The Word of Life (1 John 1.1-4)

Introduction

Today, we’re starting a series that will take us through to the beginning of March (with a short break for Christmas) and we’re going to be going through the First Letter of John.

Before we get into the letter itself, I want to explore a bit who this John was because it helps us understand where he’s coming from in this letter. The Gospels say quite a lot about him but I want to just mention two things.

Fiery Temperament

John and his brother James were partners in a fishing business based on the Sea of Galilee. When he first met Jesus, he was young, hot tempered, arrogant, loud, direct and impulsive. We’d call him passionate or perhaps intense.

When Jesus called John to follow him in Matthew 4, he was sitting in a boat washing all the seaweed out of his fishing net and it says he immediately left the boat and his father and went. John is an all or nothing kind of guy. He can’t be bothered with all that “thinking it through” stuff.

Jesus nicknamed him (and his brother James) sons of thunder. That’s because they both had a tendency to fly off the handle. Luke 9 tells of a time when Jesus and the Twelve are travelling from Galilee to Judea; that’s north to south about 60 miles.

In Jesus’ day to get from one province to the other you had to go through an area in the middle, called Samaria where Jews were not welcome. It was a bit like with the Jews and Palestinians today. They both saw each other as the neighbours from hell.

So they’re in this Samaritan village and they get a predictably frosty reception. John (and his brother James who is just a bad) see this, instantly snap, and say, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and destroy these people?”

With John it’s always the nuclear option first. He’s a loose cannon. John is not the guy you want anywhere near your pastoral care team… He is intolerant and prejudiced and unloving.

And look at the arrogance; “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven?” "We’ll take care of this scum. Leave the smiting to us, Lord." And of course, Jesus sharply rebukes them both.

But that’s John. He can't help himself. This is who he is.

Think of the people you know, think of yourself... there are two ends of the temperament spectrum. American preacher Mark Driscoll calls it dimmer switch and on/off switch. 

At one end, you get dimmer switch people. They wear sensible shoes and carefully read the instructions before assembling plat pack furniture. They see two sides of every argument. They are cautious, balanced, nuanced and reasonable.

At the other end of the spectrum, you find on/off switch people. There are just two options; on or off. All or nothing. They don’t do nuance. There’s just black or white. On/off switch people, if they’re not boycotting an event, are all in.

Which end of the spectrum are you at? Dimmer switch or on/off switch? John is your classic, textbook on/off switch man.

And now, at the time this letter is written, decades after he first met Jesus, John is still an on/off switch. All through his letter he writes in stark and ultimate contrasts; if you’ve read 1 John you’ve probably have noticed this.

There is no middle road for John between love and hatred, light and darkness, truth and lies, Christ and Antichrist, God as Father or the devil as father, being in the world or being of it.

But what you also notice in this letter is that John is no longer a hot headed, opinionated youth. He's a mild-mannered, benign and kindly old grandfather figure who is always going on about friendship, loving one another, and all the way through he calls his fellow believers “little children,” or “my dear friends.”

His basic makeup is the same, he’s still that on/off switch; he’ll never do finesse or diplomacy. But John’s personality is now reoriented, refocused. What changed in John’s life? I’ll tell you; it’s a lifetime of knowing Jesus.

When John first met Jesus, he was a rough diamond. But Jesus chose him to be one of the twelve. That’s because when Jesus calls you, he doesn’t just look at what you are. He looks deeper and sees what you can become, with a touch of grace, and a measure of faith, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

God takes you as you come. But by the time he’s finished with you, you might look very different to how you started - you probably will. But it will be his work. God took me on as the train wreck that I once was. That’s grace. 

But being a Christian is not self-help. His goal, from the start, was to shape me - and us - into the best version of us we can be. That’s mercy.

Deep Friendship

So that’s the first thing I wanted to say. Here’s the second: …of all the people living on the face of the earth, who would you call your best friend? Don’t say Jesus. It’s a great answer, it’s the best answer, but I mean apart from Jesus.

Some of us would think of a spouse, or a sibling, or an old school friend, or maybe a parent or even grandparent, perhaps a colleague…

Who would you pick out as your closest companion, the one above all others who knows you best, who puts up with you the most and who sticks with you the longest? 

People say that dogs are man’s best friend. They’re not mine. I find the physical enthusiasm of dogs towards me just a little bit overwhelming. Dogs do not respect my personal space, they give me unwanted hugs, uninvited dribble and unwelcome paw marks on my clothes. 

But dogs are legendary for being loyal and faithful aren’t they? They want to be with you, they whimper when you leave them, they give you the sad, sorrowful eyes when you feel down, they just love you to death. 

Dogs have nothing bad to say about you, ever. It has even been said that dogs love their owners so much they start to look like them. Someone wrote a prayer once; “Lord, make me the kind of person my dog thinks I am.”

Anyway, of the twelve disciples, there was an inner circle of three; John was in it. Of the three, one was closest to Jesus; that was John. John was the best friend Jesus had on earth.

It is said that Mark’s Gospel tells you what Jesus did. Matthew and Luke’s tell you what he said. But John’s Gospel tells you who he is. It’s the deepest, most personal, most insightful Gospel of the four and it can only have been written by someone who knew Jesus inside and out.

At the last supper, John’s head was leaning against Jesus’ chest. He literally heard and felt the Lord’s beating heart. He was the closest to Jesus. 

When Jesus was dying, John was the only one of the twelve to be there. Jesus saw his mother in bits, traumatised by what she was witnessing and he told John to look after her when he was gone. 

John was one of those who buried the body at sunset. John was the first of the twelve to the tomb on Easter Sunday.

Nobody knew Jesus as well, as personally, as perceptively or as closely as John did.

I have dozens of books on my shelf about Jesus. Here are a few of them here... This is just a tiny selection of all the books in the world about Jesus. No historical figure has had as many books written about him or her than Jesus of Nazareth. You visit the British Library or go on Amazon and you’ll find many thousands of books about Jesus. Do they all say the same thing? No!

This one here by Marcus Borg rejects the virgin birth, asserts that Jesus’ death was not God’s will, opposes the belief that Christ died sacrificially in our place, denies the bodily resurrection, and dismisses much of the Gospels as metaphorical fiction. 

For Marcus Borg, Jesus was just a Jewish mystic and revolutionary who challenged the oppressive political and military powers of his day.

I was asked to review this book for Christianity magazine in 2015. I panned it so mercilessly that they said to me, “No one’s going to buy this book after that review,” so they declined to publish it! They still paid me £25 for my trouble though.

But here’s the thing. If we want to study something we go to a school. Who would you trust most to tell you about a historical figure? Some ivory tower academic 20 centuries after the event? Or an eye witness who also happens to be that person’s best friend and closest companion? 

In John’s day you didn’t go to a school to learn, you went to a teacher, a rabbi, and you learned by doing life with him. The author of this letter spent three years in Jesus Christ University and graduated with honours

That Which Was from the Beginning…

Now let’s get into the letter itself. It’s just a short passage so I’ll read it again, but I’m going to read it in the Message paraphrase because John has a quite abstract way of saying what he wants to say and people sometimes struggle to bring these conceptual statements in line with their practical experience. 

The Message is quite good at putting it in language we’re more familiar with.

From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in - we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: the infinite Life of God himself took shape before us. We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!

I think the key phrase comes at the end of v1; the Word of Life. John reflects on a lifetime of knowing Jesus and this how he sums him up. It’s an abstract sort of title, the word of life, but here’s what it means:

Just as God created the entire physical universe with a word; “let there be light,” Jesus too is like a word spoken by God that brings about spiritual life.

This letter was, we think, written in the 90’s of the first century. John is now an old man. He’s the last surviving apostle. The church has now been through pain and persecution and purifying. Most Christians are now second generation. Few were actually there when Jesus walked the earth.

And now, some are starting to wander off and listen to new and strange, mystical, religious ideas. They won’t deliver. It’s snake oil. But John remembers the authentic Jesus like it was yesterday and he wants every Christian to know and experience the real thing.

So, in case anyone is thinking to themselves, “Why should we listen to you?” John starts by saying, “Look, I was there. I was out all night in my fishing boat and didn’t catch a single minnow. But I heard his voice. 

And when he said to throw the net out the other side, I was one of the guys who helped to haul in the nets bulging with the biggest catch I had seen in my entire career. I counted the fish. 

I remember the unique way he looked into my eyes. As if to say, “That’s how you catch fish, mate.”

I actually touched him. I hugged him. I remember when he told the story of the Prodigal Son. It was electric. I watched him raise a dead girl to life. I saw the sweat on his brow as we walked on hot dusty roads. 

I held in my hands the bread and fishes that he multiplied. I’ve been there, done that and got the T-shirt personally signed, authenticated and framed. It all actually happened. I can remember it like yesterday.

In the Greek the verb “to see” is horan and it just means to physically view something. John uses it here in v1 (“that which we have seen with our eyes”).

But there’s another word that we sometimes translate as “see” (it does here in v2) but the Greek word is a different one; it’s théasthai. “We have seen it and testify to it.” This word means more than looking at something. It means to gaze or to stare at someone or something until you perceive and grasp of the significance of it.

That’s what John means here; I didn’t just look at him. I really saw him and when I saw him, I saw everything.

What do the following things have in common?

·         backpacking around the world

·         taking drugs

·         doing extreme sports

·         sleeping with multiple partners

·         drinking in excess

·         partying hard

Some of those things are legitimate, others aren’t. But people do them all for the same reason. They want life. “You only live once!” we say. Life is short.

It really is short. Not only that, as you get older it speeds up. People often get towards the end and say, “Where did all the years go?” But we usually want it to go on longer.

That’s because there’s an echo of eternity in us. We just know it deep down. Life in Eden was never meant to be brief. There’s a faint yearning in your soul and mine for eternity. John says here, “There’s something inside of all of us that points to Jesus and is only fully satisfied in knowing him.

When you discover real love, true love, you want to keep it forever. That is my story. That was the overwhelming emotion the day I encountered Jesus. I said to myself, “I’m not sure I fully understand all this, but I know it’s what I have always been looking for and I want to keep it forever.”

Actually, I learned afterwards that this was only the beginning of the journey. There’s so much more. I’ve had some high highs and some low lows as a Christian but Jesus has been faithful through every one of them.

The apologist and evangelist Ravi Zacharias wrote a book for disenchanted churchgoers called Has Christianity Failed You? He wrote it to address the complaint he kept hearing from people that the church had let them down.

Sadly, that is sometimes true; the church does fail people, ministers and members alike can get it all wrong. Love the church, commit to the church, but don’t put your faith in it. If you put your faith in the church you will almost certainly at some point be disappointed.

Not with Jesus though. Jesus fails nobody. Never mind the church; look at Christ and tell me what you find wrong with him. One good look at Jesus is enough to put everything else and everyone else in the shade.

“I am the life” he said. Not a life. Not a way of life. Not a lifestyle. The life. The real deal. If you want life in technicolor and 3-D and surround sound, you have to come to Jesus to get it.

Ending – the Joy of Fellowship

Let's wrap this up. You know what it’s like when you see a great film, or hear a great song, or watch a great match or taste a new food and you are so glad you did, you want someone else you love to experience it too? And when they do and they love it as well it makes you even happier? That’s what John is talking about here in v3-4.

John calls it ‘fellowship.’ It’s like friendship but ‘friendship’ is too shallow a word. The word he uses is a word that was used to describe the bond shared by conjoined twins.

John says in v3 “I’m telling you about what I saw and heard that changed my life so you can experience it too. And when you do, our friendship, our bond our fellowship with one another and with Father God will make me – and you – just so happy. It'll just be complete joy.

Martin Luther tasted that when his heart was warmed and revived by the Word of Life. “I would not give up one moment of [it]” he said, “for all the joys and riches of the world, even if they lasted for thousands and thousands of years.”

Let’s pray...

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 1 December 2019

Interview with One of the Magi

Oh hello. You won’t have seen me round these parts before. I’m not from here. I’m a long way from home. Hundreds of miles in fact.

You’ve probably heard of me though. I’m in that song “We Three Kings.” Do you know that song? “We three kings of orient are…” Great song. But I’m not a king actually. None of us are in fact.

We’re magi, wise men. Maybe you would call us scholars. We spend our time studying the world and the night sky, looking for signs about the future.

One night I was looking up at the stars when something caught my eye. The unusual light of a bright new star.

I quickly checked my star charts but nothing explained it. So I studied this light more closely. I watched how it interacted with the other stars and planets.

And soon it was obvious to me that something wonderful was happening. The star pointed to a royal birth in the land of the Jews. I had to learn more.

I quickly sent messages to my colleagues, telling them what I had seen and discovered.

When the second wise man joined us, he read the notes I had written and took some more measurements.

“There is more here than the birth of a king,” he said. “My reading of these signs is that God himself will come to dwell on Earth.”

We agreed that we had to go and investigate this thing. We decided that we should leave the next day. In the morning, as we were getting our camels ready, a third wise man said he wanted to come too and off we went.

As we travelled, we discussed what gifts would be best. I said, “A new baby? What about a cardigan, a rattle and a soft teddy bear?”

But the others said, “No. Gold, frankincense and myrrh would be far more useful.” I don’t think so to be honest, but it was two against one, so here we are. That’s democracy for you.

Anyway, as I said, I worked out that a new king was going to be been born.

Wise man number 2 worked out that this new king was God himself come to Earth.

The third wise man is blessed with the gift of interpreting dreams.

After we began travelling, the star became hidden behind clouds, so we went to the obvious place for a new King of the Jews.

We went to Jerusalem and asked King Herod if he knew anything about it. He was a very shifty looking man. We didn’t trust him at all.

But while we were there some experts in the Bible told us that it was Bethlehem we should go to, 10 miles down the road.

That is where all the prophets said God’s chosen one would be born. So we thanked them very much and decided to leave the next day.

That night, our third wise man had a dream that we should not go back to see King Herod because he wanted to harm the new child who had been born. I knew he looked fishy!

When we got on the road to Bethlehem, we looked up – and there it was! There was the star again. We were so excited!

That was about an hour ago. Oh, there’s not far to go now.

In fact, I can see the lights of the little town of Bethlehem up ahead. Just over there!

How still it lies. How silently it sleeps. All my life I’ve been waiting for this moment. To see God, come down to Earth.

Well, my colleagues are calling me. I’d better go. It was nice to meet you on my way. … …

You can stay here if you want. Or if you prefer, you can come along with me. To Bethlehem. To kneel before this new born king – and worship.

I’ve got goose bumps. I am getting this strange feeling that I will never be the same again after this night.

I have a feeling that nothing will ever be the same again. This night, I just know it, is going to change everything.



All-Age Talk given at Saint Mary's Long Newton, 1st December 2019
Inspired and adapted by a piece by Gord Waldie on his Worship Offerings blog.

More Than... (2 Kings 6.8-23)

Introduction

Ben sent us a screenshot from his Bible yesterday; it was some verses from Isaiah 57 (in the New Living Translation) that he was reading on hearing about Alan’s death.

Good people pass away;

the godly often die before their time.

But no one seems to care or wonder why.

No one seems to understand

that God is protecting them from the evil to come.

For those who follow godly paths

will rest in peace when they die.

I’m still absorbing the shock of the news of Alan’s death, as I’m sure we all are, especially those of you who knew him as your pastor. Alan was more than a colleague for me; he was a guide and a wise mentor especially in our difficult first year here. He was a trusted prayer partner; I shared things with him at a very deep and personal level; things that only Kathie and I know.

He was a man of God, with a vulnerability and a fragility certainly, but all that added to the depth of his spiritual authority, I think. I will miss him so much as I know many of you will.

1 John 3.2 says, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

When Alan’s earthly life disappeared, Christ appeared. To him. Alan now sees the Lord Jesus as he is - in other words, altogether glorious, stunningly majestic, totally awesome, breathtakingly holy and good.

Of course, we are all still processing this news not just because it came so out of the blue but also because it raises so many questions for us. How can this have happened? Why did the Lord not prevent his fall? Why were our prayers for his recovery not answered? As we’ve been seeing with Elisha, our God is he not a God of miracles and wonders? Why did they fall short for this man who believed in this stuff more passionately than most of us?

I don’t have the answer to any of those questions this morning - and even if I did today would not be the time to speak. This is a day for tears, for sorrow, for hugs, for comforting each other but also for thanksgiving. Because Jesus burst from the grave, death is not the end. May Alan rest in peace and rise in glory.

Today’s reading, 2 Kings 6.8-23, will close this series on Elisha which began with Elijah being taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire and ends today with angels battling in heavenly places. There are unseen spiritual mysteries all around us, all the time, that we are only faintly aware of, if at all.

Psalm 34 says, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him.” Two days after Alan’s fall, in what must have been the worst week of her life, Nicky wrote, “There is so much to be thankful for in this awful situation that I may write a book.” “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are… with me.”

Prayer…

Those ‘Oh No!’ Moments

Let’s turn to God’s word then and it’s, typically for the life of Elisha, a strange and curious story.

It’s a time of conflict between Aram (which is modern day Syria) and Israel (which is modern day Israel). Raiding parties from Aram are attacking Israelite villages, looting and vandalising and taking captives. They’ve been doing that for some time; that’s how Naaman in chapter 5 has acquired an Israelite slave girl. She’s been taken from her home and now lives in servitude.

But now, each time the Aramean army launch a new attack, they’re ambushed by Israelites lying in wait – it’s eerie; it’s as if they know the Arameans are coming. So, the king of Aram smells a rat and suspects there’s an informant amongst his officers who is leaking intelligence to the king of Israel on all these planned raids; when they’re going to happen, where they’re going to happen, how many soldiers, which direction the assault will come from...

So, the Arameans conduct an inquiry to find out where the leaks are coming from and they learn that there is no mole; it’s that Elisha is getting revelation from God about these raids and he is tipping off the king of Israel before they happen.

The Bible calls this gift that Elisha has the word of knowledge. Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 12. It’s when you get a supernatural revelation of something that only God could know so that when it is said people ask, “How did you know that?”

Remember when Jesus knew all about the marriages and affairs of the woman at the well? That was a word of knowledge. I’ve experienced many in my lifetime.

But the king of Aram thinks he can outsmart God. “Right”, he says, “let’s work out where this Elisha is living and we can take him out.” So, they locate him in the small town of Dothan, and then surround it with armed men, and horses and chariots in the hope of eliminating him.

How would you feel if you woke up one morning and found there’s a one-thousand-strong armed mob with an order to take you dead or alive encircling the place you are staying? Elisha’s assistant sums it up in six understated words. “Oh no! What shall we do?”

Last Sunday there was another “oh no!” “Oh no! my axe head has fallen into the river and it was borrowed!” That’s a little “oh no.” It’s pretty awkward for the guy who’s lost it but look, it’s just a household tool.

This is a big “oh no!” There are mean looking guys armed to the teeth outside and they’re after us.

What’s your “oh no!” at the moment? Whether it’s a little one or a big one, there is nothing too small that it’s of no interest to God and nothing too big that it’s beyond him. Our God is able.

But Elisha is chilled. He says, “Don’t be afraid.” You’ve been told this a thousand times but it’s still true, this command “do not be afraid” occurs 366 times in God’s word, once for every day of the year even if it’s a leap year which next year it is.

And here’s why Elisha feels able to say that. He says, “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

“More than” is a precious and wonderful principle in scripture.

·         Deuteronomy 7.14: You will be blessed more than any other people

·         Job 42.12: The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former

·         Romans 8.37: We are more than conquerors through Christ

·         Ephesians 3.20: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to the power at work among us…

The storehouses of God are never empty. There is always more to lay hold of in faith.

And here in 2 Kings 6.16: “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 1 John 4.4 says the same thing really: “greater is he that is in me than the one who is in the world.”

Angels and the Unseen Realm

There is a spiritual realm that is like the air we breathe; it is real and it is invisible. Like it is occasionally possible, when it is cold enough, to see the air you breathe, so it is possible on rare occasions to see the see the spiritual realm, when heaven opens, when the veil is drawn back – and this is one of those times here.

I want to share a couple of others. Marie Monsen was a Spirit-filled Norwegian missionary for about thirty years to North and Central China, during which time she was used by God in revival, accounts of which can be read in her book A Present Help. Here’s an abbreviated testimony from that book.

Early one morning there was a fever of unrest everywhere because of rumours of a revolt among the soldiers in the city where we had our main station. If anything should happen, I knew I ought to be there, as the missionary in residence had a weak heart, his wife was expecting an addition to the family very soon and the nurse who had come to help her had bad nerves.

I heard from one who knew some of the soldiers, that the General had promised them that one night they could loot the city instead of receiving their pay. It was expected to happen that night. A couple of soldiers had called at our mission compound in the morning to calculate that they would need eighteen rifles for the night’s work.

Some claimed that they had heard that the looting was to begin at 10 o’clock. The soldiers were too impatient to wait for the signal, and began looting at 8 o’clock. We heard shooting and noise all night, until towards morning it grew quiet.

When we ran across the open courtyard, bullets whistled above our heads. The whole time the lovely words kept sounding in my heart: “You shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flies by day,” (Psalm 91:5).

The Chinese Christians immediately testified boldly to their terrified unconverted neighbours who had taken refuge with us. They saw some of their own people but who were quite different from themselves; they were at peace and showed no sign of the fear felt by everyone else.

Next day, several of our neighbours came in to see us and asked if they might come and stay with us next time there was trouble, “For you have protection,” they said. I heard that remark several times before I realized that they must mean something special. What they told me sent me calling on all the neighbors in the houses across the street, so as to hear it from other eye-witnesses.

All our neighbours kept their doors locked that night. But now and again they opened their doors to peep out and see if there was a fire anywhere near. That was that they had seen our “protectors.” Three soldiers stood on guard up on the high roof of the Gospel Hall, one at each end and one in the middle. A fourth had been seated on the porch over the main gate. These soldiers had kept watch in every direction.

I asked our neighbours, “Who did you think it was?”

They replied, “Soldiers the General had sent to protect you.”

“And did they look like the General’s soldiers?”

They replied, “They were taller than any soldiers we had seen.”

“Were they armed?”

They replied, “We didn’t see that, we only saw their silhouettes, we didn’t dare look at them carefully.”

“Could you see their faces?”

“We saw them best of all.”

“How was that?” I asked.

“They shone.”

It must have been angels on guard. The neighbours saw them, it was a testimony to them, but they were invisible to us. It came powerfully to me and showed me how little we reckon with “the Lord, the God of hosts, who sends forth His angels, mighty in strength.”

Every weekday morning here, about half a dozen or so people gather to pray from 9am to 9.30am. We usually pray for the nation, the church here, and for the church worldwide, getting information from Open Doors and The Barnabas Fellowship who work with persecuted Christians around the world.

Just last June, the Barnabas Fellowship printed a report in their newsletter about an incident in Northern Nigeria which is an exceptionally dangerous place for Christians – especially for those who have left Islam to follow Jesus. The report was of an attack by Boko Haram. 

It’s about a group of 500 or so Nigerian Christians, converts from Islam, and their children. It is not normal for these people to gather in such large numbers, but all of them had been attacked before by Boko Haram and they hoped that being in a larger group would give them a measure of security. But the terrorists were not deterred. They attacked the group, captured 76 of them, and took them back to their camp.

When they got to this camp, the Christians were beaten badly, and their four male leaders were told they must deny Christ and convert to Islam or they would be shot. All four refused and all four were shot dead, in full view of the others.

A week later, their four widows were told they must renounce their Christian faith or their children would be shot. They were given time to think about this dreadful choice. As these mothers agonised together that evening, their excited children came running up to them, saying that Jesus had appeared to them and had told them all would be well.

They weren’t sure what to make of that but Jesus then appeared to the whole group, all the remaining 72, and told them not to fear for he would protect them. He said they should not renounce him but should stay strong, and that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

The next day, these four mothers gave their decision to the Boko Haram gunmen. “We will never deny Christ.” So, the militants loaded their guns and prepared to shoot the children, who were already lined up against a wall. The youngest was a little girl of four. All of a sudden, the men in the firing squad began screaming and clawing at their own heads, shouting “Snakes, snakes!” They fled the scene, and some of them dropped dead.

One of the Christians reached for the gun of one of the dead men but the four-year-old put her hand on his arm to stop him. “You don’t need to do that,” she said, “Can’t you see all the men in white fighting for us?” But he couldn’t. Only the child could see them.

Hebrews 13.2 says we sometimes meet angels without knowing it. “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers,” it says, “for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels unaware.” We once shared testimonies about this at midweek Communion and several of us testified to miraculous intervention in times of danger or trouble.

Ending

I’m not going to spend any real time on what happens next; just to say it’s one of the most beautiful foretastes of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. People say the Old Testament is all judgement and doom and disaster. No, it isn’t. There is mercy and kindness to be found there too even in that dog-eat-dog world of bloodshed and revenge.

But I want to come in to land in the shadow of the cross. We’ve shared Communion today, remembering the sufferings of Christ for us. We’ve tasted of the powers of the age to come in the simplicity of sharing bread and wine. We’ve feasted on Christ.

The night before he died, in a small garden on the Mount of Olives, another army marched up with swords and clubs. They surrounded the place where he was.

And Jesus said to the twelve, “Don’t you know I could call on my Father, and he would at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”

What they did for Elisha they could have done for Jesus. But he thought of you, he thought of me, and said, “But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 24 November 2019

Where Did I Lose My Cutting Edge? (2 Kings 6.1-7)

Introduction

There’s an old lady in Cardiff with a budgie who can sing the first few lines of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” She invites visitors to her house to put £1 in a little box when it sings for them. And every now and again the money collected is sent on to a missionary in Kenya. That budgerigar has raised hundreds of pounds!

Actually, that bird is a better disciple than some Christians; it’s praising God every day, it’s spreading a bit of joy and it’s supporting mission in Africa. But for all its effectiveness, it doesn’t have faith. It just repeats words…

What we’ve been seeing in the life of Elisha these last few weeks, is what faith can achieve.

Elisha was a prophetic leader, called by God, to minister in Israel at a time of national spiritual decline. Every now and again God raises up people with unusual anointing and faith for works of power.

There’s a well-known church leader who once shared a platform with Kathryn Kuhlman. She was an American evangelist who hosted healing services. She dressed somewhat eccentrically, her makeup was unusual, and she had a slightly strange style. She was, let’s say, unorthodox.

And this guy remembers her walking up and down, seemingly in deep and intense communion with God, not really present to anyone else. She was praying under her breath, seeking what God was doing, and where he was leading.

He remembers looking at her and thinking, “this is officially weird. She’s odd.” Until finally she stopped, looked up at him and simply said, “Are we ready now?” And instantly he clattered to the floor in a heap, under the power of the Holy Spirit.

That’s the sort of guy Elisha seems to have been. I don’t think we’ve seen the likes of Elisha in our country since Smith Wigglesworth. But every now and then God raises one of these characters up.

We saw a few weeks ago how Elisha was mentored by Elijah. He didn’t just learn how to say the words right like that singing budgerigar. For ten years they walked together as one passed on faith and spiritual authority to the other.

Jesus called 12 disciples, and the Gospels say, “he called 12 to be with him.” Over three years they went from being learners to leaders. He took a dozen lame ducks and dragged them up and down the Middle East till they could barely stay awake for an hour, but then they had all they needed to turn the world upside down.

He designated them “apostles” which means sent ones. He didn’t call them prophets or patriarchs or priests or even pastors - but apostles. They were to be sent from one place to another, to reproduce in the new place what they learned in the place they came from, until the place they went to looked like the place they left.

That’s why we are sending a team to Newtown in April 2021. We want, under God, to give birth a new, life-giving, Jesus-centred community 3 miles down the road. There are some great people getting on the bus. The team is up to 18 now. But we are asking God to be able to send 30. Is God calling you? There is still room for a dozen more - at least.

If you take away the signs and wonders from the stories we have of Elisha, to be honest, there’s not a lot left.

Actually, when we open the Gospels it’s striking how much space is devoted there to the great works Jesus did. Matthew records 41 miracles, Mark reports 34, Luke also includes 34, and John describes 20. Some are duplicated of course from Gospel to Gospel. But that’s a lot of miracles.

From Genesis to Revelation, our God reveals himself as a God of mighty wonders and if you remove the miraculous from of the Bible, you’re left with little more than the cover and the index.

Elisha and Jesus both used their anointing from God in small, insignificant situations as well as in matters of life and death.

Losing Your Axe Head

One everyday miracle in Elisha’s ministry was the one we’re looking at today. Some students go down to the river Jordan, which was surrounded by forest in those days, to fell some trees for a building project. While chopping wood, one young guy overenthusiastically swings his axe, and to his great dismay, the blade flies off the handle, falls into the muddy, fast-flowing Jordan and sinks without trace.

What could possibly be more banal than losing a household tool? What a bafflingly unspiritual thing to find in the word of God!

But God is just as concerned about our small, mundane problems as he is about the really big, important ones. If you felt God never helped you in the little things, would you ever trust him for the big things?

All of us know the experience of losing something. Maybe something costly or of sentimental value, or perhaps something ordinary and replaceable.

We have all looked for something we had misplaced. You search through every room, down the back of the sofa, in coat pockets, in the bin…

As an unexpected bonus, you find other stuff you’d lost and not missed but the object of your search remains stubbornly nowhere to be found.

Someone asks you that most of annoying of all questions; “Where did you have it last?” Like it hadn’t occurred to you to think about that till now! Then in desperation, you start to look again in the same places you’ve already looked, knowing it’s futile.  

Here, in 2 Kings 6, it’s a big deal for the man who loses this axe head for two reasons.

Firstly, it wasn’t his to lose. The students at this prophetic school were probably young adults, they lived simply and didn’t have much. The guy starts to think with dread about how he’s going to explain to whoever lent it to him that he’s lost it – and cannot afford to replace it.

When we lived in London, Kathie had a small guitar. She didn’t use it much, in fact she never really learned to play it and since it was gathering dust, I lent it to a guy who told me he wanted to learn. A few weeks later, I asked for it back and – with neither embarrassment nor apology – he said I couldn’t have it back because he’d sold it. That was 35 years ago; I still don’t understand how he thought that was somehow OK.

But most of us feel mortified to break the news to an owner that we’ve damaged or lost something we’ve borrowed. Having concern for other people’s property when we’ve been entrusted with its safe keeping is normal. By the way, whoever borrowed my Aladdin DVD - I can’t remember who it was, it was years ago…

The second reason this was a big deal was that there was a shortage of iron. Iron ore was not mined at that time in Israel so this axe head was imported and was therefore costly. You couldn’t just nip down to the local store and get another iron tool even if you had the means to, which this young student (as we’ve seen) did not.

As this distraught lad cries out, “Oh no! It was borrowed” and Elisha asks him “Where did it fall?” I imagine him looking at this muddy river and asking himself, “Now then, where did I lose it?”

It’s something we say when we’ve drifted in faith or find our spiritual passion has waned. Where did I lose my cutting edge?

Can you look back at a time when you were really on fire in your faith? “I used to know God’s power resting upon me. Where did that zeal I had when first I met the Lord all go? I used to be so fired up. There was a time when I could walk through walls for the sake of the gospel.”

I have a friend in Barbados who once said, “I want to be so full of Christ that if a mosquito bites me it flies away singing, “oh, there is power in the blood!” Is that what you want? Where did I lose my cutting edge?”

Where did I wander from the Lord and lose the sense of his presence and power? Was it when I got too busy or too weary for Life Group or for church? Was it when I fell out with a brother or sister and didn’t make it right? Was it when I when I knowingly sinned or compromised my faith? Was it when I nursed a cynical attitude instead of fixing my mind on things above? “That’s where we lose our cutting edge.”

Losing your edge spiritually almost always happens over time. It’s rarely instantaneous. That young man will have been hacking away for hours, slowly, millimetre by millimetre, the axe head slips down the handle – it all happens so gradually – until you look down and… it’s gone.

Everyone can be restored, reinstated and re-equipped for the service of God. You can recover your zeal, your passion, your first love, your cutting edge – it starts when you go to the Lord and tell him just where you lost it. Is that what you need to do today?

REACh Phase 3

Let me change tack now for a bit. If you’re new here, a few years ago we started a four-phase project to bring this building up to scratch. It’s called REACh which stands for reorder, extend and advance the church.

Our aim is to modify this building in ways that will maximise its potential for worship and mission for the rest of this century, should the Lord not return beforehand.

Phase 3 is about reclaiming this underused space behind me. We want to:

·         Create a place of prayer here at the heart of the building

·         Install an inspirational coloured glass feature here

·         Allow our musicians, preachers and leaders to be a little more visible by raising the floor area here

·         Install a sunken baptistery here for full-immersion baptisms

·         Bring the Communion Table forward to about here for greater proximity between president and people – not 20 yards away like now

·         Add new TV screens both sides of the arch for sharper resolution

·         Vastly improve lighting options and enhance sound reproduction

·         Bring the wiring and heating up to modern standards

Due to the amazing generosity of people here, we have about £110,000. A few weeks ago, we received quotes from companies tendering for the phase 3 contract. When you add on architect’s fees, VAT and all the stuff in fine print, we’re about £40,000 short. That means we’re over two thirds there but that’s not enough which is why we have not gone ahead this autumn.

When we discussed at PCC what we should do next, I looked at the set Bible readings for the weeks coming up and noticed that today’s was about having to modify the physical space of this school of prophets in Jericho. These readings were chosen and published a good month before any quotes came in.

Verses 1-2; “The company of the prophets said to Elisha, ‘Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. Let us go to the Jordan, where each of us can get a pole; and let us build a place there for us to meet.’”

Their building is too small. Why is it too small? Presumably, it’s because Elisha’s ministry is bearing fruit. God is giving the growth. More and more of these young people are training for public ministry.

It’s a good problem to have. But it’s still a problem. They need more space to accommodate the blessing God is pouring out on them. And they have a vision that will fix their problem. Three things, very briefly.

Firstly, they name the problem. “We have grown and grown as God has blessed us - and now our building is inadequate. We cannot go on like this.”

Secondly, they identify a solution. And it’s not, “We’ll have to restrict numbers to fit the limitations of our building.” No, they say, “Here’s what we need to do: we have to expand the space we have for worship, for teaching, for prayer, for training.”

And thirdly, they come together and they combine their efforts to build this annexe. No one thinks it’s someone else’s problem. They all join forces to fix it. “Will you come with us please Elisha?” “Yeah, all right, I’ll come.” “OK, let’s go then, let’s get this done.” So down they all go and they feverishly begin to cut logs.

We were in a similar place about 18 years ago to where we are now. We had to build a new centre because the old one was riddled with asbestos. The bill came in at half a million pounds. People gave huge sums of money, but we still had only two thirds of what we needed in the bank. How did we get over the line?

We asked the congregation then if anyone had it in their heart to offer an interest-free loan. People responded. The money came in, the centre was built, and the last penny was repaid shortly after I arrived here in 2008.

We’d like to go ahead with phase 3 in February if we can. So, I’m asking you – if you haven’t yet given to this project and you feel moved to do so now – to go ahead and offer a gift for God’s glory.

It may be that you have already given to REACh, or are simply not in a position financially to do so, but you can offer an interest-free loan. If you can do that, that would be such an encouragement and it could make all the difference.

There are flyers like this with more information in the narthex and in the foyer. Please speak with ... as soon as you can if you’d like to explore this further. I’m sorry, I cannot help you train your budgie to raise the money for you!

Ending

I’d better wrap this up. Think about that poor young man at the moment he sees his borrowed axe head sink into that river. “Oh no!” – and his heart sinks with it. Has something gone terribly wrong for you recently? Do you have some really bad news to break? Have you lost your cutting edge, your passion, your fire?

There is good news today for anyone who is distraught, who is worried, who is fearful, who is downcast, who shakes their head saying, “Where did I lose it?”

Ask someone to pray with you today. Welcome the Holy Spirit; the one who can make iron float, and let him do the impossible in your life.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All saints' Preston on Tees, 17 November 2019