SABBATH

Dearest family,

If we hear the word ‘stewardship’ the first thing we think about is what? Money. That will be the discipline that will be addressed next Sunday. We have all heard the truism: ‘show me your check-book and I will tell you what your priorities are.’ The idea here is that our use of money is the best measure of our resources. But what I argued on Sunday, in preparation for next week, is that it is not just about your check-book but about your calendar. These two are vitally related and impact each other, and we may want to conclude that the primary currency of life is not money but time. Of course, an American consumer society has its own version of how these two relate, in the words of Benjamin Franklin: Time is money!

We looked at a NT and an OT consideration when it comes to this matter of disciplining our time. I was not interested in a few techniques to manage your time better, but in some foundational biblical truths that will help us to make wise decisions about not only how our time is ordered, but what we choose to do. If you do not manage yourself you will not manage your time. If you do not value yourself you will not value your time. If you are short on purpose you will be long on procrastination. If you don’t have a sense of place you won’t have a sense of time.

A NEW TESTAMENT CONSIDERATION: redeeming time

• “Be very careful then how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” (Eph. 5:15-17)

• “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful…Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders, making the most of every opportunity.” (Col.4:2-5)

• “The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.” (1 Pet. 4:7)

• “Do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed… The night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently…” (Rom. 13:11-14)

Note that the consideration of a right and disciplined use of time is integral with a knowledge of God’s will, which assumes a knowledge of His Word; with prayer; with personal holiness. The fact that you manage your schedule brilliantly does not mean that you are managing your time righteously. For a Christian, godly time management is a consequence of godly life management.

The Greek word for measureable time is ‘chronos’, from which we get words like chronology. Scripture is clear that we cannot have a spiritual handle on chromos, if we do not have a spiritual character. Think of the characteristics of Jesus, as presented by the fruits of the Holy Spirit, that are necessary for handling time rightly: peace, faithfulness, self-control and of course patience. The delays that we perceive in terms of time, are met with patience which is a delay of certain natural responses and reactions to that delay. Chronological delay that would incite unspiritual reactions, is met with a response of character that delays unspiritual reactions. Chronos is always picking a fight with character. Think about how much anger is generated by our responses to time. By the way, this is a serious confrontation between these two. Leo Tolstoy wrote: “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

One of the key applications of the power of Christ’s redemption in the life of a disciple is presented in Eph. 5:15-17: the redeeming of time. Time is presented as a principality and a power in Roms. 8:38 – “neither present or future”. It cannot separate us from the love of God but it seeks to. The work of Christ re-arranges our view of time. Whoever believes in him “will not perish…” (the tyranny of time is powerless and is overcome) “but have everlasting life.” Salvation changes our relationship to time and our experience of time. All would be bleak and hopeless and fearful if Jesus had not entered time and humanity and supremely through his resurrection broken the power of time to destroy us, by destroying death itself. So the Bible talks about two kinds of people: the wise who have an understanding of their time and therefore the times, and the fools who do not. There are three simple things that every disciple needs to engage in order to number their days aright, in order to be disciplined in their stewardship of time passing.

separate us from the love of God but it seeks to. The work of Christ re-arranges our view of time. Whoever believes in him “will not perish…” (the tyranny of time is powerless and is overcome) “but have everlasting life.” Salvation changes our relationship to time and our experience of time. All would be bleak and hopeless and fearful if Jesus had not entered time and humanity and supremely through his resurrection broken the power of time to destroy us, by destroying death itself. So the Bible talks about two kinds of people: the wise who have an understanding of their time and therefore the times, and the fools who do not. There are three simple things that every disciple needs to engage in order to number their days aright, in order to be disciplined in their stewardship of time passing.

1. RESTORING THE PAST
Time past, as you know, has an incredible power. The power of an unredeemed, unforgiven, unrenewed, unrestored past is always active in the present. It invades present time and seeks to RULE the present and ROB the future. Is your life in a right relationship to the PAST? (Why we are committed to Healing prayer. It is a discipleship of time issue.)

2. REDEEMING THE PRESENT
The word used here in Ephesians, ‘exagorazo’, means to purchase out of – it is the idea of redeeming time, or literally buying it back, buying it up, seizing opportunity amidst opposition. It is the idea of a bargain hunter – ransoming time from the bondage of evil, rescuing it from wasteful purposes, from being the currency of anyone else but the Lord. The idea is not just negative: as in don’t waste time, but positive: proactively seizing the opportunity. Why does it need redeemed? For the reasons that Paul gives to the Romans and Ephesians and Thessalonians. Because the days are evil, the opportunity for good is diminishing, and because the day of reckoning is coming, the availability of time to live and serve God is also diminishing. Christians are presented as the wise (sophoi), marked by these two things: making the most of the time and discerning the will of the Lord. Are you redeeming the time? How? Where is time robbed, wasted, lost, surrendered, squandered? What is time spent on? What are you fearing or denying? What are the dominant objects of your focus and concern? What are the opportunities to be seized? How do you make decisions about what you do with your time. Is Paul’s advice to the Philippians important to you, to live daily asking for knowledge and discernment, approving what is excellent.

3. REMEMBERING THE END
The great accusation of Jerusalem by God through Jeremiah was: “she remembered not her end.” There are two great motivations for our holy use of time:

1. The fact of judgment: what is it about the use of our time, our works, that will follow us, that will not be wood, hay and stubble?

2. The hope of heaven: all about what kind of treasure the expenditure of our time purchases

There is a tragedy of time passing without the fulfillment of God-given gifting’s and potential. None of us want these words on our tombstone: “He had potential.” Hosea 13:13 “Ephraim…he is a child without wisdom; when the time arrives he does not come to the opening of the womb.” (Hosea ends: “Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them.” 14:9-10) There is at least one person who has taken the shortness of time to heart as the great spur for action. “Woe to the earth and the sea! Because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short.” (Rev. 12:12) The increase in the intensity of evil and demonic activity should be matched by the increase in wise fervency of the redeemed, who as such, redeem the time because these days are evil.

AN OT CONSIDERATION: resting time It’s not the time but the space that’s the problem. In a word, I gave you some ‘peas in a pod’, a number of observations about the nature and DNA of the biblical Sabbath, that although not incumbent on believers to keep, nonetheless teaches us so many things about our expectations of ‘holy time’, about the importance of rest and most particularly, about finding our rest in Jesus, the one that the Sabbath foreshadowed. If you weren’t in church these ‘peas’ won’t mean much so you will have to listen to it. But for those who were there, and gave up on notes, here were the headings: precept, principle, prescription, prefiguration, protagonist, present (as in gift), presence, provision, prevention, preservation and protection, productivity, prohibitions, promise, praise, profession. Go write your own message… if you have the time… maybe after you have read that book on time management that you have been meaning to read the last ten years!

Anyway, what I am really saying is… (sorry, no time to finish…)

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

“The train of God’s grace is always on time.” (A persecuted believer)

HOSPITALITY

Dearest family,

The ‘discipline’ that we considered on Sunday in our summer series was ‘hospitality’. Perhaps you thought it strange that these two words would be coupled. Doesn’t that take all the fun out of hospitality and make it sound onerous? Only if you have a wrong understanding of discipline. Several factors affirm the need to understand hospitality as a spiritual discipline, including that fact that it is exampled and commanded in the OT in the life of Israel, and in the NT in the life of the church. On Sunday, we also saw that given the nature of the church as a household, given the nature of the Lord’s Supper, given the way that hospitality images are used to present the nature and experience of our salvation – hospitality is fundamental to the life of a disciple. We saw that Jesus was utterly dependent on it, and that in his roles as guest, host and invited stranger, the welcome of God was expressed in hospitality terms.

In an attempt to begin a brief theology of hospitality we observed the following points: (listen to the download for details):

1. Hospitality is the non-negotiable presentation of the gospel and the basis for our understanding our communion and community with father, Son and Holy Spirit.

2. Hospitality is the non-negotiable means for the proclamation and propagation of the gospel (see Gospels and Acts)

3. Hospitality is the context for discipleship and training

4. Hospitality is the key means to build relationships within and outside the church

5. Hospitality is an ethical issue for all believers, not just an elective possibility for some. It is the non-negotiable means for the expression of our faith through love. (1 Pet. 4:9; Rom. 12:13; Hebr. 13:1-2)

But as well as all these observations, we are more than aware of the many obstacles and hindrances to hospitality, that require the discipline of obedience to continue to practice it. What things run interference with hospitality in your life and home?

• Busyness resulting in lack of time

• Desire for privacy: home time as down time as my time

• Weariness leading to: can’t be bothered, lack of motivation, lack effort, energy

• Lack of money: widow of Zarephath was commanded by God to show hospitality to Elijah at a time of famine. As a result, her flour and oil jars did not run empty. We are just called to give what we have. This is how we learn like the widow that we cannot out-give God.

• Too much work, too much trouble

• Self-isolation

• Laziness, selfishness, slovenliness

• • Perceived lack of ability: we are not asked to be Iron Chefs.

• Shame (mess, circumstances); house proud (don’t want any mess)

• Lack of self-confidence, insecurity.

• Bad past experiences: personal, familial

• Bondage of temperament (shy, un-assured, fearful of intimacy, rejection, vulnerability, fear of failure)

• More influenced by familial or cultural norms than Christian truth

These hindrances explain why hospitality is a discipline. Hospitality is a conscious decision because it involves a conscious obedience, and a conscious commitment and a conscientious effort. We should begin by asking for two things:

• For a prepared heart for Christ’s concerns and affections and perceptions 

• For a prepared home – for others, not just oneself, and not just for those that we want to entertain, but those who need more than food (company, encouragement, touch etc.)

When Jesus commissioned his disciples to go into the nation and preach and heal he added this instruction: “Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave.” (Mt. 10:11) Hospitality was the sign of receptivity. When you get to Acts and the account of the growth of the church, it is impossible to ignore how hospitality is vital to the story. It is the hospitality of a Gentile to Peter the Jew that breaks open the mission to the Gentiles. At a time when we are engaging the sin of racism in our country and the dire consequences of racial irreconciliation that impact all of us, I hope you took to heart the point about hospitality being a key, a bridge to racial reconciliation. It was in the context of hospitality in the home that the greatest irreconciliation of Jew and Gentile was overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit. Hospitality shatters social and racial boundaries, and invites a deep sharing of our cultures and personal lives, as expressed in how we live and how we eat and what we eat, and how we decorate and what we hang on our walls, and what stories our photographs tell. It is about dignity and equality, about transparency and vulnerability, about giving with no expectation of return. (If the church is meant to be a reconciled community, no wonder hospitality is a non-negotiable qualification for spiritual leadership – 1Tim. 3:2 and Tit. 1:8) How can we underestimate this earthquake of salvation deliverance that rocked the world when Gentiles showed hospitality to Jews and they ate the hot-dogs and the shrimps from the barbecue! Enjoying the hospitality in Joppa, Peter went for an afternoon prayer and sunbathe. It says he got hungry and wanted something to eat. Guess who acted as the waiter and chef? God dropped a sheet full of meat on him in preparation for his next experience of hospitality that would usher in a brand new transnational community of faith that would see the dividing racial barriers of centuries broken and destroyed. Again, the church was born in hospitality. It says that Peter stayed with them for “a few days.” He then walked straight into a storm of criticism with the circumcised believers. Why? “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.” And talking of world-shaking breakthroughs that began with hospitality, it was in the home of Philemon that reconciliation was effected when a slave became a brother. I’m going to be teaching two or three messages out of Philemon in September but note that it was hospitality that was the wedge that pried open the slave-master relationship to bring down empires of injustice. It started with hospitality.

From the Garden of Eden where God invited our first parents to eat all the food provided, to the marriage supper of the Lamb in Rev. 19, from Jesus asking us to open the door of hospitality to him in Rev. 3:20 to his description of his heavenly work as preparing a place for us, the call of scripture to us is to have a hospitable heart to Father, Son and Holy Spirit so that we have hospitable homes to those both in the church community and outside it. When it comes to church growth, hospitality is the program. My heart and my home become the building blocks of the church. It is hospitality and not the building fund that accommodates the work of the church. How accessible are our homes. Can people come in? Are people invited in? The location of our home is no spiritual accident. Do we have a theology of place? “He determined the exact places where they should live…” (Acts 17:26) Have we read Jn. 1:4 recently? “The word became flesh and moved in to the neighborhood.” What would your definition of a hospitable person be? Do you meet your definition? John writes in his epistle “we ought to show hospitality”. If our heart and our home was the norm for the community, what would be the health of the community? If everyone in the community was just like us, what would be the state of hospitality? If the church had no building and just our home, would it grow if our home was typical? Would it be able to meet there? If not, why not? I’m suggesting that it is no good just talking about community as if it only has to do with what happens in the building we call the church; if it is only about what the church corporate does to foster, develop and nurture relationships. Given that God’s house is actually our house, it is fundamentally about our heart and our home and its response to others, especially the household of faith. Again, the discipline of hospitality is the program. Cheers!

Pastorally yours,

Stuart