DOES THE LION SEEM BIGGER TO YOU?

“Aslan” said Lucy “you’re bigger”.
“That is because you are older, little one” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

In the Chronicles of Narnia instalment, Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis creatively depicts Aslan as appearing to the Pervensie children in differing sizes. Having longed to see Aslan for some time, Lucy encounters him at long last and remarks to The Lion that he appeared to be bigger. In effect, Aslan tells her that the bigger she gets, the bigger he will appear to be to her. In one sense C.S. Lewis has beautifully portrayed the believer’s relationship with Christ in a way that shows that when the believer grows, their vision of Christ also grows. It reminds me of the time when Kim wanted me to walk with her over the Ironbound range (a part of the famous South Coast Track). After a few hours of trekking, I made it near the top of the peak and thought, “That wasn’t so bad.” I’d heard how others had talked about how the Iron Bound was so difficult to trek up. And just as I was congratulating myself I reached the peak and looked up and to my horror realised I had just trekked the foot-hill of the Iron Bound – not the Iron Bound! (see the illustration below)

WHEN THE LION APPEARS

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that He can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
Revelation 5:5

(Note how the Director of this scene cleverly portrays how Aslan appears to differ in size depending on who is looking at him)

Aslan says to Lucy in The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, “In your world I have another name. You must learn to know me by it. That was the very reason you brought to Narnia. That by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” In this scene, C.S. Lewis has powerfully phrased what it is like to come to know Christ. He has taken the wealth of the Bible’s revelation about GOD in Christ and distilled it: 

(i) Christ has a Name that represents who He is 

(ii) We must learn to know Him by it 

(iii) The very reason we live is to come to know Him better

Christ’s name first appears to us as Saviour. Did you that the name ‘Jesus’ (Yeshua in Hebrew) means Saviour? 

She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for he will save His people from their sins.”
Matthew 1:21

But there is more to His name than Saviour and as we learn to know Him better we come to realise that His name encompasses exactly what every person needs and longs for.

LEARNING TO KNOW HIM BETTER

My mission as the pastor of our church is to minister the richness of Christ to you. It may appear that I am simply ministering His Word each Sunday as I stand before you. This requires study, research, preparation and presentation. But if this is all it seems I am doing then you may be missing my real intent. My intent is not merely to minister the Written Word of God to you – but to minister the Living Word of God to you. (see the illustration below for a fuller explanation)

If all I did was just minister the Word of God as a collection of facts, we would be at risk of drying up. If all I did was minister in the power of the Holy Spirit, we would be at risk of blowing up. The power of the Word of God ministered in the power of the Spirit is that it not just fills our minds, it heals our souls, and makes Christ bigger to us. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1

Since Christ is the Word of God, when we gather on a Sunday to worship Christ and receive His Word, we are receiving Him. That’s why my preparation for a Sunday is not just my study of His Word but also my time with Him. I hope this Sunday that it is not just your minds which are enriched in the knowledge of God’s Word, but that it is also your hearts which are cleansed by the washing of the water of His Word (Eph. 5:26) and also your souls which are infused with a greater love for Him as the combination of our praise, reflection, teaching, and fellowship draws us to behold Him – and by beholding Him we are made more like Him.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Second Corinthians 3:18

Does the Lion seem bigger to you? I hope so. If not, there’s more to your Christianity than perhaps you realise – there’s an invitation to behold Christ in a way that transforms your world and priorities. See you in the den this Sunday.

Your pastor,
Andrew

The Unchanging But Always New

 

You Become Like What You Worship 

Although we are all created to bear the image of God, we are also fallen, which means that the image of God in us has been marred. Our fallen nature distorts how some people worship and therefore live. Every day we see the result of those who worship a god whom they believe is a war-mongering, violent, heavenly sultan, when they murderously enforce their religious beliefs. This sad reality highlights the maxim – you become like what you worship. But in stark contrast, everyday we also see the result of those who worship the God who is loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, kind, and generous. Thus, theseworshipers care for the infirmed, uphold justice,  give generously to charities, volunteer their time and expertise, and spend their annual leave undertaking aid projects in impoverished regions of the globe. They are worshiping the immutable God is always loving, always good, always just.

¶ “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
Malachi 3:6

God Does Not Change

God has revealed to us that He is immutable. That means, He does not change. The unchanging qualities of God are comforting. He is steadfast. He is trustworthy. He is faithful. When we worship this unchanging God and meditate on these glorious divine attributes, we become like who we worship: steadfast, trustworthy, faithful. These are desirable virtues. They make someone reliable, dependable, consistent. 

Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
Deuteronomy 7:9

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
Exodus 34:6

There is something about God’s immutability that appeals deeply to us. It’s comforting that we are created in the image of the God who does not change. The Psalmists described this comfort by declaring God to be a “rock”. They painted a picture of God as unchanging because He was immovable. But the thought of God as unchanging is also comforting because it seems that this means His worshipers, therefore, do not have to change either. But there is something significantly incomplete with this vision of our God. Here’s why.

¶ “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Deuteronomy 29:29

Discover God

God is the unchanging but always new God. Not “new” in the sense of He changes, but new in the sense that as we worship and behold Him, we discover new things about Him. We learn from Scripture that His mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22-23). He declares new things –

Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
I tell you of them.”
Isaiah 42:9

Those who worship God are told to do so with new songs, new sounds, and a new heart. Everything about the unchanging God invokes new. As we worship the God who has an infinite treasure of new things to reveal about Himself to those who worship Him, we become like the One we worship and embrace new.

Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
Psalm 33:3

¶ I will sing a new song to you, O God;
upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you,
Psalm 144:9

Worship of the Unchanging God always produces new. New tends to engage the heart and mind in a way that familiar cannot. Without changing who or what He is, the Unchanging God is always new. Jesus warned that if we cling to the familiar – traditions – we would be in danger of nullifying the Word God and its effectiveness.

“Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like this.”
Mark 7:13 NET

If our worship is entirely familiar – and what we have always done – we are in spiritually perilous territory. The unfamiliar is nearly always uncomfortable because we can’t control it or be complacent within it. History is dotted with people who loved God but resisted the change the One they worshiped inspired. Many denominations were founded reluctantly. John Wesley did not want to found the Methodist Denomination. He hoped that he could help facilitate renewal within the Anglican (Episcopal) Denomination. But the change was resisted and the result was that a new Denomination was birthed. Hudson Taylor hoped that the existing denominations would see the need to reach out to the great nation of China. But they resisted and the China Inland Mission was birthed. History also tells us that those who once pioneered these new moves of God and ushered in needed change would later become settled and complacent and refuse to allow God to renew them. Thus, these once mavericks became monuments.

Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”
Matthew 9:17

 

When a worshiper beholds the One they worship, they are transformed. Everything about undergoes transformation. When a church commits to truly worship Christ and behold Him they will be continually transformed and renewed and everything about them, the way they worship, their music, their decor, their fashion, their systems, their art, the manner, their heart for others, will also be transformed. Rather than seeing new as our enemy, let’s smell its fragrance – for it is the aroma of the Christ who declared- Behold I make all things new (Rev. 21:5). Rather than complaining about these new changes look closer and you may just see the fingerprints of the Father.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Second Corinthians 3:18

Amen.

NOT JUST CHANGED, BUT CHANGING

THE GOOD NEWS IS CHANGING

In the story of Ben Hur, Judah Ben Hur, a first century Jew living under the Roman occupation of Israel, has a chance meeting with the One they all call The Christ. The kindness and grace with which Jesus of Nazareth showed Judah Ben Hur in that brief moment and the courage it took to do so under the tip of a Roman spear, left an indelible mark upon Ben Hur. As all who meet with Christ experience, Judah Ben Hur became a changed man as a result of this meeting. Once he was filled with hatred, bitterness, and rage but after meeting The Christ he began to become a man of peace, love and forgiveness. The author of Ben Hur was Lew Wallace. His life was also changed by meeting Jesus Christ.

 

Lew Wallace was a Union General during the American Civil War. He would go on to become the Governor of New Mexico. In 1880 he published Ben Hur – A Tale Of The Christ. He wanted to tell people about how a meeting with Jesus Christ could dramatically change their lives – as it had his.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Second Corinthians 3:18

In my last Pastoral Desk post, I mentioned the story of Professor Rosaria Butterfield. She was a lesbian feminist academic who despised Christians. She was on a mission to dismantle Christianity’s place in the public square and expose it as a flawed world of fantasy. But then she met Jesus. From that moment, her life was forever changed. Today, she is the wife of a Pastor and a home-schooling mother. Her life is now dedicated to telling others what Christ can do for them. 

All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.
Second Corinthians 3:18 THE MESSAGE

I have witnessed Jesus transforming many people. Some of these people have had their lives so dramatically transformed that they are barely recognisable from who they used to. These people have been changed into calm, considerate, kind, caring Christians by beholding Christ. Sometimes their former lives are characterised by averice, indebtedness, alcohol, anger, adultery, or abuse. Yet they met Christ, and their lives are now forever changed.

And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.
Second Corinthians 3:18 THE MESSAGE

Each of them will tell you though, that often their transformation was slow and long. Each time they met with Christ’s Body, they were meeting with Christ, and as the Word was preached, they were beholding Christ and being changed. God has graced us with the means of continually beholding Christ through: 

i) Prayerful time spent in God’s Word (John 17:17; Heb. 4:12)

ii) Prayerful time spent in prayer (Matt. 6:6)

iii) Prayerful time in worship with Christ’s body (Heb. 10:24-25)

iv) Prayerful attention to the preaching of God’s Word (1Cor. 15:2; Titus 1:3)

WITH TEARS I WRITE

But what happens to a believer when they cease to continually behold Jesus through these graces? Paul wrote to the Philippians with tears dripping onto the vellum over those believers who had ceased to behold Christ as he said- 

For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Philippians 3:18

It seems that the one of the hallmarks of a true believer is their resolve to continually behold Christ through these graces of Bible reading, prayer, congregational worship, and receiving the teaching of God’s Word. But when compromise gets its toe in the door of a believer’s heart, the drift away from the strength to change derived from these graces is almost undetectable. This is because this compromise begins in the heart, not initially in the outward behaviour. A believer who has ceased to do their spiritual warfare of resisting the devil’s distractions away from scripture, prayer, church, preaching, will still appear to others (for quite some time) to still be beholding Christ. Walking with Christ changes a soul. Walking away from Christ changes a soul. Walking with Christ beautifully graces a wretched soul to be transformed into the image, character, and likeness of Christ. Walking away from Christ disgraces a soul and makes them more wretched than they once were. 

holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
First Timothy 1:19-20

The Apostle Paul’s tears still stain the passages of our New Testament. When a believer continually beholds Christ they are being transformed from one degree of glory to the next. People who once took their comfort from alcohol have met Christ and are now being delivered from those things which had them bound. People who were once addicted to internet porn, which is an insidious form of modern-day slavery and reduces women to a piece of meat, have met Christ and are now being renewed into seeing girls as sistersworthy of respect and protection. People who once stole from their employers have met Christ and have been converted into diligent, cooperative, productive, teachable, team-members. The Gospel, the Good News, is about changing – not merely having been changed. As we each behold Christ in the graces God has mercifully provided us with, we too will be continually undergoing changing. The next time you encounter someone who seems to be too much of a wretch, remember, the Good News is changing people, and one of the graces which our Father offers these dear wretches is the opportunity to behold the growing image of Christ in us.

Amen.

Pastor Andrew.