Attractive conversation

Fans of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice will recall how Lizzy remarks to Darcy that ‘We are each of us…unwilling to speak unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.”  (If you’re not an Austen aficionado bear with me!) I have to admit that that statement fits me rather aptly at times. I am far too keen on ventilating my own opinions and airing my knowledge. (That’s probably why I’m writing a blog! )I suspect I am not alone, however, and if you struggle with this tendency too then read on!

 
The  Apostle Paul, reflecting on his approach when he reached the city of Corinth, wrote the following: ‘For I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.’ 1 Corinthians 2:2

Think for a moment about who Paul was. One greatest intellects of all time. One of God’s specially chosen messengers. A great evangelist who had seen vast numbers come to faith through his work across the Mediterranean. Yet what Paul is saying is that, in effect, he resolved to speak in Corinth as if he knew about one thing and one thing only – the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He would not be telling them about his Jewish background and or his rabbinical credentials. He would not try to impress them  with his great theological knowledge. He would not regale them with stories of thousands  turning to Christ. Only one topic of conversation would be on his lips – the person and work of Jesus Christ.  He knew this was the only thing the Corinthians needed to hear about, and as God’s messenger, it was the only message he had been commissioned to deliver. It was a subject that Paul was completely taken up with it. No wonder people thought he was obsessed or even a little mad.

 
I realised that this is the corrective to conversation that is too preoccupied with self. If you want to boast about something, Paul says, boast away  - but not about yourself but about Jesus Christ! Take a step back and look at what dominates your conversation on religious matters. Is full of your great understanding of theological matters, your encylopaedic Bible knowledge, your ability to critique every heresy known to man or to quote scripture in all three original languages (ok, I am exaggerating now!) – or is full of Jesus Christ? We can’t look two ways at once. If our attention is focussed on Jesus Christ and on glorifying him, it will not be fixed on ourselves and vice versa. Frustrated by finding yourself so self-absorbed? Look to Jesus Christ! Read about him, meditate on him, delight your soul in him and it will spill over into your conversation.

It is often true in the Christian life that if we simply try to stop doing something we get nowhere unless we put something else in its place. Hence I suspect that if we simply try to stop thinking and speaking so much about ourselves we will fail. Often such endeavours only serve to focus our attention all the more on ourselves. We need to fill our conversation more with Jesus Christ and the other things will be squeezed out. Do we want our conversation to be attractive, helpful and winsome? (Let’s face it, there’s nothing more unattractive than people who talk about themselves all the time) Fill it with Jesus Christ! Make Paul’s practice your own – to ‘know nothing’ in the communities we live in ‘except Jesus Christ and him crucified.’  

Designer labels in the church?

We are used to living in a world full of designer labels. Labels serve to summarise a set of characteristics, identity or membership of a particular group. Some labels are useful but within the church, I’m suspicious of the practice of giving ourselves or others labels like reformed, Arminian, Calvinist and so on. Too often they seem to be used as terms of either pride or derision. They divide people and are often poorly understood even by people applying them to themselves. They act as barriers rather than helping fellow Christians to understand and love some difficult doctrines.  To be honest, what other people think about my doctrinal credentials really isn’t important, and God certainly won’t be letting me in heaven on the basis of the theological ‘badge’ I am sporting.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel passionately about some of the doctrines underlying these differences, because these labels do touch on issues at the very heart of our Christian faith. One of those has been particularly on my heart recently and I’ll be saying more about that later. I’d just like us all to drop the labels and put aside the pride that goes with them. We all need to get to know the Word of God more thoroughly and to make sure our faith is resting on a secure understanding of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.  Let’s talk to each other lovingly about some of these doctrines, not to engage in esoteric theological disputes but so that we might know what God has written in his word for our comfort, encouragement and loving warning.

What is righteousness?

‘Far from being a cold rectitude preoccupied with keeping its hands clean, true righteousness is active and generous, whether it is seen in God or man…God’s righteousness is creative, stepping in to put the very worst  things right.’ (Derek Kidner, writing about God’s five ‘betrothal gifts’ of righteousness, justice, lovingkindness, compassion and faithfulness in Hosea 2:19,20)

Want to use your gifts?

When I moved back 14 years ago to the church I belong to, I used to get frustrated that the only jobs that came my way were things I felt completely ungifted in. Why didn’t God give me a role where I could use what I perceived to be my gifts? First it was teenagers. Teenagers terrify me! They seemed to speak an entirely different language to me (when they spoke at all) and made me feel like an alien in their midst. So what did God give me to do for the first seven or eight years? Teaching a teens Bible class, helping out with a church Youth Club then running a youth fellowship.  I would probably rate myself as nearly as unskilled at working with children. So what job did God give me to do next?  Sunday School teacher. Really, was God just having a laugh at my expense? Why didn’t he give me something to do that I was good at?

But now I no longer ask God to give me tasks that ‘use my gifts’ because I have realised that when I am doing things that I feel utterly unskilled at, I am most dependent on him. That dependency (we call it faith) is so much more important to the success of our labours for the Lord than how gifted we are as workers. Whilst doing something I feel I am good at, there is a grave danger that I start to do it in my own strength – and even worse, that pride creeps in. For example, when I was wondering how on earth to get through to a bunch of bored teenage boys who didn’t seem to want to do much more than grunt at me, I was praying all the way. Over many years, I learnt to love them and learnt a lot about the Lord in the process.  And now, when my Sunday School talk seems pitched all wrong and the children are badly behaved and uninterested, I am so conscious of the need for God to help me and to work in the children’s hearts. But when I am talking to a group of adults who listen to my every word and tell me afterwards how well I have done, I start to rely on myself and pride springs up in a second.

Don’t misunderstand me, I know God uses both the practical and spiritual gifts of his people to extend his kingdom. But we have to be so careful to ensure that, when we exercise our gifts, we have not stopped labouring in God’s strength or have allowed pride to creep in, because both these things will destroy our work and undo our successes. We need to constantly remember Paul’s exhortation to ‘take a sober judgment of ourselves’. When we look at ourselves through God’s eyes, our little gifts seem so puny in comparison to his power and glory. How ridiculous our pride is! This battle to remain dependent on the Lord is a constant, daily one that is won on our knees in prayer before ever we set foot out of our doors. And we need to pray for each other too, especially those in front-line ministries who are the Devil’s prime targets.

That hateful grace

A sudden encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus resulted in a dramatic change of direction for the Pharisee, Saul. All his vehemence, hatred and great abilities were concentrated into his one objective of wiping out the fledgling Church. But what exactly was it that Saul so hated about this ‘Jesus movement’? As he confronts Saul, our Lord makes clear that it is him personally, and not Christian believers, whom Saul is persecuting. No doubt there were many factors in Saul's hatred of Jesus Christ, including a perceived threat to the Pharisees’ power and prestige in Jewish society, Jesus’ humble Galilean background and his lack of formal education. But I have come to the conclusion that at the bottom of it all, Saul was offended by grace. He hated the idea of it with every fibre of his being.

Think of what Saul was – a Pharisee, whose most fundamental principle was that salvation was to be achieved by keeping rules. Ostensibly it was by keeping God’s Law as found in the first five books of the Bible, but in fact it was about keeping a whole host of rules that had accumulated around the Law until the Law itself was all but obscured. They had rules for everything – every minute detail of day to day life.  By keeping all of these petty laws, the voice of conscience and fear of the wrath of God could be supressed, and pride could swell as it totted up their achievements. And Saul had kept these rules more carefully than all of his peers. Not only that but he was a Jew of good birth with a huge intellect, an influential Rabbi of great learning with a substantial following. He was revered and respected wherever he went as a man of great righteousness and piety. He was righteous – he had made himself righteous through all his efforts. What then did he need in a gospel of grace?

Yet in that single encounter with Jesus Christ, Saul’s view of himself was stood on his head. For ever after Paul (as he became known) referred to himself as ‘The chief of sinners’. All that he had relied upon was empty and worthless – he stood bankrupt and empty-handed before God. Now he saw why salvation must be all of grace. God must do all for us because we have nothing to bring to the table. Paul’s tears must have flowed like a river as he now welcomed the grace he had so hated with open arms. Forever after he could speak of nothing but the Gospel of Grace. It bubbled up out of him like a joyous, unstoppable spring.

Are you offended by grace? We all began from there. Satan has been whispering into our ears from the dawn of time that we do not need God, we can go it alone. Pay no attention to his lies. He is not the Lover of your soul – that belongs to God alone. He has done all that is necessary for you himself. All you have to do is give up on your own pathetic efforts and lay hold of Jesus Christ.

Answers in the toolbox

Having become Christians, we know that God expects us to live a life of increasing holiness, producing fruit consistent with righteousness. But that brings me straight up against an awkward question. Are these fruits produced as a result of my efforts or is it the Lord’s doing? This isn’t merely a conundrum for theologians to contemplate over their cornflakes!  For I know how weak my will is and how fickle my heart is. If it is all down to me to produce a more holy life, the chances of me every living the life that God wants me to lead seem hopeless. Like the man of Romans 7, ‘what I want to do I do not, and what I hate I do!’ (Rom 7:15) If it is down to me,  I might as well pack up and go home now.

I know that I need God’s help if my life is to change. But saying that we should therefore just  ‘let go and let God’ doesn’t sit right either. What about passages like 2 Peter 5 – ‘Make every effort to add to your faith goodness, etc’? That doesn’t sound much like ‘letting go and letting God?’ In fact, it sounds very much like it is down to my effort after all. So I go away and tell myself to try harder, with inevitable consequences

Familiar story? Have you found yourself reduced to a confused, demoralised heap crying out with the man of Romans 7 ‘Oh what a wretched man (or woman) I am!’ If you have, let me share with you an every-day illustration which helped me sort this out.

Imagine you are trying to undo a nut and bolt, but the nut has rusted on and won’t turn, no matter how hard you try. You reach for the WD-40, spray it on, re-apply the spanner and hey presto! Off comes the nut. Now I reckon the WD-40 is a bit like the assistance the Holy Spirit gives us. There was no way that bolt was coming off without the WD-40. But imagine if a person just sprayed on the WD-40 and left it? He would sound a prize idiot complaining to the shop keeper that WD-40 doesn’t work because the nut was still attached! But that is what the person who thinks he or she can ‘let go and let God’ is like! Our DIY enthusiast needs to apply the WD-40 then get out his spanner and apply his own effort.

In the same way the Spirit’s power is essential but God has so ordained it that we still need to exert ourselves. But we do so resting in on God’s enabling - and that is the critical difference. Try it and you will see that this is true! But you’ll also find that the minute we start to think we can do it in our own strength we fall flat on our faces – which reinforces the lesson that we need to rely constantly on God’s enabling!

A Gathering of Nations

One of the best bits of the Olympic opening ceremony was seeing all the national teams assembling in the arena for the first times. I loved seeing all the different faces from around the world – so many beautiful faces lit up with the joy of being there. As a peaceful gathering of nations the Olympic Games are unique. Sadly they have been marred over the years as the Games have on occasions been  hijacked by repressive regimes or athletes have been excluded for political or racial reasons. But there have been wonderful moments too, when an athlete has become the first to win a medal for a tiny nation, or when the Games have been able to break through barriers of discrimination. These London Games have been such an instance, as every team included women athletes for the first time in the Games’ history.

It all made me think of that great gathering of nations that will take place at the end of time. From the time when God promised the blessing of all nations through Abraham’s offspring, God has been gathering together a people for himself from all nations on earth who will one day gather to worship him. The book of Revelation pictures that vast, glorious multitude made up of people from every corner of the earth. I imagine it will be an extraordinarily colourful and diverse scene.  I can tell you that the joy there will far exceed the happiness on the faces of those athletes. There will be none of the problems that characterise relations between people groups in this life – no fighting or war, no more of the weak exploiting the strong, no more hatred or racism. We will be one in heart and mind, united in one purpose which is the praise and worship of the Lamb on the Throne, Jesus Christ.

Perhaps that seems impossible but when all things are made new, when God is once more the centre of all human affections and his glory the motivation of all human activity, there will be no place for these things any more. On that day, when he sees his providential workings throughout history finally bringing about what has purposed for so long, no one in that vast multitude will be more joyful than the LORD himself. What it will be to behold the joy of the Almighty God!