What I Read in 2022

Here’s a review of my reading material during 2022.

Absolutely outstanding *****   Very good ****   A decent read ***   Hmm, OK **   Don't bother * 

The Broker (John Grisham) ****

This would make a great film. It’s about a man in jail with access to some highly valuable and sensitive national security information. He unexpectedly receives a pardon from a lame-duck outgoing U. S. President, is given a new identity and whisked off under cover of darkness to Italy. But ruthlessly efficient Intelligence Service hit squads from several countries are determined to track him down, each with their own mysterious agenda. With the net closing in, will his evasion and disguises throw them off the scent? Such a good plot!

 

Straight to the Heart of Romans: 60 Bite-Sized Insights (Phil Moore) ****

I love this series of devotional commentaries that now cover the entire Bible. Excellent on the historical background and perceptive on how each text interacts with the Bible’s big picture, they give plenty of stimulation for the mind and nourishment for the soul in sixty 4-page chapters. I devoured this one. For Paul’s mammoth epistle to the heart of the Roman empire, where the fearsome Caesars ruled with an iron fist, Phil Moore’s constant refrain is that Jesus is the new King in town. This book helps steer you through Paul’s complex train of thought, starting with universal guilt and working on through the decisive act of justification, the messy process of sanctification, the sovereignty of God, creating healthy community and mission. And it never loses sight of the urgent pastoral problem which I have no doubt occasioned the letter; the leadership crisis due to recent changes of fortune for Jews and Gentiles in that city.

Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Dane Ortlund) *****

This book came recommended by several friends, but I didn’t find the title particularly appealing. I imagined it might downplay too much Christ’s severity and his relentlessly uncompromising challenge. I was wrong. This is a simple but profound reflection on the heart of Christ and it’s pretty solid theologically. Drawing on the wisdom and depth of Puritans like Thomas Goodwin, Richard Sibbes and John Bunyan, as well as heavyweights like Edwards, Calvin and Warfield, Dane Ortlund writes very insightfully indeed. This deserves to become a classic.

The Jesus You Really Didn’t Know: Rediscovering the Teaching Ministry of Jesus (Andy Angel) ****

Judging a book by its cover, you might think this would be a popular-level look at the hard sayings of Jesus, and the elephant in the room of their being airbrushed out of most contemporary preaching. It sort of is that – but a bit more besides. It’s actually much more scholarly than it looks and it offers a thorough overview of all Jesus’ teaching ministry as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. A lot of the book centres on Jesus’ scrupulous observance of every point of the Law of Moses, dispelling the myth that he ran a coach and horses through it to replace it with an affirming message of hugs, acceptance and love-love-love. In fact, he lambasted the Pharisees for failing to keep the Law, replacing it instead with their traditions. No, according to this book, Jesus absolutely meant what he said that not one jot or tittle will pass away from the law, till all things are accomplished. And he was also serious about his authority, our discipleship (expressed as radical obedience to his commands), personal holiness, final judgement and the fires of hell - complete with six references to weeping and gnashing of teeth. How often do you hear about any of that in your local church Sunday by Sunday? It's not until the appendix that we reconcile all of this with Paul’s contention that gentiles are emphatically not under the Law of Moses. Only then does the big picture of Dr. Angel’s argument become clearer. It’s a really thought-provoking book. It's one of those rare books that I think I need to read again. Ironic, I think, that it is endorsed in the flyleaf by no less than four Church of England bishops, given their collective and lamentable decision in December 2018 to oppose Jesus’ plain teaching that in the beginning the Creator made us male and female.

 

God of All Things: Rediscovering the Sacred in an Everyday World (Andrew Wilson) *****

Salt, stones, sun, sea, sex… ordinary, everyday things which say something to us about ourselves, made in the image of God and about God himself. 30 short chapters of fine writing, surprising facts, quirky observations and at times breathtaking spiritual insight. I loved it. The chapters on pigs and rain were the two highlights for me. Pigs are the epitome of foul but their being made into a pleasing aroma (bacon) by their death is an image of gentiles made pleasing to God by Christ's death on the cross. Rain, in this book, is a reminder of common grace; our beautiful, lush, green planet, a gift generously given as much to rogues and rascals as to the righteous. One of the best books I’ve read in years.

Straight to the Heart of The Minor Prophets: 60 Bite-Sized Insights (Phil Moore) ***

There was a special offer on Phil Moore’s books at a leadership conference I attended this year in which the recommended retail price of each book (£8.99) was slashed to just £1.99. Needless to say, I bought the whole lot, though frustratingly I had already splashed out on this one just a week earlier at full price! Phil Moore covers the final twelve books of the Old Testament in one book, grouping them by intended audience. For some this was the northern kingdom of Israel, for others it was Assyria, for still others it was Judah and the final 3 post-exilic books look to a better Israel under the coming Messiah. The dominant theme that unites all 12 books is ‘blessing (God’s plan A) or curse (God’s plan B); you decide.’ I was struck by how skilfully Phil Moore shows how relevant these prophetic books are to the contemporary church where a selective approach to Scripture and a worldly moral vision lead inevitably towards a famine in conversions, decline and church closures as surely as they led to judgement and exile in the era when these men spoke from God. 

Troublesome Words (Bill Bryson) *

I thought this was going to be a magical voyage of discovery on the quirks of the English language by one of its most gifted writers. No. For that, you need to read Mother Tongue. This was more an alphabetically arranged work of reference for journalists and authors that at times took pedantry to stratospheric heights. The laborious, not to say torturous, discussion as to whether the word “but” is a preposition or a conjunction, and whether it puts the pronoun in the accusative or nominative, made me a bit tired of life. The occasional gem such as, “barbecue is the only acceptable spelling in any serious writing. Any… formal user of English who believes that the word is spelled barbeque or, worse still, bar-b-q is not ready for unsupervised employment” are alas all too rare.

Straight to the Heart of Revelation (Phil Moore) ****

There are almost as many interpretations as there are readers of Revelation but this is one of the more sensible in my view. This isn’t an exhaustive accompaniment to the Bible’s last book; Phil Moore actually misses out several passages altogether including the startling vision of the ascended Christ in chapter 1 and he tends to summarise whole sections spanning several chapters in 4 pages before picking out themes or words that feature in that section in the following chapters. This devotional commentary avoids technical discussions on the basic interpretative approach (though it is clear to me that Phil takes the Amillennialist and idealist views, seeing each series of 7, and the millennium, as an overview of all AD history, but seen from slightly different angles). The bottom line is that it blessed me to read it alongside the biblical text so I’d say it’s a hit.

C. S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet (Alister McGrath) ***

Alister McGrath has written a sympathetic biography of fellow Belfastian C. S. Lewis, a man whose intellect he clearly admires and whose Christian faith he shares. Indeed, Lewis’ work was influential in McGrath’s own conversion to Christ from atheism, also at Oxford. He is adamant, for what it's worth, that the commonly supposed date for Lewis’ conversion to Christianity is out by a year and that Lewis himself got his diary confused. Lewis is famous for his apologetics work and children’s fantasy novels written around the Second World War in which he rose to fame as a commentator on BBC Radio. But his earlier life, including his unhappy childhood and later unpopularity among the Oxford intellectual elite, when his friendship with J. R. R. Tolkein cooled, are less well-known so this is quite illuminating. McGrath also asks probing questions about Lewis’ slightly weird and almost co-dependent relationship with the shadowy Mrs. Moore; a divorced woman old enough to be his mother who lived under his roof. But McGrath, like everyone else, fails to quite get to the bottom of it. 

The Way In Is the Way On: John Wimber’s Teachings and Writings on Life in Christ (John Wimber) **

What a giant John was and what an impact he had on the Church in the Western world in the 1980s and 1990s. I had not heard of this book before, but I came across it in a second-hand bookstore and snapped it up for £2. It’s a posthumous selection of some of Wimber’s articles, notes and transcripts, each chapter beginning with testimonials from his memorial service by people who knew him well. For all its promise, it’s about the most shoddily proofread book I’ve ever read with typos and basic errors everywhere. How it was ever published in this form is a puzzle. But if you can get past that there are a few gems. Not nearly enough to make this book recommendable though. 

Straight to the Heart of Job (Phil Moore) ****

Honestly, Job is one of the books in the Bible I find most difficult to get anything out of. I hoped that reading it again accompanied by my 4th Straight to the Heart book of the year would help shed some light on the seemingly endlessly repetitive poetic musings on suffering and I was not disappointed. Phil Moore does a great job. There were a number of really helpful observations in the book, not least the difference in Hebrew between ‘blameless’ (Job is, compared to other people) and ‘righteous’ (Job is not, compared to God) and the fact that Elihu’s speech at the end is not the same as the three cycles of speeches by the three friends that appear beforehand - and God treats it differently. The cover asks the question ‘why does God allow suffering?’ and though this book does not give a definitive and totally satisfying answer (there is always going to be an element of mystery while we see through a glass darkly) it does shed a lot of light on the matter.

Sins of Fathers (Michael Emmett with Harriet Compston) **

I bought this book when meeting the author at a festival I was working at and I thought it would be a good holiday read. Hardened career criminal dramatically becomes Christian in prison. Cool! Unfortunately, though the basic plot is an encouraging story, there is a lot here, it seems to me, that is of little interest to anyone beyond Michael’s immediate family and friends. I got confused (and bit bored at times) trying to pinpoint which woman (daughter, sister, girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, wife, ex-wife, lover, ex-lover) he was talking about and this, along with Michael’s approach to money, were things I struggled to relate to. Michael’s post-conversion spiritual cooling and drift (drugs, women, brushes with the law, disconnection from church) before eventually getting back on track, cautions against making much of ‘celebrity’ conversions while the work of making disciples is in its infancy. 

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Laura Hillenbrand) *****

My son-in-law passed this on to me when we met up in the summer; I finally picked it up in the autumn and found it hard to put down until I had read it through. It’s the true story, exhaustively researched, of Louis Zamperini, an Italian-American Olympic runner who gets called up during World War II to fight in the U.S. Air Force against the Japanese. Outnumbered and under heavy attack, his crippled plane making it back to base running on fumes, crashing into the Pacific during a dangerous reconnaissance mission in another damaged plane, surviving for months in a flimsy inflatable raft with no rations, constantly encircled by sharks and occasionally shot at on the raft by Japanese planes, before finally landing on an enemy-controlled island – his survival seems utterly miraculous. Thereafter, his abusive and cruel treatment in captivity, singled out by a deranged and sadistic guard, is hard to read at times. He and others in every Japanese POW camp were almost certainly saved from imminent death by the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki bringing the war in the Pacific to an abrupt end. The chapters on his return home; the emotional family reunion when everyone but his immediate family believed him dead, his PTSD, fall into alcoholism and failing marriage are really moving. And, nice surprise at the end, his conversion to Christ at a Billy Graham campaign which gives him a new heart and an attitude of forgiveness for all he suffered in Japan. Amazing.

Straight to the Heart of Luke (Phil Moore) ***

Phil Moore bases this book on the assumption that the Most Excellent Theophilus who is named in the prefaces to both Luke’s Gospel and Acts was the Roman magistrate who handled Paul’s trial that features at the end of Acts. It’s a view I have long shared, but it’s presented here almost as a settled fact rather than the intriguing hypothesis that it is. Luke’s Gospel and Acts are, therefore, according to this book, a two-part legal briefing, painstakingly collated, with the intention of 1) showing how this new Christian movement came about, 2) how Paul became involved in it and 3) how it is bona fide and of no threat to public order in Rome. It’s also an attempt to convert just one strategically located man of influence to Christ. It works OK. Once again, some of the best insights are to be found tucked away in the footnotes.

Does the Future Have a Church? (Terry Virgo) **

What a great title for a book! Unfortunately, it rarely gets better than that inside. I love and admire Terry Virgo; he is one of my all-time top five favourite preachers, but this short book, ironically based on a series of conference talks, and centred on Ephesians 2-4, just struggles to get very far off the ground. If you want to get the best of Terry, subscribe to his podcast which contains some of his best preaching – you won’t be disappointed.

 

Mere Christianity (C. S. Lewis) ****

An absolute classic. I have read many books quoting Mere Christianity without ever having actually picked it up, so I thought I should put that right. It is no surprise to me that Mere Christianity has endured so long despite the slightly 'oak-panelled drawing room' feeling to it. You can smell the 1950s air and hear each chapter as a broadcast on the crackling wireless during World War II. This book commends with persuasive logic and reasonableness a credible worldview for an essential Christianity that Christians in all ages and from all places can more or less sign up to.  

Straight to the Heart of Acts (Phil Moore) ***

The sixth and last Straight to the Heart I read this year. Like the one on Revelation, it does not systematically cover every verse of every chapter which I think is a bit of a pity, especially as it was silent on some of the passages I most wanted to delve into a bit deeper. This one is very much more an accompaniment than a commentary. Phil Moore takes the view that 1) you can establish doctrine on narrative as well as didactic Scripture and that 2) Acts models and showcases how the church should go about its business in every age including in our day. I have a lot of time for both views so I found myself nodding all the way through. But somehow this is not quite at the high level of some of his other titles in this series.

The Bible (NIV) *****

This is the second year in a row that I have read the whole Bible through in 12 months. I think I'll keep doing that as I find it so enriching and enjoyable. I love my single-column leather-bound NIV which I got in 2020 and is now well worn-in and copiously marked. I tend to just read one biblical book at a time, in no particular order, sometimes in one sitting (a prophet, a Gospel or a New Testament letter for example). As you can see from above, I often accompany my Bible reading with something else to help me understand better. I will probably read all the Straight to the Heart books over the next few years and I have a few Bible Speaks Today volumes that remain unread too. I have decided that Tom Wright's For Everyone books are - ironically - not for me, and I have given up on them. I sometimes tune in to The Bible Project podcast which I highly recommend, especially for Old Testament insights. I occasionally follow a sermon series online too (I have listened to David Pawson preaching through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Mark and Revelation for example. Also, I use the STEP app to look up words in Greek and Hebrew from time to time.  I have been reading the Bible regularly since 1979 and I still come across amazing insights that I had never seen before. This really is the Book of books.

Finish Well (Colossians 4.7-18)

 

Introduction

Soon we’ll be hearing about nominations for Sports Personality of the Year. I suspect that many of us have our sporting heroes, people who inspire us by their achievements in whatever game they play. To my mind, none compares with one athlete who was born in June 1940, the 20th of 22 children in her family! Her birth was premature and she weighed in at only 4.5 pounds. She was often poorly in her first year, due in part to being so tiny, so her mother nursed her through measles, mumps, scarlet fever, chicken pox and double pneumonia.

She was from Tennessee and this was the era of segregation in the southern states. So she and her mother were not permitted to be cared for at the whites only local hospital. Then it was discovered that her left leg and foot were becoming weak and deformed. She was told she had polio. The doctor said that she would never walk. Even though it was 50 miles away, her mother took her to a special hospital in Memphis twice a week for two years, until she was able to walk with the aid of a metal leg brace and an orthopaedic shoe.

Her name was Wilma, and she was blessed with parents who were believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

When she was 8, she watched her older sister Yolanda play basketball and, even though her legs were in braces, she said to her mum, “One day I want to do that.” And her mum said to her, “Honey, if you believe, you will.” And she said “I believe, mamma.” On her twelfth birthday, Wilma said to her parents, “Momma, daddy, I have a birthday surprise for you.” And she slowly took her calliper off and walked unaided for the first time in her life.

Soon after, when the basketball club selected youngsters for the new season, Yolanda was picked for the team but Wilma was not. She was heartbroken. But her dad refused to accept it. He looked the coach in the eye and said, “You take one of my daughters, you take ‘em both. I am not leaving until you take Wilma as well.” So he took them both but at first he kept Wilma on the bench and she was the only member of the squad to suffer the indignity of having a vest with no number on it.

Wilma kept praying, kept believing and finally, she got a few games. It was then, running around on that court, that she was spotted by a man called Ed Temple, who coached the women's track team at Tennessee State University. His trained eye saw immediately that Wilma was not built for basketball, but for the running track, and he invited her to a summer sports camp. Wilma rapidly got better and better.

She even started to win races, first in her town, then in her state, and then nationally, even going on to the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 at the tender age of 16, where she won a bronze medal in the 4x400 relay. “Honey, if you believe, you will.” “I believe, mamma.”

Four years later in 1960, Wilma Rudolph went to the Olympic Games again, this time in Rome, where she won the 100 meters, the 200 meters, and the 4x400 meters relay, becoming the first female American athlete to win three Olympic gold medals, and breaking three world records.

When she returned from Rome, she was honoured with ticker tape parades and a White House reception with President Kennedy. But back in her hometown of Clarksville, Tennessee they planned two hero’s welcome parties; one for whites and one for blacks. Wilma said, “No. You organise one event for everyone or I’m not going.” They backed down. Her victory reception was the first fully integrated municipal event in the town’s history.

Never mind Sports Personality of the Year, Wilma will forever be my sports personality of all time.

And I tell her beautiful story today because she is the perfect modern example of someone who had a bad start (through no fault of her own) but, by the grace of God, ended well.

This is what I want to talk about from the last verses of Colossians as we bring to an end this series today.

Let’s read what it says; we’re in chapter 4, starting at v7.

Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here. My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.) Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my co-workers for the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis. Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings. Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house. After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. Tell Archippus: “See to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord.” I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.

At first sight, that is barely more than a list of names of mostly minor Bible characters. Most of us I suspect know a little bit about Mark, Luke, Barnabas and perhaps Onesimus who’s the converted runaway slave we read about in the Letter to Philemon. And of course, Paul is in the top three most prominent people in the New Testament. I’m sure we all know who he is. But who on earth are Tychicus, Aristarchus, Justus, Epaphras, Demas, Nympha, and Archippus?

And yet look at the words used to describe what these mostly bit-part people do; being co-workers, telling news, encouraging hearts, wrestling in prayer, comforting others, opening their homes, working hard, completing tasks…

This is a snapshot of a church in which different people, each with a unique contribution, each with their mix of spiritual gifts are coming and going, and all pulling together to advance the kingdom of God. This is what I want King’s to be, don’t you?

But I want to single out just two of these names because I feel God wants to speak into our situation here at King’s, and maybe to you as an individual, through their lives.

1) Mark

The first character I want to look at this morning is Mark. Mark, like Wilma Rudolph started badly but he finished well.

We know a little bit about Mark from the Book of Acts. He was Barnabas’ cousin. Barnabas, known as a great encourager you might remember, accompanied Paul on his first church planting tour. And he said to Paul, “I think my cousin Mark would be good team member too. Let’s take him with us.” So Paul agreed and off they went. But not long later, Mark turned back. Before the going got really tough he was out of there. He let the team down.

We’re not told why. Some speculate that he simply got travel sick or homesick. Maybe it was Paul’s demanding personality and leadership style that he couldn’t live with. Others wonder if perhaps, as a Jew, he was uncomfortable with the gospel going to the gentiles. It could have been any of these or all of them. Or some other reason. All we know is that he said, “I’m out.” Paul got annoyed about it. He felt let down and he refused point blank to take him again on a subsequent trip.

Mark was a quitter and he’d blown it. There was a huge blot on his C.V. He was damaged goods. And he was off Paul’s team.

Some of you might wonder if you have made such a huge mistake earlier in your life that it has put an end to your usefulness to God. You might have let someone down. You might have fallen morally. You might have made a catastrophic error of judgement. You might carry a sense of failure and regret. You might think “God can never use me now.” If that is you, you need to think again.

I’m not saying past mistakes don’t carry consequences; they do. But they do not define you. They are not a life sentence. With God, as long as you’re still breathing, there’s always time for another chance.

The leader of Passion Church in Atlanta, Louie Giglio, says “If you’re thinking that you don’t deserve a second chance from God, it’s important to remember that you didn’t deserve the first one either.”

Karma is an idea from other religions. We believe in grace.

15 years after that painful bust up; Paul says here (v10), “if Mark comes to you welcome him.” He doesn’t say, “Avoid him, he’ll always let you down, he did it to me once.”

Tellingly (in v11) he calls Mark “a co-worker (not a former co-worker) for the kingdom of God”, so he must by this time have been restored to the apostolic team and he even says that he has proved himself. He was a comfort to Paul in his imprisonment.

In his very last letter, 2nd Timothy, written shortly before his death, Paul says, “get Mark and bring him with you because he is helpful to me in my ministry.” By the grace of God, Mark turned it round.

Afterwards, piecing together evidence from the New Testament and other first documents from that time, it seems certain that Mark later teamed up with Peter in Rome and it was there he wrote Mark’s Gospel, based on his notes from Peter’s preaching.

Unpromising beginnings. Failure and disappointment. Rejection and exclusion. But that did not define him - and he finished well.

When I was at school, I was pretty average academically and invariably bottom of the class at maths, but I was a pretty good cross-country runner. In fact, I used to run for my school in Essex County races and I was no Wilma Rudolph, but I did OK. I loved middle-distance running. 

The one race I remember best was a 1,500 metres, the whole class of 30 boys – 4 times round a stadium size running track. The race started and I was tucked in to a group of about six or seven, setting a decent but comfortable pace. Then, after about a lap and a half, out of nowhere, a skinny kid called John Gattrell kicked hard and opened up a sizeable lead. He accelerated away from the pack and as we took the bell, which signals the start of the last lap, he was already half way round the track and closing in on victory.

But pace setters usually burn out. And I said to myself, “if you make a move now, and give it everything you’ve got, you might catch him.” You could see from 200m back he was beginning to struggle, his legs were full of lactic acid, he was spent. I started to kick into a good stride. The gap closed. He was so far ahead but I was travelling much faster. I could see it was going to be close. As I turned into the last bend I began to sprint. Gattrell was virtually at walking pace and gasping for breath. And I pipped him on the line, winning by a fraction of a second. I’ll never forget it. Sports Personality of the Year eh!?

But I learned that day that no matter how badly, or how well, you start, the only thing that actually counts is how you finish.

2) Demas

Which brings me to the second character we’re going to zoom in on in this list of names; Demas in v14. He is the opposite to Mark. Demas began really well.

Here we find him (in v14) sending his greetings along with Luke. This is the company he keeps; Luke is a solid, dependable travelling companion who also of course goes on to write a Gospel as well as Acts.

In the Letter to Philemon, Paul describes Demas as a fellow worker. Paul doesn’t consider him a faceless lackey. He is not a minion running around doing unglamorous errands but he’s actually on Paul’s team!

Demas is seeing hundreds of conversions, churches planted, signs and wonders; his travelling band is talk of the town… What a life! Working with this brilliant and passionate guy Paul who has driven out demons, raised the dead, broken out of jails and speaks in tongues more than all the Corinthians. Demas got that gig! He is a trusted partner.

But in 2nd Timothy 4.10 we hear about Demas again. Tragically, we read about a guy who started so well, but finished badly.

“Demas,” writes Paul, “because he loved this world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.”

Why did his passionate heart for God cool and grow cold? It says “because he loved this world.” Was he discouraged by all that hardship and rejection? Was he embarrassed about Paul’s chains? What was it about Thessalonica? Was there a woman there? Was it just the creature comforts?

Demas walks away. He throws in the towel. And he leaves the purposes of God for his life behind. He’s never heard of again in the New Testament.

Jesus warned that this would sometimes happen in his Parable of the Sower.

“Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants… The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.” (Luke 8.7 and 14).

In theAsk Pastor John podcast recently John Piper said that Paul, Peter and the writer to the Hebrews also describe people who make a seemingly good start in the Christian life only to then deny what they once claimed to believe.

And what’s striking in all these descriptions of shipwrecking the faith in the New Testament is that the rocks on which faith shatters are not intellectual problems with Christianity, problems of reason like the historical truthfulness of the Bible or science or the problem of suffering. In every case, walking away from faith is summed up as the heart’s preference for sin.

Not that God ever loses one of his children or any of his chosen ones. In fact, Romans 8.30 says: “Those whom [God] predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Not one of those that God makes a son or daughter will ever be lost. And you can have absolute assurance of your salvation today as long as you are walking with the Lord today.

I don’t want to hear about an experience you had 20 or 30 years ago, however amazing it may have been, if it’s not still real now! If your testimony about being saved is genuine, your faith will still be alive to this very day.

People can – and do – walk away from professing faith. You can make a seemingly good start in the Christian life and then prefer the world to treasuring Christ and lose everything.

Ending

Mark started badly and finished well. As a result, we’ve got Mark’s Gospel in our Bibles. There’s a Saint Mark’s church in our town. There’s a Saint Mark’s square in Venice. We all know people called Mark, named after this man.

Demas started well but finished badly. Consequently, none of us know anyone called Demas. There’s no Saint Demas’ Cathedral or Saint Demas anything. We never hear anything about him again; he’s just a tragic footnote in the pages of our Bibles listing names that we are tempted to skim read.

Some of us maybe don’t know the Lord yet. Is today the day you decide to give your heart to Christ? You might think, “What will my friends and family think? What will this cost me?”

C.S. Lewis put it this way, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” Don’t put it off any longer. Put your faith in Christ today.

Some us have known the Lord only a short time. Don’t be like Demas. Stay on track. Keep the faith. Don’t let your heart grow cold.

Some of us started walking with the Lord a long time ago. Have you drifted lately? Do you need, like Mark did, to come right back into the heart of his purposes for you? Do it today.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 20 November 2022

 

 

 

 

 

God at Work (Colossians 3.22 - 4.1)

Introduction

A woman is walking along a road one day, and she notices two local council workers working by the roadside.

She is quite impressed with their effort and application, but she can't quite work out what their job actually is. So she stops and watches them for a bit but still she can’t understand what they are supposed to be doing.

Finally, she goes up to them and says, “Morning gents! I can see how hard you're both working, but I’m intrigued to know what your job actually is? It seems that one of you digs a hole, and then the other one just fills it back in again.”

“Oh,” they say, “That’s right. Brian, who plants the trees, is off sick today!”

It’s an amusing little story, and maybe you’ve heard it before, but I tell it because I think it sort of illustrates the futility and pointlessness many people feel about their work.

Sadly, there are many who find their work tediously repetitive or pointless. And as a consequence, they feel their lives lack meaning.

By contrast, in my own working life over the years, I’ve had colleagues at times for whom work is frantically stressful, even overwhelming.

A farmer was once asked “What’s the hardest thing about milking cows?” He said, “The hardest thing about milking cows is that they never stay milked!”

Work can feel like one relentless treadmill that sucks the life out of you.

I’ve been in working environments I would describe as attritional, unfriendly, even toxic. Other times going to work has been energising and exhilarating.

What would a Christ-honouring workplace look like? How should a Christian employee approach his or her working day? How should a Christian manager or boss run his or her business?

These are the kind of things we’re going to look at this morning together. It’s 5 verses from the end of Colossians 3 and the beginning of Colossians 4.

It’s just a short passage, tantalisingly brief actually. People have asked me before why the Bible doesn’t say more about work.

After all, for most of us, our job occupies the majority of our waking hours between the ages of 20 and 65.

But God’s word actually says quite a bit more about work than we might realise.

Reading through Proverbs this month, I noted over 30 verses about work. For example, “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” And this one; “He who gathers crops in the summer is a prudent son but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgrace.”

Someone wrote recently that out of the 52 parables Jesus told, 45 are set in a workplace context.

And out of 40 miracles in the Book of Acts, 39 of them take place in the marketplace.

I confess I haven’t checked those stats, but I suspect they’re pretty accurate.

Furthermore, Jesus spent 18 years working with his hands, from his bar mitzvah at the age of 12 at which point he entered his father’s business, until he began his preaching ministry aged about 30. That means he spent over 50% of his life as a manual labourer.

You might think, “what a waste; he could have healed loads more sick people, given loads more amazing teaching and turned loads more water into wine…”

But it wasn’t a waste. Working productively and taking care to do a job well are important to God.

So I want to encourage you to not think of your Christian life as consisting of Sunday and maybe Wednesday night. It’s Monday to Friday 9-5 as well. And, in fact, every moment of every day.

Your work, whatever it is, full-time or part-time, paid or unpaid, is a calling, a ministry.

And please don’t think this is not relevant for you because you’re retired, or unable to work on health grounds, or out of work for other reasons.

What I’m going to say this morning also applies to the way you do your housework, your gardening, decorating, cooking, looking after your children or grandchildren, serving at church or studying.

What we tend to find in the Bible is that God is interested in your work, not so much because of what you do, but because of how you do it.

So, with all that said by way of introduction, let’s read Colossians 3.22 to 4.1.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favour, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong [that’s talking about masters as well as slaves] will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favouritism. Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

Slavery in the Ancient World

The first thing to say straightaway about what we just read is to acknowledge that the context, like all the New Testament, is first century Roman Empire, in which slavery was not just widespread but all-pervasive.

And slavery was commonplace not only there; it was the unquestioned norm everywhere in the ancient world.

I remember the shock and puzzlement I felt when I first came across passages like this as a young Christian. Especially the fact that Paul seems to be quite neutral about it.

No one seems to know what percentage of the population in the Roman Empire was enslaved; an educated guess is about 30% though some think that slaves possibly outnumbered free citizens.

We’re talking about tens of millions of individuals certainly, and it was a central component of the Roman economy.

It’s thought that New Testament churches had a disproportionately high number of slaves compared to the general population.

We tend to forget this in our land of great cathedrals and bishops in the House of Lords, but the vast majority of 1st Century Christians were poor, powerless and persecuted.

Modern slavery is of course illegal and operates in the shadows. People get trapped into it and trafficked across borders by unscrupulous criminal gangs. In the Roman world though it was entirely legal and just accepted as the way things were.

There were different ways you could end up enslaved. Some were captives of war or victims of kidnapping or piracy. More commonly, people became slaves as a punishment for crimes they committed. Some sold themselves or - tragically - their children into it to settle debts they couldn’t pay.

Under Roman law, slaves had no human rights of any kind and were considered as property, not as persons. Documents from that time describe enslaved people not as employees, but as tools or equipment of a business. It’s mostly complaints from masters about them being disloyal, lazy or dishonest.

As a consequence, slaves were usually treated like animals. They could be bought, sold, mistreated, sexually exploited or even killed for sport without consequences.

This was the brutal, harsh, unfair, cruel society into which Jesus was born and to which the gospel first came.

However bad you feel your workplace is, and I get it that sometimes our working environment can be genuinely awful and humiliatingly underpaid, it doesn’t compare with the way of life endured by some the people Paul was writing to here in this church in Colossae.

So why didn’t the gospel challenge the status quo of slavery in society more than it did?

If you’ve ever seen the animated film Ice Age, you’ll not forget the opening scene in which a squirrel called Scrat tries to open an acorn on the ice so he can eat it.

Alas for him, instead of cracking the acorn, he makes a small crack in the ice. And the crack opens up into a crevice. And, with a growing sense panic in Scrat’s eyes, the crevice gets bigger and, with ominous rumblings, it becomes a giant rift valley. And then before long it’s a massive tectonic fault which splits into two continents.

I mention that scene because it’s a bit like what the gospel did to slavery in the Roman Empire.

The gospel is the acorn. Roman slavery is the vast continental ice sheet.

When Paul said that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, he was saying that these are now redundant categories for Christians.

They no longer define us, nor can they possibly divide us, because every one of us, whatever our ethnic background or social status are first and foremost in Christ.

Because of Christ, Paul told free people that they had been bought with a price – just like a slave.

Because of Christ, Paul told enslaved people that they had been set free from sin and death.

He said all of us, from the richest and noblest to the poorest and humblest, all share one loaf and drink from the same cup.

He said we are all brothers and sisters; members of one another; we are all on the same level.

This is how the gospel introduced dignity and equality and humanity into a sphere of society where it had never existed before.

The little acorn had started to crack the ice! As the impact of the gospel on civilisation steadily grew, the endorsement of slavery steadily declined.

Back in the first century, most masters in the Roman world would have thought it bizarre to be told to treat a slave with kindness and consideration.

What it means for employers

But here, he says, “You guys in charge, if you have become Christians, you cannot go on like before. Those days are over. You are under new management now. You’re no longer top dog. You report to one higher than you.”

Chapter 4, verse 1. “Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”

The Bible contrasts sharply with all other literature of the time on relationships between slaves and masters.

What you find in secular records is advice on how to squeeze the maximum out your workforce as if they were just tools or machines.

But Paul absolutely makes a stand on this point; never mind convention, forget culture, whatever about customs; these people who work under you are human beings and they have rights and moral options.

So if you’re a Christian in charge of this workplace you’re going to provide them with what is right and fair. From now on there are going to be really good working conditions.

“Because” - and here’s the revolutionary thought – “you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”

In other words, you’re going to have to stand before Jesus when he comes to judge the living and the dead, and give an account of how you treated those working for you.

And, as he says at the end of chapter 3, “Anyone who does wrong [he’s talking to masters as well as slaves] will be repaid for their wrongs.”

In our context, that translates as follows:

If you’re an employer, or a manager, if you have staff who answer to you, because you answer to Christ, your boss, you’ll treat each member of staff equally; no favourites. You’ll take an interest in them as people. You’ll pay them what they’re worth. You’ll respect their time off. You’ll not tell them to do anything you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself. You’ll give them opportunities to develop their skills. When you have to discipline them for unacceptable performance, you’ll do it fairly and proportionately.

I remember when Kathie started a community nursing job when we lived in France. On her first day, she came home and said, “Do you know, I think my new boss, Doctor Marze, is a Christian.”

I said “How can you tell?” I thought that maybe he wore a cross on his lapel or had a fish on his car or a poster on his office wall or a Bible on his desk.

But no, she said, “I can just… tell.” She had been with him one day and he hadn’t said one word to her about Jesus.

What convinced her that he was a Christian is the way he spoke to people, his gentleness, his fairness. He took a genuine interest in others, especially anyone in trouble or pain. And he was fun to be with, and it was clean fun, he was full of joy.

She mentioned that he had adopted three children, and didn’t seem to really care about status symbols. He drove an old beat-up Citroen 2CV and evidently lived quite simply for a doctor.

She looked him up online, (nothing like stalking your boss on social media), and it turns out that she was right. He was a charismatic Catholic deacon, very actively involved in his local church.

Isn’t that a great witness? Kathie asked him later about his faith and he was happy to talk about Jesus with great enthusiasm.

But it was his lifestyle and character and personality that provoked the question.

People at work can tell if you are born again and have been filled with the Holy Spirit not so much by what you say but by who you are.

What it means for employees

So much for bosses. What about workers?

You’re not just some random, replaceable nobody getting a wage for a day’s graft. You’re an ambassador for Christ. Lift up your head! You represent the kingdom of God in your workplace. How do you want to be seen by colleagues, contractors, clients, customers, and your employer?

Let me paraphrase v22-25 the best I can and try to frame it in 21^st century terms.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favour, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.

Employees, you should do what the boss asks you to do not just when they’re around but do an honest day’s work, offering it up to God.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.

And don’t just scrape by with the bare minimum. Give your absolute best. Put your heart and soul into it. You might be badly paid on earth, but there are eternal, heavenly bonuses that will recognise all your hard work.

It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favouritism.

Remember this; ultimately your boss is Christ himself. Don’t think he’ll let you off doing a lousy job just because you’re a Christian. He doesn’t drop his standards for you just because you’re one of his loved children.

God is looking for people who are thorough, industrious, and who end the day able to say I gave 100%.

The Bible sets out a vision of a Christian worker who’s always cheerful, amenable and hard-working because they treat their work as an act of worship.

Contrast that with what sometimes blights a workplace; people always saying, “that’s not my job”, Olympic-level wasting of company time, bad language, constantly complaining about the company, cursing the boss behind his back, clock watching, always arriving late and leaving early, jobsworth pettiness, computer says no unhelpfulness, slacking, skiving and cutting corners

And it doesn’t matter if you’re a brain surgeon or a toilet attendant or a stay-at-home mum or a student or retired.

The reformer Martin Luther once said, “The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays – and not just because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making excellent shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”

Turn your job or daily activity into an act of worship. Say to yourself, whatever I’ve been asked to do today, it’s got to be good enough for the Lord.

When you take that attitude into work, even the dullest job can be a joy.

Ending

So, as I end...

What do you think God is saying to you today about your work; part-time or full-time, paid or unpaid?

Do you need to receive grace from God today so you can please him more in your workplace, whether you’re a boss or an employee?

Do you want to put a bad attitude down at the foot of the cross and leave it there so that tomorrow there’s a new you in the office?

Do you want to ask God for a spiritual breakthrough so you can have words of knowledge and be a witness to your colleagues or customers, like in Baba and Bisi’s testimony today?

If you’re able to do so, let’s stand to pray…

 

 Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 6 November 2022

 

 

 

 

 

  

Suffering and Struggle (Colossians 1.24 - 2.5)

Introduction

There was a man approaching middle age whose life was very comfortable and he felt an emptiness inside, a longing for something more. So he decided to join a monastery.

The Abbot told him that the road ahead was going to be very difficult. He would have to give up all his earthly possessions, all comforts, pray all day and remain totally silent. He was only allowed to say two words every five years.

Five years go by and the Pope comes to visit. “How’s it going?” he says and the man replies, “Bed hard.” So the Pope says, “Terribly sorry, we didn’t know. I’ll ask the Abbot to find you a mattrass from the charity shop.”

Five years later the Pope comes back again. “How are you my son, is everything OK now?” The man replies, “Food cold.” So the Pope says, “Ah, I do apologise, I’ll see to it personally that your porridge is at least lukewarm in future.”

Five more years pass by and the Pope comes back a third time. “Is everything well now?” The man says, “I quit.” So the Pope says, “Well of course you quit, I’m not surprised. You’ve been here 15 years and all you’ve done is complain!”

It may surprise you to hear this, but suffering and hardship and struggle are actually standard components of the Christian life.

Jesus promised his disciples they would have big trouble in this world. But he also promised that nothing and no one would take away their joy and that that his joy would be in them, and that this joy would be full.

And these two things, relentless opposition and invincible joy, are not contradictory.

Last week, Michael preached on the first part of Colossians 1 which outlines in stunning and sparkling clarity the reign and command and authority and sovereignty of Christ over all things.

It is one of the mountain peaks of the New Testament and the view it gives us of Christ’s supremacy is simply breathtaking.

But the verses immediately following, which we will look at today, bring us down with a bump.

The last thing you would think Paul would talk about, after that amazing description of Christ’s incomparable greatness, is suffering, and affliction, and how brutal life can be. But that is exactly what he does. 

Here’s what it says.

Now I [underline this word] rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness – the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles [that is all the nations of the world] the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and [note this word after all his talk of suffering, affliction and sweaty hard work] delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

Prayer…

Afflictions Are Included

The great 20th Century preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, “There is no grosser or greater misrepresentation of the Christian message than that which depicts it as offering a life of ease with no battle and struggle at all... sooner or later every believer discovers that the Christian life is a battleground, not a playground.”

Smith Wigglesworth, the illiterate plumber from Bradford who became an apostolic leader with extraordinary faith, and a ministry of amazing signs and wonders, including reportedly raising 14 people from the dead, put it this way: “Great faith comes only from great fights, great testimonies from great tests, and great triumphs only from great trials.”

He had a remarkable way with words for someone who couldn’t read or write.

I’m a bit of a grumbler at times. I confess that I like a good moan. I know, to my shame, that if I spent as much time praying as I do grumbling, before long there would be nothing left to grumble about. I know that, but still I do it. But complaining and griping are not appropriate responses to trials and troubles for Christians.

In fact, the Bible says, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing” because when you do so “you will [stand out and] shine among [your warped and crooked generation] like stars in the sky.

It’s saying there that people notice your positivity under pressure.

The Soviet dictator Stalin was paranoid about any perceived threat to his authority. Many intellectuals were subjected to forced labour under his purges.

Evgenia Ginsburg was one of them; she was an atheist Jewish academic and for 18 years she was detained in a Siberian gulag.

In her autobiography Journey into the Whirlwind, she recalls a time when she had to work as a tree logger. One bitterly cold day (it was -10°C) she remembers a group of Christians requesting not to work but to spend the day in prayer because it was Easter Sunday.

They said to the soviet prison guards, “We will do overtime and complete today’s work tomorrow. Can we pray today?” Their request was refused, and they were prodded with rifle buts back into the forest to continue their work.

But when they got there, they quietly put down their axes and sat down together to pray. When they were seen doing this, they were beaten up and dragged out onto a frozen lake, made to take their shoes and socks off, and stand on the ice barefoot.

And Evgenia Ginsburg, this atheist intellectual, was deeply moved and affected by what she witnessed. She marvelled at how these believers stood there barefoot but dignified on the ice, heads bowed in prayer.

After a while, all the other prisoners begged the guards through tears to stop this cruelty because it went on for hours and they genuinely wondered if anyone could survive it.

But then Ginzburg reflected on the remarkable fact that nobody, not one, who had stood for so long on that ice became sick.

None complained. They counted themselves blessed to be able to celebrate Christ’s resurrection together. It’s a memory that never left her.

That’s an extreme case, but as we’re going to see this morning, the normal, appropriate Christian response to hardship and adversity, wherever we live, whoever we are, is joy and delight, not complaining and grumbling.

As we move from chapter 1 into chapter 2 of Colossians, in just a few verses, Paul mentions suffering, afflictions, strenuously contending and hard struggle.

But the passage begins with Paul saying he rejoices because of it and it ends with him talking about his delight in spite of it.

We’ll delve into all that in a minute, but first we need to get to grips with probably the hardest thing to understand in the whole letter. Maybe it jarred a bit for you when I read it just now.

It’s in v24 where Paul says, “I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.”

What on earth is that about? How can there be anything lacking in Christ’s afflictions?

Jesus’ death, his unique giving of himself on the cross, made a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, offering and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world” as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer puts it.

How can there possibly be anything still lacking? What does this even mean?

The answer is that Christ’s suffering for sin on the cross is indeed complete. He himself said from the cross, “It is finished.”

Hebrews 10 explains that Christ’s death is once for all. It is all over. It is complete and all-sufficient to cleanse us thoroughly and comprehensively from every foul stain of sin and perfect us forever.

So Paul is not talking about Christ’s redemptive sufferings then, he’s talking about Christ’s ongoing afflictions now. Did you know that Christ still suffers today?

 To help you get your mind round that, think of an expectant mother in labour.

One of the things I found remarkable when witnessing our four children being born is that the extreme physical pain Kathie endured seemed to completely vanish as soon as the baby was in her arms.

It actually made me a little bit suspicious that she had suffered any pain at all. Wait a minute… What if she was just putting it on? Like a footballer rolling around, feigning injury to deceive the referee into awarding a penalty...

All I can say is I very much regret sharing that theory with Kathie before hastily retracting every word!

But here’s the thing; though the labour pains are now over and forgotten as soon as the baby is born, the glorious new era of dirty nappies, colic, sore nipples, endless crying, sleepless nights, projectile vomiting and all the rest was just beginning!

Likewise, Christ’s once-for-all suffering is over. Through it we are born again through faith. Oh, happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away!

But whenever the church is attacked and afflicted, Christ is too.

That’s why when Saul was converted on the Damascus Road Jesus said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul was actually persecuting Christians, but whenever anyone does that, Jesus says, “it’s not you they’re rejecting, it’s me.”

I wonder if you’ve ever thought of it that way before?

So what it’s saying here in v24 is this; Christ still suffers affliction now whenever his church is rejected and attacked (as Jesus said it would be). And Paul says, “I’m happy to share in these afflictions because they actually make the church stronger, not weaker.

Like in Acts 5 when the apostles are given a beating for preaching Christ, having been ordered not to, and they come out rejoicing for being counted worthy of suffering disgrace for his name.

James makes a similar point. “Consider it pure joy, [not drudgery, not misery, not misfortune] my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

I remember when our daughter got chicken pox. She was itching, tired, cranky and her pretty little face was covered in ugly red spots.

All I could say was, “My sweet darling Anna, it won’t always feel like this.” And, though she couldn’t understand, I knew that chicken pox was actually a blessing to be thankful for, because all the while it was giving her immunity.

Marks of True Leaders

I read a news report this month about a pastor in Missouri who had to apologise to his congregation after throwing a tantrum and insulting them from his pulpit. He was upset because they had not honoured him with a luxury watch.

By contrast, if we were to examine the Apostle Paul’s body, on the evidence of 2 Corinthians 10, we’d see traces on his wrists and ankles from iron shackles, we’d find marks from severe floggings, we’d uncover a back that had been subjected to 39 lashes on 5 separate occasions, (that’s 195 scars), we’d find bruises from being beaten with sticks, evidence of stoning and a face that cannot mask a life of frequent sleepless nights, constant danger and daily pressures.

No wonder, at his conversion, God said, “This man is my chosen instrument… I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

Yes, but why did Paul say, “I rejoice in my sufferings”?  Was it some kind of weird, ascetic masochism?

In the Middle Ages people used to wear shirts of rough animal hair to irritate the skin. At the time of the plague, bizarrely, people used to whip themselves as an expression of piety.

People subjected themselves to the pointless misery of climbing stairs on their knees in the hope of making themselves worthy.

This is not that. It's not about joining a monastery and only being able to say two words every five years.

Paul tells us in this passage why he was so willing to work hard, sweat blood, pour out his life, and share in Christ’s afflictions. It was his passion, under God, to work with all his might to build mature, solid, strong and resilient churches.

Have confidence in leaders who are conscious of God’s call on them to pour out their lives to shepherd God’s people and build up the church. Avoid those who always seem to gravitate to a life of comfort and ease.

Paul never tired of labouring to make the church healthier and stronger. That’s the benchmark for church leadership.

In v25 he talks about the commission God gave him to present the word of God in its fullness.

It wasn’t a career move he just decided on one day; “I know; I’ll go into the ministry to add a little bit more religion to people’s lives.” No, God called him and appointed him.

In v28 he talks about proclaiming, admonishing [that means warning] and teaching everyone with all wisdom, with the aim of presenting everyone fully mature in Christ.

And we need admonishments by the way. Practically everything you buy seems to carry some kind of warning and some are a bit silly. For example:

Sainsbury’s peanuts: ‘Warning – Contains nuts’. Nytol Night Time Sleep-Aid: ‘Warning – May cause drowsiness’. On a household DIY drill: ‘Not intended for use as dentist drill.’

Aren’t you glad they told you that? But because so many warnings seem ridiculous to us, we sometimes feel like ignoring all of them.

Like a survivor flagging down cars on a foggy day that are heading towards an accident, the Bible often warns us of dangers because is more loving to tell us the truth even if we don’t want to listen.

Good leaders are not afraid to tell you what you don’t want to hear even if it makes them unpopular.

In v2-3 Paul talks about his goal to see a church encouraged in heart and united in love, with understanding, knowing Christ, where treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found.

The church is God’s Plan A for blessing and bringing salvation to the world. There isn’t a Plan B.

When a church is doing well, when lost people are getting saved, and broken people are being healed, and lonely and excluded people are finding community and God is in the midst of it, it’s a thing of unparalleled beauty.

That’s why it was Paul’s ambition to give everything he had to see his churches flourish.

And he says in v4 that a church which is robust and discipled and well-taught and stable won’t get taken in by fine sounding arguments, smooth talk, which might sound nice enough, they might even be set to a pretty tune, but bad teaching will only make the church sick before eventually killing it. 

Fine-sounding arguments; there are new ones in every generation. The very first was in the Garden of Eden when Eve was asked, “Did God really say?” 

There are plenty of 21st Century ones; and you can get into big trouble for opposing some of them. It’s my right to choose. Love is love. My identity is who I say I am, not who everyone can see I am. All religions have the same God, they perceive him in different ways. There are many more. 

Tragically, boarded up churches up and down the land are the legacy of fine-sounding arguments replacing God’s word in the pulpit as well as the pews.

But Paul says, “No, I want you to know Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Ending

As I end, I want to say that I’m conscious that I’ve spoken about levels of suffering today that are way beyond what we are likely to have to go through here.

It reminds me a bit of what the former Bishop of Durham Tom Wright once observed. “Wherever Saint Paul went, there was a riot” he said. “Wherever I go, they serve me tea.”

We do not suffer like our brothers and sisters in North Korea or Nigeria do. But I do want to say that we are all called to be courageous and steadfast and immoveable from the gospel in whatever circumstances God puts us in.

Remember, our afflictions are absolutely not in contradiction to Christ’s supremacy over all things. He is sovereign. He does and will work everything together for good for you if you love God, and are called according to his purpose.

Do you need to tighten your grip on that truth today?

Remember, by cheerfully bearing hardship, instead of grumbling and complaining about our lot, we bring glory to God and stand out like stars in the night sky.

Do you need to receive more grace today and a new anointing of joy for when life gets really hard?

And remember, the local church is the hope of the world. It was Paul’s goal to pour out his life for a flourishing church and he did it joyfully. He said he strenuously contended for it with all the energy Christ so powerfully worked in him.

Do you need to renew your commitment to God’s great Plan A for the salvation of the world today? Do you need some of that same power at work in you?

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 25 September 2022