God, the Guide to the place of fulfilment

In Psalm 66:12, the author says that he and others had been led by God to a place that met their hearts’ desire. Although the end of the road was golden, the road itself was not. Instead, it had been marked by fire and flood, two forms of danger that accompanied the travellers on their journey. Often, those particular dangers result in fatalities, but since the Lord was their guide, he took them safely through. But he did not take them round the dangers; instead he took them through the dangers.

There are important lessons for us from this statement by the psalmist. First, it says that Christians are not immune from the troubles that come along in life. Christians encounter the fires and floods, as does everyone else.

Second, the words of the psalmist indicate that periods of trouble lead to a place of comfort and rest. Providence can be draining, even although it is divinely organised. It is the case that there are no special providences that avoid all the troubles of life. Yet we can pray in the midst of life’s difficulties that God would take us through them until we reach a time of peace and restoration. Such times are foretastes of the ultimate place of fulfilled longings.

Third, we are reminded from this verse that the Guide is with us. Often in life, when travellers were following a guide they may have wondered if he knew the way to the destination. But they would have been assured if they knew that he previously had taken many others along the route. Sometimes the fires and floods of life can blind us to the leading of the heavenly Guide. But he knows where he is going, and that is all that we need to know.

Fourth, the end of the journey is where the place of our hearts’ desire will be found. We are going through a storm at present. Even when it is over, the calm that will then be known will not be the ultimate place of our hearts’ desire. The Guide will take all who trust in him safely to that wealthy place he has prepared for his travelling people.

Depending and delighting

Jude, the brother of Jesus and the author of a brief letter included in the New Testament, gives an instruction that we may find surprising when he says to his readers in verse 21: ‘keep yourselves in the love of God.’ We may look at that statement and respond by saying, ‘I did not think that we could keep ourselves.’ Yet that would be a wrong response. We need to ask how we can fulfil this instruction.

 

We keep it by depending on the Lord for his gracious help. The kind of person who becomes independent is the type who does not remain in the love of God. Divine love focusses on sinners who have no strength of their own; such love desires to do all for them. When they are converted, they humbly admit their need of grace, and true humility uses the grace that is given freely and constantly. Failure to use God’s grace is an expression of disobedience and is never an expression of dependence.

 

How do we keep on depending on the Lord? The answer is by delighting in him and in his great salvation. Such delight comes our way when we read in the Bible about what he has done for us. Salvation is more than a theory, of course. It is an experience. God forgives our sin when we repent initially and trust in Jesus for salvation, and then works thereafter in our lives to keep us from departing from the love of God.

 

Sometimes we present self-examination as a rather complex activity. Often we are looking for perfection, a search that will take a while, indeed the rest of our lives because we will never find it in this world. Instead, all we need to ask is if we are depending on and delighting in Jesus, the amazing revealer and sharer of the love of God.

Are you well?

It is common for us to get health checks at the doctor’s surgery. There, we will be asked several questions designed to reveal if we are doing what we should in order to be healthy. What signs are there in our spiritual lives that will indicate we are healthy believers?

Healthy Christians love one another deeply. This love is not based on their age, or on their status in society, or on how much they know about doctrines, or on whether they have some shared interests or hobbies. Instead, it flows from the Holy Spirit who lives within them and is changing them for the better throughout life. They experience joy as they observe how the Lord works in the lives of other believers. The fact is, a healthy church is composed of people who love one another. If a person does not love, there is something far wrong with that individual.

Healthy Christians want the kingdom to expand everywhere. They are gospel people. While there are many areas of concern in life, they don’t get distracted away from the fact that they want to remain passionate about the growth of the kingdom. No doubt, there are many reasons for this desire. They want the name of Jesus to be honoured, they love their fellowmen and women and desire that they too would discover the blessings of the gospel. When they hear about gospel progress, they rejoice.

Healthy Christians realise the need for ongoing prayer. How is the gospel going to expand? They know that it only will do so through the blessing of God. Therefore, they pray for that to happen, and they pray together for that to happen, and they pray together often for that to happen. 

Healthy Christians keep an eye on the return of Christ. What do we want Jesus to say about us on that day? Surely, we want him to say that despite our failings we lived for him. In the long run, the only verdict that will matter about anything is what Jesus will say about it on that Day.

Healthy Christians know that all their spiritual experience and progress comes because they are united in a living relationship with Jesus Christ. From him and through him comes the grace that enables them to be righteous. Therefore, they depend upon him all the way. They look to him for the grace that they need, and they look expectantly because they know who he is.

A good life

I attended a significant event last week – a funeral service for one who left a powerful Christian witness behind her when she moved away from this world to the Father’s house. In our pilgrim journey we come across believers who leave their mark on us as individuals and as congregations, and we recognise the great privilege that was given to us by God in allowing us to interact with those experiencing his sanctifying grace. She was certainly that kind of person to hundreds, if not many more, of the Lord’s people who had experienced her kindness and encouragement on numerous occasions.

Inevitably, we will all be missed by family and friends. But what about the response from others? Sometimes, we hear the expression, ‘Live so as to be missed.’ The implication is that it is possible for persons to live in such a way that many will notice their absence when they leave this world and think it is the poorer without them. The Bible calls such people righteous. How can they be identified?

I suppose the list of personal features is obvious: lots of words of encouragement, persistent prayer, delight in the Bible, joy in hearing about Jesus, focus on doing small things well, spreading the faith, hatred of sin, gratitude to God, love of fellowship, fear of grieving the Spirit, thinking often about heaven, glad to see Christians, longing for revival, concerned about sanctification, amazed at adoption into God’s family, thankful for justification, and many more similar spiritual activities. 

Today is the Lord’s Day, the day above other days for soul-development, the day to use wisely and prayerfully, the day for fellowship with God and his people, the day that God delights to use to change us, and do so week after week, so that when it comes our time to leave this world, we will be missed much more than we could possibly imagine before the time.

Benefit of having the best example

In the Bible, there are many individuals whom we can admire for their dedication in serving God. And the same is true in church history. Yet usually when we reflect on their lives we either consider a strong point they possessed or a spiritual mistake that they committed.

One of the problems that comes from focusing on them is that we can feel guilty because we do show the same dedication or the same degree of repentance. I have often been told in a sermon that Martin Luther prayed for three hours a day. I feel guilty because I don’t come up to Martin’s standards. Of course, the point of highlighting this detail in his spiritual life is rendered a bit pointless when I recall Paul’s instruction that we are to pray without ceasing. In any case, dear Martin cannot do anything for me about my failure to live up to his standard.

Or we can read the psalms and observe the intensity with which the authors expressed the horror they felt because of their sins. When I use their words, I sense I don’t have the degree of insight that they had. Of course, I tend to forget that they wrote their psalms after they had been forgiven for their falls and not during their times of backsliding or temptation.

I would say that we make a big mistake when we focus on the spiritual strengths of individuals instead of focusing on the God who provided them with the grace to become the people they were. Who made a Luther a man of prayer? God did. Who can make me a man of prayer? God. Who led the psalmists to confess their sins heartily? God did. Who can enable me to confess my sins? God. Our expectant eyes should be on the God who gives grace and not on the isolated activities of his people.

Which leads us to think of who is our example. Paul wrote that we should follow him in as far as he followed Christ. The author of Hebrews, after writing chapter 11 about the heroes of the faith, tells us to fix our eyes on the example of Christ. Strangely, Jesus is our example although he is perfect. He is our example in that at every moment he wanted to serve God from the heart whatever the situation. And unlike Luther and the psalmists, he can do something for us when we fail to come up to his standard. He can forgive us because he did and does for us what all the heroes of the faith could not do - he died for our sins, he pardons our sins, and he takes us to heaven. And by speaking to him about such details as often as we can, we may find that we can pray without ceasing.

Sorry not in service

It is not unusual to see a bus which instead of stating its destination has the statement, ‘Sorry not in service.’ Perhaps there is something wrong with the bus, but the driver does not stop to tell us. Whatever may be said about the bus, it is not doing what passengers want.

Of course, standing watching such a bus disappear gives one an opportunity to think about the phrase, ‘Sorry not in service.’ Maybe it describes what is recorded by God when we choose not to attend a church service (unless we have a valid reason). Why would God be sorry that we are not in a service? One reason would be that he would not give certain blessings to us, and there are blessings that he gives to groups that he does not give to individuals. An obvious blessing is connected to attendance at the prayer meeting - sharing in the answers he gives to petitions offered at it. It would be sad to discover on the threshold of the new heavens and new earth that our absence has reduced the gracious reward he will give to us at the judgement seat because written beside our name on several occasions was ‘sorry not in service’.

Maybe the phrase could describe our minds during a service. Physically we are there, but mentally and emotionally we could be anywhere else. In that regard the only person who knows where we are is God. While God does observe what we look like externally, he is more interested in the temperature of our affections and the focus of our thinking when in his presence. He knows whether ‘sorry not in service’ covers our attendance, even if we go to every meeting.

A third way in which the phrase could be used would be to describe what we are doing for the church. It is a regular description of church life in most places that most of the work of the congregation is carried out only by a few. Of the vast majority it can be said, ‘sorry not in service’. After all, where would those churches be if those doing the work were also described as ‘sorry not in service’?

The next time we see a bus telling everyone it is not in service could be an opportunity to ask, ‘Am I in the Master’s service?’ Or maybe we should not wait for that bus to come but engage in some self-examination regarding what God says of our service in his Word. 

Living in a changing world

Paul was an observant person. He noticed what was taking place around him, even if his eyesight was not very good. Some people cannot see trees even if they are standing in a wood whereas others can see the small acorns that eventually may become a forest. Christians are meant to see the times and understand the age in which they live. Such a way of seeing is more than observing the obvious.

And it is obvious that we live in a non-Christian society. There is nothing surprising in this experience because it is the kind of society in which most Christians live today. It is also the kind of society in which the church has been usually found ever since Jesus sent out his apostles with the gospel.

In Britain, the church has been living in a non-Christian society for at least a couple of centuries, probably since the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Much of the Enlightenment influence that affected the world arose in Edinburgh through the likes of David Hume (whose statue is turning blue outside St Giles). Yet, at least, they were rational in their proposals and the church was able to interact with and critique their propositions.

Today, the worldviews that we encounter usually avoid logic. For the last half-century, many people have adopted the idea of doing their own thing, without any thought as to whether they are pleasing God or anyone else. Such an outlook is basically selfish and is usually connected to the moment, which means that it can often be impulsive and without any thought for consequences. We can read of numerous examples every day in the newspapers.

How should we as Christians live in such an era? Do we need new insights that no one has thought of before? While it can be helpful to have new initiatives, the fact is that we must follow the teachings of the Bible if we want to have true success.

And what does the Bible tell us to do? Simple things, and quite basic. It tells us to put Jesus first always, it tells us to pray fervently and often, it tells us to love others, and it tells us to witness to the gospel to those we know who are strangers to it.

If we don’t do them, all other activities will fail to have an effect for good. But if we do them, who knows what the effect will be?

Living in the kingdom of God

What ideas do we have about the kingdom of God? Perhaps we imagine, or daydream, about a smooth domain, free from troubles, where everything flows like clockwork. Is this what the disciples of Jesus were told to expect when he instructed them about his kingdom?

Jesus did say that there would be a kingdom, indeed a growing one, that would spread throughout the world. And it probably is bigger today, as far as the earth is concerned, than it has been before. Yet it is obvious that the worldwide kingdom is not trouble free anywhere.

One way that Jesus instructed about his kingdom was through parables. His parables have been described in many ways, yet we can see that most of them contain features designed to shock. In his parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13, he mentions that he will not uproot evil from alongside the places where he plants his people. That is surprising, at first, although we can see how the devil would place his plants beside the ones that Jesus has planted. The devil does so to minimise the effects of the kingdom of God. The clear conclusion is that Jesus’ plans for his followers is that they serve him in circumstances where the enemy kingdom is at work.

How are we to serve Jesus in such places? According to the parable, it is by being patient with the presence of weeds and focussing on the Day of Judgement and what will happen then.

Why should we be patient? Two reasons, maybe. Sadly some of the wheat in the parable are not much different from the weeds, so how would his disciples know definitely whether such individuals are wheat or weeds? Disciples don't have the ability to read another person's heart. The other reason is that some of the weeds will become wheat. After all, there is no other place for future wheat to come from.

Why should we focus on the Day of Judgement? The answer to that is surely obvious. Then all will know who comprised the wheat and who remained weeds. After that, there will be a smooth Kingdom for the people of God. But before then, there is the Account. All will appear before the Judge to hear what his verdict is. I suspect that there will be some surprises, even shocks, when the great Parable-Teller speaks plainly.

Where to look

Recently I read in a book that while we can only make sense of life by looking backwards we have to face it by looking forwards. I suppose the author was saying that by looking back we can see where we have come from. However, the author did not say that there was any confidence coming from looking forwards. All was uncertain in that regard.

No doubt, we can appreciate to some extent what the person meant. Yet a Christian would not share that outlook completely. After all, a Christian has another direction to look in addition to looking backwards and forwards. The Christian can also look up and express trust in the God who is leading him through life. Moreover, the God in whom he is trusting is not silent, but speaks clearly in his Word, the Bible, about the past, the present and the future.

For that author, the future was not really able to affect the present apart from taking some steps to deal with possible crises and to anticipate the effects of growing old. No doubt, that is common sense. Yet if that is all the future can give to us, then it is sad. There is not an awareness of real hope coming from that view of the future. The individual had no other world to live for, apart from the one that was going to end with death.

Today, we gather to worship God through Jesus and by the activity of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds. We do so with a strong hope about the future that affects us profoundly and enables us to anticipate it with longing and love. Through Jesus, and the triumph of his resurrection, we know that a better world is coming, and of which the presence of the Spirit in our hearts is the divine down-payment. One day, sooner than ever before, the new heavens and the new earth will be here. The longer the past gets, the better the outlook for those who live for a better world, indeed for the best possible world of glory in the presence of the Lord.

Life often means how we view the past, the present and the future. In our past, we have failures; in our present, we have weaknesses; and regarding our future, we probably have fears. Thinking only about them will diminish our faith unless we look at each through what Jesus has done, is doing and will yet do. His sacrifice on the cross means we can be forgiven our sins (not just from the past, but all of them), he is present with us by the Holy Spirit, and he is preparing a place for us to be with him for ever. So we can make sense of life by looking ahead to what is guaranteed for God’s people, both in this life and in the next, which is all connected to the presence of the Lord.

Thoughts for heavenly citizens

In Revelation 17:1–19:5, a prolonged description is given of Babylon, not the ancient city, but what it represents in Revelation, the city of fallen man as opposed to the heavenly city. How should we respond to the description because it is connected to much of what we see around us?

Babylon is condemned because she tried to take the place of God. She aimed to offer security, satisfaction, success and stability, things which only God can provide. Instead she produced danger, disappointment, failure and instability. We see that everywhere in the world. Promises that never materialise. Hopes that are dashed. Problems that are unsolved. Humans, even when functioning together, can never be God.

God tells his people in 18:4 to have nothing to do with Babylon. Since he is not describing a literal city the exit he mentions is not a physical one. Instead, it is a spiritual refusal to participate in the lifestyle advocated by the city of man. Here is a reminder that believers are to be different from those who do not serve God. 

What is our hope as we live in the city of man and watch people making war with the King? Our confidence is based on the abilities of Jesus to defeat all his opponents. Everyone who tries to defeat the kingdom of Jesus will be defeated by him. Whatever intrigue there may be between the beast, the kings and Babylon, they cannot defeat Jesus even if at times they treat his people with great cruelty.

The consolation that we can take from this description of Babylon is that the names of those it attacks are written in the book of life from the foundation of the world (17:8). We are told in chapter 5 of this book that the book of life is in the hand of the King and he is ruling to ensure that his people will be brought to glory. Because he is the King, he works all things (not just the little number things that happen to each person) together for the good of his people. Let his enemies attack, he will prosper.

Where is this all going to end? The answer to that question is with Jesus leading the praise of his people (19:5). Those who have been redeemed, whether great or small in this life, will hear the call from the Chief Musician, the Leader of the heavenly song, to participate together in a great song of praise that ascribes all the glory for their victory to God. Of course, that is not the end, but the beginning. The end of the earthly city, but not of the heavenly. Now all its citizens are together, and ahead for them is glory, with Jesus.

Knowing Jesus and his joy

The Lord’s Day is an obvious day for thinking about aspects of the experience of Jesus, our Saviour. Every detail concerning him is precious to us. There are many matters about him that we will think about today, whether in private at home or in public in church or elsewhere.

We live in a world often marked by disappointments, frustrations and sadnesses, and sometimes we are prone to think that this is the only world that there is. Yet there is another world, invisible to us, yet very real and while we cannot touch it, it can reach us. The other world is heaven, and it touches us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

In that other world Jesus is central. If we could see him we would see one who is full of joy. During his time on earth he was the man of sorrows. This does not mean that he never experienced joy. Yet he looked forward to the joy of heaven. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus endured the cross because of the joy that was before him.

On the Day of Pentecost, Peter preached a sermon in which he mentioned that David the Psalmist wrote about the joy that Jesus anticipated would be his after his resurrection (Acts 2:28). This joy would be his in the presence of the Father, which means he would experience it after his ascension to heaven. What are some of the features of his joy?

There is the joy connected to his exaltation when he was anointed with the oil of gladness (Heb. 1:9). This anointing was given him by the Father as a response to the successful work completed on the cross. Given that the Father has infinite resources then the joy bestowed is boundless and endless. The joy is the presence of the Spirit in the activities of the exalted Son.

One of those activities is the function of instruction. Jesus, now exalted, is the teacher of his church and he teaches his people joyfully through the agency of the Holy Spirit who takes of the resources of Jesus and bestows them on his people. There is a sense in which the church is the largest school in the world, even if many of its pupils are enjoying higher education in heaven. It is certainly the happiest school because of the presence of the Teacher. Through the ministry of the Spirit, Jesus is present to teach his people and he delights to inform them of the plan of salvation.

Another of his functions is that of invitation. Even as Paul says in Ephesians 3, Jesus by his Spirit through his servants preaches peace throughout the world. He is the peace-bringer as well as the peacemaker on the cross. As king, he comes to sinful rebels with the offer of pardon and invites all who hear, or read, about it to come to him by faith. His invitations are often expressions of power and many throughout the world will experience it today for the first time.

Today, the Lord’s Day, we have the opportunity of knowing the Saviour’s joy as he instructs us about his grace and invites us to experience the riches connected to it.