WISDOM FROM COUNTING

 WISDOM FROM COUNTING

A brush with death will sometimes have a dramatic effect upon a person. It can (and has) cause(d) people to re-evaluate their priorities and reset their life on a completely different course. This phenomena has been the basis for several Hollywood blockbusters including, Big Fish (starring Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Danny DeVito), and Meet Joe Black (starring Anthony Hopkins, Brad Pitt) are two great examples. But it’s not just the stuff of movies. Throughout history there have people who have had a brush with death which has shaped them to live a life without fear and accomplish extraordinary things. Examples include Martin Luther, who nearly died in a storm and cried out to God to save him (he is now the second most written about person of all time), and Winston Churchill who nearly drowned as a child. How differently would you live if you knew when you were going to die?

¶ So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12

MAKE YOUR DAYS COUNT

Talk to an older person and you’ll often hear them say that the years have flown by. In fact, I heard one man nearing his 70th birthday remark, “The years fly by while the days drag on!” The apostle Paul was someone who knew that he was about to face death. Before he left this life for the next, he wrote to his protégé, Timothy and said:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. ¶ Do your best to come to me soon.
Second Timothy 4:7-9

Paul described his life as like running a race and his death as being like a finish-line — but not the end of his life (since he went on to describe receiving a crown after the race). The grave is not the end of our life. Paul had lived a life where he had reasons to be confident that he could finish well. He wasn’t saying that he had been perfect, in fact, he describes himself as the greatest of all sinners (1Tim. 1:15). What Paul did do though was to make the most of the negative circumstances he was in so that he could be a blessing to others. From his imprisonment in Rome he wrote his epistles to the Ephesians (Eph. 6:20), the Colossians (Col. 4:18), to Titus, Philemon (Philem. 1:9) and to Timothy (2Tim. 2:9). And while he refers to be imprisoned, he never asked for his recipients to pray for his release or for his circumstances to be improved. Rather, his concern was for those he was writing to. To the Colossians, the death-row apostle counselled-

¶ Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.
Colossians 4:5

Making the best use of time requires wisdom. The psalmist said that when we realise our days are numbered we will develop a heart for wisdom (Psalm 90:12). I guess therefore that the opposite is also true — that when ignore that our days are numbered and we assume that our lives will continue on indefinitely, we are more inclined to live foolishly. This is why the story of King Hezekiah’s final years is even more tragic than it ordinarily would be.

 

THE MAN WHOSE DAYS WERE NUMBERED

How different would you start living today if you knew when your life on earth would end? One of Israel’s greatest kings became horribly sick. He called for Isaiah the prophet to pray for him. Instead, the LORD spoke to King Hezekiah and told him that he was about to die. Hezekiah then wept bitterly and made an impassioned plea to God to preserve his life. Remarkably God did. Before Isaiah had left the palace the LORD once again spoke to him and gave him the remedy for Hezekiah’s illness and the news that God was going to give the king a further 15 years of life. Hezekiah’s days were then literally numbered (5,478 days left).

And just as people are appointed to die once, and then to face judgment,
Hebrews 9:27

What Hezekiah did with his 15 years of grace stands as a solemn warning for all God’s people. Rather than doing what the apostle Paul would later do, Hezekiah tragically grew increasingly arrogant and conceited. He mistook his increased wealth and fame as God’s blessing and approval. Rather than working at leaving a material and spiritual legacy, Hezekiah sired a successor who would commit the most godless atrocities in all of Israel’s history, and lead Israel into idolatry, apostasy, and its eventual destruction.

Plan for the future but live as if this day may be your last!

Not many of us will have the historical and global impact of a Martin Luther or a Winston Churchill, but we can gain a heart of wisdom to live our remaining days well by learning to number our days. While getting your golf handicap down or taking a cruise to another south Pacific island may be high on your Must-Do list, they probably shouldn’t be at the top of your list. The wisdom that comes from numbering your days should drive you to what the Westminster Shorter Catechism declares is the “chief end of man”, or, ‘the highest purpose of every person’ : The chief end of man is to know and enjoy God forever. Jesus described this as –

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ¶ “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Matthew 6:33-34

We may not know when the finish-line of our race on earth will be, but we can still make sure that we run our race well and make each of our remaining days count by sowing seed into the soil of the future and taking deliberate steps to walk more closely with Christ through prayer and the guidance of His Word.  

¶ So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12

 

Your pastor,

Andrew

PRESSING ON

PRESSING ON

Please don’t tell her, but when I was able to go bush-walking with Kim, I was able to experience what Christ commanded His first disciples to do, and what the first disciples would then go on to describe as they exhorted others to follow Christ as well. When Christ told His disciples, “Come! Follow Me!” He was telling His disciples, that Christianity was never merely going to be an event – like joining a church, filling out a ‘Decision Card’, or merely ticking a Question Box on a Census Form! Rather, following Christ was going to require, walking, tracking, listening, serving, watching, learning, and keeping up.  After Christ ascended victorious back to His Father and Glory, the Disciples would describe Christianity as “a walk”. And if you have embarked on this walk, you will have come to know that this spiritual walk with Christ involves twists and turns, ascents and descents, obstacles, and adverse weather. But most commonly, walking with Christ involves overcoming the temptation to stand still – or worse still, to keep going while looking back.

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:4

A few years ago I had a momentous birthday. It was a time of reflection for me. I realised that in many ways I had stopped growing. I knew that unless I took deliberate steps to stretch myself out of my comfort-zone, I might never be willing or able to do so as I got older. I set a goal to earn a particular academic award. This involved me undertaking some formal classes in learning Biblical Greek. On December 10th, 2016, after three years of study, I completed my tenth Biblical Greek Exam (5 exams for Greek Level 1, and another 5 for Greek Level 2). Trying to fit this study into a life that was already too busy, was extremely difficult. The temptation to quit was constantly overwhelming. But I knew that this was a season that would pass, and that I needed to press on.

¶ Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
Ephesians 4:17

When I have been bushwalking with Kim, I had to press on. It was emotionally, physically, and emotionally and physically draining (and did I mention that it was emotionally and physically?) draining. These walks, and my Greek studies, were metaphors of our life following Christ. There a times of ease, times of learning, times of difficulty, and times of challenges. In our spiritual development, there should be no quitting. Like John Bunyan’s Pilgrim, we too must press on. This means, that if we are following Christ, we are not now who we once were – nor are we who we will be if keep following Christ. The Christian walk changes us. But as we clock up a few miles, it’s too easy to slow down or lose the passion for the journey. The seasoned apostle Paul wrote toward the end of his life, that he too had to press on. 

¶ Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12, 14

Two verses before this startling example of what it means to follow Christ over a long time, the Apostle gives us a glimpse of the motive and goal for doing so. And I wonder, if we, and I mean those of us who have been following Christ for decades, can begin realign our walk with Christ to this motive and goal as well? 

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
Philippians 3:8-10

Pressing On Looks Like

I’m not an expert at pressing on, but from the little experience that I have had in recent times with this necessary trait of Christian maturity, I can advise those starting out in their walk with Christ that it will look something like this:

• Despite the best of intentions to practice the core daily disciplines of following Christ through His Word, quiet prayer, reflection and witness, there will be days when this doesn’t happen. (See Proverbs 24:16)
• There will be days when you won’t want to practice these disciplines. (2Cor. 5:7)
• Tiredness will seek to be your master and excuse you from the essentials of following Christ (daily Bible reading, Sunday church attendance). (See Gal. 6:9; 2Thess. 3:13; Heb. 12:3) 
• Doing the Christian disciplines out of a sense of duty.
• And, having to intentionally remind ourselves that the One we follow is the Ultimate Example of what it means to press on.  

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  ¶ Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
Hebrews 12:2-3

Thus, pressing on with Christ doesn’t happen when we feel like it – otherwise it might never happen. In fact, if we always felt like practising the spiritual disciplines in being a follower of Christ, the Scriptures would have no need to exhort us to press on. Just as with a bushwalk where you’ve been trudging up hill and over dale, through rivers and swamp, around boulders and over fallen trees, for hours on end, and daylight is running out yet the camp site is still hours away, you must press on. In life it’s the same thing. Challenges come, distraction lure us away, weariness entices us to stay in bed, the work we’ve brought home persuades us to make it our priority rather than being in church that Sunday, are all the obstacles on our path to walking with Christ. Christian maturity can only grow when we press on. “Consider Him” wrote the writer to the Hebrew Christians who, after three decades of telling their Jewish brothers and sisters that Jesus was the Messiah and that His death had brought an end to the Old Covenant, were now having doubts themselves whether this indeed true. Press on! The Hebrews Author tells them, although he used one word to say it: “Endure!” (Heb. 12:3) 

Our walk with Christ transforms us as we press on. It shapes us into people who are more like the One we follow and love. It transforms us. The more we press on with Christ the more concerned we become for others (1John 4:11-12) and ironically, the more we are enabled to care for them. If you have stalled in your walk with Christ and have become spiritually stagnant, then it’s time to get back up and press on. May we each press on to know Christ more richly and thereby, be enabled to make Him known more sweetly.

Pastor  Andrew

AMAZING UNGRACIOUSNESS

What do you have to do to become a Christian? It is, of course, a trick question. The reason for this is that being made right with God has nothing to do with anything a person can do. Being made right with God is an act of God's grace. It is this act of God's grace which produces a relationship with God. This relationship, like a natural relationship between parent and child, is not the result of the child's efforts. Those who teach that people must do certain things to have a relationship with God clearly do not understand the indispensible role of God and His grace to make this relationship possible. But those who confuse relationship with God with fellowship with God similarly do not sufficiently understand the grace of God.

Grace is the unique trait of Christianity. All (other) religions and philosophies are non-gracious in that they require some act/s of devotion from their devotees to obtain what the claim is right standing before God - but not Christianity. Christianity's message is that God has done all the acts necessary to bring people into a right standing with God. While religions (and distorted versions of Christianity) teach that God did this so that He could gain from this fellowship with mankind, Biblically-informed Christianity teaches that man is the solebeneficiary of what God has done.

No person or their efforts can add any value to God or His worth! This is because God has aseity. This is the quality of 'needing nothing' not merely in the sense of 'contentment', but in the sense of absolutely complete, self-sufficient. God doesn'tneed mankind, neither does He need mankind's permission, invitation, petition, or direction. God alone has aseity. Then why has been gracious to us? Because of His great and infinitely undeserved love toward us. Consider this truth the next time you hear someone declare that God can't do something (bring revival, heal a sickness, save a soul) because people are not letting Him / inviting Him / praying enough / worshiping long and intensely enough ... and then compare these appeals with what the Bible actually teaches about God's grace and His aseity.

But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
Matthew 19:26

Accepting God's grace is the only means of being made right with God. This is where God reaches out to a person who is spiritually 'dead' (that is, infintely estranged from Him) and enables them to be reconciled to Him (Eph. 2:1-5). This is why it is utter self-deception for a person to believe that they acceptable to God without ever being reconciled to Him by a received act of His grace.

"For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ."
Romans 5:17

God's grace awakens a person's conscience to feel as it should. This awakened conscience experiences the conviction of sin. This sense of conviction of sin is the result of God's grace in a person. It leads a person to cry out to God for forgiveness and then enables them to then turn from sin toward God ('repentance'). Thus, repentance (a 180° turn around) is a gift from God.

When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life."
Acts 11:18

If we can only be brought into right relationship with God by His grace, then it sounds logical to say that our relationship with God could never be established, sustained or enhanced by any of our efforts. Many very popular preachers have built their ministries on this apparent Biblical fact of grace. The grace of God which brings a person into relationship with God has nothing to do with our performance - it is despite our performance! If you are trying to convince God that He made the right decision in forgiving and saving you by performing a level of religious devotion and service within the Church you are going to burn yourself out, suffer misery, and languish in self-loathing. May Paul's prayer for the Ephesians in 1:17-18 be my prayer for you - that the eyes of your understanding might be opened to the wonderful work of God in saving you. But God's grace doesn't stop with your salvation. God's grace enables you to fellowship with God. And I suspect that this is what many so-called "Grace teachers" confuse when they fail to make the distinction between relationship and fellowship.

I have a relationship with my wife. It's called marriage. Fortunately, for me, she's also my bestess friend. But when I neglect her, ourfellowship is strained. Restoring my fellowship with her requires intentional time, focus, sincerity, listening and talking, and taking a renewed interest in her. Fellowship is not performance-based but it is the result of the choices we make and the level to which we are prepared to sacrifice those things that detract from it. Thus, when a Pastor urges his congregation to forsake compromise, engage more with the Scriptures in their private devotions, spend more intentional time in prayer, make sacrifices to attend Sunday church services, he is not preaching "salvation by works", rather he is pointing out what always hinders a believer's fellowship with God and shedding light of God's grace onto how this can be addressed. Even his ministering of the Scriptures highlighting each of these exhortations from the New Testament is itself a work of grace in his hearers' souls. To claim that God's saving grace means that a believer never has to work or strive to develop their fellowship with God is to ignore those Scriptures which plainly state that working (Eph. 2:10) and striving (Luke 13:24; Rom. 15:30; 1Cor. 14:12; 1im. 4:10) are indeed required in following Christ (as distinct frombecoming a follower of Christ).

For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.
First Tim 4:10

The idea that followers of Christ are exempt from keeping God's laws because they have been saved by grace is called "antinomianism" ('against the Law'). The Law was never designed to save a soul. The Law's purpose was to reveal the glory of God. When the first of the Ten Commandments thunders that there are no other gods but the True God, it is giving due glory to God. When the Law statutes against murder, it is reinforcing that God's image and glory are seen in those who bear His image. Thus, the Law reveals what falling short of the glory of God looks like (Rom. 3:23) and brings a person to recognise their sin and thus their need for God's forgiveness.

¶ What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."
Romans 7:7

The New Covenant did not make any of the Moral Laws of God (expressed in the Ten Commandments) obsolete. On the contrary, the New Testament restates each the commandments and Christ is the Ultimate Sabbath Rest (Matt. 11:28; Heb. 4:1ff).

Grace is not opposed to Law. Rather, grace causes the believer to delight in the Law. It is by God's grace that God's Laws are now written on the believer's heart.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.Hebrews 8:10

After being with my wife for more than twenty-seven years, I know what she likes and doesn't like. I'd like to share the secret of how I discovered this: she told me. Because I love her, I don't want to do what she doesn't like. But would she still be my wife if I did do those things she didn't like? That is, would we still have a relationship if I caused her grief? Of course. We would still have our relationship of marriage. But would our fellowship be affected? From painful experience over nearly three decades I can conclusively report: Yes it is. What if she told me what she wanted from me in order to develop our fellowship (like, "Spend time with me!" "If you're going to be late for dinner, let me know!" "I told you that in confidence! Don't share with others what is only for your ears!"), would she be "legalistic"? Would I be justified in responding to her, "Honey, those things sound like rules, and our relationship is not based on rules but is based on love and grace."? Of course not! Thus, when a preacher urges those he is charged to love/protect/feed to spend time in God's Word every day, not to neglect weekly Sunday worship with the church (Heb. 10:25), take time out to pray, be generous, share your faith in Christ, not to use foul language, not to allow anger in, avoid idolatrous addictions - they are not being "legalistic", and the believer whose heart is yearning to know God and please Him doesn't ever hear those things as hindering their relationship with their Heavenly Daddy. Instead, they hear them as a King's request for Bethlehem's well-water.

And David said longingly, "Oh, that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate!" Then the three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate and carried and brought it to David. But he would not drink of it. He poured it out to the LORD.
Second Samuel 23:15-16

One final thought for those who are sharply criticising those of us who make this distinction between between relationship by God's grace (Eph. 2:8-9) and fellowship empowered by God's grace (Eph. 2:10; 2Cor. 9:8). Do you realise how you sound when you ridicule/mock/denounce preachers like myself when you do so on your blogs, Facebook walls, and YouTube channels? I personally find it bizarre that often the most viralent promoters of divine grace are too often quite among the most ungracious toward those they disagree with. The venom and nastiness with which they promote the love, kindness and grace of God while attacking those who call for holiness is quite literally disgraceful. Surely the measure of how much a believer appreciates God's grace is seen in how they they display that same grace to others?

so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Second Thessalonians 1:12

Ps. Andrew