Old faith, new blessing

Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly. But... Luke 1:6

Life is full of "buts". 

"We’d planned to go for a picnic, but it bucketed down with rain..." "We were in front until the 89th minute, but their centre-forward just sneaked a goal..." "Everything seemed great, but then that awful phone-call came..." "The holiday was fine, but our flight home was cancelled at the last minute..."

You can probably think of various buts in your life as you read this. This tiny word reminds us that life is never perfect, and that we should never take anything for granted. And this is true for the finest Christians as much as for anybody else. It was true for Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist. Luke tells us they were exemplary, God-loving people. They lived holy lives. But...

You probably know what comes next: "... they had no children... and they were both well on in years". For all their goodness, a cloud of sadness hung over this old couple. Today, childlessness is no stigma - indeed, some people consciously choose it. ("We aren't childless," I once heard it said, "we're child-free ".) But in New Testament times it was seen as a reproach, taken by many as a sign that God was displeased with them.

But then what happened? They were told that, impossible though it might seem, they were indeed going to be blessed with a child. And so John was born. It strikes me that perhaps it was a blessing that Zechariah and Elizabeth will almost certainly have died before they saw the weird life their son ended up living - a prophet of God, a “voice in the wilderness”! - and the sordid, tragic death he died. But they knew joy in their latter years.

Yes, there can be good buts as well as bad ones, positive buts as well as negative ones. "Yes, it was raining hard, but suddenly the sun came out...!" "It looked as though she wasn't going to pull through, but here she is today...!"

Two thoughts strike me.

First, don't write off the old.

 

Zechariah and Elizabeth had lived long lives, and probably felt they had nothing new to look forward to or to contribute. But God hadn't finished with them! They had a vital role to play in the unfolding of his purposes. 

A couple of questions... 

If you are young, do you tend to subconsciously dismiss the old? Well, stop it, please! And if you are old, do you tend to think you have nothing left to give, or to enjoy? Well, again, stop it!

As long as God gives you another day of life, there is something for you to do, to achieve, to enjoy, simply to be. I read not long ago about a pensioner who discovered a new ministry as a "street pastor" - she's out there in her town centre in the early hours befriending prostitutes, some of whom see her as a substitute mother.

Second, don't give up on prayer.

 

I'm sure Zechariah and Elizabeth had prayed much about their sadness. All right, perhaps they had stopped asking specifically for a child, given their age - and who would blame them for that? But God did answer their prayer, even if not in the time-scale they would have liked. 

We need to learn that however things may look today, there will be good days ahead. Think of it like this: a prayer you first prayed twenty years ago may for all you know be due to be answered in two weeks’ time - you could say (sorry, this is the way my mind works), a bit like a policy coming to maturity. You may have forgotten it; but God hasn’t.

The gospel is all about God's great and miraculous but. "Like everyone else we were by nature objects of wrath," writes Paul in Ephesians 4. "But God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ..." “You were like sheep going astray,” says Peter, “but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2). 

Everything seemed dark and hopeless. But God decided to act in the giving of his own Son. And nothing has ever been the same.

Dear Father in heaven, help me to cope in faith with the sad buts in my life - and to keep looking in hope for the joyful ones. Amen.

When going to church is a chore

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing. Hebrews 10:25

Have you missed church a few Sundays recently? Been a bit tired? Had rather a lot to do? Not really in the mood?

It easily happens, doesn’t it? I must confess that since I retired from full-time ministry a couple of years ago I have been slightly shocked by my own change in attitude. For over forty years it would never have occurred to me to miss a service. (Well, I was the minister, wasn’t I!) But since then the thought has crossed my mind occasionally, “Shall I give it a miss today?” Don’t worry, I have resisted the temptation; but the fact that it came into my mind at all showed me something about myself I would rather not have known.

We get the silly, unrealistic idea into our heads that if you are a truly “spiritually-minded” person you will be always champing at the bit to get to every service or prayer/praise meeting that ever happens. But that idea is just plain wrong - for most of us anyway. Jesus told us that the spirit may be willing, fine, but the flesh - that is the very human, earthy side of us - is weak. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.

Which is why I find this little verse in Hebrews 10 encouraging. It reminds us that this isn’t a new problem.  Not at all: even in those early, heady days “some people”, it seems, had got into the habit of “giving up meeting together”. 

Another wrong idea we get into our heads it that the New Testament church was as near perfect as makes no difference: Spirit-filled! bursting with life and vitality! spiritual gifts in abundance! conversions every five minutes! overflowing with love!

Actually, er, no. Ever read the hair-raising Corinthian letters (sexual immorality, cliquishness, chaotic meetings, law-suits among fellow-Christians; apart from that, just fine)? Or Revelation 1-3? Or Galatians 1:6-9? I could go on.

So it’s hardly surprising that the early Christians, just like us, could sometimes get a little flat in their enthusiasm for corporate worship.

In the context of Hebrews, this may well have been to do with the threat of persecution (a far better excuse, I suspect, than most of us could muster). 

But why does it happen to us? Leaving aside the obvious possibility that we have slipped into some kind of sin, I would suggest these reasons...

First, all of us are subject to moods. Difficult circumstances in our lives are bound to affect us. Health difficulties certainly can. Family worries. Work problems. Money worries. Even the weather! (Have you ever pondered the fact that we actually have an expression about being “under the weather”?) The Christian life is often compared to a marriage - it starts with a great whoosh of excitement, but then settles down to a more humdrum existence. Learning to recognise and then cope with our moods is a great skill in the art of daily living. 

Second, there may be doubts. Every thoughtful Christian is certain to have moments when the thought flashes into our minds “Is it really true?”... “Could that atheistic scientist on television last night be right?”... “Was my conversion, wonderful though it was at the time, really anything more than an emotional somersault?”... “How could God allow those children to be so horribly killed?”... “I’m really not sure I agree with what the preacher said last Sunday”... 

When thoughts like that are jostling around in your mind it’s hardly surprising if you feel the temptation to give worship a miss. 

Third, there may be hurts. Here’s another fact that we hesitate to face up to: bad things can happen in churches. People sometimes say hurtful, wounding things. Quarrels break out and misunderstandings arise. It’s possible to go to church one morning feeling bright and sunny, only to come home an hour or so later feeling as black as thunder because of something that happened. Humanly speaking, why indeed would you want to go back?

All these things, and many more I haven’t mentioned, need to be looked fairly and squarely in the face and dealt with as calmly and carefully as possible.

But one thing is sure. Regular worship and fellowship are essential parts of the Christian life, and if our enthusiasm for them has waned we shouldn’t just try to brush it under the carpet. Jesus went to worship “as was his custom” on the sabbath-day (Luke 4:16). And I don’t think he founded the church with the intention that we should stand outside it, do you? Do we know better than him?

People who say that they only need to go into their garden/ out into the country/ into their bedroom to worship God are (sorry) talking nonsense. And the trend towards “believing without belonging” is (sorry again) wrong. 

The church is a community of sinners. All right, saved sinners, of course; but sinners nonetheless. Like you. Like me. Cherish it! Delight in it! Value it! See it through the difficult times. You won’t regret it.

Dear Father, I confess that it is sometimes an effort to get to worship week by week. Please renew my enthusiasm and strengthen my faith. Help me to see your church as you see it - with deep love in spite of all its faults. Amen.

Luke-warm love

I rejoice in following your statutes, as one rejoices in great riches...

O how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long...

Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed...

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises...

My heart trembles at your word. Psalm 119: 14, 97, 136, 148, 161

I have picked these five verses pretty much at random from Psalm 119. Does anything about them particularly strike you?

The main thing that strikes me is the sheer passion this man has for God and his word. He “rejoices” in God’s word “as one rejoices in great riches”. He “meditates all day long” on it. He weeps uncontrollably because it is not honoured. He stays awake at night, not because he can’t sleep, but so that he can meditate on God’s promises. He finds God’s word so powerful and penetrating that his heart “trembles” at it. 

Yes, whatever poetic license there may be here, there’s no doubt about the basic fact: God matters to this man!

The second thing that strikes me (look out, confession coming up) is how little I can identify with him. There’s no point mincing words; even after fifty years as a Christian I couldn’t claim even a hundredth part of this man’s love of God. And that makes me feel bad.

Is that something you find too?

Of course God is important to me. He changed my life for ever when I was a teenager, and he has been with me ever since. And of course his word matters to me - except, of course, those times when I find it really difficult and perhaps (confession again!) even rather boring. 

But this kind of red-hot passion, this yearning, this rejoicing, this longing, this agonising - er, sorry, no.

And it gets even worse when I turn to the gospels and read the words of Jesus about “loving the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength...” That is, as they say, a big ask. I just end up feeling completely inadequate, a failure, a spiritual wimp, if you like. 

Well, don’t worry, I’m not writing this today as an embarrassing exercise in soul-baring; I’m writing it because I suspect I’m far from alone in feeling this way. I want to share a couple of reflections as I, and perhaps you too, put to ourselves the question “Why am I such a luke-warm Christian?”

The first and most obvious reason is that there are so many other ingredients in my life, whether work or leisure or everyday duties, that God just gets squeezed out. Stay awake all night meditating on God’s word? - you cannot be serious! I’ve got to go to work tomorrow. There are responsibilities to attend to. There are children to look after. (And, let’s be honest, there’s a big football match on television.)

I don’t know an easy answer to this. Surely God understands that we have other things we need to do, also that we need times of relaxation and enjoyment? Yes, I’m sure that’s true. (In fact, you almost wonder if the man who wrote the psalm may have been in danger of blowing a fuse because of his single-minded intensity.)

But while we shouldn’t “beat ourselves up” too much, equally let’s not be too easy on ourselves. It can only be good to do some honest heart-searching from time to time to see if we have pushed God to the sidelines. Even things good in themselves can become an idol...

The second reason is perhaps a little more excusable, though it may not apply to you as it does to me. I became a Christian as a fifteen-year-old, and though my family background wasn’t a Christian one I had a happy and loving home and plenty of good opportunities in early life. Result: though I have no doubt that I was a pretty unpleasant, arrogant and self-centred youngster, I never got deeply into “bad ways”. So when my conversion happened it was quite low-key and undramatic. And that is very much how my Christian life has developed over all the years: no great highs like the psalmist’s, but not many lows either.

I sometimes wonder: would I today have a deeper love of God if he had rescued me from a life of drink or drugs or violence or crime or promiscuity? Or if, like Paul, I had been a militant anti-Christian? (Does Luke 7:47 help here?) 

I don’t know, and obviously there can be no turning the clock back - nor would I want to if I could, of course. So it’s no excuse; but just possibly it’s a crumb of comfort.

Perhaps the best that people like me can do is simply to come before God quietly every day and ask him to help us to love him more, to know him better and to walk with him more closely. Indeed, there is a wonderful hymn by that deeply troubled poet William Cowper which we could very well make our own...

Lord, it is my chief complaint / That my love is weak and faint. /Yet I love thee and adore; /O for grace to love thee more. Amen. Amen!

Faith - tool or ornament?

These trials have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine... 1 Peter 1:7

Faith... it’s such a simple little word, isn’t it? - just five letters. And we all know what it means: trust, belief. It’s what brings us to God in the first place: the Bible says we are “justified - that is, put in the right with God - by faith”. And it’s what keeps us going once we have entered into that relationship with him. Just read Hebrews 11.

But here’s a funny thing about faith: it’s easiest to have it just when you don’t really need it. I think you will know what I mean. There are times in life when the sun is shining, the sky is blue, everything is well with us, and we feel happy. At times like that, faith isn’t a problem. “Of course I believe in God!” we say, “Why ever not? Why wouldn’t I? Praise the Lord!”

But the real test of faith, of course, is at the other times, when the sun is hidden behind dark heavy clouds and our lives are burdened with worries and problems. God seems a long way off, his ears seem deaf to our prayers, and we hold on to our faith through gritted teeth.

I know that there are Christians who will tell us that such experiences never happen - or should never happen - to those who follow Jesus, but I’m afraid they are in a state of denial, well-meaning, I am sure, but seriously mistaken. God never promises to keep us free from troubles; what he does promise is to bring us through them.

The fact is that faith which has never been tested - and has therefore never had to withstand pressure - isn’t really a faith worth having: it’s like a bottle of medicine which you never need to take, or a bank account you never need to draw from, or a knife when you never need to cut anything.

Putting it another way, faith can be a mere ornament in our lives, rather than a working tool. There’s nothing wrong with ornaments, of course - I’m sure we all have a few around our homes. That pretty little glass peacock that sits beside our television is very nice; but I don’t think it would be much use in an emergency.

In our verse Peter the apostle talks about the trials of his readers and says they have happened “so that your faith - of greater worth than gold... - may be proved genuine...” Yes, it’s the testing of our faith that proves that it really is worthwhile.

That is why we need to be always building and developing our faith, even when things are relatively easy. We do this by drawing close to God day by day, whether we feel like it or not. By putting ourselves under pressure by accepting responsibility. By taking risks for the sake of the kingdom of God. It’s in ways like these that we build a credit balance (if I can put it like that) in the bank of faith, so that we have something to draw on when the going is tough.

If this is true, you may have noticed that something I said earlier was in fact wrong. I spoke about having faith “when you don’t really need it”. Of course, the fact is that we need faith each and every day, whether the sun is shining or the clouds have rolled in.

So how about it? A faith that hasn’t stood the test is a faith not worth having. All right, God doesn’t want us to invite problems and difficulties, of course not; they’ll come soon enough without that! But he does expect us to put our faith to work. That means expecting to see answers to prayer and looking for practical signs that God is active in our lives. It means living to please him even if that involves sacrifice, inconvenience, even hardship.

So... What’s your faith like? Just an ornament? Or a genuine working tool? Is it time to roll up your sleeves and put your faith to work?

Lord God, help me to today to bring my faith out of the tool-bag and put it to work for your glory. Amen.