CHURCH AS A FIREPLACE...
I was stoking the embers of our overnight fire the other morning and once again reflected on church. In a similar way, church is like these embers in my fireplace. In the morning I take the lightly glowing coals and move them into a pile together. The result is that they once again catch aflame. Once alight, it becomes appropriate to put some more kindling and wood on it. But if there was no flame, the extra wood would only be singed rather than burnt. Can you see how this is like church?
We are sometimes like those cooling yet glowing embers. Once on fire until we drifted from the flame, we became a mere glowing ember. Christ is like the fire-box and the Holy Spirit is like the directing fire-poker. It is the Spirit's desire to bring together the members of a church so that their glow becomes a flame. But even this temporary flame is doomed to become a fading glow unless new wood is brought into the flame. In a similar way, the church needs to be continually inviting pre-Christians to church to keep the flame of zeal and passion for the Lord burning brightly.
for our God is a consuming fire.
Hebrew 12:29
But consider what happens to the wood in the fire-box. In order for the wood to become a burning coal, it must be transformed. When we come to Christ He doesn't leave us the way we came in. He transforms us. The flame of His Spirit begins to burn in our hearts. The wood has to give up something though. When we come to Christ, we also have to give up something. The wood lays down it's identity in order to be in a life-giving flame. We have to lay down our identities as selfish sinners and take on a new identity as followers of Christ.so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
First Peter 1:7
Over the twenty years I have now been pastoring (nearly 16 of which has been at Legana) I have observed that people who come to church often get offended by someone within the church. I now wonder if this process of offence is not part of the Holy Spirit's transforming, purifying flame? The Holy Spirit may well be using the hurt, disappointment, and offence from another brother or sister in Christ to change us. How often have I heard the story of someone who has "tried" several churches, come to our church, but then experienced the same kind of hurt and offence which they experienced in their previous churches? In such a scenario, there is only one common factor: them. Could it be that if in every case where a believer feels offended in, or by, a church that it is the same flame of the Holy Spirit seeking to refine them through offensive fire emanating from another 'coal' (read: "believer") in Christ's "firebox"?Then He said to the disciples, "It is impossible that no offenses should come...Luke 17:1
I've been trying to imagine what a piece of dried dead wood feels when it is placed in a fire. I guess it experiences instant transformation. I guess it experiences other pieces of wood similarly being transformed. I can imagine that the heat of the flame gradually may even become uncomfortable. But I guess that at some point, the wood comes to enjoy the flame. The wonderful colours it emits! The beautiful benefits of its warmth. Even the aromas of the different woods can be very pleasant. But, the woods would soon realise something. Unless it replenishes, it will die. The fire it has become integrated with, and come to love, must be renewed. More wood is needed. In the same way, a local church must continually strive to reach out to others, and evangelise.
An isolated coal or ember does not enjoy the benefits of community flame. When we come to church, it shouldn't be with the motive, what can this church do for me? But,what can we contribute to each other? This is the lesson of the fire-box: each piece of wood on fire not only benefits the other pieces of wood, but also benefits from the other pieces of wood. Church is like this. Why should you be a part of a church? Because weneed you! Why should you be a part of a church? Because you need us.1Cor. 12:26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
The next time you sense yourself becoming isolated ask God to use the Holy Spirit in your life like a fire-poker to guide you back to the flame within Christ's fire-box, the local church. If you are already on fire but sense your flame is waning, ask God to use you to bring another to Christ and into His church. If you feel that your spiritual contribution to church is all one way, ask God to use you to be a blessing to even more people within the church. Maybe you've positioned your Christian walk within the fire-box, but intentionally on the outskirts of the fire. This may be like living your Christianity as a Sunday-only church Christian rather than as a two-winged Christian who enjoys the wing of the Sunday gathering of the church and the complementary wing of the small-group-community of the church, where the flame burns brighest.Father, set us ablaze with Your love. Fill us with a fresh passion for Your cause, the Church. May our hearts burn with zeal to reach more people for Christ. Help us to see hurt, offence, and disappointment as a part of Your holy flame for our good. May we forgive easily and quickly so as to keep the love-flame of Your church's witness burning brighter. In Jesus Name', Amen.
Eph. 3:21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Telemachus was a man of peace who enjoyed the quiet life away from hustle and bustle of cities. He enjoyed walking through forests and soaking in the serenity that complemented his life as a prayerful monk. He wanted nothing more in life than to be alone with God in prayer. But all that changed when God spoke to him and told him to go to Rome. "Rome?" Telemachus protested to the Lord. Out of love for his Lord, he set from his country setting of solitude to where all roads led. Upon arrival in the city that wasn't built in a day, he saw the crowds thronging into the Colosseum. He went with the throng and quickly became disturbed by what he saw taking place. He left his seat for the arena where the gladiators were inflicting their barbarism upon each other. Telemachus took advantage of the amphitheatre's acoustics and cried out, "In the name of Christ stop this madness!"
What do Telemachus, William Wilberforce, William Booth, and Martin Luther-King, have in common? They each had a deep commitment to the Gospel as the only means to salvation. But they each recognised that what a culture accepted as right or wrong had a direct bearing on the likelihood of that culture to either accept or reject that Gospel. They had not been duped into believing that no-one needed individual salvation, as some were teaching, and rejected this idea of Universalism (the idea that all people are actually saved with individually responding to the Gospel). They knew that Acts 11:14 plainly stated that acceptance of the Gospel was only means to salvation.
None of these great men thought that social change was the same as accepting the Gospel. Neither did they think that Christian influence in the realms of society was the chief end of the Gospel. They were fully persuaded that the preaching of the Gospel was the means to salvation and that Christ alone was the means ofsalvation. William Wilberforce was a poltician who was frequently challenged about this but each time he responded by telling his challenger that the Gospel was both the means to salvation transforming an individual but it was also the means by which good manners were promoted for a society at large. That is, for the Christian, Christ's command to turn the other cheek governs how we respond to people who aggrevate us because it is written on their hearts.
Imagine what society today would look like without the Gospel's influence. Time prevents me from discussing the similar work of my other hero, William Carey. His missionary work in India was dramatically and eternally affected by his realisation that the Gospel must shape both the individual and the society at large. He set about to outlaw an ancient Indian cultural practice of "Sati" (where a widow is burned alive on her late husband's funeral pyre). Amidst the attacks of cultural interference and trying to legislate the conversion of Hindus, Carey prevailed. He also set about to educate the lower castes. The legacy of Carey's work today is that around 300million people can trace their spiritual heritage to Carey's missionary work!
Thus, when the forces of darkness attack the two-fold impact of the Gospel (both upon the individual for their eternal salvation, and a society for the reformation and preservation of manners) we should not be silent or inactive! Unless individuals hear and receive the Gospel they can not enter eternal life! Let us not entertain the utter foolishness of trendy, psuedo-spiritual, Pelagian, decaffe-soy-milk-latte-sipping, hoodwinkers who would tell us there is no hell, no eternal peril, no final judgment, no problem - and still dare to call themselves "Christian". The Gospel is under attack from within by these wolves. But similarly, let us not become anaesthetised to society's behaviour when they tell us to keep our 'religion' to ourselves! AS IF OUR FAITH IN CHRIST WAS EVER A PRIVATE MATTER!!!!! Faith in Christ is most certainly an individual matter - but it is most certainly not a private matter!
This is why I would like you to join with me in writing to our Federal Tasmanian Parliamentarians and let them know that The Marriage Act should not be amended in a way that redefines marriage to allow two people of the same gender to wed. The most loving thing a Christian can do for someone who has same-sex attraction is not to affirm their desires (in Romans 1, the Apostle Paul has something to say about Christians being equally guilty of sexual sin if they do not challenge sexual sin) but to lovingly challenge them with the truth of God's Word which calls them to surrender their every desire to the Lordship Christ who gives the hope of salvation. I think Telemachus would agree, and Wilberforce would join with Booth and Luther-King in saying, "Amen!"
The Psalmist then hears why his 'church' has let him down. He laments that when he was in leadership within his church he cared for the hurting, but now that he was hurting and having a hard time, no one was reaching out to him. This disappointment with the throng who attended his church added to his disillusionment and growing depression. Because of what he was hearing from himself he had become unsocial, isolated, bitter and depressed. It was a downward spiral being fueled by what he was hearing from himself.
Truth caught the Psalmist's attention. It summoned him to stop listening to himself and to start talking to himself. The Psalmist addresses the core of his mind and heart (his "soul") by saying-
Truth points the Psalmist to praise. Truth points the Psalmist to remember what God has done. Truth points the Psalmist to honest prayer. Have a look at Psalm 42. The next time you feel that Negativity has taken taken up its insidious position somewhere near your eardrum, just have a look in a Book for a less intrusive, but more necessary, chap called Truth. While Negativity is keenly interested in your ears, Truth is interested in your tongue. It coaches a tongue to be truthful. Rather than giving up on God when times are depressing, Truth takes us by the hand and says- "Go on, tell Him. Tell Him how you feel. Tell Him you're disappointed. But tell Him that even though it's difficult for you now, your desire is to always praise Him."
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
Kim has just done the first part of a scuba diving course. The other week we heard someone during our service draw an analogy between spitting into your mask before going for dive, and obeying the Lord without question. In that instance, although there is a practical reason for doing it, most divers do it because they were taught to do it and may have never considered that there was a good reason for it (it stops your mask fogging up). In a similar way, many believers are taught the Word of God and obey it without question - without ever considering that there may be a practical reason for it. Kim came home the other day very excited about learning to dive and shared some further spiritual lessons from her diving experience.
Firstly, she had to pass a test on the theory of diving. Many people start out in the Christian Walk being taught the tenents (the beliefs) of Christianity. For some, learning these beliefs about God, Christ, salvation, man's state, Satan, the age to come, the Resurrection and eternal judgment, may all seem merely theoretical - and like spitting in your mask - may not immediately appear to have a practical implication. But as Kim discovered, reading the compulsory 250page Diving Manual before diving is not just literary torture, but may actually save your life!
Secondly, Kim learned that you should never dive alone. Safe diving is not diving alone. In the same way, the Christian walk is not ordained to be lived alone. Christianity is a common faith. We live with a common mission, a common vision, a common set of beliefs, and a common care for each other. When we become a Christian, we are commanded to not merely look out for our own interests, but to take an interest in our brothers and sisters in Christ.
When Steven Bradbury won the gold medal for ice-skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics, many people thought that is was just "luck". But he didn't. He had spent years training and months planning for this one race. He knew that he wasn't the fastest or the most talented, but he also knew that winning was more about finishing than racing. Many people who have found success in life have learned the same principle. The great life-battle-hardened apostle wrote to his beloved Ephesians, who were under intense pressure, to just hang in there. The way he said it was- "having done everything, stand."
There will be times when all you want to do it quit. There are times when you should quit (if you're causing harm, incurring loss, preventing someone from their rights, and so on). But most of the times when we quit, we shouldn't. Why do people quit before their finished? Discouragement. Disillusionment. Demonic. These are some of the possible contributers to quitting. When we desperately wanting to quit, and we go on the Bible describes this as "enduring".
Perhaps you're going through a tough time? Perhaps you want to quit? Providing that what you are doing is wise, you almost certainly shouldn't quit. You should hang in there. Jesus knew all about this. In Hebrews 12 it says that He "endured" the Cross. In other words, before getting to the Cross, He had to deal with the temptation to quit. This is when He called out to His Father for strength and yielded to Him afresh. We should do the same. This was Steven Bradbury's secret to success. He knew that the first thing he had to do in order to have any chance of winning was: to finish!
Dr F.W. Boreham tells of the day he called upon an 80 year old man. "My friend, will you not trust the Saviour?" Pastor Boreham enquired. "No, no, I'm too old!" replied the aged man. The next day he met a teenage youth. "My friend, will you not trust the Saviour?" Dr Boreham asked. "No, no, I'm too young!" the youth replied. "Too young to accept Christ? Too old to accept Christ?" asks FWB in his early book, The Whisper of God. He wrote-
FWB was troubled. He was troubled about people's apathy to spiritual things. He noted how urgently ambassadors of Christ must be to transmit the Gospel to young people. He cites a major research project conducted by Dr Starbuck who investigated at what age a person converts to Christ. A good number of the 1200 people interviewed said they came to trust Christ as Saviour between the ages of 7 to 9. A few more came to Christ between 9 to 12. Most came to Christ between the ages of 12 to 16. FWB reports, "...fewer still between twenty to thirty; and after thirty they are very rare." (pg. 92). "If these figures do not startle us to our duty, nothing will."
Boreham's mortification at the spiritual apathy around him led to take drastic action during his pastorate in Hobart Tasmania. Upon arrival in Tasmania in 1906 he was appalled that in his first Winter month there he could only get 300 attenders to Church on Sunday nights! He summoned his elders and presented this most urgent spiritual challenge. He proposed that after their 7PM Sunday service ended at around 8:30PM they should proceed to the Hobart Town Hall for a special series of evangelistic meetings. They agreed. FWB would then preach in the usual fashion at the Hobart Baptist Tabernacle in Elizabeth Street North Hobart then catch a horse-drawn cab down to the Hobart Town Hall where crowds of up to 1000 gathered to hear him preach the Gospel. They soon saw their Winter Sunday night attendances swell to 500!
I've just returned from Hobart where I gave a short public lecture at the University of Tasmania's Stanley Burbury Theatre about why Marriage can only be between a man and woman. I was, and a couple of hundred of other people were, "greeted" by 'Gay-Rights' protestors jeering us as we entered the forum. Perhaps not surprisingly, what was supposed to be the issue seemed to soon be forgotten and the real (unstated) issue quickly came to the fore. This might simply be boiled down to this challenge- "Who are you to impose your religious beliefs upon a secular society!"
Secularists (those who promote viewing life without any reference to God) have claimed ownership over society and therefore its moral standards with a few simple maxims: (i) What's right or true for you may not be what's right or true for me; and, (ii) As long as you don't hurt anyone, do whatever you want. Both of these maxims are grounded and based in an idea called "Moral Relativism" (the idea that we individually determine what's right and wrong for us without any outside authority for determining what's right or wrong behaviour). Several protestors asked questions after my lecture which were grounded in this way of thinking.
As Christians I think we face two challenges when it comes to defending the Bible in the public square: firstly, we need to be faithful and loyal to what the Creator has clearly commanded for all people (not just Christians), and secondly, we need to be on guard against the 'peer' pressure of the world to 'privatise' our convictions about God and life. Thus, when a Christian says that something is wrong because the Bible says that it is wrong, this is a sufficient argument, but due to the derision in which the Bible is held by the world, this truth is scorned. But if the world is allowed to remove God and His Word from how His world is governed what kind of world would we end up with? What I have just done is used an arguing technique which exposes an opposing argument for what it really is. Immanuel Kant called this taking an argument to its extreme end. Greg Koukl calls it, Lifting the Roof. What kind of society would we have if we extremely applied what Jesus Christ taught about how we should interact with each other? Conversely, what kind of society would we have if we took the do whatever you want maxim to an extreme? History tells us that when God and His Word are removed from society, godlessness results with all of its horrors.
Historically, when the Church, the Christian community, ceased to prophetically challenge people about their idolatry, the Church waned and society became less civil. Eighteenth century Europe is a case in point. Both England and France in particular had political and royal leaders who scorned God and His Word. They treated people poorly. They acted on their sexual whims and proclivities. The result in France was a bloody revolution followed by years of war and bloodshed. The result would have surely been the same in England. Charles Dickens described this era as, "It was the worst of times. It was the best of times." (The Tale of Two Cities). But England avoided moral collapse because God did something in His Church there which resulted in all facets of society being affected. God dramatically converted John Wesley and George Whitefield in particular who thundered the Gospel across England the American colonies. These evangelists were greatly used by God to convert thousands of nominal Christians to true faith. But by the end of Wesley's life he realised that he had largely failed to make a spiritual dent in his nation. He called for a young, recently converted politician, William Wilberforce to his deathbed. "Where I have failed, you must not!" he told and later wrote to Wilberforce. He charged Wilberforce to take the Gospel into the legislature of England. And he did.
Wilberforce was maligned by the irreligious throughout his political career as he sought to implement a foundational truth of the Gospel - that all people are created in the image of God - this includes women, children, and enslaved black Africans. His campaign lasted over 30 years of arguing that England's Parliament should amend its laws to honour God and therefore ensure the greatest welfare of its people. Toward the end of his campaign he was accused of wanting to pass laws to make everyone a Christian. Wilberforce responded by saying that he wished he could pass a law which made everyone a Christian so that their eternal bliss would be secured, but alas, one cannot be converted by compulsion, that is, everyone must accept or reject God's offer of Christ as Saviour.
Why should we as Christians today be concerned about issues like "Same-Sex" Marriage? Because it is grounded in an entirely false view of how the world actually is. If we are indifferent on this issue and come under the spell of Moral Relativists and chant the mantra that truth is only true if it's true for me then we are failing in our Great Commission to "teach all nations everything I have commanded" and doing a tremendous injury to our trying to bring people to The Saviour for forgiveness for their idolatry. In the movie, The Patriot (originally starring Jimmy Stewart, then later remade with Mel Gibson), the father of three boys refuses to be entangled in the fight of the Colonists with the oppressive Red Coats. "It's not my war" he tells one recruiter. But then the Red Coats murder one of his sons. He fell into depression as he realised that his apathy brought this on. He then realised that sometimes you have to fight in order to protect and preserve. As the story unfolds, we see him very deliberately and intentionally changing his clothes and kitting himself with various familiar weapons. While we are wondering how this gentle farmer is so familiar with the ways of war, we are allowed to listen to a conversation that two of the American military leaders have as they recount how this 'farmer' was a decorated war hero prior to settling down for a more quiet life. It is then that we realise that the original appeal to him was really an appeal to be who he really was.
In a similar way, much of the Church has retreated to a more quiet life. While the war for men's souls rages and the Devil deceptively tells the world that God has no right to tell them how to live, and many us put our fingers in our spiritual ears and dismissively tell the Recruiting Spirit, "It's not my war." And then it shockingly becomes apparent to us that one of our own children is now spiritually dead. We take a look at our tear-stained appearance in the mirror and see that our clothes are all dusty. Standing in front of the full-length mirror we dust ourselves off and slightly amazed see that we are dressed as soldiers. Having never noticed it, we see a weapon strapped to our side. We take it in our hands and it feels strangely familiar. And like the enchanted sleeping King Theoden in the Lord of the Rings, we awake from a supernatural slumber and take up our Christ-won, rightful position of being a light on a hill. To this end, it is love for (not 'of') the world that drives us. It is our deep compassion for the eternal destiny of all people and our even deeper conviction that Jesus is Lord of all that we proclaim Him as such.