faith.  If Christ has not been raised:

• Paul’s preaching and the Corinthian’s faith are empty, worthless and futile
• Paul is guilty of bearing false witness about what God did
• Christians are still in their sins
• Those who have died as Christians have already perished
• Believers are to be pitied, since faith in Christ has only temporary benefits
• All effort at moral uprightness is pointless
• All of Paul’s work, including risking his life, is pointless.

Let me be clear; when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus we cannot sit on the fence.  Based on the evidence, and by faith we believe it happened, or not.  And according to Paul, only if it did do we have real hope that sustains us in this life and the life to come.

Question: How do you respond to people who suggest that the resurrection of Jesus was not bodily, but in some way spiritual?  Is this an important distinction?

Read: A Resurrection Day sermon from Rev Dr N.T. Wright preached at Durham Cathedral: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/sermons/EasterDay08.htm