God – Page 24 – Tawa Baptist

January 26, 2020January 26, 2020 Tawa Baptist

Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah

Scriptures: Psalm 37:23-24, Psalm 73:23-24, John 6:28-35, Exodus 15:22-26; Revelation 22:1-2, John 7:37-39, Exodus 13:17-22, Exodus 15:1-5, Genesis 15:1, Psalm 28:7, Joshua 3:14-17, Revelation 20:14.

Structure:

Introduction
Verse 1
Verse 2
Verse 3
Conclusion

Introduction:

A couple of weeks ago Robyn & I were walking along the beach from Waikanae to Paraparaumu when we reached the Waikanae river

Sometimes, when the tide is low, you can walk across the estuary there and the water only comes up to your knees
Other times though, when the tide is high, you have to swim across
Well, this particular day the tide was sort of half in / half out
We couldn’t see the bottom of the river so we weren’t sure how deep it was. I thought I would test the waters, literally
It would be nice to say there was a miracle but the waters did not part for me. And, even after all these years of following Jesus, I still haven’t mastered the art of walking on water. Don’t know how he did it.
I got about a quarter of the way across and the sand gave way underfoot. My pants got wet, but it didn’t matter
It was a warm day so, to avoid the chaffing you get from walking in salt water pants, I just took my trousers off for a while and walked beside the river in my boxer shorts.
For some reason Robyn wasn’t all that keen on walking beside me at this point – she made sure there was plenty of distance between us until my pants went back on.

I tell you that story because it is important to be able to laugh at ourselves

But also because it highlights our need for guidance
Much of life is routine, like walking along the beach, just putting one foot in front of the other and enjoying the view
But every now and then we come to a river (a transition point in our life) and we have to make a decision.
Do we cross, or walk around it the long way, or do we turn back?
At those times we need guidance.

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 Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah

‘Guide me O Thou great Jehovah’ was sung at Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997 and then again at Prince William and Cate Middleton’s wedding in 2011

The tune has also been heard at rugby matches in the UK at times
It is a song which isn’t just sung in church but resonates with wider society

The words for ‘Guide me O Thou great Jehovah’ were written by a man named William Williams

Now for some reason there seem to be a lot of people called William Williams who lived during the 18^th & 19^th Centuries
The William Williams we are talking about is a different person from the missionary who came to NZ in the 1800’s
The author of ‘Guide me O Thou great Jehovah’ was a Welshman who lived during the 1700’s

Williams grew up in a Christian home but his family didn’t attend the established Anglican church – they were part of an independent church

At first Williams studied to become a doctor but then changed tack and trained instead to become an Anglican minister
It seems that at some stage during this period of his life Williams heard the preaching of a man named Howell Harris, and had a conversion experience
The Church of England ordained Williams as a deacon but wouldn’t make him a priest so Williams joined the Methodist movement
For over 40 years he travelled all over Wales preaching the gospel
As an accompaniment to his preaching Williams wrote many hymns in his native Welsh language

William Williams first wrote ‘Guide me O Thou great Jehovah’ in Welsh in 1745. Sixteen years later the song was translated into English.

The tune we sing it to today was written in 1907 by John Hughes

‘Guide me O Thou great Jehovah’ was particularly relevant to Williams’ experience as a travelling preacher

He spent much of his time walking or riding in the wilderness between speaking engagements, so I expect Williams got his britches wet crossing rivers on more than one occasion

Verse 1:

Williams drew inspiration for his song from Israel’s experience in the wilderness of Sinai. The hymn starts…

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land;

Jehovah is one of the names for God. It is a Latinized version of the Hebrew word ‘Yahweh’

The word Jehovah emerged in some translations of the Bible during the 16^th Century – so it would have been in use during Williams’ day
Some more recent versions of Williams’ hymn use the word ‘Redeemer’ instead. In any case we are singing to God Almighty

A pilgrim is a traveler. Not just any traveler but someone on a sacred journey to a holy place.

Christians are pilgrims. This world is not our home. We are travelling through the wilderness of this life to reach the holy city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Heaven

You can cross the estuary on Waikanae beach in less than a minute at low tide, but the walk around takes about an hour

The long way leads you on a meandering track through wetlands which is not unpleasant but not at all efficient or direct
After their exodus from slavery in Egypt, Israel could have made it to the Promised Land in just a few months but they ended up wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years, during which time God guided and protected his pilgrim people
Sometimes, in our journey of faith, God leads us through a barren land
A place where the good seed we sow doesn’t bear much fruit
A time when we feel dry and the path is unmarked and tough going
An environment that seems spiritually corrosive and unforgiving, where we can’t afford to make mistakes and so we need God’s guidance more than ever.

The second part of verse one reads…

I am weak, but Thou art mighty; hold me with Thy powerful hand;

Now if, like me, you listened to too much music in the 80’s then this line might remind you of the Billy Idol song, ‘Catch my fall’ with its repeated refrain…

‘If I should stumble, catch my fall’
Of course Williams was more influenced by the psalms than he was Billy Idol

From psalm 37 we read…

If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.

And in psalm 73 we find similar words…

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.

The metaphor of God upholding us with his hand speaks of God’s nearness to us – his close presence

Not carrying us, but letting us walk on our own two feet, while still staying close by if we get into trouble.
During the holidays I read the Christian classic Hinds Feet on High Places. It’s an allegorical story about the journey of faith
The main character, ‘Much Afraid’, learns to walk in the high places by walking with sorrow & suffering, and not by being carried.
Sometimes ‘Much Afraid’ stumbles but the Shepherd (Christ) does not let her fall.

Becoming like Christ is a process, it doesn’t happen overnight. We need to be patient and hold grace & truth together

That means being honest about our own short fallings and, at the same time, affording ourselves some grace, not beating ourselves up
Sometimes we will stumble morally and spiritually but that’s okay
God’s grace is sufficient for us
If we do stumble, then the Lord is close at hand to catch our fall.

Verse one of the hymn finishes with the repeated refrain…

Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me now and ever more.

There is a double reference here…

Firstly, to Exodus 16 where the Lord God feeds the nation of Israel with manna from heaven for 40 years
And secondly, to John 6 where Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes to feed the 5,000
Afterwards the crowd catch up with Jesus and ask him for a sign saying, “Our forefathers ate manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ And Jesus replied…
I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Jesus is the bread of heaven who nourishes and sustains our spiritual life

In other words, Jesus feeds our souls with a relationship with God

Verse 2:

Verse 2, of the hymn, starts with the line…

Open now the crystal fountain, whence the healing stream doth flow;

‘Whence’ is an old fashioned word that simply means ‘from which’ and ‘doth’ means ‘does’

Again this verse alludes to a number of different Scriptures

Please turn with me to Exodus 15, verse 22, page 76 near the front of your pew Bibles. We are back now with the people of Israel in the wilderness. From Exodus 15, verses 22 to 26 we read…

Then Moses led the people of Israel away from the Red Sea into the desert of Shur. For three days they walked through the desert, but found no water. ²³Then they came to a place called Marah, but the water there was so bitter that they could not drink it. That is why it was named Marah. ²⁴The people complained to Moses and asked, “What are we going to drink?” ²⁵Moses prayed earnestly to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood, which he threw into the water; and the water became fit to drink. There the Lord gave them laws to live by, and there he also tested them. ²⁶He said, “If you will obey me completely by doing what I consider right and by keeping my commands, I will not punish you with any of the diseases that I brought on the Egyptians. I am the Lord, the one who heals you.”

God healed the water with a piece of wood and he heals our souls with his law

Obeying God’s commands is like clean water to our soul, it cleanses us on the inside.

The term ‘crystal fountain’ reminds me of the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22…

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

The apostle John is describing a picture of heaven in these verses

Jesus himself says in John’s gospel “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. ³⁸Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”³⁹By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

The next stanza of verse 2 of the hymn reads…

Let the fiery, cloudy pillar lead me all my journey through:

Exodus 13 describes the way God led the people of Israel through the wilderness by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night

When the pillar moved the people followed and when the pillar stopped the people pitched their tents.
The pillar was a clear and visible sign of God’s presence – sort of like a divine GPS

The pillar of cloud symbolises the mystery or inscrutability of God

We can’t see God or understand all of his ways
We are limited creatures and there are aspects of God Himself which remain hidden from us

The pillar of fire symbolises the holiness of God

At the right distance fire gives light and warmth and comfort but fire can also be incredibly powerful and dangerous
A pillar of fire is not tame, it can’t be domesticated
We need to have a deep reverence, a holy respect, for God.
We need to remember that while God helps us in many ways, he is also free and won’t be controlled or manipulated by us

Wouldn’t it be great if discerning God’s direction for our life was as clear and simple as looking out the window and seeing a pillar of cloud and fire. But that isn’t usually our experience is it

Although we don’t have a ‘fiery, cloudy pillar’ we are given the Holy Spirit, who Jesus says leads us into all truth

Verse 2 finishes with the line…

Strong deliverer, strong deliverer; be thou still my strength and shield.

As a travelling preacher William Williams would have felt quite vulnerable at times, travelling in the wild, at the mercy of the elements, not always certain where he might sleep at night

But he was also vulnerable in facing crowds of people who didn’t know him and could turn on him if they felt so inclined
Williams was not in a position to defend himself so he had to trust God to protect him

The idea of God being a shield is found in a number of places throughout the Bible

In Genesis 15, for example, after Abram has just saved his nephew Lot and come through the horrors of battle, the Lord (Yahweh) says to him,
‘Do not be afraid Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward’
And in psalm 28, David (who was a soldier) says,
‘The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him and I am helped.’
Then there is the shield of faith that we read about in Ephesians

We may not face the same sorts of physical threats that Abraham and David and William Williams faced, but we might battle internally with unwanted thoughts and emotions which take us captive and lead us down a dark path

In many ways the inner battle is harder I think because the enemy is invisible
We need God to deliver us from the thoughts that lead us on – we need God to be our shield against the evil that we can’t see

Verse 3:

A river is a powerful thing – powerful to give life and powerful to take it away

When we were young, my friends and I would sometimes go kayaking on the Wairoa River, in the Kaimai Ranges, near Tauranga
The water level of the Wairoa River is controlled by a hydro dam
Most of the time the water level is quite low, with calm gentle flowing pools
But on certain days during the summer they open the flood gates of the dam and the water level rises creating some spectacular rapids

When I was still a novice paddler, just learning, I came out of my kayak on the rapids. The water took my fibre glass boat and literally wrapped it around a boulder – broke it in two like it was a match stick

This was a good experience to have in some ways because it taught me to respect the river. A river is a powerful force of nature
It doesn’t matter how good a swimmer you are, sometimes the current is just too strong
A couple of years later one of the men in our canoe club drowned on the Wairoa. Although he was a very experienced paddler, the current pinned him under a ledge and there was nothing anyone could do to save him
The forces of nature are no respecter of persons. The wild is not just or merciful

Verse three of our hymn reads…

When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside;

Death of death, and hell’s destruction, land me safe on Canaan’s side

‘The verge of Jordan’ here refers to the Jordan River

And ‘Canaan’s side’ refers to the land of Canaan – the Promised Land, the Holy Land – it is a metaphor for heaven

In Joshua 3, after the Israelites’ time in the wilderness had come to an end, we read how the nation of Israel passed through the waters of the Jordan River to enter the Promised Land…

^14-15It was harvest time, and the river was in flood.

When the people left the camp to cross the Jordan, the priests went ahead of them, carrying the Covenant Box. As soon as the priests stepped into the river, ¹⁶the water stopped flowing and piled up, far upstream at Adam, the city beside Zarethan. The flow downstream to the Dead Sea was completely cut off, and the people were able to cross over near Jericho. ¹⁷While the people walked across on dry ground, the priests carrying the Lord’s Covenant Box stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan until all the people had crossed over.

God, the creator of rivers, stopped the waters of the Jordan (while it was in flood) to enable his people to cross safely

But the people still had to take that step of faith
They had to trust that God would hold the waters back while they crossed and they wouldn’t be swept away

William Williams was using the image of the Israelites crossing the Jordan into Canaan as a metaphor for the people of God crossing the river of death to enter the Promised Land of heaven

‘When I tread the verge of Jordan’ is a poetic way of saying, ‘when I face the hour of my death’
‘Bid my anxious fears subside’ means calm my fears. Give me faith and courage to face death without fear.

That phrase, death of death and hell’s destruction sounds foreboding

What does it mean?
Well the closest Scripture reference I can find to illuminate this line is found in Revelation 20, verse 14…

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

In the context, Revelation 20, talks about a universal resurrection of the dead

All the dead are raised to life and face judgement
Some pass through the river of judgment to enjoy eternal life
Others are sentenced to death for a second and final time
As I understand it the purpose of the ‘lake of fire’ is not so much to torture but to destroy; to annihilate or vaporise things
Verse 14 uses poetic language to describe the ‘death of death’ or the end of death in other words – which means for those whose names are written in the book of life there will be no more death, no more tears or grief
The good news is that through faith in Christ we are delivered from the second death, and landed safe on Canaan’s side
All those who confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that God raised Jesus from the dead will be saved.
So do not be afraid. It does no good living in fear of hell.
God is just and merciful and he will do what is right by each one

Our hymn finishes on a note of hope…

Songs of praises, songs of praises, I will ever give to thee.

Williams is imagining his future in the kingdom of heaven, singing praise to God forever

But from our vantage point in history we can see how Williams’ songs are still giving praise to God now, more than two centuries since the Welsh Hymn writer died.

Conclusion:

The start of a new year is often a time when we need God’s guidance

It is a time of facing a river to cross perhaps in the form of starting a new school, or a new job or leaving home to live in a new city
Whatever 2020 holds for you may God give you the courage and strength to face the unknown as you trust in him
And may you know that the Lord is with you and for you.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to (or sing) the song, ‘Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah’. What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does it evoke for you?)
Have you ever crossed a river before on foot or horseback? What was it like?
William Williams identified with the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai. Have you ever walked through a barren land, spiritually speaking? (Or perhaps you feel like you are in a barren land now?) What is/was your experience of God in that space?
How does God teach us to walk by faith? Give thanks to God for the times you have stumbled and He has caught your fall.
What do you think Jesus meant when he said, ‘I am the bread of life’?
What does the fiery, cloudy pillar symbolise?
Verse 3 of the hymn sounds echoes of hope. Discuss / reflect on the hope you hear in this verse.
Which verse (or line) of the song do you identify with most? Why?

December 15, 2019 Tawa Baptist

Star Child

Scripture: Luke 4:16-30

Some years ago I was talking with my theology lecturer and asked him what he did his Phd thesis on

It had a long name that I can’t remember exactly now but essentially it focused on the work of a dead theologian from the middle ages
What I do remember about that conversation is my lecturer’s advice
He said, if you are going to do a thesis on someone else’s work it is best to it on a dead person because they can’t disagree with your findings

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 Star Child

Star Child was written by a New Zealander, Shirley Murray, who I believe is still very much alive

I have never met Shirley and I don’t know what she would think of the connections and interpretations I am making with her song
She may disagree with some (or maybe all) of what I’m about to say
So my message today comes with a disclaimer: this is what Shirley’s song puts me in touch with and is not necessarily the meaning she intended to convey – please don’t hold my words against her
In any case the lyrics to Star Child are so broad and spacious they invite a wide range of interpretive possibility.

Shirley Murray was born in Invercargill, NZ, in 1931 – which I guess makes her 88 years old now

Shirley studied music as an undergraduate and then did a Masters in classics and French at Otago
She grew up attending a Methodist church but later became a Presbyterian when she married the Rev John Stewart, a Presbyterian minister
Shirley started her working career as a teacher of languages, then did research for the Labour party for a number of years
She was also involved in Amnesty International

Shirley was quite prolific, writing (I think) around 600 hymns including: Carol our Christmas, Our life has its seasons and God speed you on your way (which is sung to Tawa College school leavers)

Many of her songs address human rights issues, women’s concerns, social justice, peace and care of creation – and were written at a time when these things were considered a bit edgy and not as mainstream as today.

The song Star Child was written in 1993 and explores the meaning of Christ’s birth in light of the growing gap between rich and poor

Shirley is quoted as saying: “The carol grew out of increasing concern at the market values dictating our welfare system, now creating more and more ‘social rejects’.”
In other words, Shirley saw how the government’s economic policy was detrimental to the social well-being of many New Zealanders at that time
Certainly the early 1990’s saw relatively high unemployment rates, peaking at 10.7% in 1992 – which equates to nearly 181,000 people out of work. [1]
The point is, Shirley wrote about real world issues – she was of that ilk who held the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

The music for Star Child was written by Carlton Young, but I think Colin Gibson may have had some involvement too, as his name is on the music score alongside Carlton’s

The song begins with the words: Star-Child, Earth Child, go between of God, love Child, Christ Child, heaven’s lightning rod,

This verse is clearly about Jesus

The phrase Star Child instantly creates a variety of connections
It makes us think of Jesus’ natal star – the bright light in the evening sky which guided the wise men to Bethlehem the place of Jesus’ birth
More generally though it indicates that Jesus comes from heaven above
Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it
As a star, we could say Jesus is the one we look to, to navigate our way through life, much like sailors at sea navigate by the stars at night
Then of course, Jesus is a star in the sense of being famous and adored, sort of like a rock star, except without the sex and drugs

But Jesus isn’t just a star child from above. He is also an earth child – conceived by the Holy Spirit but born of Mary, humble and down to earth

Star child indicates the transcendence of God – God far above us, God who is different from us and as unreachable as the stars
While earth child suggests the immanence of God – God’s presence close to us, God with us in a form that is accessible and relatable

Jesus is the go between of God – he creates a bridge between humanity and God through his very person

This is the doctrine of the incarnation – Jesus is both truly divine and truly human. As we read in John’s gospel…
The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

The expression Love child has a double meaning I think

In the 1970’s the term ‘love child’ referred to a child born to parents who were not married to each other
Mary was not married when she conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit but she was married to Joseph by the time Jesus was born
God is love, so love child could also refer to Jesus being the Son of God
Jesus shows us what God’s love is like. It is a self-giving love

Jesus is the Christ child

In Luke 2, an angel appears to the shepherds and says…
Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
Christ is not Jesus’ surname – Christ is a title which literally means ‘anointed one’ or king
Christ means the same thing as Messiah – Christ being the Greek term and Messiah being the Hebrew word

The last line of verse 1 is a bit troubling – it talks about Jesus being heaven’s lightning rod

In my sixth form year at Hamilton Boys’ High School we had an electrical storm during the day.
About 20 boys (I was not one of them) were sheltering from heavy rain under a tree when a bolt of lightning struck the tree.
Eleven boys were knocked to the ground and one had to be revived with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
He suffered serious burns to his face, neck and shoulders, and especially to his elbows and the soles of his feet.
You don’t want to be hit by lightning

To protect people from lightning strikes like this, tall structures sometimes have a rod-like conductor installed to divert lightning away to the ground

With this in mind the term ‘lightning rod’ is an English idiom for someone who attracts a lot of criticism or anger in order to shield others
A lightning rod personality is often blamed for other people’s mistakes
Most people who have ever been in a leadership role know what it means to be a lightning rod for people’s anger and criticism.
The Bible doesn’t specifically talk about Jesus as heaven’s lightning rod but we do get the idea of a scapegoat from the Bible, which is similar

To say that Jesus is “heaven’s lightning rod” does not mean that God directs his anger at Jesus. God was not angry with Jesus – He was pleased with Jesus

Jesus comes from heaven but the lightning does not come from heaven
The lightning comes from earth
Jesus is a lightning rod for the anger, criticism and sin of people

There were a number times in the gospel when Jesus acted as a lightning rod, in order to save those in need

Like when Jesus defended the woman caught in adultery, in John 8
And it seems whenever Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath he got a hard time from the religious leaders. No good deed goes unpunished.

Please turn with me to Luke 4, page 80, toward the back of your pew Bibles

This passage describes one occasion, near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when he became a lightning rod for people’s anger
From Luke 4, verse 16, we read…

¹⁶Then Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath he went as usual to the synagogue. He stood up to read the Scriptures ¹⁷and was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written,

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free the oppressed
¹⁹    and announce that the time has come
    when the Lord will save his people.”

²⁰Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. All the people in the synagogue had their eyes fixed on him, ²¹as he said to them, “This passage of scripture has come true today, as you heard it being read.”

²²They were all well impressed with him and marvelled at the eloquent words that he spoke. They said, “Isn’t he the son of Joseph?”

²³He said to them, “I am sure that you will quote this proverb to me, ‘Doctor, heal yourself.’ You will also tell me to do here in my hometown the same things you heard were done in Capernaum. ²⁴I tell you this,” Jesus added, “prophets are never welcomed in their hometown. ²⁵Listen to me: it is true that there were many widows in Israel during the time of Elijah, when there was no rain for three and a half years and a severe famine spread throughout the whole land. ²⁶Yet Elijah was not sent to anyone in Israel, but only to a widow living in Zarephath in the territory of Sidon. ²⁷And there were many people suffering from a dreaded skin disease who lived in Israel during the time of the prophet Elisha; yet not one of them was healed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were filled with anger. ²⁹They rose up, dragged Jesus out of town, and took him to the top of the hill on which their town was built. They meant to throw him over the cliff, ³⁰but he walked through the middle of the crowd and went his way.

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

This passage from Luke 4 provides a kind of executive summary of Jesus’ earthly ministry – it outlines the gospel in a short story

Jesus came with a message of salvation for everyone but not everyone welcomed him or his message
Yes, he was popular at first but it wasn’t long before his words and actions rubbed people up the wrong way and they were out to kill him
Jesus is sent from heaven and becomes a lightning rod for people’s anger
This episode, in Nazareth, foreshadows Jesus’ rejection & crucifixion

Why did the people of Jesus’ home town get so angry with him that they were ready to throw him off a cliff? I don’t know.

Perhaps they didn’t like the way Jesus was claiming the status of prophet.
Maybe they thought he had committed blasphemy
Or perhaps they took offence at the way Jesus seemed to imply that God was more interested in saving social rejects like the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian (both of whom were Gentiles).

Shirley Murray’s song connects with Luke 4 in a number of ways

Luke 4 talks about Jesus being good news for the poor and the oppressed
Star Child is a song which highlights the needs of the poor & oppressed
The chorus expresses the ‘now but not yet’ of salvation

This year, this year, let the day arrive, when Christmas comes for everyone, everyone alive.

On the one hand God’s salvation and kingdom have arrived in the person of Jesus but the fruit of that salvation is yet to mature and be realised

The world we live in is still filled with the poor and oppressed
Christmas is not good news for everyone
For some it only highlights their need and what they don’t have
We pray to God, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’,and we wait in hope.

If the first verse of the song is about Jesus, then the next three verses are about us. Verse 2 reads…

Street child, beat child, no place left to go, hurt child, used child, no one wants to know,

This verse seems to be addressing the reality of homelessness and being displaced.

Beat is another way of saying street. The police walk the beat
Beat also hints at violence and being beaten up
For a variety of reasons family violence tends to spike at Christmas time
Sadly, some young people feel safer on the streets than they do at home

Thinking about the connection with Jesus’ story I am reminded of how, shortly after Jesus’ birth, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream warning him to take his family to Egypt for a while

This was to escape king Herod who felt threatened by the news of Christ’s birth and sought to manage the situation by killing all the babies in the area under two years old. Talk about child abuse.

The line no place left to go connects with what Jesus said to a would be follower, in Matthew 8 verse 20: Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.

Jesus knew what it was to have no fixed abode.

The last line in verse two of the song is intriguing: hurt child, no one wants to know. This speaks of rejection and abandonment and neglect

To get to know someone you have to spend time with them
Children need the time and attention of caring adults. Not every waking moment, but often enough for a healthy relationship to develop.
Consistently enough for the child to know they are safe and valued

We are reminded of the story in Mark 10 where the disciples try to shoo the children away and Jesus rebukes his disciples saying…

Let the little children come to me for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
Jesus welcomes the little children and, by his example, encourages us to give them our time

Verse 3 of the song continues the theme of harsh reality…

Grown child, old child, memory full of years, sad child, lost child, story told in tears,

This verse makes me think of the child within each of us

It is perhaps more of a modern psychological idea
If you go to counselling, you will probably be asked about your childhood and once those memories are unearthed you may be asked to take care of that child in you

To some extent the experiences we had in our childhood stay with us into adulthood

All of my grandparents grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930’s and they went without
This experience stayed with them and, consequently, they were careful with money, always making sure they had some put aside just in case
They didn’t want to go through that same experience of deprivation again

Story told in tears is an interesting line

It speaks of someone who doesn’t tell their story in words, so much as reveal the sadness of their life through tears
Blessed are those who mourn. They shall be comforted

Each of us is telling ourselves a story to help make sense of our lives

We need to make sure the story we are telling ourselves is true

Once there was a girl named Stacey

Stacey grew up in an average middle class kiwi home
Both her parents worked hard to pay the bills and provide for their family
One day Stacey’s mum left, she ran off with another man
Her father was devastated of course
He stayed around to provide for his kids and he did his best but he was struggling with his own grief and that limited his emotional availability

Stacey was the eldest of three children and so she did what most eldest siblings do in a situation like this – she stepped up and took responsibility

Stacey cooked the dinner and made the lunches and read stories to her younger brothers
She made sure her dad knew about the important stuff like paying the power bill and remembering the boys’ birthdays
Stacey worked hard at school, got lots of excellence credits and thought about going to Uni at Otago but put that aside so she could stay home and look after her family
Stacey appeared like the model daughter. Always taking care of everyone else’s needs. Never really attending to her own. Not properly.
Stacey sacrificed her childhood to be a mother to her father and brothers

One day a young man became interested in Stacey. He was kind, handsome and from a good family

The young man asked Stacey out and they started dating
Things seemed to be going along nicely at first but whenever he tried to get close emotionally Stacey put up a wall
She never really let him in. There was always a distance there.
The young man would have stayed around but Stacey ended the relationship, saying they could still be friends, but knowing in her heart that wasn’t going to happen
When he asked her why, Stacey couldn’t find the words to tell him how terrified she was at the way love made her feel so vulnerable

You see, Stacey was telling herself a story – a story told in tears. It went like this: ‘I am to blame for my mother leaving. I am responsible for that.’

The story was false of course. No one else was blaming Stacey for what her mother did.
Stacey was just 13 at the time, it was nothing to do with her
But Stacey needed to believe she was to blame in order to feel safe
As long as she was responsible, she was in control of the situation
(Or at least that’s what she thought)
Facing the truth that she had no control over her mother, that her mother’s leaving had nothing to do with her, was just too scary, too painful
It made her feel powerless & vulnerable, like being in love with someone
But if Stacey told herself it was her fault, that she made it happen, then in a twisted way she felt like she had some control over her circumstances
Taking responsibility for everyone else helped to support the illusion.

Sometimes when we are going through a difficult situation we tell ourselves a lie, to protect ourselves, just to get through that situation, but once the situation has passed we need to tell ourselves the truth and the truth may be a story told in tears

Jesus came to set people free. We are set free by the truth.
Jesus helps us to face the truth so we are not afraid to love and feel vulnerable

It’s Christmas time, so I can’t leave Stacey’s story with a sad ending

Some years later the young man, who had asked Stacey out, returned
He was still single, still holding a flame for Stacey
In that time apart (a time of waiting) Stacey’s heart was touched by Jesus and she figured a few things out
Now Stacey was able to tell herself a new story. It went like this:
‘I am not responsible for the choices other people make. I am only responsible for the choices I make. My mother’s leaving was a gift. It showed me who I am; strong, loyal, compassionate.’
With this new story Stacey was no longer emotionally closed off.
Yes, she was discerning about who she trusted but she was also ready to love and be vulnerable.
The young man asked Stacey out again and this time it worked out – they were able to get close to one another

Verse 4 of the song reads…

Spared child, spoiled child, having, wanting more, wise child, faith child knowing joy in store,

This verse draws a contrast between those who have too much (and for whom things come too easily), with those who are made to wait in faith

Ever noticed how God often makes us wait
Sometimes he answers our prayers quite quickly.
Other times he says ‘no’ or he says nothing
Waiting is God’s way of teaching us to value something
When things are given to us too easily we tend to take them for granted
But when we are made to wait, we value the gift (and the giver) more
Not always getting what we want shows us what we really need

Advent is about waiting for the coming of Christ

Waiting is not easy.
Waiting in faith for test results
Waiting in faith for your surgery
Waiting in faith for the baby to come
Waiting in faith for the pain to pass so your body and soul can heal
Waiting in faith for Christ to touch your heart with God’s love & truth so you are free to be vulnerable and love again, without fear.

Yes, waiting is difficult but there is hope and joy in the waiting

Knowing joy in store speaks of the joy of anticipation
Joy is the positive energy that comes from hope

The song finishes in the same way that it started, by focusing on Jesus

The first verse was all about Christ and so is the last

Hope-for-peace Child, God’s stupendous sign,

down-to-earth Child, star of stars that shine,

Jesus is our hope for peace – peace with God, peace with each other and peace with ourselves

The Biblical idea of peace (or shalom) is more than the mere absence of conflict. The peace Christ gives is the presence of abundant life
Jesus said: I have come that they may have life and have it to the full [2]
Abundant life is life worth living, life at its best
We are yet to realise the fullness of life and peace that Jesus came to bring – but we wait for it, knowing joy in store

God’s stupendous sign is a phrase that may need some explanation

Stupendous does not mean stupid or dumb
Stupendous means surprising in a pleasing way, generous, better than expected, large or extravagant
Jesus surprises us in a good way, he reveals the extravagance and generosity of God’s love
God’s love is deep and wide – deep enough to heal the hurt child within you and wide enough to embrace those a market driven economy rejects

Let’s stand and sing Star Child now, and as we do I invite you to feel the words

Let them in.
What line or verse is God impressing upon your heart?
What is God saying to you today?

[1] http://socialreport.msd.govt.nz/paid-work/unemployment.html

[2] John 10:10b

December 8, 2019 Tawa Baptist

Silent Night

Scriptures: Luke 2:1-20

Structure:

Introduction
History
Meaning
Conclusion

Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright. Round yon virgin mother and child; Holy infant, so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace; Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, holy night, Shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar, Heavenly hosts sing “Alleluia. Christ the Saviour is born; Christ the Saviour is born.”

Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love’s pure light. Radiant beams from Thy holy face, With the dawn of redeeming grace. Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth; Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.

Introduction:

On Christmas morning 1914 British, Belgian, French and German soldiers put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches and mingled in no-man’s land on the Western Front

About two thirds of the fighting forces, around 100,000 men, participated in the spontaneous ceasefire.
One Allied soldier had his hair cut by a German barber, other soldiers exchanged cigarettes and a few kicked a football around
The truce started on Christmas Eve. Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade described the scene:

“First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing – two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.” [1]

The truce didn’t last of course but it was a moment of peace and light when differences were put aside, the sounds of battle were silenced and humanity was shared

Today we continue our ‘Anthems’ series

In this series we are looking at the music & 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 Silent Night
Silent Night was probably one of the songs sung on Christmas Eve 1914.
Originally written in German, Silent Night has been translated into many other languages and has become part of our shared humanity

The history:

Like so many of the songs we sing in church Silent Night is the result of a collaboration between two people – the words were written by Father Joseph Mohr and the music composed by a school teacher, Franz Gruber

Both men’s back stories are fascinating, let’s start with the lyricist

Joseph Mohr was born in Salzburg, Austria, on the 11 December 1792, over 200 years ago

His mother, Anna, was an embroiderer and his father Franz was a mercenary soldier, who abandoned Anna before Joseph was born.
Joseph’s parents were not married, so Joseph was born out of wedlock at a time when that wasn’t socially accepted like it is today

Joseph was baptised in the Catholic church as an infant.

His god father was recorded as Joseph Wohlmuth, the last official executioner of Salzburg
So Joseph got his first name from the town executioner and his last name from a mercenary soldier who abandoned him and his mother

It wasn’t an ideal start to life.

I imagine Joseph suffered many snide remarks as a child growing up and was probably forced to wear shame through no fault of his own
One can’t help but notice the connection with Jesus’ experience in life
Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit but to most people it appeared that Jesus was born in dubious circumstances, as Mary became pregnant before she was married
I imagine Jesus suffered many snide remarks as a child growing up
We know Jesus wore shame through no fault of his own

The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone [2]

That verse is talking about Jesus – it points to the way God operates
The Lord delights in taking the people we least expect and giving them a special place in His plan and purpose
It seems He did this with Joseph Mohr
Johann Hiernle, vicar and leader of music at Salzburg Cathedral, enabled Joseph to have an education and encouraged him in music.
As a boy, Joseph served as a singer and violinist in the choirs of the University Church and at the Benedictine monastery church of St. Peter.
Joseph entered the Catholic seminary in 1811 at the age of 18.
He needed a special dispensation to attend the seminary because of his illegitimate birth.
Four years later Mohr graduated and was ordained as a Catholic priest.
Joseph Mohr chose a completely different path in life to that of his father and god-father

Between 1815 and 1817 Joseph served as assistant priest in a town called Mariapfarr. During this time, in 1816 at the age of 23 or 24, Joseph wrote a poem in German called Silent Night – it was six verses long

He wrote it, I suppose, as a private act of worship and adoration to God for the gift of His Son Jesus
He had no idea how God would use that private act of devotion

Not long after Joseph returned to Salzburg, for health reasons, where he became an assistant priest at St Nicholas in Oberndorf.

It was there that he met Franz Gruber

Franz Gruber was five years older than Joseph Mohr. Franz was a busy man.

In 1807 he became a schoolteacher in Arnsdorf, while at the same time carrying out the duties of church caretaker and organist.
A year later he married a widow called Maria. They had two children, both of whom died young.
It is difficult to imagine anything worse than losing a child
God knows what it is to lose a child though

In 1816 Franz took on the additional responsibilities of organist and choirmaster at St Nicholas Church in the neighboring village of Oberndorf – a year before Joseph Mohr arrived.

Before my time here the Church Secretary of Tawa Baptist had to keep a sermon in their back pocket in case the pastor became sick and couldn’t preach

We don’t really have a church secretary anymore so I’m not allowed to get sick – which suits me fine
Sometimes though things don’t go to plan and its handy to have a back-up just in cases

In winter of 1818 the river flooded and damaged the St Nicholas church organ in Oberndorf so it wouldn’t play. This was not ideal

Joseph Mohr, the assistant priest, needed a song for Christmas Eve – one that didn’t require an organ, one he could play on his guitar
He had the words for a song in his back pocket – the poem he had written two years earlier – all he needed was a tune to go with it
So Joseph walked three kilometers, in the snow, to his friend Franz Gruber to see if he could help.
Joseph asked Franz to set his poem to music
The story goes that Gruber composed the music for Silent Night in just a few hours. God’s hand seems to have been involved

The music for Silent Night sounds like a lullaby – something a parent might sing to put their child to sleep

I wonder how Franz Gruber felt writing that music after having buried two if his children

Silent Night was first performed at midnight mass on Christmas Eve 1818, with the priest Joseph Mohr, playing guitar, while Franz Gruber and a choir gave vocal support. People loved it. It caught on and spread around the world.

You may be wondering what happened to Joseph and Franz after that – after all they were both still relatively young.

Joseph Mohr was only 26 at the time and Franz Gruber just 31
Well, Joseph served as a priest in various places for the rest of his life
He was a generous man and gave away most of his income
He created a fund to allow children from poor families to attend school and he set up a system for the care of the elderly.
Joseph Mohr died at the age of 55 from respiratory problems

Franz Gruber’s first wife, Maria, died in 1825

He married another woman, also called Maria, and they had 10 children
Sadly, only four survived to adulthood
Franz’ second wife died in childbirth. They were tough times
Franz Gruber lived with his losses until his 76^th year when he passed too

The meaning:

Please turn with me to Luke 2, page 76 toward the back of your pew Bibles

Silent Night remembers the night of Jesus’ birth
Mary & Joseph were from Nazareth but had to travel to Bethlehem, their home town, for a Roman census. From Luke chapter 2, verse 4, we read:

⁴Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea, the birthplace of King David. Joseph went there because he was a descendant of David. ⁵He went to register with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant, ⁶and while they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby. ⁷She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger—there was no room for them to stay in the inn.

The scene we often see on Christmas cards is of Mary, Jesus & Joseph in a stable full of animals

But this is a bit misleading. Most probably Jesus was born in the home of a peasant.
In Jesus’ day the standard home usually had two rooms – one room for the family and a second room attached for guests
The main family room was designed on two levels, with the upper level being where people slept and the lower level being where the animals were kept. [3]
The animals were taken out during the day and brought in to the lower level at night.
Having the animals in the house at night provided heat for the family and safety for the animals.

The honour/shame hospitality culture of the Middle East would have required the village to take Mary and Joseph in, especially as Mary was pregnant.

The men would have been ushered outside while Mary gave birth in the main family area with the help of other women from Bethlehem

In verse 7 of Luke 2 we read there was no room for them to stay in the inn

An inn in this situation is not a commercial establishment like a hotel or motel – it simply refers to the guest quarters attached to the private house in which Mary & Joseph were staying
Mary, Jesus and Joseph would ordinarily have been given the guest quarters but, because this was already occupied by others, the holy family stayed with their host family in the main room, with the animals kept separate downstairs
The manger (or feeding trough) in which Jesus was laid would have been refreshed with clean straw and brought up to the main family area away from the animals – you don’t leave a baby beside an ox

So, Jesus wasn’t born in a stable, like Hallmark would have us believe.

He was born in a regular peasant home with people on the upper level and animals on the lower level
While this was nothing flash, by our standards, it was the best the hosts could offer and quite acceptable for the time

In some ways the title of the song Silent Night seems almost ironic when compared with the Biblical account of Jesus’ birth

I expect it was noisy rather than quiet – a full house with people talking, animals bleating and the town teeming with people there for the census
What’s more giving birth isn’t usually a silent event – normally there is a fair bit of sound and commotion, sometimes screaming even
So why the repeated line of Silent night?

Well, I’m pretty sure Joseph Mohr wasn’t meaning to be ironic.

The night of Christ’s birth was a holy night and Christ is holy
To be holy is to be set apart as sacred or special
Holiness is an attribute of God
Keeping silent vigil is a form of worship, a sign of respect, a way of showing honour to that which is sacred
Spending the night in quiet contemplation of Christ’s birth is appropriate to the Christmas season
The kind of silence we are aiming for is inner silence – be still my soul

Of course, two years later (in 1818) when the organ wasn’t working, the words silent night took on a whole different meaning. The church organ was silent.

Verse 1 of the song reminds us that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus

The Scriptures tells us Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit and that her fiancé, Joseph, didn’t have sexual relations with her until sometime after Jesus was born.

The fourth line of verse 1, Holy Infant so tender and mild, reminds us of the vulnerability of God

Jesus didn’t come in a show of power or force – he came as a baby, tender & mild
The vulnerability of a child usually brings out the best in people

Heavenly peace is different to earthly peace

Earthly peace is often fragile and easily disturbed but heavenly peace is more lasting, eternally resilient
Heavenly peace speaks of peace in our relationship with God and others
With Jesus’ birth the peace of heaven comes to earth

Please return with me to Luke chapter 2 – page 76

Verse 2 of the song is straight out of Luke 2 – it describes a choir of angels appearing to shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem
From Luke 2, verses 8-14 we read…

⁸There were some shepherds in that part of the country who were spending the night in the fields, taking care of their flocks. ⁹An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone over them. They were terribly afraid, ¹⁰but the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid! I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people. ¹¹This very day in David’s town your Saviour was born—Christ the Lord! ¹²And this is what will prove it to you: you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.”

¹³Suddenly a great army of heaven’s angels appeared with the angel, singing praises to God: ¹⁴“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!”

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

Shepherds, at the time of Jesus, were looked down on by most people

They were somewhere near the bottom of the social ladder, usually poor and uneducated
Given their lowly status it is significant that God chose to announce the birth of His Son to shepherds and invite them to go and visit
The shepherds were in no doubt of their humble status and needed some convincing they would be welcome if they did try to visit the Messiah
So the angels told the shepherds they would find the baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger
This gave the shepherds confidence they wouldn’t be turned away [4]
The Messiah was humble just like them
They too wrapped their babies in strips of cloth and they too lived in ordinary peasant homes with animals and mangers in the same room as the human occupants.
The point is: with Jesus’ birth, God shared in our humanity

Verse 3 of the song reads: Silent night! Holy night! Son of God, love’s pure light. Radiant beams from Thy Holy Face, with the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy Birth! Jesus, Lord, at Thy Birth!

This stanza continues the theme of light

Jesus is the light of the world
Light is silent – it makes no sound
Metaphorically speaking, Jesus enters the world as silently as light
As the light of the world Jesus shows humankind what God’s love is like

Radiant beams from Thy Holy Face (that is, from Jesus’ face) reminds us of Aaron’s priestly blessing to the people of Israel in Numbers 6…

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.
‘Countenance’ is word which here means ‘facial expression’
To have ‘the Lord shine His face upon you’ and ‘lift up His countenance on you’, is to have God turn toward you and smile on you, show you favour, kindness and peace
Jesus shows us God’s face – He shows us God’s presence and attitude
God’s face is not a face like thunder. It is not a hard or angry face
God’s attitude toward humanity is revealed in the face of Jesus – a face of kindness, gentleness and compassion

Last week we heard how Jesus is the dayspring – with Jesus comes the dawn of redeeming grace

Redeeming grace has to do with setting us free from sin – whether that’s our own sin or the sin others have committed against us
Redeeming grace also has to do with the way God brings good out of a bad situation – as He did in Oberndorf in 1818
The church was flooded, the organ was caput and the Christmas Eve service looked like it might flop
But God, in His grace, redeemed the situation through a young priest and a grieving dad
Without that flood and broken organ we might not have Silent Night and humanity would be poorer for it

Jesus, Lord at Thy birth speaks of the inherent authority of Jesus

Jesus was born with a God given status – he didn’t have to prove himself
To call Jesus ‘Lord’ is to say that we will obey what he says

So they are the first three verses of Silent Night – they are the verses we are most familiar with. But Joseph Mohr wrote another three verses that we don’t sing very often. Verse 4 reads…

Silent Night, Holy Night. Here at last. Healing light from the heavenly kingdom sent, abundant grace for our intent. Jesus, salvation for all…

Some stains, like tomato sauce, only come out in sunshine

You can put your white T-shirt through the wash and it will fade the red sauce stain but to remove the stain completely you have to expose it to sunlight
Jesus is the healing, purifying light that gets the stain out of our soul

Abundant grace for our intent invites multiple interpretations

Grace means favour or gift – something good, given for free
God’s grace is abundant – there is plenty of it – or as the Lord said to the apostle Paul, ‘My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness.’
‘Our intent’ could mean our good intentions, which sometimes make things worse, or it could mean our evil intentions
Either way, ‘God is able to work all things for good for those who love him and are called according to His purpose.’

The refrain: Jesus, salvation for all, is poignant given Joseph Mohr’s history

There were some in Joseph’s day who might have excluded him because his parents weren’t married (he needed special dispensation to become a priest)
But the church did not exclude Joseph – they included him and encouraged his gifts and service
There is no such thing as an illegitimate child as far as God is concerned
Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these’.
In any case, God is not going to hold a child responsible for the choices their parents make
Jesus offers God’s salvation to all, but not everyone accepts it

Verse 5 reads: Silent Night! Holy Night. Sleeps the world in peace tonight. God sends his Son to earth below, a Child from whom all blessings flow. Jesus, embraces mankind…

In Genesis 12, God called Abraham and promised to bless all nations through him

Jesus is the Child from whom all blessings flow, meaning he is the descendant of Abraham who fulfils God’s promise to bless all people

Jesus embraces mankind. These days we would say ‘humankind’

Either way it’s a lovely image. An embrace says you are not alone, you are accepted. Through Jesus, God gives humanity a hug

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to perform a dedication ceremony for Natalie and her parents

When I took Natalie in my arms to give her a blessing she embraced me
It was unexpected and it touched my heart
Through Jesus, God embraces humankind like Natalie embraced me – in a way that is unexpected and touches our heart

Conclusion:

Our song ends on a note of hope: Silent Night, Holy Night. Mindful of mankind’s plight. The Lord in Heaven on high decreed from earthly woes we would be freed. Jesus, God’s promise for peace. Jesus, God’s promise for peace.

This verse talks about how life is difficult – we are subject to suffering and woe and grief now but, through faith in Jesus, we can look forward to a better future

In Revelation 21, verses 3 & 4 we read about that future…

“Now the dwelling of God is with humankind, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

The circumstances in which the song Silent Night came into being were less than ideal, in many ways, but that is fitting for the Christmas story really

The circumstances into which Jesus was born were less than ideal too
And yet that seems to be when God does His best work.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to (or sing) the song, ‘Silent Night’. What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does it evoke for you?)
How does Joseph Mohr’s story connect with Jesus’ story? Does Joseph’s story connect with your story in any way?
How does Franz Gruber’s story connect with Jesus’ story? Does Franz’ story connect with your story in any way?
In what ways does the tradition surrounding the story of Jesus’ birth differ from the probable historical reality?
Why do you think Joseph Mohr used the line ‘silent night’ to refer to the night of Jesus’ birth? What does it mean to be silent?
Why do you think God chose to announce Jesus’ birth to shepherds?
Can you think of a time in your own life when you have experienced God’s redeeming grace? What happened?
Which verse (or line) of the song do you identify with most? Why?

[1] https://time.com/3643889/christmas-truce-1914/

[2] 1 Peter 2:7b

[3] Refer Kenneth Bailey, ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’, pages 28-36.

[4] Ibid.

December 1, 2019 Tawa Baptist

O come, O come Immanuel

Scriptures: Matthew 1:22-23; Isaiah 11:1-10; Luke 1:78; Luke 19:1-10; Revelation 3:7-12

O come, O come Immanuel and ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel, shall come to thee, O Israel!

O come, O come Thou Lord of might, who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height

In ancient times didst give the law in cloud and majesty and awe.

O come, Thou rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;

From depths of hell Thy people save, and give them victory o’er the grave.

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by Thy justice here;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

O come, Thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home.

The captives from their prison free, and conquer death’s deep misery.

When we were training for ministry I remember one of our fellow students, who was Maori, explaining to us how Maori think:

Ka mura, Ka muri – we walk into the future backwards
[Walk backwards across the stage]
He was saying that we can’t see the future – we don’t know what’s coming – but when we look back at our heritage we see the way to go
It’s by looking to trustworthy examples from the past that we find a way forward.

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.
As we look back at these hymns we see where we have come from and it helps to show us the way forward.

With today being the first Sunday in Christmas Advent we will be taking a closer look at the hymn O come, O come Immanuel

This song is a hymn of hope centered around the advent (or coming) of Jesus
We can’t be sure who wrote the words for O come, O come Immanuel
It was originally a series of Latin chants prayed from around the seventh or eighth century AD/CE.

There were seven chants each containing a different Latin name for Christ:

Sapientia – which means Wisdom (Proverbs 8:22)
Adonai – which means Lord (Exodus 20:1)
Radix Jesse – the Root (or Rod) of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1)
Clavis David – Key of David (Rev. 3:7),
Oriens – which means Dayspring (Luke 1:78)
Rex Gentium – which means King of Nations (Hag. 2:7)
And Immanuel – God with us (Isaiah 7:14).

These seven chants were sung in anticipation of Christ’s birth on the seven evenings preceding Christmas Eve. [1]

The version we sing today has five verses (not seven) as it omits the verses about Christ being Wisdom and King of the Nations

Various people have translated the Latin into English at different times but the version we are most familiar with was translated by John Mason Neale in 1861

Although John Neale did not write the song (he only translated it) I think his story is worth mentioning because his work of translation came at great personal cost
Born in London in 1818, Neale studied at Cambridge, and was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1842.
He was offered a parish but chronic ill health prevented him from taking it. So, in 1846, Neale was put in charge of Sackville College, which was an alms house, sort of like emergency housing for the poor
In 1854 Neale co-founded the Sisterhood of St. Margaret, an order of women in the Anglican Church dedicated to nursing the sick.

In addition to his social work, in helping the sick and the poor, John Neale also translated many old hymns from other traditions of the Christian faith, like the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches

He did this at a time when there was a great divide between Anglicans and Catholics
Neale walked into the future backwards – he believed it was by looking to the past that the church would find a way forward
Unfortunately, Neale was misunderstood by his fellow Anglicans
People thought he was an agent of the Vatican, assigned to destroy the Anglican Church by subverting it from within.
Once he was attacked at a funeral and, from time to time, unruly crowds threatened to stone him or burn his house to the ground.
It’s amazing how times have changed.
Because of the courage and vision of people like Neale we now sing from the same hymn sheet as it were and enjoy good relationships with other denominations.
(Speaking of which, I hope to see you at the combined Advent service at Our Lady of Fatima (Catholic) church here in Tawa this evening. 7pm.)
John Neale persevered and his basic goodness eventually won the confidence of many who had fiercely opposed him.
The Sisterhood of St. Margaret survived and prospered, as did many of the hymns he translated. [2]
More than anyone else, John Mason Neale made English-speaking congregations aware of the centuries-old tradition of Latin, Greek, Russian, and Syrian hymns.

Each verse of O come, O come Immanuel begins with a request, a heartfelt prayer, for Christ to come to his people

O come Immanuel, O come Thou Lord of might, O come Thou rod of Jesse, O come Thou Key of David, come
And each verse is answered by the refrain: Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

Advent means coming – during Advent we remember Jesus’ first coming to earth 2000 years ago and we remember he will come again in glory

The Christian belief we find in these verses is that we don’t come to God – God comes to us
It is impossible for us to come to God in our own strength – we can’t get to heaven. Rather God brings heaven to earth, in the form of Jesus.

It may seem strange to us how the words rejoice, rejoice, are sung in such a sad way – but the music is entirely appropriate to the meaning of the song

The tune for O come, O come Immanuel is called VENI EMMANUEL
This tune is thought to come from a 15^th century funeral chant that had belonged to French Franciscan nuns
So the tune is sad because it was used in funeral processions
The people who sing this are grieving, downtrodden and oppressed
They feel like they are struggling under a heavy yoke and God is absent
That’s why they are calling, yearning, for God’s presence
Their circumstances are far from ideal – they want heaven on earth
The rejoicing that is called for in the refrain is a rejoicing in faith and hope that God is coming.
It is the sober rejoicing of a prisoner who, despite still being locked up, knows they will be released soon

For many people Christmas is a season of mixed feelings – it is supposed to be a time of celebration but often it is a time when we feel our losses most keenly

We need a song like O come, O come Immanuel, that enables us to face our grief

Immanuel is one of the names for Jesus

We find the title ‘Immanuel’ in the prophecies of Isaiah and then Matthew ascribes this title to Jesus in his gospel.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” – which means ‘God with us’. [3]

Jesus is God with us

Have you ever notice how physical labour is so much easier when you are doing it with someone else, as opposed to doing it on your own
It’s not just that you get through the work quicker. There’s a kind of emotional support or buoyancy in working with someone else
Trimming the hedge, doing the housework, cutting a tree down, digging a trench, building a fence, whatever it is, it seems less onerous, less heavy when you have someone fit and skilled working with you
Some of my best memories as a kid were doing jobs on the weekend with my dad and grandad
Jesus is God with us. He comes alongside us (so we are not alone) and he helps us with our work of trusting and obeying God

Verse 1 reads: O come, O come Immanuel and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.

We walk into the future backwards

It’s by looking to the past that we find a way forward.
Verse one looks back to Israel’s exile to Babylon
In 586 BC Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians
Many Israelis were killed and the survivors were taken captive and sent into exile in a strange land
It was a time of mourning, a time of feeling like God was absent, a time of waiting for God to ransom them, to set them free
It wasn’t until 70 years later the people were allowed to return and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and the temple

We may feel at odds with the world we live in at times

We may feel like exiles – that we don’t belong and are not free
We may identify with Israel in feeling alienated and alone
We may wonder what the future holds
But as we look back to Israel’s experience we see how God did not forget His people – God set His people free and some centuries later He sent His Son Jesus, our Immanuel. Jesus will return in glory one day

Verse 2 reads: O come, O come, Thou Lord of might, who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height in ancient times didst give the law in cloud and majesty and awe.

Thou is an old English word for You and Thy equates to Your – so it’s like saying, ‘O come You Lord of might, who to Your tribes on Sinai’s height…’

This verse of the hymn looks back to the time of Moses and the people Israel in the wilderness after they were set free from slavery in Egypt

God did many mighty things to inspire faith and awe…
He separated the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross,
He provided water out of a rock,
He gave manna and quail to feed the people in the wilderness,
He led the people by a pillar of cloud and fire
And, at Mount Sinai, God gave the Law, including the 10 commandments

The Law is like a set of clothes – it enabled Israel to stand before God

Without the Law we are naked before God
God gave the Israelites the Law so they could stand in right relationship with Him
When we are baptized we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ
Christ fulfills the Law – he gives us a new set of clothes so we can stand before God without shame

Jesus, whose name in Hebrew is Joshua, is Moses’ successor

Just as Moses was God’s representative leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, so too Jesus leads all who trust him out of the slavery of sin and death and into the promised land of God’s kingdom

There may be times when we feel like we are walking around in circles in the wilderness, like we are lost in our journey of faith, and we are not sure what comes next

We walk into the future backwards
We look at how God provided for His people in the wilderness of Sinai and we trust Him to lead us to the Promised Land, the kingdom of heaven

Verse 3 of the hymn says: O come, Thou rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s tyranny; from depths of hell Thy people save, and give them victory over the grave.

Rod of Jesse (or root of Jesse) is a reference to Jesus, the Messiah

Jesse was the father of king David
The term Rod of Jesse comes from Isaiah 11 where the prophets says in verses 1 & 10…

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. ²The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might…

¹⁰In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.

Then, right at the end of the Bible in Revelation 22, Jesus says to John…

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Off-spring of David…”

The point is, Jesus is a king in the line of David but he isn’t exactly like David – he’s better than David.

David did some good things for Israel but he wasn’t the most righteous king, as we heard about a couple of Sundays ago (with Bathsheba).
Jesus is righteous though.

Verse 3 of the hymn talks about Jesus freeing people from Satan’s tyranny.

In his earthly ministry Jesus demonstrated time and time again his power to release people from sickness and demon possession with just a word
Verse 3 also talks about Jesus saving people from the depths of hell and giving us victory over the grave
This has to do with resurrection to eternal life
The message of Jesus’ resurrection was front and centre of the preaching of the early apostles
People in the middle ages, when these words were written, had a vivid imagination when it came to hell
Jesus certainly preached about hell using colourful metaphors, but whether his imagery was meant to be taken literally is debatable.

One of my motivations in becoming a Christian (initially) was to avoid hell

If you accept Jesus as your saviour now, you get to go to heaven when you die – that was how it was pitched to me
While God is gracious enough to accept people on that basis, I have found it is not a particularly robust or adequate theology for this life
If your main reason for being a Christian is to avoid hell, then your life and relationship with God will be based on fear
God wants the basis of our relationship with Him to be one of faith expressing itself in love,[4] not fear expressing itself in resentment
If our only reason for being a Christian is to avoid hell, then we will end up resenting God. The aim is to love God. Perfect love drives out fear.

There may be times when we fear what awaits us in the next life

I can’t tell you anything about hell – I’ve not been there and I can’t see beyond the grave
We walk into the future backwards
We find hope for our future beyond death by looking back to Jesus
God raised Jesus from the dead – the first of many. Jesus is our hope
As we read in Romans 10: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Verse 4 reads: O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by Thy justice here; disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Dayspring is a word we don’t hear very often these days – it means dawn of the morning, the first light of daybreak

Jesus is the dayspring – his advent (his coming) heralds the new day
In fact, Jesus is the light of the world – he is the dawn of a new age in human history where God’s kingdom comes to earth like a sunrise

We find a number references in the Scriptures to Jesus being the dayspring. For example, Isaiah 60, verse 1: Arise shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Or Malachi 4, verse 2: But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings
And most famously, the words of Zechariah (the father of John Baptist) when his son was born,
You remember Zechariah couldn’t speak while Elizabeth was pregnant with John. But when John was born Zechariah’s tongue was loosed and this is what he said, from Luke 1, verse 78:
By the tender mercy of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
These verses are talking about Jesus, the dayspring

Returning to verse 4 of the song: we notice that the human spirit is cheered up (given a lift) by the justice of Christ

The justice of Christ is medicine to our soul because it restores people, rather than destroying them.
The classic story of Jesus’ restorative justice is the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19
Jesus doesn’t approach Zacchaeus all guns blazing – he doesn’t shame or destroy Zacchaeus
Jesus shows honour to Zacchaeus by having dinner at his place
In doing this Jesus gives Zacchaeus the opportunity to redeem himself and be restored to his community
And Zacchaeus takes the opportunity with both hands saying:
I will give half my belongings to the poor and if I have cheated anyone I will pay them back four times as much.
This is the wise and gentle justice of Jesus – it’s a justice that benefits everyone

There may be times when we harbour guilt for the unfair way we have treated others. Or, conversely, there may be times when we harbour anger for the unfair way other people have treated us

We walk into the future backwards
When we look back at the way Jesus restored people, the way he made things right, we see the way forward in our relationships

The last verse of our hymn today reads: O come Thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home. The captives from their prison free, and conquer death’s deep misery.

Jesus came to set the captives free. At the same time Jesus is the door or the key by which we enter the kingdom of heaven

The expression ‘Key of David’ first appears in Isaiah 22:22 and is then picked up again in Revelation. Please turn with me to Revelation chapter 3, page 309 toward the back of your pew Bibles

In Revelation 2 & 3 Jesus gives a message to each of the seven churches of the first Century
Some of the churches get a bit of a serve – Jesus is not happy with them
But to the church in Philadelphia Jesus has a word of encouragement
From Revelation chapter 3, verse 7, we read…

⁷“To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

“This is the message from the one who is holy and true. He has the key that belonged to David, and when he opens a door, no one can close it, and when he closes it, no one can open it. ⁸I know what you do; I know that you have a little power; you have followed my teaching and have been faithful to me. I have opened a door in front of you, which no one can close. ⁹Listen! As for that group that belongs to Satan, those liars who claim that they are Jews but are not, I will make them come and bow down at your feet. They will all know that I love you. ¹⁰Because you have kept my command to endure, I will also keep you safe from the time of trouble which is coming upon the world to test all the people on earth. ¹¹I am coming soon. Keep safe what you have, so that no one will rob you of your victory prize.

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

Whoever wrote this last verse of O come, O come Immanuel identified with the church in Philadelphia

This was a church that was not powerful, not successful, not popular, but it was faithful
There may be times when we feel powerless or like we are trapped – forced to live a life not of our choosing
When you feel trapped and powerless to do anything about it, where do you go next?
We walk into the future backwards
When we look back at the way Jesus encouraged the church of Philadelphia we find hope and a way forward
Jesus is the Key of David – he’s the one who unlocks the door and opens a way for us to walk in freedom – but we need to be faithful, we need to endure.

Do you feel like you are in exile, at odds with the world around you?

You are not alone. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.

Do you feel like you are lost in the wilderness, naked before God?

You are found. Jesus is the Lord of might, able to provide for you.

Do you feel afraid – anxious of evil, anxious of death, anxious of hell?

Do not be afraid. Jesus is the rod of Jesse. He has conquered death. You belong to Christ.

Do you feel guilty for the injustice you have done? Or do you feel angry at the injustice done to you?

Peace is coming. Jesus is the Dayspring. The light of his justice makes all things new.

Do you feel trapped and powerless, weak and small?

You are blessed. Jesus is the Key of David. He comes to open the way for those who remain faithful to him.

Let’s stand and sing O come, O come Immanuel as we prepare for communion

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to (or sing) the song, ‘O come, O come Immanuel’. What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does it evoke for you?)
What does the proverb, ‘we walk into the future backwards’ mean? How does this relate to our Christian faith?
How do you feel about Christmas?
What difference does it make knowing that Christ will return one day – that he will come to us?
Discuss / reflect on the meaning of the five names/images used for Jesus in this hymn – i.e. Immanuel, Lord of might, Rod of Jesse, Dayspring and Key of David. Which name / image speaks most clearly to your current situation?
Why did you become a Christian? (What is the basis of your relationship with God?) How might we move from a relationship with God based on ‘fear expressing itself in resentment’, to one based on ‘faith expressing itself in love’?
What are some characteristics of Jesus’ justice?
Which verse of the hymn do you identify with most? Verse 1, being in exile? Verse 2, being in the wilderness? Verse 3, being afraid? Verse 4, needing justice? Verse 5, feeling trapped?

[1] https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/o-come-o-come-emmanuel

[2] http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/220.html

[3] Matthew 1:22-23

[4] Galatians 5:6

November 24, 2019 Tawa Baptist

Be Thou my Vision

Scriptures: Revelation 7:14-17; Proverbs 3:5-8; Ephesians 6:12-17;

Philippians 3:10-11; Matthew 6:1-4 & 19-24, among others.

Be Thou my Vision:

Good things take time, whether that’s aging cheese or wine, cooking and resting meat, waiting a few years for a tree to fruit or developing friendship and trust

Good things take time

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 history of our faith.

Today’s song is Be Thou my Vision 

Thou is an old English word which simply means you
So, Be Thou my Vision means ‘God, You be my vision’

‘Be Thou my Vision’ is a song that took a long time

It started as a poem, that lay dormant for many centuries, before the words were married to a tune and people started singing it in worship.
It is rich in history

At the church AGM last August, we presented Jason with a gavel for his many years’ service as chair of the Deacons board

The gavel was made by Bryan Hawkins, who turned the wood himself
The handle was made from a church pew, the head from a Tawa tree from Peterhouse Street and the stand was made from Rimu taken from the Tararua Ranges in 1992.
In some ways Be Thou my Vision is a bit like Jason’s gavel – it is a song recycled from some historically significant materials
Before we look at the lyrics though, let’s consider the history of the song and how it came into being.

The tune for Be Thou my Vision is simply called ‘Slane’, after a village in Ireland called Slane.

The ‘Slane’ tune wasn’t originally church music – it was non-liturgical, meaning it wasn’t a Christian worship song. It was a tune people might sing in the pub or around an open fire at home.
There is a longstanding practice, in Irish worship music, of using traditional folk tunes to sing liturgical texts.
It would be akin taking a classic pop song (like Unchained Melody or Candle in the Wind or Let it be) and putting Christian words to it
Using mainstream music in worship was genius really – it meant everyone was familiar with the tune regardless of their background
It created a bridge, making it easier for non-Christians and new Christians to feel at home singing in church

Having said that, there is still a Christian connection with the Slane tune

On the wall here is a picture of the ruins of Slane Abbey
It was on Slane Hill in County Meath around 433 AD/CE that St. Patrick lit candles on Easter Eve, defying a decree by High King Logaire
The king had said that no one could light a flame before he signaled the beginning of the pagan spring festival by lighting a fire on Tara Hill.
Like the prophet Daniel, Saint Patrick risked his life in going against the king’s orders
King Logaire was so impressed by Patrick’s courage and devotion that, despite his defiance, Patrick was permitted to continue his work as Ireland’s first Christian missionary.

The words for Be Thou my Vision are based on an old Irish poem

The experts are not agreed on who wrote the poem
Some attribute the poem to St Dallan who lived during the 6^th century AD
Others say it was written later than that, around the 8^th Century or even the 10^th Century, by someone else who attached St Dallan’s name to it
Maybe they did this as a tribute to St Dallan or maybe they hoped to give the poem notoriety by associating it with a famous poet.
Whoever wrote it there seems to be a connection with St Dallan
So who was he?

Born in 530 AD, Saint Dallan’s given name was Eochaidh. He was given the nick name ‘Dallan’, meaning ‘little blind one’, because he lost his sight, apparently as a result of intensive study – such was his devotion to God

The words, ‘Be Thou my Vision’ take on a whole new meaning when one is blind and can’t see.
Dallan had to rely on God – he knew first-hand what it meant to walk by faith and not by sight. We need the spiritual vision that faith provides.

Saint Dallan’s poem, which is actually a prayer, was written in an old form of the Irish language, which meant it wasn’t accessible to many people in the modern English speaking world

It may have been lost to us except for the work of Mary Byrne who translated the Old Irish text into English in 1905
The English version was then versified by Eleanor Hull in 1912
But Eleanor’s version of the words of “Be Thou My Vision” wasn’t combined with the tune of Slane and sung in churches until 1919.
It could not have come at a more needed time

1919 was a difficult year in human history

People had suffered so much pointless loss as a consequence of the First World War (1914-1918).
Then, following hard on the heels of the Great War, came the flu epidemic which killed even more people than the war
The general population was blinded with grief and loss
In that historical context it was difficult to see God’s hand for good
As a consequence, there arose a movement known as ‘protest atheism’
Protest atheism is different from the lazy practical atheism of today
Protest atheism was the sort of atheism a Christian can have sympathy for
With protest atheism a person wants to believe that God is good and kind, just and merciful but their experience just can’t sustain that belief
How can God be loving when there is so much suffering in the world?
If one can’t see that God is good then one refuses to trust him, in protest
Like Owen Marshall said, ‘The world is divided between those who face the world with a religion, and those who wish to but have only irony in its place.’ [1]

During my twenties I went through a rough time. My experience caused me to question many of the things I had been taught to believe about God.

Part of that process of disorientation led me to toy with protest atheism. But I found it didn’t work.
Life loses all meaning when we try to take God out of the picture.
In the end I had to admit, some things are unknowable
Some things I just can’t see or understand
Some things I am blind to and I just have to trust that God will be my vision – that He can see and make sense of what I can’t.

While it is true to say that this life is not always fair, we need to keep in mind that this life is not all there is. There is more to the picture than meets the eye

We need God to be our vision when we are blinded by our pain
We need to remember that Jesus will return one day to make all things new – to bring an end to war and sickness, death and suffering

In the book of Revelation, the apostle John records a vision he received from God. In chapter 7 we read of John’s vision for those who suffer and remain loyal to Christ…

“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation…

‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Be Thou my vision, has been sung in churches for the last 100 years. It still speaks to our generation today.

It is an acknowledgment of our blindness, for we are all blind in our own way. None of us sees the whole picture.
Each us needs to see God’s hand for good in the world and in our own lives personally
All of us need God to give us a picture of the future which inspires hope
And when we can’t see a good future – when we lose our hope – we need God to be our vision

The vision of hope and goodness that God gives is Jesus

O Lord of my heart; is a reference to Jesus.
I am reminded of Saul of Tarsus (the zealous Pharisee) who sincerely believed the followers of Jesus were wrong and needed to be stopped
Saul hunted Christians down and persecuted them, fully convinced he was doing the right thing by God. But Saul was spiritually blind
So God gave Saul a vision of the risen Jesus on the Road to Damascus
And Saul was physically blinded by the light of Christ (blinded by the light), but at the same time he had the eyes of his heart opened to see that Jesus is Lord and he had actually been persecuting the Messiah
Saul repented, his sight was restored, he was renamed Paul and went on to promote the gospel of Christ
The vision we need, the vision this hymn is asking for, is a vision of Jesus

The vision statement of this church is ‘Christ in community’

We want to see Christ at work in our own faith community and the wider community outside the church
We need the vision (the eyes) to see where Jesus is active and work in harmony with him and his purpose.

Ed Sheeran has a song called ‘Photograph’. In it we find these lines…

You can fit me inside the necklace you got when you were sixteen
Next to your heartbeat where I should be, keep it deep within your soul
I doubt that Ed was thinking of Jesus when he wrote that song but those lines come close to expressing the meaning of the opening verse of ‘Be Thou my Vision’

Some of you may have a locket that you wear around your neck, with a photograph of someone you love in it

The locket with the photo is always close to your heart
Others of you may keep a photo of your loved ones in your wallet or on your phone so whenever you go to pay for something you see your family
Each of us needs a vision (a picture) of Jesus to sustain us
Jesus shows us what God is like and he shows us how to be human

Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art is a difficult line to understand

I think it basically means, ‘Jesus, I want you to be number one in my life’
‘Jesus, I want to give you my best and not divide my loyalty.’

Thou my best thought, by day or by night, both waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

God’s presence is often associated with light in the Bible
Light is silent. Light reveals the truth. Light is a symbol of goodness
Light is security, it dispels fear. This line is a prayer for inner light – for the truth and goodness of Christ to illuminate our mind

In Psalm 139 David celebrates the light of God’s presence with him always…

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
God’s presence is with us always, whether we are conscious of it or not

Verse 2: Be Thou my Wisdom, be Thou my true word; is an acknowledgment that wisdom and truth come from God, not from ourselves.

In Proverbs 3, verses 5-8 we read…

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. ⁷Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. ⁸This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.

Vision is connected to wisdom. Wisdom and truth help us to see the way to go.

Verse 2 of the song continues: I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, and I Thy true son;

These lines are talking about a close family relationship with God
The phrase, I Thy true son, may jar with us these days, but it is not meant to exclude women. The point is: a true child of God obeys God the Father
In Matthew 21 Jesus tells a parable of two sons.
The father asks the first son to go and work in the vineyard.
The first son says he will but then he doesn’t
So the father asks the second son to go and work in the vineyard.
The second son refuses, but then he goes and does what his father asks
The true child of God is the one who obeys God.
We need wisdom to obey God.

Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one is talking about eternal life

Eternal life isn’t just living forever. Eternal life describes a certain quality of relationship with God – a relationship of closeness and intimacy, where God dwells in us by His Spirit and we dwell in Christ.

Verse 3: Be Thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight; Thou my whole armour, Thou my true might; this is clearly a reference to the armour of God described in Ephesians 6

The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
We might not identify with the battle imagery we find in many of the older hymns but that’s only because most of us don’t know what it is to be in a war (for which we can thank God)
Ireland, at the time these verses were first written, was plagued with fighting.
And, as I mentioned earlier, the realities of war were still fresh in the minds of many in 1919 when this hymn was first being sung in churches

Verse 3 is essentially asking God to be our security

Be Thou my soul’s shelter, be Thou my high tower, these words are straight out of the psalms. God is a sanctuary and fortress for us.
God is our security.

O raise Thou me heavenward, great power of my power, is talking about resurrection. The power of God’s love is greater than the power of death

The same power that raised Christ from the dead is at work in us who believe. In Philippians 3, verse 10, Paul writes…
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

In 598 Saint Dallan was visiting his friend Saint Conall at Inishskeel when pirates raided the island monastery.

Dallan turned the other cheek. He did not resist when attacked and was beheaded by the pirates.
A peaceful man come to a violent end, much like Christ
Dallan shared in the sufferings of Christ, becoming like him in death and so he shares in Christ’s resurrection – he is raised heavenward.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, the first in my heart,
O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure Thou art.

This verse finds its inspiration from Matthew 6 where Jesus says…

¹⁹“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ²²“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. ²³But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! ²⁴“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

In Matthew 6 Jesus makes a connection between our vision (our eyes) and what we value or treasure

Money (or mammon – the god of wealth) can blind us to what is really important. If we give our lives to making money, we lose our way.
But when our eyes are fixed on a vision of Jesus (who is the light of the world) we can see the path we are to follow.

As much as possible we try to have a mixture of old and new songs in our Sunday liturgy

Some people think this is a strategy to try and keep everyone happy but that’s not my purpose.
One of the main reasons we include a variety of songs (old and new) is so that we get a good variety in our theological diet
How many new worship songs do you know that talk about money?
Not many, if any. And yet Jesus had quite a bit to say about money, particularly the way it competes for our loyalty with God
What’s more, financial giving is part of our worship
If we didn’t sing old hymns like Be Thou my Vision, then we might never think how money affects our relationship with God, except when the preacher does an occasional sermon on it
This is not to say new songs don’t have their place. They do.
The new songs tend to fill in the theological gaps of the older hymns and vice versa

Verse 4 of the hymn also has that line about not heeding man’s praise.

This relates to what Jesus says at the beginning of Matthew 6 …

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. ²“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ³But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

As Oswald Chambers prayed: ‘Lord, save me from the praise and blame of others’.

In the same way that money can blind us to the things of God, so too the opinion of others can obscure our vision
The idea with worship is that God is the audience.
Whatever form our worship may take, whether that’s singing or giving to the poor or doing justice, our motivation needs to be self-giving love and devotion to God, not self-centered love or devotion to our ego

In 1972 Carly Simon wrote a song called ‘You’re so vain’ – it was allegedly about Warren Beatty. The chorus goes…

You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you. You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you, don’t you?
When we sing the song Be Thou my Vision, we are praying, ‘Lord it’s not about me. It’s about you. Don’t let my life or my worship be vain.
Let my orientation, my perspective, my focus be you and not myself.’

The final verse of Be Thou my Vision, as we sing it, reads…

High King of Heaven, Thou heaven’s bright sun,
O grant me its joys, after victory is won.
Great heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be Thou my vision, O ruler of all.

A more literal translation, of the old Irish poem, reads like this…

O King of the seven heavens grant me this —
Thy love to be in my heart and in my soul.

With the King of all, with him after victory won by piety,
May I be in the kingdom of heaven O brightness of the son.

Beloved Father, hear, hear my lamentations.
Timely is the cry of woe of this miserable wretch.

O heart of my heart, whatever befall me,
O ruler of all, be Thou my vision.

This more literal version shows us the meaning between the lines

What really matters is not wealth or the opinion of others but whether we have the love of God in our heart and whether we are included in the kingdom of heaven
The author of this poem has suffered much and, like the psalmists of old, wants God the Father to hear his lamentations
A lamentation is a passionate expression of grief – it is a song of sorrow
For many years I thought of this as an inspirational song, almost a victory march. But it’s not.
It is actually the outpouring of the broken hearted – more like a country song. Timely is the cry of woe of this miserable wretch.

Life is difficult. God does not promise us a life free of suffering

What God does promise, when we place our trust in Jesus, is his presence, whatever may befall us in this life,
And heaven in the life to come.
What we need, to get us through, is a vision of Christ

Let’s stand and sing: Be Thou my Vision

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to (or sing) the song, ‘Be Thou my Vision’. What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does it evoke for you?)
What significance (meaning) would Be Thou my Vision have held for people in 1919? In what ways does it speak to our generation in 2019? Which of the verses (or lines) are most relevant to you?
How does God answer our prayer for a vision? (Who does he give us?)
How does money (and the opinion of others) blind us to the things of God? What is the remedy?
Why does our liturgy (play list) need to have a variety of older & newer worship songs?
What (secular) pop song would you like to give Christian worship lyrics to? Why not have a go writing your own lyrics?

[1] From Owen Marshall’s poem, ‘The Divided World’.

November 17, 2019 Tawa Baptist

Create in me a clean heart

Scriptures: Psalm 51 and 2^nd Samuel 11 & 12

Structure:

Introduction
Keith Green
King David
Psalm 51
Conclusion

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a right spirit within me;

Cast me not away from Your presence, O Lord

Take not Your Holy Spirit from me;

Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation,

And renew a right spirit within me.

Introduction:

Some of you may have seen the movie Rocketman recently

It’s a bio pic about the life of Elton John
Elton John is of course an incredibly talented musician, but he didn’t write all those hits songs on his own – many of his songs are a collaboration with Bernie Taupin
Bernie was the lyricist – he wrote the words and gave them to Elton who then put them to music.

Last week we began a new sermon series called ‘Anthems’

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 history of our faith.
The purpose is not to find fault with the words but to help us interpret the songs in the best possible light.

Today’s song is called, Create in me a clean heart

This song is a collaboration between king David, Keith Green and the Holy Spirit
The lyrics were written by David roughly 3,000 years ago, I’m not sure who wrote the tune we sing it to but it was covered by Keith Green about 40 years ago.
Before we get to king David though, let’s consider Keith Green’s life

Keith Green:

For Keith Green it was all about glorifying God. This is what Keith says…

The only music minister to whom the Lord will say, ‘Well done, thy good and faithful servant’, is the one whose life proves what their lyrics are saying, and to whom music is the least important part of their life. Glorifying the only worthy One has to be the minister’s most important goal.

Keith Green was born in 1953 is New York, into a show biz family

Like king David, Keith was Jewish, although unlike David, Keith’s family didn’t practice the Jewish faith
Keith was genuinely gifted, a child star. At the age of 11 he landed a five-year contract with industry giant Decca Records
Time magazine hailed him as a ‘prepubescent dreamboat” who “croons in a voice trembling with conviction…”
Keith was poised to become the next teen heart throb until Donny Osmond beat him to it. Worldly success didn’t happen for Keith.

In the 1960’s, at the age of 15, Keith ran away from home in search of girls, drugs and the promise of universal love preached by the hippie movement

This was a time when the west was discovering the east and so Keith looked to eastern religions to try and find spiritual truth
As he devoured the writings of the religious ‘masters’ one thing struck him as odd: their teachings kept referring to Jesus Christ, but Jesus was at the bottom of Keith’s list.
Eventually, one day in 1973 after much trial and error, when he had exhausted every other option Keith bought a cross, put it on and alone, through tears prayed in desperation, “Jesus, if you’re there, show yourself to me.” And Jesus did. The love of Jesus broke through.

In the gospel Jesus says, those who have been forgiven much, love much.

Keith Green had been forgiven much and so his love for Jesus was very strong. Keith had a tremendous energy and passion to see others come to faith in Jesus and it showed in the songs he wrote
Between 1977 and 1982 Keith released five gospel albums
But he wasn’t just a performer – Keith was the real deal.
He and his wife Melody opened their home in radical hospitality to people in need and they gave away most of the money they earned
They also wrote an evangelical magazine called Last Days
Some people saw Keith Green as a prophet, because his songs called the church to repentance, but he was never comfortable with that label.

Sadly, in July 1982, just a few months before his 29^th birthday, Keith died in a plane crash. It was around this time I became a Christian and was baptized.

King David:

Create in me a clean heart is a simple song based on verses 10-12 of Psalm 51

It is essentially a prayer for conversion from the inside out – a heartfelt request for real and lasting change to one’s self

The sub-title to psalm 51 reads: A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone into Bathsheba.

To put you in the picture, David has, by this stage, been king for a number of years and has enjoyed quite a bit of success
While his army is away fighting David stays home in his palace
One evening he looks out over his balcony and sees a beautiful woman bathing. Like the Bruce Springsteen song, David is on fire.
Maybe it is the loneliness of leadership?
Maybe it’s the corrupting influence of power?
Or maybe David has simply grown complacent in his prosperity?
Whatever the reason, David must have this woman and invites her to his room. Her name is Bathsheba.
One thing leads to another and Bathsheba gets pregnant.

This is not a good look for David. David wants to cover his tracks, to hide what he has done

Bathsheba is married to Uriah the Hittite. Uriah is a good guy. He is actually away fighting in David’s army
David calls Uriah back from the front line, tries to get him drunk and then sends him home in the hope he will sleep with Bathsheba
That way no one will know what David has done – everyone will think the baby is Uriah’s.
Well not quite everyone. God knows. But David puts God out of his mind. David behaves as though God does not exist. Practical atheism.

Unfortunately for David, Uriah is a real boy scout and instead of going home to get reacquainted with his wife, Uriah sleeps on the doorstep of David’s palace.

He can’t stand the thought of taking any comfort for himself while his brothers in arms are sleeping rough in fox holes.
This means David has to resort to Plan B. He sends Uriah back to the front and a messenger follows.
The message is for Joab, the commander of David’s army. David wants Joab to put Uriah where the fighting is heaviest and then fall back so Uriah gets killed by the enemy.
Joab is a soldier. He follows orders and it is done. Uriah dies in battle and, after the time of mourning, Bathsheba becomes David’s wife.

David thinks he is in the clear. Yes, he’s having trouble sleeping and like Lady MacBeth he just can’t seem to get rid of that damn spot, but at least his reputation is intact. Then Nathan, the prophet, turns up

Nathan is wise in his approach. He doesn’t confront the issue head on. That would only make David angry and defensive.
Instead Nathan goes for the sucker punch. He tells David a parable [1]

“There were two men who lived in the same town; one was rich and the other poor. ²The rich man had many cattle and sheep, ³while the poor man had only one lamb, which he had bought. He took care of it, and it grew up in his home with his children. He would feed it some of his own food, let it drink from his cup, and hold it in his lap. The lamb was like a daughter to him. ⁴One day a visitor arrived at the rich man’s home. The rich man didn’t want to kill one of his own animals to fix a meal for him; instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared a meal for his guest.”

⁵David became very angry at the rich man and said, “I swear by the living Lord that the man who did this ought to die! ⁶For having done such a cruel thing, he must pay back four times as much as he took.”

Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man”.

All at once David knew it saying, ‘I have sinned against the Lord’. Then he goes on to compose Psalm 51.

Psalm 51:

As I said before, the words we sung earlier are just a handful of lines from David’s original song.

They capture the essence of the psalm but to understand them properly we need to hear them in the context of the whole
From verse 1 we read…

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

These opening verses summarise the psalm – David wants mercy from God. Previously he had wanted justice. Now that he sees himself as he is, he wants mercy.

David’s plea for mercy shows what he believes about God’s character – that God is gracious and good.
Someone once said that faith is believing that God accepts me even though I am unacceptable.
David knows he is unacceptable and yet he has the faith to believe that God is generous enough to forgive him and accept him.

David doesn’t rely on his own good works to save him – he doesn’t say to God, ‘I’ve done a lot of good things for you and Israel over the years Lord. Remember what I did with Goliath. How about you let this slide.’

Rather, David relies on God’s steadfast love and mercy, God’s hesed.

David describes his wrong doing with the words: iniquity, transgressions & sin

They are essentially three ways of saying the same thing, although each word has a different nuance.
Iniquity is any act of injustice
Transgressions refers to the ways David has crossed the line of God’s law (in this case coveting, adultery, murder and lying)
While sin is more a state of being in which we act independently of God, as though God did not exist.

The word wash, as in ‘wash me thoroughly’ is the same word that is used for washing clothes

In David’s day, people got stains out of clothes by rubbing the fabric together or by beating the clothes on a rock
For David to ask God to ‘wash me thoroughly’ then, is to invite some rough treatment for his sin – David does not expect cheap grace.
God’s forgiveness of David did not mean David got off scot free.
In 2nd Samuel 12 the prophet Nathan tells David that, while he is forgiven, his child to Bathsheba will die and the sword will never depart from David’s house. God is merciful but he’s also just.

From verse 3 we continue…

3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

These verses contain David’s confession. Often when we mess up in some way, our first instinct is to deny our wrong doing or make excuses or blame someone else. David does not do this. David admits he is wrong and God is right. No excuses.

At the beginning of verse 4 David says he has sinned against God alone, which jars with us a bit because clearly David’s iniquity has affected Uriah, Bathsheba, the nation of Israel, his family and himself as well.

I think David is using the word sinned in the sense of operating independently of God, behaving as though God did not exist.
The point is, sin is first and foremost an affront to God
So often we judge ourselves by the ethic of: “It’s okay as long as I don’t harm anyone else.”
But in saying that, we exclude God. We don’t consider God as a person
We forget how our actions affect the Lord.
As offensive as David’s behaviour was to other human beings, it was even more offensive to God.

Derek Kidner observes the change in David’s attitude here…[2]

Previously David’s only concern was, ‘How do I cover my tracks?’ How do I protect myself and my reputation?
Now David is more concerned with ‘How could I treat God like this?’

David is not blaming his mother or his parents in verse 5, where he talks about being guilty even in the womb

No. David is saying the problem is with me. My character is deeply flawed. I have always been prone to sin. I am to blame.

From verse 6 we read…

6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore, teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
The problem is inside us. Sin starts with a lie, with stinking thinking.
We need God to teach us the wisdom of being honest with ourselves so we can think straight – then change will happen from the inside out.

Verse 7: 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

When a priest declared a leper clean and fit to re-join the community they would dip the branch of a hyssop tree in sacrificial blood and sprinkle the person seven times. David is comparing himself to a leper.
Jesus’ blood, sprinkled on us, makes us clean.
The word purge is equivalent to ‘de-sin’ [3] – in other words, ‘remove from me any desire to be independent of you God’.

Verse 8: 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

The weight of David’s guilt is crushing him deep inside and, like broken bones, it is extremely painful, not to mention paralysing
He can’t enjoy anything because of his guilt.

And so we get to the verses we sing in church…

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

The words create and renew go together. They refer to something only God can do. David is asking for a miracle of transformation, a deep conversion of himself from the inside out

In the Genesis account of creation God brings order to the chaos, so that it becomes functional.
David wants God to bring order to the chaos of his heart – to renew the core of his being, as opposed to replacing it.

Over the past few months our car has been playing up. Not all the time, just randomly, sporadically. Sometimes, when we turned it on, it would start up for a few seconds and then the engine would die. Other times it ran fine.

I took it to the mechanic last week and he diagnosed that it was a faulty cam-belt sensor. The sensor thought there was a problem, when there wasn’t, and shut the engine down unnecessarily.
These days we fix a problem like a faulty sensor by throwing the old one away and putting a new one in, but this is not God’s preference.
Sometimes God replaces but more often He is inclined to use what is already there – to transform what is broken and make it functional again.
So create in me a clean heart does not mean throwing the old heart away and replacing it with a new one, like with the sensor in our car
Create in me a clean heart means transforming the old heart so that it functions in the way it should.

The words heart and spirit (as in the human spirit) go together

It’s difficult to tie these words down or define them exactly because they can be used in different ways depending on the context

Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our heart because it is the well-spring of life

The heart is to our soul what a water bore is to a farm.
The heart is to our life what roots are to a tree.

Spirit can mean the breath that animates the body and makes it alive, but it can also refer to something that is not physical or material and yet still very real.

Spirit normally has to do with relationship though – as in the bond between God and people and what characterises that bond

For example, a ‘spirit of fear’ describes a relationship based on fear.
Or we might say, someone has a ‘gentle spirit’, meaning they relate with others in a gentle way, as opposed to a rough or violent way
A right spirit is a relationship characterised by treating others right
A right spirit can also be translated as a ‘steady spirit’ or a ‘loyal spirit’. David doesn’t want to be inconsistent in his relationship with God or others – he wants to be steady and loyal and faithful.

We express our self (who we are) through our heart & spirit

Our heart and spirit characterise the condition and direction of our life [4]
In praying for a clean heart and a right spirit David is acknowledging that the direction and condition of his life have gone haywire
David’s heart & spirit have expressed adultery and murder and he doesn’t want that to happen again
David wants his life to be open to God and directed toward His purpose.

My lawn at home has quite a few daisies and butter cups in it. As much as I like mowing lawns I’m reluctant to cut the flower heads off.

During the day the daisies and buttercups open up to face the sun.
They direct themselves toward the light and in doing so they express the beauty of their heart and spirit. But then at night they close up again.
We human beings are a bit like flowers. In the same way a flower expresses its beauty by opening its petals to the sunlight, so too we express our beauty as we direct our lives toward God and open our heart to His light (the light of Christ).

Verse 11: 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

God’s presence and God’s Holy Spirit go together – God is present through His Spirit.
Today the children in the Flock Sunday school are learning how Samuel anointed David to be king of Israel
When king Saul disobeyed God, the Lord took His Spirit away from Saul and gave it to David
The anointing of God’s Spirit gave David both the power and authority to rule as king of Israel – God’s Spirit made David royalty. God’s Spirit makes us royalty too.
Perhaps David is worried that God will take away his kingly authority, like he did with Saul.
More likely though David doesn’t want to lose the intimacy he enjoys with God through the Holy Spirit.
The application for us here is that we can’t presume upon God’s grace.
God’s Spirit is a gift, freely given. But God can and will take His Spirit back if we abuse our power or position without remorse.

God’s presence may also be a reference to the temple in Jerusalem – the temple being a symbol of God’s presence

This psalm would have been particularly poignant for the Israelites in exile in Babylon (a few hundred years after David).
They knew what it was to be cast away from God’s presence and longed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.
The body of Christ, the church, is the new temple of God’s presence
When we sing this line we aren’t just asking for some personal mystical experience of God’s Spirit – we are asking to remain in Christ as part of His body the church.
We are saying, ‘Don’t excommunicate me Lord. Let me enjoy communion with you and your people.’

Verse12: 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Joy is a positive energy – it sustains our spirit. David had no joy.
People may lack joy for a whole lot of reasons, often through no fault of their own. But, in David’s case, it was because of what he had done wrong, because of his guilt.
God’s salvation for David, in this situation, means God’s forgiveness
David has killed an innocent man and therefore he deserves to die
Salvation would mean having his life spared
Salvation would also mean a clear conscience.
David wants to be free of his guilt so he has the energy he needs to willingly do what God wants.
A willing spirit can also be translated a princely spirit, as in a noble spirit.

Verse 13: 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

I don’t think David is intending to preach to people here. I think he means his example will be a sermon to others.
When people see how God has saved David, they will repent. They will think, if God can forgive David’s sin, then he can forgive mine too.
Indeed, David’s example of honest (excuse free confession) and deep heart felt repentance has provided hope for forgiveness and a pathway to redemption for millions of people down the centuries.

The rest of the psalm then talks about worship…

¹⁴Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. ¹⁵O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. ¹⁶For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. ¹⁷The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. ¹⁸Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, ¹⁹then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

For our worship to be acceptable it must come from a broken spirit and a contrite heart – from the inside out

‘God is looking for the heart that knows how little it deserves and how much it owes’ [5]
Our humility is beautiful to God, like an open daisy or a buttercup

Conclusion:

I’m not sure why Keith Green chose to do a cover of Create in me a clean heart

Perhaps it was because he identified with David in being a prodigal son who had returned to God his heavenly Father
Or maybe it was to irritate the church’s conscience – a kind of call for God’s people to live holy lives and not take God’s salvation for granted.
Keith longed for deep conversion for himself and others.

Like Keith Green, king David had been forgiven much and so he loved much

Worship is an expression of our love for God
Psalm 51 begins with confession and ends in worship
Before we can worship God properly we have to realise how much we have been forgiven
And before we can realise how much we have been forgiven we have to face the truth about ourselves, we have to feel the depth of our sin and make our confession.

Let us pray…

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a right spirit within me;

Cast me not away from Your presence, O Lord

Take not Your Holy Spirit from me;

Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation,

And renew a right spirit within me.

Through Jesus we pray. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to (or sing) the song, ‘Create in me a clean heart’. What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does it evoke for you?)
How did you come to faith in Christ? In what ways is your conversion story similar to Keith Green’s? In what ways is it different?
How do you feel as you read the story of David & Bathsheba & Uriah? Who do you identify with most in this story? (David, Bathsheba, Uriah, Joab or Nathan.) Why?
What is sin? How does David’s sin affect him? How does sin affect you?
What do we notice about David’s confession and repentance? How do we find forgiveness with God?
How is your heart & spirit? Are you open to God’s light or are you closed off to God?
What does God require from us in worship?

[1] Refer 2 Samuel 12:1-7.

[2] Refer Derek Kidner’s commentary on Psalms 1-72, page 208.

[3] Ibid, page 209.

[4] Refer James Mays commentary on the Psalms, page 203.

[5] Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72, page 211.

November 12, 2019November 12, 2019 Tawa Baptist

Build My Life

Scriptures: Luke 6:46-49; Romans 12:1; Philippians 2:5-11; John 1:43-49

Structure:

Introduction
I will build my life
Worthy of every song
Holy, there is no one like you
Conclusion

Introduction:

When we were training for ministry our Greek lecturer, Brian Smith, told us how most people in churches learn their theology from the hymns and songs they sing in church each week

Theology sounds like an impressive word but really it just means thinking or talking about God.
Whenever you think or talk about God you are doing theology
Brian’s point was that the songs we sing in church have a profound influence on the way we perceive God
When words are put to music they tend to stick in our memory better – they also make a connection with our heart
We find ourselves unconsciously singing worship songs in the car or in the shower – and the meaning we attach to the words shapes our relationship with God

With this in view, today we begin a new sermon series called ‘Anthems’

In this series I plan to look at the lyrics of one hymn or Christian worship song each week to see how that song informs our theology and how it connects with Scripture and the history of our faith.
The purpose is not to find fault with the words but to guide our thinking and help us to interpret the songs in the best possible light

I like what N.T. Wright says about worship…

“Put it this way: if your idea of God, if your idea of the salvation offered in Christ, is vague or remote, your idea of worship will be fuzzy and ill-formed. The closer you get to the truth, the clearer becomes the beauty, and the more you will find worship welling up within you. That’s why theology and worship belong together. The one isn’t just a head-trip; the other isn’t just emotion.”

Some of the songs we will look at are old and others relatively new. Most you will be familiar with and others are less well known

Today’s song is Build My Life, written by Pat Barrett

Verse 1:

Worthy of every song we could ever sing.
Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring.
Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe, we live for you

Verse 2:

Jesus, a name above every other name.
Jesus, the only one that could ever save.
Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe, we live for you…

Chorus:

Holy, there is no one like you,
There is none beside you,
Open up my eyes in wonder.

Show me who you are
and fill me with your heart
And lead me in your love
to those around me.

Bridge:

I will build my life upon your love,
It is a firm foundation.
I will put my trust in you alone
And I will not be shaken.

I will build my life:

Build My Life was released in 2016, so it is a fairly new song, but it is based on some quite ancient ideas

Pat Barrett is a singer/songwriter and worship leader from Grace Midtown, a church in Atlanta, Georgia
He has written a number of Christian songs including “Good, Good Father”. Barrett is married with three young children.

Pat Barrett said the song, Build My Life, came to him over a number of years, at a time when he was looking for steadiness in his life, because he was going through quite a bit change and uncertainty.

The bridge is the heart of the song, and it also happens to be the first part of the song that Barrett wrote, so we will start with that…

I will build my life upon your love, it is a firm foundation.
I will put my trust in you alone and I will not be shaken.

In an interview Barrett said, life rarely behaves with our plans. It is usually the uncertainty, the not knowing, the trials that reveal what we’ve been standing on the whole time (and by ‘standing on’ he means, what we’ve put our trust in)

Metaphorically, when you sing this song, you are looking up to worship God but at the same time you are also looking down to keep your footing
What am I standing on? Is it my career, my image (or persona), is it money? Those things aren’t steady – they don’t provide a firm foundation
The invitation from Jesus is to put your feet on the rock and find strength in him

Please turn with me to Luke chapter 6, verse 46, on page 85 toward the back of your pew Bibles

Barrett says he had this passage from Luke 6 in mind when he wrote the words of the bridge. This is what Jesus says from verses 46-49…

⁴⁶“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and yet don’t do what I tell you? ⁴⁷Anyone who comes to me and listens to my words and obeys them—I will show you what he is like. ⁴⁸He is like a man who, in building his house, dug deep and laid the foundation on rock. The river overflowed and hit that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. ⁴⁹But anyone who hears my words and does not obey them is like a man who built his house without laying a foundation; when the flood hit that house it fell at once—and what a terrible crash that was!”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s Word for us

In Jesus’ day building a house was a strenuous exercise. They didn’t have heavy machinery (like diggers) to excavate the foundations and so everything had to be done by hand. It required an enormous effort [1]

They couldn’t really build during winter because it was too wet so they had to build in summer

The problem was the high clay content in the soil combined with the heat made digging extremely hard going
It would have been tempting to simply build on top of the clay soil
The ground certainly seemed hard enough in the heat of summer
But when the winter rains came the soil went soft and washed away
So if the foundations didn’t go down deep enough (all the way to base rock) the house would fall.

The clay soil which seems hard in summer but washes away in winter represents the lies we sometimes believe and build our lives on

While the bed rock represents the teaching of Jesus – steadfast & true

Jesus says in this parable that those who hear his teaching and obey it are like the man who does the hard yards and digs down to lay his foundation on rock

The implication being that it is not enough simply to hear and agree with what Jesus says – we also need to do what Jesus says
And doing what Jesus says – loving our enemies, not judging others, being honest with ourselves, and forgiving – all of that is the hard part
Like digging down through baked clay it is difficult
Difficult yes – but also necessary if we don’t want to come to ruin.

One of the more obvious things to note in this parable is that there is a storm and it hits both houses

The implication is that when we follow Jesus and align our lives with his teaching, we still face storms, we still suffer in a whole variety of ways
The difference is that God brings us strong through the storm

But this is not all there is to the parable. Jesus’ Jewish listeners would have heard more…

In Isaiah 28 God says through the prophet…

I am placing in Zion a foundation that is firm and strong. In it I am putting a solid corner-stone on which are written the words, ‘Faith that is firm is also patient.’ Justice will be the measuring-line for the foundation, and honesty will be its plumb-line.

Zion is a reference to Jerusalem

In the temple in Jerusalem (in the holy of holies) there was a special foundation stone on which the Ark of the Covenant used to sit
When the ark was taken away the priests put a fire pan on the foundation
The fire pan burned incense – a symbol of the people’s prayers to God.

When Jesus told the parable of the two builders he was really saying…

I am the firm & strong foundation stone promised by Isaiah
Build on me and my words and you will not be shaken

Now this was an incredible thing to declare

Jesus was saying that the new temple, promised by God 700 hundred years earlier, was not going to be a building but a person and that he (Jesus) is that person

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians the apostle writes…

You, too, are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus himself. He is the one who holds the whole building together and makes it grow into a sacred temple dedicated to the Lord. In union with him you too are being built together with all the others into a place where God lives through his Spirit.

When we build our lives on the firm foundation of Christ, we too become part of that new temple promised by God

Think about that for a moment – it is a profound idea

The temple is a place of reconciliation – a place where sacrifices are offered and peace is made
The temple is also the place of God’s presence – a place where his Spirit dwells and people are close to God
When we build our lives on Christ we become God’s sacred and holy people.

Returning to Pat Barrett’s song. Some of you will have noticed that the words in Pat’s bridge don’t exactly mirror the words in Jesus’ parable in Luke 6

The foundation Jesus had in mind was his teaching or his ‘words’, whereas Pat Barrett describes the foundation as, ‘your love’, meaning God’s love for us in Christ
Although Barrett is using a bit of poetic license here, he gets it right – Jesus’ teaching is an expression of his love.
In fact, Jesus’ message (his word) was, love God and love your neighbour
Before we can do what Jesus teaches we must first know we are loved by God – love and grace come before obedience
Our obedience to God’s word (as embodied in Christ) needs to grow out of love for God, not out of fear or guilt

The idea of God’s love being a firm foundation on which to build our lives is found in Ephesians 3, where Paul talks about putting our roots down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love

So we can sing this bridge with confidence, knowing it is based in the wisdom of Scripture.

Worthy of every song:

What about the verses then – what meaning can we glean from them?

Well, if the bridge is about looking down to keep our footing then the verses are about looking up to worship God.

Verse 1 repeats the word worthy three times

The term ‘worship’ comes from an old English word meaning ‘worth-ship’. Worship is about ascribing worth
We make the effort to get out of bed on a Sunday morning and come to church to sing songs of praise to God because he is worth it
Francis Chan is quoted as saying…
His perfect holiness, by definition, assures us our words can’t contain Him. Isn’t it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate.
I love the last verse of the gospel of John, where the apostle says…
Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

Worthy of every song we could ever sing

Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring

That’s a way of saying, our words can’t contain God; our praise can never really do justice to God; even the whole world would not have enough room for all the books that could be written about the Lord’s deeds.

And for those who may be thinking, ‘Yea, but worship is more than singing’, Pat Barrett is way ahead of you, because his very next line is…

Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe, we live for you.
The idea here is that worship isn’t just something we do in church on a Sunday. Worship is like breathing – it is threaded through all of life.
Worship is primarily about how we live

We live for you, picks up Paul’s thought in Romans 12 where he says…

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.
We try to live our lives in a way that pleases God because he is worth it
Living for God ties in with what Jesus was saying in Luke 6, about obedience to his teaching
‘We live for you’ Lord is another way of saying, ‘I will build my life on your love’.

One of the things I like about this song is way it uses both plural and singular pronouns

The words, we live for you, reminds us that worship isn’t just an individual thing. It’s something we do in community with other believers
At the same time the words in the bridge, I will build my life, remind us that worship involves a personal commitment.
Worship is both we and I – it is both public and personal
I’m not sure if Pat Barrett intended all this meaning but it’s what I glean from it.

Verse 2 begins…

Jesus a name above every other name.
Jesus’ name is both his reputation and his integrity
This is a direct quote from Philippians 2, verse 9, where the apostle Paul writes about imitating the humility of Christ…

⁵In your relationships with one another, have the same mind-set as Christ Jesus: ⁶Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very natureof a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The thing that makes Jesus’ name great, the reason God gave Jesus a name that is above every other name, is that Jesus was obedient to God.

The foundation of Jesus’ life was loving obedience to God the Father
Once again this connects with the bridge of the song – the building of our life gets it integrity, it’s strength, from loving obedience to Christ.

The second line in verse 2; Jesus, the only one that could ever save, is a reference to the Christian doctrine that salvation from sin and death is found in Christ alone (Solo Christo)

This doctrine comes from Martin Luther, the great church reformer of the 16^th Century, who got it from his understanding of the New Testament
For example, where Jesus says to his disciples…
“I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Salvation through Christ alone is an unpopular belief in our contemporary society – so verse 2 is quite a provocative line to sing

Holy, there is no one like you:

And so we come to the chorus

If the verses look up in worship of God and the bridge looks down at where we are standing, then the chorus looks both in to the heart and out to our neighbor.

Holy, there is no one like you, there is none beside you, open up my eyes in wonder…

The word holy means ‘set apart’. To be holy is to be different, special, sacred

Jesus is unique. He is beyond compare.
Holiness goes together with wonder
Wonder is a feeling of amazement and admiration, caused by something beautiful, remarkable, or unfamiliar – something holy in other words

The thing is, not everyone recognizes Jesus’ holiness

To many of the people of his day Jesus appeared to be like anyone else
Jesus’ holiness, his glory, is hidden at first – we need our eyes opened in wonder so we can appreciate just who he is.

In John chapter 1, Philip says to Nathanael, ‘Look, we’ve found the Messiah. Come and meet him. He is Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.’

And Nathanael replies, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
I imagine Nathanael was a bit like Mr Darcy, he despised anything false or pretentious. He had no patience for the games people play and wasn’t too bothered by who he offended, so long as he spoke the truth
People like Nathanael don’t make great diplomats – they may come across as a bit rude, a bit blunt, and are therefore often misunderstood
Nevertheless, Nathanael goes with Philip anyway.
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, he said about him, “Here is a real Israelite; there is nothing false in him!”
Jesus could see into Nathanael’s heart and that touches Nathanael – he says to Jesus, “How do you know me?”
Perhaps for the first time in his life Nathanael felt truly understood and accepted for who he was. Jesus gets me.
Jesus’ wise insight and acceptance opens Nathanael’s eyes in wonder
Nathanael declares, “Teacher,” you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

G.K. Chesterton once said, ‘We are perishing for lack of wonder, not for lack of wonders.’

I suppose Chesterton meant that God is doing wonderful things all the time, all around us, we just don’t have the sense of wonder that is needed to appreciate them
The wonder of God, the beauty of his holiness, his goodness, is the inspiration for our worship

The second part of the chorus reads…

Show me who you are and fill me with your heart,
And lead me in your love to those around me.

‘Fill me with your heart’ is a significant thing to say

To be filled with God’s heart is to be filled with His love – while God’s love is a good thing, to be filled with it is also a painful thing. God’s love comes with suffering – so this is a brave line to sing
To be filled with God’s heart is also to be filled the Spirit of Jesus
These words are talking about intimacy with God, through Jesus
It is as we abide in Christ (the vine) that we bear the fruit of love for our neighbours
It is as we build our life on Christ that we find the strength to love those around us.

Conclusion:

Whatever storm you may be facing, whatever uncertainty you may be going through, Jesus provides a firm foundation.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to the song, ‘Build My Life’, by Pat Barrett. What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does it evoke for you?)
Discuss / reflect on the significance of the parable of the two builders in Luke? For example; What does it mean to build your life on Jesus’ teaching? How might Jesus’ original Jewish audience have understood this parable? What foundation are you building your life on?
How does the line in the song, “we live for you”, connect with Romans 12:1? What does it mean to be a living sacrifice?
Why does God give Jesus the name that is above every other name? How does Jesus redefine greatness?
What does it mean to ask God to fill us with His heart?
Do you still have a sense of wonder? Take some time this week to notice and appreciate the wonders of God all around you. Lose yourself in wonder, awe and praise of the what God has accomplished in Christ.

[1] Many of the insights on Luke 6:46-49 were gleaned from Kenneth Bailey’s book, ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’, pages 321-331.

November 3, 2019 Tawa Baptist

Body & Spirit

Scripture: Ephesians 6:18-24

Structure:

Introduction
Praying in the Spirit
Praying in the body
Conclusion

Introduction:

Cyril Bassett was New Zealand’s first Victoria Cross recipient

Cyril was a sapper in the NZ Engineers during World War 1
His job was to lay communication lines so the allies could talk to each other
Because of his short stature Bassett was initially rejected for military service but he persisted and they let him in, assigning him to Signals
Bassett served in Gallipoli and was noted for his bravery in laying telephone wires under heavy fire early in the campaign
Some months later, when the NZ Infantry was attacking Chunuk Bair, Corporal Bassett found himself in the heat of the battle once more laying communication lines on the exposed hill slopes
He braved continuous gunfire during broad daylight armed only with a revolver and a bayonet.
A bullet struck his boot and two more passed through the fabric of his tunic during the fighting, but he was not wounded
For his efforts he was awarded the Victoria Cross
Afterwards Cyril Bassett had this to say…

“I reckon there must be some guardian angel looking after me, especially as one man was shot dead in front of me and another wounded just behind.”

This morning we conclude our series in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, focusing on chapter 6, verses 18-24

Last week we heard about the armour of God and the need to stand firm in the battle against evil
In the same vein of thought Paul continues from verse 18 encouraging his readers to stay alert and to pray
Prayer is essentially about establishing and maintaining lines of communication with God and other believers
In praying we are doing the spiritual equivalent of what Cyril Bassett did
From Ephesians 6, verses 18-24 (in the NIV) we read…

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. ¹⁹Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

²¹Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing. ²²I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage you. ²³Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.

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

Paul started his letter to the Ephesians with a prayer and now he concludes it by encouraging the Ephesians to pray.

They are to pray in the Spirit and in the body.

Praying in the Spirit:

When you read a book you need to be in the light. If you are in the dark, it is very difficult to read

When you are sailing a boat you need to make sure your sail is trimmed to catch the wind. If your sail isn’t in the wind your boat won’t go far

In verse 18 of Ephesians 6, Paul says we are to pray in the Spirit.

That’s ‘Spirit’ with a capital ‘S’, as in God’s Spirit
Praying in the Spirit parallels what Paul says earlier in Ephesians about being in Christ
What then does Paul mean by praying in the Spirit?
We pray in the Spirit sort of like we read in the light
Just as we can’t really read all that well in the dark, so too we can’t really pray without the Spirit
Praying in the Spirit is also like hoisting a sail to catch the wind
Just as we can’t really get our boat moving without putting our sail in the wind, so too our prayers don’t provide any movement without the wind (or energy) of God’s Spirit

The Spirit of God communicates God to us. Through the Spirit we receive all the gifts and empowering we need from God [1]

True prayer in the Spirit isn’t about technique – it’s about relationship
True prayer in the Spirit involves engagement with God
If you want to cook a roast dinner, then you need to put the meat and veges in the oven
Say you are having roast chicken. You might make a nice basting sauce and rub it all over the raw bird.
You might make a sage and onion stuffing just like your grandmother used to make
You might put potatoes and pumpkin all around the chook
Then you turn the oven on and let it warm up to the right temperature
But if you leave the chicken and veges on the bench – if you don’t put them in the oven – then you are going hungry that night
Praying in the Spirit is like putting our prayers and requests in God’s oven. Without the Spirit of God our prayers are inedible
Praying in the Spirit nourishes us

Praying in the Spirit then is about praying in relationship with God

Simply reciting words without our heart being in it, or without directing those words to the person we call ‘God’, isn’t that effective
Praying in the Spirit is like pouring water into a cup – it requires focus and intention
I could throw handfuls of water around the room and some of it might, by chance, end up in the cup – but mostly it will just make everyone around me wet and annoyed
Praying in the Spirit fills the cup of our personal relationship with God

Praying in the Spirit is also like singing in a choir. It is prayer led by the Spirit and in harmony with God’s will.

Like choristers, we know the words & parts and we keep our eyes on the conductor, staying alert, listening as we sing (and by sing I mean pray).

Paul says to pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. Praying in the Spirit is comprehensive prayer, diverse in form and woven throughout all the circumstances of our lives.

If you come from a charismatic background you might think praying in the Spirit means praying in tongues and while it can mean that it isn’t limited to that
Praying in the Spirit can include lament & tears as well as laughter & praise
Praying in the Spirit can include meaningful liturgy read from the heart as well as spontaneous conversation with Christ as our close friend
Praying in the Spirit can include sitting alone in silence as we meditate on Scripture, our hearts open in a posture of listening to God, but I can also include singing songs in worship with other believers
We can pray in our heart for the person sitting next to us on the train during the week or we can intercede out loud in church on a Sunday for the things in this world that grieve God’s heart and ours
I could go on but you get the point, praying in the Spirit is not an occasional act – it is more like breathing
The Spirit of God is the atmosphere in which we breathe (and by ‘breathe’ I mean pray).

Alongside Paul’s instruction to pray in the Spirit we also find his encouragement to pray in the body

Praying in the body:

A few weeks ago I was talking with a sports fan about the rugby. He was telling me how the top rugby teams are really good at off-loading the ball before the ball handler is tackled and goes to ground

The more often a team takes the ball down in the tackle the quicker that team runs out of steam
But if you can keep your momentum by passing the ball you tend to make more ground with less effort
The All Blacks are brilliant at the off load pass. You often see them passing the ball out the back door, without even looking
When they throw the ball back they trust their team mates to be alert and in position to catch it
They don’t work as individuals – they work as a unit, supporting each other

Throughout Ephesians Paul has talked about the church in various ways

The church is the wisdom of God, the church is the temple of God and the church is the body of Christ
Paul wants to underline the connection believers have in Christ
He wants us to think of ourselves, not as a group of individuals (alone together), but as a unit, a single body made up of different parts
We need to remain alert, supporting each other spiritually, ready to receive the off load pass.

In the second part of verse 18 Paul says: With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

While it is okay to pray for yourself our prayers shouldn’t be self-centred
‘Praying in the body’ means being mindful of other believers in the church – remaining alert to the joys and sorrows, successes and trials of others
Praying for others actually gives us a break from thinking about ourselves
Not only that but it helps us to feel more connected, less alone
If you pray for someone long enough you start to care about them

In verse 19 Paul goes on to ask the Ephesians to pray for him also

Interesting here that Paul has the humility to ask for help from others. He doesn’t try to do the work on his own. He realises he needs prayer support.
The other thing to note is that Paul doesn’t ask the Ephesians to pray for his freedom, even though he is chained to a Roman soldier night and day.
Instead Paul asks for the clarity and courage to make known the mystery of the gospel.

The word ‘mystery’ here doesn’t refer to a puzzle to be solved but rather to something that was not known before but has now been revealed by God

‘Mystery’ refers to the unfolding of God’s plan – new light shed on an old word
Before Christ came Paul read the Old Testament Scriptures in a certain way – much of the meaning was hidden from him
But since encountering Jesus, Paul now reads those same Old Testament Scriptures in a whole new light
Before he saw a stern and angry God who was out to destroy sinners; now he sees a loving God full of generous grace for all
Before he saw himself as better than others; now he realises the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

Paul wants the Spirit’s help to preach the gospel about Jesus with clarity and courage – he wants others to understand all of the gospel, the rough with the smooth

The word ‘gospel’ means good news. But when we read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John) we find there is actually a fair amount of bad news as well
The gospel talks about suffering as a prerequisite to glory; it talks about forgiveness with repentance; salvation for some but judgement for others
It can be tempting as a preacher to leave out the unpopular parts of the gospel but the Spirit of Jesus is a Spirit of grace and truth
Most people are happy to hear the nice bits, the grace-full bits, but the truthful bits require some courage to say
Paul doesn’t want to edit his message. Paul wants to be open and honest in his presentation of the gospel.

Those who proclaim the word of God need clarity and courage

This morning the children in the Flock Sunday school are learning how God spoke to the boy Samuel at the temple in Shiloh
Samuel slept in the temple near the ark of the covenant – the symbol of God’s presence with his people
One night Samuel hears a voice calling his name
At first he thinks it is the priest Eli calling him but every time he goes to Eli, the old man tells him to go back to bed
Eventually Eli realises that Samuel is hearing the Lord’s voice, so he instructs Samuel to respond by saying, ‘Speak Lord, your servant is listening’. Samuel does as he is told.

The next morning Samuel seems to be avoiding Eli, so Eli sits Samuel down and asks the boy to tell him what the Lord said, without leaving anything out

The message is one of judgement against Eli and his family
‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’
That’s a heavy message for a child to give a grown man
To his credit Eli accepted the message saying, ‘He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.’

The gospel message Paul preached wasn’t so harsh. Paul was able to say, ‘The good news is; your guilt is atoned for by Christ’s sacrifice, but you still need to change your ways and repent. God’s love is not a license to do what we want.

Eli may have been accepting of what Samuel said but not everyone was accepting of what Paul had to say and as a consequence he found himself under house arrest, chained to a Roman soldier day and night

Most people in the ancient near east would have been ashamed to be in chains, but not Paul. He is not an Instagram star, ‘showing the best and hiding the rest’. Paul doesn’t hide the reality.
By being open like this Paul owns his suffering. He doesn’t let it own him.

We are talking about praying in the body

Perhaps one of the reasons Paul was able to cope with being in chains is that he saw himself as part of the body of Christ, so it didn’t all depend on him
Sure, he couldn’t visit the Ephesians himself, but he could send Tychicus, his assistant
Tychicus was Paul’s hands and feet – he could deliver Paul’s letter
When Paul went down in the tackle of house arrest, he could off load the ball to Tychicus, so the momentum wasn’t lost.

Tychicus wasn’t just a letter carrier though – he was someone who knew Paul and could pass on personal news of how Paul and the others were getting on

It is so easy in the culture I come from to think of prayer as a disembodied thing – a mental exercise – just words you say in your head
But true prayer is embodied and relational
Prayer in the body isn’t just the communication of words and information
Prayer in the body involves being physically present
Prayer in the body conveys warmth and emotion
Prayer in the body communicates encouragement and comfort
Tychicus’ visit did this – his going to see the Ephesians in person was prayer in a bodily form.

When our youngest daughter was about two years old she caught rota virus and had to go to hospital. This was before I became a minister, when we were living in Tauranga

While we were in hospital the pastor of our church came to visit. He didn’t stay long, just popped in, spoke to us, said a short prayer and then went on his way again
I don’t remember the words he prayed but I do remember feeling comforted and encouraged by his presence
I had never been visited by a pastor before. Greg simply showed up embodying warmth and this made me feel cared for and connected to the rest of the church. That’s an example of prayer in the body (of Christ).

Now in talking about prayer in the body I don’t mean to convey the idea that this is somehow different from praying in the Spirit – body & Spirit go together

It must be over twelve years ago now our family went on holiday to Christchurch

On about the second day our youngest daughter had an accident and had to go to hospital
They put her is this tiny room with no windows, no view outside – it was an awful environment – we were supposed to be on holiday, having fun
To make matters worse the words I prayed to God didn’t appear to make any positive difference – our daughter just got worse
When you are in a strange city, with a sick child and God isn’t answering your prayers it makes you feel incredibly isolated and vulnerable – we were powerless really.

But in that situation God was still present, just not in the way we were expecting

Some friends we knew in Christchurch looked after our well daughter for us so she wasn’t stuck in hospital all week
When the church here in Tawa heard what was happening they arranged a gift basket for us and one of you asked his sister (who lives in Christchurch) to come and visit us in hospital. That meant a lot to us.
Then, when we had to stay longer than our accommodation was booked for, the Ronald McDonald House gave us a room for a couple of nights

My prayers in that situation didn’t bring about a miraculous healing but we were very aware of God’s providence

On reflection I am conscious of the Spirit’s intercession for us
In Romans 8 Paul writes, ‘…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express…’
I had prayed for our daughter’s healing thinking that was what was needed, but at a deeper level (a level I wasn’t conscious of) what we really needed was to know that we were not alone – loneliness, isolation, alienation, these are the real sicknesses of our society today
The Spirit of God knew what we really needed and interceded for us with groans that words cannot express and God answered the Spirit’s prayer to comfort us in the loneliness and isolation we felt with practical, embodied help through friends and strangers.
Prayer in the Spirit goes hand in hand with prayer in the body.

Conclusion:

Paul concludes his letter with a prayer of blessing for the Ephesians

Four key words we notice in his benediction. Paul wishes his readers…
Peace, love with faith, and grace.

Praying in the Spirit and praying in the body are not meant to be separated – they go together

In a few moments we will share communion.
Communion holds together body and Spirit
It is a celebration of the peace, love, faith and grace that are ours in Christ

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 does it mean to ‘pray in the Spirit’? Can you think of a time in your life when the Spirit interceded for you with groans too deep for words?
What are some of the ways you prefer to pray? Are there some new ways of praying you could try?
What does it mean to ‘pray in the body’?
Have you ever experienced prayer in body and Spirit? Perhaps share your experience with someone you trust or write it down in a journal.
What affect does praying for other believers have on us?
Why did Paul ask for clarity & courage in preaching the gospel?
How does Paul own his suffering? How might we own our suffering?
Take some time to slowly read Paul’s benediction in verses 23-24 of Ephesians 6. Receive this blessing into your soul.

[1] Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, page 344.

October 27, 2019 Tawa Baptist

Stand

Scripture: Ephesians 6:10-17

Structure:

Introduction
Stand against evil
Put on God’s armour
Conclusion

Introduction:

Theodore Roosevelt is considered by some to be one of the five best presidents of the United States

He is still to this day the youngest, becoming president at 42, serving from 1901 to 1909
One saying attributed to Roosevelt is: Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.
I understand this to mean we need to keep looking up to that which is lasting and beautiful and true, without losing touch with reality
The stars are a reliable source for navigating our way through this world
And keeping our feet on the ground is about humility, having a right understanding of yourself in relation to God and His creation

Today we continue our series in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians

Ephesians is, in many ways, a letter that encourages us to keep our eyes on the stars and our feet on the ground.
It holds up some pretty lofty ideals but today’s passage has its feet firmly on the ground
From Ephesians 6, verses 10-17 (in the NIV), we read…

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

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

Stand against evil:

Winston Churchill is another well-known and well respected leader

He didn’t always get it right and he struggled with his own personal demons, but he knew how to stand his ground
His stubbornness was just what Britain needed during the war
We all know his famous speech about never, ever giving in except to convictions of honour and good sense
In a similar vein he also said: “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

Personally, I don’t like having enemies. Some people enjoy a fight. I don’t want anything to do with them. And yet, when one becomes a Christian, one picks a side in a very ancient conflict and when you pick a side you get some enemies.

In today’s reading Paul makes it very clear that our enemy is the devil and other evil spiritual beings

The ‘rulers and authorities’ Paul mentions in verse 12 don’t refer to the Roman government – Paul is not talking about flesh and blood authorities
He’s talking about spiritual authorities organized against God and his people.
We can’t see the enemy because it operates in the ‘heavenly realms’.
Right at the beginning of this series in Ephesians I explained how the expression heavenly realms doesn’t refer to heaven as such but rather to the spiritual realm
The spiritual realm is sort of like another dimension all around us that we don’t normally see

Dogs can’t see orange or green, like we do, but they can see blue and yellow, so if you throw a bright orange ball across a green lawn a dog will struggle to see it because the orange & green look the same greyish colour to them.

When it comes to the spiritual realm we are a bit like dogs (no offence)
We don’t see all the colours – spiritual things are camouflaged to us
This means there is more to reality than meets the eye
Our enemy is not physical flesh and blood. It is spiritual evil, hard to see.

Now some of you may be struggling with this idea of a devil and demons and evil forces. I understand. For many years it seemed weird to me as well.

Not everything can be blamed on the devil – human selfishness, greed, fear and the choices people make do account for some evil, but not all.
We would be arrogant to discard the ancient wisdom handed down to us in the Bible. Jesus did not deny the existence of the devil
Nor did Paul or the Ephesians
Whatever we modern readers might think, for Paul and his first century readers, the devil was a personal being, an external centre of evil – not a myth or metaphor to be explained away psychologically [1]
Acts 19 tells us how some of the Ephesian Christians used to practice magic before their conversion and actually burned their spell books publicly when becoming followers of Christ – you wouldn’t do that if you thought the devil was just a metaphor.

Speaking from my own experience in life and ministry I am of the view that the spiritual battle is real

When you become a Christian your life gets better in some ways, but in other ways it often becomes harder
If you are standing on the side lines watching the game you don’t have much to contend with
But if you are on the field, running with the ball, then you are likely to be tackled.

This is not to say we need to be afraid. We don’t need to fear because Jesus has defeated the devil and the forces of evil

We just need to be aware that, despite their defeat, the forces of evil are still at large and refuse to surrender – so we need to stand, not in our own strength but in the strength of the Lord’s power (verse 10).

Now when we think of power we tend to think of a substance or a thing, like muscle or money or an engine or a long life battery or electricity

But this is not what Paul means by power. For Paul, power is relational. We stand in the strength of our relationship with God
So, in a Christian understanding, strength and power has to do with quality of connection
For example, the branch of a tree is strong and fruitful when it remains fully connected to the main trunk
Likewise, the tree itself is strong when it is planted beside a stream, where it’s roots can be in close relationship with the water of the stream
Children and young people tend to be stronger (or more resilient) when they have a number of stable adults in their life.
We are strong, spiritually, when we are close to Jesus.

Verse 11 mentions the devil’s schemes

Our enemy, the devil, doesn’t usually disclose his evil upfront or straight away. Paul says, in 2^nd Corinthians 11, that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
So we need deliverance from evil that doesn’t look like evil at first
When Satan tested Jesus in the wilderness, he quoted Scripture making his proposal sound like a harmless thing, even a good thing
‘If you’re the Son of God turns these stones into bread’ – surely there’s nothing wrong in that
‘If you’re the Son of God jump off the roof of the temple; God’s angels will catch you’ – could be good for your PR
But Jesus saw through the devil’s schemes and stood his ground
Jesus refused to give the devil an inch.

Our enemy is invisible and deceptive. That’s why we need to stay close to Jesus. We can’t handle the assault of the evil one on our own.

Four times in today’s reading Paul uses the verb ‘stand’

Verse 11: Take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
Verse 13: …so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
And verse 14: Stand firm then…

The emphasis here is with ‘holding our ground’ as opposed to attacking the enemy or doing a runner. I like the poetic way C.F. Moule puts it…

Stand suggests not a march or an assault, but the holding of the fortress of the soul and the church for the heavenly King [2]

You see, Jesus has won the ground for us.

That ground or territory is our soul and also our relationships together as participants in the church
We need to occupy the ground Jesus sacrificed himself for and hold it.

When we do manage to hold our ground against evil God often does incredible things. “Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.”

In order to stand though we need the armour of God.

The armour of God:

On the wall here is a picture of a platoon of Roman soldiers. Soldiers don’t normally fight alone. They usually function as a unit or a team.

If you have grown up in an individualistic society, as I have, then you are probably more inclined to read these verses in Ephesians 6 as if they were addressed to individuals – so we tend to think things like…

‘Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, personally’
Or, ‘I stand alone against the devil’
Or, ‘I need to put the armour of God on myself as an individual’
And while Paul’s instructions are certainly relevant for us as individuals the imperatives used here are plural, which means Paul is instructing the church collectively to stand and put on God’s armour.

Earlier in Ephesians Paul referred to the church as the body of Christ

Which means we don’t stand alone against the devil – we stand as a unit, like a platoon or a company of soldiers who have each other’s backs.
Likewise, it is the body of Christ (the church) who is to wear God’s armour together, collectively.
And when the devil attacks he doesn’t just attack our mind, he attacks our relationships and tries to drive a wedge between people in the church.
The evil one wants to destroy community as much as he does individuals.
When we read these verses as applying to us collectively, as the church, then we feel safer and more secure, less alone.

In verses 14-17 Paul lists six pieces of protective armour in the order they would ordinarily be put on by a soldier.

The use of a military metaphor like this is not meant to imply actual violence against people – our enemy is spiritual, not physical.
What’s more, the armour is mostly defensive
Paul may have been inspired to use this metaphor because he was literally chained to a Roman soldier while writing to the Ephesians.
Besides this, the prophet Isaiah also talks about the armour of God. [3]

Can anyone tell me what this logo stands for? [Wait]

Yes, that’s right. This is the Under Armour logo
Under Armour is a brand of sports clothing

In verse 14 Paul says, to the church collectively, Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist…

The belt in a Roman soldier’s uniform was their under armour – that’s why it went on first.
A belt gives you a sense of security. It holds everything together and enables you to be hands free.
Truth here could have two meanings. It could refer to Biblical or doctrinal truth, like ‘Jesus has risen from the dead’
But it could also refer to ‘truth in our inward parts’, meaning integrity
Integrity is our moral under armour

Some of you may have grown up with mothers who were very concerned that you always put on clean underwear

The belt of truth is like clean under wear. No one really sees it that much and yet without clean under wear we stink.
A truthful community is one in which people are genuine – they are the same on the inside as they are on the outside.
A truthful community is more concerned with authenticity than image
When we don’t pretend to be something we are not – when we are honest with ourselves and sincere with others, we enjoy a certain freedom
The belt of truth gives us freedom of movement.

Next we have the breastplate of righteousness

A breastplate protects the body’s vital internal organs, like your heart and lungs and your liver and kidneys
One of the things about a breastplate is you usually need someone to help you put it on. Righteousness is not something we do alone
Righteousness is about relating to others in a right way – it includes being both just and merciful.
A righteous community is not one where anything goes.
A righteous community has clear boundaries, it has certain standards and values that it expects its members to live by.
This is not to say that a righteous community is a perfect community
When someone messes up and does something wrong the instinctive response of a righteous community is to encourage that person to clean up their mess so they can be restored to the community.

Last week we heard about Onesimus, the runaway slave. Paul wrote to Philemon asking him to take Onesimus back.

Paul was acting in a righteous way, seeking to restore the Christian community, not just to the way it was before, but to better than before.
Paul wanted Philemon to receive Onesimus not as a slave but as a brother

In verse 15 Paul instructs the church (collectively) to fit our feet with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace

Another translation puts it this way: Let the shoes on your feet be the gospel of peace, to give you a firm footing. (NEB)

There are a number ideas held together in this verse:

Firstly, there is the idea of readiness or being prepared
We prepare ourselves (or we put on the shoes of peace) by making ourselves familiar with the gospel about Jesus
In our context this involves studying the Bible together and listening to sermons.
We need to know the content of our faith so we are ready to share it and apply it.

Also in this verse there is the idea of peace

The gospel is good news because it shows us how to have peace with God, through faith in Jesus.
Peace with God is the foundation really.
Peace with God gives us a firm footing
When we know (deep down) that God is our friend, fear and anxiety lose their hold on us.

At their meeting last Thursday, the deacons spent 10 minutes listening to a podcast by the Barna Group (courtesy of Daryl)

The Barna group are a Christian organisation that do research on the church and society
In the podcast they interviewed an Australian pastor, Mark Sayers
Mark made the comment that people generally feel secure when they can see the pathways they are to walk on.
But all the cultural markers of our society, all the signs which tell us where the pathway is, are changing really quickly at the moment
This rapid change creates an ‘ambient anxiety’ because we don’t know where we stand anymore – we don’t know where the path is.
Freedom is good, up to a point, but too much freedom fosters anxiety.

When they asked Mark Sayers how the church is to respond to this, he said…

Christians need to be people of peace.
The world today needs the church to be a non-anxious presence in society
Being hectic and manic and busy only makes things worse.
When the church has a firm footing in the peace of the gospel then we are ready to provide a steady place for people to stand.

Verse 16 reads: In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

The sort of shield we are talking about here is the big rectangular shield, as opposed to the smaller round shield

The Roman shield was made of wood and leather with metal edging on the top and bottom – it must have been pretty heavy to carry
You wouldn’t want to be without it in a fire fight but the rest of the time I expect it would have been an inconvenience.
Our faith isn’t always convenient, is it? But when the chips are down we are glad for it. Faith provides a refuge for us.

Faith, in this context, could mean trust in God or it could mean ‘the faith’ in the sense of what we believe about God

So, for example, when the evil one shoots off a flaming arrow of false guilt, Christian believers protect themselves from that assault with the belief that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Or when a fellow believer dies, we shield ourselves from the flaming arrow of despair with the belief that we will see them again at the resurrection to eternal life.
Or when we are doing our best but everything seems to be going wrong, we shield ourselves from the flaming arrow of discouragement with the belief that God is faithful and just – he works all things for good.
Or when we are tormented by some weakness or infirmity and feel inadequate to the task, we shield ourselves from the flaming arrow of self-reliance by recalling that God’s grace is sufficient for us.

The next item of armour is the helmet of salvation

The helmet of salvation is about hope – ‘keeping our eyes on the stars’.
Hope is the capacity to imagine a good future
Hope produces the positive energy of joy
We, the church, put on the helmet of salvation by keeping in mind that, whatever conflict or hardship or loss we might face in the present, ultimately we are on the winning side.
We are justified by faith in Jesus and if we share in Christ’s sufferings we will also share in his glory.

Finally, Paul tells us to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

The Roman soldier’s sword was a short blade used in close combat.
We don’t use God’s word to attack people, rather we use God’s word to defend ourselves when evil comes close, perhaps in the form of temptation or some other intense pressure.
Jesus used Scripture to protect himself when the devil tempted him in the wilderness.

The sword is a symbol of power

The word of God is mightier than the sword – it has an authority all of its own. God’s word is quietly powerful.
At the right moment, the moment of the Spirit’s prompting, we need to raise God’s word, without shouting and without anger.
As Rumi says, ‘It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder’.

Conclusion:

All of this armour: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, is given to us by God

We don’t create the armour, we simply put it on together and stand our ground in the strength of our relationship with Christ.

Let us pray…

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, you are our General. Strengthen us to stand firm in the fray. 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 would we be unwise to explain the devil away psychologically? How does the devil tend to operate?
What does Paul mean by power, in Ephesians 6? What makes us spiritually strong?
What does it mean to stand our ground against spiritual evil?
What difference does it make (to our interpretation of these verses) knowing that Paul was giving instructions in the plural?
Discuss / reflect on each of the six pieces of the armour of God and their relevance for our spiritual life.
How might we (the church) put each piece of armour on? (I.e. how might we apply Paul’s armour metaphor in our lives collectively and individually?)

[1] Refer Ernest Best, Ephesians, page 317.

[2] Refer Francis Foulkes’ commentary on Ephesians, page 171.

[3] For example, Isaiah 59:17.

October 20, 2019 Tawa Baptist

Roots of Freedom

Scripture: Ephesians 6:5-9

Structure:

Introduction
Slavery then and now
Personhood, purpose and power
Onesimus and Philemon
Conclusion

Introduction:

Last week someone gave me a book called, Church Signs Across America

As the title suggests it’s a book with photos of church signs, like this one
The sign reads: “To win in a relationship don’t keep score”

Today we continue our series in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians

We are at that point in Ephesians known as the household codes, where Paul talks about the various relationships in Christian homes
Last week we heard how wives and husbands are to relate
This week we focus on the relationship between slaves and masters
From Ephesians 6, verses 5-9 we read…

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. ⁶Obey them not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. ⁷Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, ⁸because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. ⁹And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favouritism with him.

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

Slavery then and now:

A few months ago we were on holiday in Taupo and went for a walk around the lake. In some places the tree roots had grown under the footpath and were lifting the cobbles – not quite as badly as in this picture but enough to be a trip hazard.

Today’s reading is like tree roots – over the centuries it has quietly lifted and broken our concrete thinking on slavery and employment relations

Now when we hear the word slavery we might think, ‘How is slavery relevant to us today? Wasn’t slavery abolished in the 19^th Century?’

Well, laws were passed in the 19^th Century to say that people can’t buy and sell other people anymore, but slavery still exists in the form of forced labour, child soldiers, sexual exploitation and forced marriage

There are estimated to be around 40,300,000 people in some form of modern slavery in the world today
And it’s not a problem confined to poorer countries either – there are thought to be about 15,000 people in Australia currently engaged under conditions defined as Modern Slavery, and approximately 3,000 people in New Zealand in the same situation. [1]

Although slavery still exists today, it should be noted there are a number of differences between slavery in the ancient world and slavery now

As many as one third of the population in Greece and Rome were slaves
Slaves did most of the work – without slaves nothing would get done
We are used to associating slaves with a particular race of people – like the African Americans of the 19^th Century, picking cotton in the fields or harvesting sugar cane
But slaves in the ancient world were all variety of races and served in all sorts of roles, both skilled and unskilled
A slave might be white or black, a doctor or a farmer or a business manager or a cook or even a prime minister
What’s more, many slaves in the ancient world gained their freedom after the age of 30 – so it wasn’t necessarily an all of life thing [2]
The treatment of slaves in the ancient world was mixed – some were treated with kindness but many were abused and mistreated

Ok, if slavery is a bad thing then why does the Bible seem to accommodate it?

I mean Paul doesn’t say to the masters, ‘set your slaves free’, nor does he call the slaves to revolt against their masters.
To the contrary Paul instructs slaves to do their best for their earthly masters and to have a good attitude about it
This almost sounds like Paul is condoning slavery but actually, he’s not
Paul is, in fact, sowing seeds that would eventually grow into roots that would undermine slavery and set people free

The Bible makes it clear that slavery falls well short of God’s intention for humanity – it is not what the Lord wants for people

God is free and we are made in God’s image – slavery does not fit with being God’s image bearer
Christ came to set the captives free and, as Paul says elsewhere, in Christ there is no longer slave nor free

While that sounds lovely, the reality is, we don’t live in a perfect world do we. We live in a fallen world and suffer the ill effects of sin

God understands this and so he meets us where we are at
He comes to us in the form of Jesus, a human being who we can relate with, and he says, ‘Follow me’
God’s word, in the Bible, addresses the realities of this world, like slavery, not to condone them but to lead us out of them
So when the Bible talks about slavery it’s not holding up an ideal to aspire to – rather it is providing some guidance on how to manage a less than ideal situation by providing restraint for masters and protection for slaves – sort of a first step in the right direction.

It’s remarkable how people’s attitudes change

For many years we accepted lead in petrol as normal and even necessary until we realised that lead is toxic and now we wouldn’t dream of using it
Same thing with plastic supermarket bags – for years we used plastic bags without a second thought to what happened to them when we threw them away, but now we’ve banned single use plastic bags

The ancient world, that Paul lived in, did not see slavery as an evil thing like we do today

For them slavery was simply accepted as a normal and necessary part of the economic system – sort of like we accept having a mortgage as normal and necessary to buying a house – or like we used to accept leaded petrol and plastic bags.

It would have been foolish for Paul to advocate revolt against slavery

The early church was not politically powerful – they were in no position to dictate to the rest of society how people should live
The church needed to be moderate in its approach to show the Roman authorities they posed no threat to the peace of the empire
Consequently, slavery and other social issues were not Paul’s main focus – he and the other apostles were simply trying to get the message of the gospel out there and establish Christian faith communities
Paul’s approach was wise – he sowed seeds of thought that would eventually grow to undermine and break up slavery
You see, slavery isn’t the underlying problem – slavery is just a symptom
Paul sought to address the deeper more fundamental issues – in particular: personhood, purpose and power.

Personhood, purpose and power:

On the wall here is a picture of a drill

A drill is a tool, it helps a tradie to do their job quicker and easier
A drill is a slave to the person operating it
It is in your interests to take care of your drill because if the drill breaks the job will be held up and you’ll have to buy another one
But you don’t treat your drill with same respect you would a person
Slaves tend to be treated like drills – they are not usually acknowledged as people in their own right
Slaves are seen as tools for getting things done, for making life easier or for making money

So the first seed Paul sows in these verses is the seed of personhood

Paul has just addressed wives & husbands and children & parents, now he addresses slaves, as people, alongside their masters.
Given the historical and cultural context in which slaves were thought of and treated as living tools (and not as human beings) it is remarkable that Paul addresses them at all
By including slaves in this way Paul is acknowledging their personhood and giving them dignity
It indicates that slaves were accepted members of the Christian community and that Paul regards them as responsible people (like their masters) to whom he can make a moral appeal. [3]

Taking this thought further, Paul gave honour to the role of a slave by identifying himself as a slave of Christ.

When we look at verses 5-8 of Ephesians 6 we notice that Paul keeps referring to Jesus

Verse 5, slaves obey your earthly masters… as you would obey Christ
Verse 6, obey them… like slaves of Christ
Verse 7, Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men
Paul is saying here a person is not defined by their job or their master
A person is defined by Christ
What’s more, our value and identity as persons do not derive from our social standing or our circumstances but from Christ.

Paul gives slaves the dignity of personhood – and when we see other people as persons (not as tools) we start to value them better.

Another underlying issue Paul addresses in these verses is that of purpose or motivation in a slave’s work and life

Albert Camus, the famous existentialist writer once said, ‘Without work all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless life stifles and dies.’

Albert Camus was talking about purpose or motivation in working
For your work to have soul you need to have a good purpose, an intrinsic motivation in doing it
You need to feel your work fits with the values you carry in your heart
You need to have a sense that you are fulfilling a higher calling
Without a good purpose, without an intrinsic motivation, work becomes soulless and life stifles and dies

A few weeks ago I told you about my misspent youth studying business management. It wasn’t a total loss though. There was one case study, from the course on organisational behaviour, which I found meaningful…

In the 1920’s researchers carried out some tests on factory workers in America
The test involved changing the level of lighting in the factory to see if workers’ productivity was effected
As they gradually increased the lighting the workers produced more
The researchers thought they might be on to something until they dimmed the lights and found that workers’ productivity continued to increase – which was puzzling and counter intuitive
When the illumination studies finished and the researchers left the factory, workers’ productivity slumped
Apparently the level of lighting had nothing to do with the workers’ productivity – it was the presence of the researchers themselves that was effecting productivity. Why was that?
Some say the workers were more motivated because of the interest being shown in them by the researchers
Going a bit deeper though, I think there was more to it than simply being observed – I wonder if the presence of important people doing important stuff gave the workers a greater sense of purpose in what they were doing
I wonder if the researchers’ presence gave soul to the workers’ jobs
With the researchers there the factory workers weren’t just assembling radios on a production line – they were in fact serving a higher calling; they were part of something bigger and more lasting.
Whatever the reason, it became known as the Hawthorne Effect

In verse 6, of Ephesians 6, Paul addresses the deeper issue that we all face in our work, whether we are paid or volunteer, and that’s the issue of purpose

What is your ‘why’ for working?
What is it that gives your work soul so that life thrives?
Paul makes it clear that the purpose (or motivation) for obeying earthly masters is not just to win their favour, when their eye is on you, but to do the will of God from your heart
Paul is advocating for an intrinsic motivation
Your manager may not always show an interest in you
Your boss may not always appreciate your work but God does and his interest in your work, his appraisal of you, means more than your boss’

God sees the good we do in secret and he rewards us

But that reward is not necessarily measured in dollars
The reward God gives is that of a meaningful purpose
God makes our work serve a higher calling – he has the power to give our work soul, so that life thrives.

Personhood, purpose and power

The slave / master (employee / employer) relationship is traditionally a top down relationship – it involves the use of power

In verse 9 Paul says: And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favouritism with him.

This is a reminder to both slaves and masters that power ultimately rests with God
God may delegate his power to certain people for a time but that power is only ever on loan from God – it always returns to him

Do not threaten them, means don’t try to control people with fear – use encouragement – the carrot is usually better than the stick

And the instruction for masters to treat their slaves in the same way, is a reminder of the mutual submission that Paul described in chapter 5, verse 21

If slaves are to serve their masters as if they were serving Christ and masters are to do the same for their slaves, then we have a relationship in which the master is using their power for the well-being of their slave
In fact, the master / slave relationship is transformed so that the slave becomes family

Paul was a wise man – he didn’t try to change the legislation or rebel against the authorities – he addressed the underlying issues of slavery by restoring to slaves (and masters) a sense of personhood, purpose and the right use of power.

Philemon & Onesimus:

Reading Ephesians 6 I am reminded of Paul’s letter to Philemon

Philemon was a Christian, someone Paul had led to the Lord
Philemon owned a slave called Onesimus
It appears Onesimus may have stolen from Philemon and run away
This was pretty serious stuff back in the day – Philemon could’ve had Onesimus killed for that sort of behaviour
But, in God’s providence, Onesimus found his way to Paul who was a prisoner in Rome at the time
Paul led Onesimus to the Lord and then went about reconciling him to Philemon
Let me read to you some of Paul’s letter to Philemon
Notice how Paul presents Onesimus as a valued person (not as a tool)
And how he persuades Philemon to use his power to show mercy and forgiveness
Paul reminds Philemon that to win in a relationship we don’t keep score
From verse 8 of Philemon we read…

Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, ⁹yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus— ¹⁰that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. ¹¹Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.

¹²I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. ¹³I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. ¹⁴But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favour you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. ¹⁵Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever— ¹⁶no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.

¹⁷So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. ¹⁸If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. ¹⁹I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back—not to mention that you owe me your very self. ²⁰I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. ²¹Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.

We don’t know what the outcome was in this situation

We do know that if Paul had his way then Philemon would have taken Onesimus back, not as a slave, but as a brother.
The letter to Philemon shows us God’s intention to abolish slavery

Conclusion:

Thankfully, most of us are unfamiliar with slavery, although in working for wages or a salary or having to pay off a mortgage we do have some idea of what it feels like to have someone own our time

What Paul says in Ephesians about slaves and their masters can be applied to the employee / employer relationship
Workers are not tools; they are persons of dignity to be valued
Likewise, employers are people too – so employees shouldn’t try to stick it to the man
Give your best – work for your boss as if you were working for Christ and God will reward you
Whatever our station in life, our purpose is to do God’s will
Any power we have is temporary and needs to be used in a way that pleases God.

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 did Paul instruct slaves to obey their masters (rather than rebel)?
In what ways was ancient slavery different from modern slavery? In what ways are they the same?
What deeper underlying issues does Paul address in Ephesians 6:5-9?
Where does your personal sense of identity (or personhood) and value come from?
What is your ‘why’ for working? What gives soul to your work?
How are masters/employers to use their power?
How might Paul’s instructions to slaves and masters be applied today in employee / employer relationships?
Take some time to read and reflect on Paul’s letter to Philemon this week. What does this letter reveal to us?

[1] https://www.onestaff.co.nz/blog/modern-slavery-in-new-zealand-addressing-a-widespread-issue/

[2] Klyne Snodgrass, NIVAC ‘Ephesians’, page 327

[3] John Stott, Ephesians, page 252.