Sex and Faith

Well, what an honour and privilege to be the first ever male speaker at the annual Arise Ladies’ Night Out.

I suspect I may earn the distinction of also being the last, but I do admire you for taking the risk.

I’ve never been an after-dinner speaker before but I’ve heard that the polite custom is to ask the organiser if there is any particular subject the audience might like the speech to be about.

The novelist George Bernard Shaw was once invited to do an after-dinner speech on the subject of sex. So when the moment arrived, he stood up and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure…” and then sat down again!

I thought I should speak to you tonight on the same subject.

When I say “sex” I actually mean it in the sense it is used on your birth certificate or passport. I mean “male and female.”

In equality legislation, sex is a protected characteristic which means that men and women have identical rights in law. We are of course equal.

But men and women are I believe also different from each other in a number of very important ways.

For example, it’s often said that men just don’t listen.

Even when I was a boy, my mum used to say to me that I have two faults; not listening and… errr… something else.

Just the other day, Kathie said to me, “John, you’re not even listening are you?” I thought, that’s a funny way to start a conversation…

Women on the other hand, I have observed, are excellent listeners.

Our roles in human reproduction are perhaps the most obvious difference. Women alone have the awesome privilege of carrying and giving birth to children.

Essential difference is genetically engineered in every cell of our bodies. As I like to put it, X is not Y and Y is not X. You can say what you like, but your sex is your sex.

We are anatomically different of course. Bone density and muscle mass in males and females are not the same and, though you can always find exceptions, the male body plan tends to be somewhat angular while the female version is usually more curved.

This may or may not be true, but recent government data has suggested that women who put on weight are 98% more likely to live longer than the men who point it out.

My friend's wife bought a dress with a map of India printed on it. She put it on and asked him, "Does Mumbai look big in this?"

Cambridge Psychology professor Simon Barron-Cohen argues from his extensive research that on average women tend to be better empathisers and men are better systemisers, and that this comes from differences in the way male and female brains are wired.

This explains why we have agony aunts but not agony uncles. If you had agony uncles, it would be like this…

Dear Phil. I went to work last week and after a mile my car stalled and wouldn't start. I walked back home and found my wife kissing the postman. I’m desperate. Can you help?

Dear Reader. The most common cause of vehicles breaking down in the first mile is dirt in the fuel pump. A quick flush with WD-40 should do the trick. You’re welcome.

In my opinion, women are usually much more practical than men, they have more common sense.

I mean, when Kathie was giving birth to our daughter, the nurse said, “What about epidural anaesthesia?” Kathie nodded, but I said, “I’ll handle this. Thanks, nurse, but we’ve already picked names for the baby.”

A long time ago, in the days before Facebook and texting, a young man and his fiancée used to write each other love letters every day.

They lived some distance away and whenever they met up, they talked about everything they had written.

He said, “When I get a letter from you, I always kiss the back of the envelope before I open it because I love to think how your soft lips touched it before you put it in the post.”

She blushed and looked very embarrassed. He said, “What’s wrong?” She said, “Actually, I moisten the envelope flap on the dog’s nose!”

There is no story in the Bible where a woman’s practical common sense is more obvious than the one people think a lot about at this time of year, where the angel announces to Mary that she has been chosen to give birth to the Messiah.

He gets really carried away. “You will conceive and give birth to a son, You are to call him Jesus [which means saviour]. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of Israel’s greatest king, David, and he will rule and reign forever And oh, his kingdom [takes deep breath of awe and wonder] will never end.”

And Mary very sensibly says, “Look, this is all very well but I have never had sexual intercourse in my life, how do you think this is going to work?”

I was reading Matthew’s Gospel earlier this year and I noticed something I had never seen before. No less than five times in that Gospel, Jesus speaks to his male disciples and says, “Oh, you of little faith.”

But in chapter 15, he goes on tour and meets a woman. A foreigner. Poor. Desperately anxious about a disturbed and troubled daughter. At her wits’ end. She actually makes a bit of a scene. She kneels before him, looks him in the eye and says, “Lord, help me!”

And I love this; she doesn’t let Jesus go until she gets what she asks for. In stark contrast to what Jesus says to his men, “Oh, you of little faith, how long must I put up with you?” Jesus looks at her and says, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her sick daughter is healed at that very moment.

Ladies, likewise you all have huge potential and capacity for great faith.

Jesus notices your faith. He commends it. He loves it. And he wants to act on it. Let the lioness within you roar! Change the world.

After Dinner Speech at Ladies' Night Out, 26 November 2021

Wonderful Counsellor (Isaiah 9.1-7)

Introduction

A few weeks ago, Kathie and I spent a week in Paris to visit family there. Our trip coincided with the tenth birthday of our first grandchild.

I still remember very clearly a decade earlier getting a call from our eldest son breaking the news that his wife Beki had given birth earlier that day to a little girl.

Shortly afterwards, the first photos appeared. We studied them very carefully, and decided our new granddaughter had the best possible start in life – she looked nothing like me!

The announcement of the birth of a new baby always spreads a bit of cheer, doesn’t it?

Who is not pleased and relieved to hear that mum and baby are both doing well? Who does not marvel at the first pictures of this new-born bundle of cuteness? Who is not eager to learn the baby’s weight and most importantly the name he or she will be given?

Two of the best-known and most stunning prophecies in the Bible are essentially birth announcements (and for those of you who like a bit of highbrow music they both feature in Handel’s Messiah).

In Isaiah 7 there is the “Immanuel” prophecy; “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” [meaning God is with us].

But today, we’re going to focus on the opening verses of chapter 9: “To us a child is born, to us a son is given.”

Here’s what it says:

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past [God] humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honour Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.

You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder.

For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.

Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Prayer…

Over the next four weeks leading up to Christmas at King’s, we’re going to be zooming in on each of the four descriptive titles that are given to the coming Messiah; Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and today, Wonderful Counsellor.

Background

But so as to help us see and savour the full force and majesty of this prophecy, I need to give a bit of background.

When Isaiah spoke these words, about 750 years before Jesus was born, he was living in what had been, less than 200 years earlier, a great and prosperous nation that was the envy of the world.

By now though, Israel was diminished and in acute decline, torn apart by civil war, divided into two nations, squeezed and humbled by rival powers on its borders, and under threat from the increasingly dominant empires of Assyria and Babylon.

The people of God at the time Isaiah spoke this prophecy were led by a weak and corrupt king called Ahaz. Under his leadership, God’s people suffered military defeats and national humiliations. The nation was almost constantly at war. And invariably on the losing side.

Ahaz didn’t listen to the prophets or take any notice of Scripture. He promoted a cult of idols.

He actually made the worship of the living God illegal and locked the temple doors. He even offered some of his children as a human sacrifice to the pagan god Molech.

This is why Isaiah talks about an atmosphere of pessimism and gloom, about people walking in darkness and living in a land of deep darkness. Isaiah’s world was - spiritually - a terribly gloomy and depressing place.

A Child Is Born

But as chapter 9 begins, against all the odds and out of nowhere Isaiah says,

“There will be no more gloom” (v1).

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, and on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (v2).

“To us a child is born, to us a son is given (v6).

Predicting the sex of an unborn child, when you think about it, is not that hard. There’s a 50% chance of getting it right.

I guessed that our first child would be a boy. We had a little girl.

I then predicted that our other three children, one after the other, would all be girls. All three were boys. You can see I’ve never been blessed with a prophetic ministry...But Isaiah was and he said, there’s going to be a royal baby; it’ll be a boy (v6). And he got it right first time. Like I said, 50:50.

But then the odds lengthen considerably.

Isaiah also says where the child is going to be from (v1). He says God “will honour Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea.” That’s where the light will shine.

In other words, the child will be associated with northern, not southern, Israel. Nothing good ever happened in the north. No one important came from the north. The centre of power and the engine of the economy were, like in the UK today, down south. But Isaiah says, “All that’s changing.”

At the same time that Isaiah was speaking, there was another prophet called Micah. Micah was saying, “Look, there’s going to be a new baby, a great ruler, our Messiah, and he will be from… the south, born in the little town of Bethlehem, about 80 miles from Galilee.

Some people read Isaiah 9 and Micha 5 and say, “Ah, you see! The Bible contradicts itself! One prophecy says the Messiah will be from the north and another prophecy says he’ll be from the south.”

Well, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as both Matthew and Luke clearly say.

They explain how a new Roman poll tax and an international census were perfectly timed to get one heavily pregnant mother to exactly the right place, Bethlehem, at precisely the right time, when a new star appeared, so Micah’s prophetic word would be unerringly fulfilled in meticulous detail.

But after that, Jesus grew up and lived most of his life in Galilee as the New Testament also clearly attests.

He was known as Jesus of Nazareth (which is up north). The focus of his ministry was mostly around - and on - the Sea of Galilee.

You see, God watches over his word.

Predicting the future is not easy. In 1962 The Decca Recording Company rejected the Beatles. They said, “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out. 

In 1977 Ken Olson, Chairman of Digital Equipment Company said, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

But when God predicts the future, it is always spot on.

The editors of the World Christian Encyclopaedia once conducted a remarkable study. Going through the whole Bible, page by page, they listed 735 separate future predictions. They noted that predictive prophecy amounts to roughly 27% of all Bible verses.

Then, with an open Bible and a stack of history books, they learned that 596 of the 735 prophecies recorded in Scripture have already been verifiably fulfilled; that’s about 81%.

Of the 19% of biblical prophecies that have not yet been fulfilled, that’s 139 different predictions, most are about the return of Christ and the end of the world.

In other words, God is very careful to fulfil every prophecy in this book. And he will honour every promise in it too.

Read and mark every promise in his word to you. He will do what he has said he will do; you can count on it.

This is important for some of you to hear this today. God’s word is true. Believe his promises. He will be with you to the end of the age. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. He will not leave you or forsake you. He will complete the good work he has started in you. No, nothing will or can separate you from his love.

God’s great and precious promises to you have the copper-bottomed guarantee of Jesus Christ his Son.

Don’t let appearances to the contrary let you lose your focus. Is it north? Is it south? It’s both. God knows what he is talking about, and you can trust… his… word.

Isaiah gives no name for this new king who’s going to be born. He just says that when he comes, it’ll be as a light and he will bring to an end spiritual darkness wherever he goes.

Wonderful…

Jesus has about 200 names and titles, more than any other figure in history.

One of them is Light of the world. “I am the Light of the world,” he said. “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Four more of Jesus’ names and titles are listed here. Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

The one we’re looking at today is Wonderful Counsellor.

We use the word “wonderful” today to describe the most mundane experiences.

We had wonderful weather on holiday. What a wonderful goal. Wonderful Copenhagen. These new underpants fit wonderfully…

But Isaiah says, “No, when people encounter this Messiah they will marvel, they will be filled with wonder.”

The word that he uses is pelé in Hebrew. Alec Motyer in his commentary The Prophecy of Isaiah says this word translated “wonderful” means “what is out of the ordinary.” It is used fifty-four times in the Old Testament to describe the awesome acts of God. There, the sense is “supernatural,” “confounding human knowledge,” “unfathomable” and “miraculous.”

When you read the Gospels, you see time and time again how fittingly this word is used to describe Jesus.

People were indeed amazed at his miracles. They said, “We’ve never seen anything like this!”

Jesus kept telling people, “Don’t tell anyone what I’ve done for you today,” but they couldn’t stop themselves. Word about him spread like wildfire.

They marvelled at his wisdom and his unique authority when he spoke. It was nothing like the dreary, sanctimonious moralising they were used to hearing.

People came from miles to see him and hung on his every word. Whenever he opened his mouth, the atmosphere was electric.  

Jesus is still wonderful today.

Nicky Gumbel of the Alpha Course tells the story of Jean Smith, from Cwmbran in Wales. She was in her mid-sixties. She had been blind for sixteen years. She could only go out with the aid of a white stick and a guide dog.

An infection had eaten away at the retinas (the mirrors) at the back of her eyes – and they could not be replaced. Not only had she lost her sight, she was in constant pain.

Jean went on an Alpha course. On the day away to focus on the Holy Spirit, she noticed all of a sudden that her pain had gone.

She went to church the following Sunday to thank God. The minister anointed her with oil for healing. As she wiped the oil away from her eyes, to her amazement, she saw the communion table in front of her. Jesus had miraculously healed her.

She had not seen her husband for sixteen years. She was amazed at how white his beard had become! She had never seen her daughter-in-law before.

Her six-year-old grandson who used to guide her around the puddles to avoid her getting her feet wet said to her, “Who done that Gran?” She replied, “Jesus made me better.” “I hope you said thank you, Gran.” She said, “I will never stop saying thank you.”

This is Jesus in 2021. This is what he’s like. This is what he does.

If you know Jesus personally you will understand from experience how wonderfully life-changing an encounter with him is. Everything about him was, is, and always will be, truly wonderful.

…Counsellor

He will be called wonderful… counsellor.

This may seem a strange title, really. What do counsellors do? 

If you’ve ever had counselling, you know they listen, they encourage and they show understanding. They also help their clients to see the issues they face more clearly or in a different way. 

The bottom line is that good counsellors help broken people get mended. They help messed up people get sorted.

It’s why we have trauma counsellors, marriage guidance counsellors, hospital counsellors, career counsellors, bereavement and divorce counsellors, post-natal counsellors…

All of us are broken in some way. All of us carry pain, and disappointment, and shame, and wounds.

Good counsellors also give trustworthy advice. If you have a really big decision to make you know how priceless really good advice is.

We all need wisdom we can trust.

It’s why mountaineers look for local guides. It’s why leaders seek out mentors. It’s why sportsmen and women value good coaches. It’s why government ministers have advisers. It’s why big business hires consultants. It’s why the Queen has a Privy Council.

Looking back over 2021, for many of us, it’s been a year of disappointments and dashed hopes.

 England, at last, get to the final of a football tournament only to lose it in yet another penalty shoot-out. A vaccine is rolled out for Covid-19 only to find it doesn’t really work as well as many expected. Western nations finally pull out of Afghanistan, after 20 years of costly nation-building, only to see the Taliban back in control within days.

We are undoubtedly living in a world of vastly increased complexity. The stresses and strains on the family, on education, on healthcare, on the economy, on the environment, just feel overwhelming.

Our world leaders arrive in office on a wave of optimism and euphoria only to discover they just don’t know what to do.

This is why we should pray for them for sound judgment; they have to find solutions to impossible situations.

The world needs wise counsel.

The world yearns for someone marked with greatness and understanding and gravitas who brings clarity and light. Someone who just seems to see into the heart of the problem. Someone who gives you belief that they can solve the unsolvable.

Basically, the world needs Jesus and his wisdom.

Again, the Gospels give abundant testimony to how perfectly Jesus fulfils this prophecy.

People constantly tried to trap him with trick questions and impossible conundrums.

Jesus always saw through the motive behind the question, understood the issue, knew what to do about it, and how to say it in plain language.

How often did he say, “Err, I’ll have to think about that and get back to you”? When did Jesus ever say, “I’m out of ideas”?

And if you know Jesus personally you will know from experience that he is a source of life-saving wisdom.

This is my testimony after four decades of following Jesus. The more I laid my life’s decisions before him in prayer, the more light I saw.

Ending

There’s a scene in the Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian, where Aslan, the Christ-like lion, appears to the little girl Lucy for the first time in a long while. “Welcome child” he says. “Aslan,” says Lucy, “you’re bigger.” Aslan says, “That is because you are older, little one.” Lucy doesn’t quite understand. She thinks Aslan would get bigger because he is older. And Aslan says to her, “I am not [older]. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

As we grow in faith, Jesus will seem to us greater, truer, wiser, more glorious. He truly is our wonderful counsellor.

At the first Christmas a child was born. A Son was given. And he is Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Do you need wisdom today? Do you feel lost and confused? Do you not know where to turn? Do you need to hear the utterly dependable voice of Wonderful Counsellor whose words bring light?

His name is Jesus, and he is here.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 21 November 2021

Remember

I would guess that relatively few in our country know that the centre of gravity in terms of casualties and strategic battles in the Second World War was some way east of Berlin. 

How many of us know that there were double the number of deaths in Warsaw than in London during the Second World War? 

Less than 1% of our population died in World War II; in Belarus the figure is 25%. The UK suffered about 150,000 military war deaths overall from 1939 to 1945. The number who fell in the USSR is estimated to be about eleven million.

Understandably, every country tends to focus on those aspects of a war which most directly affect it. Our national consciousness at Remembrance here in the UK is shaped by events like the Somme, Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, D-Day and so on.

Ever since the Armistice Treaty in 1918 annual services of remembrance have given thanks to God for the freedoms we enjoy and that were secured at so high a price; the lives of soldiers and civilians, plus many wounded to say nothing of the pain endured by loved ones when they learned that their husbands, fiancés, sons and fathers would never come home again.

103 years after the war that was supposed to end all wars, it has been estimated that perhaps 120 million people have been killed in armed conflict. However righteous the cause, however noble the objective, war always leaves heartbroken widows, fatherless sons and daughters and grief-stricken mothers who have to bury their own children.

Our acts of remembrance honour and lament the many who died too young in the fields of battle, and we stand with those most traumatised by war’s devastation. If we held a minute's silence for every victim of the holocaust, we would have to be silent for eleven and a half years.

As is often quoted in remembrance services and on war memorials, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15.13). 

He said these words just hours before he died, giving his life not just for his country but for the whole world, to liberate it forever from the tyranny of sin and eternal death. His unique sufferings secure an enduring peace with God, having power to cleanse all who turn to him in repentance of all guilt and all sin for all time.

Sir Winston Churchill wrote a six-volume history of the Second World War, which told the story of that conflict from the British point of view and it won him the Nobel Prize for Literature. The last volume was intriguingly entitled, Triumph and Tragedy: How the great democracies triumphed, and so were able to resume the follies which had so nearly cost them their life.

These are words that should trouble our national consciousness and stir deep repentance in us. At this time of national remembrance, we do well to remember that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, quarrelling, and slander be put away from you, along with all hatred. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4.31).