LOW COST LIVING

Turn on any TV or radio news lately and there’s bound to be a story about the current “cost of living crisis”. We all feel it. Initially most people accepted the widespread price-rises were caused by 2020-21 pandemic lockdowns. But whatever the reasons for the rapid price hikes over the past two years, every time we go to the supermarket we feel it again. While governments are striving to curb the impact of this cost of living crisis, there remains a way to enjoy low cost living. The key to this is recognising that the most valuable things in life are literally priceless. The path to enjoying low-cost living is to be found in Christ, and what He taught — and it begins with treasure.

 

‘TREASURE’ IS BOTH A VERB AND A NOUN

If you remember your Primary School English lessons, you might recall that a verb is a “doing” word (I run, I am running), or a “being” word (“I am.” “You are.”) and a noun is a person, place, or thing. Some words, depending on how they are used, such as run can be both a verb (“I run.”) or a noun (“I am going to the run hosted by Parkrun.”). Treasure is another such verb/noun word. We treasure something as an action or feeling (a verb); or, we can store our treasure (as a noun). Jesus taught that it was necessary for His followers to understand how to treat our treasure, and why it was even important to know what to treasure:

¶“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21 

Jesus taught that true treasure is not anything we can have or achieve in this life – but it is something we must do. We should store up real, lasting treasure in heaven by treasuring the will God for our lives. It is in seeking to do the will of God, which begins with loving God and loving our neighbour as ourself, that we discover that real treasure are literally priceless. We were created to seek this treasure. To love the Source of all love and to share His love as our own by sacrificially loving others with our hearts, our time, our talents, and our temporal treasures. When you find someone doing this, you have found someone who has discovered the kind of treasure that Jesus was talking about in this Matthew 6 passage. Jesus stunned His original audience by stating that this treasure literally out-values all earthly treasures! Take a seat, close your eyes for a minute to still your soul, and drink in these shocking words by Jesus:

¶ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.
Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Matthew 13:44

The man in this parable is prepared to forego everything he has to enter into a relationship with Jesus – the Ultimate Treasure! This man was not buying this Ultimate Treasure, or even exchanging all his wealth and possessions for it – because God the Father offers it freely to all who will repent and trust Christ! This is the essence of low cost living! Someone else has paid the debt we all owe to God and then offered us riches beyond measure. In essence, this Matthew 13:44 parable is about trust. The man who sold all that he had to buy the field where the Kingdom of God’s Treasure was, was actually relinquishing his trust in himself. The who one who turns to Christ as their Ultimate Source of salvation, hope, and provision, is declaring their total trust in Christ.   

 

WHO WANTS TO BE RICH AND FAMOUS?

For many people, being rich and famous is their very purpose of life. For many other people the purpose of their life is to be happy and healthy. I think both groups of people are misguided. Both groups may be sincerely pursuing noble things, but they not pursuing the Ultimate Purpose for their existence.

And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
Mark 4:18-19

Jesus warned that making money or fame your life’s purpose (your idol) in which you religiously trust to give you purpose and meaning was a recipe for spiritual death. Ironically, the purpose who seeks Him first often ends up in this life and in the next having more than enough and even plenty to share with others, being truly happy and respected by the few who get to know them.

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 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 6:31-34

 

THE MAP TO LOW COST LIVING

Down through the centuries millions of Christians have been martyred for their faithful witness to Christ’s Lordship. After Jesus raised Lazarus from dead I wonder if Lazarus ever experienced any fear again? Athanasius tells us of the Christians who had been recently martyred in his era and states that through their faith in Christ and God the Father’s gift of eternal life, these early Christians were fearless witnesses. Their persecutors often remarked that their threats of torture and death rarely dissuaded these Christians from preaching about and sharing Christ with others. Today, during this temporary cost-of-living crisis, we need to be reminded that the value of our lives is not measured by the size of our bank account, how many social media followers we have, what type of car we drive, the postcode of our house, or our list of achievements. The value of our lives in measured by what, or in Whom, we are trusting to give us our purpose, meaning, laws for life. If it is anything or anyone other than Jesus the Christ, Lord of Heaven and Earth, our souls are bankrupt and broken. But if it that we have turned our lives over to Christ as the Saviour and God in Whom we trust are committed to living a focused life in which we lay up in heaven treasure that will last forever. Such a believer makes Christ and His Church their priority. Such a believer is able to do this at relatively low cost despite these temporary cost of living crises that we seem to be all experiencing at the moment!

Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
First Timothy 4:7b-8

 Amen.  

Your Pastor,

Andrew

RELATIONALLY VITAL RELIGION

 

RELATIONALLY VITAL RELIGION

One of the dire warnings that Jesus gave to those who would be His followers was that the time would come when people would live like those during the “days of Noah” when people were oblivious to God (Luke 17:26-27) and went about their daily routines — eating, drinking, marrying, raising a family — without regard for God or His commands. Even though it was couched in surprisingly mundane descriptions perhaps leaving the original hearers to wonder why Christ would be so concerned about this, as we read on in this passage we discover that Christ is warning that it is when such ‘ordinary’ activities are done without regard to God and His commands, we are in eternal peril. Even such routine things as eating and drinking, the apostle Paul later stated, should be done “to the glory of God” (1Cor. 10:31). When such cares of this life consume all of our attention and hinder us from gazing upon the face of Christ (2Cor. 3:18; 4:6) and end up distorting our priorities (Matt. 6:33) we are in divine peril. This peril is even greater for those who are nominally religious because chances are they are completely unaware of the risk they are taking and Christ’s dire warnings to avoid it. The answer is not to be more religious but to be truly religious by embracing what Christ taught about a relationally vital religion… 

 

WHICH PART OF THE WHEEL IS YOUR RELIGION?

If we were to think of our lives as being a bicycle wheel and each spoke represented an aspect of our life, which part of that wheel would be dedicated to God? The kind of Christianity that Jesus described, to use the wheel metaphor, involved a commitment to Him being represented as the hub and the rim of the wheel. In that way, every spoke flows out of Him to Him.  

And whatever you do, in word or deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Colossians 3:17

For those nominally religious people whose “Christianity” is just a spoke in their life-wheel, God is largely irrelevant, the bible is a largely unfamiliar book, and church attendance is just an occasional (and optional) duty. This concept of religion is known as formal Christianity. It’s referred to in Second Timothy 3:5 – having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. ‘Formal Christianity’ stands in complete contradistinction to the way of life that Jesus called His followers to.

¶ Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after Me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
Matthew 16:24

VITALIS

This concept of Christianity as described by Jesus is known as ‘vital’ (from the Latin vitalis meaning “life”) Christianity. Because this is so starkly different to formal Christianity these followers of Christ often shy away from describing their vital Christianity as a religion and prefer to describe it as a relationship. This preferential description may baffle a formal ‘Christian’ who has little idea why anyone would describe their religion as a relationship. This is because they are probably unfamiliar with the biblical exhortations to refer to God in prayer as “Abba” – Daddy (Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). Jesus actually stated in a prayer to His Father that the only way that someone could truly be His follower was to know Him and His Father (John 17:3), and apostle Paul described this relationship as his highest pursuit – 

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
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
Philippians 3:7-8

Timothy Keller distinguishes formal Christianity from vital Christianity preferring instead to use the words religion and gospel. This is how he sees the distinction:

This is a particularly helpful distinction for those who have been deceived into thinking that formal Christianity is actually Christianity. Understanding what Keller calls Gospel Christianity should lead a person to see that Christianity is both a relationship (with God and His people) and a vital religion. It should also change the way a person understood life and their place in this world. 

 

HOW THE SYMBOL OF THE CROSS EMBLEMS THE VERTICAL & HORIZONTAL ASPECTS OF RELATIONAL CHRISTIANITY

The emblem of Christianity is the Cross. It reminds us that God reached down to us in love through giving mankind not just His written Word — but also through His Living embodied Word — His Son. Christ taught us that peace with God was a vertical relationship with the Father made possible because of the Cross (Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:20). The evidence of a person in a vertical relationship with God is their horizontal relationship with their church family. The vertical and horizontal aspects of being a vital Christian are expressed in Matthew 22:37-40.

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
First John 2:10

 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
First John 3:10

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
First John 3:14

 

TRUE RELIGION

True, vital Christianity is indeed a relationship, it has a power religious element to it as well. As Keller has pointed out, we do not become religious to get right with God — we become religious because we have been made right with God by God (Eph. 2:8-9). The Bible prescribes that the child of God exhibits “true religion”.

¶ If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction,
and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:26-27

True, vital, religion is grounded in a delightful devotion to God through Christ (Rom. 16:27). It is active, relational and heartfelt. It takes seriously both of the two greatest commands of Christ in Matthew 22:37-40. Thus, obeying Hebrews 10:25 is a sacrifice they are more than willing to make. This sacrifice is gladly made when they meet together with God’s people to worship God (Heb. 13:15) give heed to the preaching of God’s Word (Rom. 16:25), going into their closet to pray for their brothers and sisters and the lost (1Tim. 2:1-3); and continually seeking the Kingdom of God as their first priority (Matt. 6:33). These are all the reasons why biblical Christianity is a  relationally vital religion.

Your pastor,

Andrew

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