Author: The Christian Campus

Wednesday 29 September 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

This is the last teaching in the ‘Why Church’ series of four teachings. The aim of the teachings is to help you share the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ for His church. We started by looking at what the church is and how to see the church through the eyes of Jesus. Whatever the church means to Jesus, it must mean to us.

We also looked at the church as the body of Christ. We saw that there are false pictures of the church and that the Bible gives us a distinct picture of the church as the body of Christ whereof He is the head. Christ is working through the church as we as a local church connect with the Head and glorify Him.

We also looked at the church as the bride of Christ and how He loves the church and has given Himself for her. He leads the church and He nourish the church and will eventually present the church as His bride to Himself.

Tonight we are looking at the church as a building.

“In Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:22)

I have some big prayers for this series: For younger people trying to discover what God would have you do. Some of you have gifts that could be used strategically in the work of the church here and around the world. I’m praying that as we get a better vision of what the church is that you would seriously think and pray about whether God would be calling you to devote yourself full and directly to serving the body of Christ.

Some of you are in mid-life and you are looking at how to re-adjust your focus. You’re in a position where you are able to do that. I’m praying that there will be many in mid-life who get a fresh vision of the body of Christ and who say, “In the second half of my life, as God gives that to me, I am going to devote myself to the good of the body of Christ.”

Many of you have significant influence within Christian organizations.  You are doing marvellous work and you influence policy within these organizations. I’m praying that as a result of this series, you will say, “It is not enough to lead people to Christ and disciple them. Our organization needs an intentional strategy to help the people we serve to become part of a local church.” This is of huge importance. If you understand the doctrine of the church, it will begin to shape vision and policy.

For all of us, I’m praying that you will feel that being a member of the body of Christ is the greatest privilege that you have in this world.  I’m praying that all of us will value and treasure this gift and pour ourselves into becoming all that the church can be for the glory of Christ.

For those who are disappointed or frustrated with the church

The biblical image of the church we’ll be looking at today is especially important for people who’ve been disappointed with the church. You may be saying, “I’m hearing all this about a local congregation of believers, but I could tell you a story or two.” Well, I’ve been a pastor for twenty years, and I could tell you a story or ten as well.

If you’ve ever been discouraged or frustrated with the church, if you’ve ever felt like giving up on the church, and my guess is that most Christians have felt like this at some point in their lives, then this teaching is for you.

More than anything else, what we are going to look at today is what you need to hear and grasp and see, so that you will be able to sustain a lifetime of ministry within the body of Christ, wherever he places you.

The church is unlike anything else in this world, so God uses multiple images to teach us what it’s like. We are the body—this image tells us that Christ works through the church. Today, I want us to see that we are the building, and this speaks of Christ’s presence in the church.

The Church is a Building of People

“You… are being built together…” (Ephesians 2:22)

When Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18), He was talking about people. God’s great purpose over all the centuries is to gather a people for Himself. Here on earth, Christ gathers people in local congregations of believers called out to worship, to be equipped, and sent out to serve.

This image shows that the purpose of our Lord is that He wants to build us together, “You too are being built together” (Ephesians 2:22). Peter, who is referred to as “the stone” or “the rock” picks up this same theme saying, “You [are] living stones” (1 Peter 2:5). Christ is putting together a building that’s made up of people and each of us is like a living stone.

It’s important to remember that building in New Testament times was rather different from the way that we build homes today. We are used to building with bricks. The obvious thing about bricks is that they are all the same. They are the same shape, the same size and the same colour.

But the picture here isn’t a building with bricks, but with stones, “You are living stones” (2:5). Stones come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and colours. They are hewn out of a quarry. When they come out, they have all kinds of rough edges, and the great skill of the master builder is to fit them together so that each one finds its special place within the building.

One of the joys of travelling in the country side is seeing the drystone walls once used as fencing. A drystone wall is one that’s built without mortar. Amazing! No mortar, and yet many of the walls have stood for many years.

These walls have no mortar—they are simply stones. You cannot build a drystone wall from one shape or size of original stone unless you cut them to the same shape and size. The whole point of it is that the strength of the wall depends on the placing and the shape of each individual stone.

It is something like this that the Apostle Paul is telling us about here—each of us is like a living stone. We are all different. We all have our own individuality, and Christ uses this as He builds His church.

You may come to our congregation and say, “I’m not so sure that I’m like other people here.” Then I would respond, “That is exactly why you are needed here.” Because it takes all kinds of shapes and sizes and colours, all kinds of living stones, for God, the Master Builder, to build the building that He is putting together.

God created you as a one-of-a-kind. He redeems what He created.  What He has placed in you by creation, He has now redeemed for the good of His church and for the ultimate glory of His Son.

The Church is a work in progress

“The whole building… rises to become…” (Ephesians 2:21)

“You too are being built together…” (Ephesians 2:22)

Notice the present tense, “The building rises… You are being built together,” this is something that is still going on. This is very important, especially for those who are prone to discouragement.

The Apostle is telling us here that the church is a work in progress, and God’s building is not yet complete. So, no one should be surprised if the local church looks and feels more like a building site than a showroom.

The church is made up of ordinary people who are in the process of being redeemed. We are all sinners in the process of being renewed.  There isn’t one of us today who is everything that he or she might be, and none of us here who is everything that he or she will be.

It was Augustine who described the church as “a hospital for sinners.”  He said it would be very strange if people were to criticize hospitals because the patients were sick. The whole point of the hospital is that people are there because they’re sick and they haven’t yet recovered.

Set your expectations of the local church wisely. It’s hard enough for two sinners to make a good marriage. So how much harder is it for 200 sinners or 2,000 sinners to make a good church? When we see Him, we will be like Him, but until then we are like a building under construction.

In any congregation of believers, you will find that there are things not yet done and things that are out of place. Some things need to be taken down and other things need to be cleaned up. Many things are only roughed in and need to be finished. It will always be like that until Jesus Christ comes.

It’s easy for a critic and the cynic to come into the local church and say, “Look at all this that is not yet done. Look at all this that is not yet complete. How can Jesus Christ be present in this?” And the answer is that Jesus Christ is present in His church as the Builder.

Suppose you have a renovating job to be done in your house. You hire a builder, you give him the key, and you go away on vacation. A week later you come back and everything is exactly the way you left it.  What’s your conclusion? You’d say, “The builder hasn’t even shown up.”

But if you come back and there are drop sheets on the carpets, ladders against the walls and a huge pile of junk outside on the pavement, you’d say, “The builders have been here,” because there’s chaos.

The evidence of Christ’s presence in a local congregation of believers is not that everything is complete, but that everything is in process. The fact that the church often feels more like a building site than a showroom is evidence of the presence of the Builder.

If you do not understand that the church is a work in progress, you will spend the rest of your life looking for perfection, and you will end up alone. That is not the will of God for you.

The Church is a home in preparation

“You too are being built together to become a dwelling place in which God lives by His Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:22)

Christ will not be the Builder forever. One day the building will be complete and when it is, Christ will make it His home. In other words, Christ will be at home with His people, when all His work in and among His people is complete. You are being built together “to become a dwelling place in which God lives by His Spirit” (2:22).

A theme that runs through the Old Testament

One great theme that runs through the bible story is God looking for a home on earth. At Mount Sinai God told Moses to build the tabernacle, a meeting place between God and His people. Then the Lord said something even better, “When you get into the Promised Land… seek the place the Lord your God will choose… to put His name for His dwelling” (Deuteronomy 12:5). The meeting place will now be a dwelling place.

Later David discerned that Jerusalem was that place. That’s why Solomon built the temple there. And when it was dedicated, the cloud of God’s glory filled the whole place. All the people could see the visible evidence of the presence of Almighty God. Here was the place where God actually is. Here was the place where God’s presence was made known, the dwelling place of God on earth.

Follow the story of the temple: God’s people sinned against Him in various ways, but by the time you get to King Manasseh the worship of God in the temple has been replaced with astrology. There are astrological signs etched in the temple of God (2 Kings 21). So, the glory of the Lord departed from the temple. God withdrew His presence.

The temple was eventually overrun and God’s people became exiles in another land for 70 years. Then God brought them back in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah and they rebuilt the temple. But when they dedicated it, no cloud of glory came and filled that temple.

They had the word of the prophets and they were looking for what God would do for a dwelling place. By the end of the Old Testament, the prophets are looking for the day when “the Lord will suddenly come to His temple” (Malachi 3:1).

And then one day He did. When Jesus walked into the temple, do you remember what He found? The leadership of the temple had lost their vision of ministry to the nations. It was no longer a house of prayer, so Jesus drove out the traders.

Later He said, “Not one stone here will be left on another; everyone will be thrown down” (Mark 13:2). In the year AD 70, in come the Romans and what Jesus said comes true, and it’s never been rebuilt. So, where’s the meeting place with God?

Jesus said something else, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:19). He wasn’t referring to the building. He was referring to Himself, to His own flesh. Do you see the huge significance of that?

The Lord Jesus Christ is saying, “You’ve thought that there was just one location in all the earth where you could have a true meeting with God.  I’m telling you I am the place where you meet with God. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” That’s true because “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).

Then Jesus went on to say something extraordinary, “If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching, and My Father will love him and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23).

The New Testament promise

If you come to love and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, here’s the New Testament promise: The Father and the Son, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, will truly come to make “home” in you. That’s why, later on in the New Testament, we find the Apostle Paul saying, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

That’s what you are. If you’re in Christ, this is really true of you. That’s why Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). What was true of the Old Testament temple has become a living reality in me! It’s staggering.

The church is a gathering of believers called out by God for worship, to be equipped, and sent out by God to serve. When believers gather Christ is present. Why? Because you, if you are in Christ, bring the presence of Christ with you when you gather for worship, and you take the presence of Christ with you as you are sent out to serve.

Of course, when two or three are gathered together in the Name of Jesus, there He is in their midst. He has to be, because if the two or three are in Christ, they bring the presence of Christ when they gather together.

Christ makes His home here on earth with His people, and everything that the temple pointed to is actually fulfilled in believers, who “are being built together to become a dwelling place in which God lives by His Spirit!” Christ makes His home here on earth with us, until He bring us to make our home with Him in heaven.

How to use the truth that the Church is the building

Use this to grow in patience

God uses two very imperfect environments to reshape us into the image of Christ. One is the family. The other is the church. Why?  Because these are the places where we rub up against others, and God uses this experience to smooth out the rough edges in our lives.

Think about yourself as a living stone. You’re cut out of the quarry and thrown into a wheelbarrow with some other stones. It doesn’t feel good because your rough edges are up against other stones. Then the builder takes the hammer and the chisel and starts chipping away at the edges.   He’s shaping you. All of this happens in the church.

You ask to grow in patience, so Christ places someone in your life who you find exasperating. You need to grow in courage and God puts you next to someone you find intimidating. One writer says, “Christians need the church for its problems as well as its blessings.” That’s true.

Another writer describes believers as “God’s abrasives.” How in the world are the rough edges ever going to come off you, if you never bump up against God’s abrasives? That’s why loner Christians end up with all the rough edges still on. They never get close enough to the means God would use to shape them into all that they can be in Christ’s building.

The church is the crucible in which we learn patience and endurance and forgiveness. You need the church with its problems as well as its blessings. This is the place where it happens—the family and the church.

You will never grow without them

It’s often said, “If you find a perfect church, don’t go there, because you’ll spoil it.” I have a new version of that, “If you ever find a perfect church, don’t go there, because it won’t do you any good.” Why? There are no abrasives in the perfect church. There won’t be any in heaven, but we need them on earth. It’s through the trials in life that Christ sanctifies us.

Joseph Ton, the Romanian pastor who was imprisoned for his faith, and been asked the question “Joseph, tell us what it was like to be a pastor in prison.”

One of the stories this dear and godly man told was about one of the guards. Joseph had made it his practice to ask about their children, so that he could pray for them, as well as for the guards, which was mind-blowing to these guards, who were very harsh men.

One day, one of the guards asked Joseph, “Why are you different from the rest of the prisoners? These guys all hate us. But you are praying for me and for my children.” Joseph said this one line to him, “To me, you are God’s stonecutter.”

Friend, who are the stonecutters in your life? Who is God using in this painful process of chipping off those rough edges, so that you became all that you can be in the everlasting purpose of God?

He does that painful work in the family and in the church, and it’s for His everlasting glory. So, use this to learn patience and to become someone who’s not too easily discouraged whenever there’s a difficulty. You will never endure in ministry unless you grasp this.

Use this to defend against sin

The whole point of a building is that it’s visible. The church is the visible home of the invisible God. We bear His name. We have His presence.

You’re going to go out into the world this week and you bear the Name of Christ. You are a member of the body of Christ. You are part of the building of Christ. And you are going to be tempted. You are going to be tempted to do something you know you shouldn’t do. You’re going to be tempted to say something you know you shouldn’t say. You’re going to find that there is an impulse within you to cultivate a sour spirit.

To defend yourself against that, I encourage you to say this to yourself: “How can I do this? How can I say this… when I am a living stone in the holy temple of Almighty God?” It will help you to defend against sin.

Use this to increase your joy

What a joy when the building is complete! There is coming a day when all the work of Jesus Christ will be complete. For you to be part of what Christ brings together for the everlasting glory of God will be an inexpressibly glorious joy, and that day is coming—the one temple in which God dwells by His Holy Spirit with His people.

Right at the end of the Bible you find the Apostle John looking out on all of the redeemed company of God’s people, the whole church brought together in the presence of the Lord, and he hears a voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men” (Revelation 21:3).  Now we’re in the presence of God with great joy forevermore!

I promise you this: You will be more at home in the presence of Christ, as a believer, fully redeemed in heaven. You’ll be more at home there, than at any time and any place you ever have been in your entire life in this world. You will be more at home with Christ and He will be at home with you. Nothing about us will grieve Him on that day, because His work will be complete. To be part of this work that Christ is doing in the church is the greatest privilege of our lives this side of heaven.

Sunday 11 October 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

We come to chapter two in the book of Jonah and at the end of our series because it is the most important part of the whole book, the most marvelous chapter, and I have great anticipation as we look at it this morning.

Last time we saw a Jonah feeling very miserable. Remember he was on his own outside of the city of Nineveh, sitting in the desert with a vine that was supposed to give him shelter, withered and lying dead in the sand.

He is angry with God, angry about Nineveh, angry about the vine, and God confronts him at the end of chapter four in dealing with his selfishness. “Jonah, you are concerned about the vine. You are all wrapped up in your own comfort, all wrapped up in your own life, all wrapped up in your own wellbeing. Jonah, you are concerned about the vine but I am concerned about the city of 120000 people who are totally and completely lost”.

That is where the book ends. But we cannot end there. It might look at this point that as if Jonah slipped off into retirement, and some people do that. People say time heals, but time heals when wounds are clean. But when a wound is septic, it becomes worse.

Thank God that Jonah did not slip into retirement as a grumpy old man but God’s grace triumphed in his life. How do we know that? The reason we know that is that he wrote the book. God brought him into a place where, instead being angry and frustrated as we find him in chapter four, he felt the inspiration of the Holy Spirit coming to him and he wanted to share what the grace of God has brought him in his life.

If you want to emphasize something that is really important, there are three ways of doing it: Put it at the beginning, that is what newspapers do. The headlines tell you the things that really matter. Put it at the end, so that it is the final thing you hear, leaving you with a lasting impression.

Or if you want to emphasize something you can put it in the middle—that is what Jonah did when he wrote his book. You can sum up the whole book of Jonah in one sentence: “Salvation comes from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). That’s what this book is about, and Jonah puts that message on centre stage.

A Remarkable Testimony to God’s Grace

“Pick me up and throw me into the sea… and it will become calm for you… They took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm… The Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.” (Jonah 1:12,15,17)

Jonah disobeys God by refusing to go to Nineveh, and God intercepts his disobedience by sending a storm. Jonah knows the storm is a judgment from God, and he tells the ship’s crew to throw him overboard. They do it reluctantly, and immediately the sea grows calm. Then God provides a saving fish. This was an amazing miracle, and there is no doubt in my own mind that it really happened.

You will not be surprised that some writers suggest that this was just a parable, or that it was just a story or just a fable, rather than a historical event that really happened, that is used to teach us about God. But there is nothing in the story itself that suggests that.

The Lord Jesus said “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a historical event, and Jesus speaks about what happened to Jonah in the same way.

What happened to Jonah doesn’t belong among the parables; it belongs among the miracles. In fact, there are really three miracles here: First—that God provided the fish at just the right time to save Jonah from drowning. Second—that Jonah survived three days and nights inside the fish. Third—that the fish vomited him out onto dry land safely.

Now, it’s good to know that God did an amazing miracle to save Jonah’s life, but the important question is: What does this have to do with us? Jonah wrote chapter two to answer that question. Out of his experience, Jonah writes this song of praise to tell us how God saves sinners like Jonah, how God saves sinners like you, and how God saves sinners like me.

The message of Jonah two is simply this: God saves guilty, believing, desperate, repentant sinners.

God saves guilty sinners

“You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.” (Jonah 2:2-3)

Jonah recalls what happened when he first hit the water: “All your waves and breakers swept over me.” Waves and breakers are obviously on the surface of the water. Jonah tries to keep his head above water, but the currents pull him under. Bobbing up and down, fighting for air and for his life, he manages to gulp a breath of air, but then a great wave comes crashing over him, and he goes under again.

Later, when he is inside the fish, he thinks about what happened and he says “God did this! God sent the storm. You hurled me into the deep… Your waves swept over me” (v3). Jonah could have said “The ship’s crew threw me into the deep,” but he’s coming to a distinctly Christian view of life. Behind the human events, Jonah sees the hand of God.

People view their lives in different ways. Some people see their lives as a series of events strung together by random chance. They feel that they are lucky or unlucky, and they talk like that all the time. Others see their lives as a series of events controlled by other people. They feel that they are victims. Other people see their lives as a series of events that they control. They feel that they are heroes, and they talk about themselves like that all the time. But Jonah knew that behind the crew and beyond the storm, God was at work in his life, exposing his guilt and confronting his rebellion.

Jonah knew he was in the water because of his own sin and rebellion against God. He had suppressed his guilt for a long time. He had done it so well that he could fall asleep in the boat. But in the water, he comes to his senses, he sees his own sin clearly and he knows that he is under the judgment of God.

Owning your own guilt

“You hurled me into the depths, in the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me, all your waves and breakers swept over me” (Jonah 2:3)

God saves guilty sinners. God saves us, when we come to the place of acknowledging, owning, embracing our own guilt before Him. Owning our sinfulness means getting beyond this idea that so many people have that we deserve something better from God. If you’re going through life with this idea, get that out of your mind.

The Bible says that “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Wages are what is due for work done, what we have earned. What I am owed for what I have done, by God, is not abundant life, but eternal death. That is what I am owed. That is what I deserve.

Owning your own sinfulness is the first part of believing the gospel: “I am a sinner, a rebel by nature and by practice, and what I deserve from God is eternity in hell.” If you don’t honestly believe that about yourself, you do not yet believe the Gospel. You are not yet being saved. Because God saves guilty sinners, and if you do not yet see that, then you are not yet in the position where God is saving you.

Jonah owned his own sin right there in the water. With the waves pouring over him, he said these words: “God, these waves are Your waves. I am under Your judgment. And I deserve to be under Your judgment.”

God saves believing sinners

“From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord His God.” (Jonah 2:1)

When did Jonah first call on the Lord? When did he first ask God for help? Was it in the fish or was it in the water? Notice what he said inside the fish, in the past tense:

“In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry” (Jonah 2:2)

He is looking back to what happened before he was in the fish, when he called on God in the water: “In my distress I called on the Lord… From the depths…” (v2), or from Sheol, the place where people are separated from God. We would say hell. “From the depths of my hell, I cried out to God for help.” Here’s a man who has been running from God, but now he suddenly realizes that he is on the brink of an eternity without God.

The fight of your life

“I said ‘I have been banished from your sight’, yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.” (Jonah 2:4)

It isn’t easy to ask God for help when you know you have sinned, and you feel that you are under His judgment. When you feel your own guilt, it takes courage to ask God for help.

Jonah’s heart at this point condemns him completely: “God, there is no hope for me now,” he is saying to himself. “I see and I feel the weight of my guilt and my own failure.” He came to the conclusion that he was beyond forgiveness, and he felt in his heart that God had pulled the rug out from under him. He had no future. There was no hope for him now. Some of us may have been there. He came to a point where he really believed that: “God doesn’t want me now.”

But there is a battle going on in Jonah’s mind, and it is a battle that you will experience if you seek to find your way to faith. On the one hand: “I said, I have been banished from your sight…” (v4). There’s no hope for me. I’m an outsider. I’m gone! “Yet I will look again toward your holy temple” (v4). That is a marvellous statement of faith.

But it comes out of a great battle that is raging in Jonah’s soul—right there in the water. He wants to pray, but he feels so far from God that he feels he can’t possibly pray “God’s not going to listen to me!” The flesh tells him “God doesn’t want to know you.” But somehow, something from within him rises up “I’m going to cry out to God. I’m going to put my hope in God.”

Don’t expect coming to faith to be easy. Jonah struggled to believe. Your life and eternity hang on this, so don’t be surprised if finding faith is the fight of your life: “I said, I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple.” Make these words your own, in your struggle to believe. “Even though I am under Your judgment, yet I dare to hope in You.”

Daring to hope in God

“You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (Jonah 4:2)

How could he dare to hope in God? Because Jonah leans hard into what he knows of the God of the Bible. Here is an amazing thing: God was for Jonah even when he was against him! God is for you even when he is against you. It was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us. God justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5).

Some folks have the idea that you need to clean up your life before God can save you. That’s like saying “If you swim to the shore, then God will send you a lifeboat!” That’s no salvation at all!

Jesus told a story about two men who came to pray. One man told God about the good things he was doing in his life, and then he went home. The other man told God about his sins, and said “O, God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus said “That second man, not the first one, went home right with God.”

How can God make guilty sinners, who reach out to him in faith, right with him? How could God do that? The answer, at the very heart of the Bible, is simply this—and it applies backwards retrospectively into the Old Testament, as well as forwards proactively into our lives today; God makes guilty sinners right with him through the Cross where the Son of God gave himself for you.

Jesus Christ put Himself under the judgment of God, so that He could deliver you from it. The Lord Jesus Christ bore the guilt of your sin so that He could take the weight of that guilt off of your shoulders. He entered into hell itself so that He could save you from ever going there! That is what Jesus did for you on the cross. And that is why the apostles say in the New Testament “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

You’re never going to do that until you come to realize that there is sin from which you need to be saved. But when you come to own your own guilt, you believe on this Lord Jesus Christ, and what He has accomplished on the cross for you, then the benefits of His sacrificial death and resurrection will be applied to you, and you will be saved.

If it’s the biggest struggle of your life to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you find that Satan himself is pounding your mind saying “God doesn’t want to hear from you. You can’t come to God. You’ve gone way too far!” You fight through to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s the fight of your life and your eternity hangs on it.

God Saves Desperate Sinners

“The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountain I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But You, LORD, my God, brought my life up from the pit.” (Jonah 2:5-6)

What happens when Jonah believes? The answer is that his problems get worse. God allowed Jonah to go down to the bottom, before He sent the fish.

He’s not above water now. His strength is gone. He’s sinking. “Seaweed was wrapped around my head” (v5). He has gone down so deep that he is surrounded by weeds on the ocean floor: “To the roots of the mountains I sank down” (v6). It seems clear that he went all the way to the bottom.

Remember that the storm at the surface had stopped. If Jonah had stayed on the surface, perhaps he could have held on to a piece of wood and saved himself, but God takes him down to the bottom of the ocean. He hits rock bottom. He has no way out. He is absolutely hopeless, and then God sends the fish: “To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God.”

Did Jonah see the fish coming? Was he conscious when he was swallowed, or had he passed out? But then once he is inside the fish he breathes, like a man spluttering back from the brink of death.

God saves people who cannot save themselves. Thousands of people have the idea that salvation is basically getting your act together, and that we do it with some moral effort, good works, family values, the ten commandments, and of course, believing in Jesus along the way.

If you could save yourself, why would Jesus have come into the world and why would He die on the cross? God sent the fish because Jonah couldn’t save himself. He’s right at the bottom, and that’s why God sent Jesus.

One evidence of true faith is that you know that, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, what he did for you on the cross and what he is still doing for you now, interceding for you at the right hand of the Father, you would be completely, utterly and hopelessly lost.

Do you see that? Do you feel that? Is that clear to you? If it is, there will be praise and worship and love and thanksgiving to Jesus in your heart today. God saves desperate sinners. That’s the hope of the Gospel.

God saves repentant sinners

“Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.” (Jonah 2:8)

Salvation from sin involves both faith and repentance. When God saves Jonah from what looks like certain death, he does not get on the next ship to Tarshish. He does not continue in disobedience but does what God command him and goes to Nineveh.

Salvation, if you are really saved, involves a complete change in the direction of your life. You can’t hold idols and receive grace. This total change of direction is true, even if you lived a very moral life before you came to Christ. Who you live for, then changes. Turning to God means turning away from whatever had His place in your life before.

When Christ saves you, you are no longer your own. You are bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20). What a price it was! You belong to Christ. You are in him and he is in you. You are a new creation in Christ, created for good works (Ephesians 2:10).

Turning to a new life

“But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.” (Jonah 2:9)

When Christ saves you, you go through a spiritual death and resurrection that is symbolized in baptism. Like Jonah you go down under the water and then back up again, to live a new life in Christ. (Romans 6:4) Thank God baptism doesn’t include going to the bottom of the ocean!

Repentance has two sides: We turn from idols. We turn to the Lord. “But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord”. Think about how amazing this is… praise and thanksgiving are flowing out of Jonah. The man is singing while he is in the belly of the fish! (v1).

Talk about worship venues. This is the most unusual worship venue of all time. This was the strangest sanctuary in human history. It was dark, and can you imagine the smell? You would think he would say “Lord, get me out of this place!” But he doesn’t say that. Instead the highest praise comes from this darkest place.

So why is Jonah so full of gratitude inside the fish? When Jonah was in the water, he was sure he would die. When he was in the fish, he was sure he would live. How could he be sure? Because if God had intervened in his life in such a miraculous way, what could be more certain than that God would complete it? What God begins, He always completes (Philippians 1:6).

Jonah worships in the belly of the fish because however uncomfortable his experience is, he knows that God is saving him. And that’s all he needs to know.

Pursue a Christ-Centered life today!

From inside the fish he prayed. He looks back on what God did for him in the water, and says: “Oh, God, when I was in the water, I called to You for help and You listened to my cry. You were the One who threw me into the deep. Your waves swept over me. I was on the brink of hell and I felt I was gone forever. But I said ‘I will look again to You. I cried to You for help.”

“I sank to the bottom, and here’s what you did, O God, You brought my life up from the pit! What you have done for me is so amazing that with a song of thanksgiving, I worship you, and I pledge myself to you. From this day, my life is Yours. I want to tell you right here and right now, that what I have vowed I will make good.

God is ready and able to save you. As someone who has, perhaps, sat on the fringes of Christianity, I want to invite you to take four life-changing steps today:

Will you own your own sinfulness today?

Will you confess to God today: “I am a sinner and a rebel by nature and by practice. What I deserve is not abundant life, but eternal death. Lord, I own my guilt and sinfulness before You.” Will you take that step today?

Will you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ today?

The Son of God loved you and gave Himself for you, when He died on the cross for your sins. He rose from the dead and, He is ready and willing to save all who put their trust in Him.

Will you ask Jesus Christ to save you?

 “Lord Jesus Christ, deliver me from sin, and death and hell through Your shed blood on the cross.” You may find that this is a great struggle, because of the spiritual dynamic that is going on right now.

Will you trust Christ, whatever happens in your life?

Jonah trusted God at the bottom of the ocean, and in the belly of a fish. I’m inviting all who believe; those who’ve believed for the first time today, and those who already have faith, to trust in Christ, whatever happens.

He said “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Trust Him in that.

He said “I will never leave you I will never forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). Lean on that. He has said “My grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Hang on that!

Trust Him whatever happens. Those who trust in Him will never be put to shame (Isaiah 28:16).

Will you commit yourself to a new life of obedience to Jesus Christ as your Saviour, Lord and Master today?

Will you turn from all that God’s says is wrong? Will you pursue all that God says is good with the help of the Holy Spirit? Christ saves guilty, believing, desperate, repentant sinners. If you are taking these steps today, He is saving you!

Let us pray:

Father, seal Your Word into many hearts, also those who believe for a long time and find themselves in a deep or dark place. Also, in the hearts of those who desperately need to find you, and find your salvation for the first time today. we pray in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

Wednesday 7 October 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

“But the LORD said, ‘You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?’” (Jonah 4:10-11) (NIV)

It is possible to be genuinely grateful for your own salvation, and yet curiously disinterested in the salvation of others. The great irony of this book is that Jonah received God’s mercy, yet he was reluctant about this mercy coming to other people.

We’re going to see how far Jonah was from the heart of God, and learn how we can be less like Jonah and more like Jesus: “When God saw what they did, and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion, and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened” (Jonah 3:10). It was this generous outpouring of the mercy of God that got Jonah angry!

Jonah says “You are a gracious and compassionate God” (4:2), but Jonah was not a gracious and compassionate prophet. There is a huge contrast between the heart of God and the heart of Jonah.

The Compassion of God and the Complacency of Jonah

“Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people… Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:11)

God is concerned about the city. He says “There are 120,000 people in Nineveh, and these people matter to Me!” What is Jonah concerned about? God says to him “You have been concerned about the vine” (v10).

The contrast here is striking. God is concerned about the city. Jonah is concerned about the vine. There’s nothing wrong with that. The vine was a good gift from God that brought comfort, blessing and joy to Jonah.

We are all concerned to some degree about the vine. We are concerned about our jobs, our homes, our investments, our health and our plans for the future. We are concerned about the things that bring us comfort and joy in this life.

But do we share God’s concern for the city? Do we care about the thousands of people “who cannot tell their right hand from their left?” You can’t hear these words without thinking about the people in this great city who do not yet have saving faith in Christ.

God cared about 120,000 people who were facing judgment in Nineveh. And He cares about the people of this city, many of whom do not have saving faith in Christ. God cares for this city, and if we share His heart, we will care about it too.

Jonah was concerned about the vine. God is concerned about the city. It is easy for us to become deeply concerned about the vine and yet strangely unmoved by the plight of millions without Christ who face eternity with the worm and the wind.

The natural question that is raised by looking at the heart of God and the heart of Jonah, that they are so far apart, is this:

How can I grow in compassion?

Rejoice in God’s unique creation

“You have been concerned about this vine, even though you did not tend it or make it grow.” (Jonah 4:10)

The point is that God did make the vine grow. God gave life to the vine, and He gave life to the 120,000 people in the city. “Jonah, you care about the life of the vine. Why don’t you care about the lives of the people? Every person that you meet is a unique creation of Mine.” That’s the logic and the force of what God is saying to Jonah.

God never made two snowflakes the same, and He certainly never made two people the same. Every person you have ever met, every person that you ever will meet is a unique creation of God. That’s why people are so interesting.

When you sit down next to someone on a train, or in line at the grocery store, or at your desk in school, say to yourself “God made this person.” There is nobody else quite like this person anywhere in the world, there never has been anyone else like this in the history of the world, and there never will be again.

God cares about this person and right now, in His sovereign purpose, He has placed me next to them. Take an interest in people, and you will grow in compassion.

Every person that you will ever meet is a unique creation of God. That is true even of the worst people that you meet. Nineveh was known for terror and torture. These people were notorious for their wickedness “[their] wickedness has come up before me” (1:1), and yet God cared about them. He had compassion on them. “Should I not be concerned about this great city?” (4:11).

God’s glory is seen in the scope of his compassion: “The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all he has made” (Psalm 145:9). What is the scope of God’s compassion? He has compassion for all that He has made. That doesn’t mean that God will save all people. It does mean that He cares about all people.

God cares about His enemies. God loves His enemies and does good to those who hate Him: “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). It was “while we were still sinners [that] Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

God gives life to those who will use it to praise Him, and He gives breath to those who will use it to curse Him. He sustains His enemies. Every atheist is sustained every moment of his or her life by the mercy of God.

Try to show kindness to all people, especially those whose beliefs or whose behaviour may offend you or repulse you, because that’s what God does. When you show compassion, especially to someone who you find most offensive, you reflect the heart of God.

Reflect on our human condition

“Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left… Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:11)

It could be that the 120,000 people who “cannot tell their right hand from their left” is a reference to young children, but I think it is much more likely that this is a description of people who have lost their moral compass. They are no longer able to discern between right and wrong, between good and evil.

We use “right” and “left” to give directions: “Go down this street and when you get to the third street turn left, then keep going until you get to the fourth street—take a right on it. The house is half way down on the left-hand side.” A person who cannot tell their right hand from their left cannot follow directions. A person who does not know which way to turn in life will quickly become hopelessly lost.

God says “I have compassion for Nineveh because it is a city of 120,000 people who are just like that! They don’t know how to follow directions. They are completely lost. They cannot discern good from evil. They call evil ‘good,’ and they call good ‘evil’ (Isaiah 5:20). They are in complete moral confusion, and for that reason I have compassion on them.”

Reflecting on our human condition will increase your compassion; it will enlarge your heart, to reflect the heart of God. It will make you more sensitive, less condemning like Jonah, and more like Jesus.

What is the human condition? The Bible describes it many ways, here are three:

Blindness

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

The blindness is real. It is not just that the unbeliever doesn’t want to see. It is not that he is being obtuse. He cannot see! You talk to him about Christ and what he means to you and he cannot connect with what you are saying. It is a genuine blindness. He doesn’t get it.

Slavery

“I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34)

The slavery is real. To be “a slave to sin” means that the sinner can’t stop sinning. He does not have the power to do so. He may be able to change the particular form of his sins, but he cannot stop being a sinner. That’s what slavery means—you’re a slave and you can’t get out of it.

Death

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1)

This death is real. By nature we are unresponsive to God. We don’t have the power within us to change. That’s why we can’t save ourselves. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44).

When you get the Bible’s picture of the human condition into your mind, it will help you with people who are like Jonah, who you would otherwise be angry or judgmental with. Let me try and illustrate this. Imagine that you are responsible for parking at a rugby test, that is now outside of the Covid lockdown: The cars are jammed in, bumper-to-bumper. When the game ends, your job is to clear the car park as quickly and as safely as possible. The job carries some authority, so you are given a uniform, a flag and a whistle.

Your strategy is simple; as soon as all the drivers arrive to their cars in the first row of a section, you will begin moving them out into the exit lane, so that the others parked behind them can follow.

After the game lets out, a flood of people slowly makes their way to their cars. You see that in the front row of one section all three drivers are seated in their cars, so you raise your flag to call them forward.

Nothing happens. You blow the whistle. You point to them and wave the flag again, but nothing happens. Then you notice something strange—these guys are in their cars, but they haven’t even started their engines. What in the world are they doing?

By now the folks in the cars behind are wondering the same thing. They are getting frustrated. Some of them are sounding their hooters. People are getting angry. Why are the guys at the front not moving?

You start getting angry yourself, because it’s your job to clear the car park in an efficient manner. So you walk over to the cars. That takes time and leads to even more blaring hooters, because people sense that something isn’t right. Some people have rolled down their windows and are shouting abuse at the drivers on the front row.

You get to the first car, and bang on the window: “Get moving!” The driver rolls down the window. “I don’t know what happened,” he says “but I can’t see. I got in the car, and everything went dark. I can’t drive. I’m blind!”

You go quickly to the next car, and bang on the window: “This man has a problem, he can’t move his car. You need to get moving.” The second driver tries to roll down his window, but he has great difficulty.

You look at his hands and you see that he is in handcuffs. “I don’t know how this happened,” he said “but I got in the car and some guy was hiding in the back seat. He slapped these handcuffs on me and then took off. I can’t drive, I’m stuck!”

By now, the folks in the cars behind are getting ready to riot: Hooters are blaring and people ten rows back are standing on the load bin of their bakkies, waving their fists and shouting abuse.

You move to the third car, and bang on the window. “Sir, these guys have a problem. They can’t move their vehicles. I need you to move your car now!” There is no response. You look more closely. The driver in the third car is slumped over the wheel. He is dead.

Crowds of people are shouting abuse, blaring their hooters, and saying what they will do to the drivers in the front, if they don’t get moving.

But you have compassion. Why? Because you understand the problem—one guy is blind, one guy is bound, and the other guy is dead. All the shouting in the world isn’t going to change that.

There is a kind of Christianity that is angry with the sinful world. And there is a kind of preaching that rails against the evils of our time, and seems to find a certain pleasure in doing so. It is angry because it really does not adequately reflect on the human condition.

What is the human condition? All human beings that are born into this world are blind to the glory of Christ, bound by sin from which we cannot get free, and plain dead, unresponsive to God. And no amount of blaring of hooters is going to change any of these situations.

When you reflect on the human condition it will help you to understand what salvation is all about. It has to come through the light of the Gospel, lit and giving sight by the power of the Holy Spirit. It has to involve the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, not just His forgiving work, but His freeing work. And it has to involve the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ, actually giving us new life and new birth. Of course, the New Testament tells us that all of these things are found only in Christ.

The human condition is that we are all born blind, bound and dead. That is true of every person born into the world, including your children. My children were born this way. I was born this way. You were born this way.

Reflecting on the human condition will affect the way that you parent your children. It will help you to grow in compassion. It will make you less like the Jonah, who was very moral and very angry. There are a lot of fathers, a lot of mothers, who are just like that. It will make you more like the Lord, who has compassion on people who cannot tell their right hand from their left.

Here’s something for you to work on this week: Think about someone who really annoys you. You get upset with them and you feel impatient with them. You know that you need to grow in compassion for them. Reflect on our human condition in relation to them and you will grow in compassion.

Maybe you are thinking “That’s all very well, but what if the person who angers me most is a Christian?” Though God has given us sight, we only see in part (1 Corinthians 13:12). Though we have the Spirit, we still battle with the flesh. Though we are new creations, we are not yet what we will one day be. So, let us be patient with one another in Christ as well.

Has your heart been gripped by the compassion of God? When God says “Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left… Should I not be concerned about that great city? (v11). The word translated “concern” literally means “to have tears in one’s eyes.” The root meaning of the word is “to overflow”

“Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left, should I not have tears in my eyes over that great city?”

You can’t hear that without thinking about Jesus weeping over the city of Jerusalem. Tens of thousands of people, and He says “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:41). Christ knows the human heart. He wept over the city. He has compassion on you, rest assured of that. This is the God of the Bible.

Engage in Christ’s redeeming mission

“Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city…He waited to see what would happen…” (Jonah 4:5)

Jonah’s heart grew cold when he was disconnected from the work God was doing. God’s Spirit is at work in a great revival that was sweeping through the city. People are coming to repentance and faith. But Jonah is outside. He’s passive and disconnected from what God is doing, obsessed with the plant and his own life.

The king and the prophet

There is a striking contrast here between the king and the prophet. Both of them sat down. They assume the same posture, but in entirely different ways.

When the king hears God’s Word, as a result of Jonah’s ministry: “He rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust” (Jonah 3:6).

The king sat down in prayer. He sat down in repentance. That’s the point of the sackcloth. Then the king said “Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows, God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger” (Jonah 3:8-9).

Jonah also sat down. “Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city” (Jonah 4:5).

The contrast is amazing: The king is a “new believer.” He has just received the Word of God for the first time, and he is actively engaged, pleading with God for the salvation of his city. The prophet is a mature believer but he sits outside, passive, watching to see what will happen.

Hearts grow cold on the side lines of ministry. You can’t grow in compassion without being engaged in the work that God is doing. Compassion is more than a feeling. It is love in action. Look at what God’s compassion for Nineveh involves:

He calls Jonah and sends him to Nineveh: He sends a storm to intercept Jonah, He exposes Jonah’s sin, He prepares a great fish to save Jonah, He causes the fish to spew Jonah onto the beach, He calls Jonah a second time, He gives Jonah the message, He gives faith and repentance to the people, He changes the heart of the king, He pours out a spirit of prayer among the people, He relents from sending disaster.

God is always at work. That is what Jesus said “My Father is always at work!” It’s more than pity, more than feeling sorry for people in their lost condition. It is God taking action for the good of people who cannot help themselves. The king is growing in compassion because he is in the city, praying in the dirt for the salvation of his people.

In His compassion God sent Jonah to Nineveh, but His compassion doesn’t end there: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

As we talk and pray in these days about how we might double our impact for Christ, it would be easy for some of us to sit back and say “Well, it will be interesting to see what happens.” In every church there are people who are working and people who are watching.

Ask God how He wants you to be engaged in Christ’s redeeming work at this season of your life. Choose the company of those who are working, rather than the comfort of those who are watching, and you will grow in compassion.

Let us pray:

Father, please expand this all to small and all too cold human heart. Please make me less than Jonah and more like Jesus. Help me in a fresh way to take an interest in other people with every other person I meet. Help me to grow in compassion by thinking more deeply about the human condition. Give me more patience for my brothers and sisters. Let me also cry over this city that do not his left from his right. By Your grace make us more like our Lord Jesus Christ in whose Name we pray, Amen.

Wednesday 23 September 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

In this series we are looking at ‘Why Church’ in helping us to share the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ for His church. Whatever the church means to Jesus, it must mean to us. We looked at what the church is, what the body of Christ is, and tonight what the bride of Christ is.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:31-32)

Warren Wiersbe say, “Never get hung up on one image of the church.”  We can find that helpful. There is nothing on earth quite like the church. Since you cannot compare the church to any one thing, God teaches us by comparing the church to many things.

So, when God uses multiple images to teach us about the church, that tells us that we are looking at something wonderful that is beyond the ordinary experience of life in this world. Today we come to a third image of the church and that we are the bride of Christ.

Christ’s Bride

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25)

Notice the order: The apostle doesn’t say to Christians, “Jesus loves the church the way you love your wives.” If that was the case we’d be in trouble because sometimes we don’t love our wives very well.

Thank God it’s the other way round. He says, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church”. The union between Christ and His church is the model for Christian marriage.

Paul does not say that marriage teaches us about Christ and the church. Paul says that the relationship between Christ and the church tells us what God intends for a husband and wife in marriage. That’s where you are to discover it.

That’s why the apostle says, “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.  This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church”

If you grew up in an unhappy or a dysfunctional home, if your parents were not happy together or they did not treat each other well, you will have faced this question: How do you know what it means to be a godly husband or wife?

If your father was not present or if he was not faithful or good, where can you learn, as a man, how to treat a woman? Or as a woman, where can you learn how to relate to a man?

You may say, “Well, of course, Jesus is my model for everything in life, but Jesus was never married, so I can’t look to Him in this.” But what we’re learning here is that Christ has a bride and that bride is the church.

People sometimes say, “I didn’t have a good father, so I can’t relate to God as Father.” Nobody comes to know God by having a good father!  You find out what a good father is by coming to know God. It will be liberating to you when you see this.

Don’t get this the wrong way round. Get to know God and you’ll discover what a good father is, whether you had a good father in your childhood or not. Get to know Christ and you’ll discover what a good husband is, whether you saw this modelled for you when you were younger or not.

This is the wonderful news of the Gospel applied to relational life.  Knowing God in Jesus Christ is wonderfully redemptive, no matter what your background. There is wonderful hope here.

Paul was writing to folks in Ephesus who would have grown up in pagan homes where there was no knowledge of Christ at all. He was saying to them, “You can learn to love your wives like Christ loves the church, as you get to know Him.”

If you want to know what a godly marriage looks like, the place to begin is not with your parents. No matter how good they were, they are going to bring all kinds of cultural and generational baggage into the picture.  The place to begin is with the relationship between Christ and the church.

So, husbands (and this is primarily for husbands) think deeply about Christ and the church, and God will teach you what kind of husband he is calling you to be. Christ’s love for the church gives you the shape, it gives you the pattern, it gives you the template for loving your wife.

How Christ loves the church

• Christ gave Himself for the church

“Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25)

Here is Christ in heaven, at the right hand of God, but He loved the church and gave Himself up for her. What does that mean?

Christ says, “I’m ready to pay any price. I am ready to endure any pain to do her good.” He puts on hold all the joys that are His in heaven, and He loves the church when there’s no love coming back, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He endured. He suffered and He forgave.

Now listen to this, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church!” If you think about that for just a moment you’ll immediately say, “Lord, I cannot do this in my own strength. I need Your Spirit. I need Your love. I need Your power. I need Your forgiveness if I am to begin loving my wife the way that You loved the church.”

That alone would be a reason for coming to Christ in repentance and faith to receive from Him today.

• Christ leads the church

“For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior.” (Ephesians 5:23)

Christ takes the initiative with the church. Christ is always up to something good. If you read the history of the church, you see the revivals; God sweeping into the church, bringing His people new blessings that they never imagined.

What will Christ do in this church next year? There isn’t a single one of us who can answer that question. We will experience His blessing and see His love in ways that will surprise us with joy. That’s the romance of the Christian life.

You never know what Christ will do next, but whatever it is, you know that it will be good. In the next year, He may sweep us all away into His everlasting glory. Do you know that He won’t do that?

What does this mean for us when He says: “Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church” It means the husband has the singular responsibility, if we are copying Christ’s model, to be the initiator, the innovator in the home, to make sure that the marriage does not become dull, stale or boring.

When was the last time you did something completely unexpected and surprising that was for your wife’s good? When was the last time you did something that made her say, “Oh, my,” something that brought joy into the dull routine of life?

• Christ nourishes the church

“After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church.” (Ephesians 5:29)

The point here is very simple. You look after your own body. You feed it, you nourish it, you protect it, you build your own body up. The church is the body of Christ, and this is what Christ does for the church.

Christ feeds the church. He nourishes the church. He protects the church, builds her up and He causes her to flourish. The attention and the affection of Christ are always with the church.

Christ always knows exactly what the church needs. Husbands, love your wife like that. He sees what she can become. Husbands, love your wife like that. The church is always on the mind of Christ and He loves her as she is. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church!

• Christ will present the church to Himself

“[Christ will] present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:27)

The church, as we saw last week, may not always look so attractive now, but she has a glorious future as the radiant bride of Christ.

Michael Griffiths, wrote a book about the church called, “Cinderella with Amnesia.” That is a brilliant title. You remember the story of Cinderella. Some might say not an appropriate example to us but it is a good way to express the church.

She goes to the ball and dances with the prince, and his heart is captivated by her. But Cinderella has to leave before midnight, and as she runs from the ballroom one of her slippers falls off.

The prince is left looking for the woman he loves. So, he orders that the slipper be tried on the foot of every maiden in the land. The one on whom the shoe fits is to be brought to the palace.

Now picture Cinderella sitting at home. She is dressed in rags. She is despised by her ugly sisters. She is oppressed by her wicked stepmother.

But her destiny is a life of love and joy and peace in the palace.

Cinderella is a wonderful picture of the church. Sometimes she looks a bit ragged. There are some ugly brothers and sisters who despise her and count her of little value, and in some parts of the world, a wicked stepmother persecutes her. But Christ loves the church and he will bring her to His palace.

Michael Griffiths takes up that picture, “The church is often like Cinderella… with amnesia.” Our greatest problem is that we lose sight of our Prince and of our glorious future. We need to remember who we are and to whom we belong.

Christ has chosen a bride and his bride is the church. He will “present us to Himself.” Who else could do the presenting? And when He does, the church will not be in rags and tatters. The church will be “without stain, wrinkle or any other blemish”.

There will be no zits on this bride’s face on her wedding day and no wrinkles either. If zits are the pain of youth, wrinkles are the pain of old age. They speak of tiredness, weariness and carrying a heavy load.  Christ says, “There will be no wrinkles on my church. She’ll be radiant.  She’ll be glorious. And she’ll share the joy of heaven forever.

It is the church that Christ presents to Himself. We should thank God for the many agencies and ministries that God has raised up. But it is important to remember that their task is to support the church.

Christian schools, seminaries, radio ministries, missionary societies and evangelistic organizations, welfare organizations, what are they? They’re like bridesmaids who assist the bride as she gets ready for the bridegroom. The bride needs her bridesmaids, but it’s a great mistake to make more of the bridesmaids than you make of the bride.

At the end of the Bible, John the Apostle hears a great roar coming from heaven, “Hallelujah, for our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready… Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Revelation 19:6-9).

How to Love the Church

“A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.” ( Ephesians 5:31-32)

Christ has chosen a bride and His bride is the church. We are his body. We are his building. We are his bride. And if you really love the Bridegroom, you will love the bride.

There is a holy union between Christ and the church that is like the union between a bride and a bridegroom. If you hurt the bride, you are no friend of the bridegroom.

Every husband knows this—if someone is rude to your wife, you will rise to defend her. Why? Because God has made you one with her, and if someone insults your wife, they have insulted you.

Do you remember how Saul of Tarsus persecuted the church? He was on his way to Damascus with anger in his heart, ready to do damage to the church, and Christ appeared to him in a blinding light.

When Christ spoke to Saul, He did not say, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting the church?” He said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4) What you do to the bride you do to the bridegroom.

Let’s use this to our advantage. If my wife is in need and you help her, you are my friend forever. I am one with her, so the kindness you showed her is a kindness you showed me. The church is the bride of Christ, and when you’re good to the bride, you bring pleasure to the bridegroom.

A pastor once said, “For a long time in my own spiritual journey, I separated my love for Jesus and my love (or more often, lack of love) for the local church.  Immersed in a tradition that wonderfully emphasized personal belief in Jesus and following Him in personal discipleship, I finally grasped that I was also to love what Jesus loved.

With that realization, I understood the teaching of Holy Scripture more clearly. The closer I walk with Christ, the nearer and dearer His beautiful bride the local church becomes.

The question I most often ask myself is, “What do you truly love?”  What we truly love is not hard to determine. What do we dream and talk about? What do we sacrifice for? What do we persistently pray for? What we truly love is evidenced in how we spend our resources of time, talent and treasure.’

He also refers to the work of Dr. Gary Chapman who has identified, “The Five Love Languages,” five ways in which love is expressed in marriage. The five love languages are: Words of affirmation, Quality time, Thoughtful gifts, Acts of service, and Physical touch.

I want to be fluent in all five of these love languages in my marriage. I also want to speak all of these languages in my love for the bride of Christ. I have found this a helpful grid for testing how far I have come in sharing the passion of Jesus Christ.

Affirmation

How do you speak about the church? Do you speak well of her? How often do you speak of her with a critical spirit? The church is Christ’s bride. How does Christ feel about the way you speak about His bride?

Time

If there are three words that define our culture in these times, I think they would have to include: “My busy schedule.” This defines us. Some of us don’t have quality time for the church because our schedule is crammed full. What is it crammed full with?

I ask you to take a look at your schedule. What are the values that are driving your schedule and your children’s schedule? What is the fruit that will come of that schedule? Ask yourself, “How will I explain to Christ why my family had so little quality time for his bride?”

Gifts

It was quite surprising to discover that the average giving to church in its area, is about three percent of the average income.

I’ve come to this conclusion: We don’t see the church as Christ does.  We haven’t been captured by a vision of the local church. The local church is the body through which Christ does His work in the world, the home He is building, the bride to whom His heart and His blood are pledged.

I want us to grow in our giving to the church, not simply so that we can do more of what the church is called to do here and around the world, but because I want us to share the passion of Jesus Christ. Christ loves His bride. The church is his consuming passion and I want to be like Him.

Serving

I think we speak this language better than any other. We are a serving church, with so many people actively engaged in some way. If that’s not true of you, I encourage you to learn this language and love the bride of Christ by getting involved in some area of ministry.

Touch (presence)

It would be helpful to expresses “touch” as “presence,” in this context.

Another way we love our local church is simply be being there. Many of you look forward to Saturday and Sunday as the high point in your week. You love Christ and you love Christ’s people. When we stand to sing, you sing. When we sit to pray, you pray. You are here and you are physically engaged in the worship of God. You are hungry and you are thirsty after God.

Can I say this from the heart as your pastor? There are too many of us who gather for worship about one weekend in every four. And for some there may be some very good reasons. But the heart of my concern, and I plead with you about this, is that I’m praying there will be a rising of the spiritual temperature among us.

It’s too easy to have a notional faith in which you sign off on certain things you believe and live on the edge of the community of God’s people, moving no further in sharing the passion of Jesus Christ. He loves the church and gives Himself for it, and even now lives with her as the centre of all He’s doing in time, preparing for the church all the joys of eternity.

I’m asking you to honestly and privately examine yourself. Gary Chapman’s five love languages are actually a very good way for us to measure how much we love the bride of Christ, to measure how much we love what Christ loves—by our attending, our serving, our giving, our time and our words.

Ask yourself, “Do I really share the passion of Jesus Christ.” I love the bridegroom, but do I love the bride? Think about the glory of this and the privilege of this.

Christ has chosen a bride and He gave Himself for her on the cross.  Right now He lives for her in glory, and one day, it may be very soon, He is coming to sweep her away and take her home. If you love the Bridegroom you will love the bride.

Increasingly, as you come to understand these things, you’ll count it your greatest joy in this world to belong to the church which is the body through which Christ works, the building that He makes His home and the bride with whom He will share eternal life—His joy and delight forever.

My prayer is that you will see the church and yourself as the bride of Christ. Prepare yourself for the great wedding so He can find you clothed in white linen without spec or wrinkle. What a day to look forward too.

04 October 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

The book of Jonah is about the unravelling of a mature believer’s life. We also discovering the marvellous promise of God that when the wheels come off, God does not abandon His own children but He is faithful to His own.

Jonah is really opening up what is happening in his life. Under his good reputation there really was a divided heart. Although God used him in a remarkable way, he spent most of his life hiding from the God he set out to serve.

As we move further into Jonah chapter four, we find the surprising truth that although God used Jonah to transform a city, and after that revival experience, Jonah is not full of joy but he is rather angry and frustrated and at sorts with the God he is supposed to love.

“Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, ‘It would be better for me to die than to live.’” Jonah 4:6-8 (NIV)

It may be helpful to note that God actually did a double restoration in Jonah’s life. Firstly, He sent a storm and a fish to deal with Jonah’s open rebellion and disobedience, and then secondly, God used a vine and a worm and then a wind to deal with the hidden anger lurking in Jonah’s heart.

This is a wonderful story about the faithfulness of God. Jonah is telling us “God knew how to deal with me in my rebellion, and He knew how to deal with me in my anger. I ran from God, and He brought me back. I became angry with God and he met me in my anger. God brought me through. Salvation is from the Lord.”

The story of the Vine, the Worm and the Wind

We pick up the story in Jonah 4:5,

“Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.” (Jonah 4:5)

Put yourself in Jonah’s shoes. You are filled with resentment, and you are feeling miserable. You are not happy about life. You are on your own, sitting in the desert sand, just a few kilometres east of a city you really don’t like.

The sun is beating down on you, so you decide to make a shelter. You don’t have much to work with in the desert; a few stones, some water and some sand, just enough to make some mud bricks. So, when you put it all together, it’s not much of a shelter.

The Vine

Then God steps in. Look at this wonderful expression of the kindness of God,

“Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort.” (Jonah 4:6)

No fertilizer ever produced anything like this! This was a miracle vine! It sprang up literally overnight. Picture a time-lapse video, showing the growth of a plant from seedling to full maturity in a matter of seconds. The appearance we can create with some good camera work, God actually does. Jonah wants us to know that this vine was a gift from God.

God is good. He saw how miserable Jonah was, and he gave him a special gift to ease his discomfort. This vine in the desert was a wonderful expression of the kindness of God.

Notice Jonah’s reaction: “And Jonah was very happy about the vine” (v6). I can imagine Jonah looking at his man-made, baked clay shelter, and then looking at the marvellous mass of green foliage on the vine, and saying “God’s shelter is much better than mine.”

The vine was God’s gift that brought comfort, joy and blessing to Jonah. Jonah was very happy about the vine!

Here is the question in connecting with the message today: What is your vine? Think about the blessings of God in your life, the gifts that bring you comfort, joy and blessing.

Here are a few in my life: My wife and children, and the home that we love, the privilege to be part of this church, my church family, good health, and fulfilling work.

What is your vine? God is good and He bring good gifts you would not have if it was not for the Gift! Thank God for His gifts in your life that bring you comfort, joy and blessing!

For the men who are married: When you give your wife a message on WhatsApp, SMS or Facebook, you can tell her “You are my vine! You are the gift of God in my life, you bring me joy and comfort and blessing; I love you and I thank God for you.” And ladies, you can say the same if you like.

What else brings you comfort, joy and blessing? Have you had success in business? It is a gift from God. Do others speak well of you? That is a gift from God. Have you enough money to spend some on your pleasure? That is a gift from God. Thank God for the vine.

The Worm

Notice the next thing that happens,

“But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.” (Jonah 4:7)

Can you imagine! Jonah woke up ready for another day of comfort, joy, and blessing under the vine that has made him so happy only to find that the vine has been chewed up and withered. It’s gone!

Put yourself in Jonah’s shoes: “God, what in the world are You doing? Yesterday You gave me comfort, joy, and blessing in a vine, and then a worm comes and destroys my happiness! This vine disappeared as fast as it came! One day You pour out Your blessing, the next day You take it away!”

There is a pattern here: One day the vine brought comfort, joy, and blessing into Jonah’s life. The next day the worm brought sorrow, loss, and disappointment.

The obvious question: What is your worm? What is the source of sorrow, loss and disappointment in your life right now?

You build a business and it is a source of blessing, but as times change, it becomes a burden. Your ministry sees evangelistic success. It grows like the vine, but then the worm comes and destroys all the good work you have been doing.

You marry in the confident expectation of having children, but a child is not born. God gives you children, but then they grow up and leave, and it feels like there is an enormous hole at the centre of your world. The one you love is taken from you.

This is a really helpful way of thinking about what is happening in our economy today. God sends a bull market, and we all rejoice in the vine. God sends a bear market and we all complain about the worm. The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. We all know about the vine and we all know about the worm. That’s what Jonah is experiencing here, and its painful stuff.

It’s also a helpful picture of those times when you fall back into an old sin after you thought you had victory over it. The victory made you happy like the vine, but then it gets chewed up by the worm of a fresh failure. Your victory has withered.

The Wind

The vine, worm pattern is repeated many times in the life of a believer. But notice that it gets worse!

“When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint.” (Jonah 4:8)

Again, try to put yourself in Jonah’s shoes: It’s bad enough to lose your vine. But on the very day that the vine is chewed up, God also sends a scorching east wind! The sand is blowing into Jonah’s face. The sun is beating down on his head. “God, if you are going to take my vine, you might have done it on a cool day.”

The vine brought comfort, joy and blessing. The worm brought sorrow, loss and disappointment. The wind added affliction, pain, and distress.

Obvious question again: What is your east wind? What in your life is causing you affliction, pain, and distress?

The surprising truth about the Worm and the Wind

The vine, the worm and the wind: Which of these comes from God?  Notice what the Bible says: God provided the vine (4:6), God provided the worm (4:7), and God provided the scorching east wind (4:8). It’s the same word that is used in each verse. Jonah wants us to understand: “God’s hand was as much in the worm and the wind as it was in the vine.”

God was working as much in the wind that brought affliction, pain and distress and in the worm that brought sorrow, loss and disappointment as He was in the vine that brought comfort joy and blessing.

God uses each of them for our sanctification

God provided all three, all being used in God’s sovereign purpose in Jonah’s life. Notice Jonah used the same word “provided,” back in chapter one!

“But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17)

The God who saved Jonah by providing a great fish now sanctifies Jonah by providing a vine, a worm, and a scorching east wind.

It’s good to learn these two important Bible words: Justification is how God forgives us through Jesus. Sanctification is how God makes us like Jesus. The first is an event, the second is a process. How does God do this sanctification process in our lives?

God provides for our sanctification through gifts that bring joy, trials that bring sorrow, and experiences that bring pain. The fish is God’s fish, the vine is God’s vine, the worm is God’s worm, and the wind is God’s wind.

Now it’s easy to see why God provided the vine. God is good. All good gifts come from Him.

“And we know for those that love God all things work together for good, for those that are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28)

But why did God send the worm and the wind? What possible good can come in my life from the worm and the wind?

God used the worm and the wind to save Jonah from a vine-centered life. A vine-centered person is one who is so taken up with the joys and blessings of God’s vines in this life that he comes to love his gifts more than the God who gives them!

At the heart of our sanctification, God is working to make us more like Jesus, weaning us away from the vine-centered life to rather live a Christ-centered life for His purpose, praise, and glory.

God’s vines often mask our problems

Let us look at the tragedy of a vine-centered life. If you live such a life, you will be angry about the vine. Jonah is angry when he lost the vine.

“’Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?’ ‘I do,’ he said, ‘I am angry enough to die?’” (Jonah 4:9)

When God took away the vine, Jonah’s anger intensified. Jonah was already angry (v4), but when God gave him the vine (v6), he was happy. The anger seemed to go away. But now that the vine is gone, his anger is back. Here’s a man who is fundamentally angry with God, but the vine masked Jonah’s problem for a time.

Friends, money, family, relationships, and success can do that. God’s gifts in your life bring you happiness, but if your greatest joy is in the vine, you will live a vine-centered life. And when the vine is gone, what happens is that your antagonism towards God starts coming out. It will mask the hidden anger in your own heart.

Jonah lost his reason to live. He found his own comfort and joy in the vine to such an extent that, when it is gone, he no longer feels he has a reason to live. So he says “It would be better for me to die than to live…  I am angry enough to die” (v8-9).

Something has become so important to you that you say “If you take away the gifts that bring me comfort joy and blessing, I do not have a reason to live.” The extraordinary thing is that Jonah is saying this to God, who is the reason to live!

If you live a vine-centered life, your reason for living withers with the vine. The vine is not the reason to live! Your family, your friends, your work, and your money are good gifts from God, but they are not the reason to live. Thank God for the vine, but don’t live for the vine. The reason to live is not the gifts, but the Giver!

Jesus says: “If you want to come after Me, you have to love Me more than father, mother, wife, or children”. What is that all about? You dare not live a vine-centered life, for if you do, it will take you to a place where ultimately you end up angry about the vine and see no reason to live anymore, been living for the wrong things.

The Bible has a good word for a vine-centered life and that is idolatry. It is the first sin and the hardest to overcome.

Now I want to show you an extraordinary contrast between two people who experienced very similar things. Jonah was not the only person to experience the joy of the vine, the loss of the worm, and the pain of the wind.

Think about Job’s vine: He had one wife, seven sons, and three daughters. Besides that he had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys and a large number of servants. That is fantastic wealth!

The Bible says “He was the greatest man among all the people of the east” (Job 1:2-3). That’s some vine! He is supremely blessed in terms of comforts in this life.

What was Job’s worm? His financial security, represented in his animals, is completely devastated. Then the greatest tragedy of all: The house where Job’s children were enjoying a party collapsed, and none of them survived (v19). That’s some worm!

What about Job’s east wind? His wife, who he might have looked to for support, says to him “Why don’t you curse God and die?” (Job 2:9). His own health breaks down leaving painful sores all over his body (v7). Then his friends arrive (v11)! And instead of bringing comfort, their trite religion only increased this poor man’s affliction.

Anger or worship?

Notice the contrast in the way that Job and Jonah responded to the vine, the worm and the wind in their lives. Jonah responded with anger: “I am angry enough to die” (Jonah 4:9). Job fell to the ground in worship and said “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Maybe you will want to confess with me today “I’m much more like Jonah than Job.” Often we love the vine so much, that when it withers, we wonder if there is any reason left to live. We love God’s gifts more than the Giver. We live vine-centered lives more than Christ-centered lives. The Bible has a name for loving the vine more than loving God. It is called idolatry.

We said last time that God’s grace will either lead you to anger or worship. The same thing is true of the vine, the worm and the wind.   God’s gifts will either lead you to anger or worship. You see the one in Jonah and the other in Job.

Loving God more than His gifts

All of us are on a journey leading in one of two directions, either we are loving God more or we are resenting God more. When Christ winds up human history, there will be two groups of people: One will worship God forever, the other will hate God forever.

Every person is moving along one of two lines, either to perpetual joy in God, or perpetual resentment towards God. All of us are moving nearer to heaven or nearer to hell every day.

How can I cease to be one who is angry with God? How can I love God more than I love His gifts? How can I overcome idolatry in my heart? How can I find my reason to live in God rather than in what He gives or takes away? How can I overcome a hidden resentment against God that lurks in my heart? How can I love God more?

The New Testament clearly answers how you can grow in loving God.  John writes: “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 AV). The more you see God’s love for you, the more you will grow in loving Him.

The way to love God more is by taking in more of His love for you. That’s why we in all our worship and all our preaching we keep coming back to the centre of all things, the cross of Jesus Christ, where God’s love for you is demonstrated, poured out, and put on display.

The glorious love of God put on display

The outcome of Jesus’ endurance

Think about the vine, the worm and the wind in the life of our Lord Jesus. What was the vine that brought Him joy and comfort and blessing in His experience?

Jesus chooses twelve disciples and calls them to be with Him. He has the comfort, joy and blessing of their companionship (Mark 4:14). He sends them out and their ministry is blessed with such success that with His heart full of joy, He exults “I saw Satan fall like lightning” (Luke 10:18).

Then the worm came. The disciples, who had brought Him comfort, joy and blessing, all forsook him and fled. Judas betrays Him with a kiss. Peter denies him with a curse, and Jesus is plunged into sorrow and loss.

And then the east wind blew. Not only did the disciples desert Him, but he was scourged and mocked and crowned with thorns. He was nailed to the cross, he was plunged into total darkness, and in His affliction, pain, and distress, He cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

Why was all this happening to Him? The Bible says: Christ bore your sins in His body on the tree (I Peter 2:24). The Son of God loved you and gave Himself for you (Galatians 2:20). He endured the worm and the wind so you could be brought into an eternity under God’s vine, under His blessing and receiving His goodness.

Examples of God’s love in the Scriptures

Do you see God’s love for you in Jesus? King David had a greater vine than anyone else who ever lived. He enjoyed the greatest of comforts and he tasted God’s love, and here’s what he said “Your love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). “Your love means more to me than the vine. Your love is better than any of your gifts in this world.”

Job saw that too. Oh, he went through a thousand agonies in his sorrow, but for Job, the worm and the wind were his finest hour. For in his pain he worshipped, and there is no higher worship than that which comes out of your pain and your loss.

The good news is that Jonah got there too. God did not leave Jonah in His anger. That’s the point of the story. If Jonah had remained angry this story would never have been written! The very fact that we have this story is evidence that God brought Jonah through his anger.

We’re going to see next how God met Jonah’s anger with a display of His own love! God did not abandon him in His anger. God brought him through. And what God did for Jonah, He is able to do for you.

Do you want to be less like Jonah and more like Jesus? Not to live vine-centered lives, but Christ-centered live?

Then receive God’s gifts gratefully. Every good gifts comes from the Lord, so if you have friends, if you have a job, if you have money, if you have family, whatever gift brings you comfort, joy and blessing from the hand of God, receive it with thanksgiving and let it be to you a source of praise: “Lord, make me more thankful for the vine in my life. Make me more thankful for your good gifts. Help me to identify them in my life.”

Also do not hold God’s gifts lightly.” God’s gifts are gifts, they are not rights. When we confuse them, we get into all kinds of difficulty. They come from His hand. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Nothing in this life or in this world lasts forever. “Lord, help me to love You more than Your gifts.” That is the only right way to live. “I do not want to spend my life as an idolater.”

Rejoice that you belong to Christ. The vine will pass away. God’s love for you in Christ will never pass away.

Let us pray:

Father deliver us from the vine-centered lives. Deliver us from the idolatry that lurks in our hearts where we love the gifts more than You the Giver. Show us more deeply Your amazing love, for us to have a higher and greater joy in You rejoicing that our names are written in the book of life. Thank You for the ultimate sacrifice on the cross for us to be under the shadow of Your vine. To Christ we give all praise and glory in whose Name we pray, Amen.

Tuesday 15 September 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

In this training sessions we look at ‘Why Church’. The aim is to help us to share the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ for the church. Many believers do not see the church through the eyes of Christ. What does Jesus mean when He speak about the church? Whatever it means to Jesus, it must mean to us.

Last time we looked at what the church is and tonight we will look at the church as the ‘body’.

The apostle Paul says, “Grace was given to me… to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery.”  (Ephesians 3:9) The Bible’s teaching about the church isn’t easy to grasp. The church is a “mystery.” It is only with the help of the Holy Spirit that we can really begin to understand it at all.

We last time looked at what church is. But God wants us to know who we are, and so He teaches us through pictures, analogies and images. We are going to look at three of them in this series; the body, the building and the bride.

False pictures of the church

Before we go to God’s pictures of the church, I want to point out some of the false pictures that some have of the church today. As we get rid of the distortions, we’ll be ready to receive the truth. Tom Nelson has identified four distorted images:

The church as a filling station

For some people today, the church is a place where you fill up your spiritual gas tank when you’re running low. Get a good sermon, and it will keep you going for the week.

The church as a movie theatre

For many people, the church is a place that offers entertainment. Go for an hour or two of escape, hopefully in comfortable seats. Leave your problems at the door and come out smiling, feeling better than when you went in.

The church as a pharmacy

For other people, church is the place where you can fill the prescription that will deal with your pain. For many the church is therapeutic.

The church as a big box retailer

Other people see the church as the place that offers the best products in a clean and safe environment for you and your family. The church offers great service at a low price—all in one stop. For many people, the church is a producer of programs for children and young people.

You won’t find any of these pictures in the Bible. All of them are distortions. They have one thing in common, They’re all about me. Fill me up! Entertain me! Take away my pain! Give me the programs I am looking for, for me and my family! It’s pure consumerism. That is not surprising. This mindset is pervasive in our culture.

Many people don’t have any particular loyalty to a filling station, a movie theatre, a pharmacy or a big box retailer. They move around looking for the best deal at the time. Christians who think about church in these ways find it hard to settle, and miss so much as a result.

I want to help us move away from these self-centered ways of thinking about church, and look at the pictures God gives to help us understand what it means to be the church. We begin today with the marvellous picture of the church as the body of Christ.

The Body of Christ

“I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated at Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all and all.” (Ephesians 1:16-23)

“His incomparably great power for us who believe…” (Ephesians 1:19)

Paul is praying that God will open our eyes to see that God has power.  He has great power, incomparably great power!

There is nothing to compare God’s power with! It is not like any other!

Satan has power. Temptation has power. Government has power. The media has power. But God’s power is of an altogether different order. It is incomparably great, and this power is “for us who believe!”

Since God’s power is incomparably great, it can’t be compared to anything else. So Paul says, “Let me give you an example of this power at work. It is ‘like the working of His [The Father’s] mighty strength which He exerted in Christ when he raised Him from the dead”. The power that raised Christ from the dead is “for us who believe.”

Paul says, “Not only did God’s power raise Jesus from the dead, but the Father ‘seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come”.

Then he says, “God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything…”.

Why? Why did The Father raise Christ from the dead? Why did He seat Christ at His right hand in heaven? Why have all things been placed under the feet of Christ?

Here is the astonishing answer: “God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way”.

Two distinct pictures

The Bible uses this wonderful picture of the church as the body of Christ in two distinct ways. It’s important not to confuse them. In 1 Corinthians 12, the whole body (including the head) works together. But in Ephesians 1 we have a different picture, Christ is the Head and we are the body.

In 1 Corinthians 12 the hand, the foot, the eye and the ear all play a distinct role. The main point is; we need each other and we all have something to contribute. This is given primarily to teach us about what is commonly called “the priesthood of all believers.”

Keep in mind, every analogy of the church points us to Christ.

“If the church is a bride, Christ is the Bridegroom; If the church is a flock, Christ is the Shepherd; If the church is a temple, Christ is the Builder, the Foundation or the Cornerstone.”

In Ephesians 1, the church is a body and Christ the Head. There’s no such thing in the New Testament as a Christ-less church.

Let’s think about the analogy of the body and the head. The whole body is directed by the head out through the central nervous system. The head acts through the body. The body itself derives life from the head and without the head the body is lifeless.

Think about what happens when you pick up a pen. The direction to pick up the pen comes from the head. The desire of the head is communicated through the body, and members of the body collaborate together to fulfil the command: The arm stretches out. The fingers gather. The thumb presses against them in order to form a grip. The arm lifts and the pen is ready to write. The head acts through the body.

By describing Himself as the head and the church as the body, Christ is telling us that He has chosen to operate through the church. Of course, Jesus is able to act without the church and sometimes does. When Saul of Tarsus was converted on the road to Damascus, there wasn’t a Christian or a local church in sight, but that’s not how Christ normally acts.

Working through the church

The analogy of the head working through the body tells us that Christ has united Himself to His people and chooses to do His work in the world through local congregations which are “the body of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1:23).

Since Christ is committed to work through the church, why wouldn’t we do the same? Since Christ is building the church, isn’t that what you should be doing? Since Christ loves the church, shouldn’t you be loving her too? Why wouldn’t you want to be doing what He is doing?

You might be thinking, “Well, that sounds a bit limiting. I’d rather do my own thing for Christ.” Maybe you would rather do your own thing, but is that what Christ wants you to do?

You say, “I don’t want to get tied up with the church.” But this is what Christ chooses to do. Why does He do this? Why does our glorious Head join Himself to such a feeble body? Isn’t that amazing to you that He would do that? This is where He chooses to display His glory.

Jesus shows the incomparable riches of His grace in the salvation of individual sinners (Ephesians 2:7). He displays the glorious spectrum of His wisdom in gathered congregations of believers: “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known…” (Ephesians 3:10).

Christ displays His glory through the gathering of believers. Why would you not want to be part of that? Why would you not want to belong to the body of Christ? Serve in the body of Christ? Give to the body of Christ?  Live and die for the body of Christ? There is no greater privilege for a believer in this world.

The church is an end in itself

When you grasp that we are the body of Christ, you come to see the church in a whole new light. The filling station, movie theatre, pharmacy and big box retailer are means to an end. They’re not inherently valuable in themselves. But the church is not a means to an end. The church is an end in itself. Local congregations gathered by God are of supreme value. The Father has exalted Christ as head over all things for the church!

That’s why the primary strategy for evangelism in the New Testament is to plant churches. The book of Acts records how Paul went into one city after another, preached the Gospel, gathered a few converts, and established a church. Then he went back and appointed elders to lead these local congregations.

Why did he do this? Because God’s great purpose is more than that people should be converted. Because bringing this new community into existence is His plan of salvation. It’s not a detachable extra. The head works through the body.

Paul did more than lead people to Christ. That is half a strategy. He planted churches; local congregations of believers gathered by God to worship and sent out by God to serve.

What can we learn from the analogy of the body?

Christ is the head of the church

The church belongs to Christ, not because we’ve decided to make Him the head, but because He is the head and He’s decided to make us the body.

Christ has gathered us together. We are His people. The body serves at the direction of the head. Our calling is to be responsive to Him.

Every member of the body needs to be connected to the Head

John Stott speaks about the “grotesque anomaly, [of] an un-churched Christian.” We must be careful not to press any analogy too far. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ. The thief on the cross arrived in heaven without ever being part of a local church, but that’s an anomaly.

Have you committed yourself as a member of a local church?  If not, why not?  Why do you stay detached?  Why would you think that staying detached is something Christ wants you to do?

The Gospels tell us that when Jesus was arrested, Peter drew his sword, and cut of the ear of the high priest’s servant, a man named Malchus (John 18:10). Cutting off his ear probably wasn’t what Peter intended. My guess is that when he raised his sword, he was aiming to split Malchus down the middle. But he missed and sliced off his ear.

So this ear was lying on the ground. It was severed. What use is an ear when it is severed from the body? The body needs the ear and the ear needs the body. Luke tells us that Christ touched the man’s ear and healed him (Luke 22:51). Can you imagine Jesus picking up this limp piece of flesh from the dust and sealing it to the body?

That is what I’m praying Christ will do for some of us. If you’re an amputated Christian, a Christian disconnected from the body, you’ve been a “lone ranger” for far too long. I’m praying that through the Scriptures you will hear the Holy Spirit saying to you, “This is where you belong, and I am placing you here to do My will.”

Every member of the body must be responsive to the Head

There is a story in the New Testament about a man who had a shrivelled hand. The hand was connected to the body, but it wasn’t doing anything useful. It had lost the capacity to function. There was a breakdown between the commands of the brain and the function of this limb.

Christ said to this man, “Stretch out your hand.” I’ve always found this fascinating because it’s the one thing that this man could not do, “Jesus, what do you mean, stretch out your hand? It’s the one thing I cannot do.”  Jesus said, “Stretch out your hand!” And the Scripture simply says, “He stretched it out and his hand was completely restored” (Mark 3:5).

Maybe you’ve come to think of yourself as someone who is unable to function and who has nothing to contribute. But when you’re connected to Jesus Christ, you draw life from Him. In as much as His Spirit lives in you and you are joined to the body, He says to you today, “Stretch out your hand.” You are able to fulfil the work that He has for you to do.

If people are to experience the love of Christ, how is that going to happen? Yes, He can do it directly, but people are first going to experience the love of Christ, mediated through the members of His body. That is why it is often said that we are, in this sense, His hands and His feet.

Every member of the body will suffer with the Head

I’m calling you today to reconsider service within the body of Christ. You cannot be a pastor, a leader or a faithful member of the body of Christ without suffering wounds. The body of Christ will always have scars. Think about the incarnation and the physical body of Christ. He was born in the manger. What happened to His body? The same body in which He fulfilled all obedience, He was lacerated, pierced and broken. It was the body in which He suffered.

The world inflicted pain on the body of Jesus. In over 2000 years of history, the world has always hated the church, which is the body of Christ. It always has and it always will. Don’t expect the world to love you. Jesus said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first” (John 15:18).

If you devote your life to serving Christ, you will have scars and wounds to show for it. Paul says, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:10). We all want to be part of a healthy body, but the body of which Christ is the head is also a despised body, a suffering body in this world.

Some of you struggle with scars that came to you in the course of serving Christ. You suffered in the body. Scars suffered in the body are evidence that we are joined to the Head, who wore a crown of thorns, and whose hands and feet were pierced.

To be identified with Christ means sharing the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:10). The body of Christ will always be known by its scars.

Think about how “doubting Thomas” came to faith after the resurrection of Jesus: “Unless I see the prints of the nails in His hands I will not believe”. What Thomas said of Christ, the world is saying about the church: “Unless I see in your hands the prints of the nails, I will not believe”.

The physical body of Christ was broken for the life of the world. So, how can this body live within cautiously safe limits? Where did we get the idea that the highest good in the body of Christ is ministry marked by a life of comfort and convenience?

Christ still wants to say to men, ‘This is My body broken for you,’ and for this to have any credence… the church, which is His body, must become broken bread and poured out wine for the life of the world.”  Are you ready for that?

Every member of the body will be glorified with the Head

One day the scarred body of the church, the body that has so often been feeble and weak, the body so despised and hated and persecuted by the world will be taken up into the presence of God, and that scarred body will become like His glorious body.

The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now.  And the body known by its scars, will be known by its glory. You will say, “I am so glad that I am part of the body of Christ.”

Sunday 27 September 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

We continue in the Christ-centered Life Series. In the book of Jonah, we see a man that spends most of his life avoiding the God that he set out to serve. The prayer that runs through this series is: Lord make me less than Jonah and make me more like Jesus.

We saw that God has done miracles of grace in the life of Jonah. When Jonah disobeyed God, God sent a storm to bring Jonah back from a life that would have otherwise been wasted in disobedience. Then God marvellously sends a fish to save Jonah’s life from drowning. We been learning that God wonderfully cares about His servants and when He sets His love on you, He never lets you go. He has His way of bringing His own children back.

Not only did God do miracles in Jonah’s life but also through his ministry. He went to Nineveh and we saw last week that Jonah went into this pagan city known for its violence and torture and terror, to proclaim the Word of the Lord. There are an extraordinary response and the people of Nineveh believed God and turned to God in repentance, crying out to God in prayer and putting their hope and mercy in the God of the Living Bible.

You would think that a man who had seen miracles of grace in his own life, and miracles of grace in his ministry would be full of praise and thanksgiving to God. But to our surprise we find something different. We find a man resenting God’s work in ordering the world.

“But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” (Jonah 4:1) (NIV)

Remember Jonah was a mature believer. He was a prophet of the living God. He was involved in the work of full-time, cross-cultural missionary.

You would think Jonah would be filled with joy in serving God, but what we find instead is that he’s angry, frustrated and out of sorts with the God he set out to serve.

Notice that in the Bible Jonah was not the only one to go through this experience.

Jonah is not alone

In Psalm 73 we have the testimony of Asaph. Asaph’s ministry was leading worship. He was the director of music for King David, and he gave himself fully to God’s work. Asaph tells us how he went through an experience just like Jonah:

“But as for me, my feet almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” (Psalm 73:2-3)

Here is a man pouring out his life in service to God, and he says “I began to feel that God is kinder to His enemies than He is to His friends! What is the point? Is it worth living like this? The wicked prosper, so why have I kept my heart pure?

Another example comes from our Lord’s famous story of the prodigal son: The younger brother left home and wasted his inheritance on riotous living. But the older brother stayed at home and served his father. Day after day, he worked hard in the father’s service.

When the younger son came home, the father forgave him and welcomed him back into the family home. Jesus says “The older brother became angry”

“But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look these many years I served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.” (Luke 15:28)

The older brother is not angry with the younger brother, he is angry with the father! That’s where Jonah was here in chapter four.

The temptation to resentment

What do Asaph, Jonah and the elder brother have in common? They are all hard workers. They are all obedient. They are all marvellous servants, doing all that was asked of them, just as some of us do. Those that give them fully in serving God can find themselves at some point in their life frustrated and even angry with the God they serve.

There is a particular darkness that can be a specific trail to those who serve God best. Resentment towards God is the special temptation of mature believers who serve Him well. This is a great issue for those in ministry. The more you do for God, the easier it is to feel that God owes you.

There is a great mystery here: How is it that I can experience God’s grace in my own life and ministry, and still find that I struggle with the God I love? How is it possible to be in the middle of a great work of God and yet to find no joy in it?

Jonah shows us one of the most common ways in which a mature believer can avoid a Christ-centered life: You serve God and then you end up resenting the very God you serve.

If you have sacrificed much for the cause of Christ, you are likely to experience this trial. Therefore, you need to know how to deal with it, which is surely why God has given us this story. I want us to see how resentment grew in Jonah’s life, and then how God dealt with Jonah to deliver him from it.

How to avoid a Christ-centered life through resentment

Jonah’s complaint

Let’s begin by noting what Jonah does do right. In chapter one, Jonah is unhappy with God, and he runs from the Lord. But here in chapter four, Jonah is unhappy with God, and he prays to the Lord. That’s progress!

But Jonah’s prayer is a complaint against God, and not just a complaint about what God does, but a complaint about who God is.

“He prayed to the Lord, ‘Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (Jonah 4:2)

Jonah is quoting one of the great statements of the character of God from Exodus 34:6: “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,”. It was regularly repeated among God’s people as an expression of praise.

But Jonah turns it back to God as a complaint, and here’s why: He feels that God is too slow in dealing with evil. This was a great struggle for Jonah. The people of Nineveh were wicked, and they would return to their evil ways even if they repented for a time. Jonah was sure of this, and he was right!

History shows that within a generation or so, Nineveh had returned to its evil ways. The generation that repented was soon replaced by a generation who returned to the old ways of violence and torture. And it was this next generation that destroyed the northern kingdom, where the ten tribes of Israel were situated, with great brutality.

The book of Nahum [written after Jonah’s time] lays out the excruciating evil to which Nineveh returned. All of that could have been avoided, if only God had destroyed Nineveh in the time of Jonah. Jonah saw this coming and God’s mercy made Jonah mad!

Haven’t you ever wondered about God’s strange providence in ordering the world? Think of how much evil and suffering the world could have been spared if God had wiped out Hitler, or Stalin or Bin Laden when they were young.

Yet He lets them live! Why? Because God is “gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love”, and that is Jonah’s complaint and his problem. When he thought about all the violence and wickedness in the world and how slow God is to judge, it made Jonah angry!

Why is this happening to Jonah? What is going on in his heart? I want you to see here how Jonah undermines his own repentance.

Undermining your own repentance

“… This is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish….” (Jonah 4:2)

This is a marvellous example of undermining your own repentance.  Jonah disobeyed God when he got on the ship to Tarshish. His disobedience led him into a storm. God was merciful to Jonah and sent a fish to save his life. Jonah repented of his disobedience, and God forgave him. He moves forward in ministry and God blesses it.

But look what happens in chapter four. Jonah is going backwards! He now wants to explain why he went to Tarshish. He feels that there was some justification, some defence for what he did: “Lord, I see now that there were some very good reasons why I did that.”

 As soon as you start explaining why it was that you sinned, you undermine your own repentance.

Repentance says “I did this. I take responsibility. I am sorry, and I trust myself to the mercy of God.” Self-justification says “You need to understand the reasons why I did this. Let me explain my disobedience.”

The truth is, a great struggle goes on in every human soul between repentance and self-justification.

Even after you repent of a sin in your life, you may find yourself thinking “Actually, there’s another side to this. Look at the pressure I was under, the difficulties I was facing, the lack of support that I had. It’s easy to understand how I fell. In fact, it would have been amazing if I had not fallen!” And now suddenly, you are undermining your own repentance. Does that sound familiar?

A man has an affair. He repents. He takes responsibility and he say he is sorry. But a few weeks later, his tone changes. He begins to explain himself: “Here’s why it happened,” he says, and the explanation undermines his repentance. It turns out, actually, that it was someone else’s fault. “I’m sorry I lost my temper, but you said…” Remember, you just undermined your repentance.

There’s a subtle shift going on in Jonah’s heart that is of devastating spiritual proportions. He used to see himself as a sinner in need of the mercy of God. Now he sees himself as a man who can explain the wrongs in his life to God. There’s all the difference in the world between these two things!

It happens right here in Jonah chapter four. Jonah’s reasoning has changed: “I went to Tarshish, and I know that was wrong, but actually, God, it’s Your fault! If You judged the wicked like You should, there wouldn’t have been a problem, but I knew that You are a God who relents from sending calamity. That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.”

Here’s the pattern: When you feel that you can offer an explanation for your sins, you undermine your own repentance. And the tragedy is that when a man undermines his own repentance, it won’t be long before he is angry with God: “It’s all God’s fault. God made me like this. God put me in this position.”

Explaining sin is big business currently in our country, and the tragedy is that it leads many into the dead end of long-term anger with God. If you’ve been encouraged in some way to explain away your sin rather than taking responsibility for it, this is where it leads.

 Explaining sin undermines repentance and undermining repentance leads to anger with God.

God’s grace makes some people angry

Notice how the theme of anger runs right through the chapter:

“Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry” (v1). God asks Jonah “Have you any right to be angry?” (v4). God says again “Do you have any right to be angry?” (v9). Jonah says “I am angry enough to die” (v9).

Jonah is angry about God’s grace: “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love”.

This chapter takes us into a surprising truth that you might not have thought of before: God’s grace makes some people angry. In fact, we’re going to see that God’s grace will do one of two things in your life and move you into one of two directions: either it will make you angry or it will make you worship.

If you want to discover how God’s grace could ever make people angry, read Romans chapter nine. Of all the chapters in the Bible, Romans chapter nine is the starkest statement of what God’s grace actually means.

Many people think that the grace of God means simply that God is kindly benevolent to all people. But Paul makes it clear that God’s grace is much more personal and much more wonderful than that:

“Jacob I loved, but Esau, I hated” (Romans 9:13)

That’s one of the most difficult statements in the Bible. There’s an instinct within us that wants to say “It’s fine for You to love Jacob, but then You have to do the same for Esau.”

Some people will think that this is unfair: “What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!

“What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion’” (Romans 9:14-15)

 In other words, God says “It’s up to Me to decide where I exercise mercy and where I exercise compassion.

“So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” (Romans 9:16)

The obvious conclusion is that “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort but on God’s mercy”. Salvation does not come from your effort or desire to be saved, but from His great mercy and work in you.

Paul goes on to deal with an obvious objection:

 “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will? Then why does God still blame us? For who resists His will?’. But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” (Romans 9:19-20)

What a biblical answer! God saying “Excuse me, are you telling Me what I can and cannot do?”

Is it not an expression of our pride and arrogance that we make so much of our own freedom and so little of God’s? We feel that we must be free to choose or reject Him, but we do not feel that He should be free to choose or reject us.

The fruit of embracing God’s freedom

“Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.” (Psalm 115:3)

God is free to do whatever He wants in any situation. If you are really struggling with this, you are not alone. One reason why many struggles is that it seems like God’s freedom, “Jacob I have loved, Esau I hated” seems to make His love less. If God is really loving, should that mean that He treats everybody the same?

Some people are so committed to the idea that God must treat everyone the same that they think of God opening the door of salvation and then standing back, waiting to see who will come in.

But the Bible speaks of a greater love than that, in which God takes the initiative, not only in sending His Son into the world, but also by breaking into the lives of particular people to save them.

That’s what God did with His people Israel as a channel of mercy. Listen to this great statement about God’s particular love for His covenant people:

“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 7:6)

Why did God love them in this special way?

“The Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples” (Deuteronomy 7:7)

Why then did God set His affection on them?

“It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:8)

Why does God love you? Because He loves you for no other reason, not because of your background, your prayers, your ministry, your commitment, your faith, or your good life.

God set His love on you simply because He loved you. That is why He chose you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be among His treasured possession.

Now God extended this saving love to Nineveh, of all places, the capitol of terror and torture. Jonah say why Nineveh? And that made him mad!

Of all the cities of the world, why did God send a prophet there? Of all the cities God could have chosen, why did He bring revival to Nineveh? The answer: “Our God is in heaven. He does whatever pleases Him.” Nobody tells Him what to do! And that made Jonah mad. We’re more comfortable with a God who operates within our framework, but that’s not the God of the Bible.

God’s grace makes some people angry and secondly, God’s grace makes some people to worship.

God’s grace makes some people worship

Some believers disagree on how we should understand these things, and if you find yourself saying “I don’t see what you see in the Bible,” we can agree to differ. That’s ok. Your eternal future does not hang on this.

So, why am I speaking about it? Because I think a great deal of your joy in worship does hang on this. Let God’s grace lead you, not into anger, but into worship, even when God is doing wonderful things to others and not to you.

If you are a Christian, why is it that you believe, and someone else in your family, workplace or group of friends does not? I’m thinking of people with the same background, and the same opportunity.

Do you think it’s because you’re wiser than they are? You say “I made a better choice,” but why did you make a better choice? Is it because you are a better person? If it is, you just turned grace into works.

Here’s why you believe, if you are a Christian: God set His love on you. God’s Holy Spirit awakened you. God drew you to Himself. He redeemed you. He gave your new life from above, and you did nothing to deserve it! Neither did I. That’s grace!

Apart from God’s grace, you would never have come to Christ and neither would I. Our sinful hearts would have taken us away. We would be outside, like thousands of others, still refusing to come to Christ.

Let God’s grace lead you to worship. Once you get a taste of God’s grace, you will spend the rest of your life coming back to this question: “Why me?” And you will never get a better answer than this: “He has set His love on me!”

You will start to feel with John Newton that God’s grace is “amazing”: “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found was blind but now I see!”

If you asked “What’s so amazing about grace, John?” He’d say “I was lost and God found me! I was blind and God healed me! And why God would do this for me, when thousands live their lives and die their deaths still lost and blind is amazing beyond anything I can imagine or begin to explain!”

When you see God’s grace you will stand in awe! God not only makes it possible for us to be saved, but He also saves us! That is what the Bible teaches.

You may say “Well, this is all very well for you who are saved, but what about those who are lost?”

That takes us to the last aspect on God’s grace. God’s grace makes some people angry, and God’s grace makes some people worship, but it is the same grace that make some people pray.

God’s grace makes some people pray

If all God could do is open the door of salvation and then stand back and leave it up to us, there would be little point in praying for the lost! But when you see in the Bible that God takes the initiative, then you will pray for the lost.

God’s grace is the greatest incentive I know to pray for the salvation of lost people. He doesn’t just stand by the door and watch, but He takes the initiative.

God swooped down into your life uninvited, to change your heart so that you began to seek after Him. That’s what he did for you, if you are a Christian. And He can do that in the lives of other people, including those who, right now, are filled with resentment towards Him. God is able to do this because He is free to do whatever pleases Him.

God’s grace is amazing: No-one is so good as to deserve it. No-one is so bad as to be beyond it.

Either God’s grace will make you angry or it will lead you to worship and lead you to prayer. Jonah chapter four is about how God gently leads Jonah away from being angry about grace and into worship and prayer, which is why, when he writes the great song of praise in chapter two, he ends it by saying,

“But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord.” (Jonah 2:9)

Let us pray:

Father in heaven, help us in all our struggles in anger. Deliver us from undermining our own repentance. Fill our souls with a sense of wonder and amazement at Your grace in our own lives that is bigger and greater and further than we have ever known before. And with that a compassion and a renewed resolve to pray to You our saving God on behalf of others who You can reach in exactly the same way as You reached us. Hear our prayers and increase our gratitude for Jesus Christ sake in whose Name we ask it, Amen.

Wednesday 9 September 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

The aim of these teachings is to help you share the passion of Jesus Christ for His church. In the eyes of the world the church is weak, ineffective, out of touch, the enemy of progress and the list goes on. In the eyes of Christ, the church is uniquely precious, supremely valuable and infinitely glorious.

“You are Peter and on this rock I will build My church.” (Matthew 16:18)

The need for a compelling view of the Church

There are many Christians who have never seen the church through the eyes of Jesus. The vast majority of Christians in our country have never seen what we will look at in the Scriptures this series on ‘Why Church’.

86% of South Africans claim to be Christians. With a population of 59.5 million people, that means 51 million South Africans claim to be Christian believers. Of that number who claim to be Christians, 51% or 26 million say they gather for worship once a week. What about the other 33.5 million people of the population in our country who have no living connection with a congregation of other believers?

There are 25 million South Africans who would say that they are Christians, but who do not worship with other believers. Think about what that means:  Half of those who claim to be Christian gather with other believers for worship once a week.

If we could talk with these 25 million South Africans, my guess is that we would hear many different stories. Some would only have a faint connection with Christianity. They may have been sprinkled with water as infants. They might say they believe that Jesus died and that He rose, but they have never experienced the living power of Jesus Christ in their lives.

Others would say that they have served and believed, and they’ve been burned. They saw some sin or scandal in the church and determined they would never go near a church again.

The three stumbling blocks that have most often plagued the church, are the same stumbling blocks that plague the world: money, sex and power. Find a person who is alienated from the church and there’s a good chance that an offense involving one of these three, lies at the root of it.

Others came to church and simply got nothing out of it. There was no spiritual substance, nothing that related to life. It was entertainment, but you can get entertainment many other places, so why get it at church?

Others may just have drifted, got involved in other activities, or just never found a church that felt like home. It’s not hard to find reasons to abandon the church.

We live in a highly individualistic culture. Of all the cultures that have ever existed in the history of the world, this is the one of the most individualistic. Our natural pragmatism asks, “What’s the most efficient way to get things done?” and the local church doesn’t look the most likely vehicle for changing the world.

Some are saying, “The church is damaging to your spiritual health.”  They say the church is toxic to spiritual life, and that if you really want to follow Jesus what you should do is leave the church, because you can’t follow Him there. You can read more about the church leaving movement and find good answers to it in a book by Kevin DeYoung.

Christians in South Africa desperately need a new and compelling vision of the church. We need to see the church as Jesus sees the church. We need to discover and then share the passion of Jesus Christ. When and where have you been presented with a compelling biblical vision of the church?

That’s our purpose in these sessions, and by the time we are done with these four sessions, I hope you will feel that the great privilege of your life is that you belong to the church which is Christ’s body and that you share the passion of Jesus for His bride.

What is the church?

Have you ever seriously thought of this question? Are we a church? Over the years some of us have most probably got into this discussion.  It isn’t a simple question to answer.

If three Christians meet at a bus stop every morning, are they a church?  What if they talk about the Bible on the train, in the taxi, at work, or at the coffee shop? Is your small group a church?  And if not, why not?

A growing number of Christians have the idea that “church” is simply the plural of “Christian.” They feel that any group of Christians meeting at any time or place is a church. Are they right?

What did Jesus mean when He spoke about the church?

What does the word “church” mean on the lips of Jesus? Whatever Jesus means when He uses the word “church” is what I want it to mean for me, and it’s what you want it to mean for you.

There are only two occasions in all of the four gospels where the word “church” occurs. Our Lord used the word “church” twice and what He said defines the church for us.

All believers in every age and in every place

“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:13-18)

The first time Jesus used the word “church” is well known. Peter has just confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and Christ says to him, “I will build my church” (16:18). It is not Simon Peter, it is not apostle Paul, but it is Jesus Christ that builds His church.

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)

The authority is given to the assembly, to the church, to all who are believers in Jesus Christ. Jesus established a royal embassy, the church on earth, a kingdom of God. The language about giving the ‘keys’ of the kingdom is the grant of royal authority to speak in the King’s Name and act on His behalf.

The church that Christ is building has to refer to all believers in every age and in every place, because there is only one. “My church” is singular!  It encompasses all Christians.

Christ is not speaking here about a local church like TCCC, which is only one church among many. Our Lord isn’t speaking about the Baptists, the Methodists, the Lutherans or the Pentecost’s, etc. He speaks here about all believers in every age and in every place.

There is one church and Christ say, “I build it.” Believers in Christ from every time, every place and every culture are one, whatever brand of church they belong to. The New Testament makes this emphasis time and again. There is one body in the Lord. “Peter, this wasn’t just your idea.”

The church is built on the solid rock of Christ Himself. Peter has just confessed that Jesus is the Son of God, and Jesus says to him, “The Father has revealed this to you” (Matthew 16:17).

“Peter, you are in touch with reality when you say that I am the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and on this reality that you have confessed, the reality that I am indeed the Son of God, I will build my church.” The church stands on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  We are founded and built and we stand on this.

Then Christ says, “The gates of hell cannot prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). You can’t say that about any local church or denomination. All over the world there are sad stories of churches and denominations that have lost their way. Travel through the world, in our country and look at all the churches that have closed. The gates of hell prevailed over them.

Jesus speaks of the church in every age and in every place. When Jesus speaks of the church, He speaks of the church universal, the entire body of believers in every age and in every place.

God knows who these believers are 

Any local church will be a mixed bag of those who truly belong to Christ and those who do not. We should expect this. Jesus said the wheat and the tares grow together and sometimes you can’t tell the difference. That’s why there are disappointments in the church. But “THE Lord knows who are His”.

We are not joined to Christ by belonging to the church. We belong to the church by being joined to Christ. In 2 Timothy we read about men in the church like Hymenaeus and Philetus who wandered away from the truth, and whose teaching spread like gangrene. Their teaching was spreading like gangrene in the church.

The Apostle says,

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it would lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing the seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are His’, and, ‘Let everyone who Names the Name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” (2 Timothy 2:13-19). 

God knows who are His. He knows the real from the hypocrite. He knows the wheat from the chaff. Nobody fools Him. No one deceives Him.

We know that “everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness” (2:19). So, if a man holds on to wickedness, he should not try to fool himself into thinking that he belongs to Christ. You can’t fool God, so don’t go through life trying to fool yourself.

No one on earth has ever seen the full company of believers

Since the church is the full company of all believers in every age and in every place, nobody on earth has ever seen it, only Christ can see it.  The church will be unveiled in all its glory on the day when Christ stands with a great multitude that no one can number of all his redeemed people.

On that day Christ’s people will say, “Salvation belongs to our God”;

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ (Revelation 7:9-10)

They will be there because they have been washed by the blood of Christ, the lamb of God who took away their sins through His sacrifice on the cross. 

“Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:13-14)

And the Lamb will lead them into springs of living water and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

“For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:17)

The Local Congregation

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 18:15-18)

This is the second time Jesus spoke about the church, He’s talking about a dispute between two believers, so this cannot mean, “Tell it to all believers in every age and in every place.” That’s impossible! Nobody could do that. Jesus is clearly speaking about a local congregation of believers.

Alan Stibbs points out that when you see a thin crescent in the sky, nobody says, “There’s part of the moon.” We say, “There’s the moon.”

“For the part that is visible is genuine moon and, what is more it is more, it is actually, though to us invisibly, united with all the rest of the moon.  Similarly, a local Christian congregation is genuine church become visible. It is ‘body of Christ’ and invisibly one in Him with the whole of His body”.

Our Lord used the word “church” in two ways:  First: all believers in every time and place. Second: a local congregation of believers, called out by God to worship and sent out by God to serve.

Called out by God to worship

“Let my people go so that they may worship me…” (Exodus 7:16)

In the Old Testament, God called Israel out of slavery to worship Him. God’s people believed His promise. They painted the blood on the doorframes of their houses and God brought them out of slavery. What a liberation that was! He took them safely through the Red Sea and He gathered them for worship at Mount Sinai.

The great purpose of the Exodus was that God was gathering a people for Himself, a people who would worship Him together. God said to Moses,

“Assemble the people before Me to hear My words so that they may learn to revere Me…” (Deuteronomy 4:10).

When the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the word used for “assemble” there is “ekklesia.” The word was used to describe a gathering; it could even be used to describe a secular gathering, assembly, or as we would say, a congregation. That same word “ekklesia” is used for church in the New Testament.

Literally, “ekklesia” means “called out.” God says, “Call the people out to worship! Call them out to hear my Word, so that they learn to revere Me.”

God’s pattern of life for Israel was that His people would assemble for worship, where they would place themselves under His Word and His presence would be with them.

Sent out by God to serve

“I will make you a light to the nations that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)

God’s people in the Old Testament were not only called out by God to worship, they were sent out by God to serve. And Jesus chooses this word with all its rich background of Old Testament meaning and He says, “I will build my ekklesia.”

I will build a community of people called out by God to worship and sent out by God to serve. This ekklesia will be visible on earth in local congregations of believers.

We need to grasp the reality that Israel as God’s people in the Old Covenant points directly to His people, the church that is with Him in a New Covenant. We will explore this aspect in the nearby future for certain false doctrines discard this fact and want to divide the truth into dispensations and different plans of God. They instead of rightly dividing the truth as they say, are wrongly dividing the truth.

So, writing to the church in the New Testament, Peter says…

“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of Him who brought you out of darkness into His wonderful light? Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10)

As a local church here in this community, we are called out by God to worship and we are sent out by God to serve. Jesus says, “As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). We have what John Stott calls “the double identity of the church, we come to Christ in worship, and we go for Christ in mission.”

None of us is here by accident, because it is God that gathers the church. The church is not a self-selecting group of people. It’s never you, me and a few friends who we’ll choose. The church is gathered by God and He adds to it, daily, the people who are being saved.

Do You Belong to the Church?

Do you belong to that great company of men and women, boys and girls from every age and every place who confess with Peter and with every believer that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God?

Have you come to the place of saying to Jesus Christ, “Your word is truth for me? Your will is the way for me. Your grace is life for me.” Have you turned away from wickedness? Are you ready to do so today? I’m asking “Do you belong to the church?” You don’t belong to Christ by joining the church. You belong to the church by being joined to Christ.

Would you be ready to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and submit yourself to Him today? Receive me as a rebel who now surrenders to You. Receive me as a sceptic who now believes in You. Receive me home as a lost sheep who has now been found by You.

Do you see the privilege of belonging to the church?

If you belong to Jesus Christ, you are part of the community drawn from every culture and from every place and from every generation. God has released you from the tyranny of sin and death and hell. He has set you free in a new exodus, through Jesus Christ.

He has called you out, and He has brought us together so that on the ground, where you are sitting right now, there may be a community of people who declare the praise of Jesus Christ.

After every time we gather as a church, He is going to send us out, bearing the Name of Christ, living in the power of Christ, bearing witness to the resurrection of Christ.

You say, “Pastor, you don’t know how dark it is in the place where I work.” It would be a lot darker if you weren’t there. You are the light to that dark world.

By God’s grace the church has been called out to worship. By God’s Spirit the church is sent out to serve. The day is coming when, by God’s Son, the whole church will be taken up into glory.

Sunday 13 September 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

The title of the series we are in is ‘The Christ-centered life’, how to pursue a God-centered life by learning in the way that the prophet Jonah avoided it. It is an extraordinary story because we saw last time that Jonah was a mature believer with a very well-respected ministry. He saw miracles in his own life and his preaching was used to transform a pagan city.

When Jonah writes his book, he wants us to know that he spends most of his life avoiding the God that he set out to serve. It gives us an insight into some of the inner struggles that go on in the life of a Christian believer. And especially someone that is deeply committed to the cause of Jesus Christ.

We saw that although Jonah had a widely appreciated ministry, he seems to love the love the work he was involved in. but his life unravelled when God called him to leave the work that he loved and begin something new, a defining moment for Jonah. He really discovered how selfish he was at that time. God has a passion for the lost people, but Jonah’s heart was rapped up in his own comfort and in his own convenience.

The prayer that will run right through this series is: Lord make me less than Jonah and make me more like Jesus!

Let us take up the story from where Jonah ran away from the Lord and was heading for Tarshish. Please open your Bible at the book of Jonah chapter one.

Why did Jonah go to Tarshish? Why did he not just stay at Gath Hepher and carry on with what he was doing? Jonah was a prophet. That meant that he received revelations directly from God. When Jonah refused God’s call, he knew that God would no longer give him these revelations. That meant Jonah could not continue as a prophet. If he made up his own prophecies, he would be a false prophet, and the penalty for that was stoning. And if he simply stopped prophesying, Jonah’s rebellion against God would be exposed.

So Jonah’s choice was either to obey God or to quit being a prophet and start over with a new life in a new place. It was Nineveh or Tarshish; staying in Gath Hepher was not an option.

Circumstances: Opportunities that may lead you further into sin

“But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.” (Jonah 1:3)

If you decide to go to Tarshish, there will always be a ship to get you there! If you have decided in your heart to disobey God, you will always have the opportunity to do so.

Spurgeon told a story about a man who had a violent temper. There was a pattern to his behaviour: the man would get angry, then he would lose his temper, and when that happened, he would end up throwing something. Spurgeon said about him “What struck me was not that he got angry, nor that he threw something when he was angry, but that whenever he was angry, there was always something at hand to throw!”

Never trust circumstances when you are resisting God’s Word. If you are running from God there will always be opportunities to make your sin and rebellion worse. Jonah is running from the Lord, and there’s a boat waiting to take him out of God’s will!

Thank God that’s not the end of the story. Jonah’s sinful heart was taking him away from God, but God was intent on bringing him back.

“Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up… The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, ‘What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?’ ‘Pick me up and throw me into the sea,’ he replied, ‘and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.’ Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried to the LORD, ‘O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased.’ Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.” (Jonah 1:4, 11-16) (NIV)

At this point, Jonah tells us the remarkable story of how the ship’s crew became God-centered believers. These pagan men were wonderfully converted, and in their story, we have one of the clearest pictures of the Gospel in the whole of the Bible: The Gospel is about the storm and the sacrifice; the storm of God’s judgment and the sacrifice by which we can be saved. Some false doctrines will disregard the presence of the Gospel in the Old Testament.

The Storm

“The Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.” (Jonah 1:4)

Think about this, God sent the storm. Literally, Jonah says “God hurled a storm on the sea”. Storms don’t happen by chance. Nature does not operate by its own independent power. God sustains all things by His powerful word.

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word.” (Hebrews 1:3)

When the disciples were with Jesus in the middle of a storm, they said “Who is this? Even the winds and the waves obey Him” (Mark 4:41)

Intervention: Sovereign judgments that release His mercy

When it comes to storms, disasters, or tragedies in your life, you have two choices in what to believe: Either God is in control or He is a helpless observer.

Someone might ask “Doesn’t it give you problems if you say that God controls all things, even storms that wreck ships?” No! I would rather live with the so-called “problem” of God being sovereign over all things than with the problem of a so-called “god” who is a helpless or passive observer.

God sends the storm. The storm is God’s intervention in Jonah’s life. Thank God he didn’t leave Jonah to his own free will! Jonah’s will was moving him in the wrong direction to a wasted life. He was going to Tarshish!

God was graciously messing with Jonah’s rebellious will to save him from a life wasted in disobedience in a place God never intended him to be. And, at the same time, God was stepping in to redeem the ship’s crew who didn’t know the first thing about Him.

Are you not glad that God intervened in your life? Where would you have been if it was not for His gracious intervention into your life!

Our God is amazing: Even His judgments are means of His mercy. If He uses the crucifixion of His own Son to redeem the world, you can trust His wise and loving hand in the fiercest storms of your life.

Hold tightly in knowing that God is sovereign and we are living in a confusing world.

Compromise: The silent witness of a disobedient believer

“All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, ‘How can you sleep? Get up and call on your God! Maybe He will take notice of us, and we will not perish.” (Jonah 1:5-6)

Remember that at this point, the ship’s crew did not know God. They had their own religion and like many people today they did not know the God of the Bible. So when they found themselves in the storm, they were all afraid and each cried out to his own god.

They all had a religion. And when the boat was in a storm, they all began to pray. Does that sound familiar of these days. We don’t know how many crew members were on the boat, but “each” of them cried out to his own god. So a lot of “gods” were being asked to help. But it wasn’t making any difference. Many people, even Christians, cry out to other gods in these times; to false prophets, to banks, to fortune tellers, to alcohol, to drugs, etc.

Jonah had gone below deck, and he had fallen into a deep sleep. “The captain went to him and said ‘get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take note of us, and we will not perish”. “Our gods haven’t done anything. Why don’t you try yours!”

But Jonah is silent. He cannot pray. How can you pray to God when you are actively disobeying His word? Christian believers running from God are of no use to lost people in a storm. R.T. Kendall says: “One of the most embarrassing things that can happen to a backslidden Christian is to have somebody come up to him and say: ‘I want you to pray for me.’”

Maybe you see yourself in Jonah here. Compromise is the silent witness of a disobedient believer. Your witness is silent. Your ability to help lost people is compromised because you are locked into an unresolved conflict with God.

Jonah was silent because of his secret sin. His rebellion against God was hidden. The life of every person on the ship was on the line, and the one person on the ship who knew God had nothing to offer, because he was immobilized by his own sin. Thank God it doesn’t end there.

Exposure: The love of God brings hidden sin into the open

“Then the sailors said to each other, ‘Come let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.’ They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.” (Jonah 1:7)

God steps in to expose Jonah’s sin, and He does this in an unusual way: God allows a tumbling dice to expose the secret sin of His rebellious servant. God is sovereign even over the role of a dice.

“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33)

The lot fell on Jonah, and Jonah’s secret was out. Remember, if God exposes your sin, it is because He loves you. The Lord disciplines those He loves. He will not allow your unconfessed sins to remain. He steps in and what is not confessed is exposed. Paul confirms this by the following,

“… ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not loose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and punishes everyone He accepts as a son.” (Hebrews 12:6)

God loves Jonah, and He will not let him go. Jonah must have been relieved when his secret was out. He was carrying the burden of a secret unconfessed sin and he was unable to pray. At one time King David carried a secret sin in his life. The prophet Nathan came and God used him to expose the unconfessed sin in David’s life. He writes about what that was like,

“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away for my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah (which means “think about that.”) Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah” (Think about that!) (Psalm 32:3-5)

Exposure: The judgment of God brings hope

“So they asked him, ‘Tell us who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?’ He answered, ‘I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, THE God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.’ This terrified them and they asked, ‘What have you done?’. (They knew he was running from the LORD, because he had already told them so.) (Jonah1:9-10)

When God exposed Jonah’s sin, it was the beginning of hope for Jonah and for the entire crew of the ship. The crew peppered Jonah with questions: “What do you do? Where do you come from?” Jonah tells them he is running from the Lord.

They peppered him with questions. The crew want to know about the God Jonah is running from: He tells them, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land”.

When Jonah’s sin is exposed, his silence is broken. Now he is able to tell the crew about the God of the Bible who is unlike any other gods. He is the God of heaven who created the earth. He rules over winds and waves, and exposes His rebellious servants. He is the God who allow storms, wrecks ships, and the God who saves them too.

The storm is clearly a judgment from God. An ordinary group of men, who have been this way many times before, are caught in this storm of God’s judgment that is going to wreck their ship and end their lives.

The beginning of his judgment is poured out in this life, but the eye of the storm will come after we die, “Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

This points us to an awesome Bible truth: All humanity is under the judgment of God on account of our sins. God is against us and stands opposed to us on account of our sins. Suddenly the crew gets a glimpse of who God is, and they say to Jonah: “What should we do? How can we pacify the anger of God? What can we do to placate him?”

“The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, ‘What shall we do to you to make the sea calm down for us? (Jonah 1:11)

That is the single most important question in the Bible. If God is against us, we have no hope and no future. What can we do? When you really come to the God of the bible you ask this question. It is about the storm, and it is about the sacrifice. That takes us to the second great theme of this story:

The Sacrifice

“Pick me up and throw me into the sea,’ he replied, ‘and it will become calm’. I know it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” (Jonah 1:12)

“If you want to be saved from the fierce anger of God, throw me overboard!” How did Jonah know that the sea would become calm if they threw him out of the boat? There can only be one answer to that; God must have revealed it. In other words, Jonah was receiving revelation from God again.

When Jonah’s sin is exposed, God’s silence is ended, and Jonah speaks as a prophet again: He tells the crew what they must do to be saved: “Pick me up and throw me into the sea.” This is a marvellous moment in the story.

Refusal: Our first instinct is to row instead of listen

“Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.” (Jonah 1:13)

Notice that the first instinct of the crew is to refuse the sacrifice. I’m sure that sprung from their desire to spare Jonah’s life, but it was also in direct contradiction to the prophetic Word of God.

A picture of the surest way to avoid a Christ-centered life. The crew felt that they could get through the storm without sacrificing Jonah. “We can beat this storm. We don’t need the sacrifice.” So they row harder!

Can you feel the weight of the picture? God has spoken through the prophet: “Pick me up and throw me into the sea and it will become calm.” Sacrifice Jonah and you will be saved from the storm. But these men think they can save themselves without the sacrifice! So they row harder. They made a phenomenal effort to get back to the shore.

The strength of this impulse to refuse the sacrifice is significant. There is a deep-seated pride in the human heart that says “We can make it through the judgment of God,” and as long as you feel that, you will avoid a Christ-centered life. “if I run harder, if I try harder to be a better person. I think I can make it through the judgement”. That is an impulse in us that immediately acts against the idea of being saved from God’s judgement by the sacrifice of someone else.

There is a poem by William Ernst Henley called Invictus that catches the spirit of these men: Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be. For my unconquerable soul… It matters not how strait the gate. How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

There’s great courage in that, but there’s also extraordinary resistance to God: “I am the Lord of my life. I am the captain of my soul, of my own destiny. It doesn’t matter what judgments God throws out, I’m in charge!” That is the polar opposite of a Christ-centered life!

That’s where the sailors were: “We can get through this. We can out row God’s storm. We’re not going to sacrifice you, Jonah. We can out row the judgement of God!” let us see what happened next.

Turning: Recognize the impotence of your rowing

“Instead the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not for the sea grew even wilder than before.” (Jonah 1:13)

“But they could not…”. These four words are another turning point in the story. When the crew realized that they could not beat the storm, they turned, in their desperation, to what God has said through the prophet: “We’ve only one hope Jonah…” Jonah says “Do it!” And they staked their lives on the sacrifice of Jonah.

The storm of God’s judgment is stronger than you are. You can’t overcome sin enough, nor can you make yourself good enough to survive God’s storm. The storm of God’s judgment will wreck you, unless you are saved by the sacrifice of Someone else.

Do you see how beautifully this paints the picture of why Jesus Christ came into the world? This is why He went to the cross: He was cast out as a sacrifice to placate the wrath of God on your behalf. He died on that cross so that you should survive God’s judgment against sin in this life and in the world to come.

We are saved from that storm by His sacrifice. The Gospel is about the storm and the sacrifice; the judgement of God and salvation from and through that judgement by our Lord Jesus Christ.

How to pursue a Christ-centered life

“Then they cried to the Lord, ‘O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O Lord, have done as you pleased’” (Jonah 1:14)

Turn to God and ask Him for mercy! “Then they cried to the Lord!”.

The ship’s crew see that the religion they have pursued is worthless. They abandon their own gods. What matters is that they find peace with the God of the Bible, who made the land and the sea, who allow storms, and who speaks through prophets to tell them how they can be saved:

Lord, have mercy on us! Do you see their recognition of the sanctity of life? They know that they are guilty for throwing Jonah overboard to his certain death.

Why did Jonah not jump overboard himself? I think the answer to that is that the whole Bible is given to us to help us know and understand Jesus Christ. The great events of the Bible story were shaped by God to throw light on what we most need to understand about our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus did not take His own life. He was crucified. That truth is pictured in the crew throwing Jonah overboard. We are guilty of the crucifixion of the Son of God, just as the crew were guilty of throwing a man who had done them no wrong overboard. Yet amazingly the sacrifice in which we incur guilt, becomes in God’s amazing grace the means of our salvation!

Abandon all hope of self-rescue and stake your life on Christ who was cast out as a sacrifice to placate the wrath of God for you!

“They took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered sacrifices to the LORD and made vows to Him.” (Jonah 1:15)

These men saw their guilt in the sacrifice as they were responsible for taking Jonah’s life. Yet to their amazement they found salvation through the sacrifice. God’s storm ended when Jonah was thrown overboard.

We crucified the Son of God and that’s our guilt in the sacrifice. Yet He chose to lay down His life as a sacrifice for us! That is our salvation through the sacrifice!

There is this obvious and very great difference between Jonah and Jesus: Jonah was thrown into the sea on account of his own sins. Jesus was nailed to the cross on account of your sins and mine. He was without sin. He became the sacrifice for our sins. He bore our guilt. And in His death, He absorbed the judgment of God on our behalf. That is the Gospel.

Pledge your redeemed life to Jesus Christ

“At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to Him.” (Jonah 1:16)

That was there response. Many people make promises to God in the middle of a crisis. What is impressive here is that these men made vows to God after He delivered them from the storm. That shows a real change of heart, a genuine conversion. The evidence of a real conversion is a changed heart.

These men feel that they have come back from the dead. The life they now have is like a resurrection. This new life has been bought with a price, and the only thing they can do with this new life is give it back to the God who saved them. They feel that they are no longer their own, so they pledge their redeemed lives to God.

The following poem was written anonymously by a person who clearly loved the Lord and wanted to show how different a Christ-centered life is:

Out of the night that dazzles me, Bright as the sun from pole to pole, I thank the God I know to be. For Christ the conqueror of my soul…. I have no fear, though strait the gate, He cleared from punishment the scroll. Christ is the Master of my fate, Christ is the Captain of my soul.

Let us pray:

Thank you Lord that You have not left us to ourselves. You have not abandoned us in the storm, but even the storm is full of Your mercy. In Christ You gave that sacrifice so that we may be saved. That we may bow before You and know we live no longer for ourselves, but for the Son of God that loved us and gave Himself for us. Thank you for the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and we thank You in His wonderful and glorious Name, Amen.

Sunday 06 September 2020

Ps Ben Hooman

Please open the book of Jonah in your Bible at chapter one. We will spend the next few weeks in this most fascinating book of the Bible. This book is written as inspired by the Holy Spirit to show that God loves all people and desires to show them mercy based upon repentance.

Jonah, a prophet, that preceded the prophet Amos. Amos preached that religion is more that observing feast days and holding sacred assemblies; true religion demands righteous living, a lifestyle of righteousness. All books of the Old Testament are for us too, the redeemed people of Christ and not only for Israel.

Jonah, the only prophet sent in his time to preach to the Gentiles the message of repentance and mercy. Jonah, his name means ‘dove’. This is no coincidence but a direct foreshadow to the preaching of the good news of the Gospel of Christ to all people today.

The book of Jonah is different from the other prophetical books in that it has no prophecy that contains a message, but the story is the message. Amos preached a lifestyle surrendered to God, Jonah supposed to reflect such a life, but what kept him from it?

“The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.’ But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.” Jonah 1:1-3 (NIV)

The book of Jonah tells a simple story, a story most of us know: A man by the name of Jonah was called by God to go and preach in a pagan city. He didn’t like the idea, so he got on a ship and went in the opposite direction. The ship sailed into a storm, and Jonah was thrown overboard. But in His great mercy, God rescued Jonah in the most remarkable way. He provided a saving fish that swallowed him and then spat him up on the beach when he began to pray.

Jonah then decided that he had better do what God said, so He went to Nineveh where he preached God’s Word. The people repented of their sins and were saved from God’s judgment.

It’s a great story that most of us know well. But what we will see over the next few Sundays is that it is so much more than a remarkable, memorable story.

God speaks directly to each and everyone of us. What can you expect to find in the story of Jonah? We will today first look at three aspects accordingly; expect to see yourself, expect to be disturbed by God’s passion for the world, and expect to be surprised by how much God cares for His servants.

Expect to see yourself

Expect to see yourself in Jonah. This book is about the unravelling of one godly man’s inner life. It shows us how a man can serve God while under the surface there is a battle going on in his heart. You need to know how to handle that struggle and so do I. Jonah love God, but he also struggles with God. Do you recognise something of it in your own life?

This book gives us a window on the spiritual conflict that goes on inside a Christian believer. Remember, Jonah was a prophet and He had a great ministry. He spoke the word of God and God used him to change a whole city. He experienced great miracles in the depths of the ocean, and God used him to change a whole city. You might think that a man like this is beyond the struggles that “ordinary” Christians experience.

But Jonah shows us something different. At the end of the book, even after the miracle of being saved by the fish, and after the triumph of seeing a whole city repent, you find a man who is angry, he is dissatisfied, and he is out of sorts with God.

This takes us into a surprising truth: Those who throw themselves most fully into the purpose and calling of Jesus Christ often experience inner conflict more intensely than others.

If you read the lives of any of the great Christian leaders, you will find that those at the forefront of Christian ministry experienced intense spiritual conflict.

This is a great book for pastors, for leaders, for all believers, who find themselves surprised by the intensity of spiritual struggle as they extend themselves in the work of the Gospel. If you become more deeply committed to Christ, your inner struggles will become more, not less. The more useful you are to Christ, the more you will experience intense struggles in your inner life.

The book of Jonah explores the inner life of a mature Christian believer like no other book in the Bible. When I look at Jonah, I see myself. I think you will see yourself too. Expect to see yourself in the book of Jonah.

Expect to be disturbed by God’s passion for the world

This is what really happened to Jonah. He had a comfortable life worshipping and serving God, until God laid hold of his life and said, “I want you to go and minister to people that do not believe. They matter to Me as much as you do.” Many Christians and many churches live happily with a comfortable inward-looking faith. What we’re interested in is that God is there for me and that God is here for us.

Nothing is more disturbing to a comfortable faith or a comfortable church than God’s passion for the world and its lost. God called Jonah to leave the life he loved in order to reach the people God loved. God’s call to something new suddenly exposed the selfishness that was reigning in Jonah’s heart.

This book is deeply disturbing. Expect to see things that are uncomfortable about yourself in this book because God’s love for a lost person can turn a believer’s life upside down. God’s love for the lost can turn a church comfort zone upside down.

Expect to be surprised by how much God cares for His servants

There is a wonderful theme in the book of Jonah. Think of all the prophets in the Old Testament; most of the books are about God’s message, but this book is about God’s man. Jonah tells us that God cares not only about His work but also about His workers. He cares not just about His mission but also about His missionary.

If God cared only about the work, He could have ditched Jonah and sent someone else, but God cares about Jonah, and that is the heart of this book. Many think that God are more interested in our service but God cares about you more than your works.

In God’s mercy a great city was saved from judgment through the ministry of Jonah. But the salvation of the city gets very little attention in the book. The book is about God’s patience and perseverance with Jonah. God cares more about you than about what you are doing.

Like Jonah, avoiding God for the greater part of his life, there are many believers avoiding a Christ-centred life here and now. But how do we avoid it?

You can avoid it for a lifetime

I first thought of giving the series the title of: “How to avoid a Christ-centered life.” I think that’s what Jonah was doing, not just at the beginning when he got on the ship to Tarshish, but for a much larger slice of his life.

Not only was Jonah running from God at the beginning of the story, but he was also arguing with God at the end of the story. Even after God used him in a remarkable way to evangelize a pagan city, he was still out of sorts with God.

That raises the interesting question of when Jonah wrote the book. I don’t think you can write under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit while you are arguing with God! So, I assume that the book was written late in Jonah’s life.

Later in his life he looks back on his ministry and sees how he avoided a God-centered life. He gives us this account of his experience: “God used me in a remarkable way, but what’s of real value to you is that I spent much of my life avoiding the God I purported to serve.”

The great irony of Jonah’s life is that while he was teaching God’s Word, he was actually avoiding God’s call. Jonah wrote the book so that we would not be like him. So that you hear the call of God on your life for His purpose and His glory. He reflects on his experience and in his book, he tells us: “Choose a different path!”

You can avoid it behind the disguise of a good reputation

Please turn with me to the only cross reference we will be looking at this morning. There is only one place in the Bible where we learn about Jonah outside of his own book:

“In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit. He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher” (2 Kings 14:23-25)

Jonah was one of the spiritual leaders of his day. He is introduced as “God’s servant Jonah, the prophet from Gath Hepher.” He is called “the prophet” and not “a prophet” as if there wasn’t another one worth mentioning in that generation.

This was a man who spoke the Word of God. His prophecies came true because they were wonderfully from God. The borders of Israel were extended during the time of Jeroboam “in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken through his servant Jonah.” This is a man who hears the Word of God, walks in the presence of God, and is filled by the Spirit of God: “God’s servant Jonah… the prophet from Gath Hepher”, a man highly respected and recognised as a prophet of God. But when God called him for God’s purpose to preach the truth to a lost people, what did he do? A man seen as sold out to God in the eyes of the people, but was that the case?

You can avoid it by protecting your own comfort

Against the backdrop of that extraordinary reputation:

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me’”. (Jonah 1:1-2)

It’s hard for us to grasp how shocking this must have been for Jonah. In Jonah’s lifetime there was one world superpower: the Assyrians. The Assyrians were known for their brutality. They had refined the art of torture in a way that is recorded in history. It would make your hair stand on end. They were the terror of Jonah’s time.

Nineveh was one of the major Assyrians cities. The prophet Nahum describes it as “the city of blood, full of lies, full or plunder, never without victims” (Nahum 3:1). This was not a place you would want to visit. If you saw that in a holiday brochure “city of blood, full of lies,” you would not go there.

The Word of God came to this successful prophet. He was highly esteemed in Israel. His wonderful prophecies about extending the borders of the Promised Land came true. He was settled and secure in what he was doing for God. Then God said to him “Go to Nineveh!” Suddenly, the music stops in Jonah’s life:

“Lord I am really happy in the work you’ve called me to do here in Gath Hepher. Don’t You see that I am honoured and accepted here?” But the Lord said, “I want you to go somewhere else.” “You want me to leave the ministry I love?” “That’s right.” “Where do you want me to go?” “Nineveh” “That’s in Assyria. There are terrorists and torturers there. What do you want me to say?” “Preach against the city, because its wickedness has come up before me.” “That’s not surprising. Their wickedness is notorious! And if you judge them now, it will be a big relief to all of us!”

Put yourself in Jonah’s shoes: This man has a successful ministry among God’s people. He was known for prophesying good things like extending the borders of Israel. He has a good life in a good place, doing good work. And now the Word of the Lord disturbs his comfortable life.

Our culture says “live your dreams,” but God has a way of disturbing our dreams. We all have hopes and dreams of what our lives will be. We plan our families. We plan our futures. We plan our finances. Then God breaks into the plan: A child is born, a loved one dies, the market crashes, you lose your job, a dangerous virus disrupted comfort zones, and suddenly your life is not going according to your plan.

Was God in Jonah’s plans or was Jonah in his own plans? Are you in God’s plan for your life, or are you trying to get God to fit into your plans?

When God stepped into Jonah’s plan, his heart was revealed. Jonah’s self-centeredness was hidden under the surface of his successful ministry but his “I want a comfortable life, God,” was exposed when God called him to leave something old and to start something new.

Are you avoiding God’s plan for your life by running after your own plans?

You can avoid it by running after your own plans

“But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord” (Jonah 1:3)

“Jonah ran away from the Lord.” Jonah was a prophet, well-schooled in the Scriptures written during that time. He knew that God is present everywhere. Jonah would have known David’s words:

“Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there! if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.” (Psalm 139:7-10)

Jonah knows he can’t escape from God’s presence. What he is running from is God’s call. That’s the issue here. When he gets in the boat, he is giving up being a prophet. He is resigning from the work God called him to do. He is saying, in effect: “There are other things in life that I could do, besides bringing the Word of the Lord. I’m quitting this ministry and I’m going to make a new life in Tarshish.

Jonah is dodging a God-centred life: He planned where he wanted to live and what he wanted to do. When God disrupted his plan, he quit.

If your plan becomes more important than God’s plan, you cannot live a Christ-centered life. What if God wants you in another place? What if God wants you to do another kind of work? What if God has another purpose for you for the sake of people who need to hear the Gospel? What if God wants to prepare you to bring the gospel, to be the gospel to other people? What are the excuses for not attending training, not connecting with a life group, even not attending church?

Jonah eventually wrote a Spirit inspired book: “Don’t go that path”. We need to cultivate a Christ-centred life. But how do I do that?

Recognize that whatever you are doing now is only for a time

The world wants you to believe that everything is stable, secure and permanent, and people are in control. But it is not so. Clearly a pandemic shows how flawed a world view it is. The home that you live in is yours for a time. The work that you do is yours for a time. The people you love are yours for a time.

One day, others will live in your home. One day, others will continue your work. One day, others will have your money. James says:

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make profit’ – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:13-14)

David says: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

Whatever you are doing in your life, hold it lightly, that what God has entrusted to you, because it will not be forever. If you can do that you will be in a good position if God calls you to something new.

Keep your dreams on the altar of God

I don’t even say here to place your dreams on the altar, but to keep it there. And how hard this is to do. I have hopes and dreams for my own life, for our church. We all have hopes and dreams for the future. That is a good thing but we have no rights. There are no certainties and God is free at any time to disturb in any way your dream, to give you a completely new calling, so keep your dreams on the altar of God.

None of us knows the sovereign purpose of God. But God is always at work, and while He planned for you to hear this message today, His plan will have many of us in a different place a year, two years, from now. For some it means that they will be with Christ. Some will be worshipping in another location. God may have you in another part of the world doing something you never imagined yourself doing.

If God should call you to something new, it will be a defining moment for you. Jonah never imagined himself in Nineveh. What is going on under the surface of your life will be revealed.

Lord, help me keep my dreams on Your altar. Don’t let me be like Jonah. Don’t let me become the kind of person who is so comfortable in my home, with my friends, and in my ministry that I would be unwilling to do something completely different for the sake of Christ, for the sake of the lost, for the sake of the Gospel.

Practice making yourself available to God

The more comfortable you are, the more difficult it will be for you to obey God’s call to do something new. When you love what you do, you’re happy in your life, everything seems to be going well, and God seems to be blessing you, it is then really hard to keep your heart in a place where you can say to the Lord “If there’s something else you want me to do, I’m willing to do it.”

Have you ever honestly asked God what He wants you to do? Have you explored whether there is some way in which your gifts could be used to reach out to the lost, to the Nineveh out there? When you think about your career? What you do when your children are at school, when you think about your retirement? Have you come before the Lord and asked how you can be most useful to Him? Or it is really about yourself?

Are you teachable, allowing the Lord to prepare you through your church to be equipped for when and where God needs you to be for Him, representing Him? Are you already equipped for the work of ministry but not helping others towards the fulness of Christ in their lives?  Were all the studies, all the training, even the ordination only for yourself, or did you do it for the calling and purpose God has for you?

Jonah said, “I spend much of my life as an esteemed prophet amongst God’s people, avoiding a God-centered place”.

What God has given you is only for a time. Place that dream on the altar of God and make yourself available to God.

Jonah and Jesus

There is an extraordinary contrast between Jonah and Jesus. Think about Jonah: He lives in a good place, he is doing a good work and enjoying a good life, and God says “Jonah I want you to go to another place, do another work, and live another life for the sake of people I love who are facing judgment. And Jonah said “No.”

If Jonah lived a God-centered life where he was, he would not have been in a comfort zone. God had to take him out of his comfort zone into God’s plan and purpose for his life.

Think about the experience of the Son of God: He was surrounded by the joy and life of heaven. He ruled the universe by the Word of His power. He was adored by angels with all creation at His feet. The Father says to the Son “I want you to go to another place, where you will be utterly rejected. I want you to live another life that will lead to torture, crucifixion and death. I want you to do this work to reach and save people I love, who are facing judgment. And Jesus said “Yes!”

Is this pandemic we find ourselves in a reason for so many to turn away from the calling and mandate that God has for us? How many became so self-focussed in a time like this? Our own circumstances become so easily the central focus of our lives whilst there are so many lost souls that need to meet this Jesus that saved us from this world. How much more selfishness, how much more own comfort, how much more the life of Jonah and not the life of Christ?

As much as God loves us and have mercy on us, God have called us to bring that to those that are not in Christ yet. Know that as for Jonah, God has called you to do just that. Let us not waste one more minute, but surrender all unto the purpose of God.

God sent Jonah to Nineveh to reach lost people. A Christ-centered life is a life bringing Christ to the lost. I am praying that God will rend the heavens and come down that He will us spiritual dynamic that reflects His passion for the lost. It will not be comfortable, but it will be defining in our lives.

I believe we can be less like Jonah and more like Jesus, we can make a difference for Christ, for the lost and for the Gospel in this great city at this time, for His praise and glory and honour!

Let us pray:

Lord, make me less like Jonah and more like Jesus. Forgive us O’ Lord for the shift from the lost to self in these times. Help us Holy Spirit to keep our eyes focused on the Author and Finisher of our lives, to live a life for His purpose and praise and glory and honor, in whose Name we pray, Amen.