Sermons

INTRODUCTION

feeding . . . gathering . . . carrying . . . leading . (Isaiah 40:11)

Dearest family,

So wonderful to have such a full church on Sunday at this time of year. I just love Sunday mornings with my spiritual family! Well, we launched the new “Summer Series” which doesn’t really have a name except that. Maybe we can call it “Stories from Faithbook – Hebrews 11 continued!” Maybe not! I made some comments on the Hebrews 11 text to orient you to what you need to be listening for, looking for in this series; to prepare you for what you should be expecting to apprehend and apply; to convince you as to why the study of other holy lives is so important for our own growth in grace, and for our encouragement and edification. We noted the context of these compacted biographies of saints. Christians are being addressed in this Hebrews, whose lives are under great pressure from surrounding culture. The daily context of their lives requires endurance in some shape or form. The section immediately preceding this list of heroes of faith is a call to persevere, a call to be confident in the face of subversive influences, a call to stand your ground in the face of suffering. Chapter 10 issues a strong appeal to the community of faith in troubled times and the focus is not on just a few famous spiritual individuals but on everyone in the community: “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full, assurance of faith…Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful…Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds…Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing…Let us encourage one another- and all the more as you see the day approaching…” (10:22-25) Something is going on here that is about us, so when the writer goes straight into this summer series of biographical studies, he is clearly assuming that the fruit of these stories is going to strengthen US, the community of faith – the US! The writer tells us: “Do not throw away your confidence…You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God you will receive what he promised…” Then he quotes the great rallying scripture that became the transforming revelation of the Reformation that changed the history of the church and the world in the sixteenth century: “My righteous one will live by faith” (Hab. 2:3-4). So presumably, the purpose of these biographical cameos that follow has something to do with encouragement, with fueling our perseverance in our present circumstances, with boosting our spiritual confidence, with fortifying us, with strengthening our hope, with provoking our faithful actions, with increasing our expectations, with convincing us that we can indeed live by faith in a cultural context that constantly induces fear. Welcome then to a series biblically custom-designed to do all this. It is a way to call every one of US to renewed faithful endurance but also to courageous actions of faith. My favorite verse in chapter 11 is not actually about a particular individual who is singled out but it is v.29: “by faith the people passed through the Red Sea…” There is no question about Moses’ heroics of faith – the text is explicit and complimentary about them, but as a result of his example, something had been transmitted to the people. It wasn’t just his biography – it was now their story. It wasn’t about HIM but US!

The preface to our COSC series should be no different to the preface to the series of biographical presentations in chapter 11.What these stories are going to illustrate is the nature of faith experienced by ordinary people who are called to endure, and in the process, achieve great things for God against the prevailing current of evil and opposition. The first three verses tell us what to look for in the lives of those who are going to be presented to us this summer.

  1. They obeyed God’s commanding word for their lives and circumstances;

  2. They received God’s commending approval;

  3. They believed in God’s creative power to do the extraordinary. Faith gave shape and content to things that had not yet been actuated.

Faith reached beyond the edge of normal human experience. This was not just about seeing beyond the end of their nose, which is difficult at best for most of us, but seeing beyond the horizon. This was a faith that was not just about things in the future but about things in the future that were beyond reasonable expectation.

Now let’s be honest. Any time we have to listen to the stories of the great heroes of faith there is an immediate problem: we elevate them to a league of spirituality that we will never engage or enjoy. We distance ourselves from them. They are unique, they are exceptional, they are so spiritual, they are chosen, they are anointed – but me? Did you read my T-shirt? “I’m a zero not a hero!” Compared to their miraculous and effective stories, we are ordinary, average. The whole point of these biographies in chapter 11 is not to convince us that we are not them, or could never be like them. On the contrary, the point is that the life of faith is utterly normal. As someone has commented, it is what Lewis called “mere” Christianity. The stories of these people challenge how we see the world and ourselves. This life of faith is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience but a daily one, it is our default, it is our constant posture and position in relation to circumstance, in relation to present and future. The stories you will hear, like these Hebrews 11 accounts, are meant to break the accustomed ways we just live in sync with the world around us, disturb the ways we have become acclimated to little expectation, little results, little hope. These stories have arms and hands that reach out to us and grab our lackluster sense of purpose by the neck, and throw us into this same roll-call of faith with a recovered sense of our calling and gifting and ministry and personal history. It is unsettling to be reminded by these stories of those who are certain of what they do not see, and consequently to be confronted by just how much our lives are conditioned and influenced by what is seen. The life of faith is reduced to a surprising interlude in an otherwise material existence.

But what is also unsettling is that all these so-called heroes of faith seemed to have flaws. Maybe that’s comforting. It certainly lets me reapply. Someone has put it like this: “These are heroes not because they are perfect but because they worked with God in his perfect work.” The text says that these were ordinary folk: “whose weakness was turned to strength” (11:34). So they began weak, not strong. It wasn’t their strength that got them to where they ended up. Have you examined this list of biographies in chapter 11? Really? Is God helping his publicity by holding these guys up as the ones to emulate? Wasn’t Rahab a Gentile prostitute and hardly inducted into proven discipleship?! And wasn’t Gideon fearful? And wasn’t Barak the one who wouldn’t do what the Lord told him unless he had a woman, Deborah, keep him company? And didn’t Samson know a girl called Delilah, and David one called Bathsheba, and Abraham one called Hagar? And wasn’t Jephthah plain hasty and a little arrogant? And didn’t Isaac lie and didn’t Jacob deceive? And didn’t Moses murder a guy? Isn’t the hall of faith’s fame more like the Hall of failure’s shame? And yet, despite the flaws and weaknesses, they made some decisions and discoveries, and they ended up featuring on God’s approval ratings and their example “still speaks” the text says. Speaks what? What do the lives of those we study and consider speak to us? That is what you’ve got to decide every week of this series. What is God still speaking to me through them, who though dead perhaps, like Abel, still speak. Does not Abel still speak to us about the way that what we offer to God publicly must be concordant with what is true in our hearts? Does not Enoch still speak of the way that God will respond to those that seek him and walk with him? Does not Noah still speak about how God will deliver someone who hears and obeys regardless of cultural responses: someone who will live pure in a promiscuous culture; someone who will be generous in an economic downturn?

The biography of Abraham here was referred to in the “Finding Father” series. As our father in the faith, we are given an insight into what we can learn from his life. When God called him, and spoke to him, he obeyed. God said “Go…and Abram went.” (Gen. 12:1-4) We learn about the trustworthy authority, power and reliability of God’s word. We learn that the life of faith has a price tag, a cost. He left his “father’s house” and lived the rest of his life in a tent with no fixed abode. We learn that faith requires patience and courage, because even when he got to Canaan the promise was not fulfilled. We learn that faith perseveres and that the life of faith is utterly dependent on God to do what he does best – raise us from our death. These are just ordinary people trusting in God’s extraordinary work. I believe that you are going to learn something each week from these better known examples of Christian achievement in God’s world. There are at least four areas of important interest:

  1. Their experience of God

  2. Their example of character

  3. Their expectation of faith

  4. Their exploits of courage and perseverance

May you be able to make their story your own, week after week as you apply God’s truth in them to your own life and circumstances. But don’t forget that nameless roll-call, those “others” (v35), that company of the unknowns. Because that includes you!

By faith…
Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

A FATHER'S ENCOURAGEMENT

Dearest family,

On Sunday we “finished” the “Finding Father” series only because time ran out on us, but I ended by trying to stress the crucial importance of fatherly encouragement. One of the passages we looked at was Hebrews 12, a passage that has been one of the main texts for the men’s ministry this year and your theme of “perseverance.” We noted that what is presented is a realistic picture of what most Christian communities, just like ours, face in the course of daily living in a culture that is utterly antagonistic to faith. This is not a stroll in the park, but a race, and the word used here implies conflict and potential pain. It is translated as “sufferings” in Phils. 1:30; as “strivings” in Cols. 2:1; as “opposition” in 2 Thess. 2:2; as “fight” in 1 Tim. 6:12. We looked at the number of descriptions of what are very debilitating circumstances and pressures:

ο Hindered (v1): bogged down, cluttered, no freedom of movement, feeling confined, carrying baggage and weights that interfere with forward progress;
ο Entangled (v1): tripped up, even little disorders that cause stumbling;
ο Unfocused (v2): unsynchronized eyes, a wandering eye, not fixed on what it should be;
ο Shamed (v2): maybe by the present situation, by present struggles, by present evaluation of life and prospects, by past decisions and mistakes;
ο Dejected (v3): losing heart, beaten down, disappointment like a dripping tap;
ο Fatigued (v3-4): the struggle against temptation and sin, continual resistance takes its toll and is wearying – it is part of the cost of obedience;
ο Troubled (v7): hardships keep pressing in and it seems that there are more opposing circumstances than enabling ones;
ο Indisciplined (v7): always intending to but never intentional, spiritually slovenly;
ο Weak (v12): exaggerated sense of worthlessness, and inability, loss of self-value;
ο Stumbling (v13): difficulty in standing firm in one’s commitments and convictions, not walking in the right paths;
ο Bitter (v15): undealt with roots of bitterness and offence that feed ingrained responses of anger toward God and others that corrupts the soul and defiles others close to you;
ο Impure (v16): polluting the streams of personhood with unholy sexuality.

How depressing is all this? How discouraging? Are you kidding me! The last chapter ended: “God had planned something better for us!” (11:40) So what hope is there? Right in the middle of all this we read: ”You have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons…God is treating you as sons… For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined then you are illegitimate children and not true sons…” (vs.5-8) What this situation of challenge and pressure and despondency most needs is the encouragement of the father. And that is exactly what is given. The encouragement is actually the perspective about what is really going on, that is not in fact going to bring them down but build them up. This truth crucially qualifies our understanding of “perseverance”. It is so easy to see perseverance as something that is going to be mainly determined by the right decisions we make, and the way we choose to hang in there, stay obedient, not let go, push through, resolve not to give up. Now it is not that there is truth in that. It’s not just the whole picture. The text says that it is not our “grit and grind” that makes for the perseverance, but the fact that we understand the following:
i. That the circumstances that seem unco-operative with my well-being are the very context in which Father God is training us to be like Him. Even Jesus was not exempt from this. Earlier in Hebrews (5:8) we read “Although he was a son he learned obedience from what he suffered.” In other words, endurance and perseverance is in fact a sign of true sonship. That’s what sons do. They persevere. Why?
ii. Because they understand that as sons they choose to “submit to the Father of our spirits.” (v9) The last words before those I just read to you from 5:8 described Jesus the son’s “reverent submission.” This is basically talking about God as our spiritual father. And what good fathers do best is train their sons and daughters in character and in wisdom. And what good sons do is submit to their love and nurture. Perseverance is only possible and understandable when we understand that the motivation behind it is all about relating to the love and will of the father. There will be no joy or comprehension in perseverance that does not get this. It cannot be sustained by an orphan, a slave or an illegitimate. If there is no assurance of God’s fathering of us, then we have no security about the outcomes.
iii. Talking of outcomes. We need to understand and accept the father’s intent in the circumstances he chooses, or allows to train us. The text is clear: “…for our good, that we may share in his holiness.” In other words, be just like dad. The text says he is treating us as his sons and daughters. The text states the reality: the training does not seem pleasant at the time, and it is really painful. There’s no point in saying it doesn’t hurt. It really does. It’s not about putting a brave face on it, but about bringing the reality of our feeble arms and weak knees, and all the other disabilities to the healing encouragement of the father.

We need to admit that the nature of difficulties in our lives and circumstances, the things that require perseverance of us, can have an adverse effect. , in making They can precipitate two things:
1. faithlessness: making us want to throw in the towel or wave the white flag.
2. hardness of heart: in the process of having to tough-it-out we actually become tough, we become hard which maybe expressed or manifested in many different ways like numbness, disengagement, unresponsiveness, cynicism.

It’s therefore interesting that a few chapters earlier, in 3:13, we are told to “encourage one another daily”. Why? So that we will be like jesus the son who was “faithful to the one who appointed him… faithful as a son over God’s house…” then later “so that none of you will be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” In other words, encouragement is the powerful spiritual antidote to both faithlessness and hardness. Encouragement is the infuser of courage when faithfulness is challenged. The text says that like Jesus the son, we are part of the Father’s house, “if we hold on to our courage” or in other words, stay encouraged by the father, as Jesus was. Encouragement is the powerful softening agent if you like, of the hardness that is the natural by-product of all those things we listed at the beginning. Isn’t it amazing! Encouragement, to be encouraged, is literally to be filled with courage. So it is encouragement that is the gift that keeps us faithful as sons, even as Jesus was, as a son, and the gift of the father that keeps us soft-hearted amidst hard circumstances.

Have you known the encouragement of the Father recently? Have you asked for it? Have you received it?

Encouragingly yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

ABRAHAM - PART 2

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

Last Sunday we continued our observations about the ways that Abraham is our “father” in the faith. The basis for Paul’s teaching about how and why we are sons and daughters of Abraham, is grounded in Jesus’ teaching. This is what I spent most of the time on last message. Jesus is already identifying traits of Abraham that will be evident in true sons of Abraham, and thus true sons of God:

• Jesus said “do the things that Abraham did” (Jn.8:39) God himself is specific about what these things were in Gen. 26:5, “Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees, my laws.” To put it simply, he welcomed God’s word and walked in it. Jesus is arguing that if they were true offspring they would have the characteristics of the father. If they shared the same parentage as Jesus the son, then they would love the same things. But they didn’t so they weren’t.
• Jesus mentions another mark of true sonship in the words of 8:46 “He who belongs to God hears what God says.” Did you ever turn a deaf ear to your parents when they called or commanded? Was your hearing ever selective? Did you engage that kind of deceit? True spiritual sons do not close their ears. You can understand why Jesus’ opening parable deals almost exclusively with hearing. “He who has ears to hear let him hear.” It is actually a sonship parable. As a listening and obedient son himself, Jesus knew that if the Father’s words were not listened to, or were overcome by the birds of the air, and the thorns and the rocks of interference, then the relationship with His Father that he desired for all to have, would be impossible.

Paul concludes in Romans 4 that the key issue is not about the physical family of Abraham but the spiritual faith of Abraham that then defines the family. Now we have it. Here is the key mark of father Abraham that will be the disposition of those who are his sons in the faith, that’s you and me. Let me review, from the text, a few of the constituent elements of this faith that are ours as sons and daughters. Twice the spiritual fatherhood of Abraham is emphasized: “He is the father of us all…He is our father in the sight of God…” (Roms.4: 17) And lest someone says that this is only applicable to the Jews he was addressing, sandwiched between those two statements we read: “I have made you a father of many nations” which affirms what has already been said in v11: “so he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised.” So what is it about Abraham as a spiritual father that will be characteristic of you and me, his spiritual sons and daughters, his “offspring” (4:13, 16, 18) as Paul describes us. We began to observe and apply four things:
1. The persuasion of faith: “…being fully persuaded…” (v21)
2. The person of faith: “…in the sight of God, in whom he believed…”
3. The promise of faith: “I have made you…” (v17)
4. The provision of faith: “Gives life to the dead…calls things that are not as though they were…” (v17)

The text says that Abraham is our father. Does our sonship and daughterhood bear his DNA? Are we sons and daughters who have a persuasion of faith? Are we sons and daughters who are persuaded about the person of faith, about the utterly trustworthy character of the Father, who is not an absent parent of a spiritual latch-key child? Are we sons and daughters who are persuaded about the promise of faith that guarantees our position at the Father’s table? Are we sons and daughters who are persuaded about the provision of faith? Did not Jesus say, “O ye of little faith…your heavenly Father knows that you need them” (Mt. 6:32)? What’s your “them” list? Isn’t that Jesus’ version of Abraham’s “things that are not” list?

We then looked briefly at Genesis 22 where we read of that testing of Abraham’s faith and obedience in the offering of his “one and only” son Isaac. It is this faithful obedience of Abraham that is presented on three specific occasions in the NT to give us an understanding of what our faith as sons and daughters will look like if we have been truly spiritually fathered. As sons and daughters we will be obedient. We cannot be obedient without faith. At the very end of Romans Paul tells us that the proclamation of the gospel is for the obedience of faith. The NT writers uses Gen.22 and interpret it to help us know how sons and daughters can make every day a Father’s Day. Abraham is our father in the faith. Faith marks the DNA of the sons and daughters.

THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH (Romans 8:32) – “He who did not spare his only son but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things.” This is taken directly from the language of Gen.22. Paul is concerned to assure us that our Father is for us. Things like indwelling sin, the unbelieving world, the devil and all his works, are bad enough without feeling that God is somehow against us. Paul is arguing that without a shadow of a doubt we can know our Father by the same name that Abraham did, Jehovah Jireh. Father God’s covenant commitment to us has been demonstrated in that he did the greater thing – he spared not his own son but gave him up for us. Thus he can do the lesser thing – provide us all we need to secure us safe passage in this life and our final salvation. Jesus was not taken from God, but God gave him up. As one saint said, “Who delivered Jesus up to die? Not Judas for money; not Pilate for fear; not the Jews for envy; but the Father for love.” The offering of the Father of Christ is the guarantee that we are now covered and cannot be abandoned. That sacrifice is the guarantee of the Father’s continuing care and generosity. This is the basis of our assurance of faith.
THE ANTICIPATION OF FAITH (Hebrews 11: 17-19) – “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did bring Isaac back from the dead.” Though bewildered, Abraham believed and refused to set limits either on his obedience or God’s trustworthiness. Despite the awfulness of what he was facing, his faith in God anticipated what God could do, on two different levels. First, on a personal level, he grasped the promises and word of God and knew that God could not lie, so even if Isaac was reduced to a pile of ashes, God would raise him from the dead! But Hebrews also tells us that he was “looking forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder was God.” So his faith was anticipating what God could do on a cosmic level! He anticipated the demonstration of God’s power, not only in this life but also in the life to come.
THE ACTIONS OF FAITH (James 2:21-24) – “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness’ and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” James is here targeting the “vain” or empty person who has a profession without practice. They purport to be sons. It does not follow that if you acknowledge God that you love Him. Many believe in God but do not know him as Father in a personal sonship relationship. Abraham was not justified by offering Isaac, because righteousness was credited to him 30 years earlier when he chose to believe God’s promises. What it did do was demonstrate the true nature of his faith, that produced the works of obedience. His life was not a vague impression of belief but full of specific expressions of faith in God. Invisible faith was made visible. As Calvin said, “We are saved by faith alone but saving faith is never alone.” As someone else has said, “Works follow faith as sexual intimacy follows marriage.” The covenant relationship of sons with the Father is always demonstrated in our woks of love and obedience.

And there you have the NT’s application of Genesis 22. Is your conviction of your heavenly Father’s care for you grounded and rooted in the cross and its spiritual meaning? As a son and daughter, do you have the assurance of faith in the Father? Can you trust God with the outcomes of your obedience, especially when it hurts your prospects and promises, and can you believe the Father to do right by you and raise that which is dead in your eyes? As a son or daughter, do you have a holy anticipation of faith in what the Father can and will do for you that is in your best interests? Is your saving faith also a serving faith and a sacrificing faith? When all is said and done, is there more that is said than done? Are you expressing the actions of faith in your Father?

I have tried to show you how Romans 4 and Genesis 22 show us why Abraham is a spiritual father to us in the faith, but having noted his DNA, they show us what should be characteristic of our sonship and daughterhood, making every day a Father’s Day for our heavenly Father!

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

MOTHER'S DAY

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

I began my message on Sunday by saying that I would only be able to cover half of what I wanted to, but then I ended up only covering half of that half! Apologies, but I also think that what was communicated was sufficient, and what the Lord wanted for the day’s portion. I have been so encouraged by the many responses I have received from so many of you about what the Holy Spirit applied to your hearts. When you are teaching and preaching, you just have to trust the Lord with the process and the outcomes, especially when you are more aware of the challenges and weaknesses of the presentation. How relieving that it is always His Word and that He determines that it will not return void. Hallelujah!

As part of our “Finding Father” series I was arguing that if scripture describes Abraham as our “father” in faith, then as true sons and daughters of Abraham, we should learn something about our sonship by observing what scripture presents as his spiritual fathering DNA. This is an exposition that is first made by Jesus himself as we saw in John 8 when he challenges the Pharisees about a true understanding of what it is to be a true descendant of Abraham, and thus lays the foundation for Paul’s treatment of the matter in Romans 4. Similarly, Paul concludes that the key issue is not about the physical family of Abraham but about the spiritual faith of Abraham that then defines the family likenesses. Thus this text shows us the key marks of father Abraham that will be the disposition of those who are his sons and daughters - that’s you and me. The spiritual fatherhood of Abraham is emphasized: “He is the father of us all…He is our father in the sight of God…” And lest someone says that this is only applicable to the Jews he was addressing, sandwiched between those two statements we read: “I have made you a father of many nations” which affirms what has already been said in v11: “so he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised.” So what is it about Abraham as a spiritual father that will be characteristic of his spiritual sons and daughters, his “offspring” as Paul describes us. I only had time to make some brief comments about one of the four characteristics I wanted to point out, and that was about the “persuasion of faith: “…being fully persuaded…” (v21)

Because of the trustworthiness, the guarantee of the heavenly Father’s grace, sons can live free from doubt, free from anxiety, free from uncertainty, free from fear about anything that could possibly separate them from the love of the Father, or the will of the Father. If the Father was fully persuaded, so should and so could the sons be. This is compelling because for Abraham there was literally no conceivable hope. Faith was not gong to be assisted by Viagra, or by fertility treatment. But Abraham did not allow the feelings of hopelessness (the subjective) to overcome the facts of faith (the objective). The text says that he did not do two things: he did not weaken in his faith (v19) and he did not waver (stagger) through unbelief. Biblical faith is utterly realistic and true to circumstance. The text gives us a father’s lesson to a son in what to do when there’s nothing that can be done. Note these two responses:
He examined the facts: Truth is not a threat. Tampering with it is, because that means that if we adjust the reality of the circumstances and the need, we are actually less likely to trust God and seek God because we have rationalized it, taken the measure of it, managed it, marginalized it, minimized it, or just ignored it, or denied it. Why do we want to make things appear not as bad as they really are? These are not my words but scripture’s: v19, “He faced the fact that his body was as good as dead” which of course is not good at all. And then there’s more reality to cope with. Sarah isn’t a spring chicken bursting with eggs either. Anything else to add Abraham? “Sarah’s womb was also dead.” Womb, tomb, doom, gloom. Game, set and match. I guess it’s all over. God will have to rethink redemptive history! The whole eternal plan for the universe, forget just my life, is scuppered. To face the facts is the very stuff of faith, not the denial of it. Facing and stating the facts is not a negative confession. It is bringing the reality of a son’s life to the love of the Father.
He exercised faith: “Abraham in hope believed…” The reason we need the shield of faith is precisely because of all the fiery darts of doubts. But that which would seek to quench faith becomes the very fuel that serves to provoke our continuing quest to know the Father’s will in all circumstances. The worst that can happen is that we’ll end up spending a lot of time asking the Father about these things in the Son’s name, and as we’ve seen from my last series on asking, this presses us into intimacy with the Father. In Jesus’ words. It invites us to abide in Him more. Whatever happens is good for our experience of sonship, whether it’s what we want or what we would not choose.

The point is that Abraham was not threatened. It was Calvin who cut to the chase and said: “Everything by which we are surrounded conflicts with the promise of faith.” Our inadequacies may well be a threat to ourselves, may well be an embarrassment before others, but they are not a threat or a disqualifier to Father God. Did we not bring them with us into his presence when we first came and did he not accept us just as we were. In the words of the old hymn, “I came to Jesus as I was / Weary and worn and sad.” Our weaknesses, the places where faith is tested, become what someone has wonderfully described as “the arenas of his power.” The text says that our father did not weaken, but he understood that the circumstance was in fact not a death threat edged in black, delivered by a dark gloved claw, but an invitation to be strengthened. Abraham was not threatened.

On the contrary, he thrived. The text says in v20 that he “was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.” We want to tell Abraham not to be so hasty on the glory bit! No need to be too trusting, too hopeful! But of course, the glory was not grounded in the satisfaction of his circumstances; his worship was not a response to prayers answered but to the one he knew had heard his prayer. That was enough. His worship did not need a changed circumstance in order for it to be fueled, but only the changeless character of God. Likewise, every son’s weakness is an invitation to Father’s strength; all barrenness is an invitation to His fertility; all desert is an invitation to his forestation program; all chaos is an invitation to his order; all inability is an invitation to his power. So the result was two-fold: Abraham was edified – he got strong by simply refusing to weaken; and God was exalted – there was no room for the enemies of faith, because the test strengthened trust. I love the way that Martin Luther put it with such typical earthiness: “Faith grips reason by the throat and strangles the beast. Venture no more to criticize the word of God. Sit thee down. Listen to His words and believe them.” Or how about the hymnal words of Charles Wesley:
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities
And cries ‘It shall be done!’
So the first thing we note about our spiritual father that will characterize our sonship is the persuasion of faith. But what was Abraham’s faith persuaded about, that true sons and daughters of the Father should equally be persuaded about? That’s for the next message in the series!

Pastorally yours
Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

25TH ANNIVERSARY

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

Let me begin with words of thanks to all of you for being such supportive and committed members of our spiritual community. It was so wonderful to have a full house on Sunday for our remembrance of the person, not the church, Christ Our Shepherd. The common loaf and cup just say afresh to us what Jesus said of himself: “I am the good shepherd…I lay down my life for the sheep.” Our focus was not on people, though we do honor those who have faithfully served this body over the years, but on Jesus, who invites us to his meal of celebration. Nothing could possibly embody more effectively what church is all about, and has been all about these past 25 years as communion: about waiting for and on Jesus, and about waiting for and on one another.

Thank you for being one of those sheep in this fold, this flock, this pasture, that is committed to do the two things that Jesus said his sheep would always do: hear his voice and follow in his footsteps. I also want to give a special thanks to those who attended the all-night of prayer from 10:00pm-6:00am. What a great and essential way to celebrate an anniversary. As usual, no one could believe how quickly the time sped by, as the prayer burdens were shared by all, and intercession was nonstop. There was a particularly intense two hours of prayer for the children and the next generation, which is only fitting as we consider the next 25 years. I would also like to express thanks to all of you who have spoken to, texted, emailed or phoned Celia and I with your words of encouragement, and your response to Sunday. As you’ve often heard me say, we are all in need of encouragement. It has meant so much to us and strengthens us to continue to “press on”. Although we are “under-shepherds” at best, the most important designation of our lives is less the descriptor “pastor” than it is “sheep”. Together with you, over all these years, as we have raised our six children in the context of this community, it has been the experience of being “just another family” in a loving context of kind, nurturing and supportive fellowship and friendship, that has blessed us and formatively shaped our lives and loves.

As a very brief meditation, we noted some of the constituent elements of Paul’s stock-taking in Phils.3:12- 14: his humility in inviting a true evaluation of his life; his intense focus on what mattered most; his consuming longing and desire for God’s future on God’s terms. He could stretch and strain for what was ahead because he was also standing firm and anchored in the non-negotiable realities of what Christ’s cross had accomplished in the past, and of what Christ’s coming would accomplish for the future. Our dependence is not on our history or what we have established in terms of constituted church life, but on the same verities that Paul depended on. We have never allowed any talk about “founders” at COSC. We don’t have any “aristocrats” or “landed gentry”! As scripture tells us, there is no other foundation laid than that which is laid in Jesus Christ. Our church life began with a three year exposition of the book of Ephesians, known as the “queen of the epistles” because it is the heart of Paul’s exposition and experience of the church. This was key foundation-laying for COSC. What could be a better and more desirable description of us than this: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him too you are being built up together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.” (Ephs.2:19-22) Sounds like a church I would want to be part of, and we still want to become and remain!

Anniversaries are wonderful events if they serve to recover a God-worshiping, Christ-exalting spiritual remembrance rather than just a self-affirming sentimental reminiscence. I mentioned that there are two equal and opposite, necessary responses to the past according to scripture: knowing what and how to remember, and knowing what and how to forget. So we find ourselves at a moment like this, after 25 years, on a very fine pivot. The holy remembrance of the past provokes worship and thanksgiving, maybe tears as well as laughter; but to ensure that we don’t just become complacent or self-satisfied, there is a forgetting of the past, including victories and successes, that spurs us to consider only what is yet to be attained, the work that is yet to be done, the incompletions that we strive to yet see fulfilled, the immaturity that we yet long to mature, the latent that we yet want to become patent, the future hopes and expectations that we yet want to become the experience of our present reality That describes how I feel at a time like this, exactly.

Talking of maturity, after 25 years, how mature are we? After Paul encourages us to take inventory: to have a correct evaluation of ourselves, to have a concentrated focus on God’s future, to have a consuming desire for Jesus, he adds: “All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.” (Phil.3:15) My prayer is that our response to the past we that have been so blessed to experience these past 25 years, in both our holy remembering and holy forgetting, will indeed be the mark and the manifestation of our maturity. Indeed we’re on the way, and not arrived. Indeed we’re looking forward and not back. Indeed we’ve had our lions and bears, but we want God to give us our Goliaths.

Finally, let’s take heed to the maternity ward of this work of God that is COSC. It was originally born out of a prayer meeting in the basement of a DC apartment building, as a few scattered sheep fervently asked God to plant churches in DC. 25 years ago there was no where near the variety and diversity of church life that we have now. God has answered those prayers. COSC was born out of a prayer meeting in 1987 with a distinctive call to the District. The acquisition of our present building, our placement in this geography was born out of an all-church period of 40 days of prayer and fasting 11 years later, in 1998. Every step over these years has been a walk of faith in response to a word from the Lord, not a decision made on the basis of resources we had. As we walked, God provided. Nothing has changed church! We cannot lose either God -revealed vision or this DNA of faith. The remembrance of our roots reminds us of what will be as crucial for future advances and possession. What is obtained in prayer can only be sustained by prayer. What is born in miracle can only be maintained by miracle. What is the work of faith can only continue to work by faith.

One of the foundational scriptures the Lord gave us way back at the beginning was Isaiah 37:31: “Once more a remnant…will take root below and bear fruit upward.” What is true for private personal life holds good for public corporate life: take care of the hidden life and God will take care of the evident life. If there’s no root there will be nothing but leaves and no fruit. Maybe I’ll see you at the next night of prayer as we seek God together for this next season of COSC’s life. The three priorities for COSC’s life are: ASK, ASK and ASK!

And don’t forget….we’re going to remove the pews so you may want to donate a chair so you have something to sit on. There’s nothing worse than sitting cross-legged on the floor through one of Bo’s long sermons!

Still pastorally yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

ABRAHAM

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

I began my message on Sunday by saying that I would only be able to cover half of what I wanted to, but then I ended up only covering half of that half! Apologies, but I also think that what was communicated was sufficient, and what the Lord wanted for the day’s portion. I have been so encouraged by the many responses I have received from so many of you about what the Holy Spirit applied to your hearts. When you are teaching and preaching, you just have to trust the Lord with the process and the outcomes, especially when you are more aware of the challenges and weaknesses of the presentation. How relieving that it is always His Word and that He determines that it will not return void. Hallelujah!

As part of our “Finding Father” series I was arguing that if scripture describes Abraham as our “father” in faith, then as true sons and daughters of Abraham, we should learn something about our sonship by observing what scripture presents as his spiritual fathering DNA. This is an exposition that is first made by Jesus himself as we saw in John 8 when he challenges the Pharisees about a true understanding of what it is to be a true descendant of Abraham, and thus lays the foundation for Paul’s treatment of the matter in Romans 4. Similarly, Paul concludes that the key issue is not about the physical family of Abraham but about the spiritual faith of Abraham that then defines the family likenesses. Thus this text shows us the key marks of father Abraham that will be the disposition of those who are his sons and daughters - that’s you and me. The spiritual fatherhood of Abraham is emphasized: “He is the father of us all…He is our father in the sight of God…” And lest someone says that this is only applicable to the Jews he was addressing, sandwiched between those two statements we read: “I have made you a father of many nations” which affirms what has already been said in v11: “so he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised.” So what is it about Abraham as a spiritual father that will be characteristic of his spiritual sons and daughters, his “offspring” as Paul describes us. I only had time to make some brief comments about one of the four characteristics I wanted to point out, and that was about the “persuasion of faith: “…being fully persuaded…” (v21)

Because of the trustworthiness, the guarantee of the heavenly Father’s grace, sons can live free from doubt, free from anxiety, free from uncertainty, free from fear about anything that could possibly separate them from the love of the Father, or the will of the Father. If the Father was fully persuaded, so should and so could the sons be. This is compelling because for Abraham there was literally no conceivable hope. Faith was not gong to be assisted by Viagra, or by fertility treatment. But Abraham did not allow the feelings of hopelessness (the subjective) to overcome the facts of faith (the objective). The text says that he did not do two things: he did not weaken in his faith (v19) and he did not waver (stagger) through unbelief. Biblical faith is utterly realistic and true to circumstance. The text gives us a father’s lesson to a son in what to do when there’s nothing that can be done. Note these two responses:
He examined the facts: Truth is not a threat. Tampering with it is, because that means that if we adjust the reality of the circumstances and the need, we are actually less likely to trust God and seek God because we have rationalized it, taken the measure of it, managed it, marginalized it, minimized it, or just ignored it, or denied it. Why do we want to make things appear not as bad as they really are? These are not my words but scripture’s: v19, “He faced the fact that his body was as good as dead” which of course is not good at all. And then there’s more reality to cope with. Sarah isn’t a spring chicken bursting with eggs either. Anything else to add Abraham? “Sarah’s womb was also dead.” Womb, tomb, doom, gloom. Game, set and match. I guess it’s all over. God will have to rethink redemptive history! The whole eternal plan for the universe, forget just my life, is scuppered. To face the facts is the very stuff of faith, not the denial of it. Facing and stating the facts is not a negative confession. It is bringing the reality of a son’s life to the love of the Father.
He exercised faith: “Abraham in hope believed…” The reason we need the shield of faith is precisely because of all the fiery darts of doubts. But that which would seek to quench faith becomes the very fuel that serves to provoke our continuing quest to know the Father’s will in all circumstances. The worst that can happen is that we’ll end up spending a lot of time asking the Father about these things in the Son’s name, and as we’ve seen from my last series on asking, this presses us into intimacy with the Father. In Jesus’ words. It invites us to abide in Him more. Whatever happens is good for our experience of sonship, whether it’s what we want or what we would not choose.

The point is that Abraham was not threatened. It was Calvin who cut to the chase and said: “Everything by which we are surrounded conflicts with the promise of faith.” Our inadequacies may well be a threat to ourselves, may well be an embarrassment before others, but they are not a threat or a disqualifier to Father God. Did we not bring them with us into his presence when we first came and did he not accept us just as we were. In the words of the old hymn, “I came to Jesus as I was / Weary and worn and sad.” Our weaknesses, the places where faith is tested, become what someone has wonderfully described as “the arenas of his power.” The text says that our father did not weaken, but he understood that the circumstance was in fact not a death threat edged in black, delivered by a dark gloved claw, but an invitation to be strengthened. Abraham was not threatened.

On the contrary, he thrived. The text says in v20 that he “was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.” We want to tell Abraham not to be so hasty on the glory bit! No need to be too trusting, too hopeful! But of course, the glory was not grounded in the satisfaction of his circumstances; his worship was not a response to prayers answered but to the one he knew had heard his prayer. That was enough. His worship did not need a changed circumstance in order for it to be fueled, but only the changeless character of God. Likewise, every son’s weakness is an invitation to Father’s strength; all barrenness is an invitation to His fertility; all desert is an invitation to his forestation program; all chaos is an invitation to his order; all inability is an invitation to his power. So the result was two-fold: Abraham was edified – he got strong by simply refusing to weaken; and God was exalted – there was no room for the enemies of faith, because the test strengthened trust. I love the way that Martin Luther put it with such typical earthiness: “Faith grips reason by the throat and strangles the beast. Venture no more to criticize the word of God. Sit thee down. Listen to His words and believe them.” Or how about the hymnal words of Charles Wesley:
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone; Laughs at impossibilities
And cries ‘It shall be done!’

So the first thing we note about our spiritual father that will characterize our sonship is the persuasion of faith. But what was Abraham’s faith persuaded about, that true sons and daughters of the Father should equally be persuaded about? That’s for the next message in the series!

Pastorally yours

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

SONS AND SLAVES - PART 2

Dearest family,

I know you thought we were through with the parable of the prodigal sons a long time ago in this series, but because you are so familiar with it now, it is a good place to start. They are both sons. Their identity as sons has never been reclassified by the father. It’s how he sees them, how he loves them, how he provides for them. But both of them make equally bad choices in their relationship with the father, and both choose a different persona. Though a son, the younger wanted to be a “hired servant”, the very person that Jesus said could not live in intimacy with the father, or be taken into the father’s confidence. The older brother betrays himself in his angry outburst when he describes his life as “slaving for you”. What this does tell us is that though a son, you can in fact end up living as a slave or a servant, and consequently, you will only see the father from a slave’s or servant’s perspective. There are so many who are called and loved as sons and daughters who are “hardly sons” but in fact living as servants and slaves. Fundamental to all healing and deliverance is the recovery of the assurance of our sonship and God’s fatherhood.

But what about this “hired servant” idea? If you remember, there were three levels of enslavement or service and he happened to choose the best of the three, the one that had a little more give and benefit than the bondsmen and the slaves – but whether you eat cake in prison or dirt, you’re in prison! No matter how you dress up or rationalize your bondage, you’re a slave. You can give slavery a good name if you really work at it. You can try all you want to make it sound good, feel normal, but it’s a world away from being in the father’s embrace and living in the father’s house. Being a son is about being both near and dear. Why this hired-servant thing? Because he believes he has forfeited being a son, by killing the heart of the father. He has believed the lie that he is now excluded from that kind of intimate relationship, or that having once sinned against it, it cannot be recovered. Somehow he still thinks he can make a deal with the father that will at least be better than the slavery of the pig-sty but still some kind of servitude that could never be the sonship that once was. The only thing that could possibly change this for him would be a revelation of the true nature both of fatherhood and sonship – the same way there are thousands sitting in pews who need a revelation of the running father, who is unashamed by the tunic up around his waist, unashamed of the way he is revealing his fatherly needs and passions for the son, welcoming them home again to an experience of sonship, sealing their deliverance from the slavery of that pig-sty, and assuring them that they will never be a slave again to fear and bondage. We have not been healed and delivered from the enslavement of Satan, to become a hired hand for the Father.

Being a hired servant was what the son knew best to be, apart from his father’s grace. But hear me: the love of the father will not allow us to be or become what we are not. In any case, his idea that by working he was somehow going to be able to earn to pay back, or save to recover what was lost, was unattainable, plain impossible. It turns out that just as the father was always the father, so the son, despite all that had happened to disfigure his identity or appear to disbar his sonship, was still a son, was always a son. Maybe a dead son, but still a son and not a servant. Maybe a disobedient son, but still a son and not a servant. Maybe a delinquent son, but still a son and not a servant. The father has no other desire or intention but to have a son: he can raise a dead son, he can restore a disobedient son; he can redeem a delinquent son. So how does the father respond to the son who has chosen to be a hired servant, not a son? He reinstates him to every vestige of sonship: the robe, the ring and the roast.

The older brother was no different. In his anger he exposes himself. “I’ve been slaving for you.” Long before Paul wrote to the Romans or to the Galatians about being slaves again to fear, the contrast between a slave and a true son is presented by Jesus. The two sons are equal in their estrangement from the heart of the father, whether through license or whether through legalism. Here is the tragedy of living in the father’s house as a slave. But it also shows us some of the bad fruits of this slavery, the evidences of this bondage.

As I shared on Sunday, pursuant to the last message I preached in this series, Jesus not only said that he would not leave us as orphans, but that he no longer even called us servants. Furthermore, having said that everyone who sins is a slave to sin, and pointing out that a slave has “no permanent place in the family” (Jn. 8:34-36), Jesus said that if He as the Son set us free we would be free indeed, just as He was as a true son of the Father. How amazing is the Spirit of adoption, but how virulently does the enemy of our souls want to deny us living with the rights of sons, and therefore the inheritance of sons and daughters.

Please find attached the summary of the powerpoints I showed on Sunday, that are Jack Frost’s presentation of some of the major differences between the heart of orphanhood and the heart of sonship. I do so hope that this helps you.

Finding Father together with you my brothers and sisters,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

SONS AND SLAVES

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

As we saw on Sunday from the story of the prodigal sons, before Paul’s expositions in the epistles on sonship and slavery, it is Jesus in this parable who puts in the mouth of the father the words of rebuttal to the slave designation of the sons. The father’s answer is simply: no, you are the heir. “Because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his son into your hearts, the spirit who calls out ‘Abba father’. So you are no longer a slave but a son: and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.” (Gals. 4:4-7) The father assures the elder brother of the truth about who he is and what his holy rights are as a son, that he does not need to grasp or does not need to fear will be taken or removed. The tragedy is to live as a slave and fail or refuse to avail yourself as a son, of all that is available in the father’s house. He could have had a fatted calf if he had wanted. The fact is, the father had already given it to him by deed and title at the beginning of the story. His blame of the father was therefore shameful, because unfounded, ungrounded, just wrong.

The other thing that the father is so concerned to communicate is that he was always there and available. “My son, you are always with me.” The son could only take himself away from the father. It is the devil’s work to steal and rob and destroy the family of the father. There is no limit to demonic envy and hatred for the intimacy of the father and son/daughter relationship. You see this so deeply in the High Priestly prayer of Jesus in Jn. 17, another crucial passage for understanding the father-son relationship. You can hear echoes of this passage in it. Jesus keeps talking about himself being with the Father “with you” (vs.5); about the Father being in Him and he being “with them” (vs.12) And then of course, this intimacy is expressed as being “in” each other, the only way to express this closeness of paternal DNA. There is nothing more awful that the slave spirit does than impose a distance, an unapproachability with God.

Jesus himself said that he would change slaves into sons. There is a deliverance from slavery, in any of its myriad manifestations, into sonship. Jesus said that he would not leave us as orphans, but send his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of adoption. We talk a lot about the works of the Holy Spirit, the manifestations of the spirit, but there is none greater than the Spirit’s continual testimony to our spirits: “You are a son of the Father…You are a daughter of the Father…God is your Father… in you he is well pleased…”

There are so many ways and reasons why people who are sons and daughters end up living or choose to live as slaves or orphans in their spiritual identities. We’ve discussed many of them as they relate to the formative effects of human fathering. Fathers who are hard taskmasters not surprisingly impose enslavement upon the spirit. The unbelievable fall-out of parental failure and disappointment and discouragement that creates an orphan spirit that has lost trust in fatherly authority, that has closed the heart in self protection, that sets severe boundaries on relationships and intimacies (but ironically blames others for being unwelcoming or unfriendly) that carries burdens that cannot be shared or cast on another, that chooses to live among the family of God as one who remains homeless, unable to abide, unable to make a place their abode. How raw is the orphan spirit that doesn’t find a place of belonging, that is always on the outside looking in, that ends up always having something to prove. Someone has described Satan as the first spiritual orphan – cast out of heaven his home. Ezekiel says of him, “You were in Eden…on the mount of God.” It is interesting that the demonic envy of that enslaved and orphan spirit paid a visit to a son and a daughter in Eden, that resulted in another banishment from home and the beginning of the story of redemption that is essentially all about recovering us from the slave quarters, from the orphanage, back into the Father’s house.

Your heavenly father cannot bear that you would be a slave or an orphan in any part of your being, in any part of your personhood and identity. For him to be falsely viewed by you through the lens of a servant/slave or an orphan is a grief to his heart, but it won’t stop his loving fatherly pleadings with your spirit. This is why we all need constant experiential encounters with the Holy Spirit. Our understanding of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is often, rightly, associated with the enduement of power. But any suffusion of the Spirit, any infusion of the Spirit, by definition, brings such a boldness, such a liberty, such a recovery of doing the will of the Father and the works of the Son, precisely because it is a spirit of adoption. Peter makes it clear in his Pentecost sermon that the Spirit is “received from the Father”. We are assured afresh about who we are as sons and daughters. Against all the lies and assaults and challenges and pressures and pains and disappointments and failures, the Spirit keeps coming to us, and we keep receiving him as the scripture says, and when we do, two things happen:
1. Roms 8: He testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God. But your spirit has to
make that witness and confession for it to be the duet it is presented as.
2. Galatians 4: From our hearts he calls out in our voice “Abba, Father!”

There is no need to go through another message in this series bearing the spirit of a slave or an orphan in your relationship with God. Would you call Jesus a liar? He said that as the Father loved him, so the Father loved us. I want to encourage you to get as familiar as you can with your Father by calling him so. There is a spiritual power and breakthrough and deliverance from enslavement and orphan-hood when we declare the truth to him about who he is and always has been to us, who have been born again of his spirit, adopted into his family, set free from the slavery of sin to be the sons and daughters of the Father. The Spirit is the spirit of his son, and God the Father will never reject the Spirit of his son; he cannot reject you anymore than he could now reject the glorified Jesus. You see, when you confess the truth of his identity as father, you are equally expressing your identity as a son or a daughter. And you declare that in the face of every counterfeit comfort and false father – you declare it in the face of the fathering of the devil, whose intent is to separate you from the love of the Father. Your adoption is irreversible, and you have the nature of the father, the spirit of the father and all the resources of the father, that give you all the rights and responsibilities of a son.

The cry of “Abba!” doesn’t fit politely into a polished service schedule or an ordered liturgy. It broke from the lips of a suffering Jesus in Gethsemane with guttural and emotional power, with a pained and strained earnestness. It is a cry that is spontaneous, that is confident, that is expressive. Yes our assurance is rooted in our assurance about what scripture teaches us about who we are. Yes, our assurance is rooted in all the personal evidences that we know are the mark of his life within us, like love for the brethren (basically other sons and daughters!) But it is this witness of the Spirit, this stirring, this reception in our hearts of his testimony that we are indeed sons, by the cry, “Abba, father!” that is such an assurance. Slave children never used the word “Abba!” You are not a slave or orphan – so use it!

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)