Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], September 2020]

Is it ok for a Christian to break the COVID rules in order to meet as a church? Are we bowing to ‘Caesar’ and allowing our personal religious freedoms to be impinged?
What would Jesus do?

Are you a rule follower or a rule breaker? Now that we’ve got all these extra rules from the governments around COVID – you know the rule of six for example – a lot of people are complaining about the fact that it impinges on their personal freedom. In the States in particular churches are bucking the trend, they’re going against government advice and still seeking to meet in their normal way and it leaves that question “Do we follow the rules or do we break them?”

^[00:33] We’re going to talk about what would Jesus do in that situation. Psychologists say that the sort of personality you have says a lot about whether you’re a rule breaker or a rule follower. I mean, if you see a sign that says “keep off the grass” do you ignore it or do you definitely not go on the grass? A lot of it just depends on the type of person that you are. I think Jesus was a bit of a rule breaker but maybe for different reasons to why we break the rules. Jesus lived in a society 2,000 years ago which was full of rules and regulations and a lot of these rules and regulations found their foundation in the Torah, in God’s rule book in the Old Testament. These were rules that God gave to his people, to the nation of Israel in order to create a healthy and a Godly society, a society that God could and would live in the midst of but by the time we get to Jesus’s days these rules have massively grown so that there are hundreds of rules about every aspect of life. It was almost as if they were ring fencing the rules that God gave them just so that they came nowhere near breaking them so you have a society that had rules for absolutely everything.

^[02:17] The problem was the way it worked. The people who were the least likely to be able to follow those rules were the poor, the ill, the sick, the disabled, and actually if you couldn’t follow those rules you found that you were ostracized from society; you were looked down on, you were left out, you were kept separate because you were viewed as being unclean. This was endorsed by the Jewish teachers, it was endorsed by particularly by a group called the Pharisees who were the law keepers. They were the strict Jews that followed every letter of the law; every ‘t’ was crossed, every ‘i’ was dotted. They prided themselves in the fact that they followed God’s rules for their life.

^[03:15] Then Jesus came along and he reveals something about his way of life in these words from Matthew chapter 11 verses 28 to 30. “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. When Jesus was talking about his yoke he was talking about his teachings as a rabbi, as a teacher. He was talking about his rules and his regulations but unlike the rules and regulations of the rest of society, He was saying “I don’t want to put an unnecessary burden on you”.

^[04:04] As if to illustrate what Jesus was talking about, Matthew then tells of a story immediately after these verses of when Jesus and his disciples were walking alongside the field and disciples picked some ears of corn and started to eat them and the Pharisees – those law experts – see what’s happening and say “You can’t do that. It’s the Sabbath today!” Sabbath was the holy day, the day when God’s people set aside for God and it’s a day when they weren’t supposed to do any work. They said “you can’t do that, you’re harvesting, you’re working” and Jesus gets into a big discourse and, almost as if to rub it in, he heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. The Pharisees are absolutely livid about this because it was work, you can’t do that on the Sabbath on the holy day.

^[05:04] What they’ve done was taken a rule from God about keeping the Sabbath day holy and they had taken the fact that it was supposed to be a time of rest of relaxation, a time of joy and a time of worship and instead they turned it into a burden. Jesus was a rule breaker not because he was trying to protect his own personal individual freedoms. He didn’t do it just to annoy people, he did it because he saw rules that were causing the least and the lost to be left out, to be rejected in society. Instead he wanted to recapture the purpose of the rules in the first place; to create healthy people, to create a healthy society and to create a healthy relationship between people and God, and that’s often a different reason to why we break rules.

^[06:20] We break rules for selfish reasons. We break rules because we want to do what we want to do; Jesus broke rules because he wanted people to live as God intended. He saw the problems in society and shone a light on them. So ask yourself, why do you want to break the rules – is it for others or is it just for yourself?

[1] YouTube link: Can I Break the Rules?
Bible references: Matthew ch11 v28-30

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[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during September 2020]

Recently I had occasion to visit a public office. At the doorway was a mat bearing the message “Welcome”. Nothing unusual in that, except that the mat was turned around so that the message would be read by those leaving the building. It reminded me of the old adage, “All our visitors give us pleasure; some when they arrive, some when they depart”. Does your arrival bring a smile to people’s faces, or do you sense a certain enthusiasm when you decide it’s time to go?

The Bible has a lot to say about coming and going. In Genesis 7 God tells Noah to “Go … take” whereas in the following chapter He says “Come … bring”. This suggests that God stayed outside the ark, controlling the storm and when it was safe He called Noah and his passengers to disembark.

We tend to think of God’s dealings with His people in Old Testament times as being rather authoritarian, a time of laws and instructions. We see both negative and positive responses:
– God said to Moses “Go …”; Moses said “Send someone else”.
– God said to Balam “Do not go …”; Balam went.
– God said to Jonah “Go …”; Jonah said “No way on earth”.
– God said to Abram “Go …”; Abram said “Ok”.
– God said ‘Who will go …?’ Isaiah said, “Send me!”

By contrast, the New Testament accounts appear more conciliatory.
– The Samaritan woman said “Come, see a man ”; her neighbours came.
– Philip said to Nathanael “Come and see”; Nathanael saw and believed.
– Again Jesus said to Peter “Come!” and Peter stepped on to the water.

Perhaps the most familiar example is when Jesus declared “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”. Later He said “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away”.

The mention of rest reminds us that there are three states – coming, going and being still. In 1920, Emily Crawford wrote these words:

“Speak, Lord, in the stillness, whilst we wait on Thee,
Hushed our hearts to listen in expectancy.”

So if you don’t know if you should be coming or going perhaps it’s time to follow Elijah’s example and wait for the quiet voice of God.

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 27/Sep/2020]

I haven’t been able to shake off a mental image of a guy trying to climb up the wall, having painted the floor a beautiful bright blue – but then realizing he’s in the corner with no way out except slip-sliding back across the wet paint!

The Lord then gave me a profound prophetic interpretation: if we start a project the same way we’ve always done things, presuming that the result will be satisfying (and predictable), we may be getting into mess that we can’t sort out! Much better to carefully, and prayerfully, ask the expert whether this project should be approached very differently.

I believe Jesus meant exactly what He said when He cautioned his disciples that He would build His church HIS way! It is very possible that, having been painting our floor for hundreds of years, we find ourselves with no way out!

My wife, Chris, pictured Jesus lowering a ladder. Sometimes He alone has the answer! Maybe He doesn’t want the floor painted at all! Maybe He wants to start something completely new -something beyond our imagination!

(There is scriptural support for all aspects of this scenario. I’ll let you research it if you want to.)

 
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[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during September 2020]

Pontius Pilate commissioned a sign to be written in Aramaic, Greek and Latin. I remember my days learning Latin, the only subject in which I achieved an exam mark of 100%. But, one may ask (and we did), why would anyone bother to teach Latin to primary school pupils in the middle of the 20th century? After all, as we were in the habit of reminding each other,

Latin is a language as dead as dead can be,
first it killed the Romans and now it’s killing me!

It was argued that learning Latin helped people to learn other languages at a more fundamental level. Latin has a disciplined structure that illustrates how many other languages function (although English has so many exceptions that it is easier to assimilate rather than learn formally).

Mixing languages is a daily occurrence for me and I am well aware that parts of any conversation may well get lost in translation. However, apart from that limited liaison with Latin some 60 years ago, my acquaintance with classical languages is effectively nil. That means that, like most modern Bible readers, I need to rely on a translation. We accept that the Bible is God’s inspired word, but what about the translations? We trust that Bible translators are guided by the Holy Spirit, but they still come up with variations in the text.

A potentially controversial instance arises in Genesis 2 verse 2. The text says that God completed His work of creation variously, ‘on’, ‘in’ or ‘by’ the seventh day. The first two variants imply that the work wasn’t quite finished at the end of the sixth day and it over-ran a bit into the seventh. All the sources agree that the seventh day was primarily a day of rest but only the third variant ‘by’ implies that it was exclusively so.

How should we react when we encounter what seem like discrepancies in the Bible? One fundamental principle is that “Scripture interprets Scripture” – that is, there are other verses elsewhere that can shed some light on our quandary. Acts 17 tells us how the Jews in Berea reacted when they heard Paul preach – they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true”.

Have you examined the Scriptures today?

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[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during September 2020]

In 1902 John Masefield published his poem “Cargoes”^[1] in which he describes three types of trading ships and the cargoes that they carried. It depicts examples from three eras of maritime trade; those of the time of Solomon, the Spanish conquest of south America and the British industrial revolution. The cargoes range from the exotic such as ivory and peacocks to every-day essentials such as iron and coal, whilst the alliterations of a salt-stained smoke stack and cheap tin trays are a challenge to those of us whose teeth are not as firmly fixed as God intended. By the way, peacocks do have a practical function – their raucous call is used to scare other birds away from freshly planted crops.

In Revelation chapter 18 we have a more extensive list of cargoes but the context reminds us that these items are worth nothing more than ships’ ballast if we focus on them and turn away from God. Our true value is not measured by what we have, instead we should look at what we are and what we become through His grace.

In his second letter^[2] to his protégé Timothy, the apostle Paul wrote “In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use” whilst in his first letter^[3] to the Corinthians he talks about the differing functions of parts of the human body as an illustration of both the unity and the diversity within the Church.

So it is with the Church of today; if we were all preachers who would listen? We need those who can strut their stuff but we also need those who are willing to load the trays that carry the drinks that lubricate the throats of those who lead the singing that encourages the worshippers who support those who strut their stuff.

One version of a hymn by George Herbert reads:

Teach me, my God and King, in all things Thee to see;
and what I do in anything, to do it as for Thee.
A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine;
who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and the action fine.

Returning to our cargoes, it is the trade in these every-day items that creates the wealth that allows us to enjoy the exotic. It is the every-day activities of the Church members that make it prosper. You may feel as dull as iron but you are a jewel in God’s sight.

[1] The text of the poem is available online at several sites, including Cargoes, by John Masefield
[2] 2 Timothy ch 2 v2
[3] 1 Corinthians ch 12 v23

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 20/Sep/2020]

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. [Ephesians Chapter 3 V 20]

‘Friday evenings at HBC’ is always a blessing and at the moment we have been working through a book called, “The Prophetic Warrior” by Emma Stark. In her book Emma has been encouraging us to listen to God and move in the prophetic.

As I listened to Jesus this morning this is what I felt He was saying:-

“I want you to know that I have chosen you for such a time as this, that you will know how to mount up with wings as eagles, to run and not grow weary, to walk and not faint. I have chosen you, you are my precious child, I don’t want you to remain in the confines of a coffee cup but I want you to be strong and do exploits.

This is the day, this is the hour to move out in faith.

Those around you are dying because they do not know my love.

This is the time to be released from self-pity and venture forth into the unknown with the greatest weapon you have, which is my love. My love can conquer mountains and produce the most precious fruit, full of abundance, full of goodness and sustenance.

Share my love with those who are needy, hungry and lonely, just as I shared an abundance of bread on the hillside with those who were hungry and in need of healing.

People will wonder where this love comes from and then you can give them the answer, then is the time to speak of me, your Lord and Saviour.

Treasure my words in your heart for out of them will come a well spring of life.

This can become a new adventure full of grace and truth. When many are closing their doors though fear, I am opening a new door of hope that will let my light into many homes and set people free to follow me in a way I intended them to live, in abundance and selflessness.

Do not be afraid my child for it is my pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”

Hope this blesses you,
Keep rejoicing, love, Chris

 
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