Tawa Baptist

Pure

Scripture: Matthew 15:21-28

Video Link: https://youtu.be/zzIlGG3rT3A

Message:

Good morning everyone and happy Mothers’ Day.

Jesus says, in Matthew 5, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

This morning, because it is Mothers’ Day, our message focuses on a mother in the gospels who shows us what it means to be pure in heart. From Matthew 15, verse 21 we read… 

21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” 27 “Yes Lord,” she said. “But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

There was a woman by the name of Monica who lived around 300 AD. She was married to a hot-tempered man by the name of Patrick, who was often unfaithful to her. Monica and Patrick had a son who they named Augustine. Patrick refused to allow Augustine to be baptized but Monica saw to it that Augustine at least went to Sunday school.

Augustine was more interested in girls than he was the Bible and during his teenage years he went off the rails a bit. Right through his 20’s he lived a life of debauchery and licentiousness.

Through this whole time though, Monica never gave up praying for her son. No matter how badly Augustine behaved, Monica never gave up hope. She loved Augustine and always believed it was possible for God to save her son.

Monica interceded in prayer for her son faithfully, everyday and often with tears, begging Jesus to save him. Then one day her prayers were answered.

Augustine was baptized during the Easter of 388AD. He then went on from his baptism to become arguably the most influential Christian thinker of his time, since the Apostle Paul. Augustine wrote hundreds of books, refuted 5 major heresies and shaped the theology of the church right up to the present day.

Soren Kierkegaard, another famous theologian who lived many centuries after Augustine, said that ‘purity of heart is to will one thing’.

Monica was pure in heart, motivated by love. She willed one thing for her son and she saw God answer her prayer.

The Canaanite mother, in Matthew 15, was like Monica in a way. She was pure in heart too and motivated by love. She willed one thing: for Jesus to deliver her daughter.

But before we get ahead of ourselves let me set the scene. In the context of Matthew 15, Jesus has just had a bit of a run in with the Pharisees. The Pharisees were giving Jesus’ disciples a hard time for not washing their hands before eating. In their minds washing your hands wasn’t just a personal hygiene thing, it was a religious thing. They thought handwashing rituals made a person spiritually clean or more acceptable to God.

But Jesus defends his disciples and explains, saying…

17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Jesus’ point was that God is more interested in the cleanness or holiness of our inner life. Are we motivated by love? Or do we just want to make ourselves look good in the eyes of others.

After this conversation about what makes a person clean or unclean, Jesus and his disciples walk 80 kilometres north into the region of Tyre & Sidon. In doing this they leave the holy land of Israel behind and cross over in to the un-holy land of the Gentiles.

In the Old Testament, Tyre & Sidon were renowned as places of evil. Places the Jewish people expected God to destroy, like Sodom & Gomorrah. So there Jesus is, with his disciples in an unclean place, when all of a sudden they meet two people their Jewish upbringing taught them to avoid.

A Canaanite woman and her demon possessed daughter. You cannot get much worse, if you are a Jewish man. The Canaanites were the arch enemies of Israel.

This mother knows what the Jews think of Canaanite women. She understands full well the prejudice she is up against. It says something about her courage and character that she is willing to approach her enemies for help. Or perhaps it is an indication of her desperation. 

We don’t know a lot about this woman. We know vaguely where she comes from but we don’t know her name, or how old she was or whether she had other children. Was she still married or had her husband walked out because things got a bit tough? We don’t know.

We do know for certain that life was difficult for her. Robyn quoted me a line from a novel she was reading recently that struck a chord with us both…

‘Mothers are only ever as happy as their unhappiest child.’

This mother diagnoses her own daughter as demon possessed and says that she is suffering terribly. If the daughter is suffering terribly then so is the mother.

We can’t be certain what the problem was exactly. In ancient times all sorts of illnesses, whether physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual were attributed to demons.

Most likely the daughter and her mother were socially ostracised as a consequence of the problem. This mother had probably been coping with loneliness and high levels of stress for a prolonged period of time. After a while fatigue sets in. It would have been hard for her to imagine a future for her daughter.

The powerlessness and vulnerability of parenthood is terrifying. And so it is little wonder that this mother cries out to Jesus. She doesn’t approach Jesus quietly or politely. She risks all hope, shouting and making a scene.

Notice how she addresses Jesus as Lord and Son of David. Now at that time calling someone Lord wasn’t such a big deal. It was like calling a man Sir, a way of showing respect.

But hearing this Canaanite woman call Jesus the Son of David is a big deal. Very few of Jesus’ own people would have the insight or the courage to call Jesus the Son of David. This was the same as calling him the Messiah, the King.

Think about that for a moment. This woman has the audacity to ask the King of her enemies for mercy for her daughter. It was risky and politically complicated.

During the Vietnam War the Texas Computer millionaire, Henry Ross Perot decided he would give a Christmas present to every American prisoner of war in Vietnam.

According to David Frost, who tells the story, Perot had thousands of packages wrapped and prepared for shipping. Then he chartered a fleet of Boeing 707s to deliver the presents to Hanoi.

But the war was at its height. What Perot was wanting to do was risky and politically complicated. He was asking America’s enemies for their cooperation. The Hanoi government refused to cooperate. Officials explained that no charity was possible while American bombers were devastating Vietnamese villages.

The wealthy Perot offered to hire an American construction firm to help rebuild the villages but the Hanoi government still refused to help.

Christmas drew near, and the packages were un-sent. So a determined Perot flew to Moscow, where his aides mailed the packages, one at a time, from the Moscow central post office. And all the packages were delivered intact to the American POW’s. Perot persisted and when his enemies would not cooperate, he found another way.

In some ways Perot reminds us of the Canaanite mother in Matthew 15. She was not rich and powerful like Perot but she was tenacious and she had the boldness to approach the leader of her enemies for help. Like a postage stamp she sticks to one thing until she reaches her destination.

In verse 23, of Matthew 15, we read that Jesus remained silent, even though the mother was loud and unrelenting in her cry for help.  

We see the wisdom of Jesus here. The woman was basically proclaiming to everyone that Jesus is Lord and King. She was acting as a kind of evangelist, perhaps without realising it. Jesus listened.

Jesus’ silence also had the effect of drawing out what was in her heart. Silence does that. Silence invites those parts of ourselves which are hidden in the ocean of our unconscious, to surface, like a whale rising from the depths of the sea to breathe.  

The disciples become irritated with the mother’s repetition, eventually saying to Jesus, “Send her away for she keeps crying out after us”. In other words, give her what she wants so we can have some peace.

But Jesus says to his disciples, so the woman can hear: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”.

We have the benefit of hindsight and so we know that Jesus’ mission was to start with Israel and then move outward to reach people of all cultures and ethnicities. Later, at the end of Matthew’s gospel, after his death and resurrection, Jesus gives the command to go and make disciples of all nations.

But this woman encountered Jesus before his resurrection and so she does not know what we know. She doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight.

Undeterred the woman knelt before Jesus saying very simply, “Lord, help me”. She does not use a lot of words. She does not try and make a deal with Jesus. She does not try to emotionally blackmail Jesus or threaten him. She does not prescribe what Jesus must do. She simply asks for help and trusts Jesus to decide what is best. This is a picture of pure, uncomplicated faith.

We know Jesus likes faith and so, at this point, we would expect that Jesus, full of compassion and love, would be moved to heal the child. But no, what Jesus does next is shocking.

In verse 26 Jesus says to this woman, who is already suffering terribly, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’

In other words, charity begins at home.

The children, in Jesus’ little parable here, are the people of Israel. And their food is the healing and life that Jesus brings – Jesus is the bread of life.

Dogs is a reference to Gentiles generally but also to this Canaanite woman and her daughter specifically.  

Now, in our culture a dog is man’s best friend. A dog is loyal and trustworthy and loved by the family. But in ancient Jewish culture a dog was unclean. Dogs were despised. To refer to this woman and her kin as dogs is a racial slur, an insult.

When Jesus ignored the mother’s cries for help, she persisted.

When Jesus refused to help her child, the mother responded in faith.

How will she respond to the insult of being called a dog?

What will Jesus find in her heart? 

To her credit this mother answers with humility and wit saying, 27 “Yes Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

This is a clever response. The woman is implying that she, a Canaanite, is still part of Jesus’ household, albeit with a very different status from the children.

Like Monica, this mother wills just one thing: that Jesus save her daughter. She is pure mum. Her heart (her inner life) is clean and holy and so she sees God’s salvation.

Jesus commends her saying: “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

No other Jew in the gospel of Matthew receives this sort of commendation for their faith from Jesus. A Roman Centurion is commended as having more faith than anyone in Israel but none of Jesus’ own people are said to have great faith, like this woman.

So what exactly is it that makes this mother’s faith so great?

It is her love for her daughter. Love is what motivated this mother to ask her enemies for help and to go on asking when she was ignored, refused and insulted. None of us knows the purity of our love unless it is met with resistance. Love, that is willing to suffer, makes faith great.   

That being said we might still wonder, ‘Why did Jesus put the woman through this? Why did he make it so difficult for her?’ Because it seems totally out of character for Jesus to refuse anyone in need much less be rude about it.

Well, it appears Jesus was using this encounter with the Canaanite mother as a teachable moment for his disciples. Jesus can see this woman’s holiness, but his disciples can’t.

He had just been telling his disciples that it is the state of a person’s heart that makes them clean or unclean. Now they have seen for themselves what purity of heart looks like, in this Canaanite woman, someone they had always believed was inherently unclean.

Jesus was showing his disciples what really matters to God. Faith, hope and love.

When we look at it this way we see that Jesus was not being callous or insulting at all. Jesus was actually showing great respect for this woman. He refused to patronise her or be condescending. 

As tired and frustrated as this mother may have been, Jesus knew he was not dealing with a weak or timid person. He was dealing with someone who was a force to be reckoned with. And that’s why he pushed back. Jesus knew the strength of the woman’s faith, hope and love. He knew she could handle it.   

So what does all this mean for us?

Well, the mother’s love for her child reflects God’s love for us.

God’s motherly love is like a hurricane. It is powerful but there is a calmness in the eye.

Unlike a hurricane, that destroys everything in its path, God’s motherly love is jealous. Not envious, not wanting what belongs to someone else. But jealous in the sense of wanting to protect what rightly belongs to him. God’s jealous love is powerful to protect his children from evil.

God’s motherly love is also pure and holy. The Canaanite woman was pure in heart, she willed one thing: for Jesus to heal her daughter. And the purity of her love was revealed in the way she was willing to suffer much for her child.

God’s love (like a mother’s love) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

It is this kind of love that makes a person clean, holy and pleasing to God.

Let us pray…

God Almighty, we thank you for your motherly love for us. A jealous love, which is powerful to protect. A pure love, which is longsuffering. Help us to receive your love with grace and respect, that we would be fruitful for your glory. Through Jesus we pray. Amen. 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • What was your mother like? What do you appreciate about her?
  • What does it mean to be pure in heart? Can you think of examples, either from the Bible or your own experience, that illustrate what it looks like to be pure in heart?
  • Try to put yourself in the shoes of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15. What do you imagine her life was like?
  • Why do you think Jesus is slow to help the Canaanite woman?
  • What can we learn about prayer / intercession from the mother’s example?
  • In what ways does the Canaanite mother reflect God’s love? 
Tawa Baptist

Connected

Scripture: 1st Thessalonians 1:1-3

Video Link: https://youtu.be/pZPJgH83KFI

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Connected in God
  • Connected in prayer
  • Connected in experience
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone and happy Waitangi Day.

Sometimes, when your internet connection drops out, you have to wait a few minutes watching the dots make a little circle until the wifi comes back online. We can become impatient because we have to wait a few seconds but the inconvenience of a buffering internet connection is nothing really. In years gone by, before the internet, people separated by the tyranny of distance had to wait months, even years, to receive word from loved ones.

Last week we began a new sermon series in Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians. By way of introduction, we looked at Acts 17, which is Luke’s account of how the Christian church got started in the city of Thessalonica, which is in Greece.

Today we get into the letters themselves, looking at the opening verses of First Thessalonians, in which Paul reconnects with the Thessalonian believers, by letter, after having not seen them for several months, perhaps a year. From verse 1 of First Thessalonians we read…

[From] Paul, Silas and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you. 2 We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. 3 We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

In these three short verses we note how Paul makes three quite profound and enduring connections with the Thessalonians. Paul shows how he, Silas and Timothy are connected to the Thessalonians in God, in prayer and in experience.  

Connected in God:

You may remember, from last week, that Paul & Silas had to leave the city of Thessalonica after certain people stirred up trouble and put pressure on Jason and the other believers.

Paul and his companions then went to Berea and from there to Athens. Paul was naturally concerned for the well-being of the Thessalonians and so he sent Timothy back to see how they were getting on.

By the time Timothy returned with his report, Paul was probably in the city of Corinth. As you can imagine, this journey would have taken months on foot. After hearing what Timothy had to say, Paul wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians to reconnect with them and to offer some guidance and encouragement. 

The experts aren’t sure exactly but they think First Thessalonians was probably the second letter Paul wrote to a church, depending on when you date his letter to the Galatians. Paul’s affection for the Thessalonians is clear. Despite being relatively new converts and despite having suffered for Jesus, the Thessalonians’ faith (their connection with God) was strong.

In verse 1, Paul addresses the Thessalonians in an interesting way. He refers to the Thessalonian church as being in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Being ‘in Christ’ is a favourite saying of Paul’s, but he wouldn’t normally start a letter this way or talk about being ‘in God the Father’ in the same breath.

The word translated as church is literally assembly, as in a gathering of people. So the assembly or the gathering of believers is in God. What does that mean? Is it like when the teachers at school say the assembly will be in the hall? Well, not exactly. Paul isn’t talking about the physical location of the Thessalonians. He’s talking in spiritual terms.  

Paul is reconnecting with the Thessalonians by affirming they are not alone. They are as close to God and to Jesus as you can get. They are in God. God is the source of their life, the ground of their being.

The Thessalonian assembly (or church) is in God, like a tree is planted in soil. If you take the tree out of the soil it will die. Keep it in the soil and it will thrive, drawing its life from the nutrients in the ground.

Or to use another analogy, the Thessalonian church is in God, like a school of fish is in water. Take the fish out of water and they soon die. Keep the fish in water and they live. God and Christ provide the right spiritual environment for human beings, much like water provides the right natural environment for fish. 

William Barclay uses the metaphor of air. He says that being in God (or in Christ) is like being in air. Not only is the air all around us (as close as our skin) but when we breathe, the air is inside us as well.

That’s how close and life giving God is to the Thessalonians, as close as air. That’s why their faith is thriving, despite the persecution they are experiencing for being Christians. Their physical or material life might be poor, but their spiritual life is rich.

By affirming the Thessalonians’ closeness to God and to Jesus, Paul is basically saying he is close to them as well. In verse 3 he talks about our God and our Jesus. Even though they are about 576 km’s apart (geographically speaking) they are close in the Lord, for Paul & Silas & Timothy are in God as well.

There are three crosses on the wall behind me. The crosses remind us of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. I can’t see the crosses at the moment because I’m facing the other way. But I know they are there because I’ve seen them before. Now, I might forget they are there because I’m focused on something else but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still there.

You know sometimes we lose sight of God’s nearness and grace. We get busy with something or other and God passes out of our awareness. If God is out of sight and out of mind for too long, it may feel to us like God is absent or distant.

That subjective feeling can have a very real effect on us. It can mislead us into thinking that we are not loved by God or that God is angry with us or that he doesn’t care. But our feelings and perception are not always reliable. Like the crosses on the wall behind me, God doesn’t cease to be close to us just because our back is turned and we are thinking about something else.

We human beings need to turn and face God, regularly. We need to do tangible things to remind ourselves of God’s nearness and grace.

Those things might include starting the day by reading a chapter from the Bible. Or stopping three times a day to be still and pray. Or spending time with other believers, or singing songs of worship or listening to sermon podcasts. Whatever it is that puts you in touch with God again.

Paul is eager to reconnect or, more accurately, to insist that he and the Thessalonians were never disconnected, as verse 2 implies.

Connected in prayer:

At home we have a wall hanging. One of Robyn’s friends from school gave it to her. It reads: Prayer, the world’s greatest wireless connection.

Before the internet there was prayer.

In verse 2 of chapter 1 Paul says: We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers.      

Prayer is eternal. Prayer is beyond the confines of time and space. In prayer, we draw close to others and to God. Prayer is about connection.

By keeping the Thessalonians in their prayers, Paul, Silas and Timothy were never apart from them. 

Prayer isn’t just the words we say to God. The larger part of prayer is listening to God. I have come to believe that prayer is also about the burdens we carry with and for others. When we pray for others we, in some way I think, connect with them and make their burden lighter.

I can’t give you any scientific or empirical evidence for this. But, anecdotally, people who have been going through some difficulty and have had others in the church praying for them, have said things like: ‘I feel lighter’ or ‘I feel like I’m being carried by people’s prayers’.

The flip side is that sometimes we can feel a bit weary after praying for others, like we’ve been doing some heavy lifting. At the same time, praying for others can also release us from the burden of our own problems and the tiredness which comes from always thinking about ourselves.

So while praying for others does take some effort, there is a mutual benefit on the whole.  

One of my cousins was really into scuba diving, when he was younger. He loved it. One day he was down fairly deep underwater and his mate got into trouble. My cousin kept his head and shared his breathing apparatus; you take a breath I’ll take a breath sort of thing. They returned to the surface slowly, to avoid getting the benz. Thankfully they made it up before my cousin’s tank ran out too.

Perhaps keeping others in our prayers is a bit like that. A friend finds themselves in deep water and in trouble. Maybe they are in so much distress or pain they can’t find the words or the faith to pray themselves. So you pray for them.

In praying for your friend like this, you are sharing your spiritual oxygen tank with them, at least until they reach the surface and can breathe (or pray) again themselves.    

That’s what intercessory prayer is; praying on behalf of others. We, who believe in Jesus, are priests. Interceding for others in prayer, with God, is what priests do. It is what Jesus (the great high priest) does.

Whether we are praying for ourselves or others, the risen and ascended Jesus knows our deepest needs and desires. He hears the inarticulate cry of our heart, asking God the Father for what he need. So even if we don’t know how to pray or can’t find the words, Jesus does know and has just the right words.    

Is there someone you know who needs you to share your oxygen tank of prayer with them?

Connected in experience:

So, even though they are apart physically, Paul and the Thessalonians are connected spiritually, in God and in prayer.

In verse 3, Paul goes on to point out another connection he and his companions share with the Thessalonians. They are connected in their experience. Paul writes…

We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

When we remember something, we are reconnecting with our experience of what we are remembering. Memory is a powerful form of connection. It brings the past into the present. It brings people, we haven’t seen in a while, close.

When I was at intermediate school one of my friend’s, Mark, had an older brother who sometimes used to pick us up in his Datsun 160B. Mark’s brother, Richard, used to play Dire Straits music in his cassette player; Tunnel of Love, Romeo and Juliet and so on. Very cool when you are 11.

Sometimes when I hear a Dire Straits song from the 80’s, I remember the Datsun 160B and my friendship with Mark, even though I haven’t seen Mark in over 30 years. It’s funny how a familiar tune or sight or smell can reconnect you with your past. Memory is a powerful transporter.

Dire Straits have a song called ‘Brothers in Arms’. In the second verse the singer remembers the connection forged with his mates on the battlefield…

Through these fields of destruction, baptisms of fire. I’ve witnessed your suffering as the battle raged high. And though they did hurt me so bad, in the fear and alarm, you did not desert me my brothers in arms.

The connections made through a shared experience of suffering run deep and live long in the memory.

As we heard last week (in Acts 17) the Thessalonian believers stood their ground under fire and did not desert their faith in Jesus, remaining loyal to Paul, Silas and Timothy. Their suffering for Jesus together is what connects them.

And when we suffer for Christ, we too are connected to other believers (around the world and throughout history) who have suffered for their faith. 

Three points of connection Paul makes when remembering the Thessalonians:

Their work produced by faith, their labour prompted by love, and their endurance inspired by hope

Faith, love and hope come to the surface in Paul’s letters a number of times, most famously in First Corinthians 13 where Paul writes, and these three remain: faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.

Faith, hope and love are to Christian spirituality what oxygen, heat and fuel are to fire. They are indispensable, we can’t do without any one of them.

Faith, hope and love are about connection you see. They connect us to Jesus and to each other.     

Looking more closely, what does Paul mean by the Thessalonians’ work produced by faith. Idle faith, faith that sits around and does nothing is not true faith. Genuine faith finds expression in acts of Christian service and good deeds.

Those who did the online services in early January may remember John Tucker’s sermon about Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding. John made the connection between faith and work when he pointed out how the servants did what Jesus asked of them, filling the jars with water.

Filling each of those 120 litre jars of water was repetitive, time consuming, mundane, tiring work. And it may have seemed pointless too, when the problem wasn’t a lack of water but a lack of wine. Yet the servants did what Jesus asked of them, in faith. And Jesus did something very special with their work produced by faith.

Those of us who serve Jesus are connected through the work we do in faith that Jesus will use it for God’s saving purpose.           

Paul remembers also the Thessalonians’ labour prompted by love. The Greek word translated as labour here refers to hard labour, real back breaking toil. The kind of labour that puts blisters on your hands and sends you to bed early.

As Leon Morris says, the phrase labour prompted by love directs our minds to the unceasing hardship borne by the Thessalonians for love’s sake.

Those of you who are parents of small children understand about labour prompted by love. Caring for babies is exhausting. You are up all hours of the night feeding and changing nappies and working all day putting bread on the table or doing house work. It’s hard yacker. But you do it for the love of your family and through your labours a deep connection is created between parent and child.     

We are reminded of Jacob who laboured seven years for his father-in-law, Laban, so that he could marry Rachel. But those seven years seemed to him like just a few days because of the love he had for her. Romantic love gives you wings. 

Of course, the love Paul has in mind in Thessalonians is not romantic love, it is agape love. Not the love of seeking to possess something but a self-giving love. God’s love is always giving.

The Thessalonian believers did it tough for the love of Jesus. They were persecuted and harassed for becoming Christians but they handled it for love’s sake. Paul, Silas and Timothy also did it tough, working during the day with their hands to support themselves, then feeding the new born believers with God’s word in the evenings. It was hard graft.  

Thirdly, Paul remembers the Thessalonians’ endurance inspired by hope.

Hope is forward facing faith. Hope believes something good waits in our future. The Christian hope is that Jesus will return in glory one day to make all things new. Our hope is a future eternity without suffering or pain, where God wipes away every tear from our eyes, no more war or hunger or pandemics.

But getting there is a marathon, not a sprint. Hope of a better future gave the Thessalonian believers the strength to endure their present sufferings.

How is your hope at the moment? We are two years into a global pandemic and about to face a tidal wave of omicron cases (so we are told). We need the endurance inspired by hope. God has got us through this far. He will see us through to the other side.

Conclusion:      

Looking at the whole of verse 3 again we note that your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love and your endurance inspired by hope are all in our Lord Jesus Christ.   

These things which connect us and support our life are not done in our own strength.  Nor are they hidden in some treasure vault beyond our reach. No, they are in Christ, whose Spirit is as close to us as the air we breathe.

So this spiritual connection does not depend on us. Nor does it depend on our changing moods or feelings. Our connection to God the Father and to one another depends on Jesus. Which means it is a reliable connection, not subject to buffering.

Our job is to remain in Christ. As Jesus says in John 15…

5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 

Let us pray…

Father God, we thank you for the connection we share with you and each other, through Jesus. Help us to remain in Christ and to draw strength from him, that we may bear the fruit of faith, hope and love. In Jesus we pray. Amen. 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Why do you think Paul is eager to reconnect with the Thessalonians? How do you think the Thessalonians may have felt receiving Paul’s letter and having their connection/relationship with Paul, Silas & Timothy affirmed/renewed? 
  • What does it mean to be ‘in God’ or ‘in Christ’?
  • How do you turn to face God? What tangible things do you do to reconnect with God’s nearness and grace?
  • Have you ever felt light (or carried) in some way by the prayers of others? How do you feel after you have spent time praying for others? Is there someone you know, at the moment, who isn’t able to pray for themselves and needs you to share your oxygen tank of prayer with them? 
  • Discuss/reflect on Paul’s three phrases in verse 3. That is: your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love and your endurance inspired by hope. What do each of these phrases mean? Can you think of ways in which these three things have been (or are being) worked out in your life? 
  • Is there someone you need to reconnect with? Or, to put it another way, is there someone who needs you to reconnect with them? How might you go about reconnecting? 
Tawa Baptist

Eternal Life

Scripture: John 11:1-45

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Freedom
  • Faith
  • Feeling
  • Conclusion – Friendship

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Today we begin a new sermon series on the I am sayings of Jesus in the gospel of John. Jesus uses a number of I am statements to describe himself. These sayings tell us about Jesus’ being, his identity.

Please turn with me to John chapter 11, page 133, toward the back of your pew Bibles. This morning, because we are in the season of Easter, we focus on John 11, where Jesus says: I am the resurrection and the life. From verses 1-45, we read…  

A man named Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, became sick. Bethany was the town where Mary and her sister Martha lived. (2 This Mary was the one who poured the perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.) 3 The sisters sent Jesus a message: “Lord, your dear friend is sick.”

4 When Jesus heard it, he said, “The final result of this sickness will not be the death of Lazarus; this has happened in order to bring glory to God, and it will be the means by which the Son of God will receive glory.”

5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 Yet when he received the news that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days. 7 Then he said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

8 “Teacher,” the disciples answered, “just a short time ago the people there wanted to stone you; and are you planning to go back?”

9 Jesus said, “A day has twelve hours, doesn’t it? So those who walk in broad daylight do not stumble, for they see the light of this world. 10 But if they walk during the night they stumble, because they have no light.” 11 Jesus said this and then added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up.”

12 The disciples answered, “If he is asleep, Lord, he will get well.”

13 Jesus meant that Lazarus had died, but they thought he meant natural sleep. 14 So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 but for your sake I am glad that I was not with him, so that you will believe. Let us go to him.”

16 Thomas (called the Twin) said to his fellow disciples, “Let us all go along with the Teacher, so that we may die with him!”

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days before. 18 Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Judeans had come to see Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother’s death.

20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died! 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.”

23 “Your brother will rise to life,” Jesus told her.

24 “I know,” she replied, “that he will rise to life on the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; 26 and those who live and believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord!” she answered. “I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

28 After Martha said this, she went back and called her sister Mary privately. “The Teacher is here,” she told her, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up and hurried out to meet him. (30 Jesus had not yet arrived in the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.) 31 The people who were in the house with Mary comforting her followed her when they saw her get up and hurry out. They thought that she was going to the grave to weep there.

32 Mary arrived where Jesus was, and as soon as she saw him, she fell at his feet. “Lord,” she said, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

33 Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved. 34 “Where have you buried him?” he asked them.

“Come and see, Lord,” they answered.

35 Jesus wept. 36 “See how much he loved him!” the people said.

37 But some of them said, “He gave sight to the blind man, didn’t he? Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?”

38 Deeply moved once more, Jesus went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone placed at the entrance. 39 “Take the stone away!” Jesus ordered.

Martha, the dead man’s sister, answered, “There will be a bad smell, Lord. He has been buried four days!”

40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believed?” 41 They took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, “I thank you, Father, that you listen to me. 42 I know that you always listen to me, but I say this for the sake of the people here, so that they will believe that you sent me.” 43 After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave cloths, and with a cloth around his face. “Untie him,” Jesus told them, “and let him go.”

45 Many of the people who had come to visit Mary saw what Jesus did, and they believed in him. 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

The main point of today’s message is that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Or to put it another way: Jesus is eternal life.

Eternal life is not the same as this life. In the context of John 11 we note four F’s in relation to eternal life: Freedom, faith, feeling and friendship. First let’s consider the freedom associated with eternal life.

Freedom:

For many of us life is incredibly busy these days. We tend to be time poor. Being short on time creates an internal pressure so that we end up feeling like a pin ball, bouncing back and forth in every direction, with little or no control over our lives. Unfortunately, being time poor lead can lead to poor decision making.

When Jesus learned that his friend Lazarus was sick, we notice he responds with freedom. For most people this would have been a difficult decision. On the one hand, Jesus’ friends needed his help urgently. But on the other hand, helping his friends meant travelling to Judea where people wanted to kill Jesus.

Clearly there was an inherent tension in this decision, a bit like being trapped in a vice of love and fear. But Jesus is no ordinary man. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Jesus does not make this decision based on temporal concerns. He makes this decision based on God’s glory, which eternal.

Jesus waits two days before deciding to go to Lazarus. In verse 9 Jesus says to his disciples: “A day has twelve hours, doesn’t it? So those who walk in broad daylight do not stumble, for they see the light of this world. 10 But if they walk during the night they stumble, because they have no light.” 

Perhaps Jesus is using daylight here as a metaphor for time. During daylight hours one is free to move about but when darkness falls you lose your freedom. The point is, with Jesus there is light (or time) and therefore freedom.   

In verse 11 Jesus added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up.”

Once again the disciples misunderstand. They think Jesus is talking about natural sleep. But Jesus is using sleep as a metaphor for death. By calling Lazarus’ death ‘sleep’, Jesus is saying that Lazarus’ death is not permanent. And if death is not permanent then it is not to be feared. There will be more time (more daylight) after the night of sleep has passed.

Eternal life leads to freedom then. This point is illustrated literally when Lazarus walks out of his tomb wrapped in grave clothes and Jesus tells the people there to untie him and let him go.

When we truly believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, when we trust in Jesus, who is eternal life, then the tyranny of time and the fear of death lose their power over us and we enjoy freedom in our inner being.

The key to this sort of freedom though is faith in Jesus.

Faith:

In 1986 David Bowie starred as a Goblin king in a film called the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is a musical fantasy in which Sarah, a 16-year-old girl, goes searching through a maze to rescue her baby brother Toby.

Toby is being kept in the castle of the Goblin king because Sarah had wished Toby away. Now Sarah regrets what she has done and wants her brother back.

At one point in the film Sarah couldn’t find her way through the maze. Wherever she looked she could only see wall. Sarah couldn’t see the opening right in front of her until a friendly creature pointed it out to her. Sarah had to trust the advice of one of the locals to find her way through.

That is often how we face death. We see death as a wall, a dead end, without any openings. But, with Jesus, we are able to find a way through.

By the time Jesus arrives in the village of Bethany, Lazarus has been dead four days. His body is in a tomb behind a wall of rock (a dead end) and no one (except Jesus) can see a way through. The mourners are trapped too, in the maze of their grief.  

In some ways Jewish mourning rituals were similar to Maori tangihanga (funeral protocol). It was a sacred duty to visit in person to give comfort and support to the grieving family. In Jewish and Maori thought people are connected. 

Another similarity between Jewish and Maori funerals is they last a number of days. Jews put seven days aside for the process. Like a tangi (funeral), people would be coming to visit Martha and Mary throughout the whole week. And it wouldn’t just be a fleeting visit either.   

Jesus turns up half way through the week of mourning. Martha goes out to meet him and says, “If you had been here Lord, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.”  

Martha is not accusing Jesus here. She is not angry. To the contrary she is bravely declaring her faith in Jesus. She is saying, ‘Even though my brother is dead I still trust you. We are still friends. You are welcome here’. Martha does not tell Jesus what to do, like she did in Luke 10. No. Martha lets Jesus be Jesus and she lets God be God.

Jesus says to Martha: “Your brother will rise to life”. Martha thinks Jesus is referring to the general resurrection of the dead at the end of time, sort of like when someone tries to offer comfort at a funeral by saying, ‘We will see them again in heaven one day’.

But Jesus means more than Martha is able to grasp at that moment and he takes the conversation deeper saying: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; 26 and those who live and believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus doesn’t just say, ‘I can raise Lazarus from the dead’. No. He says, ‘I am the resurrection. I am eternal life’. The very essence of Jesus is resurrection life. Therefore, to enter eternal life, one must be in Christ. And the way to get into Christ is through faith, that is, through believing in him. Not just believing that he exists but actually trusting him.

In verse 15 Jesus indicates that Lazarus’ death is so that his disciples will believe. Likewise, in verse 42, Jesus prays publicly so the people there would believe that God sent him. Lazarus’ death and resurrection serves to inspire and strengthen faith in Jesus, because faith in Jesus creates openings in walls.

Commenting on Jesus’ words to Martha, in verse 25, Leon Morris says: ‘Death is a but a gateway to further life and fellowship with God.’

This means, when we put our faith in Jesus, death is not an end in itself. Rather, faith in Jesus creates an opening in the wall of death, an opening to a new beginning. (Sort of like that line in the song Closing Time: “…every new beginning starts with some other beginning’s end”.)

Martha responds remarkably well when she says: “Yes Lord, I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who has come into the world.”

That’s an impressive answer. Firstly, Martha agrees that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Then she goes on to describe Jesus in the highest terms. Martha calls Jesus the Messiah; the anointed one, chosen by God to come into the world and save his people. Martha also calls Jesus the Son of God; which, in this context, meant that Jesus had the closest possible relationship with God that a person could have.  

Although Martha doesn’t fully comprehend what Jesus has just said to her, she is willing to take it on faith. She accepts what Jesus says as true even though she doesn’t fully understand what this means or what Jesus is about to do.

Faith usually precedes understanding. It is only after we have trusted and obeyed the Lord that mental comprehension follows.

With eternal life comes freedom. And the way to enter eternal life is through faith in Jesus. Eternal life involves freedom, faith and feeling. Deep feeling.

Feeling:

It is thought that the world’s largest and possibly oldest living organism is the Pando. (Not to be confused with Panda).

On the surface the Pando looks like a forest of individual aspen trees but scientists have discovered that all the trees have an identical genetic marker. Apparently the trees are connected by the same underground root system.

The Pando covers about 108 acres of land and weighs around 6,600 tons. The root system is thought to be several thousand years old, maybe older.

While the Pando is not eternal, in the same sense that Jesus is eternal, it does offer an analogy for eternal life. The aspen trees seen above the surface may only live for around 100 years or so, but the root system underneath keeps putting up new shoots, so the organism is continually renewing itself.

Eternal life is a deeply connected life, sort of like the Pando is connected.

In John 11:28 Martha goes back to the house and sends Mary out to see Jesus. Like her sister, Mary also says to Jesus, “If you had been here Lord, my brother would not have died.” But Jesus says nothing, at least not straight away. He connected with Martha through a theological conversation, probably because that is what Martha needed. But he connects with Mary on an emotional level.

Verse 33 reads: Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved. 

The Greek word translated as weeping here means wailing or crying loudly.[1] This is not just a few stifled tears.

Often in European style funerals people turn the volume down on their emotions. It’s not that we feel any less. We just don’t express our grief as loudly. But in Jewish culture people were more inclined to turn the volume up on their emotions. If a wave of grief sweeps over you, you wail and cry out loud. You let people know how much the deceased means to you.

It’s not that one way is better than the other. It’s just that different cultures handle grief in different ways.

Jesus lets Mary’s grief touch his heart. He makes himself vulnerable, in other words, and is deeply moved. This is an emotionally intimate moment. Verse 5 tells us that Jesus loved Martha, Mary & Lazarus. Love creates a connection. You can’t really love someone without feeling what they feel. Eternal life is a deeply connected life.

We read, in verse 35, that Jesus wept. However, the Greek term translated as wept here is different from Mary’s loud wailing. Jesus’ weeping is quiet. [2]

Why does Jesus weep? He is about to raise Lazarus from the dead so it doesn’t make sense that he is sad for Lazarus. It appears something is going on here which is bigger than Lazarus. Perhaps Jesus is in touch with the ocean of grief caused by death over the millennia. Maybe also he is anticipating his own death on the cross. Raising Lazarus seems to have cost Jesus something.

It is natural to feel sadness and to express grief when someone dies. Jesus’ tears show his connection with humanity. More than that, his tears give permission for us to grieve also. Even though, for Christians, death is a temporary thing (like sleep), it still hurts to be disconnected from the ones we love.

We need to hold on to the fact that death is not in control. Jesus is the resurrection and the life and that means he is in control. Jesus has the power to restore the life connection.

Verse 38 tells us how Jesus was deeply moved once more, only this time he did not weep. This time he was moved to raise his friend from the dead. And Lazarus emerged alive from his tomb.    

Conclusion – Friendship:

You know, when we (in the west) think of eternal life, we tend to think in terms of time. We perceive eternal life, therefore, as a never ending sequence of events; an existence that just keeps going and going and going forever. The idea of never ending time is actually quite terrifying if you think about it.

However, this may not be the best way to think about eternal life. When Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life he was indicating that eternal life is a relationship – a friendship with him in fact.

This friendship with Jesus, and consequently with God the Father, is of such a high quality that the prospect of never ending life becomes something good to look forward to. This is the Christian hope. 

Now, it’s important to understand that Christian hope is not all pie in the sky, off in the future one day. No. You see, death isn’t just when someone’s heart stops and their brain function ceases. Death happens while we are still breathing, when right relationship breaks down and our connection with God and others is destroyed. 

Eternal life (or reconnection with God) actually begins in this world at the point we put our faith in Jesus. But it isn’t fully felt or realised by us until after our resurrection from physical death.

Last Sunday, at Easter, we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection creates an opening for our resurrection. Through faith in Jesus our friendship with God is restored and we are able enjoy freedom and a deep connection in our relationships with others. 

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.  

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • What do you think Jesus means when he says, “I am the resurrection and the life”? 
  • How would you feel if you heard a good friend of yours was sick and needed your help? Why did Jesus take his time before going to Bethany? What was Jesus’ main consideration in making this decision?
  • How do you view death; as a wall or as a gateway to fellowship with God? Can you think of a time in your life when trusting Jesus helped you to find an opening in the wall you were facing?
  • How does Jesus connect with Martha? How does he connect with Mary? How does Jesus connect with you when you are grieving?
  • What difference does it make thinking of eternal life as a friendship with Jesus (rather than just an unquantifiable amount of time)?  

[1] Refer Leon Morris, page 495.

[2] Ibid.

Tawa Baptist

Tuakana-teina

Scripture: 1st Peter 2:21-25

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Tuakana-teina
  • Jesus’ example: innocence, meekness, faith
  • Redemptive suffering
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Do you have a favourite sandwich? For me it would have to be a Reuben. Reuben sandwiches are fairly simple: two thick slices of wholegrain bread (toasted) with corned beef and sauerkrauts in the middle. Hard to beat a good corned beef sandwich. 

Today we continue our series in the New Testament epistle of first Peter. We are roughly in the middle of Peter’s letter now, in a section that looks a bit like a sandwich. Not a Reuben sandwich so much; more of a suffering sandwich.

The focus of this morning’s passage (chapter 2, verses 21-25) is Christ’s suffering. Jesus provides the Christian believer with a model for responding to unjust suffering. This is the meat of the sandwich.

It seems that Peter has intentionally sandwiched Jesus’ suffering between instructions to slaves (which we heard about last week) and instructions to wives (which we will look at next week). Slaves and women being two of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups at the time Peter was writing. From 1st Peter chapter 2, verses 21-25, we read…

21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example,that you should follow in his steps. 22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” 23 When they hurled their insults at him,he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himselfto him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sinsand live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,”but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Peter’s words in these verses draw on Isaiah 53, where the prophet talks about the suffering servant. Peter takes this prophecy from Isaiah and appropriates it to Jesus, whose suffering had a redemptive effect.

Tuakana-teina:

In traditional Maori society there is a concept, or more accurately a relationship, known as tuakana-teina. If you work in education you may be familiar with it.

Tuakana is the Maori word for an older brother, sister or cousin. And teina refers to a younger brother, sister or relation.   

The principle of Tuakana-teina is used in schools as a model for buddy systems, where an older or more expert tuakana helps and guides a younger or less experienced teina. The idea is to create a culture of care and support.

Tuakana-teina is actually part of the DNA of our church also. When we talk about our church being inter-generational, part of what we mean is that we want to be a community of faith where each of the generations is represented and the older more mature believers (the tuakana) help and guide the younger less experienced (the teina). Of course, it’s not just the younger who learn from the older. The older can also learn from the younger. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.    

Last Sunday, being Labour weekend, the BIG and Flock kids (aged 3-12 years) combined for their Sunday school programme. One of the advantages of occasionally combining age groups like this is that it provides the opportunity for tuakana-teina relationships to form. In fact, one child (a 12-year-old boy) was helping a 5-year-old boy with a craft they were doing and said to Robyn, ‘tuakana-teina’. He understood it wasn’t just about completing the craft. Yes, the craft helps one to remember the lesson but, more importantly, it is a vehicle for building relationships of care and support.  

In using an example from Sunday school I don’t mean to suggest that tuakana-teina is just for kids. It is for the whole congregation. Someone in their 20’s can be a tuakana to someone in their teens (as happens in youth group). Just as someone in their 40’s or 50’s can be a tuakana for someone in their 20’s or 30’s, and so on. 

In verse 21 Peter says: To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example,that you should follow in his steps.  

Verse 20 tells us the this to which we are called is ‘suffering for doing good and enduring it’. 

With our calling in mind, Jesus is our tuakana (our older brother) and we are his teina (his younger siblings). Ours is a tuakana-teina relationship. Jesus shows us by his example how we are to handle ourselves if or when we experience unjust suffering.  

Broadly speaking Peter highlights three things about Jesus’ example here: Jesus’ innocence. Jesus’ meekness and Jesus’ faith. When we manage to follow Jesus’ example, of innocence, meekness and faith, we point others to Christ and so glorify him. Our relationship with Jesus is meant to be mutually beneficial.  

Jesus’ example:

In verse 22 Peter alludes to Isaiah 53:9 saying of Jesus: “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”

This refers to Jesus’ innocence or his righteousness. Jesus is the only human being ever to have lived to adulthood and be sinless. Jesus is the spotless, perfect Lamb of God. The fact that Jesus committed no sin and yet still suffered punishment implies that his suffering was unjust, not fair.

We note here that Jesus was sinless both in word and deed. ‘No deceit was found in his mouth’, tells us that Jesus had a clean heart as well as clean hands. The mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Therefore, no deceit in the mouth implies no deceit in the heart. Jesus did not pretend. He was the same on the inside as he was on the outside.

The fact that Jesus was without sin and was always honest means he is a genuine tuakana who we can trust. His example carries weight. 

Now, it needs to be acknowledged that while Jesus was completely innocent or sinless, we are not. Sometimes (or perhaps often) we fall short. Nevertheless, we need to do our best to be innocent in all our dealings with others, so that if we are wrongly accused we can draw strength from a clear conscience. God, who knows all things and is just, will vindicate the innocent either in this life or the next.     

Jesus had perfect control over himself, which brings us to our next point; Jesus’ meekness. In the first part of verse 23 Peter writes: When they hurled their insults at him,he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.

This illustrates Jesus’ meekness. Meekness is often misunderstood these days as being a bit timid or weak. But meekness is not weakness. Quite the opposite. Meekness is great strength, great power, under control. Meekness is akin to gentleness. It takes tremendous strength to control oneself, and not retaliate, in the crucible of injustice.

In 2nd Samuel chapter 16, a man named Shimei starts cursing David and throwing stones at him and yelling insults. One of the men with David says: ‘Why should this dead dog curse my lord and king? Let me go over and cut off his head.’

And David replies, ‘…Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today.’ David responded with meekness here; great strength under control. David had the power to kill Shimei but he doesn’t. Instead he trusts himself to God.

In Matthew 26, when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, one of the disciples responded with the opposite of meekness. He drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest cutting off his ear. But Jesus intervened saying: Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

Jesus then healed the servant’s ear and submitted to his unjust arrest because it was God’s will for him in that situation. That is meekness, great power under control. Jesus had the power to easily smash his opponents but he kept that power in check for the well-being of others.   

Later, that night, when Jesus was brought to trial and wrongly accused of all sorts of crimes, he was silent. Then, the next day, when Jesus was hanging on the cross his enemies goaded him saying: If you are the Messiah, come down from the cross and save yourself. But Jesus did not respond with threats. He did not say, ‘My dad is going to get you for this’. No. He said: ‘Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’. That is one example of meekness, given to us by Jesus (our tuakana).     

Now, I need to say here that meekness does not always equate to biting your tongue, staying silent and doing nothing. While it is true that Jesus never threatened anyone there were plenty of times when Jesus spoke up to expose the truth.

Jesus called a spade a spade. (There was no deceit found in his mouth.) Jesus said to the Pharisees openly, ‘You white washed tombs. You look good on the outside but inside you are filled with corruption and filth.’ Jesus was not being unkind in saying this. He was not threatening them. To the contrary, he was simply stating the facts; both for the benefit of the people (so they would not waste their lives following the wrong example) but also for the benefit of the Pharisees themselves, so they would clean up their act and return to God.

The point is, meekness does not mean avoiding the truth or keeping silent about injustice. If you are suffering physical or sexual abuse, then expose the truth. Tell someone you trust what’s happening to you. Say what is. Do not make threats to the abuser about what you are going to do. Do not retaliate or seek revenge either. Instead be meek and get help. Report the abuse to someone who can help you get free of it. Let the authorities deal with it.

There is wisdom in walking away from an abusive situation. In Luke 4 Jesus stood up to speak in the synagogue and the people there took offense at him, so much so that they decided to throw him off a nearby cliff. In that situation Jesus did not submit to their abuse because his time had not come. But nor did he call down fire from heaven to destroy them. Instead he quietly slipped through the crowd and walked away. That too was meekness.  

Just because it was God’s will for Jesus to die on the cross, it does not automatically follow that it is God’s will for you to suffer abuse too. The fact that Jesus taught us to pray, ‘Your will be done, your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven’, tells us that not everything that happens to us, in this world, is God’s will. Jesus died to bring an end to sin and death. Ultimately it is God’s will that abuse stops and people are free to love him and each other.

So meekness can find expression in a variety of ways. Sometimes by keeping silent and other times by speaking out. Sometimes by walking away and other times by making a stand or taking the fall for someone else.

The single thing that enabled Jesus to be meek was his faith or trust in God’s justice. In the second part of verse 23 Peter tells us that Jesus entrusted himselfto God who judges justly.

Jesus had faith that God would see him right. And Jesus’ faith in God was rewarded. God vindicated Jesus by raising him to new life on the third day. Jesus’ resurrection is evidence that God is just and that Jesus was innocent. It is because God is just that we can have confidence that he will right any wrongs or injustices we suffer, if not in this life then in the next. 

Jesus is our tuakana (our older brother) and the example he gives for us to follow is the way of innocence, meekness and faith.

Redemptive suffering:

Can anyone here tell me what a cooper is? [Wait]

That’s right. A cooper is a tradesperson who makes wooden barrels. A very popular trade in centuries gone by but not so much in demand now.

Two or three weeks ago one of my favourite TV shows returned: The Repair Shop. In this series people bring much loved antiques and treasures to a workshop of skilled craftspeople who set about repairing and restoring the items. I like this show because it is essentially about redemption. Redemption means saving or reclaiming something.

One of the items brought in a couple of weeks ago was a small wooden barrel. The barrel was missing some braces and was basically in pieces, so it couldn’t hold liquid.

After the master cooper had put the barrel back together again, he took a bag of salt and poured it into the barrel, followed by some hot water. He then explained how the salt makes the barrel sweet again. The salt draws all the nasties out of the wood and into itself. The salt absorbs the impurities, cleansing the barrel.

This struck me as a parable of what God did, through Jesus, in redeeming us. Jesus came to save us and reclaim us for God. 

In verse 24 of 1st Peter chapter 2 we read: “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sinsand live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

If we are like a broken barrel, then God is like the master cooper and Jesus is like the salty water whose life was poured out to cleanse our souls from within.

Jesus bore our sins, in his body, a bit like salt soaks up the impurities in a wooden barrel. Jesus did not do this so we could refill the barrel of our soul with more impurity. He did it so our lives could be filled with the new wine of his Spirit and we could live for righteousness.    

“By his wounds you have been healed” is a poetic way of saying Jesus’ suffering is redemptive. It heals us in a spiritual sense. It saves us and reclaims us for God’s purpose. 

The classic Old Testament story of redemptive suffering is that of Jacob’s son Joseph. If anyone suffered unjust treatment it was Joseph. Although he had done nothing to deserve such treatment Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, who were simply jealous of him.

To his credit Joseph did not allow this injustice to make him resentful or bitter. Instead he went about meekly proving himself a good worker in the house of his master, Potiphar. Potiphar promoted Joseph putting him charge of all the other household servants.

But there was more injustice coming Joseph’s way. When Potiphar’s wife took a fancy to Joseph, and Joseph refused to sleep with her, she falsely accused him of sexual assault and Joseph was thrown into prison. The fact that Potiphar did not have Joseph killed indicates that he knew Joseph was innocent but, like Pilate before Jesus, his hands were tied.

God gave Joseph the grace to endure the hardship in prison and, as he had done with Potiphar, Joseph went about meekly proving himself a trustworthy servant to the man in charge of the prison. After 3 and half years, God then provided a way out for Joseph.

Long story short, Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and Pharaoh made Joseph Prime Minister of Egypt. This put Joseph in a position to redeem many lives from starvation, including the lives of his brothers who had sold him into slavery in the first place.       

Joseph points to Jesus, in that his suffering was redemptive. God used Joseph’s unjust suffering to save many, just as he used Jesus’ suffering to save many more.

Our Scripture reading today finishes with verse 25 where Peter says:

For “you were like sheep going astray,”but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

This echoes Isaiah 53:6 which reads: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. In other words, none of us are completely innocent. We are all sinners.

The Shepherd and Overseer of our souls refers to Jesus. Jesus is the good shepherd who goes after the lost sheep and indeed who musters the flock for their redemption.

Often, when we think of Christ as the good shepherd, we picture the image of Jesus tenderly carrying a lamb on his shoulders. And while tenderness is one layer of the meaning here, it is not the only layer.

Peter is quick to call Jesus the Overseer of our souls which indicates Jesus’ authority over our lives.  Jesus has every right to require us to respond to unjust treatment with innocence, meekness and faith because that is what he has done in redeeming our souls. 

Conclusion:

Returning to The Repair Shop for a moment. Another item brought in for redemption was an old fashioned set of scales for weighing babies. The cradle in which the babies were laid was a basket made from willow canes. This cane basket was in a bad state.  

The basket weaver who fixed the cradle explained that, before she could work with the willow canes, she had to soak them in water to soften them up and make them flexible. Otherwise the canes would be too brittle and would snap in her hands when she tried to weave them together.

It made me think, we are a bit like the willow canes in God’s hand. We need to be soaked for a while before we are flexible enough to be useful to the Lord’s purpose. But what is it we soak in? Is it the water of unjust suffering or is it the water of God’s grace?

Well, I suspect it is both, depending on what we need. Suffering, in small doses, can make us softer and more compassionate but too much suffering can dry us out, making us hard and brittle. In which case we probably need to soak in the water of God’s grace for a bit.

Just as actual water (H2O) is two parts hydrogen and one-part oxygen, I imagine the metaphorical water God uses to soften us up is two parts grace and one-part suffering.      

In a few moments we will share communion together. Communion is a time to remember the example of our tuakana, Jesus. It is a time to soak in the water of Christ’s suffering and grace for us. May God’s grace and peace attend you.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • What is your favourite sandwich? In what way is today’s Scripture reading like a sandwich?
  • What is tuakana-teina? Can you think of any tuakana-teina relationships that have been mutually beneficial in your own experience? In what sense is Jesus our tuakana?
  • Discuss / reflect on the example Jesus has given us – that is Jesus’ innocence, meekness and faith. Which of these facets of Jesus’ character do you find most appealing? Which is most disturbing or challenging for you?
  • What are some of the ways that meekness can find expression? How might we know when to be quiet and when to speak up? Or when to walk away and when to stand our ground?
  • Why did Jesus bear our sins in his body?
  • How has God used suffering and grace to redemptive effect in your life?      
Tawa Baptist

10 May 2020 – Oceans

Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33, Acts 10, Psalm 131:2, Song of Solomon 2:16

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Walking on water
  • I am yours and you are mine
  • Trust without borders
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone and happy Mothers’ day to all the mums out there. A special shout out to my own mum, who is listening to this in Hamilton. 

You may be familiar with the phrase, ‘Measure twice, cut once’. It’s a carpentry metaphor. When a builder is cutting a piece of wood he or she wants to make sure it is the right size to fit, before cutting, otherwise the wood is wasted. 

If making a decision is akin to cutting a piece of wood, then thinking things through and doing your due diligence first is akin to measuring twice.

There are two opposites to measuring twice and cutting once. At one extreme there are those who cut first and try to make it fit later. And, at the other extreme, there are those who are always measuring and never get around to cutting. They never commit to a decision. 

You may like to do a little exercise in your bubbles now. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is equivalent to cutting first and making it fit later, and 5 is equivalent to measuring twice before cutting and 10 is equivalent to always measuring and never committing to a decision, what number would you give yourself? 

(You could pause the audio recording at this point and share your answer with those in your bubble. See if they agree with your self-assessment.) 

Hopefully this was a fun sharing time and you are still talking to each other. 

It is important to know there is no ideal number. It often depends on the circumstances. Some situations call for us to cut first, without measuring. In other situations, we do well to measure but not commit to a decision, perhaps because we don’t have enough information. Most of the time though, measuring twice and cutting once is our best option. Wisdom is the ability to discern which approach is best under the circumstances. 

Today we continue our ‘Anthems’ series. In this series we are looking at the lyrics of one hymn or Christian worship song each week to see how that song informs our thinking about God and how it connects with Scripture and the heritage of our faith. 

The song we are looking at this morning is called Oceans. 

Oceans was written by three blokes from Hillsong United in Australia; Matt Crocker, Joel Houston and Salomon Ligthelm. It was released in 2013 and has been very popular in church circles around the western world. 

Oceans is largely based on Matthew 14:22-33; the story of Peter getting out of the boat to walk on water toward Jesus.   

Joel Houston explains, “It’s really a song about stepping into the unknown, about faith and raw trust in God.”

Walking on water:

Since so much of the meaning of Oceans is found in Matthew 14, let’s revisit that story of Jesus & Peter walking on water now. From verse 22 we read… 

22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

29 “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.  

The impression we get of Peter, in the gospels, is that he was naturally inclined to cut first and make it fit later. It appears that Peter didn’t really think things through when he said to Jesus, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” What a strange and peculiar test. To be fair to Peter though, it had been a very long and exhausting day and it is difficult to think straight when you are under stress.  

The opening verse of the song Oceans begins…

You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown where feet may fail.

This line recalls Jesus telling Peter to get out of the boat and walk on the water towards him. It also recalls how the feet of Peter’s faith failed, and he began to sink, when he took his eyes off Jesus.   

Verse 1 of the song continues…

And there I find You in the mystery, in oceans deep my faith will stand.

This line rightly acknowledges the mystery of God. We can’t know God completely or understand all his ways. God reveals himself to us, in part, through creation, through the Bible and most notably through Jesus. But our minds are too small, too finite to fully grasp God, who is infinite. The things about God that remain inaccessible to us are in the realm of mystery. When it comes to the mystery of God we are not able to measure twice, nor do we have to commit to a firm position. We simply trust. 

Now it was fashionable for a while (during the 20th Century) to explain the miracle out of the account of Jesus walking on water. Some people postulated that Jesus was just walking on the beach beside the lake so it only appeared to the disciples that he was walking on water. Others came up with the theory that Jesus was walking on a sand bar. None of these natural explanations make sense though.

Matthew is very clear that Jesus miraculously walked on water. There was no trick of the light and no sand bar. Verse 24 of Matthew 14 tells us the boat was far out on the lake. There are no shallow spots far out on the Sea of Galilee and, from that distance (in the dark), the disciples wouldn’t be able to see Jesus until he got quite close to the boat. What’s more Jesus rescued Peter and got into the boat with the disciples, so he was definitely out in the deep part of the lake. 

A belief in the miraculous power of Jesus does not make our faith less credible. If anything it points to the greatness (or the mystery) of God. If we could explain everything about Jesus, he wouldn’t be the Son of God.   

The first half of the chorus of the song reads…

And I will call upon Your name and keep my eyes above the waves.
Again this connects with Peter’s experience in Matthew 14. When Peter started to sink he called out to Jesus to save him. I like the observation Neville made in his all-age activity earlier in today’s service. 

Neville said, ‘When Peter started sinking he did not call back to his friends to throw him a rope – he called to Jesus for help.’ 

Peter’s instinct was to rely on Jesus. 

The song Oceans encourages us to learn from Peter’s experience and keep our eyes above the waves – that is, keep our eyes focused on Jesus (As we sang earlier, Turn your eyes upon Jesus…) 

Verse 2 of the song continues the walking on water theme where we sing… 

Your grace abounds in deepest waters, Your sovereign hand will be my guide.
Peter experienced Jesus’ grace in deepest waters when Jesus held out his sovereign hand to rescue him. You might remember from last week that God’s sovereignty refers to his supreme power and ultimate authority in this world. God is free to do whatever he wants but he chooses to use his power for the well-being of his creation. Jesus, who is full of grace & truth, used his power to save Peter.   

But it wasn’t just Peter who experienced God’s grace out on the lake that night. The other disciples received the grace (or the gift) of seeing Jesus calm the waters when he got into the boat. This revealed to them that Jesus is in fact Sovereign over creation – even the wind and waves obey him.  

Verse 2 of the song also reminds us that even though the feet of our faith may fail and fear sometimes gets the better of us, Jesus will never fail us. Jesus’ faithfulness does not depend on us. Jesus is faithful because he is the Son of God and God is faithful. 

God’s grace and faithfulness is as deep and abundant as the water of the oceans. This means we are not condemned if our faith fails. It’s not the end of the world if we make a mistake. God is big enough to forgive and redeem our mistakes. Whether Peter should have got out of the boat on that occasion or not is beside the point. The fact is, he did get out and walk on water for a little bit. And although he took his eyes off Jesus and started to sink it wasn’t the end of his life, nor was it the end of his relationship with Jesus. God’s grace was sufficient for Peter and it is sufficient for you too. So if we fail, we don’t give up. We ask for Jesus’ help and we learn from the experience. 

I am yours and you are mine:

Returning to the chorus of today’s song. The second half reads…

When oceans rise, my soul will rest in Your embrace, for I am Yours and You are mine. 

Certainly Peter rested in Jesus’ embrace, when Jesus lifted him out of the water. 

But these lines make other connections as well. ‘When oceans rise’, makes us think of global warming and the way the world’s oceans are literally rising due to the melting of glaciers and ice shelfs. Our world is anxious about the ecological crisis we are facing. As Christians though we find our security in God. We do what we can to stem the tide and we trust ourselves to God.   

My soul will rest in Your embrace reminds me of Psalm 131:2 which reads, 

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is within me.” 

Just as a mother holds a child in her tender embrace, so too God holds our soul in his embrace. 

Twice, in Psalm 131, David says his soul is like a weaned child. To be weaned is to become accustomed to managing without something which we were previously dependent on. For example, the child stops drinking its mother’s milk and starts eating solid food. It’s not that milk is bad – it is good for a time – but as the child grows it needs more substantial nourishment. A baby cries when it is hungry so the mother will feed it. A weaned child does not cry though because a weaned child knows it will be fed and waits for mum to prepare the meal. 

How does God feed the human soul? God feeds our soul with meaning. When something is meaningful it is worthwhile – it has a point to it, a purpose that is satisfying. Meaning answers the ‘why’ questions of life & death. Ultimately God is the one who gives meaning to our lives. The thing is, we often have to wait, in quiet trust, for that meaning to be revealed.  

We quieten our soul by abandoning outcomes to God. By not seeking to manipulate the end result. Embracing the truth that we don’t have all the answers, let alone the resources to make things turn out right. How will God deliver the world from global warming and Covid-19 and any other threat we may be anxious about? I don’t know. What I believe is that God can deliver us. The fact that Jesus walked on water demonstrates that he is Lord of creation. Nothing is too difficult for him. He won’t let the storm or the waves get out of control. Ultimately God is in charge. 

The chorus of the song Oceans includes the line, For I am Yours and You are mine. This means we belong to God, exclusively. As I said a couple of weeks ago, God is jealous for us. He will not share us with anyone or anything else. 

For I am Yours and You are mine, reminds me of the Song of Solomon 2:16, which reads: My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies.

On the face of it, the Song of Solomon is a love poem describing the experience of young love, falling in love, romantic love between a man and a woman.  

Some Christians throughout history have interpreted the Song of Solomon as an allegory or parable for the church’s relationship with Jesus; where the church is the woman and Jesus is the bridegroom.

My beloved is mine and I am his; This is talking about an exclusive, close personal relationship with Jesus.

And, He browses among the lilies, is a metaphor which basically means he admires my beauty. 

Perhaps you don’t feel all that beautiful at the moment. Perhaps you’ve done things that make you feel ugly or gross. Perhaps other people have said and done things to you that make you feel worth less. Let me say this; you are not defined by how you feel about yourself. You are not defined by your mistakes. Nor are you defined by other people’s actions toward you. You are defined by God and you belong to Jesus. You are his beloved. When Jesus looks at you he is browsing among the lilies – he is admiring your beauty, in other words. He sees you, the real you, and he loves you. 

It is the power of God’s love for us, in Christ, which makes us feel safe enough to get out of the boat. 

Trust without borders:

The bridge of the song Oceans is a brave prayer. It reads…

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders,
Let me walk upon the waters wherever You would call me.
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Saviour.

That phrase ‘trust without borders’ sounds like its borrowed from the organisation called Doctors Without Borders. As the name would suggest Doctors Without Borders is an international humanitarian agency that provides medical aid across national boundaries, irrespective of race or religion or political affiliation. It is a Non-Government Organisation (NGO) known for its work in conflict zones and other hard places that are not well resourced. 

Returning to the song. When we sing Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, we are saying something like: Spirit lead me out of my comfort zone. Help me to trust God in those extreme circumstances where things are unfamiliar and I’m over my head; where material resources are scarce and my normal supports are taken away.

It needs to be said that these are the sort of words you might sing from a place of confidence; a place of wanting to be challenged and looking for an adventure. If you are already in a place of crisis and feeling stretched beyond your own capacity, then you probably won’t want to sing these lines, as catchy as the tune is.  

That phrase trust without borders brings to mind the life and work of Jackie Pullinger. Jackie was born in England in 1944. She went to church as a child and was quite serious about God but didn’t really like him all that much. Then she had a personal encounter of God’s love which changed her life. After that she just wanted to share God’s love with others. 

At the age of 22 Jackie had a dream and a vision in which she sensed God was calling her to overseas mission. She applied to various mission organisations but none of them would accept her. So Jackie went to ask a vicar what she should do. I suppose this was a case of measure twice, cut once. The vicar said, ‘Get on a boat and ask God to show you where to get off’. That’s a bit like saying, ‘Let the Spirit lead you where your trust is without borders’. So that’s what she did. 

In 1966 Jackie left England and got as far as Hong Kong where she stepped out of the boat and into the unknown. She served the poor in miraculous ways, in what was once called ‘the walled city’. Gang members came to Christ and drug addicts were set free through the power of prayer. Jackie turns 76 this year and has never looked back. Her trust in Jesus is without borders. 

The Spirit of God also led the apostle Peter where his trust was without borders. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, Peter and the other disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit. To receive the Holy Spirit is to be filled with the love and truth of God so that you can’t help but show and tell others about God’s love. 

In Acts 10 we read how the Spirit led Peter way outside his comfort zone. Peter had a vision in which God declared all kinds of animals and birds clean or kosher to eat. This vision was shocking to Peter. He was Jewish and the Law of Moses prohibited consumption of certain animals. At first Peter resisted the voice that was telling him to eat these forbidden foods. It seems he was measuring twice, or three times in fact, because he had the vision three times.  

God gave Peter this vision because he was preparing Peter to reach out beyond the borders of ethnic Israel to a Gentile by the name of Cornelius. The Jewish food laws had to be put aside if Jewish Christians were going to reach the Gentile world.   

As Peter was wondering what the vision meant, some men arrived. They came to invite Peter to Cornelius’ home. Normally Jews didn’t enter the house of Gentiles because it made them ceremonially unclean. But God had just shown Peter it was okay. So Peter stepped out of the boat of Jewish custom and went to Cornelius’ house. 

When Peter started telling Cornelius and his household about Jesus’ death and resurrection, …the Holy Spirit came down on all those who were listening to his message. 45 The Jewish believers who had come from Joppa with Peter were amazed that God had poured out his gift of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles also. 46 For they heard them speaking in strange tongues and praising God’s greatness. Peter spoke up: 47 “These people have received the Holy Spirit, just as we also did. Can anyone, then, stop them from being baptized with water?” 48 So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay with them for a few days.  

Peter learned from his experience of walking on water with Jesus. He didn’t let his failure in faith define him. He didn’t remain reckless in his approach to discerning God’s will. Nor did he become so cautious that he was always weighing things up and never committing to a decision. 

When we sing, Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders we are not throwing all caution to the wind. In my experience, if God is going to ask you to step out of the boat and into a difficult place, where you have no choice but to rely on him, he usually provides good confirmation. Peter and Jackie both measured twice and cut once. So if you sense God calling you into something unknown then please measure twice. Pray and talk with a Godly person who you can trust and keep your eyes on Jesus. 

Conclusion:

In an interview with Premiere Christianity Magazine, just last year, Jackie Pullinger was asked: “Is there a particular message that’s on your heart for Christians? 

And Jackie replied, “My message is always the same; it’s how to get us sure enough of God’s love, so we can go out and share it with the lost. …to me it’s quite simple. Having tasted of his love all I want to do is share it until I die.” 

Although Jackie’s interview had nothing to do with the song Oceans, I think her theology (at this point) sums up the song quite well. Oceans expresses a desire to be so close to Jesus, so sure of God’s love, that we will trust him to go out and share his love with those who don’t yet know him. 

Of course, you don’t need to go to the other side of the world to share God’s love. God might be calling you to share his love with someone a lot closer to home. 

Let us pray…  

Lord Jesus Christ, be real for us we ask. Make us so sure of God’s love that we can’t help but share it with others. May we each know deep down, through the work of your Spirit, that I am yours and you are mine. Amen.  

Oceans

Verse 1

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep my faith will stand

Chorus

And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise, my soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Verse 2

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You’ve never failed and You won’t start now

Bridge

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Saviour

Questions for discussion or reflection

Listen to the song ‘Oceans’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does the song evoke for you?)  

How do you prefer to make decisions? Where did you place yourself on the scale from 1 to 10? Did others in your bubble agree with your self-assessment? Did you agree with their self-assessment? 

Has there been a time in your life when you sensed Jesus calling you out of the boat (metaphorically speaking) and into the unknown? How did you respond?  What happened?

How might we keep our eyes above the waves and on Jesus? (What practical things can we do?) 

In what sense is God like a mother to us? How does God feed your soul? 

What does Song of Solomon 2:16 mean for us? That is, ‘My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies’. 

What does it mean to sing, Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders? Why might we sing this? 

What is your experience of God’s love? Is there someone God is calling you to share his love with? How might you do this? 

Outtakes

Being filled with the Spirit is not something we just do once and that’s it. Being filled with the Spirit is something we need to go on doing, like drinking water.      

Tawa Baptist

Life Goes On

Scripture: Genesis 25:1-11

Title: Life Goes On

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Creation in Genesis 1-11
  • Creation in Genesis 12-24
  • Creation in Genesis 25
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

This morning we are going to begin with a little bit of Scrabble

–         Most of you will know that with Scrabble each player gets to select 7 unknown letters from the pile and then has to do their best to use those random letters to spell a meaningful word

–         You are of course allowed to piggy back off the words on the board

On the wall here we have a word already on the board: ORDER

–         And the letters you have to work with are below that: A E O I T C N

–         I’m going to give you about 30 seconds to come up with the best word you can, see if you can use all the letters

–         You can work with those around you if you like or you can work on your own if you prefer

–         At the end of the 30 seconds I’ll invite you to share the words you’ve made with the rest of the congregation [Wait 30 seconds]

Okay, who would like to share with us the words you came up?

–         [Listen to people’s answers]

One combination that uses all the letters could look like this…

CREATION, using one of the R’s from ORDER

Over the past several months we have been working our way through a series on the life and faith of Abraham. This morning we conclude our series.

–         From Genesis chapter 25, verses 1-11, in the NIV we read…

Abraham had taken another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan; the descendants of Dedan were the Ashurites, the Letushites and the Leummites. The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanok, Abida and Eldaah. All these were descendants of Keturah.

Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac. But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.

Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years. Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people. His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, the field Abraham had bought from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah. After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who then lived near Beer Lahai Roi.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading

 

The story of Abraham isn’t just the story of one man who lived 4000 years ago in Middle East

–         Thinking more broadly than that it is the story of the genesis or beginning of the nation of Israel – it’s a creation story in other words

 

Creation in Genesis 1-11:

To gain a better understanding of the significance of this creation story we need to look at the bigger picture

–         Firstly, what do we mean by creation?

–         Well, in the book of Genesis, which reflects the thinking of people who lived in the ancient world (a very different way of thinking to us), creation was about bringing order, function and purpose to the elements

–         Sort of like Scrabble where one takes the letters they are given and arranges them in an order which makes a sensible word

Genesis 1, therefore, does not start at the material beginning of the universe when God brought the first atom into being out of nothing

–         Rather, Genesis 1 picks up the story at a point when the earth already exists in a material sense but is in chaos

–         It is formless, empty, dysfunctional and, if left to its own devices, incapable of supporting life or serving any meaningful purpose

–         At that point it is just a bunch of random letters waiting to be arranged on the Scrabble board

Genesis 1 describes how God brings order to the chaos

–         How he takes what is dysfunctional and makes it functional

–         How he takes what is empty and fills it with life

–         How he takes what is random and gives it meaning & purpose

 

In Genesis 1 the Lord’s acts of creation include separating things, naming things, assigning function & purpose to things, as well as blessing & filling things with life

For example, when it comes to separating & naming things, God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’, and the darkness he called ‘night’.”

–         This pattern of God separating things and naming them carries on during other days of creation as well

–         Separating & naming is how God brought order to creation

 God also assigned function & purpose to things, for example…

–         The function or purpose of day & night (sun & moon) is to mark time

In addition God also blessed his creation and filled it with life

–         Let the waters teem with fish…

–         Let the land produce living creatures…

–         Be fruitful and multiply…

After God has brought order to the chaos everything functions well – it is paradise

–         God blesses Adam & Eve and gives them the function or purpose of being his image bearers and tells them to take care of his creation

–         Unfortunately Adam & Eve get it into their heads that they want to be like God and they choose independence from him by eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge

–         As a consequence the order of God’s good creation starts to unravel

–         Things go from bad to worse and eventually God’s order returns to chaos

In Genesis 6 we read…

–         The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind… from the face of the earth… for I am grieved that I have made them. But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.

Basically humankind had returned God’s order, his good creation, back to chaos & so God decided to restore the order by wiping the slate clean & starting again

–         There was a great flood and everything with breath was destroyed, except for Noah and his family and the animals he preserved on the ark

–         The story of the flood is an account of judgement & death

–         But at the same time it is also an account of re-creation & new life

–         God restores order by separating Noah and his family and animals out from the chaos – preserving their lives in an ark

–         Then after the storm has passed the Lord blesses the survivors and tells them to be fruitful & multiply and fill the earth (much like he did in Genesis 1)

Unfortunately it doesn’t take long for things to get out of hand again and we end up with the Tower of Babel – another attempt by humankind to be like God, to reach the heavens and to make a name for themselves

–         God’s next move though is not to wipe everyone off the face of the earth with a flood (as he did in Noah’s day) but rather to redeem & transform his creation – to bring order to the chaos of the human heart

–         In the case of Babel, God initially restores order by separating people – he disperses the crowd, as it were, by confusing the languages

 

Creation in Genesis 12-24:

But then he calls Abraham with a view to making this one man into a great nation – a nation who will serve the Lord’s redemptive purpose by acting as priests of God to the other nations of the world

Like the creation story in Genesis 1, God creates the nation of Israel by separating, naming, assigning function & purpose as well as blessing and making fruitful

–         God separated Abraham out by calling him to leave his family and homeland to establish a new life in the Promised Land of Canaan

–         God also gave Abraham a new name – you may remember Abraham used to be called Abram

–         Previously Abraham & Sarah’s life had been defined by barrenness – by not having any children

–         But the Lord redefined their life with a promise that Abraham & Sarah would become the parents of a great nation

–         God blessed Abraham and filled Sarah with new life

–         He took the random letters of their circumstances and rearranged them in a meaningful way

–         God’s promise to bless the nations through Abraham and his descendants gave Abraham & Sarah’s lives a purpose greater than themselves

Separating, naming, assigning function & purpose, blessing and filling with life – all acts of creation

–         These acts of creation can be seen in our own lives too

–         Times when God has taken us out of a bad situation – creative separation

–         Or when we were baptised and took on the name of Christ

–         Or when we discovered a certain gift or resource we have and found a way to use that to bless others – finding our function & purpose in life

–         Or times of blessing & filling when we simply receive good things from God – like a friendship, or the birth of a child, or healing, or a holiday, or a job, or a home, or just a good night’s sleep

–         All acts of God’s good creation

 

Creation in Genesis 25:

Okay, so how does all that talk about creation relate to this morning’s reading from Genesis 25 – after all, Abraham dies?

–         Well, Abraham’s death is immersed in the language of creation

In the verses leading up to Abraham’s death notice the sons of his second wife (Keturah) are named, along with some of his grandsons too

–         And, if we were to keep reading after his death notice we would hear the naming of Abraham’s descendants through Ishmael and Isaac

–         All this naming implies a strong theme of being fruitful & multiplying

–         Abraham’s death is not tragic – by God’s grace he leaves a lasting legacy

–         Life goes on

 

Another creation motif noticeable in Genesis 25 is the action of separating

–         Separating things is often necessary for creating order

–  Cells reproduce or multiply by separating or dividing

– Separating plastics out from your general rubbish, for recycling, is a creative thing to do – it’s good for the environment

–         Or on the football field the ref restores order to the game by giving out yellow or red cards to separate players who are misbehaving

–         Or when we have dinner we generally keep the different elements of the meal separate on our plate

–         If we were to put the potatoes, green veg and meat in a blender to mix it all up, the meal wouldn’t taste so good

– {Obviously not all separation is creative or good – and union is also often necessary in the process of creation.}

Verses 5 & 6 tell us that Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac. But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.

–         These verses talk about the separation (or division) of Abraham’s estate and the separation of Isaac from his brothers

–         Abraham had at least 8 sons that we know of – but only one of them (Isaac) could inherit God’s promise

–         For the creation of the nation of Israel it was necessary for Isaac to be separated from his brothers & become the sole heir to the Promised Land

–         But the other sons didn’t miss out altogether – they received gifts from Abraham as a gesture of goodwill

Verse 11 picks up the theme of creative blessing where it says that, After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac…

–         Isaac was blessed by God (as Abraham had been blessed) not for his own benefit but for the sake of others

–         God’s purpose in blessing Abraham & Isaac was to create the nation of Israel through which the Lord would establish his order, his Kingdom on earth

 

Separating, naming, blessing & filling with life (or making fruitful) – all themes of creation, all seen in miniature in Genesis 25

–         By immersing the account of Abraham’s death in the motifs of creation the narrator of Genesis is making it clear that death is no obstacle to God’s redemptive purpose

 

Verse 7 says: Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years.

This tells us a number of things

–         We know from Genesis 12 that Abraham was 75 when God called him to leave home and embark on a journey of faith

–         Which means that by the time of his death Abraham had been following God for 100 years

–         Isaac was born when Abraham was 100, so that means Isaac was 75 when his father died

–         We know too that Isaac married Rebekah when he was 40 and that 20 years later Jacob & Esau were born

–         Therefore Jacob & Esau were 15 when their grandfather Abraham died

–         God would later change Jacob’s name to ‘Israel’ – as in the nation of Israel – once more we have the theme of naming as an act of creation

–         The point is: although Abraham didn’t see all of God’s promises fully realised in his lifetime, he did live long enough to see the nation of Israel embodied in his grandson Jacob

Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.

As Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time for everything – a time to be born and a time to die

–         Abraham died at the right time – at the end of a long and full life

Verse 9 tells us that Isaac & Ishmael buried Abraham with Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, near Mamre

–         In other words, Abraham was buried in the Promised Land – a sign to future generations that God would one day give Israel the land of Canaan

–         At the end of Genesis, as Jacob lay on his death bed in Egypt, he gave instructions to be buried in Canaan with his grandparents Abraham & Sarah – such was his faith in God’s promises

 

Conclusion:

God’s purpose in redeeming creation is fulfilled in Christ

–         Jesus, that great descendant of Abraham, came to establish God’s Kingdom on earth

 

It is difficult to be a Christian in this life – we live with a tension

–         On the one hand Christ has come and in Christ we have a picture of what God’s kingdom (his new creation) looks like

–         But on the other hand God’s Kingdom is not yet fully realised on earth as it is in heaven

–         So we have this expectation or this hope of what life should be like when everything is ordered by God

–         And yet at the same time we live with the reality which often falls a long way short of the heaven on earth that God has promised us in Christ

–         Consequently we might not feel at home in this world – we might feel like exiles in our own country

In speaking of Abraham & Sarah and others like them the writer of the book of Hebrews says…

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth… Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

 Abraham died the same way he lived – in faith.

–         Abraham didn’t see the fulfilment of all of God’s promises in his life time but he did receive the deposit

–         In this way we, who believe in Christ, are like Abraham

–         We live by faith in the ‘now but not yet’ of history

–         We look forward in bitter sweet hope to Jesus’ return, when God’s Kingdom on earth will be realised in its fullness.

 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1.)    What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    What is meant by creation in Genesis 1?

–         How is this different from a modern understanding of creation?

3.)    What does the account of creation in Genesis 1 share in common with Abraham’s story and the account of the creation of Israel?

4.)    In what sense is separating things an act of creation?

–         Can you think of examples of creative separation?

–         Why was it necessary for Isaac to be separated from his brothers?

5.)    Why do you think the narrator of Genesis frames the account of Abraham’s death in the context of creation language/motifs?

6.)    In what sense could Abraham’s death be considered a good death?

7.)    Do you feel a tension in being a Christian in this world?

–         Why (or why not)?

8.)    Take some time this week to reflect on God’s acts of creation in your own life (I.e. separating, naming, assigning function & purpose, blessing & filling)

 

 

Tawa Baptist

Rebekah’s Faith

Scripture: Genesis 24:54-67 & John 4:46-54

Title: Rebekah’s Faith

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Faith is trusting without seeing
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Today we continue our series on the life & faith of Abraham

–         Last week we heard how marriage is an act of God and an act of hesed

–         Today we hear how marriage is an act of faith

–         At this point in the story Abraham’s servant has found a wife for Isaac and has almost convinced the family to agree to the marriage

–         We pick up the story from Genesis chapter 24, verse 54, in the NIV…

When they got up the next morning, he said, “Send me on my way to my master.” But her brother and her mother replied, “Let the young woman remain with us ten days or so; then you may go.”

But he said to them, “Do not detain me, now that the Lord has granted success to my journey. Send me on my way so I may go to my master.”

Then they said, “Let’s call the young woman and ask her about it.” So they called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?”

“I will go,” she said. So they sent their sister Rebekah on her way, along with her nurse and Abraham’s servant and his men.

And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,

“Our sister, may you increase to thousands upon thousands;
may your offspring possess the cities of their enemies.”

Then Rebekah and her attendants got ready and mounted the camels and went back with the man. So the servant took Rebekah and left.

Now Isaac had come from Beer Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev. He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?” “He is my master,” the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself.

Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture for us

 

Faith is trusting without seeing:

We are talking this morning about faith and in particular Rebekah’s faith

–         But what do we mean by faith?

–         Well, at a basic level, faith means believing – taking someone’s word for it, even though you may not have seen or experienced it for yourself

–         Faith means trusting without seeing

Let me illustrate…

–         I have here a can without a label on it

–         You can’t see what is in the can and there’s no label to tell you either – so you have to take my word for it that this can contains black doris plums and not nuclear waste or dog food

–         If faith is trusting without seeing then your faith would be proved by your willingness to purchase this can from me

–         I could give you this can for free but there would be little faith involved in doing that because you don’t risk losing anything

–         Besides Robyn needs these for her breakfast this week

Now you might not like black doris plums – that’s fine, the plums are just a metaphor

–         Imagine the can contains love or healing or joy or some other good thing

–         The point is: faith is trusting without seeing and our faith (our belief) is proved by our willingness to take a risk

–         Faith involves making a choice – not just an intellectual choice (in our head) but a real choice in our actions – Faith is a verb

Although Isaac & Rebekah’s marriage was arranged for them, Rebekah & Isaac still got a choice in the matter

–         When Rebekah’s family asked if she would go with Abraham’s servant she agreed

–         When you think about it Rebekah demonstrated real faith in leaving her family to travel hundreds of miles with someone she had only known for a day, in order to marry someone she has never met

–         The can of plums that she is being offered has no label on it – she simply has to take the servant’s word for it

–         Abraham’s servant didn’t have a photo of Isaac and there was no internet so Rebekah couldn’t stalk Isaac on Facebook

–         If it was one of my daughters I don’t think I’d be so quick to let her go

–         And, to be fair to Rebekah’s family, they did suggest she delay her departure – presumably to allow a cooling down period

–         But Rebekah was willing to leave – she was willing to take the risk

–         Her faith & courage is similar to that of Abraham – who also left his homeland without seeing where God was taking him

 

The children in the Flock Sunday school, this morning, are learning how Jesus healed a boy, in John 4

–         A government official, who most likely worked for Herod, came from Capernaum to Cana (a distance of about 32 km’s) to ask Jesus to heal his son – the boy was close to death

–         Now it wasn’t as easy to travel 32 km’s back then as it is today

–         What’s more, Herod was no friend of Jesus, so it took some pluck for the official to ask this favour of Christ

Jesus didn’t give the government official a very warm welcome. He said, ‘None of you will ever believe unless you see miracles & wonders’

–         There is some irony here because seeing is not believing – faith (or believing) is trusting without seeing

–         But Jesus knew the man wasn’t there as an official, he was there as a dad and Jesus understood the father/son relationship pretty well

–         So he says to the man, ‘Go, your son will live.’

The man believed Jesus’ words & went, without seeing or knowing the outcome

–         The can Jesus offered him had no label on it but he trusted Jesus that it was filled with the healing his son needed

–         On the way home his servants met him and said his son had recovered

–         When asked what time the boy regained his health they said 1pm – the same time he trusted Jesus that his son would live

–         Faith is trusting without seeing 

–         Jesus’ healing of the boy was an act of faith

Marriage also is an act of faith

–         Marriage is for the rest of your life – it’s for better or worse, it’s for richer or poorer, it’s in sickness and in health

–         In marriage we make a solemn commitment without seeing what the future holds

The significant thing with Rebekah & Isaac is: the step of faith comes before the feeling of love – love is the last thing that is mentioned

In verse 67, after Rebekah finally arrives in the Promised Land, we read that Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

In Isaac & Rebekah’s case, love comes after the step of faith in getting married

Now, in saying this I don’t mean to imply that you don’t need to get to know someone before you get married

–         With any significant decision it is important to do some due diligence

–         We need to do our homework and understand the risk

–         We heard about Rebekah’s due diligence last Sunday – Abraham’s servant made a pretty strong case for marrying Isaac

–         Faith doesn’t mean throwing caution to the wind – faith still asks us to hold on to common sense

–         It is not appropriate to trust everyone – but we can trust God

When it comes to marriage ideally we should build a good foundation of trust and honest communication beforehand

–         But Rebekah didn’t have that luxury. For her, faith came before love – just as for the official, in John 4, faith came before healing

 

Conclusion:

Faith is trusting without seeing

–         Although Rebekah’s faith is more visible in Genesis 24, Isaac’s faith shouldn’t be overlooked

–         While Rebekah showed faith by leaving home to go on a journey, Isaac demonstrated faith by waiting where he was in the land of promise

–         Isaac didn’t take matters into his own hands by looking for a wife among the local Canaanite girls – he believed in God’s promises to Abraham and waited patiently for God to provide

–         Sometimes faith requires us to step out into the unknown, like Rebekah

–         Other times faith requires us to sit still and wait, in meditation, like Isaac

–         And then there are times when faith brings us home after being on a journey, like the government official in John 4

 

Whatever faith in God (and in Jesus) may require of us we do well to remember that Rebekah, Isaac and the government official were not disappointed

–         Rebekah’s faith was rewarded with Isaac’s love

–         Isaac’s faith was rewarded with Rebekah’s comfort

–         And the official’s faith was rewarded with the restoration of his son’s life

 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1.)    What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    What does faith mean to you?

–         How do we know our faith is real / genuine?

3.)    Rebekah (in Genesis 24) and the official (in John 4) trusted without seeing

–         Can you think of other people in the Bible who trusted God/Jesus without seeing?

–         Can you think of a time in your own life when you trusted someone (either God or another person) without seeing?  What happened? How was your faith rewarded?

4.)    In what ways was Rebekah’s act of faith similar to Abraham’s faith?

5.)    What do you think Jesus meant when he said to the government official (in John 4), “None of you will believe unless you see miracles and wonders.”?

6.)    In what sense is marriage an act of faith?

7.)    In what way did Isaac demonstrate faith?

–         How was this different from Rebekah?

8.)    Whose faith do you identify with most – Rebekah’s, Isaac’s or the government official’s?

 

 

Tawa Baptist

Faith Tested

Scripture: Genesis 22:1-14

Title: Faith Tested

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God’s test
  • Abraham’s faith
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

When I was applying for ministry training with Carey College in Auckland they required us to do some testing

–         We were interviewed by a psychologist and by various other people and we had to sit a psychometric test

–         I remember being put in a small room by myself, given a questionnaire and told to answer as many of the questions as I could within a certain time frame – it wasn’t long, only about 30 minutes or so, if my memory serves me correctly

While I was sitting the test someone walked by the open window behind me – it was clear they needed help and so I was faced with a choice:

–         Do I stop what I’m doing to help them and thereby jeopardise my psychometric test results? Or, do I just ignore the person in need?

–         I decided to see if I could help the guy

–         I don’t remember what he needed now (it was nothing major) but it chewed up a few minutes and consequently I wasn’t able to complete all the questions

–         It didn’t matter though because they accepted me anyway

–         Carey must have been desperate that year

At the time I didn’t think anything of it but, it occurred to me afterwards, that maybe the guy stopping by the window asking for help was actually part of Carey’s test

–         I thought I was sitting a written tick box test when in fact the real test was whether I would interrupt what I was doing, while under pressure, to see to the needs of someone else. I guess I’ll never know.

 

Today we continue the series on Abraham, focusing on Genesis 22, page 24 near the front of your pew Bibles

–         Just to bring you up to speed, Sarah has by this stage given birth to Isaac, the long awaited son & heir to God’s promise

–         Ishmael & Hagar have left home and Isaac is probably in his mid to late teens by now, maybe around 17 or 18 years’ old

–         In these verses the Abraham cycle reaches its climax with God putting Abraham’s faith to the ultimate test. From Genesis 22, verse 1 we read…

Some time later God tested Abraham; he called to him, “Abraham!” And Abraham answered, “Yes, here I am!”

2 “Take your son,” God said, “your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. There on a mountain that I will show you, offer him as a sacrifice to me.”

3 Early the next morning Abraham cut some wood for the sacrifice, loaded his donkey, and took Isaac and two servants with him. They started out for the place that God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham saw the place in the distance. 5 Then he said to the servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there and worship, and then we will come back to you.”

6 Abraham made Isaac carry the wood for the sacrifice, and he himself carried a knife and live coals for starting the fire. As they walked along together, 7 Isaac spoke up, “Father!”

He answered, “Yes, my son?”

Isaac asked, “I see that you have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”

8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide one.” And the two of them walked on together.

9 When they came to the place which God had told him about, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son and placed him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he picked up the knife to kill him. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!”

He answered, “Yes, here I am.”

12 “Don’t hurt the boy or do anything to him,” he said. “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not kept back your only son from him.”

13 Abraham looked around and saw a ram caught in a bush by its horns. He went and got it and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 Abraham named that place “The Lord Provides.” And even today people say, “On the Lord‘s mountain he provides.”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture for us

 

God’s test:

In the 1971 movie version of Roald Dahl’s Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka is in search of someone to take over his chocolate business

–         To select the right person, someone he can trust, Mr Wonka devises a test

–         Those lucky children who win a golden ticket get a tour through his chocolate factory

–         Before they enter the factory however, a villain by the name of Slugworth, approaches each child individually and offers to pay them a large sum of money if they will steal an everlasting gobstopper for him

–         During the factory tour each child gets given an everlasting gobstopper and so the test is set

One by one each of the children eliminate themselves by some moral failure until only Charlie is left – but even Charlie has disqualified himself by stealing fizzy lifting drink, so he is dismissed by Mr Wonka without getting anything

–         Charlie’s grandpa Joe storms out in a rage determined to sell Slugworth the everlasting gobstopper but, even though there is nothing in it for him, Charlie quietly leaves the gobstopper on Mr Wonka’s desk

–         Charlie would rather remain in poverty than betray Mr Wonka

–         “So shines a good deed in a weary world”

–         Charlie has passed Mr Wonka’s test and inherits the chocolate factory

 

Genesis 22 starts with the narrator telling us that God tested Abraham saying…

–         [Please] Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much and go to the land of Moriah. There on a mountain that I will show you, offer him as a sacrifice to me.

Probably the first thing we notice here is how out of character God’s request is

–         It does not make sense, it goes against who God is, it seems to be a contradiction of God himself

–         Previously the Lord had promised a son to Abraham & Sarah, and Isaac was born. It was Isaac that God said would inherit the promise

–         Isaac was the one through whom God’s blessing would flow

–         And yet God is now telling Abraham to kill Isaac

–         “The command and the promise of God are in conflict” [1]

Quite apart from being illogical, God’s request for Abraham to sacrifice his teenage son seems immoral

–         Some centuries later, in the Bible, God makes it clear that child sacrifice is evil and therefore not to be practised, although at that point in history the law had not yet been given

–         What we have to keep in mind here is that God never intended for Isaac to be sacrificed – as verse 1 makes clear, this was just to test Abraham

–         We might listen to this story and think that Isaac’s life is at risk here

–         But Isaac’s life was not at risk – we know God would not have let any harm come to Isaac because of the promises God had made about Isaac

–         The real risk here is to Abraham’s relationship with God – because it’s the relationship that’s being tested

–         Will Abraham trust God with everything?

–         Of course Abraham doesn’t know it’s a test, at least not yet, just as Charlie didn’t know he was being tested by Mr Wonka and just as I didn’t know the true nature of my test to get into Carey – this sort of test only works if the one being tested doesn’t realise it’s a test

 

The other thing, which isn’t so obvious in our English translations, is the gentleness or tenderness with which God speaks to Abraham here

–         Most English translations have God saying: Take your son…

–         But the Hebrew has a particle of entreaty attached, which gives this phrase a feeling of tenderness:

–         Please take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love so much…

–         Gordon Wenham sees here a hint that the Lord appreciates the costliness of what he is asking Abraham to do [2]   

It’s interesting that God requires Abraham to travel to Moriah to make the sacrifice. Moriah is 3 days journey away from Beersheba

–         Three days walking and thinking

–         Three days for the reality of what God is asking to sink in

–         Three days to change your mind

–         But Abraham doesn’t change his mind

 

The exact location of ancient Moriah is disputed – some say Moriah is where the temple in Jerusalem would later be located, which has a certain poetry to it

–         But others say this is unlikely

–         What is perhaps more significant (and more knowable) is the name itself

–         Moriah is derived from the Hebrew word ra’ah which primarily means to see to or provide

–         So in the very word Moriah (which means something like provision) we have the seed of salvation & deliverance [3]

–         If Abraham reads between the lines then he will find a hidden message of providence from God

The bigger principle we draw on for our own application is that God’s testing usually contains his provision, his salvation, his grace

 

In Mark 10 we read how Jesus tested a man who came to him. From verse 17…

17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honour your father and mother.’ ”

20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

 

This gospel story shares a number of things in common with Abraham’s story in Genesis 22

–         In asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, God was basically asking Abraham to give up everything

–         Likewise Jesus was asking the rich man to sacrifice everything

–         And, in both stories, the Lord’s testing contained his provision, his salvation, his grace

–         We’ll get to God’s provision for Abraham shortly but in the case of the rich man, Jesus wasn’t asking him to sacrifice everything for nothing

–         Rather he was saying that his giving to the poor would be transferred for him into heaven, so it wouldn’t be lost

–         What’s more Jesus wasn’t asking the rich man to step into a vacuum

–         Rather he was inviting the rich man to walk with him – so the man would be provided for within the community of Jesus’ followers

–         The Lord’s testing contained his provision – it just required a step of faith

 

Another thing we note is the Lord’s love

–         God was testing Abraham in a spirit of love – not in order to catch him out or disqualify him

–         Likewise we read that Jesus looked at the rich man and loved him

–         Jesus wasn’t trying to make it harder for the rich man – he was helping to set the man free so it would be easier for him to find eternal life

–         To be tested by God is difficult but it’s also a sign of respect & affection

–         If God tests us it’s because he believes in us – he thinks we will pass the test. God doesn’t test us beyond what we can handle

–         His testing is done in love, to strengthen us – it is not meant to destroy us

 

There’s at least one more thing these two stories share in common

Walter Brueggemann says:

–         “God tests to identify his people, to discern who is serious about faith and to know in whose lives he will be fully God” [4]

You see, it’s possible to obey God in some aspects of our life but not in others

–         The reality is: God is Lord of our life in those aspects where we trust & obey him, but something else is lord of our life in those aspects where we don’t trust him and therefore don’t do what he wants

–         For God to be fully God of our whole life we must be willing to trust him with every aspect

–         The whole meaning and purpose of Abraham’s life hinged on Isaac

–         So in asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac God was asking everything of Abraham

–         By choosing to obey God in this, Abraham was saying that he trusted God completely with Isaac’s life and with the meaning of his own life

–         Therefore the Lord knew he could be fully God in Abraham’s life

In the case of the rich man and Jesus (in Mark 10) we don’t know what the rich man chose in the end – we only know he went away sad

–         If he chose his wealth over Jesus then he was basically saying he didn’t trust God with his wealth and consequently he wasn’t willing to allow Jesus to be fully Lord of his life

 

Okay, so we’ve talked about God’s testing of Abraham

–         Now let’s consider how Abraham handled God’s test

 

Abraham’s faith:

Verse 3 tells us that early the next morning, after God had told him to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham cut some fire wood, loaded his donkey and headed off to Moriah with Isaac and two servants

–         The point is, Abraham wastes no time in obeying God

 

As they draw near to the place, Abraham tells the two servants to stay where they are, while he takes Isaac with him

–         Isaac carries the wood & Abraham carries the knife & coals for the fire

–         As Christians we look at this picture and are reminded of Jesus who carried a burden of wood on his back in preparation for his sacrifice on the cross. Isaac points to Jesus.

 

As they walk along Isaac asks Abraham, where is the lamb for the sacrifice?

–         And Abraham answers, “God himself will provide one”

 

The Hebrew word for ‘provide’ used there is ra’ah – from the same root used for Moriah – it means to see to it, as in God will see to it

–         Our English word ‘provide’ comes from the Latin word ‘pro-video’ [5]

–         Video means to see and pro means before

–         So pro-video means to see before

–         God is able to provide because he can see what is needed beforehand

–         Abraham doesn’t know how God will provide he simply trusts that God will see to it – such is Abraham’s faith in the Lord

 

In verse 9 we read that when Abraham came to the place God had told him about he built an altar, arranged the wood on it, bound his son and placed him on the altar, on top of the wood

 

Again we see something of Jesus in the way Isaac submits to his father’s will

–         As a boy of 17 or 18, strong enough to carry a heavy load of fire wood, Isaac could have easily resisted his elderly father – but Isaac doesn’t resist, he is the picture of meekness

–         What was it Jesus said? Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Isaac actually did inherit the land

 

Abraham lifted the knife and was about to kill his son when, at the last second, the angel of the Lord called to him, from heaven, to stop

–         Speaking on God’s behalf the angel said, “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not kept back your only son from him.”

–         This sentence is interesting, especially the first part…

–         Now I know that you fear God…

 

What does it mean to fear God?

–         In the Bible, to ‘fear God’ is a term which basically means to obey God

–         Fear God is code for obey God

–         People might obey God for any number of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with fear, in the sense of being terrified or anxious

–         In this context Abraham doesn’t obey God because he’s scared of what God might do to him if he disobeys

–         No. Abraham is remarkably calm about all of this – he obeys God because he trusts God and believes God will somehow provide a way

 

But the really interesting thing here is that little phrase at the start of the sentence: ‘Now I know…’

–         ‘Now I know’ seems to imply that God didn’t know something about Abraham previously

–         What? Isn’t God supposed to know everything already in advance?

–         Shouldn’t the Lord have known beforehand what Abraham would do?

 

John Walton offers a good explanation I think. He writes…

–         “We must differentiate between knowledge as cognition and knowledge as experience” [6]

–         You see, there are different types of knowledge, aren’t there

–         There’s knowing something in your head, cognitively, and there’s knowing something practically, from experience

 

Cognitive knowledge by itself is not enough – it’s less than satisfying

–         For example, I have here a bar of chocolate

–         Looking at this bar of chocolate I know cognitively (in my head) that I will enjoy it, but knowing that in my head doesn’t actually satisfy me

–         It’s only when I experience the chocolate by eating it that I know the enjoyment of it

 

Or take another example…

–         R. knows cognitively (in her head) that I love her, but if she went through our whole marriage only ever knowing that in her head, then we would have a pretty sad and empty marriage

–         But when I do the housework or I buy her something I know she likes

–         Or I give her my undivided attention and listen to her

–         Or I tell her how much I like what she is wearing, or I take her out on a date or on a holiday, then she knows in her experience that I love her

–         And knowing something in your experience is far more satisfying

 

Because we believe that God is all knowing we can agree that God knew, cognitively, what Abraham would do (in advance) – but he didn’t know it in his experience until Abraham actually obeyed him

 

God’s test enabled the Lord to taste the quality of Abraham’s faith

–         I believe God experienced Abraham’s faith as genuine and pure

–         We know his faith was genuine because he obeyed God

–         And we know it was pure because Abraham obeyed even though there was nothing in it for him & in fact obedience would have cost him dearly

–         Knowing the purity (the quality) of Abraham’s obedience of faith, in his experience, delighted God, it blessed him

 

When was the last time you did something for God that caused him to know, in his experience, that you love him?

–         We can demonstrate our love for God in a whole variety of ways, both large & small

–         We can put our shopping list prayer aside for a few minutes and spend time simply adoring him, praising him, telling him how much we appreciate and value him

–         We can love those people he places around us – even people we find difficult

–         We can forgive others as he has forgiven us

–         We can give the Lord our undivided attention, spending time in the Bible trying to listen to what he is saying

–         We can follow the promptings of his Spirit

–         We can respond in obedience to his call on our life

–         And when it feels like our life is being emptied and we can’t see the way ahead we can trust that God will provide a way, somehow

 

In verse 13, having been stopped by the angel of the Lord, Abraham looks around and sees God’s provision in the form of a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. Abraham sacrifices the ram and Isaac lives

–         Then Abraham named that place Jehovah Jireh, ‘the Lord provides’

–         And guess what, the Hebrew word translated as provide is: Ra’ah

–         God saw beforehand what was needed and put the ram there in advance

 

Conclusion:

The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews makes this comment on Abraham’s faith…

 It was faith that made Abraham offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice when God put Abraham to the test. Abraham was the one to whom God had made the promise, yet he was ready to offer his only son as a sacrifice. God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I promised.” Abraham reckoned that God was able to raise Isaac from death – and, so to speak, Abraham did receive Isaac back from death.  [7]

The writer of Hebrews is drawing a connection between Abraham’s faith and our faith, as Christians, in the resurrection of Jesus

–         If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved. [8]

 

It has been a testing time for many people in this congregation lately

–         Some of you have experienced significant loss and all the pain and disorientation that goes with that

–         In Genesis 22 God preserves Isaac’s life, but we know from our own experience that he doesn’t always preserve life

–         To those of you who have lost the Isaac in your life, the good news is: death does not have the final say. God has provided a way

–         Through Jesus’ resurrection God has seen to it that our losses can be restored and our mistakes redeemed

 

Let us pray.

–         Loving Father, save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.

–         But if it is your will that we be put to the test, grant us the grace to keep trusting you and give us eyes to see your provision within the test. Through Jesus we ask it, Amen.

 

Questions for Discussion & Reflection

1.)    What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    How do you feel reading this story of Abraham being tested by God?

3.)    Have you ever sensed that God was testing you in some way?

–         How? What happened?

4.)    In what sense was God’s test of Abraham illogical and even a contradiction of God’s own character?

5.)    Compare & contrast God’s testing of Abraham in Genesis 22 with Jesus’ testing of the rich man in Mark 10. How are these stories similar? How are they different?

–         How is God’s love evident for Abraham and the rich man?

–         How did God provide for Abraham and the rich man within the test?

–         Is there any aspect of your life that you are yet to trust God with?

6.)    Can you think of other examples from the Bible, or from your own experience, where God’s testing also contained his provision?

7.)    In what ways does Isaac remind us of Jesus?

8.)    What does it mean to fear God?

9.)    In what sense did God not know? (refer Gen 22:12)

10.)       How do we know when our faith in God is genuine?

–         How do we know when our faith in God is pure?

11.)       Take some time this week to express your love for God.

 

[1] Calvin quoted in Walter Brueggemann’s commentary on Genesis, page 188.

[2] Gordon Wenham quoted in Paul Copan’s book, ‘Is God a Moral Monster?’ pages 47-48.

[3] Paul Copan, ‘Is God a Moral Monster?’ page 48.

[4] Walter Brueggemann’s commentary on Genesis, page 193.

[5] Karl Barth referred to in Walter Brueggemann’s commentary on Genesis, page 191.

[6] John Walton, NIVAC on Genesis, page 514.

[7] Hebrews 11:17-19

[8] Romans 10:9

Tawa Baptist

Abram in Egypt

Scripture: Genesis 12:10-20

 

Title: Abram in Egypt

 

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Famine
  • Fear
  • Freedom
  • Conclusion

 

Introduction:

When a toddler is learning to walk, they fall over a little bit

–         No one criticises the toddler because she is just learning and needs encouragement

 

Likewise, when a child is learning to ride a bike, they fall off sometimes but no one punishes the child for this – a scraped knee is punishment enough

–         Instead we give the child confidence to pick themselves up and carry on

 

Or when a young person is learning to drive

–         They might stall a few times as they get used to the clutch but the instructor is patient with them because they are still getting the hang of it

 

Learning to trust God is a bit like learning to walk or ride a bike or drive a car

–         We make mistakes – we fall, we scrape our knees and we stall

–         But God isn’t there with a big stick ready to hit us if we get it wrong

–         He understands and gives us the grace we need to carry on learning

 

This morning we continue our series on the life of Abram

–         Last week we heard how God called Abram to leave his country, his people and his father’s house

–         Abram responded by obeying God’s call in stages

–         First he left his country and then, some years later, he left his father’s household

 

When Abram finally did make it to Canaan (the Promised Land) the Lord appeared to him and said, “To your offspring I will give this land”

–         Following this wonderful spiritual experience there is a famine in the land and Abram migrates to Egypt to avoid starvation

–         While in Egypt his faith falters – Abram’s fear & anxiety gets the better of him and he trips up

–         But the Lord isn’t waiting with a big stick to punish Abram

–         Rather God is patient and gracious as Abram learns to walk by faith

 

We pick up Abram & Sarai’s story from Genesis chapter 12, verse 10…

 

10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading for us

 

Today’s Scripture passage conveniently divides into 3 parts…

–         Famine, fear and freedom

–         Famine in the land, fear in Abram’s heart and freedom by the Lord’s hand. First let us consider famine in the land…

 

Famine:

I remember when I was about 13 or 14 going to an Anglican youth group camp

–         To teach us what the journey of faith is like they had us all line up one behind the other and then told us to take two steps forward and one step back, two steps forward, one step back and so on

–         It was frustrating in a way but it was also effective in teaching the point

–         This is often how it is in our journey of faith

–         Things are going along fine, we feel close to God, and then we go through a famine experience

–         We might sustain some kind of loss – perhaps the death of a loved one or the loss of a job or the breakdown of a marriage

–         Or maybe we experience some kind of disappointment – either with another person or with God

–         Or our prayer life becomes stale and dry

–         Or we might suffer a famine of meaning, where we struggle to find purpose in life – somehow the things we once valued no longer seem so important

–         Whatever form or shape the famine comes in, it feels like we are taking a step backwards and it tests our faith

 

After making two steps forward (leaving his country and his father’s house to enter the Promised Land), Abram now takes one step back as he faces a literal famine in the form of a severe food shortage

–         God had promised to give the land of Canaan to Abram’s offspring and then, sometime after he gets there, Abram discovers the land is not a reliable food source

–         It’s sort of like being given a car with no petrol in the tank

–         Or a cell phone with no battery

–         Or a pair of shoes with a hole in them

–         The famine calls God’s faithfulness into question

 

On the wall here is a diagram of what to do if you are caught in a rip tide at the beach

–         A rip is a current of water on a surf beach which is moving out to sea

–         You can identify a rip by the relative calmness of the water – ironically the rip is where the water is flat (that is, where the waves aren’t)

–         If you are caught in a rip and feel yourself being taken out to sea you basically have three options:

–         Wave out to a life guard to come to your rescue

–         Or, try swimming against the current

–         Or, go with the current and swim sideways till you come out of the rip

–         Once you are out of the rip you can swim back to shore

 

Swimming against the current is probably the worst thing you can do – it will simply make you exhausted and you’ll get nowhere for your efforts

–         Waving for help and swimming to the side are better options

 

A famine is sort of like a rip tide – it’s one of those circumstances you don’t have control over

–         Abram was caught in a severe famine and he had three options:

–         He could call out to God for help

–         Or, he could try and swim against the famine by staying in the land

–         Or, he could let the current of the famine carry him to Egypt, where the food was, and then swim out the side later

 

As far as we know Abram did not call on the Lord for help or ask his advice

–         Instead he thought he would take care of it himself

–         Maybe he didn’t realise that the fulfilment of God’s promise depended more on God than it did on him

–         In any case Abram doesn’t try to swim against the famine (he doesn’t stay in the land) but rather he lets the current carry him to Egypt with a view to returning to Canaan once the famine has finished

 

Interestingly God is silent – he doesn’t say anything to try and stop Abram

–         The Lord let’s Abram make his choices and then works with the choices Abram gives him

 

Fear:

Okay, so that’s the first point, famine in the land

–         Now let’s consider our second point: Abram’s fear

 

About 6 months ago we bought a new car – a 2008 Nissan Tiida

–         The car we traded in was a 1995 Mitsubishi Lancer, so the Tiida is about 13 years newer than the Lancer

–         Consequently the Tiida has a lot more technology built into it

–         One of the things with the Tiida is that talks to you

–         There is literally a voice which says ‘konichiwa’ when you turn it on

–         Not only that but the car is covered in sensors so whenever you get a bit close to something it beeps at you to warn you to stop

–         Or, if you leave your lights on, it beeps at you when you open the door to remind you to turn your lights off

–         It even has a little display estimating how many more km’s before you run out of petrol

–         The point is the new car has all this warning technology built in to it

–         You can turn the volume down though and drive old school if you want

 

Fear is a bit like warning technology built into our brain and nervous system

–         A little bit of fear can be a good thing – it warns us when danger is imminent so we can take corrective action to protect ourselves

–         Sometimes though the volume of our fear is turned up too high so that the warnings our fear gives us is all we can hear and we end up over-reacting

–         Other times our fear malfunctions – it starts beeping when it’s not supposed to, warning us of imminent danger when none exists, so that we end up anxious over nothing

 

A little bit of fear is a healthy thing but when fear has too much influence in our lives it distorts our thinking

–         It makes us forget the bigger picture and deceives us so that we feel like we have no other options than the one presented by our fear

–         Too much fear is like a cruel tyrant living in our head – it bullies us and makes us do things we don’t want to do

 

Turning the volume of fear down, in our brains, is more difficult than turning it down in a car. Verses 11-13 describe how fear affected Abram

 

11 As Abram was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

 

The first thing to say here is that Abram’s fear was not unfounded – his fear did have some basis in reality

–         Pharaoh was a dictator with a reputation for taking whatever he wanted and disposing of whoever got in his way

–         So Abram was being sensible in heeding the warning his fear gave him

–         Unfortunately the volume of Abram’s fear was turned up too high and that prevented him from thinking clearly

–         With fear calling the shots in Abram’s mind it seemed that deceiving Pharaoh was his best option, perhaps his only option

–         Apparently it didn’t occur to Abram to enquire of the Lord

–         Just as he had left Canaan without asking God for help or advice he now also excludes God in dealing with Pharaoh

–         It’s like Abram thinks the fulfilment of the promise depends on him rather than God

–         Fear has temporarily disabled Abram’s faith in God’s promises

 

A couple of other minor technical points that this passage raises…

–         We know from other parts of Scripture that Sarai was 10 years younger than Abram and that Abram was 75 when he left Harran to go to Canaan

–         This means Sarai must have been at least 65 when she entered Egypt

–         If the genealogies in Genesis are to be accepted at face value then it appears that people 4000 years ago lived longer than we do today

–         In other words they might have aged more slowly – so their 65 may have been more like our 35 [1] (which would make sense in light of Abram’s concern about Pharaoh wanting Sarai because of her beauty)

 

The other minor point to be aware of is that Sarai was Abram’s half sister

–         We know from Genesis 20:12 that Sarai & Abram had the same father but different mothers

–         So by today’s standards their marriage would be considered incestuous,

–         But in that time and culture marrying your half-sister was acceptable – in fact it may have even given more status to the marriage [2]

 

We shouldn’t get hung up though on Sarai’s age and relationship to Abram, they are minor curiosities in the context

–         The main point is that on this occasion Abram acted out of fear, not faith

–         Fear can be a ruthless dictator – not unlike Pharaoh

–         It can distort our thinking and cause us to do things we wouldn’t ordinarily do

–         Fear turned Abram into a con man and it made him use his wife, Sarai, as a shield to protect and enrich himself

 

Now on the one hand we don’t want to condemn Abram for his actions, he was in a difficult situation

–         But on the other hand we can’t condone what he did either

–         We human beings are a mixture – capable of both fearful deceit and faithful courage

–         Abram is not perfect at this point – he is still learning to walk by faith and part of learning to walk by faith is learning to manage our fear

 

Fear and anxiety plays a big part in our lives these days – more than it did 20 or 30 years ago

–         I don’t think shame or guilt over our fearful responses is helpful

–         Learning to manage our fear, learning to walk by faith, is like learning to ride a bike or drive a car

–         There is no shame in falling over or in stalling – it’s part of the learning process

–         God is not standing over us with the big stick waiting to wallop us the moment we make a mistake

–         He is standing alongside us, encouraging us, helping us to find our feet

–         If you suffer from anxiety or fear then take heart by Abram’s example

–         Abram was overcome by fear at times too and yet God used him to bless many

 

As I said before, Abram’s fears were not unfounded

–         Pharaoh did in fact hear of Sarai’s beauty and took her into his harem, treating Abram well for her sake

–         Sarai and Abram didn’t get a choice in the matter – Pharaoh was a dictator. What Pharaoh wants, Pharaoh gets

–         The text doesn’t say whether Pharaoh actually slept with Sarai or not

–         We the reader are left hoping he didn’t, for Sarai’s sake at least

 

This is a picture of men behaving badly

–         Not only did Abram act out of fear to save himself

–         Pharaoh acted out of his lust to have Sarai

–         And so God intervened to set Sarai & Abram free

 

Freedom:

Jesus said, “The truth will set you free”

–         In the context Jesus was talking about holding to the truth of his teaching

–         The principle is, when we believe what is true our minds are set free

–         But when we believe what is false our minds are bound in fear

–         It appears Abram believed that God couldn’t help him with the famine or with Pharaoh and that false belief created a fear which led him to deceive Pharaoh and that deceit resulted in Sarai becoming a captive in Pharaoh’s harem

–         Consequently God intervened to set her free, not by force but by revealing the truth

 

Verse 17 tells us the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh because he had taken Abram’s wife

–         We might look at this situation and think – that doesn’t seem fair, Abram tells a porky (a big fat lie) and Pharaoh gets punished for it

–         Well, I don’t think the Lord is punishing Pharaoh, so much as trying to communicate with him

–         The message was, ‘Pharaoh, your attitude to women is sick and your whole regime is diseased. Your behaviour Pharaoh is as repulsive to me as this illness is to you’

 

I’m not sure whether Pharaoh interpreted his sickness in this way but he certainly realised something was wrong and after investigating what it might be he learned the truth, that Sarai was actually married to Abram

–         We are not told exactly how he learned this but that doesn’t matter

–         The main point is that Sarai was set free when Pharaoh learned the truth

 

When Pharaoh learns the truth he confronts Abram, saying, ‘What have you done to me?’

–         Apparently Pharaoh wants to blame Abram for his predicament

–         Now while it’s true that Abram did deceive Pharaoh, the Egyptian king is missing the point

–         Abram didn’t do this to Pharaoh – Pharaoh brought this on himself

–         It’s not okay for the king to take women against their will to use as objects for his own pleasure

–         Pharaoh has been abusing his power for quite some time it seems

–         He clearly has a Harvey Weinstein reputation, otherwise Abram wouldn’t have felt he needed to deceive Pharaoh in the first place

 

God is love – he doesn’t just love Abram & Sarai, he loves Pharaoh and the Egyptians (and Harvey Weinstein) too, even if he hates their behaviour

–         I believe the sickness God sent on Pharaoh’s household was a message of truth intended to set Pharaoh free from his own sin

–         Unfortunately the Egyptian king didn’t want to face the truth about himself – otherwise he would have said, ‘What have I done?’ rather than ‘What have you done?’

–         He repented in part (by returning Sarai to Abram) but it appears he didn’t go far enough – what about all the other women he had used?

 

The dictator is reaping what he has sown – now it’s Pharaoh’s turn to be afraid and he manages his fear by sending Abram and Sarai away

 

In many ways, God’s deliverance of Abram & Sarai from Egypt foreshadows Israel’s exodus experience

–         Just as Abram & Sarai were forced to migrate to Egypt due to a famine, so too Abram’s grandson, Jacob, moved his family to Egypt because of famine

–         Just as Sarai was oppressed by the Pharaoh of her day, so too the people of Israel were oppressed by the Egyptians some centuries later

–         And just as God intervened with diseases so Pharaoh would set Abram & Sarai free, so too the Lord sent plagues on Egypt so another Pharaoh would let the nation of Israel go free

 

Conclusion:

There are parallels here between Abram and Jesus too

–         After the joy of Jesus’ birth, Joseph and Mary are forced to flee Israel to find refuge in Egypt because Herod is out to kill the new born Messiah

–         Unlike Abram though, Joseph makes the journey to Egypt, not out of fear but in faith, because an angel of the Lord instructed him in a dream

 

Another connection between Abram & Jesus…

–         After his baptism in the River Jordan, God said to Jesus – ‘This is my beloved Son with whom I’m pleased’

–         And then, straight after that wonderful (two steps forward) spiritual experience, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness (one step back) to be tested by Satan

–         And what’s the first temptation?

–         Famine, hunger. ‘If you are God’s Son, turn these stones into bread’

–         Forget God and rely on yourself

–         Unlike Abram, Jesus passed the test

 

Where you are at in your journey of faith at the moment?

–         Is this is a two steps forward or a one step back stage for you?

–         Are you walking confidently in faith or ducking & diving under that cruel dictator we call ‘Fear’?

–         Either way, the Lord Jesus is faithful to his promises

–         He does not promise us an easy ride – we all face a famine of sorts at some point

–         What Jesus does promise is to never leave us or forsake us

–         And when our journey on this earth has finished he promises heaven

–         Those two things, his presence and heaven

 

Reflection / discussion questions:

 

1.)    What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

 

2.)    Can you identify with your journey of faith being two steps forward, one step back?

–         If yes, what have the forward and backwards steps looked like for you?

–         If no, how would you describe your journey of faith?

 

3.)    What is your best option if you get caught in a rip at the beach?

–         If being caught in a famine is like being caught in a rip, what option did Abram go with?

 

4.)    How did Abram’s fear of Pharaoh affect him – what did his fear make him do?

–         How does fear affect you?

–         When is fear a good thing?

–         How might we know when fear is having too much influence in our life?

 

5.)    How does God set Abram & Sarai free?

 

6.)    How does Abram & Sarai’s sojourn in Egypt foreshadow Israel’s exodus experience?

 

7.)    Reflect on /discuss the parallels Genesis 12:10-20 raises between Abram & Jesus

 

8.)    What does Jesus promise us?

–         What does he not promise?

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/22-oct-2017-abram-in-egypt

 

 

[1] Derek Kidner, Genesis, pages 116-117

[2] Ibid

Tawa Baptist

Imagination with God

Scripture: Genesis 15:1-6 and 2nd Kings 6:8-23

 

Title: Imagination with God

 

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God uses imagination to form faith
  • God uses imagination to reveal reality
  • God uses imagination to create new realities
  • Conclusion

 

Introduction:

When you daydream or imagine, what do you see yourself doing?

 

[Wait]

 

Perhaps you’ve had a hard week at work and you imagine being on holiday somewhere nice and relaxing

–         Or maybe you are studying for exams and you imagine graduating and getting your dream job

–         Or perhaps you are a teacher and there’s a student in your class who comes from a tough background and you imagine a better future for them

–         Or you might have lost someone close to you and so you imagine being reunited with them again, in heaven

 

This morning we continue our series on ‘Being with God’

–         This series is essentially about Christian spirituality

–         In very basic terms we could say that, for Christians, spirituality is Christ’s way of being with us as well as our way of being with Jesus

–         Using the analogy of wireless internet, if wifi is the capacity to connect and interact with others on-line

–         Then spirituality is our capacity to connect with God – to interact with His Spirit in other words

 

Rebecca Nye has a wonderful acronym which we are using to give structure to this series. [1]  Her acronym spells the word S.P.I.R.I.T.

–         Space, Process, Imagination, Relationship, Intimacy & Trust

 

These are all essential elements of Christian spirituality

–         We need these six things to connect with and interact with Jesus

–         So far we have looked at the importance of sacred space and process in our relationship with God

–         This morning we explore imagination with God

 

God uses imagination to form faith

Last week I told you about my grandfather who took me fishing

–         Although my grandfather didn’t go to church, fishing with him was sort of like a spiritual experience

–         The ocean was our sacred space

–         We enjoyed the process of fishing for its own sake – we were happy just being with each other

–         And going out on the boat, imagining all the big fish we might catch, was a bit of an adventure

 

My grandfather was a driller and he was good at it

–         He drilled water bores for farmers mostly, but he also did survey jobs

–         I don’t ever remember my grandfather talking to me about his work

–         He never elaborated on the finer points of water pumps or seismic stability or any of that stuff

–         What I do remember is him telling me stories

–         Each night, as I was going to bed, he would ignite my imagination with tall tales of adventure, involving a hero (usually himself) who triumphed over incredible odds

–         The stories didn’t have a moral to them necessarily – they were really more about courage and hope and never giving up

 

Sometimes we might associate the word ‘imagination’ with some kind of fantasy or fairy tale

–         Something made up or pretend, like an imaginary friend

–         With this kind of definition we might think our imagination is there to help us escape reality

 

But with God imagination is not about escaping reality – it’s about revealing reality and in fact creating new realities

–         Imagination is how God forms faith in us

 

In some ways our imagination is a bit like the soil in which the seeds of faith & hope grow – imagination nurtures and supports and feeds our faith

–         If our imagination is the soil then the seed of Christian faith is sown by telling the stories of Jesus

–         Stories of courage & hope, as well as adversity & redemption

 

In the book, Shaped by God, Sarah Arthur talks about ‘The Importance of Story in Faith Formation’ [2]

–         Christian faith is formed more by story more than by facts or information

–         God exists – that’s a fact

–         Jesus is the Son of God – that’s another fact

–         While getting our facts straight is important, knowing those facts doesn’t necessarily form faith in us

–         Being a Christian isn’t just about accepting certain facts or doctrines

–         It’s about trusting a person we can’t see – God

 

Looking back, my grandfather’s approach was similar to God’s approach

–         Just as my grandfather gave me stories, and not information

–         So too God gives us stories to ignite our imagination and form faith in us

 

The Bible is not an encyclopaedia or a text book

–         It is essentially a collection of stories (true stories of adventure) – which tell the larger story of God’s involvement in human history

 

C.S. Lewis seemed to understand the importance of imagination and the power of stories to form faith

–         In his book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis created a character called ‘Eustace’ – a boy with no imagination.

–         Eustace knows nothing of stories of adventure

–         The only books Eustace likes are ‘books of information’

–         Books which have a lot to say about exports & imports and governments & drains

–         Because of this Eustace has a very stunted imagination

–         Which makes him ill-prepared to handle the adventure of sailing with the King of Narnia to the edge of the world

 

When Eustace sees a dragon for the first time he has no idea what he’s looking at

–         The books Eustace read were weak on dragons and so he doesn’t know one shouldn’t steal a dragon’s treasure or you will become a dragon yourself

–         Only after he has become a dragon does Eustace realise his mistake

 

The valiant mouse Reepicheep takes pity on Eustace and to cheer him up tells the boy stories

–         Reepicheep’s stories give Eustace hope

–         They are tales about great men who had fallen on hard times but who were able to recover and be restored

–         These stories enable Eustace to imagine a different outcome for himself

–         They make faith possible

–         Eventually Eustace is converted from a dragon back into a boy again by Aslan – and in time he finds redemption

–         Like the heroes in Reepicheep’s stories Eustace grows into a virtuous character able to handle the adventure of sailing to the edge of the world

 

There is at least one book in the Bible which has a dragon in it – and a beast and a bride and a mighty hero

–         Who can tell me the name of that book [Wait]

–         That’s right, the book of Revelation

 

It’s a great shame really that Revelation is one of the most misunderstood books of the Bible

–         Perhaps that’s because we live in the ‘information age’

–         The internet is basically a huge database of information which we can access at our fingers tips

–         Collectively, Western society has become a bit like Eustace

–         We prefer technical information and so we are weak on dragons

–         We don’t recognise a dragon when we see it – therefore we don’t know how to defend ourselves against evil

 

What’s more we don’t realise that facing adversity is part of the adventure

–         Something a bit tough happens and we might panic or be tempted to despair or give up

–         We forget that the hero of the story always suffers

–         Without imagination we are ill equipped for the adventure of faith

 

The book of Revelation was written for the early church, most likely at the end of the first century AD

–         At that stage in history the Christian church was facing persecution in a variety of forms – it was a difficult time to stay loyal to Christ

–         Christians needed hope and strength

–         You don’t get hope from a download of data & information

–         Googling the word ‘hope’ won’t give you hope

–         Hope and strength to persevere comes from hearing a story which enlivens the imagination

 

And so that’s what God gives his people – a story which they can identify with

–         A story which is strong on dragons so they will be able to recognise evil when they see it and consequently avoid becoming like the dragon

–         A story with a virtuous Son of Man and a terrible beast so they will know what it is to be human and will keep their humanity

–         A story with a Bride in distress who is rescued by a mighty hero so they will wait faithfully and not give up

 

For those who are familiar with Revelation the dragon is Satan, the beast is the Roman Empire, the Bride is the church and the Hero is, of course, Jesus

–         In the end the dragon and the beast are defeated, while Christ and his Bride (the church) live happily ever after

 

Now what I’ve given you there is a very basic sketch – there is certainly more to Revelation than that

 

I also need to say that in describing Revelation as a story I don’t mean to imply that it is fantasy or that it’s somehow untrue

–         As I said before, in Christian spirituality imagination has to do with what is real

–         Revelation actually deals with ultimate realities – unseen realities

–         It uses imagination to show us what’s going on behind the scenes

–         In fact, God often uses our imagination to reveal reality

 

God uses imagination to reveal reality

The earth’s surface curves out of sight at a distance of 3.1 miles (or 5 km’s)

–         But if the earth were flat, or if you were standing on top of a mountain, then you could see a lot further than 5 km’s with the naked eye

–         On a dark night you could even see a candle flickering up to 48 km’s away [3]

 

What I’m trying to say here is, we can’t see the whole picture

–         The reality we see is limited, to a large extent, by our horizon

–         God gives us an imagination to help us see beyond our horizon so that our view of reality is fuller or more complete

 

We could say our imagination is a bit like a telescope or a pair of binoculars

–         It enables us to see further and clearer

 

Please turn with me to Genesis chapter 15 – page 17, toward the front of your pew Bibles

–         This Scripture shows us one of Abram’s encounters with God

–         Abram was rich and successful in many respects but his wife, Sarai, was unable to have children

–         From verse 1 of Genesis 15 we read…

 

After this, Abram had a vision and heard the Lord say to him, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I will shield you from danger and give you a great reward.”

 

2 But Abram answered, “Sovereign Lord, what good will your reward do me, since I have no children? My only heir is Eliezer of Damascus. 3 You have given me no children, and one of my slaves will inherit my property.”

 

4 Then he heard the Lord speaking to him again: “This slave Eliezer will not inherit your property; your own son will be your heir.” 5 The Lord took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and try to count the stars; you will have as many descendants as that.”

 

6 Abram put his trust in the Lord, and because of this the Lord was pleased with him and accepted him.

 

Do you see what God did there?

–         He didn’t simply tell Abram, ‘You will have a son’

–         He engaged Abram’s imagination

–         He took Abram outside and invited him to look beyond his immediate horizon: ‘Look up at the night sky and count the stars if you can. You will have as many descendants as that’

–         Then Abram put his trust in the Lord

 

Abram’s perception of reality was quite small and narrow

–         God used the stars to help Abram see things differently – to inspire Abram to imagine the full picture

–         God’s word in the soil of Abram’s imagination inspired faith & hope

 

God uses imagination to form faith in us

–         To reveal ultimate reality to us

–         And to create new realities with us

 

God uses imagination to create new realities

On the 30th August 2004, Yoko Ono, the wife of the late John Lennon, placed a full page ad in the New York Times

 

The Ad had only two words: “Imagine Peace”

–         At that time it was less than 3 years since the attack on the Twin Towers and the war on terror was well underway

–         Walter Brueggemann comments…

–         [Yoko Ono’s ad] “…is a recognition that peace will not come by thinking inside the box, but only by pushing beyond the presently available reality to a newness that is given at the edge of the human spirit.” [4]

 

While we might sometimes use our imagination to escape unpleasant realities

–         God uses our imagination to create new (and better) realities

 

There’s a funny story in 2nd Kings about the prophet Elisha [5]

 

The king of Syria was at war with Israel

–         Whenever the king of Syria set up an ambush for the Israelites, God would tell Elisha, the prophet, where the Syrians were

–         Then Elisha would tell the king of Israel and he would warn his people so they could avoid the ambush

 

After this had happened several times the Syrian king started to get a bit paranoid

–         He called his army officers together and confronted them saying,

–         “Which one of you is the traitor? Who keeps giving our position away?”

 

They all looked sideways at each other until one of them spoke up…

–         “It’s none of us your majesty. The prophet Elisha tells the king of Israel what you say even in the privacy of your own room”

 

Sadly the king of Syria lacked imagination

–         Like Eustace he was only interested in books of information

–         Books like ‘Guerrilla Warfare for Dummies’ and ‘How to ambush your enemies in 6 easy steps’

 

Anyway, as I was saying, the king of Syria wasn’t the sharpest knife in the draw and so when he heard that Elisha kept giving his soldier’s position away he thought he might have a chance if he could capture God’s prophet

–         It didn’t occur to the king that God would warn Elisha the Syrians were coming for him (as the Lord had done on every other occasion)

–         What is it they say? The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result

 

Nevertheless, God is a good sport & perhaps because he felt sorry for the Syrian king, God decided to give the Syrians a chance

–         God let the soldiers find Elisha in Dothan

–         So all the king’s horses and all the king’s men went to Dothan and surrounded the town

 

When Elisha’s servant got up and went outside the house he saw the Syrian army and panicked. Running back to Elisha he exclaimed…

–         ‘Master, we are doomed. What shall we do?’

 

But Elisha wasn’t at all surprised – it was like he had anticipated this all along

–         So he said to his servant ever so calmly…

–         “Don’t worry about it mate. They are the ones that are outnumbered”

–         Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes and let him see”

–         The Lord answered Elisha’s prayer and enabled the servant to see reality beyond his limited horizon

–         The hillside was covered with horses and chariots of fire all round Elisha

–         God’s army had been there as back up for Elisha the whole time, only the servant hadn’t seen it

–         Now the servant was imagining a different outcome

 

When the Syrians attacked, Elisha prayed, “O Lord, strike these men blind!”

–         In an instant the Syrian soldiers lost their sight and started bumping into each other

–         Elisha could have run away at this point but that wouldn’t have solved anything

–         So he said to the men, “You are on the wrong track… Follow me and I will lead you to the man you are after.”

–         And he led them to Samaria, a stronghold of the Israelites, their enemies

–         It was kind of ironic really – all this time the Syrians had been trying to ambush the Israelites and now Elisha had led the Syrians into an ambush

 

Once inside the city of Samaria Elisha prayed again asking the Lord to restore the Syrians’ sight

–         The Lord did and when the Syrians realised they were the ones surrounded, things got real

 

The king of Israel couldn’t believe his luck – the Syrians were sitting ducks

–         He eagerly asked Elisha, “Shall I kill them, shall I kill them?”

–         It turns out the king of Israel wasn’t all that different from the king of Syria – they both lacked imagination

–         Because their only solution was a hammer every problem looked to them like a nail

 

Elisha, however, imagined a different solution saying…

–         ‘No. You wouldn’t kill soldiers you had captured in combat, let alone ones that had been brought to you blind.

–         Instead show them kindness and hospitality – give them something to eat and drink and let them return unharmed to their king’

 

So the king of Israel provided a great feast for them and after they had eaten and drunk their fill he sent them back to the king of Syria

–         After that the Syrians stopped raiding the land of Israel

 

What was it Jesus said?

–         “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”

–         Perhaps he was inviting us to, “Imagine Peace”

 

The problem with both kings (the king of Israel and the king of Syria) is they lacked imagination

–         Their thinking came from inside the box, from their limited horizon

–         They couldn’t imagine anything other than raiding and fighting and seeking revenge

–         They needed someone like Elisha to help them push beyond the presently available reality to a newness that is given at the edge of the human spirit

 

Conclusion:

This morning we’ve been talking about the value of imagination in our spiritual life with God

–         Shortly we will share communion together

–         Communion is a spiritual thing – it is a way of being with God

–         Communion provides an opportunity for sacred space

–         It is more about process than product – it’s something we do for its own sake and not to achieve some end result

–         Communion also engages our imagination, nourishing and strengthening our faith & hope in Christ

 

By sharing the bread and the cup we remember Jesus’ story – in fact we enter into his story

 

Communion is not an escaping of reality

–         It is a way of revealing the reality of Christ’s presence with us

 

In communion we look beyond our limited horizon to catch a glimpse of the bigger picture of God’s story

–         Just as Jesus’ suffered, died and was resurrected – so too we share in his sufferings and we will share in his resurrection one day

 

I guess I could say more – but I don’t want to spell it all out for you – I want to leave something for your imagination…

 

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/6-nov-2016-imagination-with-god

[1] Rebecca Nye, ‘Children’s Spirituality’, page 41.

[2] Sarah Arthur, ‘Shaped by God’ (Ed. Robert J. Keeley), pages 38-41

[3][3] http://www.livescience.com/33895-human-eye.html

[4] Walter Brueggemann, “Mandate to Difference”, page 95.

[5] Refer 2 Kings 6:8-23