Foundations: Belonging (Romans 14.8 and 12.5)

Introduction

Last week, Paul talked about community. Today, as we continue to set out our foundational values here at King’s, I’m going to talk about belonging.

You might be thinking, wait a minute, that’s the same thing, isn’t it? Pretty well? Belonging and community? What’s the difference?

And they are quite similar to be honest. There is admittedly some overlap, but belonging is more fundamental than community.

Community, as we saw last Sunday, is about participation and sharing and doing things together. Working together. Eating together. Learning together. Laughing together. Taking communion together. Building and achieving something together.

But belonging comes before all that. Belonging is being able to say, “I am truly welcome. I’m in. I fit here. I am loved. King’s is my home. I belong.”

According to sociologists, there is an instinctive human yearning to be part of something, to belong. It is hardwired into us in creation. God has made us this way.

In fact, research shows that knowing you belong is a far greater factor in sustained personal happiness than job satisfaction, level of income or marital status.

The popular consensus, until recently, was that the most fully satisfied people in the world were those who have high self-esteem.

But lately several large university studies have all come to a surprising conclusion: even good self-esteem, (having a positive self-image), has little effect on individuals’ overall sense satisfaction and wellbeing in life compared to knowing you fit in and are accepted.

Instead, the healthiest and most personally-fulfilled individuals, according to the research, were found to be those who are most aware of having a place to belong.

Who do you belong to?

Do you feel that you belong? What - or who - do you feel you belong to?

If you’re married, there is a sense that you belong to your spouse. Like many others here, Kathie and I vowed on our wedding day; “all that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you.” We belong to one another.

But, whether you are married or single, I want to say today that, according to the Bible, negatively there are three senses in which you do not belong, or should not belong.

And positively, there are two senses in which you do belong, or should belong if you are a Christian.

So let’s delve into God’s word and hear what the Lord has to say to us about the ways in which we do and do not belong.

Prayer…

1) We no longer belong to ourselves

Firstly, if we are Christians, we no longer belong to ourselves. 1 Corinthians 6 says this:

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honour God with your bodies.”

This is highly counter-cultural. It is not popular.

Our generation worships at the altar of personal freedom and says, “No one tells me what to do.” “My private life is none of your business.” “It’s my life, I can do whatever I feel like.” “My body, my rights.”

But being a Christian has always meant radical resistance to the spirit of the age.

The old Salvation Army evangelist Gipsy Smith once said, apparently in the presence of the Royal Family, “Only dead fish always go with the flow. It’s only a live fish that can swim against the current.”

But that’s what we do. We are not our own. We no longer belong to ourselves. My body is not mine to do as I like with. I belong to Christ.

Is that part of your thinking? Is that how you see yourself?

2) We no longer belong to the world

Secondly, we no longer belong to the world either.

In John 15.19, Jesus says to his closest followers: “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

Here, ‘the world’ means all the values and ideas and ways of thinking of our surrounding non-Christian culture.    

We no longer fit naturally into the thinking and beliefs of the worldview around us. Our instincts begin to change at conversion.

Things we used to do we don’t feel comfortable about anymore. Things that used to make us laugh we don’t find funny anymore. Our vocabulary changes. We no longer believe some of the things we used to. Some of the places we used to go we don’t find so appealing these days.

We’re peculiar people. That doesn’t mean we have to be weird and otherworldly. But in 1 Peter 2, Peter calls us “foreigners and exiles in the world.”

We don’t fit in. We frequently feel misunderstood. The prevailing worldview is not home for us. We’re misfits.

I remember when we lived in France, the Minister for Health became a Christian and started going to one of the larger churches in the city.

Her testimony, having been a militant campaigner for the most liberal abortion laws, was that, as soon as she was baptized in the Holy Spirit, her eyes were opened and she became pro-life. It was political suicide. It cost her her job.

Christians in every generation find themselves clashing with the prevailing culture. And usually there’s a price to pay.

In the first century, the clash was whether to refer to Caesar as lord or refuse. If you were caught refusing to join in, however respectfully, they threw you to wild beasts in the Coliseum.

600 years ago, in this country, if you were caught owning or giving away a Bible in English you would be burned at the stake.

In our day, and in our culture, the punishments are less severe, they are rarely life-threatening, but they can be life-changing.

You can be sacked on the spot and become virtually unemployable if you dare to state any kind of biblical point of view, even privately, on matters of human sexuality, gender identity, or the uniqueness of Christ as Saviour.

“If you belonged to the world,” Jesus says, “it would love you.” If you’re a non-binary vicar, or a transgender nun, or a bishop who identifies as a gay ostrich, or a priest who celebrates Diwali and Ramadan, you’re almost guaranteed to be a celebrity. You'll be a shoe-in for Thought for the Day or The One Show. You’d be so well-liked.

But “as it is," says Jesus, "you do not belong to the world… that is why it hates you.”

3. We no longer belong to the devil

Thirdly, we no longer belong to the devil.

In one of those uplifting and inclusive statements Jesus often made (!), he said that people who reject him belong to the devil (John 8.44).

Here’s what he said (to those who did not believe in him): “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.”

In John’s Gospel and letters, it’s always black and white. It’s either love or hatred, light or darkness, night and day, believing or not believing, truth or lies, Christ or Antichrist.

There’s no fancy dimmer switch with John. It’s either on or off. That’s what he most remembered about Jesus' teaching.

And at the end of the day, when it all boils down to basics, in Jesus' way of thinking, you’re either a child of God or a child of the devil.

Every time the devil tries to drag you into going back to the things you repented of when you came to Christ, you can smile and tell him to go to hell.

You don’t belong to him anymore. He has no hold on you.

So, put negatively, those are the three senses in which the Bible says we do not belong.

We are not our own, we are not of this world and we no longer belong to the devil.

So, who do we belong to?

The Bible has two answers to that question; firstly we belong to God and also we belong to one another.

4. We belong to God

It says in Romans 14.8; “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”

If you belong to God, says Jesus, you hear and obey his voice (John 8.47).

The reason Christ died is so that we would no longer belong to ourselves but to him so we bear fruit for God (Romans 7.4).

The most profound sense of belonging comes from knowing that God, our good, good, Father, chose us from before creation, adopted us and lavished us with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Some of us, perhaps because of bad experiences with our earthly fathers, find it hard to relate to the idea of belonging to a loving heavenly Father.

For 11 years at boarding school, a lonely young Winston Churchill repeatedly wrote letters to his dad asking him to reply and to come and visit him, as other fathers did.

But his father did not even once either write or visit in all that time.

After leaving school, Churchill went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Only passing the entrance exam at the third attempt, he failed to get into the infantry. So he had to settle for the less prestigious cavalry instead.

At which point Randolph Churchill, his father, finally wrote a letter to his young son. Imagine Winston's excitement as he opened the letter, no doubt sent to give him some comfort and encouragement. Here are some extracts:

The first extremely discreditable failure of your performance was missing the infantry, for in that failure is demonstrated beyond refutation your slovenly happy-go-lucky, style of work for which you have been distinguished at your different schools.

Never have I received a really good report of your conduct in your work from any master or tutor … You are always behind, never advancing in your class. Incessant complaints of total want of application come from your masters …

With all the advantages you had, with all the abilities which you foolishly think yourself to possess … this is the grand result that you come up among the second rate and third rate…

Do not think that I am going to take the trouble of writing you long letters after every failure and folly you commit and undergo … because I no longer attach the slightest weight to anything you may say about your own accomplishments and exploits.

Make this position indelibly impressed on your mind, that if your conduct and action is similar to what it has been in the other establishments … then … my responsibility for you is over...

I am certain that if you cannot prevent yourself from leading the idle, useless, unprofitable life that you have had during your schooldays and latter months, you will become a mere social wastrel, one of the hundreds of public-school failures, and you will degenerate into a shabby, unhappy and futile existence.

If that is so you will have to bear all the blame for such misfortunes yourself.

Your affectionate father, Randolph Churchill.

Decades later, Churchill would still quote this letter in search, surely, of some kind of healing for his broken heart.

Soon after his father’s death, Churchill wrote a two-volume biography of him as if trying to somehow connect to this man he never really knew and from whom he experienced only coldness and indifference.

Even into his late seventies, Churchill was found painting a portrait of his dad. You just get the feeling that he never recovered from the sting of rejection and not belonging.

If you are a Christian and that even faintly resembles how you feel God sees you, you’re like a billionaire living in filth and eating out of a bin.

Your status as his princely son or princess daughter is assured, not by how well you do, but by the innumerable perfections of Christ, who has established you and rooted you as a fully adopted, eternally loved and totally secure child of God.

Jesus says in John 8.35 that the children of God belong in his family forever.

God’s grip on you will never weaken and his love for you will never cool because you belong to him.

5. We belong to each other

And fifthly, before I conclude, we belong to each other.

Groucho Marx used to joke that he wouldn’t want to join any organisation that would accept him as a member.

But Nicky Gumbel from the Alpha Course says, “Church is not an organisation you join; it is a family where you belong.”

Church is a family where everyone belongs.

Old and young. Black and white. Male and female. Introvert and extrovert. Saint and sinner. Serious and quirky. Left-leaning and right-leaning. Rich and poor. Able bodied and disabled. Married and single. Educated and illiterate. There’s a place for you.

Here’s Paul, talking about the church in Romans 12.5:

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

The New Testament, here and in several other places, compares the local church to a healthy human body; one body with many parts.

A diversity of limbs, various bones, different sorts of organs that do distinctive things but all functioning harmoniously at the same time to make the body work.

A liver or a heart or a brain are useless on their own, no body will survive long without them.

I am less complete without you in my life. She is less complete without him. He is less complete without her.Everyone in this room is enriched in some way by everyone else.

Some of us maybe struggle to feel like we fit in, but Psalm 68.6 says; “God sets the lonely in families.”

One of the questions I get asked most frequently about my faith is, “can you be a Christian and not belong to a church?”

A friend of mine says that’s like asking can I be a naturist but always keep my clothes on?!

“I’m a Christian but I don’t do church” is one of the saddest things I ever hear. Church isn’t a thing you have to do, it’s dear friends you enjoy life with.

And there's safety in numbers. I read a book once about the lion’s hunting behaviour. They stalk their prey for ages, observing the pack, waiting to see if a young one or a weak one will get distracted and get separated from the rest.

Once a lion selects its victim it approaches silently, patiently, inch by inch, until suddenly it springs, chases, jumps, severs the jugular artery and feasts on the still-warm flesh.

Let’s not be soft about spiritual warfare. That ferocious, bloodthirsty, man-eating hunter is what God says your enemy, the devil, is like.

And there’s a tragic picture right there of a zebra who doesn’t do church.

I’ve never known a strong Christian who wasn’t committed to belonging in a local church. We belong to each other.

Ending

What does belonging look like at King’s? How do we get to belong and how do we show that we belong?

First of all, it’s important to say that the church itself belongs to a larger network called ChristCentral; about 300 like-minded churches working in a couple of dozen countries.

And ChristCentral is just one sphere in a larger partnership of apostolic networks called NewFrontiers.

It’s very light on organisational structure and very strong on relational connectedness  

We don’t want to be an independent church just doing our own thing in our own small corner. We value belonging to a bigger movement where we are on a mission together.

What if you’re quite new here, and you’ve been enjoying coming on a Sunday, and you feel that you want to join King’s?

One of the elders, usually Michael, will have a chat with you and will suggest that you come along to a Foundations Course.

That’s two sessions which outline firstly what we believe, because different Christians take different views on different things, and secondly how we function, and because every church has its own way of doing things.

If after that you still think you want to be part of King’s, we’ll find a morning when we’ll informally interview you up here so everyone can get to know who you are, and we’ll ‘pray you in’.

So you’ll commit to being part of us and we’ll commit to welcoming you into this family.

If you’re a new Christian, that is brilliant! We strongly encourage you to get baptized. And we baptize by full immersion here. “Immersion” is in fact literally what the word “baptism” means. So “baptism by immersion” is a bit like saying “walking by putting one foot in front of the other.”

In the Bible, baptism is the normal, expected expression of belonging to Christ and belonging to his body the church. Jesus said to do it.

We don’t baptize babies here, by the way, in case you were wondering. We love babies very much, we like their noise and we don’t mind their mess.

But no baby leaves the womb as a believer in Jesus. The Bible says “believe and be baptized.” So that’s the way round we do it. Show evidence that you believe first, then be baptized.

But young children do belong. And we do publicly welcome them into the family here by dedicating them with their parents and praying for them.

A good way of belonging is to be a member of a midweek group. It’s not mandatory, it’s not a rule, but we strongly recommend you do that. You can go so much deeper than it’s possible to do on a Sunday.

As Paul said last week, in midweek groups we get to care for one another, pray for one another, grow together, laugh together, share communion together.

So that’s it. That’s who we don’t belong to, that’s who we do belong to, and that’s practically what belonging at King’s looks like.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 12 February 2023

 

 

Foundations: Prayer (1 Chronicles 4.9-10)

Introduction

As we run through some of our key values here at King’s, starting with God’s Word, the Bible, last Sunday, this morning we turn to prayer.

I’ve got about half an hour. The thing is, where do you start?

First, what is prayer?” It takes many forms. There’s praise, there’s confession, there’s requests, there’s lament, there’s agonising, there’s questioning; “Why, God?”

Then there’s the question “how to pray? Out loud or silently? On your own or with others? How do I stop my mind wandering off? When is the best time? For how long? With or without fasting?

Then, the theological issues. What is the point of prayer if God knows the future already? What about unanswered prayer?

Actually, it’s good that God sometimes delays in answering our prayers. John Ortberg, who leads a church in Silicon Valley, talks about his Uncle Otis who is on the prayer ministry team at his church and once ministered to a man suffering with severe constipation.  

So Uncle Otis, moved with compassion, prayed, “Lord, heal this man immediately!” Everyone in the immediate vicinity was relieved that particular prayer went unanswered!

New York pastor Tim Keller says, “God will either give us what we ask for, or give us what we would have asked for if we knew everything he knows.”

There are roughly 650 different prayers recorded in the Bible. In addition, there are about 550 verses mentioning the word “prayer.”

Going to the Bible to find out what it says about prayer is like trying to get a glass of water from the Niagara Falls.

Without any exaggeration, we could put together a series on prayer lasting the whole year. And we still wouldn’t cover everything.

90% of Christians interviewed a few years ago said they find prayer difficult or challenging (and I’m tempted to say that the other 10% have been known to lie).

I’m one of the 90%. I have been woken up with drool running from the corner of my mouth having fallen asleep whilst praying in every conceivable bodily posture.

This explains why I pray most productively when I’m out walking. I can’t fall asleep then! I also find it much easier - and being an extrovert more enjoyable - praying in a group than on my own.

That’s me. You have to do what works best for you.

But I want to say this. A farmer will never enjoy a harvest unless he first ploughs the soil, sows seeds and waters the earth.

And likewise, you’ll never see God move significantly in your life without investing prayer into the things you care about. You just won’t.

Prayer is usually the decisive difference between what we want God to do and what God actually does.

So however hard we find prayer, and practically all of us do find it tricky at times, we’ve got to find a way to make progress.

I’ll say a bit at the end about how we want to make prayer an actual foundational building block at King’s, and not just a vague aspiration.

But first, I want to look at what God’s word says and I felt I should zoom in on just one two verses from the Old Testament tucked away, like a needle in a haystack, in the middle of a long list of names.

The Prayer of Jabez

In the year 2000, Bruce Wilkinson of Walk Through the Bible Ministries wrote a short book, just 80-pages, but it became a global phenomenon, selling well-over 10 million copies. It is in the top 5 best-selling Christian books ever written.

The book was about the prayer of one obscure Old Testament character. And that book is called The Prayer of Jabez.

“What a pain!” Have you ever said that about someone? Has anyone ever said that about you? It was said about this man, Jabez. It’s actually what his name means: ‘one who has brought me pain’.

When Jabez was born the delivery was unbearably painful and his mother never let her son forget it. When she named him, she wanted him - and everyone else - to know that bringing him into the world traumatised her.

Most children are born after painful and exhausting labour and most mothers suffer in the process. But how many mums do you know who take it out on their kids by giving them names like Distress, Soreness and Agony?

I think we would say today that Jabez came from a dysfunctional family, with a complaining and controlling mother, whose inability to move on loaded her son with guilt.

But in spite of this unpromising start in life, Jabez overcame the setbacks of his birth and upbringing. The Bible says that he was honourable - more honourable than the rest of his family.

This is what 1 Chronicles 4.9-10 says:

Jabez was more honourable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.

The key to the way out from this man’s unhappy, almost cursed, childhood is his prayer.

There’s a church leader based in Bournemouth called Tim Matthews and he sometimes talks about his big but. Do you have a big but? I hope you do!

Tim Matthews is not talking about the measurements of his posterior, you’ll be glad to hear; it’s actually a comment on Psalm 109.4 which says this:

“With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. In return for my friendship they accuse me, BUT (here’s the big but) BUT I am a man of prayer.

This is written by David before he was king. He’s on the run, with an insanely jealous and controlling king called Saul tracking him down. There are hundreds of armed men intent on killing him. He’s having to flee for his life and take refuge in desert caves.

God has allowed all of that. David never disputes the fact. BUT, he says, I am a man of prayer.”

However bleak your circumstances are, (health, finances, work, family, whatever it is) your prayer adds a huge and decisive “but” to the outlook.”

The Bible says, “Jabez cried out to the God of Israel.” It was not his mother’s crying out in pain that would define his life. It was his crying out to God. This proved to be the turning point in his life.

Jabez had a big but. “Yes, I was born in pain. Yes, my mother put a millstone round my neck. Yes, I’ve lived under a curse my whole life – BUT I’m going to turn to God and cry out to him to act in such a way that my past shall no longer determine my present or my future.”  

Jabez asks for God’s blessing on his life.

He believes that God is a good, good Father who - as Jesus said - delights to give good gifts to his children when they ask.

In James 4.2 God calls a spade a spade when he says, “You do not have because you do not ask.” That’s it, that’s why. So Jabez asks.

He knows that the Lord said to his ancestor Abraham, “I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”

He also knows about Abraham’s grandson Jacob who wrestled with the angel of the Lord all night long and said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Jabez asks for blessing so he can in turn bless others.

Our purpose as God’s people, the church, is to be a portal of blessing to the world – but you and I have no blessing to offer anyone if we ourselves have not been blessed first.

Hear the passion, the desperation, in Jabez’ prayer; “Oh, that you would bless me!” Are you ready to do battle in prayer, and just refuse to give up until blessing comes?

Ask God. Go on, ask! Pray for favour, the measure of which spills over to bring blessing to your family and church and community.

Jabez also asks God to enlarge his territory. He has his eyes on growth. He wants his life of faith to have greater reach. Why don’t you?

Jabez could have accepted his lot and resigned himself to a life of emotional want, and lack of love and constantly unmet needs.

Have you ever asked God for something so big that you could not possibly achieve it by yourself, it would have to be God?

Ask God to increase his sphere of grace around your life. Ask him to extend your territory.

Ephesians 3.20 says that God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

Then Jabez asks for God’s hand to be with him. The hand of the Lord, in the Bible, means his power.

It says in Joshua 4 that God dried up the Red Sea “so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”

It says in Acts 11 that “the hand of the Lord was with [the Christians as they took the gospel into new territory] and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.”

Ask God today that his hand will be on your life, on your church, so that the world will witness something so remarkable that when it comes to pass, everyone will have no option than to say, “that could only have been the hand of God.”

I read a testimony in Premier Christianity magazine a few years ago that encouraged me to persevere in faith for things I started praying for a long time ago.

It was written by a man who couldn’t stop thinking about a girl called Esther.

But he didn’t know if she fancied him, and he was very nervous about asking her out. So he started to ask God for guidance…

This is what he says:

“While on my lunch break, I went for a sandwich and as I pulled some cash out to pay for it, I glanced at a £5 note. Written in pencil was the word ‘Esther’ (it was one of the old paper banknotes). What were the chances?

“I went into a shop, bought a small picture frame and put the banknote inside.” He decided to ask Esther out later that week and give her the framed banknote as a little gift if she said yes.

Esther told him she’d love to be his girlfriend. So he said, “I have a present for you.” And he gave her the little box wrapped in pretty paper.

She tore off the paper, opened the box, held up the frame and went very quiet. She just stared at it.

There was an awkward silence so he told her how he had come across it. Finally, she looked at him – but not smiling. She seemed confused, a bit disturbed even. It definitely wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for.

And she slipped the framed £5 note into her handbag. She seemed so out of sorts that he was reluctant to press her about it.

Anyway, two years later, they got married and were moving into a new flat together. While unpacking, he came across that framed £5 note.

“Esther,” he said. “You never told me about why you acted so strangely when I gave it to you.”

This time, as she took the frame in her hands, she smiled. “If I had told you the story behind it then” she said, “I think you would have felt too pressured. A few years before we met, I was working as a cashier at a printing shop.

And I started thinking one day, how do you know when you’ve met the love of your life? I got this idea. I wrote my name on a £5 note and gave it out when I had to give change.

And I said a prayer as I wrote my name that somehow that banknote would end up with the man I would go on to marry.”

That’s the hand of God right there…

The final part of Jabez’ prayer is that God will keep him from harm so that he will be free from pain.

Causing pain and being labelled a pain creates a cycle that repeats itself through generations because hurt people hurt people.

The prayer of Jabez is a simple request that God will break that destructive pattern of pain so there is a better legacy to pass on.

Some of you know about kintsugi. It is the art of repairing broken ceramics with gold or silver lacquer.

Photo by Pomax on flickr

It comes from the Japanese Kin (meaning gold) and Tsugi (meaning join), so it literally means: joined with gold.

Kintsugi takes cracked pottery and makes something lovely from it. The Bible says that God gives a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

God never promises anyone a life with no pain, and no heartbreak.

But he wants to turn all that is shattered and crushed in us into something beautiful. And one of the ways he starts to do that is when we bring our brokenness to him in prayer like Jabez did.

And the Bible says, very simply, “And God granted his request.”

God’s word says you are not an orphan; you are adopted by grace. You are not defined by your past; you are a new creation. You are not a miserable sinner; you are a mended saint.

Your past does not dictate your future, provided you live in the identity God has given you.

Prayer changes things. And prayer changes people.

There was a Christian school teacher from Bristol whose colleague was an avowed atheist. One week, they both took a class on a coastal field trip, and at the end of the week this atheist teacher went out into the sea for a swim.

There was a rip tide which carried him out to sea and before long he was in serious trouble. He was too far out to be heard, so he started to wave back to those who were on shore.

At first, they thought he was just a friendly wave as if to say “come on in.”

Then someone realised he was panicking, so they managed to alert some lifeguards and they brought him safely back to shore.

Later, on the way home, the Christian teacher asked him, “What were you thinking about when you were all at sea and in grave danger of drowning?”

And his reply was, “I just kept repeating the Lord’s Prayer.” That man was no longer an atheist after that…

If each of us shared, one by one, all the prayers God has answered in our lives I’m sure it would take days to hear the end of it.

My observation, in decades of being a Christian, is that praying Christians tend to be positive Christians and praying churches tend to be prevailing churches.

Because when a church gets it together, and seeks God’s face, and prays heaven down, things start to happen; people come to Christ more frequently, people get filled with the Holy Spirit more regularly, remarkable miracles and ‘God incidences’ occur more often, ministries get raised up and the church moves forward.

I’ve seen this kind of virtuous circle time and again – the key is consistent, united, believing, prayer.

Ending

So I want to end, in the five minutes I have left, to outline how we’re going to make prayer a priority here at King’s this year and going forward.

I have to be honest with you, since coming here two and a half years ago, there have been a few exceptions, but I have only rarely experienced an electric atmosphere of passionate, believing prayer.

I want to see a faith-propelled, rising tide of passion for God to move in power at King’s. And I believe we will get there.

I heard only this week that half a dozen or so just decided to gather to pray together for an outpouring of the Spirit, for a move of God in our town and nation.

It wasn’t a top-down initiative that came from the elders or anything like that. It was organic and it came from hearts that are hungry to see God do more – I love that. I want to see more of it.

I love it when I see people spontaneously after the service here, praying with each other over coffee, as things come up in conversation.

I got a text this week about the group of women who meet each Monday to chat and pray. They also have a WhatsApp group if you can’t get there in person. They’ve seen lots of answers to prayer. Just this week for example, someone shared in that group that they had a skin irritation and was concerned that it would prevent them from sleeping. The group raised their voices to God in faith - and that person slept through.

There is an opportunity every Sunday morning before the service from 9.45am to 10.15am to drop in to the Cumberland Room and pray. It’s not the best time for everyone; especially if you’re involved in getting the service ready – but for others it’s a perfect time.

One of the main reasons we are prioritising midweek groups in homes is so that we can pray together; for one another, for the mission of the church, for the town and for the world.

And on the last week of every month the plan is that, instead of meeting in homes, we come together to hear from God and pray as a church.

The elders pray together every time they meet, and two or three times a year they’re going to spend a whole morning before God, inviting other leaders and prophetic people to join them, to seek the Lord and pray into what we sense is on his heart.

And I’m sure there’s a lot more going on than I am aware of. Be encouraged. Keep going. God is able.

And if it’s time for you to kick start your prayer life back into action, then let’s go.

Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 15 January 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.