That perfect church

...Christ loved the church...  Ephesians 5:25

Are you happy in the church you belong to?

Well, no church is perfect, so I imagine all of us can think of things we regard as not quite ideal. But I hope that on balance you feel good about your church.

I ask because I was talking recently to someone who had moved house and was having difficulty settling into a new church. She had tried various churches in the locality, but none of them seemed right for her.

Her problem, in essence, was that she had been extremely happy in her first church - she had become a Christian there, been baptised there, been married there, and found opportunities to serve there. And she now found herself saying of her new church, “It’s just not the same!” Church number one was very much her spiritual “home”.

I did my best to advise her - I hope wisely. Thinking about it afterwards I boiled my advice down to a number of headings which I hope pointed her in the right direction. Just possibly they might help you too.

1. After serious prayer and thought (of course), find the least imperfect church and commit yourself to it. A church that is as near to being Christ-focussed, scripture-based, prayerful and open to the Spirit as you can find. Remember the old saying “If ever you find the perfect church, whatever you do, don’t join it - you’ll only spoil it”. Feed on the thought: “God is calling me to make an imperfect church that little bit better”. 

And, of course, never make the arrogant mistake of assuming you have nothing to learn: be humble.

2. Make sure your commitment is cheerful and positive. Not “Oh well, if it’s the best I can find, I suppose I’ll just have to put up with it”, but “Right, this is where God has led me, so it’s time to get cracking!” Don’t be a grumbler. If you discover a little group of malcontents (most churches, sadly, have them), keep well away from them. Such a faction is poison in the blood-stream of the church.

3. Support the leadership. All right, the preaching may leave you a bit hungry, the theology may raise some questions in your mind, and there may be matters of direction and policy that make you a little uneasy. But live with it. 

Pray regularly for the leaders, remembering their task is hard. When a leader does something that you appreciate, be ready with a quiet word of thanks and encouragement. Unless something happens that you really are seriously unhappy with, “obey your leaders and submit to their authority” (Hebrews 13:17). Christian leaders (you may be interested to know) often appear strong and confident, but deep down most of us are pretty insecure people and need a genuinely given boost from time to time. (You can take that from me!)

4. Look for opportunities to serve. Make the gifts and talents that God has given you generously available to the church - teaching, pastoral work, practical skills, music, administrative and financial expertise. You will find fulfilment in the exercise of your own ministry even if the church as a whole leaves a lot to be desired. We belong to churches to give as well as to get.

5. Join some kind of small-group fellowship - a house-group or prayer-group or whatever. We often gain from small groups what a more formal service or meeting doesn’t give us. Be the first to turn up at a prayer-meeting - yes, even when it’s a dark February evening, the rain is bucketing down, there’s a big match on the television and you might be one of only three or four attending. God will honour your faithfulness. Be happy to learn from others, and pray that your contribution to such a group will benefit them too. 

There are plenty of other things I could add. But I think these five points cover the essentials. Perhaps I am a little naive, but I sincerely believe that if you put these things into practice and quietly stick at them long-term, something wonderful will slowly happen: your church will become the kind of church you can truly love, and the kind of church where others will find the risen Christ.

“Christ loved the church” - and it wasn’t exactly perfect, was it? Can we do less?

Lord Jesus, please help me to love the church as you do, even if sometimes it’s heavy going. Amen.

Enjoy your God!

Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6

“How can I possibly respect a God who is constantly telling me to praise him? What kind of God is that! More like some pathetic, jumped up megalomaniac!”

I don’t know if an unbelieving friend has ever said anything like that to you - or if you have ever thought it yourself. But it’s certainly a fact that some people feel that the whole idea of “worshipping a superior being” is just stupid and childish.

How can we as Christians respond to that kind of argument? After all, the Bible does indeed tell us in many places to praise God, especially in the psalms (I’ve picked out just the very last line of the whole one hundred and fifty psalms).

One thing worth saying is that, strictly speaking, God doesn’t in fact command us to praise him. Almost always - as in the verse above - it’s a human voice urging his fellow human beings to praise God. The psalmist (in this case) is obviously delighting in God, and he wants everyone else who hears or reads his psalm to join him in doing so. As it sometimes appears elsewhere in the psalms, “Praise the Lord with me.”

It’s rather like when you see a beautiful scene or sunset and you automatically turn to your companions and say “Oh, just look at that!” You don’t think about doing so, you simply can’t help it. Or you hear some music that you really enjoy and you say “You must listen to this!”

To invite others to share your pleasure in something is a so-called “knee-jerk reaction”. Some things are just too good to keep to yourself, so you instinctively invite others to join you. And if that doesn’t apply to knowing God, well, what can it apply to!

In his little book Reflections on the Psalms, CS Lewis has a chapter called “A word about praising” in which he goes into all this in some detail. He sums the whole thought up pretty well in the sentence: “In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.” He also quotes the words of the Westminster Confession, an outline of the Christian faith drawn up in 1646 by some very serious, you might even say sombre, Christian scholars: the main purpose of the human race, they said, is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever”.

Perhaps that word “enjoy” can be a bit of a stumbling block. It’s a word we tend to reserve for relatively trivial things - an exciting football match, say, or a good film, in my case a big helping of treacle sponge and custard. The idea of “enjoying” God (and note, it doesn’t say “enjoying our relationship with God” only, but actually enjoying him) seems slightly inappropriate. But who am I to quibble? There can be lofty forms of enjoyment as well as those more ordinary ones!

One aspect of this that Lewis doesn’t touch on is when praising is the very last way we feel about God. How do you tell somebody whose loved one has just died to praise the Lord? Or someone who has been unjustly thrown into prison for their faith in Jesus? Or someone who has been told by the doctor that they have an incurable disease? Praise the Lord? You cannot be serious!

There is no easy answer to that. But we need to remember that both the Bible and Christian history are full of men and women who suffered enormously in all sorts of ways, yet never ceased to praise God. 

Sometimes we have to dig deep into the resources we have stored up over many years, when our circumstances were more obviously “enjoyable”. The fact that we know God at all. The times when prayers have been clearly answered. The moments when we have shed tears of joy over a special blessing. The comfort, however weak it might seem, that we find in prayer. The encouragement and guidance we derive from scripture. The love of dear friends, Christian or otherwise... I could go on.

The Bible tells us many things about our relationship with God. Love him. Trust him. Obey him. Seek him. Talk to him.

But when it tells us to “praise” him it is encouraging us to do something we might easily overlook. Enjoy him!

Loving Lord God, please help me to enjoy you today - and always. Amen.

The runaway slave

Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was so that you might have him back for good - no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother.  Philemon 15

Philemon, a wealthy Christian of Colosse, is angry; one of his slaves has run away. To be honest, Onesimus was never much use anyway, but nobody is happy to be cheated in this way. Well, if ever he surfaces again - trouble! (The Roman law allowed that runaway slaves could even be executed.) Philemon puts Onesimus out of his mind and gets on with life.

But then... Onesimus does surface. Amazingly, he comes back voluntarily, knowing the punishment that might await him. What on earth would make him do such a thing! Answer: he has with him a powerful secret weapon that Philemon would never have dreamed of...

As Philemon prepares to give him a blasting, Onesimus says, "Er, master, before you say anything, would you mind just reading this" - and produces a letter from his pocket. "What's this?" says Philemon. "Well, it's from Paul," says Onesimus, and hands it over.

A letter from his friend Paul! - Philemon is stunned.

This is the tiny letter we have in our New Testaments. It’s the letter in which Paul explains that he has met Onesimus in prison, probably in Rome; that the runaway slave has become a Christian during that time; and in which he asks Philemon to welcome Onesimus back “no longer as a slave... but as a dear brother” in Christ.

Can you picture Philemon reading this letter, this total bombshell? He realises that he has, as they say, some serious thinking to do.

Well, I can't guarantee that this is exactly how this little drama unfolded - I've used my imagination a bit. But it must have been something like it. Why not read The Letter to Philemon again yourself and see how you can bring it to life?

What particularly interests me is the fifteenth verse. It begins, "Perhaps the reason he [Onesimus] was separated from you for a little while..."

What's so special about that? Well, I am struck by the way Paul assumes that there was a reason why these things had happened. It wasn't just chance. God had a purpose over and above the events themselves. To put it simply: something bad had happened; but God had brought something good out of it.

Bad things happen to God's people. We all know that. Often we are puzzled. We can't see any rhyme or reason in it. But often we find later on - perhaps very much later on - that something good results. Many of us who have been Christians for any length of time can testify to the truth of this. As the old hymn puts it, "God moves in a mysterious way/ His wonders to perform."

The classic Bible example is Joseph, in the Book of Genesis. He suffers the injustice and cruelty of being sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. He becomes a slave. His master's wife viciously gets him put in prison. But God does an amazing thing - Joseph becomes the Egyptian king's right-hand man, and is used to save the world from famine.

And when Joseph eventually meets those cruel brothers again, what does he say to them? Does he blast them for what they did? No. "Do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was in order to save lives that God sent me ahead of you..." (Genesis 45). 

Yes, it wasn't obvious at the time. Yes, what happened was completely unjust and wicked. Yes, it plunged Joseph into years of misery and pain. But, says Joseph, God was behind it all, working out purposes of which nobody could have had the remotest idea.

A simple question: Do you believe that God has reasons for the bad things that happen to you? I was taught as a very young Christian that in the purposes of God there is no such thing as coincidence. I've never seen any reason to doubt that. Things happen for a reason. As that other great hymn puts, there are times when we need to "trace the rainbow through the rain".

Have faith! The sun will shine again, and God's wonderful purposes will become clear.

Father, only you know how Philemon responded to this turn of events, whether or not he swallowed his anger and received Onesimus like a brother in Christ. And only you know what you might be secretly doing in my life. But help me to trust you, and to believe that everything really does work out for good for those who love you. Amen.

"But" - little word, big meaning

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 can have a big meaning; it reminds us that life is never perfect, and that we should never take anything for granted. 

And this is true of the finest Christians as much as of anybody else. It was true of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist, the people we’re reading about here. 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," somebody said, "we're child-free"). But in New Testament times it was 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 with a diet of locusts and wild honey! - and the 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. "It was raining heavily, but suddenly the sun came out...!" "It really looked as though she wasn't going to pull through, but here she is today...!"

Two thoughts at least are worth digesting.

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 still had a vital role to play in the unfolding of his purposes. 

So, a couple of questions... 

If you are young, do you tend, even if only subconsciously, to dismiss the old? Well, stop it! 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 anybody another day of life, there is something for that person to do, to achieve, to enjoy, simply to be. I read not long ago about a pensioner who was called to a new ministry as a "street pastor" - she's out there in the streets in the early hours befriending prostitutes, some of whom think of 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, 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. And we need to learn that however things may look today, there will be good days ahead.

What is the gospel about if not the great and miraculous but of God himself?

"Like everyone else we were by nature objects of wrath," writes Paul in Ephesians 4. Grim! "But God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ..." “You were like sheep going astray,” says Peter. Sad! “... but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2). “Simon, Simon,” says Jesus to Peter, “Satan has asked to sift you as wheat...” Worrying! “But I have prayed for you...” (Luke 22).

When all seemed dark and hopeless 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.