GOOD GRIEF PART 2

A theology of lament begins with a foundational understanding of the suffering of the Godhead before it is about my suffering; of the grief of the Godhead before it is about my sorrow; of the righteous judgment of God, before it is about my anger.

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

Good theology begins with the nature of God, not the needs of man. A theology of lament begins with a foundational understanding of the suffering of the Godhead before it is about my suffering; of the grief of the Godhead before it is about my sorrow; of the righteous judgment of God, before it is about my anger. The last two Sundays I have tried to make some observations related to this, and I presented five points for discussion and consideration under the title “Good Grief’.

1. There is the grief that God brings. The Book of Lamentations is such because it is the
response to God’s acts of judgment against the nation “Because of her many sins” (1:5).
2. There is the grief that God feels. “The Lord said, I am grieved that I made man” (Genesis 6:
5-7). Lament is God’s heart response to sin and its consequences. Lament is expressed by all
three persons of the Trinity.
3. There is the grief that desires and requires. God’s commands to lament come to the
prophets, the pastors and the people.
4. There is the grief that is normal and appropriate as a response of the people of God to
the God of the people.
5. There is a grief that God responds to. “The Lord has heard my weeping … The Lord accepts
my prayer” (Psalm 6:8).

I would invite you to listen to the recordings of these two messages so you can consider the scriptural argumentation that was presented. If we want to learn to lament biblically we simply need to pray … a lot! Prayer and lament are not two separate expressions, disciplines or practices. They are inseparable. When you pray for divine action in the terrain of human brokenness, you cannot avoid the divine affections. When you want God’s glory, you cannot avoid God’s grief. May our lament be responsive, not only to the crises and consequences of our sin, past and present, but responsive to the grief of God over that which is destructive of His will for us, and of His image in us.

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

GOOD GRIEF

Why bring a message entitled ‘GOOD GRIEF’ on Pentecost Sunday? The fact is that precisely because the Holy Spirit is a Person and not just an atmosphere or a presence, as a Person, He can be grieved (as well as resisted or insulted).

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

I suggested on Sunday that the message I was going to bring might seem untypical of a usual Pentecost Sunday sermon. Shouldn’t it be upbeat and excitedly charismatic? Why bring a message entitled ‘GOOD GRIEF’? The fact is that precisely because the Holy Spirit is a Person and not just an atmosphere or a presence, as a Person, He can be grieved (as well as resisted or insulted). In an earlier series this year on the gifts of the Holy Spirit I spoke at length about the ways that we both grieve and quench the Holy Spirit, so I guess Sunday’s message was an extension of that discourse. When you read Acts 2 on Pentecost Sunday it is clear why our attention is first drawn to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and to the experiential deluge of spiritual gifts. Less attention is paid in our culture to the sermon that follows, simply because we prefer the experiential to the explanation. But even less attention is paid to the outcomes of that explanation in Peter’s presentation of Jesus and the gospel. The text says that the people were “cut to the heart” (v37). The revelation the Holy Spirit brought, particularly about Jesus and what their sin had done to Him, caused a lamentation. I am arguing that lament is one of the inevitable manifestations of the coming of the Spirit as it brings conviction and confession, and a revelation of the heart of God that leads to repentance. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not disconnected from a baptism of repentance. As a young man I remember sitting at the feet of the great Hebridean revivalist, Duncan Campbell, and hear him plead for that latter baptism. When the Spirit fell on us at that meeting, it fell as the fear of God. This has been the trademark of the coming of the Holy Spirit in all awakenings and revivals. The grief accompanies the glory. Yes, there may be tongues of fire, but there also wet tears. The tears do not douse the flames but are part and parcel of the baptism in the Spirit.

Herewith are some brief comments, but as I’m going to complete the message next Sunday, I will save the full summary of the five main points till next week’s pastoral letter so you have them all in one cohesive communication. In focusing on lament, I suggested by way of introduction that it seems to me that there are two equal and opposite dangers right now.

1. The first danger is that lament becomes its own kind of buzz-word. It has become a new “in” word in the evangelical vocabulary. Some are talking of it as if it has only just been recovered, or discovered. The fact that is seems so new and relevant is perhaps a comment on the demise of our spiritual intimacy and sensitivity and that in itself should provoke sorrow. Yes, it is absolutely true that lament is a thoroughly non-negotiable, irreplaceable biblical expression of spirituality, always has been, and that scripture is full of it. As was shared last week, so succinctly and well by Paul and Val, lament accounts for about a third of the Praise and Prayer Manual of the Bible, namely the Psalms (we looked at some of them in the Psalm Series – 22, 42, 43, 77, 88 etc.); it was integral to the communication of the prophets (see series on Minor Prophets and Lamentations); it was intrinsic to the recorded communication of Jesus (see Luke 19, John 4 and the gospel accounts of the crucifixion). It is true that lament sadly plays little role in public liturgy or popular hymnody. It is true that most churches want to be defined by their experience of laudation not lament. We have praise bands, not mourning minstrels. There are not many guitars that know how to gently weep, to borrow from the famous song by the Beatle, George Harrison. Interestingly, there’s a verse he wrote that was excised from the final version: “I look at the trouble and hate that is raging / While my guitar June 12, 2019 gently weeps / As I’m sitting here doing nothing but ageing / While my guitar gently weeps.” It is true that in American church culture, the theology of celebration has out-shouted the theology of suffering. The loud praise song has silenced the quiet lament. This was the indictment of God on the sanctuaries through Amos: “You strum away like David … but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph” (6:5). It is true that a reason for this is the desire for all to be always well with the world, our “best life now”, as Joel Osteen heretically puts it, which amounts to an evasion of any reality that smudges the cosmetics of our ‘be happy’ prosperity and populism. It is true that historical amnesia is the present evidence of a national dementia, and that its alliance with narcissism has resulted in a national mind with a personality disorder.

What I am saying is that as true and important as it is, for the sheer scriptural reasons that I began to refer to on Sunday, to experience and therefore express lament as the grief of God, it must not become a fad, or a fleshly thing, or yet another divisive tag between those who are discerning enough to lament, and the poor unspiritual beggars who do not, and therefore are not as we are. By definition, how can lament that is the dereliction of humility be turned into a badge of enlightenment and spiritual pride? By the way, I just referred to ‘experiencing and expressing’ lament. We cannot express in lament what we have not experienced in either suffering or identificational suffering, but more deeply than that, what we do not experience of the heart of a grieving God. If our responses to the present condition, particularly racial irreconciliation in this nation, is to merely exchange competing views of secular history, differing perceptions of shame, contrary accusations of blame, then we will not be reconcilers. We will have missed several key things that include:

• Knowing that our responses of lament are not original, not primarily rooted in our
experiences or perceptions, but rooted in the character and heart of a reconciling and
redeeming God. In our lament we cannot be pridefully comforted that we are among the few
who really get it!
•We will also miss the fact that Satan, his thrones, dominions, principalities and powers – all
his counterfeit lordships, authorities, and all his demons – are utterly united against the unity
that God’s heart desires. We will end up fighting the problems with carnal not spiritual
weaponry.

2. The second danger is that we will recognize and acknowledge the need to lament, engage it, but move on too soon as if we have checked the box. It will be treated as a temporary need, as a distinctive and independent and situational expression that remains unincorporated into our larger understanding of worship, discipleship and community life. Lament? We read the chapter, had a teaching, and even wrote one ourselves. What’s next? I have always believed that lament is an inevitable experience and expression if you commit to know the heart of God. It’s not a subject, not even a self-conscious practice or means or method. It arises out of intimate relationship with God. It may well be stirred initially by suffering, either of self or others, but if it is not connected with the affections of God, it will just end up as a sad soliloquy. Lament is not an occasional flavor of the month but an integral part of the ‘DNA’ of normal and regular communication with God. Lament is surely a righteous response to personal suffering, but where does that lament lead us and what does it produce in us in our engagement with God and His world? It is for this reason that I am inviting you to linger a little longer on what Paul and Val addressed two Sundays ago. Join me on Sunday as we conclude the truth of “good grief”, the Pentecostal message that lament is a normal response to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

BECAUSE JESUS WAS RAISED

Are you prepared to be encouraged, provoked to worship and generally open to be more grateful for what has been achieved for you, forever, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, by which we have been born new into a living hope.

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

I’m sitting at the gate at Dulles trying to get a letter to you all. On Sunday I promised that I would get you all the scriptures I referenced in that concentrated catechism on the resurrection in the epistles that helped us to complete the sentence: BECAUSE JESUS WAS RAISED … Are you prepared to be encouraged, provoked to worship and generally open to be more grateful, more thankful for what has been achieved for you, forever, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, by which we have been born anew into a living hope.

BECAUSE JESUS WAS RAISED…
• Acts 2:33: We have life in the Holy Spirit. (Do you need a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit?)
• Acts 13:33: All God’s promises are true and the promise of salvation in particular is fully fulfilled (Are you struggling to believe God’s promises for you?)
• Acts 13:38: The logic of Jesus’ resurrection for Paul is the assurance about the gift of forgiveness because Jesus has fulfilled the punishment that law would execute. (Are you in need of forgiveness?) • Acts 17:31: We will give an account of how we have responded to Him when we too are raised (Do you need to keep short accounts with him now given that you will give an account then?)
• Roms.4: 25 - 5:1-3: We know that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was accepted by God and that we too are accepted. (Are you struggling with your acceptance by God?)
• Roms.6:4: We too may now also live a new life. (Are you manifesting the old life?)
• Roms.8:11: We can now be free of the wretched domination of our lives by our physical appetites, by our flesh, and live according to the rule and life of the Spirit in victory (Any bondages, any appetites you need freedom from?)
• Roms.10:9: We can be assuredly saved for there is no salvation without the belief and confession that Jesus is raised (Do you confess your faith with assurance?)
• 1 Cors.6:14: There is a power available for deliverance from body-based sin, especially sexual, because the same power that raised Jesus will also raise our bodies from that which destroys it and kills the spirit. (Do you need his resurrection to influence and infuse your sexuality?)
• 2 Cors.1:9: God is proven trustworthy and reliable to be depended upon for if He delivered Jesus from death and Jesus trusted Him to do so in fulfillment of His promise, then we too can depend on his deliverance (Any challenges and struggles to trusting God with anything? Anything you cannot believe he can come through on for you?)
• 2 Cors.4:14: We can know the living presence of God in our lives right now as well as forever, it is a living presence (Any hardship and pressure that needs relief?)
• Ephs.1:20: We can be assured now of the exceeding greatness of his power towards us. (Tempted to believe His help works for others but not you – His goodness is always towards someone else but you?)
• Cols.2:12: We no longer need to keep dragging out our days and years in a state of deadness in our trespasses and sins but can be made alive together with Christ, assured that he atoned thoroughly and completely for our sin, for all the wrong that we could rightly be accused of, and we can be forgiven, and on top of all that, the principalities and the powers, those things that work against our faith and spiritual success, whether sins or systems, whether institutions or iniquities, have been disarmed (Do you feel unprotected, vulnerable?)
• Cols.3:10: We can have a whole new orientation of mind and we can set our mind on things above because our death-ridden mind has been freed and we can put to death all the junk, the fornication, uncleanness, evil desire, covetousness; we can rid ourselves of anger, malice, blasphemy, filthy language and thoughts, lies (Any wrong thinking about yourself or the Lord? What are the networks of ungodly thoughts that invade your mind and dreams?)
• 1 Thess.1:10: We can be delivered from the wrath to come (Are you confident in your eternal future? If not why not?)
• Philips.3:10: We can attain the resurrection of the dead. (Are you focused on what’s to come or are you shocked by the this-worldliness of your values and ambitions?)
• 1 Pet.1:3: We have an assured hope and a secure inheritance that will never fade away (Can you trust the Lord for his eternal care for you?)
• 1 Pet. 1:21: We too can have the same faith and hope in God as Jesus did. (Do you think that you are limited in your capacities to trust God and just have to live with it?)
• Hebs.7:25: We have a 24/7 intercessor who advocates for us so we are on God’s radar. God is into finished business – wants to save completely. (Have you given up on anything in your spiritual life? Do you need to recover a faith and hope in God’s commitment to perfect and finish what concerns you?)
• 1 Cors.15:
o We are not still dead but made alive because miracles do happen and our natures can be changed.
o Preaching is not useless Our faith is not vain but true and transforming
o God is not a liar but true to every word and promise
o We are not still in our sins but utterly forgiven
o The dead in Christ have not perished
o We are not to be most pitied and patronized, but rather we have lives that should be the envy of
all
• Roms.6:7: Death has no more fear. control and dominion over us
• 1 Cors.15:54: death has been swallowed up
• 2 Tim.1:10: Death is abolished
• Hebrs.2:14: He has destroyed him who has the power of death.
• Rev. 20:14: death shall be cast into the lake of fire
• Rev.21:4: there shall be no more death (Do you have a fear of dying?)

Can you stand any more good news? Alright, just one more paragraph.

BECAUSE JESUS WAS RAISED…
• Mt.16:16: we know we serve a living Lord
• Jn.6:57: we know we are sons and daughters of a living Father
• Hebrs.10:20: we know we walk in a living way
• Jn.4:10: we drink living water
• Jn.6:51: we eat living bread
• Hebrs.4:12; 1 Pet.1:23: we have the living word of God
• Roms.12:1: we offer ourselves in worship and service as living sacrifices
• 1 Pet.1:3: we have a living hope (Is something dead in your life that you need the power of Jesus
to recover and raise?)

The story of the church is recorded in Acts 1:3 in these words: “He showed Himself alive.” The final message to the church is spoken in Rev.1:18: “I am the living one – I was dead and behold I am alive forever and ever!” According to the scripture, Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father so that everything that has been mentioned above can take effect, or to put it simply, so that we too may live a new life. By the tomb of Lazarus, in the face of all that was our death, on the eve of the cross, Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life! DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?” Well, do you? Because Jesus was raised…. according to the scriptures…

I have mentioned so many blessings of the resurrection that touch on so many areas of our lives. Was there one in particular that rang true with you? Was there an application of the resurrection to something specific in your life? Where does the truth of the resurrection need to be freshly experienced by you? Where does it need to be manifested in your life? What difference is the truth of the resurrection of Jesus making to your life? Christ is Risen!

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

SPIRITUAL GIFTS IN COMMUNITY LIFE - PART 4

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dear family,

Well, at last we had a message on Sunday that ended with a ‘period’, not a comma! I covered a lot of ground and you will have to download it if you want the main content. For the purpose of this letter I want to focus on my closing comments which were a bit compressed and rushed for clock reasons. Thank you for listening so well and attentively … and patiently.

Someone who was really listening to my message two Sundays ago picked up on something I said and spoke to me about it afterwards. I had said that the work of the Holy Spirit is a necessity to create the unity needed out of such diversity (racial, cultural, political, educational, spiritual, denominational etc.), and that we are invited to recognize and relish the differences among us that Christ then reconciles and puts to work together. The work of reconciliation is a work of the Holy Spirit and one of the ways that reconciliation is experienced and then expressed is in the unity that Paul talks about that is fostered by the healthy function of spiritual gifts, that have three constituent elements: diversity of gifting among each other; equality of concern and honor for each other; mutuality of need of and for each other. The person in question who spoke to me was one of my close African-American sisters and we just had the best conversation rejoicing in the reconciling power of the Spirit in a community committed to the manifestations of “the same Spirit”!

Every major gift list I referenced, comments about two things: about love, and about unity in diversity.
•Romans 12: 5 precedes the list of giftings: “in Christ we who are many form one body and each member belongs to all the others” This rules out ethnocentric independence and individualism but preserves legitimate differences and diversity. Verse 9 concludes the list: “Love must be sincere … Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.”
•1 Corinthians 12:12 immediately follows gifts list: “though all its parts are many, they form one body … for we all are baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jew or Greek, slave or free” The follow-up about love is a whole chapter: “If I have the gift of tongues … If I have the gift of prophecy … if I have a faith that can move mountains … if I give all I possess … but have not love … Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts” (14:1)
•Ephesians 4:4 “There is one Body and one Spirit …” This is concluded in vs. 13, 15-16: “speaking the truth in love … the whole body … grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

But my concluding thought was about tongues in particular and a point seldom mentioned: that I believe that there is an inviolable relationship between tongues and racial reconciliation, and that when we exegete what kind of “sign” this gift is, we conclude from the text that it signed the fulfillment of Jesus’ commission of the disciples to bear the gospel to all the nations, beginning with their immediate world of nations bordering the Mediterranean, including Africans, Arabs, Greeks, Jews, Asians, and present-day Europeans. They all heard “the wonders of God in our own tongues” (Acts 2:5-12). Tongues was a sign that not only witnessed to God’s redeeming work for all nations, but was itself the means of communication of that witness to the gospel.

In every incident when tongues are imparted (Acts 2:4; 10:46; 19:6) it is in a multi-racial context, one of cultural and national diversity. God is no respecter of nationality and has no divine toleration for racial superiority and ensuing racism. The gift of tongues is different for everyone. Racial prejudice was the barrier to the Gentiles getting the gospel from the Jews. If there were February 20, 2019 any doubts, Acts 10 settles the matter. It took the vision of the sheet with unclean animals to break the bondage in Peter and prepare him to go to Cornelius’ house. The sheer supernaturalism of this chapter, both through divine vision and voice to Peter, and angelic visitation to Cornelius, tells us that God is absolutely concerned that nobody misses the point, and that He will spare nothing in order for this truth about reconciliation to be relayed and received. It took supernaturalism to break the bondages, manifested in the gift of tongues to Gentiles. The peace of biblical reconciliation is not brokered culturally but supernaturally.

Listen to the text: “The circumcised believers (not just Jewish believers – it is emphasizing the particular badge of Jewry that is circumcision!) who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even (the prejudiced Jews were surprised and could hardly disguise their deeply rooted superior patronizing attitudes of heart) on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.” (Acts 10:45-46) What was the conclusion to be drawn from the manifestation of tongues to the Gentiles? The same that Peter drew from the sheet that was dropped on his head. The text tells us: “God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation” (10:34) To think or live differently is not just to be ungodly, but to oppose God’s love and His will and purposes, and to oppose the work of the Holy Spirit. From now on in Acts, the address of the gospel is consistently to “men of Israel and you Gentiles” (13:16); “I have declared to both Jews and Greeks” (20:21). If you take racial reconciliation seriously, you will take speaking in tongues seriously, as this gift will be a constant reminder as you employ it in your daily life, that your racial identity is a gift of God but insufficient for your redeemed identity in Christ, and the fact that you need to speak another language to enhance your intimacy with God, will remind you that God is the God of all tribes and nations, and they have something you need! Everyone committed to God’s reconciling purposes when it comes to race, needs to appreciate (and hopefully receive and practice) the gift of tongues as the sign of those purposes. Does that give you yet another timely and relevant reason to desire this gift?

Without spiritual gifts we can neither mature individually or corporately. Ephesians 4:12, following the list of ministry giftings, speaks to corporate growth and maturity: “to prepare God’s people” whilst v13 speaks to personal growth: “until we all … become mature”. If biblical reconciliation is a non-negotiable gospel truth and provision and thus a non-negotiable community value, then we will equally need a personal work of the Holy Spirit as well as a corporate one. The two are always and related. We will covet earnestly spiritual gifts as a manifestation of the reconciling purposes of God among those who are different, equal and in creational mutual need of each other always.

You will embrace speaking in tongues – a sort of circumcised tongue that manifests a circumcised heart that is having all its irreconciliation and prejudice and racial superiority excised by the Holy Spirit. Every day that you use the gift you will be unable to say that your way of thinking and speaking, or your way of living according to your language group, is the definition of your identity. Tongues reminds us that the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in our salvation, in our identity in Christ, trumps our natural and national identity, which does not have the final superior word on anything. And we cannot even get superior about our ‘tongue’ because we don’t even know what language it is! Our assurance about who we are is in the gifts of God, not in the generational, racial or national histories of men. So here’s to spiritual gifts in general, and to tongues in particular! All those in favor say ‘yes’ in whatever language you wish. As a Scot, my answer is “Aye!

Pastorally yours,
Stuart

PS: ASK! Ask the Holy Spirit what your gifts are – He gave them (Discover). Ask the Holy Spirit for gifts (Desire). Ask others how they perceive your gifts (Discern together).

Sermon Slides

SPIRITUAL GIFTS IN COMMUNITY LIFE - PART 3

1 Corinthians 12:7

‘‘Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” As we break this verse down we discover 3 important points that inform us about the purpose of the gifts...

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dear family,

Before church on every second Sunday of the month morning at 8:30a.m. we meet to focus our prayer on Next Generation and in particular the children and youth (123 of them!) who are part of our church community. We also pray for the 50 adults who help in one way or another in the Christian Education and Youth ministries as teachers and aides and pastoral support. Please continue to pray for, bless and encourage Chantal and Khari and Greta, and Monique and the Youth Team, as they pastor and nurture the next generation. But we need more than 5% of the body showing up to pray! There’s prayer every Sunday morning and you have no idea what you’re missing, but those there know they’re missing you. See you there … please? Thank you!

On Sunday I brought a third message on foundations for spiritual gifts. Thank you for your attention and responses. I’m so encouraged by feedback from home-groups. Obviously, I covered too much to fit in this letter but let’s reiterate the last few minutes worth by reaffirming the truths of Paul’s last verse of introduction (1 Corinthians 12:7) “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” As we break this verse down we discover 3 important points that inform us about the purpose of the gifts:

1. REVEALING GOD’S PRESENCE
• The mention of “manifestation” gives the clue. It literally means “shining forth, making something known”. The invisible becomes visible. It also carries the idea of something being carried to the mind and the senses that is unmistakable.
• The idea is that just as a flashlight lights up at appropriate moments because there are batteries within, we can manifest the gifts of the Holy Spirit because of the Spirit within. “We do not become the depository or reservoir of omnipotence. We become the yielded channels through which omnipotence manifests itself to meet any emergency of life or ministry.” (McAlister)
• An important associated idea in the word “manifestation” is that of nearness. Gifts are the evidence of God’s nearness, His presence. So it’s not just a matter of power but a matter of presence. God is “on the scene”. Gifts reveal the presence of God.

2. REQUIRING MEMBERS’ PARTICIPATION
• “all of them in all men … to each one is given … to one … to another … When you come together everyone has …” (12:6,7,8,9; 14:26) The point here is not to put down public leadership but to lift up all members to a place of engaged ministry. You cannot miss the emphasis in these passages: each one, everyone, all. It is inclusive not exclusive. “Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it.” (12:27) The verb form “is given” is present tense. The idea is that the manifestations are for particular immediate circumstances and times and make sense. This raises the anticipation level, and the expectation of members.
• Do you still think that the “each one” cannot/ does not include you? I’m not … I could never…. (Fill in the blanks.) Remember dear-heart, while we were an enemy Christ loved us and chose us, and He continues to do so when we think we’re still not what we ought to be. Of course we’re aware of what is yet to be attained but don’t let that stop you enjoying what has already been obtained.
• Summary: any gift through any member, any time, anywhere.

3. RESULTING IN THE CHURCH’S PROFIT
• Finally, it is all “for the common good” Second to the glory of Jesus is the good of the church community. This message is consistently and repeatedly presented: for strengthening, encouraging and comfort, for instruction, for self-edification, for building up the church and blessing others.
• Chapter 13 about love is the key in the heart of it all. Our desire for the gifts becomes a yardstick for our love for others and our desire for their blessing. Openness to the Holy Spirit is not primarily for our well-being but for the good of another. Your understanding and experience of the gifts is not a private affair. They are going to be premised on your committed involvement and incorporation in the body of Christ. It is impossible to read these chapters (12-14) and not be convinced that spiritual gifts are a community experience not just an individual one. Familiarity with the gifts should increase with the deepening of familial bonds. The question, “Do I have the gifts?” has no meaning unless we also ask “Do I want to profit the body? Packed into the phrase “the common good” are two ideas: benefiting and bonding.

Let me conclude by saying again that Paul presents the gifts as something in the church not something just in the individual. They are not for private benefit. We are called to speak to the body not at it. Gifts are bestowed because you are an essential member of the body. If you become disconnected you become dangerous. In the body, our legitimate individuality is submitted. If it isn’t it will become an individualism that will be discordant and disruptive.

Next week we will take a helicopter ride over the 9 manifestation gifts. Meanwhile I hope you have gleaned something from this introduction that makes the whole subject matter desirable and achievable, and if you forget everything else, that: they are for blessing the Lord Jesus Christ; they are for blessing people with the ministry of Jesus Christ and they are for building the church of Jesus Christ

This should all be very liberating for us. We’re in it together. Gifts are an inextricable expression of our worship and become absolutely necessary for our work. They are not:
• TOYS: for charismatics to play with and feel good about themselves
• TRINKETS: cosmetics to make us look good and feel more superior and spiritual but they are:
• TOOLS: for building the body and blessing Jesus.

So, as I blessed you at the end of the service:
• Stir up the gift that is in you
• Do not neglect the gift that is in you
• Covet earnestly the spiritual gifts

And in the words of 2 Timothy 1:6, “fan into flame the gift of God which is in YOU”!

Your greatest fan,
Stuart

SPIRITUAL GIFTS IN COMMUNITY LIFE - PART 2

Calvin writes: “People are guilty of quenching the Spirit when instead of fanning the flames of their spiritual life more and more as they should, they make God’s gifts void through neglect.”

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

On Sunday for D-Day I did the second of an intended four messages under the general title ‘Towards a theology of spiritual gifts’ with the focus very much on the relation and function of spiritual gifts to community life. If you are a member of the COSC community and have missed either of the last two messages then I would strongly encourage you to listen to them in order to be part of the “everyone” that Paul has on his mind when addressing this subject to the Corinthians.

There’s always a challenge in making room for the Spirit for all the reasons I suggested. (CONTROL, CULTURE, CONFORMITY, CONSENSUS, COMPROMISE, CONCERNS, CRITICISM, CONFUSION, CASUALNESS, CARELESSNESS) The things that make for room do not come naturally: letting go, relinquishing control, walking by faith, being filled with the Spirit. Of course, this does not pre-empt the need for three things: godly order, sensitive pastoral leadership, AND congregational discipline. In 1 Corinthians 14, please note Paul’s concerns:

• for intelligibility and meaning (tongues vs. prophecy) The goal is “that everyone may be instructed and encouraged” Zeal and enthusiasm can ride over these concerns and quench the Spirit as easily as neglect and laziness.

• for order: 14:26 ff “one at a time … keep quiet … in turn … spirits of the prophets subject to the prophets” v40 “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.” The practice of spiritual gifts assumes the preservation of godly order. Paul’s desire is for diversity in unity, freedom in order, creed in charismata.

• for discernment: 1 Corinthians 14:29 says “weigh carefully what is said.” Paul’s heart in all this was to preserve liberty through faithfulness, and prevent license through falsehood. He was absolutely passionately committed to gifts that “build up the church” (14:12) Godly testing, evaluating, discerning, proving – helps preserve the Spirit’s fire. It is not a wet blanket as it is often perceived. We’re not primarily judges but encouragers of the gifts. Testing is not for the purpose of limiting but loosing; for instruction not correction; for excellence not exclusion; for love not legalism; for building up not pulling down.

There is a godly balance between testing and trusting in a Christian community. Of course, there will always be folks who avoid or evade the community context and treat the gifts as a personal matter and an individual possession. They often claim a right to express based on their own view of themselves and their gifting. A failure to receive them equals rejecting the Lord. This is dangerous ground. That is to fail completely to discern the gifts: their very nature and purpose. That route, that appears to be passionate for the gifts, will be as divisive as the one that seeks to suppress them, and thus divides the body, by separating the community member from the gift and most importantly, the gift-giver.

To test and trust we need: pastoral leaders who are open and sensitive to the workings of the Holy Spirit, and who trust congregational giftings, congregants who trust the leadership’s discernment, and leaders and congregations who commit together to mature in the manifestations and testing of the gifts of the Spirit. This is not a threatening exercise or a mysterious process. I suggested some tests that need to be applied that are rooted in scripture.

1. THE TESTS OF FAITHFULNESS
a. To the person of Jesus: Who’s in charge? Who gets the glory? Jesus Himself said that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth and glorify Him (John 16:13-14) “Test the spirits … this is how … every Spirit that recognizes that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God” (1 John 4:1-3) This is very particular when it comes to prophecy, as Jesus Himself is the Word – thus it must be consistent with His voice (His teaching) and His personhood (His character).
b. To the grace of the gospel: “Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.” (Galatians 1:8) There must be no contradiction or variance with the truth of the gospel, the faith once delivered.
c. To the truth of scriptures: “They received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures” (Acts 17:11). We live in a culture of drive-thru sermons, and anecdotal preaching, where the scripture is often the illustration for the story rather than the other way round. If we don’t do the text, we won’t discern the trouble.

2. THE TESTS OF FRUITFULNESS
a. Character and conduct of the person: “Watch out for false prophets … by their fruits you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7:15) What we do is qualified by who we are. There are false motives: money, reputation and power (Balaam). There are distinctions between fruits and gifts: being and doing; required vs. desired; everyone to bear ALL the fruit but not necessarily exercise ALL the gifts; fruit at all times vs. specificity of gift manifestations.
b. Evidence of edification: “Everyone who prophesies speaks for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort … he who prophesies edifies the church.” (1 Cor. 14:3) Test of Ephesians 4:29- A for appropriate, B for beneficial, C for constructive
c. Submission to leaders and congregation: As Augustine put it, gifts only have meaning as they serve the community not the leader or the one ministering. Gifts are for the church and not an individual possession. The fruit of this Paul says (14:31) will be “order and peace”.

Can the Holy spirit be hindered or quenched in our public services? Yes. Who can be responsible? All of us, from a controlling or complacent leadership to a lazy, unparticipating, and unprepared congregation.

We do not want to quench the Spirit:
• for His sake – withstanding His affections and withholding ours
• for their sake – breaking fellowship, not building the body
• for our sake – withdrawal of His gracious influence in our lives
There are two basic ways to quench the fire:
• Do something: that extinguishes, smothers, diffuses, silences, stifles it
• Do nothing: ignore it, don’t engage it. “Where there is no fuel the fire goes out.” (Proverbs
26:20)

Usually with most of us it is not an either/or but a both/and. Calvin writes: “People are guilty of quenching the Spirit when instead of fanning the flames of their spiritual life more and more as they should, they make God’s gifts void through neglect.” It’s not “O dear I let the fire go out” but “O no I refused to feed it.” But of course we were feeding something – our pride and insecurities, our pleasures and preoccupations, our self-pity and our miseries, our vanities and our appetites. Feed the fire! DO NOT GRIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT. DO NOT QUENCH THE SPIRIT’S FIRE.

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

SPIRITUAL GIFTS IN COMMUNITY LIFE

1 Thessalonians 5:19-21

Examining the manifestation and function of spiritual gifts in the public, corporate life of a community.

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

On Sunday we began a conversation together about the manifestation and function of spiritual gifts in the public, corporate life of a community of faith like ours. How many of you found it easier to list the 9 fruits than the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit? If so, what is that telling us?

After commenting on the pre-existent attitudes and experiences that many people bring to supernatural gifts of the Spirit, I suggested that when all is said and done, there are two equal dangers that we might face.

1. An uncritical acceptance of anything that goes: Not all manifestations are equal or necessarily spiritual. They can be fleshly. To mean well is not necessarily to minister well. But we are not in the dark because there are specific scriptural tests that invite us to “prove all things and hold fast what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

2. An unspiritual response to the Giver, the Holy Spirit: There can be so much focus on the gifts that there is a failure to discern whose gifts they are. It is sad and bad when there is a failure to discern his personhood and we irreverently treat the Holy Spirit as if our domestic or spiritual valet, or we talk impersonally about the Spirit as if it is a quantifiable juice, essence, liquid, or vapor. Whenever we separate gift and giver the latter is always is always dishonored. Again, the Holy Spirit is a person – not an influence or atmospherics.
• Can be lied to (Peter to Ananias - “You have lied to the Holy Spirit!” Acts 5:3)
• Can be resisted (Stephen - “You always resist the Holy Spirit!” Acts 7:51)
• Can be insulted (“How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished …
who has insulted the Spirit of grace?” Hebrews 10:29)
• Can be grieved (“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit” Ephesians 4:30)
• Can be quenched (“Do not quench the Spirit” 1 Thessalonians 5:19)

You cannot hurt a power, a principle, or a proposition but you can hurt a person. Those most familiar with charismatic renewal need to heed this as much as those who oppose the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There can be a hurt Spirit even where there are gifts manifested. There’s nothing worse than a proud gift user. Our counseling rooms are filled with hurt people – what about a grieved or quenched Spirit?

TWO SPECIFIC WARNINGS
1. “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 4:30) How do we grieve the Holy Spirit? Let me suggest some ways:
a. failure to recognize his person: what I have just been referring to – treating the Holy
Spirit as less than he is or as more than he is (ignoring or idolizing).
b. failure to remember his purpose: “sealed for the day of redemption” – not cooperating
with the work of the Holy Spirit which is to keep us, mature us, use us and prepare us for
what is yet to come
c. failure to realize his presence: insensitive to his workings, undiscerning of his
operations
d. failure to respect his purity: forgetting it’s the HOLY Spirit – hardening of sin and of
conscience
e. failure to respond to his promptings: avoiding conviction, disobeying his leading,
resisting his nudges
f. failure to receive his provision: The Spirit makes available to us all that Jesus has
received from the Father, including gifts and graces – given to enable and empower us to be
what Jesus wants us to be – and we then determine what we will and will not consider
relevant to us, applicable to us, desirable for us, needful for us?

2. “Do not quench the Spirit…” (1 Thessalonians 5:19) Paul is responding to Timothy’s report of what issues the church was dealing with. The section in which this verse appears (vs12-22) is dealing with congregational issues: church leadership, church relationships and church worship and prayer, including the manifestation of spiritual gifts. Paul doesn’t just talk about what the Spirit does for us but what we can do to the Spirit. “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire – do not treat prophecies with contempt.” Calvin is right though when he says “The warning not to quench the Spirit has a wider application than just despising prophecy.”

What we must not miss here is that the first thing the textual context demands that we address is not just a personal response to the Spirit but a corporate / community / congregational response. The reference to prophecy tells us as much. It is possible to quench the Spirit in our public services. This has nothing to do with whether the service is liturgical or non-liturgical, Episcopal or Pentecostal – they can both be equally rigid and controlled so there remains no room for the Spirit to be expressed through other than the leaders of the service. The fact is that everyone should have “a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation” (1 Corinthians 14:7).

I went on to mention some categories of factors that can be quenching in services: control, culture, consensus, conformity, concerns, criticism, confusion. I suggest you re-listen to the message to get the details, and if you were absent on Sunday, which many of you were, then because of the community implications, I urge you to catch up with the conversation and listen to what was shared.

Before we start talking about specific gifts, let’s make sure that our relationship with the Holy Spirit is in good standing, both personally and corporately, and that we are neither grieving or quenching his person or his work.

Immediately following the injunction not to quench the Spirit, Paul says, “Test everything.” (v21) The lack of spiritual testing fosters disorder and confusion, and even false teaching that leads to questionable behavior and practice, and soon, before you know it, anything goes. Confusion always follows the failure to discern flesh from Spirit, but also the immature from the mature. Testing will not quench what is genuine and will not attribute to the Spirit what is false or fleshly. This of course assumes those present who are trustworthy to so test and discern. So what tests are we talking about? Come Sunday and find out as we continue our chat about this, fueled by a desire for a healthy community life.

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

Prayer Focus -January 2019 - Addiction

FOLLOWING MARY

On the first Sunday of Advent, I suggested that you could do yourself a favor by following her for the next four weeks and meditating on her journey – her responses and words and actions.

A PASTORAL LETTER

Greetings! (This is not Gabriel!)

As I often do in the Christmas season for some reason, I crave a ‘Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ immersion, and it’s not just explained by having nine grandkids around. I rarely watch movies on plane flights, but flying out of India a few days ago, and heading for Istanbul, I noticed that the movie version of the Lewis Narnia tale was available in Turkish Airlines’ classic movies selection. Of course I watched it, again – and I couldn’t have cared less about the criticism and complaint that the movie attracted when it first came out.

The sounds, the scents, the touches were all there and they were as evocative as ever: the smell of Aslan’s incensed breath in the air, the hissing of Mr. Beaver’s freshly caught fish in the frying pan, the glug of Mrs. Beaver’s marmalade roll. Above all, there are the inexplicable feelings that come when it is said that Aslan is on the move. But what has all this got to do with the Christmas story, you might ask? Didn’t Aslan say, “I shall be glad of your company tonight … stop when I tell you, and after that leave me to go on alone.” Isn’t the story less about Bethlehem and more about Gethsemane? “’Fool!’ said the witch. ‘He knows that unless I have blood as the law says, all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water.’” “They began to drag the bound and muzzled lion to the Stone table.” Isn’t it about crucifixion? Isn’t it less about the incarnation and more about the atonement? “The Stone Table was broken into two pieces … and there was no Aslan.” Isn’t it about resurrection? Doesn’t it fit an Easter meditation better than an Advent one?

I am looking for a wardrobe door into the story of Christ’s birth. Allow me to slip through the furs with Lucy into the place that was “always winter and never Christmas.” That is a perfect image for the historical and personal terrain that we in fact encounter in the gospel narratives. The White Witch’s wolves were no less than the Roman legions that ground their heel into the Jewish spirit, and her murderous megalomania was no less than Herod’s. The despair of the beavers was earthed in Elizabeth’s womb and the hopelessness of the fauns was mouthed in Zechariah’s unexpectant prayers. The Narnians’ longings for Aslan were more than matched by the desperation of messianic hope that had languished in dumbness and darkness for over 400 years. Isaiah described Narnia well: “gloom … distress … people walking in darkness … living in the land of the shadow of death … the warrior’s boot … the oppressor’s rod” (8:22 – 9:5). Faith was frozen with no thaw in sight. The land of Israel was Narnian. So where does Lucy come in?

You have only been reading the story one minute when Lucy says, “What’s that noise?” In another reading-minute, she is alone in a room that had nothing in it except one big wardrobe and a dead blue-bottle on the window sill. It is Lucy who first stumbles into Narnia. She “felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excited as well.” Surely you are thinking about all the similarities of Mary’s experience, especially as her story also begins with a fearful question of the “What was that?” kind. “Mary was greatly troubled at his words.” (Luke 1:29) And did she not also feel a palpable presence? It is Lucy who bears the shame and reproach of not being believed. “The others who thought she was telling a lie, and a silly lie too, made her very unhappy.” And what of the responses to Mary’s possible explanations about her pregnancy? It is Lucy who first discerns the nature of Aslan and discerns the relationship between his awesome power and gentle grace: “Terrible paws, thought Lucy, if he didn’t know how to velvet them.” And was Mary December 5, 2018 not the first to be told the nature of Jesus, that He was the Son of the Most High, the Son of David, the Son of God? It is Lucy who first expresses “a horrible feeling as if something were hanging over us … either something dreadful that is going to happen to him or something dreadful that he is going to do.” And was Mary not told that a sword would pierce her own soul? Lucy watches afar off, weeping as Aslan is mocked and jeered, as Mary was one of the women who were “watching from a distance” (Matthew 27:56). It is Lucy who scrambles to be the first to reach and touch the leaping back-to-life Aslan. “Oh, you’re real, you’re real! Oh Aslan!” I do believe that Lewis modeled Lucy on Mary.

Lewis presents Lucy with this capacity to recognize and receive revelation, as Mary is presented with this spiritual capacity to ponder things in her heart. It is Lewis who mirrors the birth narratives in the receptivity of women to what one commentator has described as “the approaches of mystery and glory.” When Mrs. Beaver stops what she’s doing and stands up and shouts, “So you’ve come at last,” we have to feel that she would have fitted just fine into the pre-natal class at Elizabeth’s house. And when she exclaims, “At last! I never thought I’d live to see this day,” we would not be wrong to think of Anna. Indeed, all we have mentioned of Lucy suggests that it is understandable to discern in her an analogous presentation of the spiritual DNA of another young girl, also in a frigid Narnian landscape – none other than Mary, the mother of Jesus. If Lucy in this fairy-tale leads the other characters in the way to approach and respond to the coming of Aslan, then more so does Mary in the original draft of the faith-tale, in the way to approach and respond to coming divinity, to the gift of revelation and salvation, to the wooing of God, to the brooding of the Holy Spirit. “Be it unto me according to your Word.” On the first Sunday of Advent, I suggested that you could do yourself a favor by following her for the next four weeks and meditating on her journey – her responses and words and actions. May it be unto you according to His Word this Advent.

Advent blessings!

Stuart

EVERY THANKS

Dearest Family,

The sticky spores of greed that blow in the wind at this time of year, with Red-eye Thursday and Black Friday, set the advertisements of Mammon up against the advent of the Messiah. There could not be two more opposing spirits. But before we self-righteously tut-tut the state of the ungrateful culture at large, it behooves us to check on the health of thanksgiving in our own personal and church life. The fact is, like everyone else, we do not seem to be grateful or thankful by nature. Dostoevsky described man as “the ungrateful biped”. We are easily discontented, dissatisfied, hard to please, unsub missive, opinionated, critical, judgmental, with a keen sense of our own rights and merits, and more aware of what we want than what we have. It is worth reminding ourselves that the failure of thanksgiving was at the root of the sin of our first parents. Amidst a feast of provision, they had nothing better to think about than what they were disallowed from having.

I gave you a short presentation towards a theology of thanksgiving, similar to a message that I shared a few years ago. I’m recycling here some short notes from a pastoral letter back then to jog your memories of Sunday’s exhortation. I began by giving you my simple 5-point catechesis on thanksgiving that leaves very little squirm room. Scripture teaches that our thanksgiving should be:

1. AT EVERY MOMENT: “Continually offer to God the fruit of lips giving thanks ” (Hebrews 13:15)

2. IN EVERY WORD AND DEED: “Whatever ... in word or deed ... giving thanks to God” (Colossians 3:17)

3. IN EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE: “Giving thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

4. FOR EVERYTHING: “Always giving thanks to God the Farther for everything” (Ephesians 1:20)

5. FOR EVERYONE: “... thanksgiving be made for everyone ...” (1 Timothy 2:1)

Did you notice the emphatic common word? EVERY! As Paul summed it up: “God created everything to be received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:2) That does not leave a lot of exceptions, or exceptional circumstances. How are you doing? So what people, what things, what circumstances, what events, what timings are presently outside this call to obedience in your life?

I also made comments on the following biblical observations:

1. We were created to give thanks

2. As Christians, our priestly calling is to give thanks.

3. There is a relationship between godly remembrance and thanksgiving. Forgetfulness is an enemy of gratitude.

4. There is a relationship between prayer and thanksgiving. Thankless people are prayerless people. You cannot ask without thanking (Philippians 4:6) or thank without being buoyed in faith to ask God for more.

5. There is a relationship between thanksgiving and healthy personal discipleship and healthy corporate community life.

The book of Revelation presents heaven as one long Thanksgiving Day. “We give thanks to you Lord God Almighty ...” seems to be the main song! So it would seem reasonable to be tuning up for that! As the psalmists put it: “Give thanks to the Lord our God and King, for His love endures forever.” If “forever” is the extent of His love then “forever” is the extent of our thanksgiving. Did you notice the word EVER? That is about EVERY moment. Let’s put the EVERY back in our thanksgiving. May this advent season recharge, refuel, and re-fire your thanksgiving as you say in Paul’s words to the Corinthians, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.”

Gratefully yours,

Stuart