Taking a break

I will be out of the office till early May, so no new posts until then.

Cheers for now - Ian

Friday is coming

“And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8)”  Friday is coming, and we must begin to prepare ourselves for the most significant event on the Christian calendar. I wonder whether I am ready to prepare myself by reflecting on the humility of Christ. I wonder whether you are.

Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross. What does Christ’s example tell us about humility?

Humility is an intentional setting aside of one’s own rights for the sake of meeting another person’s need.  Jesus, through whom all things were created, who had the full rights and nature of deity, set aside His rights, becoming the slave of all (v6&7). The universe was Jesus’ handiwork, yet He surrendered His hands to a splintered cross. He did it because you desperately needed a sinless man to take your punishment. If Jesus had insisted on His rights, where would you be today?

Humility is a setting aside of your own importance, considering others to be more important than yourself. The commentators argue that verse 3 is better translated “in humility consider others as more important than yourselves”. This makes more sense to me than the NIV’s “in humility consider others better than yourselves”. How do you do it? The answer is in the next verse, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others”. By insisting on your own rights, you often deny another person’s need. If Jesus had considered equality with God something to be grasped (v6), where would you be today?

Humility is obedient dependence on God. It was God’s plan for Jesus to die a horrible death, and Jesus did “became obedient to death – even death on a cross”. But Jesus’ obedience was even more difficult than it first appears, for it put Him in a place where He had to be ENTIRELY dependent on God. With His dying breath, Jesus said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”. At that point, He was totally depending on God to raise Him from the dead. Jesus had relinquished all control to His Dad.

Are you prepared to obey God in this way? If so, it will be humbling, for He will lead you to a place where you have to depend entirely on Him. And it is humbling to depend on another person - anyone with a disability can bear testimony to this fact. Yet we were created for humility, for Christ was the archetypal human, and He was created for obedient dependence. If Jesus had not said, “your will not mine be done”, where would you be today?

Before we come to the end of this reflection, let us place it in context lest we become too self-absorbed. I have asked three times the question, “if it were not for Christ, where would you be today?” But perhaps we should be asking the question, “if I am not like Christ, where does that put others – my family, my church, my friends and my colleagues?” Paul has lifted up Christ as an example for us to follow because he wants us to “conduct [ourselves] in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (1:27). Such conduct was necessary for the Philippians in order to counter two threats – one from without and one from within. The external threat came from persecution. The internal threat came from a lack of unity. Nothing has changed with the passing of the years!

Therefore, let us seek to build unity in the body of Christ through humility. Treat others as though they are more important than yourself. Set aside your own “rights” for the sake of meeting the needs of others. And put yourself in the humbling position of obedient dependence on God.

Cheers for now - Ian

May I have this dance?

As a pastor, I seldom experience intimacy with God when I have some sort of leadership role to play in the Sunday service. I do feel the unction or prompting of God whilst leading or preaching. But it is not the sort of experience of God that provides for my needs. I suppose that is because God is providing me with something to pass on. So I usually feel the touch of God to meet personal needs during private times of worship or when I am visiting another church in sheep’s clothing!

Last Sunday, however, was different, and I am writing about it because I was taken aback by the gentleness and poignancy of God’s touch and also by His ability to choreograph many people in what turned out to be a complex “dance” with none of the parties knowing what the others were about to do or how each part would contribute to the whole.

The “dance” began as I sought God for a sermon topic last week. It seemed right to do one last sermon on the topic of stewarding hardship. Telling Dave and Chrissie alone, I prepared a sermon on psalm 84, which teaches us how to build trust in God. My main reason for focusing on trust as an essential aid to negotiating trials came from Isaiah 26:3&4: “3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. 4 Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD , the LORD , is the Rock eternal.”

Trust keeps us safely established on the unshakeable foundation of God’s love and provision. It is when we lack trust that peace evaporates, and we begin making unholy alliances.

So much for the background; let us turn now to Sunday morning. During a time of prayer before the service, one of the musicians saw a picture. It was of a dark menacing cloud, hanging low over the congregation. Then, suddenly, the cloud began to dissipate, allowing the sun to shine through and bathe everyone with warmth and light. The first I heard about the picture was when the musician explained to the congregation that she thought many people in Harvest were still under a “cloud” and that God wanted to break through and give them relief. “So”, I thought to myself, “there are still people under the cosh, and God wants to deal with that”. I was on the right track with the sermon topic!

Then another musician came up to the microphone. God had reminded him of the story of King Jehoshaphat who had overcome a mighty invasion simply through worship (2 Ch. 20). God, he said, wanted to remind us that worship is one of the keys to victory. Now I was starting to get excited! That was one of the main points of the sermon: we build trust by seeing our trials as pathways to worship.

By the end of praise and worship, I was bursting to read psalm 84, but I couldn’t see a Bible on the stage. I thought to myself, “Lord, wouldn’t it be cool if you got somebody else to read psalm 84”. At that precise moment, someone walked up to the mic and started reading, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty...” It was psalm 84! Already, I was in tears. But, to top it all, a person in the congregation stood up and read Isaiah 26:3 & 4 – the key supporting verse to the sermon.

We moved on, then, to the Lord’s Supper, and by that stage, I was feeling very emotional. I collected the bread and the wine and sat down next to Gail. But God hadn’t finished yet. The sound man, entirely off his own bat, put on a song by Jesus Culture which has a very moving, tender arrangement with stringed instruments. It makes you want to cry and cheer and fly all at the same time. The words are an invitation, “Won't You dance with me, Oh Lover of my soul, to the song of all songs...?” And that is just what He was doing. Jesus was dancing with us, and His bride was being built up in the process.

Will you dance with the Lover of your soul this week? There is nothing He would like better, and nothing you need more.

Cheers for now - Ian