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fear not

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.(Philippians 4v3-7)

This was the first bit of the Bible I knew off by heart. I found it in my little red new testament and psalms that I was given by the Gideon society when they did a school assembly in my first year at warden park. I still remember sitting in the sports hall. Anyway, I have had this Bible with me ever since I was eleven and I am so thrilled that you now have it because it is my most treasured possession. I initially use the Where to find help when section at the beginning to find my way around and these verses are mentioned in there.

Here are three things that I love about these verses:

  1. rejoicing is the best way to get over anxiety and worry. I have often been able to do this on the outside but often carried too much anxious thought on the inside. as I look back over the years, I see that God has taken care of my fears and I wish I had rejoiced so much more in the midst of them.
  2. I really like the emphasis on gentleness. It was one of the things that I loved about dad and everyone noticed it about him and the only thing that I remember from dad’s funeral service was Roger who began his eulogy with the description of him as a gentle man. Gentleness does not mean that we should be like doormat. Jesus was nothing like that. It means to surrendered life to God and so show compassion to all because life is not a competition.
  3.  I love the final verse because it is saying that nothing is too small or too big to ask for help from God with, and if we start with a thankful heart for all the blessings that God gives us each day, we find the simple child like not childish belief and trust in Jesus who showed us what God is like. Peace that transcends understanding means that we do not need to have a clue about how God is going to fix things, or even why God is allowed stuff like motor neurons disease, to experience the peace that the Holy Spirit longs to give us. I know that peace. Not always but most days when I pray with thankfulness to God for all the blessings that I have been given in this time. You are a huge part of that.

Here are three songs that speak to me of these things. The servant king one is about what I was saying about gentleness. The raise a hallelujah one is about rejoicing in the middle of our worries hallelujah means prise the Lord in Hebrew.

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the greatest gift in the world: family and friends who pray

I am so so so so so blessed by the prayers of family and friends who pray for me

I have realised in this journey from capacity to total dependency that I treasure the prayers more than anything in this life

Nicky and Imogen pray for me at bedtime and I know that Mum has me and our whole family continueslly in her thoughts and prayers. My Sarah has begun praying too which is so exciting and lovely.

I have a very dear friend who often holds me in prayer on his morning swim and another who I know fervently prays for me every day

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Chapter Seven

Prayer and Miracles

God in suffering

Why does God sometimes seem to be silent when we need him most and cry out in pain or despair? Why does God not always intervene to heal in answer to prayer or to prevent any suffering in this life? (talk transcript).

There are no easy answers but relationship with God in Jesus assures us that we can know that God never abandons us despite our pain and utter confusion and despair.

  • I spoke on this over two talks at St James Clerkenwell on the prologue and conclusion to the book of Job.
  • I have also found a wonderful talk on this by Tim Keller

God is with us when we suffer: sermon on the opening of the book of Job

God will meet us in our suffering if we want him to (speak to him honestly about how we are not feeling, even if we are angry and confused with him: sermon on the end to the book of Job

Video: Tim Keller: how to deal with dark times

Nothing can separate us from God’s love (talk transcript)

Romans 8: 14-38

Life Through the Spirit

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Present Suffering and Future Glory

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

More Than Conquerors

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Today, I want to talk about the greatest discovery that we could ever make in our lives. The greatest discovery we make, a discovery that brings true fruit, freedom, and life in all its fullness. It is the discovery that nothing, no limitation, no situation or problem in our lives can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Nothing in our past, no guilt, no regret, no shame. No circumstance in our life. No situation at work or at home that sort of seems intractable or holding us back in some way. No limitation in our life. No disability that we may face.

Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. Paul, at the end of Romans eight, says this,

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present, nor the future, nor any powers, neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

In Romans eight Paul addresses some of the things that I’ve just been mentioning. Some of the things which we might feel are barriers separating us from the life that we long to know. He starts with the guilt and regret. He says that can’t separate us from the love of God in verse one of Romans eight, he says,

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Later on and in Romans eight he looks at the kinds of situations that we could think could separate us from the life that we long to know. Picking it up in verse 35,

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it’s written, ‘For your sake, we face death all day long. We’re considered a sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Paul knew that, he’s utterly convinced. No trouble of any kind, no lack or limitation in our lives can separate us from the love of God. He knew that with all his heart, and we can know that with our heart too, with all our hearts.

Making it real in our hearts

I’m talking about this topic today because it’s the Holy Spirit who makes that reality so real to us in our hearts. It’s the Holy Spirit who shows us that the Holy Spirit who came as fire on the day of Pentecost as we heard. I heard it recently in a talk by the Archbishop of Canterbury, about a Saint from the last century called mother Maria. She was a Russian nun who lived with the little community in Paris, in the 1930s, working to serve and defend the poor and the refugees of that city.

And when the Nazis arrived in the 1940s, she continued to serve the Jews in that place. And she was arrested and taken to Ravensbruck concentration camp. And on Good Friday, 1945, she stepped forward voluntarily to go to the gas chamber in the place of another woman, she gave her life. And one of the things that the Archbishop was drawing out of her life was that she was such an unconventional Saint. She had a really kind of bumpy and difficult life.

She had none of the kind of things that you’d expect would make it easy to be a Saint. She was a single mum, she was divorced. She did what she did while bringing up two children in Paris, in very tough circumstances. And apparently she was a very unconventional kind of nun. Her neighbors used to complain about the noise from her rooms because she’d held parties late into the night for anyone who would come and to share in the love of Christ. And people who saw her situation, the things that she faced in her life, tried to persuade her to not be a nun, to take an easier path.

But when she was working out what God was calling her to do with her life, she wrote this, she said, “Either Christianity is fire, or there’s no such thing.” She was utterly convinced that none of the problems or the difficulties in her life could hold her back from living the life that God had for her. Nothing could separate her from the love of God in Christ Jesus, because that love is like a fire that burns, it’s the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit came on the disciples at Pentecost, it came like fire, the church was born. And it’s grown in every generation, when men and women like mother Maria, who are aware of problems and limitations in their life say, “You know what? Nothing can separate me from the love of God. Nothing can separate God’s life flowing through me.” What I want to look at, is how that can be our experience, how that can be our conviction too.

The work of the Holy Spirit

All through Romans eight, Paul says that it’s the Holy Spirit that assures us, that nothing can separate us from God’s love. And what I hope that we’ll leave today knowing is that God works by his Spirit in ways that overcome anything that holds life back. And when I say that, I don’t want us to get confused because I think that God works in all sorts of ways, but we know that the Holy Spirit overcomes anything that holds life back. Because as it says in Romans eight chapter 11, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead. Not even death could hold the life of the Spirit back.

And we need it to see how the Holy Spirit does things in different ways. Sometimes God overcomes the things in our life that seem to sort of hold life back by taking away the barriers, working in miraculous ways. Healings, breakthroughs, deliverance, new beginnings, or signs of the new life that the Holy Spirit brings, the new creation that was begun when Jesus rose from the dead.

Sometimes just as miraculously, actually, God works by his Spirit through the very limitations that we think would otherwise hold life back. Signs that actually God’s life, as he showed through Jesus Christ comes through the tough things. There is nothing more tough than the cross and Jesus faced that and showed that life came through even that. We need to see that so that we don’t get confused. So that when things in our life remain that seem difficult, we don’t see them as signs that God is not present by his Spirit. But actually we see that God is present by his Spirit in every situation in our lives, bringing his life.

I like the Charlie Brown cartoons, and there’s one in which Lucy says to Charlie Brown, she’s sitting on a deck chair and she says, “Charlie Brown, life is a lot like a cruise ship.”

“You can either set your deck chair up, looking out to the back of the boats, looking at where life has been. Or you can set up your deck chair at the front, looking at where you’re going.” And she says, “Charlie Brown, which way is your deck chair facing?” And Charlie Brown, he sighs and he says, “I’m still just trying to unfold my deck chair.” And I identify with Charlie Brown because we can feel like that, can’t we? But I’m beginning to see that if we’ll let him, God will show us that we don’t need to have our deck chair of life all set up and everything perfect for him to come by His Spirit and His life through us. And actually when we discover that it’s the greatest freedom of all, because we can pray with confidence, praying for God to move mountains.

And He sometimes does move mountains, in the physical, more often than we can imagine. But knowing that if somehow God answers the prayer slightly differently to how we wanted him to, that if limitations remain in our life, if things remain that we wouldn’t necessarily choose, that God is still just as powerfully at work in our lives, by his Holy Spirit overcoming anything that can hold life back. And that’s why I wanted us to look at that little bit of Romans eight. Paul describes the work of the Holy Spirit like a new birth. He says that it’s a new birth that creation has been longing for, groaning for. A creation that’s been held back by sin and all the ways in which the fall has marred creation, is waiting for the new life that God brought by his Holy Spirit.

The fruits of a new creation

And he says there in verse 23, that we have the first fruits of that life by the Holy Spirit. That is why when we pray in the power of the Spirit for God’s healing to come in a moment, sometimes God does contract the normal span of healing. And he brings healing, because that is when Jesus returns and the new creation, there will be no more pain, no more suffering, no more sickness, no more death. And God does that by His Spirit, because by his Holy Spirit now, we have the first fruits of the new creation. There’s something so present, so real about this new creation here and now. And on the day of Pentecost, that was when it all began, that was when the church was born. In our first reading, we heard how the disciples were praying eagerly for the Spirit to come and he came and he came in power.

They all spoke in different tongues so that everybody in Jerusalem could hear about Jesus in their own native language. And then the work began of taking the good news of Jesus out to all the corners of the world. And the signs of that new life began straight away all through the book of Acts. We see healings, we see the unity that comes, the common life as the disciples share together in the life of God. Works of justice, of compassion, a new community living in the power of the Holy Spirit, showing a foretaste of what the new creation is all about. And Paul says that we’ve become a people of hope. Hope is a word that comes all the way through Romans eight. Because we’re a community pointing towards where history is moving. That’s our life.

That’s what we’re about here in Finsbury Park. That’s what I love. That’s why the pastorates are so important because they’re little communities where we live in the power of the Spirit. I’m really excited, because one of the pastorate has devoted this whole term to looking at the ministry of the Spirit. And they’re looking at how we can pray for one another and the power of the Spirit to see the Spirit come more and more in our lives. So I love Soul in the City because it’s a little taste of that life being shared out across our streets and across our estates, across our community.

And we’re seeing healings, transformation of lives, real and living hope, here and now in 2011, just as they were when the day of Pentecost came. And it’s right, that Paul uses the word hope because as well as this life of the Spirit being a present reality, it’s also very much about a future hope. Something more to come.

We were singing, there must be more than this, come Holy Spirit. Because when the Spirit comes, we begin to long for the more that is to come. We’re not fully there yet. As Paul says in verse 23, he says, “Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we have that taste, groan inwardly as we wait, eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” There is this groaning that still continues in our own life. And as we reach out to those who are groaning in the world, and it’s a groaning that’s of the Spirit. That’s what’s so exciting, it’s not just us going, “Oh my goodness. Why is life like this?” It’s the Holy Spirit who’s coming into our hearts and sharing that groan. It’s God giving us a groaning for the more that is to come.

So that’s why Paul says in verse 26, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We don’t know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”

He’s saying that even when we’re lost for words, as we look at situations in our own life or in the life of the world. Things that we may say are so intractable, the Spirit comes and prays the prayers that we don’t know what to pray. He prays God’s prayers that God’s Kingdom may come. No situation, no problem is separated from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, that’s the truth. And so the Holy Spirit comes both as a foretaste of heaven, the first fruits, and also a fire that burns in our hearts as we long for the more that is to come.

The completion of the victory that Jesus won on the cross, and in his resurrection. I’ve been reading a book by someone called Francis Chan, who is a pastor in America. And he’s written a book about the Holy Spirit. And in that book, he says he was once asked, “Who’s the most Spirit filled person that you’ve ever met?” And he replied that without a doubt, it was Joni Eareckson Tada. You may have heard of her, she was injured in 1967 in a diving accident and was left quadriplegic, she has no feeling or use of her body beneath her shoulders. And in hospital as she lay there. And this was beginning to sink in what had happened. She just wanted to end her life, that’s all that she wanted, she says that. The thought of spending the rest of her life dependent upon others for almost everything left her shattered. But through the love of friends who came and prayed for her, she surrendered her life to God.

She said, “Okay, God. I don’t know why I’m in this situation, but this is my life. I give it to you.” And the Holy Spirit filled her life and has used her in the most amazing way over the last 37 years. The Holy Spirit has poured a life through her. Her charity, which is called Joni and Friends has helped thousands around the world with disabilities. She set up a program called Wheels for the World, which makes sure that people in countries where there are not enough wheelchairs get a wheelchair.

She’s an amazing artist, she paints by holding a brush in her teeth. And she’s a gifted speaker going around, building up the church. But Francis Chan says this, “It’s not because of these accomplishments that I consider her the most Spirit filled person I know. It’s to do with the fact that you can’t spend 10 minutes with Joni before she breaks out into song, quotes scripture, or shares a touching and timely word of encouragement. I’ve never seen the fruit of the Spirit more obviously displayed in a person’s life as when I’m with Joni. I can’t seem to have a conversation with Joni without shedding tears. Her life at every level gives evidence of the Spirit’s work in and through her.”

And I feel so challenged as I hear that. Because I know how easily I let the problems of my life become like kind of barriers where I say, “Lord, unless you can take this away, I don’t really think I can know the fullness of life that you call me to.” And I saw an interview with her on YouTube, and she says that there are many struggles. She isn’t simply just kind of reconciled her disability. She wakes up many days, wishing she didn’t have to have someone come in and wash her and do everything for her. But she says that when she feels like that, she asks God for strength and he comes by his Spirit and he gives her that strength. And her life to me is a testimony of that truth, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

That’s his promise. And the Holy Spirit comes to bring life in every way and in every situation. God moves in miraculous ways by His Spirit, so much more than I think we often realise. He’s a living God and new creation has begun. And the only mistake we can ever make when we pray is not to pray too big a prayer. We can’t make a mistake in praying for more miracles, more amazing things. The only mistake we can ever make in our lives is thinking that the love and the life of God are somehow at the other side of a particular situation or problem or limitation in our life, they’re not. The apostle Paul saw God move in every way, both in the miraculous ways. And sometimes when he talks about a thorn in his own flesh, and he says so many times, he said, “Lord, take it away.”

But God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness.” And when he realised that, he had true freedom. Because he could say, “I could boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, because Christ’s power may rest on me.” And he came to know, and that’s really what I want to just leave with you today. He came to know the win-win of the Christian life. When we pray for the Holy Spirit to come, we cannot lose, because God will do, if we trust him, if we surrender our life to him, God will do the most amazing things. And all we have to do is to trust that in whichever way God works, and I know it’s totally human. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t want God to take away the tough things, but it’s totally trusting in God, and as I say, it’s a tragedy when the church stops praying for miracles, because God is at work miraculously by His Spirit.

But what is equally a tragedy is if we think that God is only at work that way, and that if somehow God leaves us with a particular situation to deal with, we let ourselves be cut off from the amazing reality that God can work through any limitation, any situation in our lives. Mother Maria I mentioned earlier knew that, Joni knew that, we can each know that in our lives. And then we become people who see miracles in all kinds of ways. That is what the Holy Spirit came to do, to assure us that there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God. Paul says there in Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose.”

You each have been called according to God’s purpose. Nothing in your life can separate you from the love of God. He can work in everything to the good. And our job, I think at Pentecost is to say, “Come Holy Spirit.” And just to utterly trust him that he comes. When we say, “Come Holy Spirit.” He comes and he only brings life. He brings it in his way, in his timing and in utter love. And it’s the answer to every fear so we’re not left thinking that God is only with us if certain situations happen that we’re looking for. Paul says, “You did not receive a Spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you receive the Spirit of sonship. And by him, we cry ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our Spirit that we are God’s children.”

Faith in the storm (talk transcript)

Matthew 14:22-33

Jesus Walks on the Water

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

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

But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
“Come,” he said.

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

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

Jesus comes to us in the storm

We are never out of Jesus’ sight or reach even when it feels like we are. At the at beginning of this passage Jesus is totally involved in the disciples situation even when he seems far off, out of sight, and they feels alone in their situation:

Jesus “went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.” (V.22-25)

Jesus is praying. He sees their situation. He comes to them in the midst of their struggle. Jesus hasn’t changed. We read in Hebrews that the risen and ascended Jesus “lives to intercede for us”. He (the Son of God) is praying for us. That’s an amazing truth. He sees our situations even when we cannot see him or feel his presence, and he is right with us by his Holy Spirit. He comes to us in the storm.

As this passage unfolds we see how faith works. It has three dimensions as we will see. Each dimension of faith is a way that God frees us from that desperate feeling of being trapped by our weakness and fears.

Faith is a choice

First of all, faith is simply a decision. A choice that we can make at any time however late in the day or situation it feels.

“When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. Immediately Jesus said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”” (V.26-27).

What Jesus is saying is that the disciples don’t have to work up faith, but rather simply take courage. Why? Because of who Jesus is and that He is with them. It takes courage because it is always a choice. We can always look at circumstances or ourselves instead of Jesus.

Believing in, looking to Jesus, is actually the essence of the life for which we were made. John concludes his Gospel: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ. The son of God. And that by believing, you may have life in his name”.

Crucially, our choosing faith is not a decision based on our circumstances, but on the nature of God. His love and His sovereignty. When Jesus comes to the disciples on the lake, their circumstances haven’t changed yet. The storm is still raging, they are still stuck in the boat paddling just to stay still. But with Jesus’ presence everything is different. It makes possible the decision of faith. “Take courage, it is I”.

This matters because if we can discover that we can make this decision for faith in Jesus no matter what we are facing, it means that we can know the peace and freedom from fear that God wants for each one of us.

Freedom through faith

A man called Nick was born without arms or legs. When I first saw him I was so upset for him. I thought he was so brave to keep going and to smile. But as he spoke I realised that he was the most purpose-filled, joyful, and free person that I had ever seen. He is living proof that we can take Jesus at his word: “Take courage, it is I”. He said something that really stuck with me:

“The devil doesn’t care that he has my arms and legs. He cares if he can have my joy.”

The devil can’t have Nick’s joy because Nick decided as a teenager to trust Jesus that his life was not a tragic one but a gift as much as any life. That is why he is so free. He has discovered the reality of choosing life not feeling it is dependent on circumstances. But rather a decision. We may still be on that journey towards this kind of freedom and joy. I know I am. But when I see it so genuinely and authentically in a man like Nick I know how real it is. Even though we cannot see him like the disciples could, he is no less with us by his spirit, to help us make that choice to trust him completely. 

Faith is a decision.

Now, there is a vital distinction that we need to see if we are not to misunderstand. When I say that faith is simply a decision that we can make no matter what our circumstances are, I am not saying this should involve us in some sort of unreal denial of our situations and feelings.

Some of the greatest statements of faith in the Bible come in the context of pain and confession. 

In total suffering Job says: “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him”. 

In utter confusion Habakkuk says: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vine… still I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.”

These statements of faith are not based on circumstances but a decision, a choice to trust in God no matter what. But this is nothing to do with denial, pushing down emotions, or pretense.

Job and Habakkuk, like David in the Psalms are brutally real with God about their situations. Through this gritty honesty and resolute faith they discover a freedom to know that God is faithful and hope is real. Job says in the midst of everything that has gone wrong in his life: “Oh that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed on lead, engraved in rock forever. I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth … I myself will see him with my own eyes.”

The second dimension of faith is that it is an action

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” Jesus said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. (V.28-29).

John Oakley’s well-known book on this event in the Gospels is entitled “If you want to walk on water you have to get out of the boat.” It is true. We only truly know for ourselves the power of faith in Jesus to change us and change the world when we commit our lives to the truth of Jesus’ word and presence with us by the Holy Spirit.

We can decide that a chair can take our weight, but until we sit on it we will never truly know if our faith is true. We might be willing to commit our whole weight to a chair (after all, the worst that can happen is that we get a bruised bottom!) But many of us struggle to totally and utterly commit the weight of our lives – all our unspoken dreams and hidden fears – to God. I don’t mean in the passive way that gives ‘living by faith’ a bad name. I’m talking about the active belief and trust in God through which others and ourselves are transformed by God.

About twenty years ago I met a woman called Sarah Thaine who was working with AIDS orphans in India. The work she was doing was so hard and she got ill in the process at one point. But she kept ‘getting out of the boat’. She said something in a talk that touched me so deeply and resonated with me:

“The Jesus of my journey will never say to me: ‘you were too reckless, you confided in me too much, you trusted beyond reasonable limits, you hoped too much of me. You should have only played with my word ‘have confidence in me’ rather than foolishly acting it out … No, the Christ of my life would never say that”.

As with faith as a decision, we must not misunderstand faith as an action. Taking a promise of God and acting upon it should not be confused with bravado. Notice how Peter says ‘Lord if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water’, and Jesus says ‘come’. Peter’s action which may have seemed foolish to others in the boat was in fact courageous faith. The defining point was that he was acting with Jesus, faith is about a relationship.

I love how Jesus teaching on faith as an action emphasises that it’s not about grand heroics (Sarah didn’t feel remotely heroic, even though she was a hero to me). It’s about simply doing what you can, and usually in your neighbourhood, when you see situations and people that touch your heart:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

The third dimension of faith is like the anchor to the other two. Faith is a decision. It is an action. But it is both those things because it is ultimately a gift.

Faith is a gift.

(It is rather like floating.)

The danger in speaking of faith as a decision and action is that we screw ourselves up trying to think harder, try harder. When the decision and action Jesus is looking for is much more about resting in his presence with us. Discovering that in his presence, faith is his gift to us.

Have you ever tried floating in the water at the swimming pool or in the sea? Floating is not so much about trying harder as letting go. We float by breathing deeply and lying back and resting in the water. If you keep putting your head up to see what’s coming it is hard to float. It’s a good metaphor for life.

A few weeks ago, I spoke about God’s unconditional love. It matters so much. Not because what we do with our lives doesn’t matter. But because we don’t discover the joy and life Jesus brings by thinking harder, getting all intense or trying harder as if everything depends on us.

Please don’t misunderstand me, the life Jesus calls us to is anything but passive. But it is still one where ultimately we can rest, even in our busiest and most desperate moments like the disciples in the storm, in the presence of God – his sovereignty, love and grace. It’s like floating. Our freedom is involved. It is a very intentional thing. But it is as we stop thrashing around that we start to float.

We need faith to have the courage to face our doubts and fears , which are our natural response when we feel overwhelmed.

“But when Peter saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”. Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (V.30-33).

‘You of little faith… why did you doubt?’ Those words sound harsh but they are words of real love love and affection for Peter – aimed to point him towards Jesus and away from himself and his fears wrought by his inability to change his situation on his own.

John writes “Perfect love cast out fear”. God’s love – his perfect love – helps us to learn to float. We see this as Peter is overwhelmed by fear. Peter sank the moment he looked away from Jesus and focused on the storm. Peter can’t walk on water without Jesus. No one can. He cannot just decide to jump out of the boat in his own strength. And that is why the point about relationships is so important.

Faith is a simple decision we make, no matter what. But we don’t make it alone. Jesus says ‘Take courage. It is I’.

Faith is an action. There is always a risk involved. There will always be someone or a voice in our head saying ‘stay in the boat’. That voice might be wisdom or fear. The only way we know is by asking Jesus and listening to his stirring in our hearts. We never step out in faith alone. Jesus says ‘come’.

Jesus never abandons us. Ultimately, no matter what, Jesus was not going to let Peter sink. This moment was one of many where Jesus is holding Peter up. The night before Jesus was executed, he said to Simon Peter that he would be there for him even when Peter would deny he knew him in fear. “Satan has asked to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you. Simon that your faith may not fail and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers”.

Floating is not a passive thing. It is very much an intentional action. A commitment to put all our weight our action in God’s arms of love. One of my favourite scriptures, which we often read at funerals, is this one:

“The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms”.

It is as much a verse for life as death. It is about faith as floating. I have been in that place so often in my life, where I have been struggling to make the decision for faith, to step forward in life courageously, and had to fall back on this dimension of faith as a gift – like floating. I am very much in that place again with the MND taking away my ability to speak and move. Discovering that Jesus reaches out to me when I cry out in fear and doubt.

But I am challenged afresh by those words of Jesus, ‘you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ The third dimension of faith – faith as a gift – is the bottom line, the point of last resort. But it is also the foundation for faith as a simple courageous decision to live our lives actively in faith. Life is really on hold until we choose to believe and not doubt and take courage from Jesus’ presence. At the end of the day, we discover life in all its fullness as we know the freedom that comes from faith in all three dimensions.

Faith is a decision. One we can make no matter what, and know a joy and peace that transcend circumstances.

Faith is an action. Jesus calls us to an adventure You can’t depend, confide, trust in him too much.

Faith is like floating. This decision, this action of faith are not the result of trying harder. It’s the simple intentional decision and daily living out of faith. It may seem like a mustard seed to us, but faith has the power to change us and to change the world. I love this Song by Matt Redman which speaks of the reality.

Here is the song by Matt Redman

Here is a video of Nick showing how real this is.

Expectancy (talk transcript)

John 4: 4-26

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

What God can make possible

In this passage Jesus meets with a woman in a very ordinary situation for her. Just she’s going about her day, trying to get water, which she needs. But by the end of the encounter her life is never the same again.
I want to talk tonight about our perspective on what God can do, expectancy about what God can make possible. That’s sort of the word tonight that I want to focus in on, expectancy.

What does that mean for us? What does it mean for us to be expectant in our lives of what God can do because it’s expectancy that kind of ignites our faith.

It’s expectancy that makes us pray big prayers, life changing prayers.

The kind of question that I want to ask tonight is, “What is our expectancy of what God can do in our lives.” The things that we’re kind of thinking about in our lives right now. What’s our expectancy for what God is going to do? Perhaps personally, perhaps the out in the community.

Faith built on expectancy

Do we expect to be surprised by God? Do we expect him to surprise us?
Every time I do the Alpha Course, I find that by the end of it I’m utterly surprised at what God can do. I don’t know why I have never learned the lesson, really. I always begin the course thinking, “I wonder what God will do.” And by the end I’m thinking, “Wow, it’s amazing what you can do.”

I just heard this week, and I wish… I need to get her permission to tell the story, but there was someone on the course last term who’s in China. She’s in China now. But the stuff that God’s been doing in her life, I didn’t have a frame of reference for and I’m just so excited. When she comes back, I’m hoping that she might just tell us a little bit. But I’m so challenged, “What is my expectancy about what God can do?” Perhaps part of the issue with expectancy is that we feel it’s a bit presumptuous, perhaps, to expect too much of God. That we think it’s presumptuous when I talk about expectancy.

It’s like, “Well, should you say ‘I expect this of you, God.’?” I’m not saying that God kind of owes us something, that we expect of God in a way that he owes us something. I’m talking about the expectancy that’s about what our faith is built upon.
About a sense in which, I believe, God, you’re going to do things. I’m not going to presume on how you’re going to do it, or what time you’re going to do it, but I’m expectant that you will do something when we pray, when we speak to you.
It’s about how we live practically, as Christians. When we pray about stuff, do we pray and then kind of just get on with doing stuff in our own strength just in case God doesn’t kind of answer the prayers?

It’s the kind of belt and braces approach. “I’ll pray, but then I’ll just carry on as if…” Or do we pray and then have an expectancy to see what God’s going to do?

God meets us in our day to day

I think Jesus meets this woman in a place where she’s not really expecting that much from her life other than the same old, but he wants to meet her there.

He meets her in an ordinary situation, getting water to drink. God doesn’t sort of disdain the mundane. He loves meeting us in the mundane, in the day-to-day. He doesn’t want to take us away from the mundane, he actually wants to turn the everyday into places of His presence. Places where we find Him.

He has these kind of conversations with people in their ordinary day lives. We see Jesus doing it all of the time, and he turns an ordinary situation into a place of encounter where people are not the same afterwards. This conversation begins in which Jesus challenges the lady’s whole frame of reference all the way through.  Not to humble her, but rather to lift her up, to restore her sense of expectancy about what God can do.

We see her ask her for a drink, and she says, “Why would you ask me for a drink? Why would you even associate with me?”
She’s talking about the whole issue between Samaritans and Jews, but as so often in John’s Gospel there’s two levels to it. Really, it’s all about our relationship with God. If there’s anyone here tonight, hopefully there isn’t, but if there’s anyone here tonight who kind of thinks that of God, “Why would you associate with me?” This is the word for you tonight, that he wants to. That he wants to meet with us. He does.

There’s no one that he doesn’t want to be with, hang out with. Jesus surprises her, because having asked her for a drink, he then says something kind of strange. John’s Gospel is like this all the time, you think you’re talking about one thing, then it sort of moves on.

He says to her, “Will you…” having asked her for a drink, he says this, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Her reply to him is just beautifully honest, and it’s the center of why Jesus wants to talk to her, and it’s the center of what I want to talk about tonight.

She says this, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with.” Or as the common English translation puts it, which I really like, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?”

In other words, “I hear what you’re saying, Jesus, and I want to accept it, but I just don’t get it. I don’t get how you’re going to resolve this situation.”

So what does that mean for us in our lives? Perhaps we’re looking for a job, perhaps we’re praying, we have faith that God can help to get us a job, but sometimes we can’t see how He is going to do it. We can’t see where this job’s going to come from. We cannot see how God is going to fix this situation. It’s a bit like her saying, “You don’t have a bucket.”

Perhaps we’re waiting for the right relationship, or perhaps we’re waiting for a breakthrough in some area of life where we’re held back by something and we feel like this woman. “But how, Jesus? How are you going to solve this?” Or perhaps it’s something a bit wider, we’re looking at the world. We’re looking at what’s going on in Japan, and we’re saying, “God, I want to pray about this, but how are you going to solve this situation?” Or perhaps it’s something in our community, we see a family in crisis. We see a child without family, and we see the pain and we say, “God, how are you going to solve this?” These are the kind of issues that to me hang under this question.

A different way of doing things

I went to a service this week where this reading was read, and it was something in the way it was read that just blew me away. There’s kind of incomprehension when she says, “You have nothing to draw with.” I found myself thinking, “How often are my prayers a bit like that?” That I kind of pray to God about things, but I limit God to what I can get my head around in terms of what he can do.

But Jesus’ words to her are striking there. He’s basically saying, “I don’t need a bucket. You’re talking about buckets, you’re talking about the depth of the well. I don’t need a bucket. The water that I’m talking about comes from a spring, not a well.”
I think it’s so easy to limit God to working in ways that we can understand. Our expectancy can be so easily conditioned by what we think God can do, perhaps based on what we’ve seen God do in the past, or perhaps just what we can imagine. What we can kind of get our heads around.

We can be praying for God to help, we can be praying for God to do stuff that only God can do, so we’re praying in the right way, but we kind of give God a bucket in those prayers when we kind of say, “And this is my prayer, God, and this is how I think you’re going to answer that prayer. This is how I think you’re going to solve it.” God sort of, I think, sometimes comes to us and says, “Don’t limit my resources. I have a different way of doing things.”

It’s a good question to ask ourselves, I think, sometimes, “How much do I pray with my prayers kind of limited to what I know and what I think God can do?” For this woman, that’s the situation. Life’s left her with little anticipation about what God can do in her life.
My sense, as I read this, is that she doesn’t have a great deal of expectancy that much is going to come from this conversation. She’s just going through the motions of it. Jesus says to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who asks you for a drink.”
He doesn’t criticise her lack of faith, rather He is saying, “If you knew what God can do, and if you knew who I am, this whole conversation would be a lot different.” He starts with her perspective about what God is like, and about what God can do. He wants to restore her expectancy, because then her faith will come alive.

It reminded me of that prayer that Paul prays for the Ephesians, he says, “For this reason I kneel before the Father, that you may have power to grasp, power to know, power to get your head around, together with all of the saints, how wide and long, and high and deep is the love of Christ. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge.”

He ends by saying, “To him, who is able to do more than we can ask or imagine.” God is able to do more than we can even put into words, or even imagine in our minds. Paul’s prayer is for them to grasp that. He says that they’ll grasp that, not as they kind of expand their minds, but as they kind of experience God’s love. That’s why he says, “How wide and long, and high and deep is the love of Christ.” God can restore and bring life to situations in ways that exceed what we could ask or imagine. That is what Jesus is wanting this woman to understand, totally identifying with her where she’s at.

Nothing is impossible for God

In 1965 an Englishman was born in Kenya. His life began in tragedy, at the age of two he was abused. He grew up basically battling fear and anxiety, but he had one good thing going on. Next door to him in Kenya lived a missionary couple called Michael and Margaret, and they prayed for him. Later on in his life he was sent to boarding school in this country, but at the age of 17 he was raped, and in his early 20s he was diagnosed HIV positive.

Somehow he managed to build his life and he became a company director, he became successful in what he was doing. He had a stable relationship and he had a nice home but at the age of 40, in a moment of madness, he spent the night with a male prostitute and he lost everything, his relationship, his home, his job.

Two years ago he went on a course, a Christian course, called The Recovery Course. It’s run by a man called Nigel, it’s run for people struggling with addictions. Nigel said that, “When this man arrived he looked like a dead man walking.” That’s how he described him. He was so broken that Nigel, at the end of the first night, rang up a couple that he knows in the North of England who are in their 80s. He says they’re the most faithful prayers and intercessors he knows. He says, “This man’s come on the course, I won’t tell you his name, but I just want you to pray for him. I want you to pray that he’s healed, that he’s set free, and that he comes to have faith in Jesus Christ.” So they started praying. About six weeks later, Nigel took the man on an Alpha Holy Spirit Day. He said that, “This man was filled with the Holy Spirit in the most amazing way.”

Nigel says this, he said, “He had the most intense filling of the Spirit, accompanied by wails of anguish and pain that seemed to come from the depths of his soul. He was set free from his addictions and he has a passion for Jesus as fervent as you could find.”
Recently he went to hospital for a checkup and the doctors couldn’t find any symptoms of the HIV virus that he’s had for over 30 years, they’re totally gone. A few weeks ago Nigel discovered that the 80 year old couple in the North of England who he’d ask to pray for them, a couple called Michael and Margaret, are the missionary couple that lived next door to this little boy as he grew up in Kenya.

Nigel writes this, he said, “How did that happen? A couple pray for a small boy in a different country and continent 45 years ago, and then through a chance meeting with myself, running a little course for 12 people on an estate in London, end up participating in a glorious resurrection after a period of several decades in which that small boy has traveled to the very gates of Hell.”

Keep going. Every prayer you pray counts. What a great and utterly mysterious God we have. The woman said, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket, and the well is deep.” And Jesus says, “I don’t need a bucket. The living water that I want to give you is a spring that wells up in your heart so that you will never thirst again.” I don’t think we’ll ever understand why some things take so long to resolve, why good people suffer real pain at times. But nothing is impossible for God.

Allowing expectancy to rise

That story, and this encounter with Jesus has reminded me this week that God wants our expectancy to rise to what he can do, to not limit him to what we think is possible to kind of the way that we think the world works, and the way we think things are possible, and the way we think God might answer our prayers.

This woman meets Jesus and it’s clear that she’s in all kinds of emotional pain. She’s had five husbands, and in that culture that doesn’t mean to say, probably, that she’s been moving from husband to husband, it probably means that either those five husbands have died or divorced her. So she’s in a lot of pain. That hurt comes out in her words when she’s saying, “Where can you get this living water?” She goes on to say, in quite a sarcastic way, “Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank from it himself?” She is sort of saying, “Who do you think you are?” But Jesus isn’t put off by that.

As we discover, he knows exactly what’s going on in her life, and he just wants her to have a renewed hope in what he can do. He wants to meet her in the ordinary situation of her life and give her a whole new perspective, that life isn’t about just this meaningless kind of trekking backwards and forwards to the well for water, it’s about finding living water in the midst of the ordinary.

So he says to the woman, “Go call your husband.” And this conversation unfolds where she says, “I don’t have a husband.” And he says, “No, I know what’s going on.” And she doesn’t really want to have the conversation, so she tries to divert it to wider issues about which mountain we worship on.

Jesus says, in effect, “Don’t worry, I have all that in hand to one day… it doesn’t matter which mountain we worship on because we worship in spirit and truth. But it’s like, “Let’s come back to why I’ve come. I’ve come to make you have life in all its fullness.” That’s the conversation he wants to have with her. Not to make her feel bad about the way life’s gone, or anything like that, he wants to have a conversation that really matters. That’s about, for her, it’s about this relationship pain that she’s had. That’s why Jesus came. He came to deal with that on the cross. He didn’t come to kind of skirt around the issues, so it might seem like he’s being direct, but I think he does that for each one of us.
Into the wilderness

What does it mean? I was thinking, in terms of bringing this home, what does it mean for us to have a renewed expectancy? I think sometimes it means by first being prepared to let God challenge us about some stuff like Jesus does. To find that God can actually meet us in the stuff where we perhaps think, “I’d rather really not go there. I’d rather find God meeting me somewhere else.”

A good friend of mine who went through a really tough time a few years ago said this to me, “God sometimes leads us down paths we do not want to go to get us to places we never want to leave. God sometimes leads us down paths we don’t want to go to get us to places we never want to leave.” Tim was speaking, I recommend it, if you can get the download this morning if you weren’t there about Jesus’ journey into the wilderness. He made an interesting point, he said, “It says in all of the Gospels that the spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness.”

God takes us into places. I don’t want to make the wilderness a kind of glamorous thing, it’s just that Jesus can meet us, God can do a work in us wherever we are, so don’t be afraid if God takes you to places where you don’t really want to go, because probably, it’s so that he can show you that he can meet you anywhere, that he can deal with anything, if we are prepared to follow his lead.

I come back to this point to finish about expectancy. Expectancy makes us able to find purpose and satisfaction in every season of life. This woman was deeply unsatisfied. She ends with life looking a whole lot different. Expectancy, I want to say, based on what I’ve said tonight and from this passage is built upon these three things that I think we see of what Jesus does in this passage.
Firstly, that God is totally involved in our lives. Jesus comes to the woman totally identifying with her first. Secondly, he’s totally able. Jesus has resources that are not limited by our frame of reference. He doesn’t need a bucket, is the point. Thirdly, how totally for us he is.

The passage ends where we see, that’s why I say it’s not really about faith because we see that the woman has faith. She says at the end, verse 25, “I know that Messiah is coming.” Jesus sees that there is a faith beneath the pain in her life and he says to her, “I, who speak to you, am he.” He’s always interested in that personal encounter. “I, who speak to you, am he.” It’s like, “I’ve come to speak with you, in your situation, in your time.” And perhaps Lent is a great opportunity for us to say, “God, I want to seek that encounter.” As Tim was saying this morning, “A good time to just say I’m going to find a little point to pause each day and say, ‘God, I really want to meet with you. I want my expectancy to rise for what you can do in my life.'” We’ll see that our lives are transformed.

Later on in John: 4 we read of how she’s not only got renewed faith, but she’s leading other people to Jesus. That’s what happens when God transforms our life. That’s my encouragement from the word tonight. To not let our expectancy dip even in situations where we can’t quite see how God’s going to solve a situation.

He doesn’t need us to be able to imagine, or even find the words for how he’s going to do it. He says, “God is able to do more than we can ask or imagine.” His resources are not dependent upon our understanding. He just invites us to let him meet us in the places where we find ourselves. Even if they’re uncomfortable places as they were for this woman.

God has only one motive and that’s love, and only one goal, which is freedom to know him as well as he knows us.

Chapter Six

Jesus is Truth

Stephen Meyer on epistemology

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Trinity and Truth Bruce Marshall Book CoverBruce Marshall: Trinity and Truth

This section is under construction

The Theological Epistemology of Augustines De Trinitate Book CoverLuigi Gioia osb: the Theological Epistemology of St Augustine

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Love and Truth have a name and that name is Jesus

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Chapter Five

Jesus Christ and Creation

 

John Lennox,has science buried God? 

Under Construction

Stephen Meyer tour de force The return of the God hypothesis

Under Construction

Dr Ard Louis on intelligent design and theistic evolution 

Under Construction

Convergence? The hope for Christian apologetics as we have seen in evangelisation: what unites us is far greater than what divides us

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Mum and Harry

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Mum is the most devoted mother one could ever have the privilege to know as Mum. She is the epitome of self-sacrifice and unconditional love. I cannot think of a single occasion that she has ever put her needs before her children and she has certainly shown, throughout my life, the meaning of that beautiful conclusion of Paul that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7). When Dad died she was only 43 with teenage children and no family around the corner. She went back to work full time as a nurse doing twelve hour shifts that started in the early hours so she could meet us after school or would go late into the night so that she could be with us in the morning. I am not sure how she coped but she was determined that she would do whatever she could to ensure that there was no opportunity in life that we would miss out on. I love you Mum so much, and words can never adequately express my gratitude for the start you gave me in life, how you have never stopped being there for me and believing in me, and never stopped giving to me all you have, all that you are. I love how you delight in the natural world, from your vocation as a theatre nurse to your amazing skills as an artist, gardener and seamstress, flower arranging, home making and cooking. You prepared the way for me to hear of God’s faithfulness, love and self-sacrifice. Thank you. I know that God was with you in a very real way, which I know you sense in the peace that passes all understanding. God bless you my dearest Mum. I thank God so much for you. You have been the greatest blessing in what has been a very blessed life. I was so thrilled that in1996 Mum married Harry. Harry is such a good Dad and has been there for Mum ,Nicky and I as only a Dad can in the joys and tough times. I love you Harry and I am so grateful for the way that you protect and support Mum in all the ways that I wish I could. Words are inadequate to express the love and respect I have for you. I am always in awe of the talent that Harry and Mum have for stewarding the preservation of village life ,from looking after the church ,setting up a village shop and cafe when the post office was shut ,and supporting the primary school ,all whilst creating  a stunning garden that I love seeing around on the video tours that she has made for us all during lock down. Harry and Phyllis had two sons just a few years older than us ,and it has been amazing what they have done with their lives: Rob is a headmaster of the premier prep school in Scotland and Alex is general in the army and head of legal services.

Chapter Four

Christology, Trinitarian theology and Epistemology

One of us

Do you remember that 90’s song ‘what if God was one of us’ by Joan Osborne?

If God had a name what would it be?

And would you call it to his face?

If you were faced with Him in all His glory

What would you ask if you had just one question?

If God had a face what would it look like?

And would you want to see if, seeing meant

That you would have to believe in things like heaven

And in Jesus and the saints, and all the prophets?

I think one of the points of the song is to challenge our preconceptions if we think we would have recognised who Jesus was. 

It’s so easy to think that if we had seen the miracles he performed, his sheer goodness and the way he loved the unlovely, and sought out the lost and the hurting, showing them what God is like, that we would have seen who he was and is without any difficulty. That it’d be much easier to have faith back then compared to now, 2,000 years later, reading the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

But the thing that perspective misses, as that song (albeit irreverently) points out, is that Jesus was fully human. (And actually, although I would never think of using the word, I don’t think he would be offended by being called a ‘slob’ if Joan is simply saying he was just like us. He was fully human. And I don’t get the impression that Jesus was thin skinned about the names people had for him. He was interested in only one thing showing the love of the Father.) 

The point that I am trying to make is that those who saw Jesus face to face – saw God just like one of us – didn’t have any advantage over us in terms of faith.

Jesus was fully human. As a man, he did not look any different to anyone else. We read in Scripture that there was nothing about his physical appearance or strength that said, ‘this is God’. Those who believed that he was who he said he was had to be willing to see and believe that this man, just like us, was God. I am tempted to say ‘this man, just like us, was also God’ but it’s very important that we neither confuse nor separate the humanity and divinity of Jesus. Theological problems follow if we do. I will get to the incarnation and the importance of orienting everything to this truth because everything floor from Christology. For now I am just noting that I realise how stark (scandalous even) it sounds to say that a historical man – Jesus – is God. It was the stumbling block / offensive claim when Jesus walked amongst us, and it’s the same today. It’s easy to believe Jesus was a good man or (for those not schooled in western rationalism) that Jesus was a mystical divine figure transcendent of history. But the claim that this utterly normal (in respect of his humanity) historical man was God denies those two options. They reduce the awesome reality of Jesus into religion (ie western mere good works teaching or eastern mystical transcendentalism). That Jesus who was born of Mary in Bethlehem, who grew up in Nazareth, and who lived in every respect a fully human life, is God is essential to all of Christianity. From it flows everything – in relation to who God is (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and all that is made possible through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

To see who Jesus is we have to begin with him, not our own expectations of what God is like. In John’s Gospel chapter 8, we read of a confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders of the day who were starting from their expectations of God rather than with Jesus who is God.

John 8: 25-59

“Who are you?” they asked. “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. 26  “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.” 27  They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. 28  So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up [1] the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29  The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” 30  Even as he spoke, many believed in him.

The Truth Shall Make You Free

31  To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33  They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” 34  Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35  Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37  I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word.

38  I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.[2]”

Your Father the Devil

39  “Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would [3] do what Abraham did. 40  As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41  You are doing the works of your own father.” “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.” 42  Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43  Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45  Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!

46  Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47  Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

Before Abraham Was, I Am

48  The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” 49  “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50  I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge.

51  Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.” 52  At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. 53  Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” 54  Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55  Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56  Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” 57  “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” 58  “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59  At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

The situation has been building over several chapters. We see the Jews challenging Jesus with the frameworks that they had – Abraham, Moses, the Law, the Prophets. Jesus denies none of these things, but he is trying to help them see that the God of these things is with them now, in person. But the leaders refuse to believe. They find argument after argument.

Jesus asks them a question that should help them. He says, “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?” (John 8:46) And I imagine there was an uncomfortable silence. So he says, “If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?” Jesus is saying ‘everything points to me being exactly who I say I am. The reason you don’t believe is not what you see. Rather it is that you can’t see beyond your own expectations of what God is like.’ ‘You are unwilling to see and believe.’

Jesus gives them another truth that rocks their world. He says, ‘I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word [believes in me, comes to me], he will never see death” (8:51). Jesus is not saying that we will not experience death (as the religious leaders accuse him of by changing the word to “taste”). Jesus is saying that in his death and resurrection, he is going to make a way for us to pass through death to life. This further angers the leaders. The ‘who are you?’ that they begin with becomes the altogether more hostile ‘Who do you think you are?’ (8:53).

As always, Jesus does not seek to justify himself. He says, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing.”(8:54) He is content to entrust his glory to the Father. He simply tells the truth in love. He says, “your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day.” (8:56) Abraham’s trust in God was based on what Jesus was going to do on the cross.

But again, the leaders stick to their limited vision of the power and grace of God.

They say, “You are not yet fifty years old… and you have seen Abraham!?” (8;57) And Jesus says, “ I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am!” (8:58) The Jews had no doubt what this meant. God revealed himself to Moses as “I am who I am”. (Exodus 3) Jesus is identifying himself with God. And they pick up stones to stone him for blasphemy. But this is not the moment for Jesus to die. He is going to give his life for us. But, as he says later on, ‘No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.’ (John 10:18) he slips away from them.

Limiting vision

Now this is what I love about this whole exchange with the religious leaders…

These leaders who took offense at Jesus had a big vision of God. – The God of creation, of Abraham and Moses, of the Temple in Jerusalem. And they thought Jesus was insignificant in comparison – that it was scandalous for him to be one with this God.

But actually, their vision was too small. Too limited. They were so determined to only see with what they thought they knew, that they could not see the reality before them.

Their vision was too small, not too big for what God was doing in Jesus. That this same God had become fully human in the person of his only Son and identified with us so completely, and was stooping so low (even to death) in order to lift us so high (even to life from death).

Their vision of God wasn’t too big but too small! They were looking at the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But they were unwilling to see. Their hostility was because Jesus was revealing the awesomeness of God in a way too amazing, too gracious, too wonderful for the limited view of God they had settled for.

And, you know, the hostility today towards Christianity is not so different.

If you listen to the vocal atheists in the media today, you will hear them say how God does not fit into all the information we now have through science and technology. That we know too much to believe in God.

We certainly do know so so much more that we ever have about our world. And what we can do technologically is truly amazing. But do you see the parallel? The scope of all that is big. Huge even. But it is still far far too small a vision to accommodate the author of life itself, being willing to stand among us as a human being. And to create a new beginning for us, even out of death.

If we try and limit God to what we can get our head around, we will miss the full wonder of who Jesus is.

JB Phillips, who produced a wonderful translation of the NT in modern English, wrote this: ‘If you can’t believe in God, the chances are that your God is too small.’

The task in our generation is not to try and find a place for Jesus in our modern world, as if it is all a bit too big and complex for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our task is to show how the Gospel – the good news of Jesus Christ – still is (and will always be) bigger than any vision of reality we could have. It will always leave us lost in wonder.

Speechless at the power and grace of God.

Beginning with Jesus

Our task is not to make room for Jesus, to squeeze him into our lives. It’s to stop again in wonder, in awe, at the God of all creation, who became a human being for us and was prepared to die in our place.

The truth is that to see who Jesus is, we have to begin with him. You can’t try and fit him into everything you think you already know. Not because God is above all that we know – he chose to become fully part of it in Jesus – But because he is also the Creator of it all.

Science, philosophy, psychology, human understanding is hugely powerful and valid. We can meet Jesus in it. But before everything you know even existed says Jesus, ‘I Am’.

Jesus is God with us, transforming our world from the inside out. Fulfilling his promise and plan that was there from the beginning.

What might all this mean for us? Perhaps we need to ask ourselves this question: Have I put a limit on what I think God can do? God’s whole being and power are present in this man Jesus, who in terms of his humanity was just like you and me. If we think that God’s power is limited by Jesus being a human being just like us, our vision of God is way too small

It’s why St Paul, aware of his limitations, struggling with poor health, hears God say to him: “my grace is sufficient for you [– it’s all you need –] for my power is made perfect in weakness”. He believed that. He was willing to trust that. And so God was able to change the world through him

And the challenge is, are we willing to believe that for our own lives that often feel to us so limited and insignificant?

Faith in Action

I love a story that you may have heard about the man who came across a beach with thousands of starfish washed up on it, dying in the heat of the day. And he sees a little boy going to and fro, picking up a starfish one at a time and throwing them back into the sea. And the man says, ‘have you not seen how many of them there are – there are thousands! Do you really think you can make a difference? And the little boy picked up another starfish, threw it back into the sea, and said ‘Well, I bet it made a difference to that one!’ It’s a picture of faith and action. The man was ‘doing the math’ and saying this can’t work. But he was so caught up in trying to get his head around the big picture, that he’d missed the reality the little boy could see.

The great thing about children is that they don’t do the math.They just live in the reality that they see before them. That’s what Jesus calls us to do with him. Simple faith that doesn’t need to know everything but trusts that if the God who made everything that is became just like us to remake creation, no limitations of ours will be a barrier to him.

God willingly takes on our human limitations in Jesus. And through his life and death and resurrection, shows us that these limitations are no obstacle to his life, love and power. In fact, he only wants to work through these so-called ‘weaknesses’. Are we going to build our lives around that reality or limit God to our maths? (There is nothing wrong with maths, by the way . I love maths! It’s just I can’t use it to say what God can do).

As we look around our community, our workplace, our families and friends – seeing the huge need for God. Are we going to put God in a box and say – he can’t quite reach that far into my world.

Or are we going to see Jesus? The person and power of God, present in and through a human being who knows what our life is like.

People often ask why the Alpha course begins with the question ‘Who is Jesus?’ rather than “Is there a God?’ The reason is that if we start with the latter question, our preconceptions will necessarily limit all that God is and all that God can do. Forgive me if that sounds presumptuous. I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that I don’t believe that the gospel is credible if it was not true. God comes to us in frailty of a human life like yours and mine. Jesus, the Son of God, needed to accept help in carrying his cross to Calvary upon which he would be nailed. But at the moment of greatest limitation – constrained and dying on the cross – God’s power was at work remaking all things. (I actually love how in the film The Passion of the Christ, the screenwriter takes me words of the risen Jesus in Revelation 21:5 “See, I am making all things new” and applies them to Jesus on his way to Calvary.)

And that’s the message of this book. Begin with Jesus. Don’t begin with your own understanding, or you’ll never see things as they really are. For when we start with who Jesus is – how unafraid he was of human limitations because he knew that they were what the Father wanted to work through – we find the strength and the faith to know that no weakness, no limitation, can stop God fulfilling his purpose in us. I’m writing to myself as much as anyone because the MND symptoms feel so life limiting so often. But I believe every word I have written in this post and far more importantly God’s word in Philippians 1 is true for me and for you reading this: “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

I have thus far sought to make two basic and interrelated points. That in order to witness the gospel, it is essential that we begin with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

This is not arrogant but it is the only place to start because it is our only way of declaring who Jesus is and thus who God is. The triune God who is is father, son and holy Spirit. 

Secondly I have sought to make the point that our only access to truth and reality is by faith. We believe in order to know. There is no dichotomy between the fact of the empirical evidence of science and the testimony of the church to the public truth of the gospel in this respect. Both require personal commitment and trust in fiduciary frameworks. That is not to say that there is no objective reality or that truth is not determined partly by culture and language.

What are the implications of the testimony that Jesus Christ is one of us and God with us and for us? In other words can it be sustained that Jesus of Nazareth was and is totally human and fully God? And what are the implications for the being of God (divine ontology)? What can we say of the relationship between Creator and creation and what is the impact upon the integrity of the universe and the natural sciences? 

The argument of this book is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (the gospel) puts to us the question who is Jesus cf Matthew 16: and once we have answered with the faith of St Peter that is both a free response and gifted response the Christological Trinitarian and Epistemological rationality follow in this order and the Epistemology includes the question of the rationality of science. 

From Christology to Divine Ontology

The question that I need to address now is how we move from the scripture testimony to the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to Christology to divine ontology. I am very aware that I am wading into deep Theological waters. My guides are going to be two theologians one Anglican and one Romans Catholic who are both deeply aware of the Eastern orthodox tradition. I am going to outline three points that I think are profoundly important to our understanding of the Creator and creation relationship and the integrity of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the natural sciences. The first is Christological, the second trinitarian, and the last is Epistemological.

The Heart of Creation Rowan Williams - Book CoverRowan Williams: Jesus Christ, heart of creation

This section is under construction

  • Non-competitive integrity of the infinite and finite is Christologically established.
  • This is the key to the integrity of creation and contingency upon Jesus Christ.
  • The epistemic implications of this are that we have a non-competitive relationship between scientific explanation of reality and the gospel of Jesus Christ

Tom McLeash: The Theology of Science

Under construction

Science: Integrity and Contingency

Under construction

The three ‘theological’ answers that are being sought by science:

  • the origin of the universe
  • the origin of biological life
  • the difference between our minds and our brains

The following clips are from the Intelligent Design community, which has elucidated the issues facing those who are positing explanations for how the universe, life itself and human consciousness came into existence without aCreator, and no Creator-creation relationship is required to account for our being. I find these arguments compelling in terms of their force against an atheistic naturalism. However I personally don’t want to use the emergence of information as a proof of God’s existence in a way that would undermine the Creator-creation relationship that is Christologically established and is known through faith in the Lord Jesus by God’s grace. I believe that this is essential to the integrity of the natural sciences as well as their contingency upon God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The origin of the universe

The origin of life

Are we more than matter?

God, Stephen Hawking and the Multiverse book coverThe origin of the universe

This section is under construction.

Theastic Evolution JP Moreland Book CoverThe origin of the life

This section is under construction.

More than Matter Keith Ward Book CoverAre we more than matter?

This section is under construction

conclusions

Chapter Three

Jesus Christ and culture

Believing in Jesus is the way to know God and it is a way of life (talk transcript)

John 20: 24-31

Jesus Appears to Thomas

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The Purpose of John’s Gospel

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

This is taken from my St-Saviours-Evening-Service sermon. You can listen to it here or read the transcript below.

These things are written

John writes at the end of his gospel and he says, “These things are written.” The end of chapter 20. “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” In John 20, we see a dawning realization that the resurrection has taken place, where it’s like the sun. You know how the sun comes up over the horizon? You see the light before you see the sun itself. It’s like that in John 20. There are these kinds of signs that the resurrection has happened and then there’s this moment when the disciples get to actually see the Son, get to see Jesus. They see the empty tomb. They wonder what’s happening. Mary comes to them and says, “I’ve seen the Lord.” Then they meet the risen. Lord Jesus, all of them except Thomas.

The choice between faith and doubt

Then Thomas himself gets the biggest revelation that we could possibly get in the sense that he gets to actually touch the Risen Lord Jesus, to put his hands in the nail marks in his hands and put his hand in his side. The thing that Jesus says to him that I really want to focus in on tonight, is he says, “Stop doubting and believe. Stop doubting and believe.” I think that’s quite an amazing thing to say to someone who is actually getting to touch the Risen Lord, Jesus. Thomas is standing in front of Jesus. He’s touching the Risen Lord Jesus. He’s getting the biggest possible experience that we could have of the Risen Lord Jesus. And yet he still has the freedom to choose between doubt and faith. Jesus says to him, “Stop doubting and believe. Make that decision of faith.”

The disciples, like us today, would have had a whole stack of experiences, some of which would have affirmed faith in their life, and some of which would have undermined faith. That’s what life is like in the world as we await Jesus’ return. The disciples had seen Jesus suffer and die. They’d seen the man that they’d followed helpless on the cross. They buried him in a tomb. That was a pretty vivid memory in their minds as they contemplated the resurrection. In our lives today, suffering and death are right up there as the things that would undermine our faith in God. As we look on the TV and we see some of the suffering that goes on or just perhaps closer to home, some of the stuff that we know friends or we’ve experienced ourselves. Stuff undermines our faith and so we all have this choice between faith and doubt.

As the disciples process what’s going on, as they go to the tomb, even as they meet Jesus physically in person, even when Thomas gets to touch Jesus, they still have that choice to believe or to doubt. It’s not only John’s gospel that makes this point about how God’s never going to take away our freedom to choose between doubt and faith because it’s too important. Faith is too important. It’s everything about what life with God is about. Turn back a few pages to Matthew, the end of Matthew’s gospel, the Great Commission. It’s on page 705 in my book. It’s probably a different page number. Matthew 28 verse 16, Matthew writes at the end of the gospel there, he says, “Then the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

Experience can get you so far

When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.” Again, the disciples are standing in front of the Risen Jesus. He’s about to ascend to Heaven and they still have the freedom about whether to believe or to doubt. It’s too important for that freedom to be taken away. God’s never going to take away that freedom. And the message of Jesus’ words to Thomas is clear. He’s really saying it to all the disciples that experience can get you so far. 

Thomas is the one saying, “I’m holding out until I get to touch Jesus.” It’s like Jesus is saying to them, “Experience can get you so far. It’s great to build what you believe upon what you’re experiencing, of what you get to touch and hold taste and see.”

You will always face that choice between believing and doubting because believing is the way to fullness of life in Christ. I think we can feel, Doubting Thomas has become the little phrase for Thomas and we can feel a little bit superior to Thomas, can’t we? We may think, well, if I’d had that kind of experience as Thomas, I wouldn’t struggle with faith at all. But Jesus says something really interesting. He says to Thomas there in verse 29, Thomas gets to touch Jesus in verse 28. He says, “My Lord and my God.” And Jesus told him “Because you’ve seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Thomas isn’t the lucky one. We’re blessed if we believe on the basis of not necessarily getting to touch the Risen Lord Jesus, because it’s through believing in him that we come to fully know him.

I think we believe in our culture that experience is everything. We think like that because of our scientific mindset. I certainly think like that all the time because in science we discover truth by experiment, by experience. 

You do some stuff, you experience what happens, and then you base your understanding of the truth upon what you’ve experienced. That’s how science works. That’s why we learn things from experiments. In that scientific method, which is extremely powerful and has brought us great strides, great developments, it can spill over into our whole lives. And we can think that the only way that we get to know anything true is by experiencing it, by having it proved to us in a kind of experimental sort of way.

The impact of negative experiences on our faith

Trouble comes in life when we don’t necessarily have experiences that all the time say to us, God loves you. Many people have experiences in their lives that they just can’t get their heads around. What do you do then? How do you deal with the conflict that arises and seems to contradict your other experiences of truth? 

I had the experience, the blessing of growing up in a Christian home, and as I grew up in that Christian home and life was going really well, every kind of experience I had just confirmed what I was being told about a God who loves me, who cares for me, who’s there for me. Everything fitted together neatly. But when I was 13, my dad just died suddenly in the night of a heart attack and it rocked my world. At the same time at school, just coincidentally, I was getting bullied.

It was just really hard going at school. So I found myself not doubting God, but just going, “I’ve been basing my faith upon all these experiences that worked with what I’d heard about you, but now I’ve got a whole stack of experiences that don’t seem to be lining up with that. How do I deal with that?” And to be honest, I walked for many years in that sort of situation.

Making the decision of faith

That was until I did the Alpha course when I moved to London. Week three of Alpha was the most helpful week for me. The talk was on how can I be sure of my faith? I realised that it was actually by believing, making that decision of faith that we begin to experience in full what the life of God is like.

That it’s not that we experience the life of God in full and then we choose to believe, but rather it’s as we make that decision of faith, even in the face of some situations that we go, “I can’t square this with the God that I’ve come to know. I can’t square it.” As we choose to keep on believing that we find the experience of God, life in all its fullness follows. 

Saint Augustine wrote, “I believe in order to know.” So often in our culture, it’s the other way around. We want to know in order to believe, but Saint Augustine said, “We believe in order to know,” and that hasn’t changed. That’s not a premodern view. That is how all knowledge is based. It’s all based upon faith. Actually, if you talk to a scientist, it’s actually through their convictions that they set about doing their experiments and then they discover what is true.

So there’s actually conviction and faith behind all knowledge. We believe in order to know. 

Experiencing the life of God

The point that I’m making is that it’s great that we can experience all sorts of things and build our life on our experiences, but we’ll get fullness of life as we choose to believe, as we choose to believe in Jesus. He’s never going to take that freedom away from us because it’s as we believe in him that we discover the life to which we are called. Believing in Jesus every step of the way is how we experience the life of God. In John’s gospel Jesus says this. He says, “Whoever believes in me as the Scripture said, streams of living water will flow from within them.” Jesus is never going to force us to believe. He’s never going to take away the possibility of doubt.

We might think that’s a kind of a shortcoming. Why God, don’t you just kind of make it simple for us and take away the possibility of doubting? He’s not going to do that because it’s by believing that we find the way to life itself. If you look at Jesus’ life, the whole way through, he was living in faithfulness to God. That was how he expressed who God was. It’s quite hard for us to understand because Jesus is fully God, but he chose to take on a human body to experience human life. There were times like on the cross where he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He had experiences that were totally counter to the Father that he knew and yet he carried on believing.

 

If you look at the rest of the words on the cross, they’re words of faith. Even that one, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” comes from a Psalm, which is a Psalm of faith. God is never going to take away the need for faith because faith is what makes life worth living. It takes fear out of life because in adversity we can choose faith instead of doubt. It’s the message of the gospel. That’s why Jesus ends this chapter in verse 31, saying, “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” Believing, I think, can be presented as the hurdle that we need to get over to become a Christian. That once you believe then you’re a Christian, and then you’ve done the faith thing.

It’s not like that. We become a Christian through faith and we go on every single day by faith. Actually one way of translating that verb, is believing you may have life in his name. John’s gospel is actually saying carry on believing. That is the reason that John wrote the gospel. It was to bring people to Christ and to equip people in their Christian lives to carry on believing in Jesus. 

Saint Paul writes the same message to the Corinthians. He says, “And now these three remain faith, hope and love.” They remain. They go on being at the heart of the Christian life. I read this in The Guardian. “Europe is losing an ability to speak a language, that of faith. It pretends that faith is simply a personal hobby. When the pretense doesn’t work, it peers fearfully at a world all around that has become profoundly foreign.”

You see the world was not designed to be lived in without faith. We need to know how to live by faith because there’s no way of negotiating this world with just constant certainties. 

Designed to live by faith

God has designed us as human beings to live by faith. That would be very hard without a relationship with God, but he came in the person of Jesus Christ to give us that life which is by faith. That is what Jesus came to do. And we suffer from fear if we want to live a life of certainty rather than a life of faith. The article goes on to follow Bob Geldof in Africa. Geldof writes this. He says, “Grasping the significance of faith in Africa was like a light going off in my head. There’s not a single part of Africa where the spiritual is not vitally present.

For Africans, it’s as real and as tangible as the phone you’re holding. The spiritual is to be negotiated on a daily basis.” Now, of course, Christianity is not the only faith in Africa. Just like in Europe, there’s all sorts of faiths present. I think he’s right, that Europe’s a place where faith is not a very tangible thing. We don’t talk about our faith easily in our workplaces or in other settings. We’ve lost that ability. We need to get our faith back because actually it is the way that we live truly fully human lives. 

I heard the Bishop of London, Bishop Richard speaking about a recent trip to Nigeria. He met the Bishop of Benin in Nigeria who’d recently been shot in an ambush. He managed to get taken to the hospital and when he arrived in the hospital, some police came in and said, “We’ve got to take you away because the doctors are trying to kill you.”

So he was like, “Oh my goodness.” Then the doctors came back in and the doctors said, “No, it’s not us that’s trying to kill you, it’s the police.” So he didn’t really know what to do, but thankfully he trusted the doctors and the doctors were the ones that were on his side. They were the ones that were true. It was the police that were trying to kill him. And Bishop Richard said this. He said that talking to this man was like a transfiguration moment. He just radiated the love of God. The Bishop of Benin is a man who knows what it is for faith, hope and love to be central to his daily walk with God. The need for faith remains. It’s the gift of sharing in the very life of God. We see that born out in their last bit of John’s gospel, in chapter 21.

Faith is at the heart of a life of God

If you look, Jesus has a meal with the disciples. There’s this miraculous catch of fish. And then if you look down in chapter 21 to verse 12, he says to the disciples, “Come and have breakfast.” It says, “None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the Lord.” They’re not uncertain. Their faith is real. It’s powerful, but the fact that he says none of them dared ask means that there was still that potential if they wanted to, to not believe in Jesus. That is so important because it’s the way to be truly alive. To share in Jesus’ resurrection life is to choose faith over doubt at every moment in our life, not because it’s a test, but because faith is at the heart of the life of God.

That’s why Jesus says to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” We can go out into our lives and we can talk to people who are experiencing tough situations and not lose confidence that the gospel is good news. Because it’s not about how much we get to see, it’s about a God who raised Jesus from the dead. Not even death could hold him. So we don’t need to be apologetic if we’re going into people’s lives and we’re going, “Well, life’s been great for me. So of course, of course, I believe in Jesus.” But when people are having a tough life, you don’t need to be apologetic about the gospel because it’s not how much we get to see in this life. It’s about a God who raises Jesus from the dead. We can experience the power of his resurrection in whatever situation we’re in.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed because it’s the way to life in all its fullness. One day when Jesus returns, faith and sight will be one and the same thing, but until then, there’s faith and there’s sight. And faith, Jesus is saying, is the better way in this life because it’s the way to sight. And faith and sight will come together when Jesus returns. 

Choose to believe

So this is really what I want to end with. It’s possible to be a Christian and to have given your life to Him. But to go along with God, really a bit like Thomas, just going “Well, God, I’m really struggling to believe, really struggling to make you fully part of my life until you do this, that and the other.” And Jesus doesn’t stop loving us. Jesus comes to the Thomas in all love and he says, “Here you go. Here are my hands. Here’s my side.”

He will meet us. I don’t think God gives up on us. I know he doesn’t give up on us because I’m a Thomas so often. I think he wants to say to us in all of love, and he says this throughout his resurrection appearances, believe. Choose to believe. Don’t just wait for me to prove it to you all the time. Choose to believe in Jesus and you will find the life for which I’ve called you, the life I want you to know, a life where you don’t need to be afraid if you have a bad day because you’re not going to find God any less at the end of it because you’re choosing faith over doubt. No experience will ever prove to you what you can only discover by believing in Jesus. That’s true freedom. That’s the life of faith and hope.

Video: Tim Keller answering Lesslie Newbigin

In 2019, it will be thirty years since the publication of Lesslie Newbigin’s classic work The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. In this book, Newbigin produced an epistemological critique of what he called the ‘myth of the secular society’ and offered a theological treatise for a renewed confidence in the Gospel. At the heart of this confidence is his conviction that the doctrine of Christ and the logic of election and mission are indivisible. This creates a relationship between the Gospel and other religions and cultures that is liberating for both the church and society as a whole. Mission is intrinsic to the Gospel rather than a subsequent movement, and therefore the church is called to be neither reticent about proclaiming the uniqueness of Jesus as Saviour and Lord, nor make an arrogant claim to be in ‘possession’ of the truth. For Newbigin, if the church embraces (as it should) the reality of a pluralist society but assumes that this necessitates demurring on the ‘universal intent’ of the Gospel in the name of humility and for the sake unity, it has accepted an account of autonomous reason that is as illusory for non-Christians as for Christians. This erroneous rationality leads instead to confusion and hopelessness, and ultimately anything but the peace that is the goal of those who argue for a ‘secular society’ in which the public realm of universally accepted facts and personal beliefs are somehow separable. Newbigin calls the Gospel is “Public Truth” and the Bible “universal history” not as a culturally imperialist move but the necessary implication of the ontological primacy of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The church’s witness to that reality should bear the marks of Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God (costly self-giving) and any sort of institutional or political coercion to accept this truth is incongruent with its reality. In outlining this thesis, Newbigin drew upon significant epistemological and theological work contemporary to him (Michael Polanyi and Karl Barth in particular) as well as, of course, his wealth of experience as a British missionary and a local bishop in India for decades. In doing so, he also employed terms that he drew from ‘narrative’ and ‘postliberal’ theology, but I hope to argue that his work does not ultimately depend upon these theological moves. In the second half of this essay, I hope to demonstrate that by turning to Bruce McCormack’s groundbreaking exposition and development of the theology of Karl Barth and the recent epistemological work by Paul La Montagne. My intention is to show that their insights support the tenets of Newbigin’s theology and underline the continued importance and significance of his work to contemporary missiology.

Lesslie Newbigin’s ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to Postliberal theology: (Under construction)

• Lindbeck wrote in his classic work The Nature of Doctrine in a Post-liberal age of the stand-off between the equally problematic cognitive/propositional (conservative) and experiential-expressive (liberal) approaches to truth and posits a cultural-linguistic mediation of truth. The classic statement of the point that is often lost in modernity is that truth statements can not be disconnected from the community – that words and practical activities work with each other to form meaning making – is the crusader who lops the head off an infidel with the words ‘Jesus is Lord ‘. In what sense is this true?
• Newbigin was influenced by Lindbeck and MacIntyre on their critiques of modernity. The crucial role of tradition in the form of the life and witness to the gospel of the gathered church was not lost on Newbigin. It was his commitment to this being God’s gathering (ekklesia tou Theou) that signalled that he would not accept every aspect of this approach.
• Yes: the life of the local church (in word and action) is the hermeneutic of the gospel
• No: the gospel is public truth

How Free are we to Believe – John Lennox

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