PRACTICALLY SPIRITUAL

In the gruesome movie series, The Godfather, there is a remarkable moment of redemption that I find deeply moving. Michael Corleone, the Godfather of the Mafia, has journeyed to the Vatican to settle a financial dispute with them. He is a man who is suppressing a lot of guilt and his tired, worn-out, failing body, betrays this fact. He tells the Cardinal Lamberto that a corrupt Archbishop has defrauded him. The Cardinal picks up a pebble from a fountain and says, “Look at this stone. It has been lying in the water for a very long time. But the water has not penetrated the stone.” The Cardinal then cracks the pebble. “Look!” he invites Michael Corleone, “Perfectly dry! The same thing has happened to men in Europe! For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity. But,” continues the Cardinal looking up to the sky, “Christ has not penetrated – Christ doesn’t live within them.” And for Michael Corleone, who has been carrying the guilt of a life of murdering innocent men, including his own brother, it’s all too much. But Cardinal Lamberto points out to the Mafia boss that there is no sin which Christ has not borne to lift the burden of guilt and shame from off the shoulders of weary sinners. I am particularly reminded of this scene as I prepare to preach in Europe next week. 

“See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.”
Exodus 31:2-5

If hardened criminals who spend most of their lifetimes suppressing their consciences can turn to Christ and find forgiveness, there is hope for us all. There will be some, though, who cling to the false notion that they cannot be “spiritual” because they are more concerned with practical matters. I think this confuses two important aspects of life. Firstly, even under the Old Covenant’s division of laity and priestly class, there were those whom God anointed with the Spirit of God to carry very practical things, such as art and metal-work (Exo. 31:2-5). We think of the great Apostle Paul who took pride in his leather-working and tent-making trade (Acts 18:3). I hardly think anyone would accuse the Apostle Paul of not being spiritual!

¶ And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “Holy to the LORD.” And the pots in the house of the LORD shall be as the bowls before the altar. And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day.
Zechariah 14:20-21

The prophet Zechariah, in looking forward to the day when the New Covenant would become a reality, described as a day when even the common bells on horses would have “Holy to the LORD” inscribed on them, and every pot and pan in the city would similarly be regarded as an cause for worship of Lord. It’s a beautiful picture of how Christ has made a way for everyone who has surrendered their lives to Him can have immediate access into the holiness of God’s presence. This means that if you are a carpenter, your hammer and nail-gun are instruments of worship to God. If you a school teacher, your students are an occasion for your worship of God. If you are a retailer, your store displays, products, and cash registers, are all an occasion for you to worship and to enjoy God’s presence as you work. Being heavenly-minded does not have to mean that we are of no earthly good!

¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Colossians 3:1-2

There may be some who scoff at the possibility of anyone who has spent their entire life resisting Christ, finally surrendering to Him and experiencing the transforming joy that can only come from having sin, guilt and shame, washed away by the eternal sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. But, as I close, consider one of Australia’s most outspoken atheists who rose to the very top of political power in Australia. He attributes his atheism to being raised in home filled with domestic violence. But what he never told anyone, until a few weeks ago, was that he was having terrible doubts about his atheism. His biggest problem, as he tells it, was that met so many sincere believers in God whose lives demonstrated their conviction that the God of the Bible was present in their lives by the way they sacrificially cared for others. Eventually, it led Australia’s former Governor General, Mr Bill Hayden, to surrender to Christ, and was baptised in an Ipswich (Queensland) church the other week.

According to Mr Hayden, his conversion was largely provoked by how he saw the intersection of practical service and authentically deep spirituality. Let’s pray that more people will be similarly provoked.

Pastor Andrew Corbett

The Secret To Handling Overwhelming Burdens, Part 2

OVERWHELMING BURDEN BEARING
Part 2

Pilots are trained to be able to fly at night in thick cloud over mountainous terrains. If they ignore their training and become overwhelmed they run the risk of losing their bearings and their life. But if they can remain composed and rely on their training, they will trust their cock-pit instruments and be able to navigate their plane through these treacherous conditions. Despite their lack of visibility, their instruments will tell them their altitude, their location, their attitude, their speed, and other vital information. This is great metaphor for managing what would ordinarily be an overwhelming situation in life where God's Word acts as our flight instruments.

Flying in such conditions often leads to a pilot having to fly counter-intuitively. If you've ever watched an episode of Air Flight Investigation, you will seen instances of where a pilot thought their instruments were broken because their senses were deceiving them. When we are prone to being overwhelmed, our senses often tell us to flee. But if we would trust our instruments, as revealed in Scripture, we might avoid making matters worse and thereby lessen our annoying pattern of always being overwhelmed whenever this trigger appears.

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Second Timothy 1:6-7

“Take My yoke upon you!” summoned the Christ. Perhaps in the First Century A.D. this sounded appealing. But in the 21st Century A.D. the last thing many of us want is not another weight on our shoulders! We are each at times weighed down by the complexities of our modern fast-paced, highly demanding, relationship straining, lonely, debt-festering, burdens. We get tired. We feel unwell. We fail to meet our own expectations let alone those of others. These multiple burdens can genuinely feel overwhelming. But there is a secret way to navigate these overwhelming demands and it’s easier to do than you might think.

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. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”
Matthew 11:29-30

When I feel overwhelmed and I sleep too little, exercise too minimally, fret too much, I employ the secret. Rather than adding to my intolerable burdens, Christ’s yoke is not in addition to what is weighing upon my mind and draining my strength. No, it is instead of. For when I heed Christ’s summons to be yoked to Him, He takes the weight of my burdens from off my shoulders, puts them on His own, and replaces them with yoke designed to be worn by two beasts of burden. It’s not a fair deal though. God’s grace is never fair. Typical of how the ancient Orientals introduced a novice oxen to the task of jointly pulling a plow, when I am yoked to Christ I am yoked to the One who does the bulk of the heavy lifting. Christ unfairly takes my share of the yoke’s burden upon His own shoulders. It reminds me of the story of the toddler who wanted shoot baskets with his uncle the basketballer. There was no way the visiting nephew could even get the ball the nine feet in the air required to shoot a basket. To avoid the disappointment, his uncle lifted him and the ball up above his shoulders where all the wee one had to do was drop the ball into the hoop. He went up and the ball went down through the hoop. “I did it!” he exclaimed, “I did it – all by myself! I did it!” And his uncle just smiled and celebrated with him. Christ has been like an uncle to me many times and I have been like a self-absorbed wee one to Him too many times. But He still bears my burdens.

O Lord my God, when I, in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hand hath made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy pow’are throughout the universe displayed
And when I think that God, His Son not sparing
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin
When Christ shall come, with shouts of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart
Then I shall bow in humble adoration
And there proclaim, “My God, how great You are!”

How Great Thou Art,  Stuart K. Hine, 1949

No matter how overwhelmed you may feel at the moment, He will gladly bear your burdens. He invites us to depend upon Him as the Source of all our needs, and to continue to cast all our burdens onto Him.

¶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
First Peter 5:6-7

Pastor Andrew

When The Solution Is Made To Feel Like The Problem

"IF YOU ARE WILLING, YOU CAN MAKE ME CLEAN!"

I've had a particularly blessed life. My wife and I are about to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We are blessed with four incredible children. I have wonderful friends in my life. We are blessed beyond any reasonable measure by belonging to a wonderful church. I have lots of toys, and more shoes than I can wear. I have the world's best job. But, some aren't so blessed. They hurt. They feel stained, stigmatised, misunderstood, let down. We who are blessed are sometimes seen as contributing to this. One day, the most blessed man to have ever lived was tested over this very matter.

And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean."
Matthew 8:2

SO MANY WONDERING

Somehow Jesus managed to win most of the marginalised and upset most of the Establishment without compromising one verse of the Bible. When He came to earth that first Christmas as a zygote, he felt the ache, the pain, the hurt of everyone He came in contact with. And His heart broke for each of them. To the victim of prostitution, Jesus offered forgiveness, deep emotional cleansing, psychological healing. To the ethnically-challenged woman with the wrong accent and the wrong skin colour, He offered acceptance and grace. To the man bound by unwanted feelings and ostricised by society, Jesus offered wholesome touch, interested conversation, and a meaningful job. To the lonely public figure who didn't want to be seen with Jesus in daylight, Christ offered discretion, and one of the greatest spiritual insights ever revealed. Today, so many are wondering if the followers of Christ could share with them some of these same graces.

Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord."
And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."
John 8:10-11

Jesus didn't excuse her sin. On the contrary, He saw it as the source of her greatest problem. Sin is no one's friend and everyone's enemy. Sin is more deceitful than a lie because it blindsits victim - not by removing its victim's sight, but by convincing its victim that the obvious is not real. It takes a miracle to be awakened from such a Théoden-like stupor. Until then, a soul-blind person will always be deceived into thinking that the very thing which despises them most is the answer to the problem which it has actually caused. In the old days the alchemists prescribed a little arsenic for such things as head-aches, vomiting, diarrhea, and convulsions. The more arsenic their patients took, the worse these symptoms got. Sin is like arsenic for the soul. Like Jesus though, we don't wag our fingers and look down our noses at those who are poisoned by sin. Rather, we feel compassion for them and try to offer God's antedote - the very thing their soul aches for (even though they describe this ache with words like respect, acceptance, tolerance, love, dignity).

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Matthew 9:36

But this offer of God's antedote is seen through the eyes of a sin-stained soul as a slap, a condemnation, a rejection, a denouncement. But it is not. It often results in anger, outrage, and hatred. The story is told of a pro-golfer who played a round of golf with Billy Graham, the preacher. After the 18 holes the pro-golfer stormed into the locker-room and threw his golf bag down against the wall in anger. Another golfer enquired as to whether he was alright? He said that Billy Graham didn't let up. At every hole he was preaching at him. By the 18th hole, he was so angry at Billy Graham for making him feel guilty and so aware of his sin. "Wow!" said his sympathetic locker-room buddy, He really gave it to you then?" "Actually, he didn't say a word" admitted the pro-golfer rather sheepishly. I've actually had many conversations like that one.

If I [Jesus] had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause.
John 15:24-25

Have you ever seen something white then realised that it was actually off-white when something whiter was placed against it? In a similar way it seems that the religious leaders of Jesus' day thought they were pretty holy - until Jesus came. His impeccably pure life contrasted with their tainted version of it. As the above verses quoting Jesus reveal, they quickly hated Jesus for making them feel unclean. For these religious leaders being unclean was the worst possible social stigma. They required lepers to call out "UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN" as they came near other people. Jesus was publicly stating that it wasn't just lepers who wereunclean-

¶ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.
Matthew 23:27

The ones who denied their uncleanness were the ones who hated Jesus and what He was about the most. The ones who knew they were unclean were the ones who came to Jesus for cleansing. This brings us back to our opening text in Matthew 8:2 where the unclean leper comes to Jesus and rather than protest that Jesus is making him feel unclean, he asks Jesus for help. But not merely help, he wants his soul as well as his body "cleansed". How many people today hate Jesus by hating His followers and don't really understand why they feel this way? This is one of the tricks that sin plays on its victims - it blame-shifts and makes the solution feel like the cause of the problem. The leper that came to Jesus had to swallow his pride, like anyone who wants to come to Jesus even today, and admit that the problem was the problem rather than trying to make the solution the problem. The result for the leper was that not only was his leprosy cleansed, but so was his heart and soul. How many people today who similarly feel stigmatised, marginalised, or despised have been tricked by the Enemy of their soul that this is the cause of their problems?

At our recent Easter meetings we heard from Annie who shared of her spiralling down into prostitution and drugs. She feltunclean. When she cried out to Jesus for cleansing her life was slowly but dramatically turned around and she was drawn to go to church - but she feared how these nice church people would look down at her. When she arrived in church that first Sunday she was overwhelmed with the love, acceptance and forgiveness she experienced. And Annie Lobert is not the only one to discover that what she thought was the problem was actually part of the solution!

The leper of Matthew 8 approached Jesus with a degree of uncertainty. He was really asking through his confusion and insecurity: "Jesus, are You willing to help me? Are you willing to heal me?"

And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Matthew 8:3

You'll find the same response from Jesus today. He is willing to cleanse, heal, forgive, save, accept, all those who humbly come to Him. The uncomfortable and humbling truth of the matter is though, that He does this today through His followers, the Church. The Enemy hates Christ and therefore the Enemy hates the Church and does all in his vile underhandedness to make its sin-gripped soul-aching victims believe that Christians and their message of grace are the problem. Even still, Jesus is willing to offer hope, cleansing, healing, salvation and a fresh start. He now calls us to compassionately help those who ache to be set free. And, like Jesus, we will.

¶ So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
John 8:31-32

Ps. Andrew