Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], July 2021]

How does being real affect the way we do mission and social action? have we been doing it wrong all these years?

Last Sunday I finished off our teaching series ‘back to basics’ with the value of being real, not putting up a fake front, a mask to cover up who we really are. I think that will have a massive impact not only on what we do in a church service and how we are in our our groups, in our community but I think it will have a particular impact on how we do mission and social action. In Luke’s gospel, Luke records yet another time when Jesus disciples were arguing over who was the greatest amongst them. It seemed to be quite a common discussion with them and Jesus says to them “Look, the kings of the Gentiles and the authorities, they lord it over them and call themselves benefactors; you are not to be like them”.

Now a benefactor is someone that offers money or help to a person or an organization and I don’t think Jesus had anything particularly against benefactors. It’s good to help people, to offer money and serve them in any way that we can but what Jesus did have an issue with was how that was done. I think he had an issue with the hierarchical aspect of being a benefactor – you know, when you say “You’ve got a problem, I haven’t. You need help, I don’t. You need something, I’ve got something to offer.” or maybe, you know “You’re uneducated, I’m educated. You have nothing, I have everything. You have nothing to offer me, I have everything to offer you”.

I think that has a real unfortunate influence, particularly when it comes to the middle class Christians (which most Christians are), when it comes to the way they serve those who are poor, those who are needy. I’ve known some lovely people who are followers of Jesus, who are kind and caring, and have wanted to serve people but have served in a hierarchical way. They have come to the situation saying “I have something to offer, you have nothing to offer me”, and it has a real negative impact, I think, on the relationship between the benefactor and a beneficiary. Too often the way we do mission and also, you know, the way we do social action but also the way that we share the good news about Jesus Christ; we have done it in such a way where “I have something, you have nothing”, we’ve approached it, say, the good news of Jesus Christ with “but I am right and you are wrong“.

But how about if instead we came to the situation where you say “yeah, you are struggling but so am I, I’ve got something to teach you but I’ve got something to learn from you as well”? I remember helping out in a soup kitchen and it was very much kind of a benefactor role. I bought my box of sandwiches and my thermos flask of soup; I offered it to these people but, having watched the way that these homeless people people who had so little cared for one another, gave to one another, it was a was a real eye opener to me. I had, it turns out, possibly more to gain from my interactions with them than they had to gain from my sandwiches and soup. Likewise when it comes to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Do you come along saying “I’ve come as a purveyor of the truth” or are you coming along saying “I want to learn from you, I want to travel with you on a journey. You have stuff to offer me, you have things to teach me”?

I just want you to think perhaps about those things that we do as a church or as followers of Jesus Christ to share the good news of Jesus Christ in word and deed. How do we need to change those things to level the playing fields and come as equals not superiors?

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[1] YouTube link: Are we doing mission wrong?
Bible references: ~

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 27/June/2021]

The book of Ezra describes how the Jews who had been deported to Babylon 70 years earlier were allowed to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple which the Babylonians had destroyed. When the foundations of the new temple had been built, the people came together to praise God, but many of the older people who remembered the old temple wept aloud (Ezra 3 v 12). In Haggai 2 v 3 God says “Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?” God then goes on to say “I will shake all nations and the desired of all nations will come and I will fill this house with glory … The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.” (Haggai 2 v 7, 9)

Many of us have been grieving for the loss of the old carefree days when we could meet together as a church without fear and without restrictions. For me it has been similar to the grief I felt when Michael’s diabetes diagnosis put an end to the freedom we had previously enjoyed. I longed for the days when he could eat what he liked when he liked without us having to count carbs, do blood tests and injections or worry about high or low blood sugars. Whilst there is still no cure for diabetes in sight, at least vaccines for Covid19 have given us hope that we can meet together again without fear, even if some restrictions remain.

We still don’t know what the new “normal” will look like and some things will never be the same. I don’t like change, but know that God has to shake us up to stop us becoming complacent and ineffective. God has certainly shaken all nations over the past year and a half. It would be a tragedy if we wasted all that suffering by just going back to the way things were before, even if that is possible.

Isaiah 43 v 18-19 says: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See! I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”

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Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], June 2021]

As Christians do we only offer hope for when we die, or can we offer hope, help and healing in the here and now?

On Sunday I was talking about the need for us as a church to be relevant, to speak into the needs of our community in the language that they understand but I left that question: “How relevant are we particularly when it comes to sharing the gospel the good news of Jesus Christ?”

I don’t know how you would define the gospel – the good news – and I guess for many of us we would say that it’s the fact that when we die we will have eternal life, we’ll go to heaven. I suppose that’s technically true, but there is so much more to the good news of Jesus than just that. If we just focus on that, if we just focus on evangelism and outreach which says to people, “when you die you can be in heaven”, that’s not particularly relevant to people unless they’re on death’s door themselves. It’s a bit like trying to get someone to sign up for a care home when they’re in their 20s – it just seems too far off, it seems irrelevant, it’s not a need that’s particularly in my life at the moment.

I’ve seen a real rise in outreach which really gets people to ‘sign on the dotted line’, to say you know “become a Christian and have hope for the future hope for when you die”. It becomes almost a contract between a person and God, a golden ticket that gets them into heaven. But when I read the Bible, particularly when I read of how God dealt with his chosen nation Israel, God didn’t sign a contract. He didn’t make a contract with Israel; he made a covenant.

Possibly the closest thing that we have to a covenant these days is marriage. It’s about relationship, it’s about journeying together, it’s about us being blessed by one another. In terms of God, it’s having the creator of the universe in our corner, on our side. Time and time again what the New Testament – the whole Bible – points out as being the driving force behind God and all he does for humanity is love. He loves us, so much so he sent Jesus to die for us. That is not a contract, that is a relationship.

So does our evangelism, does our outreach, does our definition of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ demonstrate that? See Jesus, when he was at the beginning of his ministry (it’s found in Luke chapter four), he sits down in a synagogue, he reads from a scroll from Isaiah and he tells those listening the good news. For Jesus the good news was freedom for the prisoners, it was a recovery of sight for the blind and it was release for the oppressed. So this wasn’t some hope that was planned in the future, this wasn’t saying “oh, it’s okay. Don’t worry about the mess now and it’ll be all right when you die”.

That’s not relevant, for most people it’s pretty irrelevant. Jesus is saying “No, I can bring hope and release and restoration and freedom in the here and now”. That is truly good news and that is truly relevant to people’s lives today. So when we preach the good news at Horley Baptist Church, when we demonstrate the good news to others, are we doing it in a relevant way? Are we truly bringing hope into situations now? Are we bringing healing, are we bringing peace, are we bringing restoration? That is the good news of Jesus Christ. Are we bringing the reality of a relationship with creator God to people or are we just offering them a contract where, if they sign on the dotted line, then they’re in? That is not what being a follower of Jesus Christ is about.

Do not fall into the trap of just trying and get people to read the sinner’s prayer in order to become a Christian. That is not Christianity, that is not being a follower of Jesus Christ and that is not real hope and restoration. So if we want to be truly relevant then we need to offer something that people need, and what people desperately need is Jesus – not when they die but here now in their lives to meet their deepest needs.

[1] YouTube link: How relevant is the gospel?
Bible references: Luke ch 4 v18-19

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during June 2021]

Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm?
[Job 38 v25 NIVUK]

As I started this reflection a thunderstorm was passing overhead. It was, in common parlance, absolutely bucketing down. The gutters were overflowing, the storage tanks filled up and the driveway had enough flow to power a water-wheel. The dog retreated into his kennel, the chickens hunkered down under their covered run and the cats were fascinated by the sight of hail falling on the transparent roof over their heads. The thunder had even drowned out the neighbour’s choice of ‘music’.

After the sun, the rain; after the rain, the sun.
This is the way of life ’til the work be done.
[Lizette W. Reese]

Then the storm moved on. The quiet atmosphere was punctuated by the sound of water dripping back to earth and the chatter of the birds as they searched for fresh worms. Despite its potential problems the rain is a blessing in an agricultural area where those crops that survived the storm will grow with renewed vigour. In urban areas where there is a high proportion of hard surfacing there is little to absorb the excess water. It is here that we can see whether the channels that were intended to take the water away can do their job.

We too are called to be channels – channels of God’s blessing those around us. Let’s consider the parable of the drainage inspector who went out one day to check on the condition of the channels in his area.

Firstly, he came across some channels that were cracked and broken, a sad example of neglect and indifference. Without regular maintenance they had ceased to function and any water that they captured immediately leaked into the surrounding soil.

Then he saw some channels that followed the lie of the land, down some slopes and up others. They had been easy to construct but they had no outlet – the water gathered at the low points and became dirty, stagnant and the breeding ground for midges and mosquitoes.

Other channels looked well-built but they had become clogged with weeds and rubbish. Perhaps if they were cleaned out they could become serviceable again but in their present condition they unable to fulfill their designer’s objectives.

Then there were those channels that made the engineer proud of his profession. They carried clear water from a clean source, distributing it into those areas where it was needed or relieving the pressure on those areas with excess. The water sparkled and sang as it flowed along.

What would our inspector think of your channel? Would he see it as of no value? Is there no practical difference between you and the wider world? Have you accumulated debris and distractions? Would your channel make him happy?

Channels may be high profile like aqueducts or largely out of sight like culverts; some of us may be called to be more prominent than others but all the channels have this in common: they get wet as the water flows through them. Similarly, as channels of God’s blessings to others we too get to enjoy a little of the blessing as it flows through us.

Have you received a blessing? Pass it on.

Channels only, blessed Master, but with all thy wondrous power
flowing through us, you can use us every day and every hour
[Mary E. Maxwell]

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Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.