New Years are opportunities for fresh starts, and we all like a fresh start. Especially if the previous year was particularly difficult, if things didn’t go well, it was marked with pain, if it was fraught with challenge.

And while there might be some good things that happened in 2022, some things about last year make us want to say, ‘Good riddance!’. Especially something like the war in Ukraine; even though our churches have responded to Putin’s atrocity with valiant self-sacrifice to deliver humanitarian aid and help and rescue to those devastated by the war and those fighting on the front – we’d still rather it all be over.

In the Bible, God has a surprising amount to say about time and our relationship to it. Crossing into a new year is an opportunity to reflect on the past and to prepare for the future. Look at God’s instructions to Israel in Isaiah 43.18-19:

Remember not the former things,
    nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

1. Forget about it
The first instruction regarding time is to forget about the past: remember not the former things or consider the things of old. In the immediate context, in verses 16 and 17, the ‘old things’ reference God’s deliverance of his people from Israel: the Lord, who makes a path in the mighty waters …. The Exodus is the greatest example of God’s power to his people in the Old Testament. Why would God tell us so to forget about his greatest victory? Because what he’s up to know is even greater.

2. The Best is yet to Come
The orientation towards the future is excitement about great victory: the wild beasts will honour me, the jackals and the ostriches. The ‘wild beasts’ point to those who are far from God, those who are rebellious, those who are doing their own thing. Whatever it is that God is up to now results in surprising numbers and kinds of people being brought to him. God wins in the lives of people for whom we’ve given up hope!

3. No time like the present
The link between God’s great deeds of old and the new future He is creating is what He is up to now. First, he tells us what He is doing: I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. This paints a picture of God removing obstacles. Like he made a pathway through the waters of the Red Sea to deliver his people from Israel, God is making a way now for us to enter into experiential fulfilment of his promises. And the second thing we learn from this text is that the new thing God is doing is now; now it springs forth.

But springing forth requires us to have the eyes of faith. When a seed is planted in the ground, it is at work, it is growing, it is doing things – but we can’t see it yet. This is why God asks us, do you not perceive it? When God sends forth his word, it begins acting to accomplish his purpose, even though we can’t see it. Eventually, at the right time designated by God, God’s purpose breaks out. Something that God has planned and set in motion from eternity becomes a reality, and it feels like it happens suddenly.

Application
What should we learn from this text to apply to our lives? Here are three key things:

1) God is faithful. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and so we can trust that He will be faithful in the present as He has in the past; He did great things before, and he’ll do them again.

2) We can trust God with the future. And the future God is creating will be better than we can imagine. God will save people that we think are beyond his redemption.

3) God is leading us in victory now. We prepare ourselves to receive God’s blessings by perceiving with faith the potential of God’s Word. What God has promised, He will do; what God has spoken will happen.

Give God thanks for his faithfulness in the past; pray for God’s great victory in the future, and prepare now to receive the new things God will bring into our lives.

September has become a month in which Americans remember the horrors of 9/11; we grieve the unnecessary loss, we celebrate the courageous first responders who rescued as many as they could, and we honour the heroes on United flight 93 who revolted against the terrorists and forced the plane down before it could do worse damage.  Our national psyche retains the imprint of that fateful day, long to be remembered, never to be repeated.

The 8th of September is now a date indelibly written into the British national psyche. The passing of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II marks the end of an era. Within two days the UK welcomed a new prime minister and a new king. Though she looked frail in the photos on the 6th when she appointed the new prime minister, her death on Thursday the 8th caught the nation off guard.

The Queen is Dead; Long Live the King
It has been seventy years since this formula, noting the passing of one sovereign and the ascension of another, has been used. The national tone is one of honour, respect, grief, mourning, and uncertainty. As a dual citizen, I can also say 'we' mourn her passing. As one who became a citizen, not by birth, but by choice, I had to personally affirm an oath of allegiance to her: I swear by Almighty God that, on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors, according to law. In that sense, her passing is quite personal. Like all British citizens, she was my queen.

As the longest reigning monarch in British history, Queen Elizabeth was a unifying presence on the national stage, a rock of stability through times of transition, a voice of reassurance through turbulence and change . As the only monarch most Brits have every known, transcending party politics and reigning while 15 prime ministers served under her, it is a huge understatement to say that she will be missed.

It is reported that following a message by a royal chaplain on the second return of Christ, Queen Elizabeth commented that she hoped Christ would return in her lifetime. When asked why she held this fervent desire, the queen responded, ‘I should so love to lay my crown at His feet’. Though sovereign over what has become a multi-faith nation, her faith in Christ seems much richer than a mere ‘belief in God’.

And now there is a new king. Parallel with the grief of the Queen’s passing, the follow-up question is, ‘What sort of king will Charles III be?’ And this brings us to why this type of reflection makes its way onto a church website. What attitude does the Bible instruct us to have to those who are in authority?

Our Attitude To Kings and Prime Ministers
First, the Bible calls us to recognise God’s sovereignty in placing people in positions of power. This is particularly difficult for those who acknowledge constitutional government as of, by, and for the people. We are hard-wired to exalt the human will as supreme, but notice what Daniel says about God’s sovereignty:

Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever,
    to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons;
    he removes kings and sets up kings;
    he gives wisdom to the wise and
    knowledge to those who have understanding.
Daniel 2.20-21

It is God who changes times and seasons; it is God who removes kings and sets up kings. In democratic republics, he may do this through the means of the election process, but make no mistake: God himself claims the prerogative to install and remove kings. God’s judgment is experienced when he gives us kings – or presidents – that we deserve. His grace and mercy are when he gives us kings and presidents and prime ministers and governors better than we deserve. And such was the case with Queen Elizabeth.

So our first heart attitude towards government is to recognize that God is sovereign above the sovereign. If we have a good king, rejoice at God’s grace. If we have an evil king, repent and cry out for God’s mercy. According to this passage, one manifestation of God’s mercy is to grant leaders wisdom. Remember: The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will (Proverbs 21.1).  

The second attitude we scripture invites us to adopt is to pray for those in authority. Notice what Paul instructed Timothy to instruct the churches:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
1 Timothy 2.1-4

The instruction is clear: we should offer supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for kings and those in high positions [of authority]. Remember that when Paul wrote this, he lived under an autocratic regime, ruled by a tyrant at whose hands he would die just a few years later. Paul doesn’t ask us to pray for monarchs or government leaders because we like them, because ‘our team won the election’, or because they are good people. All of that would be easy. Actually, the more wicked a government is, the more they need our prayer!

But notice why the Lord invites us to pray for national and political leaders. It is so that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way … because God desires all people to be saved. More than political victories, God is interested in kingdom advance. We pray for leaders so that we can retain freedom to be faithful stewards of the gospel.

One day the true King, the high King will return. Daniel describes the King like this:

And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
Daniel 7.14

The kingdom of the true king is permanent; it will last forever. The kings and presidents and prime ministers and governors of this earth come and go; but the true King is eternal; his kingdom will not be destroyed. Our job is to faithfully steward the gospel so that as many people as possible can enjoy the benefits of kingdom citizenship.

Thank you, Queen Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth, we thank you for your faithful years of service and your model of faith, virtue, and resilient fortitude through times both good and bad. May God bless the reign of your son, His Majesty King Charles III. May we live quiet peaceful lives and faithfully steward the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in a nation that so desperately needs to know his love, his grace, his forgiveness, and his presence.

^{Photo: Unknown / Library and Archives Canada, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons}

Easter is when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The resurrection is described in all of the gospel accounts, and the startling feature of these descriptions is how fact-based they are. Rather than describing the mechanics of how Jesus was raised from the dead (which Paul affirms is by the power of the Holy Spirit – Rom. 1.4), the gospels describe how people encountered the resurrected Lord. That is, the focus is on eye-witness accounts.

As told by John, the resurrection of Jesus was encountered in two parts: first, the empty tomb was discovered; second, the resurrected Christ was encountered. Normally when we think of emptiness, it is an inconvenience. Like an empty milk carton. Or an empty toilet roll. Or an empty petrol tank.

But sometimes emptiness takes a darker form – like the emptiness of grief over something loss, the emptiness of fear about an uncertain future, or the emptiness of doubts regarding good news that can’t be verified. In the 20th chapter of John’s gospel we learn that the impact of Jesus’ resurrection was simply theological, but personal: in his encounters with Mary, the disciples, and Thomas, the fulness of Jesus fills the human emptiness he encounters.

The discovery of the empty tomb happened early on the first day of the week, the third day after Jesus has been crucified and buried outside the walls of Jerusalem. Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons (Luke 8.2), had made her way to the tomb (with some other women, Luke 24.10) to finish preparing the body of Jesus for burial. But when she arrived, she saw that the stone in front of the tomb had been rolled away. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and John (the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved), and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him’.

Observe: The reason that Mary made the discovery of the empty tomb is that she was still looking for Jesus. The discovery of the empty tomb was not a sufficient condition to prove the resurrection, but it was a necessary condition. Mary wasn’t yet thinking about resurrection; she still assumed that someone had moved the body of Jesus.

Based on Mary’s report, Peter and John ran from where they were staying to the tomb and discovered it was as Mary said. John arrived first, and looked in the tomb; Peter followed, but pushed past and went into the tomb. Where the body of Jesus had been laid, they saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus's head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.

According to Luke, Peter went home marvelling at what had happened, but by his own account, John saw and believed. However, they did not yet understand that the resurrection had been prophesied in scripture.

Meanwhile Mary made her way back to the garden tomb; having not just lost a friend and teacher, but someone who had healed her from the darkness of demonic oppression, Mary was weeping. She encountered someone she took for the gardener; it was Jesus but she didn’t recognise him. He asked her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’. The answer to Jesus’s question is that Mary would not be weeping if she knew who she was really seeking, and that is, the resurrected Lord.  Mary, however, missed the point, and wanted to know if the gardener could help her find Jesus. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” At this point Jesus revealed his true identity simply by saying, ‘Mary’.

But this is what we should notice. Jesus didn’t simply minister directly to Mary’s grief, he give her a hug and say, ‘It’s going to be OK’. Jesus ministered to Mary’s grief by giving her a mission, ‘Go to my brothers and say …’. And that’s what Mary did: went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

Jesus dealt with Mary's grief by his personal encounter and sending her on a mission. When we give ourselves to doing what Jesus has given us to do, our personal grief rooted in past loss is evaporated in the glory of sharing with others God's good news.  

Later that same day Jesus visited the disciples. They were hiding in a house behind locked doors, afraid that the leaders who had arrested and crucified Jesus might come for them next. Jesus ministers to their fear through his peace and his presence. He wishes them Shalom – the full blessing of God, and with that, is with them.

By showing them the wounds in his hands and his side, Jesus affirms to the disciples that He is in fact the same Jesus who had been crucified. The main point of this passage is that Jesus appeared to the disciples, and they believed – not only in Jesus who died, but now, in Jesus who was raised.

But also, we are all susceptible to fear, what we learn that Jesus doesn’t just wish us well but personally steps into our pain with us.

One of the disciples – Thomas – was not with Jesus when he appeared to the disciples. He made a resolute decision not to believe: ‘Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe’. •             Thomas’ emptiness was the doubt that the reports about Jesus were too good to be true.

Eight days later the disciples were together again and Thomas with them this time, and Jesus appeared to them again. Jesus showed Thomas his hands and his side, but this time, rather than doubting, Thomas made a profound and poweful exclamation: ‘My Lord and my God’. Thomas finally understood that the Risen Christ was not only Lord, he was God in the flesh.

Jesus loved Thomas enough not to leave him in doubt; he alleviated doubt with his personal presence; Jesus filled Thomas’ emptiness with himself.

God’s fulness is greater that our emptiness; the resurrection of Jesus is not a theological concept but a fact that changes everything. But more than demonstrating Christ’s victory over death, hell, and the grave, the resurrection of Jesus changes things for us personally. Christ meets us in the place of grief, of fear, and of doubt and draws us into an encounter with the resurrected Lord.

In John 1.16, the apostle who looked in and saw the empty tomb writes: 'And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace’. The fulness of Christ fills the emptiness of his followers such that grief is transformed to mission; fear is transformed to gladness, and doubt is transformed into faith.

Are you ready for the new year? Are you ready for all the Lord is going to do in 2022?
There are lots of scriptures that prepare us spiritually, emotionally, and mentally for stepping into the future. Our tendency is to carry the past with us. When we talk about the past, there is ‘good past’ and ‘bad past’.

Good past is the spiritual inheritance we have received from God, his Word, and the church. This is the inheritance about which we are told ‘Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set’ (Deuteronomy 22.28). And so we work hard to be very unoriginal regarding doctrine; the Bible and the creeds and our Reformation fathers have given us an inheritance to be preserved.

In addition to doctrine, we have the testimony of scripture regarding how God works, and the testimony of our lives regarding how He has worked in our lives. These work together to affirm that God is God, God is good, and God is powerful to accomplish his will. And so our expectation about the future is rooted in who God is and how he has worked in history.

But in addition to the good bits of the past, there are also bad bits of the past. Our personal failures, disappointments, and life detours can try to creep into the present and derail our destiny. This is why the Lord tells us in Isaiah 43.18-29 to

Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

The Lord is pointing to a very positive future – a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. That is, the Lord gives us direction and the Lord gives us provision. But what is the price we have to pay to get there? That’s the first part of the verse:

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.

What is it that we have to let go of in order to step into the new? We have an example in the post-resurrection story of Peter and fishing.

As described in John 20.1-15, Peter and the other apostles encountered the resurrected Jesus on two occasions. And perhaps they understood what this meant in terms of their personal destiny, but they did not understand what it meant for kingdom destiny.

To step into the future God had for him, Peter had to let go of the vocation he knew – catching fish. Catching fish is good – for fishermen. But the good can be the enemy of the best. The Lord had bigger plans for them than they realised. And so Jesus begins teaching them something the third time that he appears.

Let’s look at this:
 

• I am going fishing is Peter’s default response. All of us are hard-wired to revert to what we know. Einstein said Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. To step into what God had for him, Peter had to let go of what he knew.
• Resurrection life is insufficient to redirect our lives. In addition to being born again, we have to embrace a different way of thinking. Peter and the apostles already knew the resurrected Lord, but this was insufficient to accomplish Peter's resurrection.
• Children, do you have any fish? Jesus is asking, Guys, how’s this working out for you? How’s this going back to the old ways working out for you? Of course, he knew the answer.
• Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some. Jesus gives the disciples a hint of what’s to come by inviting them to experience something new by doing something new. Casting on the other side represents a new thing. To step into the new things God has for us, we have to do new things.
• So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish.  The Lord has more for us than we realise. All it took on the part of the disciples is an act of obedience; all it took for the full boat is for God to do God-stuff.
• When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. Abandoning ourselves to the Lord is the first step towards stepping into all that he has for them.
• So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Not only were Peter and the disciples given a big catch, but the catch was able to be preserved. This was a ‘new thing’, because the last time Peter and the disciples were given a big catch by Jesus they could not contain it.
• Feed my lambs. Jesus invites Peter into an outward-direction, other-orientated life. This is where Peter begins to understand that the resurrection ‘new life’ Jesus purchased for him wasn’t simply about personal wholeness but serving others. The manifestation of Jesus’ resurrection life in Peter was a life devoted to feeding His lambs.

Based on past experiences in life and with God, all of us enter 2022 with baseline expectations. Like Peter, it is easy for us to revert to what we know – the familiar, the expected, the routine.

But consider the possibility that the Lord has new direction and provision for you in the new year. And consider the possibility that the new thing God has for you is rooted in a life devoted to serving, feeding, and ministering to others. If we only do what is familiar, we’ll only get the same results we have before. But there may be ‘another side of the boat’ to which Jesus is calling us to move.

It's Christmas week, that time of year we tend to be scurrying about preparing to celebrate Christ's birth with friends, family, and loved ones. For the second year in a row I'm filled with a tinge of sadness that our church will not be gathered together on Christmas Eve.

We continue to live in a less than ideal global situation, but this in itself should give us great courage. Because it was into a less than ideal global situation that Christ was born. Actually, the reason God became man and dwelt amongst us was to solve the sinful situation that dominated humanity from the time of Adam's rebellion.

So as Advent season comes to its climax, we pause to reflect on God's greatest gift to us - Jesus. In Luke 1.26-38 we have the remarkable story of Gabriel announcing to Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus. In this text we learn something about God, something about Jesus, something about Mary, and something about ourselves.

First, we learn that God keeps his word. He promised all the way back in Genesis 2.16 that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. He repeated this promise in many ways and places like Isaiah 9.6 when he promised to send a child born and a son given that would be Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. When Gabriel showed up with this announcement for Mary, this is God keeping his word. We also learn that God involves people in his plans. But perhaps most strikingly, we learn that God acts like God. Nothing shall be impossible for God. God doing God stuff like creation, resurrection, and virginal conception are as easy as you wiggling your finger or breathing. God does what God wants to do.

This text is his conception announcement, so he hasn’t been born yet. But we learn that his name shall be Jesus which means Yahweh saves. Gabriel refers to him as the Son of the Most High and the Son of God. We learn that as the son of David he will fulfil the covenant God made with David in 2 Samuel 7. Not only that, but as Israel’s promised king, he will rule forever. Finally, and the key point in this passage, we learn that Jesus will be conceived by the Holy Spirit. The holiness of Jesus in connection with this conception further indicates the significance of this fact. The Virgin Birth is a core tenet of the Christian faith affirmed in both the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creed. But this texst goes further, asserting that Jesus was conceived in a virgin.

The significance of the virgin conception and birth is that Jesus did not inherit sinfulness from Adam. All human people, apart from Christ, have been born into and under the law of sin and death. Through one may death came into the world, and death through sin. But Jesus had God as his Father, not Adam. This means that when Jesus died on the cross, it wasn’t for his own sin or sinfulness. Rather, he died for us, in our place, on the cross, because he didn’t have to pay for his own sins, he took the penalty that should have come to us.

Mary is a tricky character in church history. Because some church traditions have, in contradiction of scripture, assigned to her a mediatorial role (there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2.5), other traditions have reacted to this and virtually ignored her. As noted, she is referenced in both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, and is one of the few followers of Jesus to accompany him to the cross. Though it is on the basis of God’s grace and not her own merit that the Lord chose her, still … out of all the women in world history, God chose Mary to the be the mother of Jesus.

Here’s what we learn about Mary: 1) The Lord is with her; 2) she’s the recipient (not giver) of God’s grace; 3) she’s betrothed to be married but is a virgin; 4) she will conceive by the Holy Spirit. As amazing as all of this is, it is Mary’s response to God that stands out. Knowing she would face the opprobrium of being an unmarried pregnant girl trying to explain ‘but the child is from God!’, she nevertheless submits to God’s will: Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word’. (Luke 1.38). That is the heart of a disciple – submitting to the will and the Word of God even though it costs something.

The historical significance of this passage is confirming 1) how God intervened in Mary’s life, and 2) the nature of the conception by which the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The theological significance of this is that Christ could die for our sins because he was sinless because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that He is the promised one who will finally invert the damage done by Adam and Eve. But there is also practical significance – things we can learn for ourselves about how God wants us to live.

We learn that God wants us to live by faith; because nothing is impossible with God, we should trust him. We learn that submitting to God’s will and God’s word is the right way to follow Jesus. Mary models for us faithful discipleship by adopting the posture of a servant and submitting to God’s Word.

But in the context of the mission God has given us, perhaps the most important thing we learn from God’s intervention in Mary’s life is that he uses people for his purpose. The almighty God uses us in his mission. God told Mary in Luke 1.35 that ‘the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you’. What I want you to notice is that the same word used here for ‘come upon’ is used by Jesus in Acts 1.8 when he says, ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you’.

The Holy Spirit came on Mary to bring Jesus to us; the Holy Spirit comes on us to share Jesus with the world. And this really is the point of Christmas: Jesus is God’s greatest gift, but that gift needs to be given to those who don’t yet know him. We live in a world that desperately needs God’s grace given through Jesus and shared by us: we position ourselves for participation by saying ‘Be it done to me according to your word’.

Drawing on this passage, there are three ways we need to respond to God:

1) Sharing: This is the reason we are in the very secular, very gospel resistant continent of Europe; we are sharing with those who live in darkness the good news of who Jesus is, what he did, and what it means. God gave us his best gift and we are doing our best to share him with others.

2) Faith: With God, nothing is impossible: creation, virgin conceptions resurrection. This is just God doing God-stuff. That means all things are possible. The Lord invites us on a faith adventure for gospel advance.

3) Service: Mary teaches us how to respond to God through her response. The Word of God is our best way forward; adopting the attitude of a servant – I am the servant of the Lord – is our attitude of victory.

I believe the Lord has good things in store for us in the new year. By being faithful to share, faithful to believe, and faithful to serve, we position ourselves before God to receive everything he has for us.

I have a friend over there in those United States who really annoys me. When I ask him, ‘How are you doing?’, he responds with, ‘I’m blessed!’. It’s frustrating because when I ask how he’s doing, I really want to know! Now, Americans use that question How ya doin’? as a greeting, kind of like ‘Hi!’. And so it’s most often not a request for a 15-minute download on the state of your soul. But when I ask someone, ‘How’s it going?’, I do, genuinely, want to know.

And that’s what makes my friend’s response so frustrating. Whatever it is that is going on in his soul, his family, his work, his life … I don’t get any download on that; rather, I receive from him a faith statement – an affirmation of what is true in his life by virtue of his adoption status as a child of God. He is simply referencing Ephesians 1.3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

What an amazing statement! We are blessed with every spiritual blessing! So even though frustrating on one level, my friend’s statement is a power move: rather than interpreting his life circumstantially on the basis of what’s going on, he interprets his life positionally on the basis of God’s promise to him. To walk by faith means to inhabit God’s promises as our defining reality.

To experience the fulness of what God has for us in this life requires us to adopt this faith perspective. To help us gain this perspective and understand the habit of faith, we’re going to listen to the greatest faith teacher in history – Jesus.

This text is fascinating and challenging, but before we consider it, let’s put it in context. At this time – after his Triumphal Entry and during the week leading up to his crucifixion, Jesus was staying in Bethany and daily going through to Jerusalem (the village of Bethany, where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived, was only two miles from Jerusalem, or about a 40-minute walk).  One day, as he was leaving Bethany on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus was hungry: seeing a fig tree, he hoped to find figs, but did not, and so cursed the fig tree ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again’ (Mark 11.14).

The next day Peter noticed that the fig tree had withered to the roots; he was impressed and pointed this out to Jesus. This set Jesus up for a profound but challenging teaching moment:

And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea’, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11.22-24

This is a difficult text for Christians to read and hear objectively because it has been taken out of context and misapplied by ‘prosperity preachers’ who use phrases like ‘name it and claim’ and ‘you can have what you say’. These teachers portray words like magic potions that enables us to create our own reality. Like any good false teaching, there is a grain of truth in these emphases; words are powerful and creative. But our tendency is to over-react to the misapplication of these teachings and thus to water down what Jesus actually says and means. Let’s let Jesus teach us about faith.

In these three short verses Jesus packs a package of five key instructions about how to develop the habit of faith. Let’s unpack these.

The foundation of the praying and speaking that Jesus teaches about is having faith in God. Faith is simply believing that God is who he says he is and that He will do what he said he will do. Hebrews 11.1 defines faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. That is, faith is confidence that God is really God, and trusting God to do God-stuff, acting consistently with his character, fulfil his promises and keep his word.

This statement have faith in God is the most important part of Jesus’ teaching. All the other actions extend from real, genuine, rock-solid faith in God. Faith is the appropriate response to the revelation that God is who God is – that he is almighty, all knowing, good, perfect, holy, and benevolent. In short, God is exactly how he has revealed himself in the Bible to be.

Let’s be honest. Faith is not a natural, normal human response. Doubt and unbelief are both natural and normal. It is normal for the sinful heart of humans to doubt. There are two sources of doubt and unbelief in our lives – our inherited sinfulness and our cultural context. The very first human sin was doubting God’s word (Gen. 3.1-7); since the sin of our ancestors, every human naturally doubts God and his word. In addition to our internal tendency to manifest unbelief we also live in a context that champions questioning, doubt, cynicism, scepticism, and a critical perspective. To walk in faith is not natural, it is spiritual; to walk in faith is extremely counter cultural.

The opposites of faith are both fear and doubt. Doubt is believing that God won’t be faithful to his character and his word; fear (the dark room where negatives are developed) believes that the negative things we can imagine are going to happen – that God is not going to intervene the way we want him to.

How do we displace doubt and fear and grow in faith? Very simply, we build our lives on God’s word. That means we regularly, consistently read and meditate on the word of God. When we open the Bible and read it, we step into a world in which God is God and acts like God and speaks like God unfiltered through the limitations of our doubt and unbelief.  Paul expressed it like this: ‘Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ’ (Romans 10.17). So as you regularly read the Bible, faith grows, doubt is displaced, and we walk forward with the confidence that will fulfil his promises in our lives.

This is what Jesus said: ‘Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea’… (Mark 11.23).

Most of us find it easier to talk to God rather than speaking to mountains. Remember the beginning of this passage? Jesus talked to a tree … and the tree obeyed him! It can feel weird to speak to inanimate objects – or to situations – as if they can hear us. So why does Jesus want us to speak to mountains?

Jesus teaches us that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12.34). If we do Step1 – have faith in God by allowing God’s word to fill our hearts and minds, the faith God’s word produces will leak out of our lives through our words. But deeper – when we have a revelation of God’s greatness, power and might, even the biggest mountain gets reduced in size to a mole hill. So Jesus wants us full of a vision of God, and he wants us speaking boldly to mountains.

What is a mountain? My reading is that a mountain is any barrier standing between us and the purpose of God. Why does the Lord permit mountains? So we can learn how to exercise faith.  

The Lord says, ‘ … and does not doubt in his heart, ...'. This is one of those frustrating statements of Jesus – it’s so simple, but its so hard to do. And yet, Jesus in his grace and love challenges us by identifying the attitude that sabotages faith. Why is doubt so pernicious? In essence, doubt questions God’s goodness and faithfulness. But where would this doubt come from if God’s word teaches us that God is good, faithful, and to be trusted? Very simply, doubt comes from being an empiricist; that is, we reach conclusions about God on the basis of observation and experience rather than reaching conclusions about observation and experience on the basis of who God is and how he works. Jesus is asking us to put on a theological (God-centred) lens to evaluate life, rather than an anthropological (human centred) lens to evaluate God.

‘…but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him’.

This is what you need to see in this phrase: the believing is done before the event comes to pass. If you have already experienced the thing you are speaking about, it’s not faith, it’s thanksgiving. Faith means that we believe that what we say is going to happen (move, mountain!) before it happens. In the context of Mark 11, Jesus had no doubt the fig tree would wither. He cursed it, he believed it before it happened, it happened the way he said and the way he believed … end of story. The teaching that follows this event confirms that Jesus wants us to walk in that kind of faith.

‘Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours’.

Jesus takes his faith teaching and applies it to prayer. This is a radical statement – ‘whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours’. It makes us very nervous and very hesitant; we want to immediately begin adding qualifications. Multiple scriptures do that for us; for example, 1 John 5.14 says, ‘And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us’. Jesus has already taught us to pray, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done’. So of course we want to pray in line with God’s will as revealed in his word. But from observation, most Christians err far on the side of timidity and qualification rather than boldness and audacity. Jesus simply wants us to believe we have received something when we ask for it. And he says, ‘Whatever …’. As a father, I get thrilled when a child asks me for something. Even if the thing they ask for is stupid and dangerous, the fact that they are looking to me to provide for them – that’s what fathers do. I believe the Lord is much more bothered by a lack of faith than with audacity or presumption in ‘asking for too much’.

Finally, before moving on to the next section, if you read through Mark 11.22-24 you’ll notice these words: faith, says, believes, says, ask, believe. That is, you have to do as much saying as you do believing. We’re going to come back to this principle in our application: the habit of faith means speaking consistently with God is and how he works.

Before we move on to practical application I want to briefly describe the nature of faith. Our focus is the habit of faith, not faith itself, but to develop the habit, we need to understand faith.

The essence of faith is believing that God is God, he does what he says, and trusting him.
Hebrews 11.1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

The best way to grow in faith is to read and meditate on God’s word. Romans 10.17. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

To walk by sight means that we live on the basis of perception; to walk by faith means that live on the basis of God’s promises. This does not mean that we live in the tension of cognitive dissonance between what is observable and what’s promised, but rather, we simply affirm and believe and live like this: God has the final word.

2 Corinthians 4.18. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 5.7. For we walk by faith, not by sight.

The believing part of this relates to God’s promises; we believe that God will do what he said he would do. The speaking part of this relates to God’s word. We speak God’s word as a default move in life’s situations.

This is true in salvation:
Romans 10.8-10. The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, 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. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

This is true in how we live life:
2 Corinthians 4.13: Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke”, we also believe, and so we also speak.

That is, faith protects from Satanic attack, and faith moves forward in God’s purposes. Satanic attack comes in the form of temptation, but especially lies and accusations (about God, about yourself, and about others).

Defensive Faith:
Ephesians 6.16: In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

Offensive Faith:
Hebrews 11.32-34: Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Satan has fiery darts from which we need to be protected; we defeat his attacks by faith.
God has stuff for us to do; the only way we will press forward into what He has for us is by faith.

As I bring this to a close I want to focus on application. There are four areas where we need to develop the faith habit of believing God’s promises and speaking God’s word.

Psalm 42.5: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation.

The Psalmist’s soul had a tendency to get stuck in ditches; rather than allowing this to be the defining situation in his life, he began speaking to his soul. His words were rooted in faith – that God is his salvation – and this faith moved from his heart to his mouth, and he spoke God’s word.

There are times in life that the only way out of your soul ditch is to speak God’s word to your own heart.

Acts 26.16: But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you.

This is a statement Paul made towards the end of ministry years as he made a defence of his life, ministry, and gospel to king Agrippa. But here, he is still rehearsing the words Jesus spoke to him many years before – the words of destiny, and calling and ministry. Paul faced many forces trying to knock him off course; rehearsing God’s call helped to keep him on target in the face of great obstacles.

Matthew 16.18: I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

If anyone had a right to be concerned about his church, it was Jesus: one of his inner circle was going to betray him, another would deny knowing him, the rest of them would flee at his moment of greatest need. And then, even after the resurrection, they all decided to quit the ministry and go back to fishing. From a human perspective, this was not a great church Jesus was leading! And yet, Jesus didn’t look at what he could see in the natural, he say with the eyes of faith and declared, ‘I will build a church so prevailing hell can’t defeat it!!!’

How do you look at your church? Do you judge it by what you can see, or do you see with the eyes of faith? Do you complain about it, or do you speak words life, growth, blessing, and flourishing over you church? Join with Jesus and extend faith by speaking God’s promises over your church.

John 4.35. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.
  
Jesus sees that the fields are white for harvest. And our tendency is to think, ‘Sure! Jesus was the greatest evangelist ever!’. And he was. But take a moment to look at the harvest field he called ripe. This was 1st century Israel, where some people loved him, but there was a movement that hated him so much they eventually killed him. In the face of intense opposition, Jesus looked past the circumstances to the power of God to break into human situations.

We live in a spiritually dark context. The degree of gospel-resistant secularism marking Europe is staggering. Your workplace is probably populated with people that have no time for God whatsoever. This is the reality that marks our lives.

But Jesus invites us to see a bigger reality, a deeper reality, God’s reality. And God’s reality is that he is on the move, his gospel is advancing, he is working in the lives of people that we don’t know about. Our job is to come alongside God and extend faith by speak words of life and blessing about our context. In short, don’t curse the darkness; light a candle.

Whatever you get out of this, here’s the main point: have faith in God; let God’s word dwell richly in your heart; speak God’s word into the life situations you encounter.

Many years ago when living in Ukraine I decided to get ‘back in shape’. Motivated by memories of my high-school age American football body, I was prompted to go to the gym. Throwing caution and good sense to the wind, assuming that ‘I’ve still got it!’, forgetting the degree of muscle atrophy that would have transpired over the ten years or more since I had regularly lifted weights, I packed as many kilos onto the bar as I remembered being able to lift previously. The results were predictable: pulled by gravity, a force that had not diminished in the intervening decade, the barbell plummeted earthward, and no effort of mine was budging. I was pinned by the bar to the bench.

There are basically only two ways out of this situation of being pinned under weight that can’t be moved. The ‘solo’ option is to roll the barbell down the body to a manageable place from which one extracts themselves from the predicament. There are various levels of discomfort associated with this manoeuvre, and so it is only done when option two isn’t available.

Option two is to call for help. Thankfully, I wasn’t alone in the gym; there was one other person there, the fitness instructor ‘on call’. The only problem was the gym attendant was a thin, super-fit young woman about half my size. It was embarrassing to lift my voice and ask for help from someone I should have been much stronger than. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and pride hurt less than the body roll.

As we reflect on the habit of fellowship, we see that God loves us enough to place us in a spiritual family where we look out for one another.

In Acts 2.42-47 we see a picture of the embryonic church in the New Testament. This is a picture of the church immediately after the day of Pentecost; the resurrection of Jesus was fresh on everyone’s hearts and minds, the Holy Spirit had been poured out, people were responding to the gospel daily, persecution had not yet started and there was a deep sense of camaraderie shared by all were part of this new and exciting church.

There is much to learn from this picture of the early church; I want to focus on one dimension captured in the words and phrases devotion, fellowship, and together. The word devotion means ‘to attend constantly, persist, persevere in, continue steadfast in; wait upon’. That is, this wasn’t a passing, flippant, ‘I’ll do it if I feel like’ attitude; these people are deeply committed to the practice of four key things identified in verse 42, and one of those is ‘fellowship’. The word fellowship (Gr. koinania) means partnership, contributory help, participation, sharing in, communion, spiritual fellowship, a fellowship in the Spirit.

A couple of key observations emerge from this. First, fellowship is both a verbe and a noun. Often we think of fellowship as ‘hanging out’, and it can be, but it’s much more. Second, note that the definite article ‘the’ is used; not just ‘a fellowship’, or fellowship in general, but ‘the fellowship’. I think ‘the fellowship’ references the shared life of partnership and participation in God’s covenant people.  But it is lived out in the context of real commitments to real people in a real local church.

Before looking at practical ways to be devoted to ‘the fellowship’, let’s take a moment to root this in theological perspective. The life we share together is a reflection of the life we share in God. That is, part of what God does in salvation is to root us in himself. This could be an entire blog in itself, but consider this:

• GOD IS FATHER, and that means we are brothers and sisters through adoption
  • 1 John 3.1: See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.
• GOD IS SON, and we are all part of the body. 
  • 1 Corinthians 12.12, 27: For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
• GOD IS SPIRIT, and we are all share the same Spirit
  • 1 Corinthians 12.13: For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

The point is that we have a deep connection, not only with God, but with each other. Through our personal connection with God, in Christ, by the Spirit, we share real connection to, between, and for each other.

Some Christian traditions take seriously the family metaphor for church by calling each other ‘brother so and so’ and ‘sister so and so’. If that’s not your background, it can sound artificial and a bit weird. But the sentiment behind it is beautiful. More important than calling each other brother and sister is the practice of treating each other like family, and this brings us to reflecting on the practice of fellowship.  

Remember that ‘fellowship’ is both a noun and a verb. That is, we live ‘in the fellowship’ by ‘fellowshipping’. But the practice of fellowship is more than hanging out and doing fun stuff together. There is a place for that, but the commitment to which God calls us transcends affinity-based relationships. This is such an important thread that runs through the New Testament, it is worth pausing and noting.

To help provoke us to examing the kind of relationships God wants us to have, consider this list of ‘one anothers’ that runs through the New Testament.

• Love one another with brotherly affection. (Rom. 12.10)
• Outdo one another in showing honour. (Rom. 12.10)
• Live in harmony with one another. (Rom. 12.16)
• Welcome one another (Rom. 15.7)
• Care for one another. (1 Cor. 12.25)
• Comfort one another, agree with one another, (2 Cor. 13.11)
• Through love serve one another. (Gal. 5.13)
• Bear one another's burdens, (Gal. 6.2)
• Be kind to one another, forgiving one another (Eph. 4.32)
• Teaching and admonishing one another (Col. 3.16)
• Encourage one another (1 Thess. 4.18)
• Exhort one another (Heb. 3.13)
• Stir up one another (Heb. 10.23)
• Show hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4.9)
• Serve one another (1 Peter 4.10)

That’s some list!!! But that’s what the relational dimension of New Testament Christianity looks like. Here’s the point: God calls us to be sufficiently committed to the fellowship to faithfully fulfil the ‘one anothers’. If you’re not relationally close enough to the fellowship to do the ‘one anothers’, you’re not close enough.

So what does this look like in real life? What is the Lord actually asking us for? How can we turn a beautiful ideal of living the one another’s into action? Here are three steps to take:

• Show up. This is the practice of availability. We need to make time to connect.
• Give up. This is the practice of generosity. Come ready to give of yourself to those you are connected with.
• Grow up. This is the practice of vulnerability. Open up when you have needs.

Remember the story of me being pinned by the weights in the gym in Ukraine? Here’s the deal: some days, we’re the ones who are pinned underneath the weight of life, the burdens, the challenges the pain – whatever it is that is weighing us down, and we need to ask for help. Other days, it’s one of our brothers or sisters who are in need of help. But the calling of God is to build a life sufficiently devoted to the fellowship that we can give – or receive – assistance when it is needed. Some days, we need help. Other days, we give help. But together, the body builds itself up in love (Eph. 4.16). Together, we shift all the weight we need to and walk in the freedom made available through Christ as God’s sons and daughters. And in those moments of help, we reach down into our identity as God’s children and say about each other, ‘He’s not heavy; he’s my brother!’

In the 80’s, the rapper M.C. Hammer sang 'You got to pray just to make it today'. The habit of prayer is about more than surviving a day, its about building a rich life in and with God.
There is a sense in which you are your habits; you are those things that you do repeatedly. A habit is an automated behaviour that we repeat over and over again in the same context or environment and that run in our subconscious mind. If you change your habits you can change your life.

God loves enough to invite us into a lifestyle of life-giving habits. There are patterns of thinking, doing, being, that when these are built into our lives as automated behaviours, they accrue to spiritual vitality. And one of those habits is prayer.

It may be that you are a prayer warrior – you pray consistently, boldly, strongly, and have a very consistent prayer life. Others might struggle with the content or the routine of prayer; this blog is aimed at those who want to develop a better prayer life.

At its most basic level, to pray means to entreat or implore; to make an earnest request. But when we turn to the teachings of Jesus on prayer, he both expanded the understanding of prayer and made it very simple. But before we unpack the teaching of Jesus on prayer, we want to look at the priority he put on prayer.

Notice how prayer emerges over and over again as a regular part of the life of Jesus.

• Mark 1.35: And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.
• Luke 5.16: But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
• Mark 6.46: And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
• Luke 9.18: Now it happened that as he was praying alone,
• Luke 9.29: And as he was praying, …
• Luke 11.1: Now Jesus was praying in a certain place …
• Luke 22.41: And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed,

The apostles asked Jesus how to pray, and he taught them. And he taught them so well that this same pattern got built into their lives:

• Acts 1.14: All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
• Acts 1.24: And they prayed …
• Acts 2.42: And they devoted themselves to … the prayers.
• Acts 3.1: Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.
• Acts 4.31: And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
• Acts 6.4: But we will devote ourselves to prayer

And the list goes on. The point is that prayer was not just an occasional resource in time of need, it was a perpetual pattern in the life of Jesus and the early church. This is the big idea I want you to understand:

Moments of prayer are refreshing; the pattern of prayer is life changing.

The Bible says much about prayer, and there are many dimensions of prayer, and many benefits it provides to its practitioners. To help us understand this, I’ve boiled this down to two key benefits: possession and peace.

By possession, I meant that it is through prayer that we come to possess the promises God offers. Jesus said this, ‘your Father knows what you need before you ask him’. We don’t ask God to inform him of something he didn’t’ know; he already knows what we need. We don’t ask to convince God to give us things; he already wants to bless us. Rather, God wants us to ask so that we can connect his provision with our asking, thereby growing in our appreciation of and gratitude towards him. God displays his fatherly affection towards his children by answering those prayers prayed in accordance with his will so that we might grow in devotion to our Father.

But more than brining us to possess his promises, it is through prayer that the Lord floods our soul with peace. This is the key point of Philippians 4.6-7:

In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Fully unpacking this rich text would fill a blog by itself, but note these two points: first, it is in everything that we are meant to pray. Every human situation is an arena for God’s intervention, and it is through prayer that we invite God into those places. The fruit of this praying is that the peace of God … will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Our struggle is that we often don’t bring to the Lord those things that are troubling our soul. This is not the place to explore why we are sometimes hesitant to bring things to the Lord, but we are. However, God’s promise is that when we do, his peace will guard our hearts. That peace, the overwhelming sense of well being rooted in the goodness and care of God – this is our inheritance. But rather than running to God and receiving this peace, we allow ourselves to get caught in the whirlpool of dark thoughts, ruminations, worrying. We take an issue and look at it from every perspective, worrying about possible outcomes, rather than bringing it to God. Here’s a handy quote to help you remember to pray:

Rumination is an Indication for Supplication.

That means, whenever you find yourself in a whirl of darkness and doubt, this is an indicator to bring this to the Lord in prayer.

Faith is the fundamental posture for successfully approaching God. Not only do we have to believe that he is, but that ‘He is a rewarder of those who seek him’. This, in many ways, is the motivation for seeking him: we seek, we approach, we pray – not only because its right, but because it has benefits. God rewards those who seek him with faith.

Jesus himself is the most ardent, radical faith teacher ever; look at how he taught prayer: Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours (Mark 11.24).

First, we have to ask; second, we have to believe that we have received it before we receive it. If we received it first, that wouldn’t be faith, but thanksgiving. Faith is daring to believe that God is going to answer our prayers. This is the posture by which we approach God.
Let me summarise the posture of faith in prayer: ask BIG, ask BEAUTIFUL, ask BOLD(ly). By ask big, I mean, ask in the context of God’s greatness, his magnificence, his providential power. God is able to do what he determines to do. Second, by ask beautiful, I mean, ask with a view to God’s goodness: He is a good good Father who delights to meet the needs of his children. Third, ask boldly: dare to pray the prayers we find in scripture with the confidence that God listens and is inclined towards us.

Finally, we come to the main point, the practice of prayer. Jesus is both insightful and practical in his teaching on prayer. Many people are familiar with ‘the Lord’s Prayer’, and I incorporate this prayer into my daily praying. I view these words both as things to be prayed and categories to be prayed. This means that the Lord’s Prayer is like an accordion; it can be contracted or expanded to fit as much or little time as you have. So let’s look at these key categories:

Our Father in heaven
We begin by remembering that we have been adopted in the family of God, saved by grace, through faith, cleansed by the blood of Jesus, so that we can now call God Father. We thank God for our salvation in Christ, for his adoption, his grace and mercy. If you have trouble remembering what God has done for you in Christ and why we can call him Father, read Ephesians 1.3-7.

Hallowed Be Your Name
The word hallowed simply means holy, set apart, special. We remember God through the names by which He has revealed himself … He is Jehovah Tsidkenu – our righteousness, Jehovah M’kaddesh, the God who sanctifies; Jehovah Shalom – God, our peace; Jehovah Shammah – the God who is there; Jehovah Rophe – the God who heals; Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides; Jehovah Nissi – our Banner who goes before us; Jehovah Rohi, our Shepherd. The names of God remind of his benefits, and our standing with him. Take time to thank him for who He is.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  
God’s kingdom is his rule and reign; it is that dimension of reality lined up with his character and intention. God is bringing his kingdom, and we pray for the will of God to be done. I daily pray this in four zones:

• Personally: I pray for the will of God to be done in my own heart and mind, for the Lordship of Christ to be established, for my affections to be aligned with God’s, to be led by the Spirit, to step into the fulness of God’s intentions for this day.
• Family: I pray for my wife and children by name, asking God to break into their lives, for his purpose to be established, for his will to be done, for spiritual refreshing to come … and more.
• Church: Jesus is building his church, and I pray for God’s will to break into our church, giving him thanks for all he has done, but believing there is more, I pray for the fulness of God’s intention to come to pass that we might be light in the midst of darkness, faithful bearers of the gospel, a place of refuge for those in need, a temple filled with God’s Spirit that we might experience his life.
• Nation(s): I pray for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done in our nation.

Give us this day our daily bread
I take this statement both literally and categorically. Literally, Jesus teaches us to pray for God to meet our physical needs – food, shelter, clothing. Even in the wealthy west, we shouldn’t take these for granted, and praying for them reminds us of God’s benevolent care. But I also pray for God to meet other needs – spiritual, emotional, relational, vocational. As the apostle Paul wrote: And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4.19).

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Jesus teaches a lot about forgiveness – both receiving forgiveness from God and extending forgiveness to others. First, following Jesus means that we learn walk in the forgiveness God gives us in Christ: ‘In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace’. But just because we have been forgiven legally doesn’t mean we don’t have to ask for forgiveness relationally when we sin.

As a matter of fact, Jesus assumes that we will sin, even as his followers. That’s why he told us to ask for forgiveness. The apostle John teaches the same thing: first, ‘If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us’ (1 John 1.10). Remember he is writing to Christians and including himself in the ‘we’. Christians sin. Not in the same way or extent as in their pre-Christian life, but we sin. That’s why John tells us that ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1.9). Through God’s forgivenss, we are relationally restored; through his cleansing, we are transformed.

But receiving God’s forgiveness is only half of the picture; we are told in Ephesians 4.32 that we should be ‘forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you’. In the same way that God has forgiven us, we should share that forgiveness with those who have sinned against us. Our sin against God is like a debt of a trillion pounds; others sins against us are like a few quid. Freely we have received, so freely we give.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
First, I want to clarify what this is not teaching. Some people reason, erroneously, that if Jesus is teaching us to ask God not to lead us into temptation, that it means He does that sometimes. But that’s wrong. He doesn’t.  James teaches specifically ‘God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one’ (James 1.15).

What, then, is Jesus asking us to pray? Simply that that the Lord will protect us from evil, that he will not allow us to fall into temptation, that he will protect us from the traps of the devil, that he will keep us from the evil our hearts long for.

Being honest about our propensity to sin and asking for God’s help is a much surer pathway to victory than pretending we’ve got it all together and we’re doing fine.

Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
This phrase isn’t in all the original manuscripts, but it’s a great way to end our prayer time. We make faith declarations about who God is and what he’s doing in our lives. We return to praise and worship and adoration. And then we get on with our day!

The purpose of this series is to help us build habits that accrue to spiritual vitality. This means facing into the reasons we struggle to pray habitually. Here are three possible contenders:

• We lack motivation because we don’t know why we should pray, or we are unaware of the benefits.
• We are frustrated becaue we know we should pray but we don’t know how
• We know why and how, but for some reason, we still don’t pray regularly. 

So if you’ve this far in the blog, numbers 1 and 2 are no longer relevant – you know why you should pray, and you know how. But I think number 3 is the big one – we struggle to make prayer a consistent routine in our lives.

There are three key steps to building a prayer habit: desire, discipline, and delight. First, you use the desire to pray as a launch pad to make a start. You desire to know God better, or to receive what he has on offer, or to be obedient to Jesus. It doesn’t matter to me … just pick a motivation, a desire, a reason, and get on with it.

Second, build the habit of praying by making it a discipline. Now I know some Christians who don’t like the idea of habits because they think ‘I’m under grace, not law!’. This is what you have to understand: freedom is found in the structure of life-giving routines. These habits reduce questions and anxiety by making our time with God regular.

Remember the beginning of this blog? Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer. There was a regular, appointed time and place when they met with God.

So make a start: even if its just ten minutes a day, use the Lord’s Prayer like an according to spend time every day praying with God. Your life will be transformed.

As I think back and reflect on my childhood, I’m deeply grateful to my parents who instilled in me some core life habits that have remained with me to this day. One of those is eating food. I don’t even remember when my parents taught me about eating, but this habit is still with me. Remarkably, I rarely if ever go through a day and forget to eat food.

Another core life habit my parents taught me is brushing my teeth. Amazingly, this habit is still part of my life after all these years. Most days, I do it multiple times without thinking about. Brushing my teeth has become part of my daily routine.

A third core life habit so engrained that I do it subconsciously is putting on pants (that’s underwear for those of you from across the pond). I can’t remember the last time I forgot to put on pants.

Eating, brushing our teeth, putting on pants – when was the last time you went a day or a week without doing one of these? Though very basic, these actions have become habits – actions that have been relocated out of the zone of the will to the zone of the subconscious: we do them habitually.

But what about reading the Bible? Have you left this in the zone of the will where you must actively choose to do this daily? If so, you expose this decision to time pressure, distraction pressure, and alternative pressure. We might run out of time, or we might get distracted, or we might prefer alternative uses of time.

Here’s the big idea: consistently reading the Bible is so important for you spiritual health you need to relocate it from the zone of your will to the zone of habit.

In Matthew 4.1-11, Jesus, who is God’s Word in living form (John 1.1) models for us the fruit of consistent reading and reflection in God’s Word. He does this in two ways – through principle and process.

The Process
This passage is famous for the Satanic onslaught of temptation that comes against Jesus. In three different situations (verses 4, 7, and 10), Jesus defeats temptation by affirming it is written. Now, there’s a big lesson to be learned about how to win over temptation. Jesus defeated Satanic attack by speaking the word of God. But the point I want you to see is this:
God’s Word only comes out of you in combat if you’ve stored it in your heart through the habit of reading. You can only fight by God’s word in conflict if you’re fuelled by God’s word in contemplation. By building the habit of reading the Bible you are positioning yourself for spiritual victory.

The Principle
In addition to learning how to win, we also see the content of what Jesus taught in verse 4: Jesus answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’.

Like bread for the body, God’s Word is the spiritual food that strengthens and sustains us. Here’s the truth: You will never be spiritually stronger than your habit of feeding on God’s Word. Trying to follow Jesus well while having an irregular habit of God’s word is like trying to run a marathon after a 40-day fast. It doesn’t work.

Early 20th century missionaries used to have a mantra that went, ‘No Bible, no Breakfast’. They built their Bible reading into their morning routine before they ate physical food. Not only is that a great reminder about the priority of spiritual food, it’s also a good way of ensuring that we actually read the Bible, because we’re not going to forget to eat.

So Jesus is inviting us to build the habit of inhabiting God’s word. Before I explain how to do this, let’s have a quick reminder of why. The Bible talks about itself quite a bit, and this is not a full, extensive teaching on scripture. Rather, I want to highlight ten benefits of God’s word that are all taught in just one chapter.

1. PURITY: How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word (Psalm 119.9).
2. PROTECTION: I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (Psalm 119.11).
3. COUNSEL: Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counsellors. (Psalm 119.24)
4. KNOWING GOD’S LOVE: Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise. (Psalm 119.41).
5. CONFIDENCE IN GOD: For ever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast (Psalm 119.89-90).
6. DIRECTION: Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path (Psalm 119.105).
7. PROTECTION: You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word (Psalm 119.114).
8. ILLUMINATION: The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple (Psalm 119.130).
9. SIGNIFICANCE: I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts (Psalm 119.141).
10. TRUTH: The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures for ever (Psalm 119.160).

10B: FREEDOM: If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8.31-32).

Each one of these points merits its own reflection; the benefits of God’s word are immense. But this is what I want you to see: most of us know – cognitively – that God’s word is beneficial, just like we know that eating healthy and exercising is good for us. But cognitive knowing does not lead to actual doing. Otherwise, we’d all eat healthier and exercise more.

The issue is that we need to build the habit of Bible reading. More than just reading the Bible, we need to become Bible readers. That’s an identity statement that transcends the action. Lots of people run, but a runner is someone who runs consistently as a core part of their lives.

In this contemporary age most of us live highly distracted lives. And not only the usual suspects of social media and smart phone; our work lives and family lives can be very hectic.

But I am convinced that everyone has at least 15 minutes a day to read the Bible. Now, if you ask me, ‘Is 15 minutes a day enough?’. My answer would be ‘No. You need more than that’. But 15 minutes is a good place to start.

One of the obstacles that keeps us from building habits is that the goal seems too big. We hear about spiritual giants like my childhood best friend’s father who read 40 pages of the Bible every day, and read through the entire Bible every six weeks. That’s intense. And we think, ‘I’ll never get there!’. And that bumps us off even trying.

The best way to build a habit is to start really really small. Like deciding to read the Bible for 15 minutes a day. The second key to building a habit is to link the desired new behaviour (reading the Bible) with a habitual behaviour you’re already doing. Like brushing your teeth. Either build a new morning routine, or find something you easily and habitually do (e.g., fixing a cup of coffee), and link Bible reading to that action. If you can habitually put on your pants, you can habitually read the Bible.

Why 15 minutes? Because in 15 minutes you can easily read two chapters of the Bible. You can read, for example, a Psalm, and a New Testament chapter out of the Gospels, Acts, or Epistles. Read through Psalms, then read through a gospel, then an epistle, then Acts, then an epistle, then a gospel, then an epistle.

By starting small with only two chapters, you are setting yourself up for success. But the other benefit of starting small is that you can expand your moment. Once you’ve mastered 15 minutes and this is a core habit in your life, you can expand it to 20 minutes. Before long you’ll find yourself reading through chapters (e.g., a Psalm, a gospel/Acts chapter, and an epistle chapter).

God wants you to win. And you will position yourself for victory in life and in God through the habit of consistent Bible reading.

When I was eight years old my family moved to a new town. We were Christians, and so we began that strange process of looking for a new local church that would become our spiritual home and be our spiritual family.

We visited one church, and during the service – it was a very traditional, highly liturgical service – the pastor prayed a short 3-4 sentence prayer as part of the liturgy. My little 9-year old brain said, ‘I like this church! The pastor prays short prayers!’

Then, he preached a 20-minute sermon. My little 8-year old brain said, ‘I like this pastor – he preaches short sermons’.

Now, the reason I was evaluating that church around the value of brevity is for two reasons: first, honestly, I would have preferred to be somewhere else doing something else. I knew we should worship God, but my highly distractable mind struggled to stay focused through a one-hour worship gathering.

But the deeper issue is that I was evaluating the worship service around my preferences rather than God’s vision of what was at stake in corporate worship. I want to briefly reflect on the importance of gathering weekly for worship and the core text I want to unpack is Hebrews 10.23-25.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

The author warns that some people have picked up negative habits. That is, they have made a habit out of not doing something they are supposed to be doing as followers of Jesus. They were supposed to be gathering regularly for worship, but some of them were neglecting that.

To state the obvious, we have all done what these Hebrew Christians did – we have made a habit out of neglecting to meet together. Now, this was in many ways forced up us, and I’m not going to get into the social, political, and governmental dimensions of trying to understand where public health intersects with freedom of conscience and freedom to worship.
Whether it was right or wrong or good or bad – we have not been gathering weekly for worship. In a sense, we were all forced away from a good habit and into a bad habit.

Now, this is where I want to expose a common misconception: most of us think that if we understand the value of an action, we’ll do it! But that is simply not true. If I held before you list of foods and asked you to indicate which ones were healthy and which ones were unhealthy, you’d be able to do it. But if I asked you to indicate which foods you eat – if you were honest, you would admit that you intentionally eat some foods that are not healthy.  Knowing that a food is bad for you is insufficient to motivate you to avoid it; knowing that a food is good for you is insufficient to motivate you to eat it.

The same thing is true regarding exercise. There is not a person in this room who doesn’t know that exercise is good for you. Most people I know, if I ask them, ‘Do you exercise too much, the right amount, or too little – for optimal health’ – most people will say ‘too little’.

Knowing that you should exercise more is insufficient to produce the result of exercising more. Cognitive awareness does not produce results: consistent healthy eating and consistent exercise require more than knowledge of what to do and more than knowledge of benefits.
And the same thing is true of important spiritual disciplines like praying, reading the Bible, sharing the gospel, gathering for worship. You know you should do all that stuff, and do them well, and do them consistently … but do you?

Now, I have to be honest – pastors are implicated in these results. That’s because pastors believe that if they can do a better job explaining the benefits of these activities, you’ll do them!
But that’s the problem - KNOWING is an insufficient basis for behavioural modification. And let me by crystal clear: we need behavioural modification: to become the people God has called us to be, we must torpedo, assassinate, obliterate, and otherwise destroy the bad habit of not gathering for worship. But me telling you the benefits of why we need to gather weekly for worship or what you’re going to get out if it – that’s not enough.

Sometimes Christians start believing, ‘My will power is my problem’. I just don’t want it enough or I’m just not disciplined enough or I just don’t see the benefit enough. Here’s the deal: relying on your will is a terrible way to ensure that you are doing those things that are most beneficial to you.

Let me give you a much better way to consistently do the things you need to do: learn the art of building habits. Your life represents the totality of your habits. You are what you do regularly.
Let me give you an example.  I eat exactly the same thing for breakfast … I’m not going to tell you what it is because you’d just think I’m weird. But here’s the deal: I don’t trust my will on any given day to ‘choose’ what might be good for me; what if I’m hit with a craving for chocolate frosted donuts right at the moment I’m choosing breakfast? What if someone opens a big jar of Nutella with fresh baked bread right as I’m choosing what to eat for breakfast?
 
No! I’ve developed a breakfast routine that takes what I’m feeling at the moment out of the equation. I don’t care what I think or feel at the moment … I eat healthy because my breakfast is a habit.

To be consistently successful at something, it needs to become a habit, not a decision.  Anything of value that you want to do consistently, the best pathway for success is to make it a habit, not a decision.

Today our topic is the habit of gathering weekly for worship. Yes, you should be here every week. But to get there, you have to move this from decision to discipline – or habit.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO. And we will flourish with God when our life consists of life-giving habits. Another way of thinking about this is that God loves us enough that he has communicated to us and given us the habits that will accrue to our spiritual refreshment.  

This is a big question, and a full exposition would take us deep into reflection on the nature of the church. I’ll come back to this, but let me make a few key observations.

God commands it.
Now, some Christians are satisfied by the simple fact that God commands us to gather regularly for worship; that was true in the Old Testament and that is true in the New Testament. God says it, I obey it, that’s it.

Doing something because God says so is an appropriate expression of Christ’s Lordship in our lives. But for some Christians, they need more convincing. They need a big WHY behind the WHAT.  And the good news is that God accommodates our weaknesses and gives us a why for the what of weekly worship.

In short, there are three key reasons we need to gather weekly for worship:

First, you need corporate worship because there is a kind of encouragement that comes to us in this context that we don’t get anywhere else.

Second, you need connection with the corporate body, not just Christians. The gathered local church is church in a way no other gathering of Christians is.

Third, you need corporate worship because WE ARE DEFINED BY WHAT WE WORSHIP, and corporate worship helps keep God at his rightful place in our lives.
What the Bible says

Notice what the author of Hebrews says: in discussing the habit of gathering, he identifies three key benefits: Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, but encouraging one another. In short, there are three key benefits to weekly worship: our faith is strengthened, we stimulate each other to obedience, and we receive encouragement.

Our faith is strengthened by the preached Word of God.
According to Paul, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). This is not only regarding the word of Christ called the gospel, for unbelievers, but this is also for believers. We live in a world in which not the just the content of scripture, but the presuppositions of the Bible, the sacred canopy of beliefs about who God is and what he is like and what he is done – all of that is questioned. The personal practice of daily Bible reading is an important antidote to that – but we need more than that. At church, God’s word isn’t just read, or considered on, or reflected on – it is preached authoritatively AS THE WORD OF GOD, and this builds our faith.

Further, there is a completely different dynamic when we hear the word of God in our local church context from our shepherd. It’s not like going to a conference, where you might hear an inspiring and encouraging talk, but you have the freedom to hold the word at arms distance. It’s not like going to a small group Bible study where lots of folk are throwing their opinions around … there is something transformative that happens when God’s word is declared clearly and authoritatively in church by a pastor for our benefit and instruction.

In addition to building faith, regular participation in weekly worship encourages us. First, let’s be honest and say that we need encouragement. I know that some of you show up full of God, full of God’s word, ready to give, ready to bless, ready to encourage others. But many of us show up at a weekly worship gathering beat down by life and beat down by the week and beat down by sins or doubts or pain. So we need encouragement, and it is the weekly worship gathering that brings that encouragement.

How worship encourages us  
We get encouraged in at least three ways. First, we get encouraged through the preaching of God’s word. God’s word well preached generates faith and confidence and boldness in our hearts. Second, we get encouraged by each other. We are able to speak words of life and blessing to each other. As the author of Hebrews says, ‘Encourage one another as long as it is still called today’. Third, we are also encouraged directly by God as we gaze upon God and give him glory through worship.  

 At the heart of the worship gathering is not just what we get, but what we give. Yes, we give each other words of encouragement, but more than that, we give God glory. At its heart, worship is ascribing to God his ‘worth-ness’ - declaring and displaying the worth of God, celebrating his greatness and goodness especially through his revelation in Christ.
 
This is what worship looks like in heaven:

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honour and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
Revelation 4.8-11

When we gather for worship we are experiencing a preview of our eternal destiny with God. When we gather for worship God draws us into the real reality of his perspective in which He is God and Lord and king.

When we focus on God’s glory, when we devote our energy to giving him glory, his Lordship in our lives is refreshed, our priorities are restored, and our idols are slayed. When we focus on God’s worth-ness, our priorities are re-ordered and our idols are toppled.

We flourish best when we see God most, and that happens best in corporate worship.

Here’s the bottom line: You will win, others will be encouraged, and God will be glorified, when we [re]build the habit of gathering weekly for worship.

As a young man I stumbled into a fascinating opportunity. On a short-term mission trip to eastern Europe, after a series of fortunate events, I found myself standing in front of a classroom full of students in the English department of Ivano Franko university in what was still at that time the Soviet Union. Excited over the prospect that his students would hear a native speaker of English, the professor gave me an open podium.

Faced with the chance to say anything, I quickly crossed stories off the list, because I’m not that interesting; I crossed philosophy off the list, because I’m not that smart; I crossed economics off the list, because that would have been to rub salt in an open wound. Rather, after overcoming the fear that as soon as I mentioned Jesus or God or the Bible, that secret doors would open and KBB (secret state police) agents would rush in and arrest, I gave them the best thing I had – the gospel.

The apostle Paul was a multi-lingual philosopher theologian who interacted with the brightest minds of his day. Yet, when faced with the prospect of addressing people in Rome, the capital city of the world’s most powerful empire, he said ‘I’m not ashamed of the gospel; it is God’s power for salvation for everyone who believes (Romans 1.16).
Similarly, when he came to the city of Corinth, he preached nothing among them except ‘Christ and him crucified’. And when he wrote a letter to these same Corinthians, he reminds them of what he had preached.

Too many Christians seem to be distracted by wanting to press on to ‘the deep things of God’. Here’s the deal: the deepest deep thing of God is the gospel, because in God’s good news we learn who God is, who we are without God, what God has done in Christ, and who we are in Christ.

Let’s take a moment to remember the gospel as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15.1-11.

Here, Paul is writing to Corinthians – people that were already saved, and to whom he had already preached the gospel. Being reminded of the gospel is not because we don’t know it, but because we do. They were already saved; the gospel is how we live. Paul was not bothered about reminding them of something they knew. In our lives, we should 1) continually remind ourselves of the gospel by learning the art of preaching the gospel to yourself; 2) continually remind others of the gospel. Why? Because the gospel is the basis of our identity in Christ; it is how we live the Christian life.

Why is the gospel the appropriate centre for our lives? That’s found in the word ‘identity’. The gospel gives us our new identity in Christ. It tells us what we are without God, it shows us our need for God, it tells us what God has done for us in Christ, and it tells us who we are in Christ: forgiven, redeemed, loved, blessed, adopted, set free from the power of sin, seated with Christ in the heavenly places. In the word of Tim Keller, ‘You will love Christ and commit to Him to the degree you see the depth of your own sin & the application of the cross to that sin being final.’.

One of the key biblical concepts to grasp is that there is one gospel. The word ‘gospel’ simply means ‘good news’ and in the period of Greek city states would have been used for the announcement that the city’s army had been successful and won a victory. The gospel is God’s good news regarding the victory he has won through Christ.

Even though this good news can be communicated in a variety of ways, we need to remember that there is ONE Gospel. Look at this text:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. Galatians 1:6-9

Consider the key statements Paul makes about the gospel:

• Some people quickly desert God 

When God calls us to himself, it is in the grace of Christ; there is only one way to be saved, only one way to live in God, only one location to inhabit God’s promise, and that is in the grace of Christ.

• People can be seduced by a different gospel. 

Most often this will be syncretism ‘the conscious or unconscious reshaping of Christian plausibility structures, beliefs, and practices through cultural accommodation so that they reflect those of the dominant culture’.5 6In other words, ‘Syncretism is the blending of Christian beliefs and practices with those of the dominant culture so that Christianity loses its distinctiveness and speaks with a voice reflective of its culture’. Syncretism usually includes biblical words and concepts but mixes it with other ideas (e.g., the prosperity gospel). In the case of the Galatians, syncretism was the mixing of the gospel with Jewish beliefs about circumcision.

• A different gospel is a distortion of the gospel of Christ
• A contrary gospel is one that differs from the one originally preached by Paul and the apostles 
• A contrary gospel brings a curse 
• A different gospel is a false gospel  
• Deviant gospels involve a departing from grace.

Ephesians 2.8 is crystal clear: you have been saved by grace. Every deviant gospel adds something to grace to make us think that somehow our good works contribute something to our salvation. They don't. To add works to grace is to depart from grace, and that's a different gospel. 

• The true gospel is always in the grace of Christ.

Let me put this in simple terms: the reason there is only one gospel, and the reason salvation is available only through that gospel, is simple - no one else is who Jesus is and no one else has done what Jesus has done.

The implications of this are deeply significant: every generation must accurately understand and clearly communicate the gospel; without the first, the second is impossible.

There is always a human response to the gospel: receive, reject, ignore. Although this receiving cannot happen without the work of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 16:14), salvation always includes a human response. Paul is writing to people who have received the gospel: that is, by their own verbal affirmation, they agreed with and accepted what he is teaching

The ONE gospel is what defines the “standing” (identity, life, perspective, values,
ethics) of a Christian. It isn’t merely what saves us, it is the defining vision of
the Christian life. Standing is not a passive position, but an active posture;
there are forces that try to knock us off the gospel: ‘having done everything, to
stand firm, stand therefore (Ephesians 6:13-14).

It is the one gospel that saves. If a person is being saved, it is because they
have believed the one gospel. The gospel is God’s power unto salvation, and it
works – it is able to save.

This word Saved (Gr. sozo) is used of the deliverance of the Israelites from
the Egyptians (Ex. 14:13), and of deliverance generally from evil or danger. In
the New Testament, it is specially used with reference to the great deliverance
from the guilt, pollution and judgement of sin accomplished by Jesus Christ, “the great
salvation” (Heb. 2:3).

The word ‘hold fast’ (Gr. Katecho) means to hold back, retain, detain, to keep from going away). To ‘hold fast’ implies active reliance. It speaks to a keeping, a cherishing, a
possessing of the gospel. It is a person holding fast who experiences the benefits of standing and believing. There is no promise of salvation for a person who doesn’t believe or ‘hold fast’ the gospel.

Paul functioned as a delivery man: being a minister of the gospel is primarily about delivering the gospel to people. Paul was able to look back at his ministry and say, ‘I delivered the gospel to you’. Along with living a life consistent with and reflective of the gospel, this is the most important thing we can say about our lives and our church. In our lives, loving the Lord with all our hearts, soul, mind, strength - this is at the core of who we are. In our ministries, delivering the gospel is central. This is the baton we have to pass on; if we get this right, there is a chance everything else might fall into place. If we get this wrong, nothing else matters.

Paul calls this of first importance. This is not second, or somewhere in a top-5 list; this is of first importance. Be sure that you are prioritising, focusing on, and being faithful with the gospel.
Paul reminds Timothy: 1:15: The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Is the gospel of first importance in your life?

Our job is to pass on the gospel, not to get theologically creative. Consider all that Paul tells Timothy:

• 1 Tim 1:3: As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine.
• I Tim 6:20-21: O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” 21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.
• 2 Tim. 1:14: By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

In order to pass on the gospel, we first need to make sure we have received it; we can’t pass on what we don’t receive.

There are three things of first importance that frame the gospel. This could be called the gospel in a nutshell:

CHRIST	DIED	FOR OUR SINS
The WHO of the gospel Christology	The WHAT of the gospel Historicity	The HOW of the gospel Theology

• The who of the gospel is Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity who became man and lived a perfect life for us.
• The what of the gospel includes the events that happened – what Jesus did: he lived, he died, he was buried, he was raised.
• The phrase for our sins, unpacked further below, means that Jesus died in our place to save us from the consequences of our sin.

Note that the the Gospel is a fact-based message. It is rooted in history in real events that actually happened. These events are confirmed in Scripture and affirmed in the historic creeds of the church. The preaching of the gospel is centred on these events (life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus) and what they mean. Regarding that meaning, Paul summarises it like this: Christ died for our sins. What does this mean, that Christ died for our sins?

1. Jesus teaches about “dying for”:
Jesus on teaches on redemption: For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:45
Jesus explains the significance of his death: And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many”. Mark 14:24

2. Paul teaches about Christ’s “dying for”:
Romans 5:6: Christ died for the ungodly
Romans 5:8: Christ died for us
Galatians 2:20: Who . . . gave Himself for me
I Timothy 2:6: Who gave himself a ransom for all
Galatians 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins

3. Peter teaches about Christ’s “suffering for”:
I Peter 3:18: For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous.
Simon Gathercole notes that  'The interchangeability of the statements of Christ’s death ‘for us’ and the language of his death ‘for our sins’ points strongly in a substitutionary
direction'.

The PROMISE of the gospel: the gospel is preached and promised – in different ways and different forms - all through the Old Testament: to Adam and Eve in the garden, to Abraham, through the law, through David, through the prophets.

This means the ONE gospel is biblically accurate. When the apostles preached the gospel in Jewish synagogues, they built their case from the Old Testament. At that time, the Old Testament were the only scriptures, and they could preach the gospel from the Old Testament.

The burial of Jesus is the confirmation that he was really, completely, and absolutely dead.
The burial of Christ is essential; not only does it confirm his death, but all of the historical events surrounding the resurrection are based on a real burial. Interestingly, the burial of Jesus is affirmed in the ancient creeds such as the Apostle’s creed: crucified, died, and was buried. Not only does the burial of Christ confirm his death was real, it also sets the scene for the resurrection.

The death of Christ and his resurrection were the core features of gospel preaching by Jesus, Peter, and Paul  The original context of witness is very literally that of an eye-witness of the resurrection.  This was a pre-requisite for being an Apostle (of the same status as the twelve, apostle with a capital ‘A’. All through the book of Acts Peter and the apostles describes themselves as witnesses of the resurrected Lord.

It is difficult for us to appreciate the degree to which the gospel was described as a ‘fact based’, historical message. This really happened, therefore … Paul underscores this by listening the people and groups to whom Jesus appeared alive after the resurrection, including over 500 at one time. At the time, he was writing 1 Corinthians (appx. 53/54 AD), about 20- 25 years after the resurrection. Thus, many of those 500 would have been alive and available for interview.

Paul is again highlighting the consistency of his ministry: it’s not just that there is one gospel, but this was the gospel that he preached. Ouir lives should be marked by the same consistency – receiving, believing, and clinging to the same gospel. There will be some things we get wrong in our Christian lives, but the gospel should not be one of them.

This is a beautiful statement reminding the Corinthians that the gospel they received was the right one. If Paul is calling them back to anything, it is the gospel he preached and they believed, not something new. Faith (believing) is how we come to participate in the benefits available in Christ, through the gospel.

The biblical gospel can be summarised in three core ideas, summarised in Paul’s statement from 1 Corinthians 15: Christ died for our sins. The three gospel elements are the identity of Jesus, the work of Jesus, and the results of that work. Here's a summary statement of the gospel:

The gospel is the good news that God became man in Jesus Christ to reconcile lost people to himself. He lived a perfect, sinless life on our behalf and died on the cross for our sins. He was buried, and on the third day rose from the dead, securing our redemption forever. Having triumphed over Satan and the forces of darkness, he ascended into heaven as Lord of all. Everyone who repents and believes in him receives forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

All good things must come to an end. Well, that’s not completely true. God himself is the greatest good, and he is eternal. But in this life, the good things, and the bad things – are temporary.

One of the good things – and frustrating things – that is coming to an end is online church. Now, as I’ll explain in a moment, online church is a bit of an oxymoron – like flying elephants, pink unicorns, and Scottish congregants who stand up in the middle of a sermon and say, ‘Preach it brother!’.

These last 18 months have been a frustrating combination of doing the best we can with what we have to present online worship – and as of 12th September, that season is over.

Before explaining our plan going forward, it is fitting to say ‘Thank you’. First, thank you to everyone who has hung with us through this period. If you remember, we were in church together on the 15th; on the 22nd we had our first week of online church, and on the 23rd, the Prime Minister announced lockdown. In one week we shifted from being in person to doing everything online. Meetings went online, small groups went online, and our weekly worship went online. Thank you for faithfully engaging with us through a different and challenging season.

I also want to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who generated content for our online worship. I know – from doing this myself – the whole record and upload thing – it’s not easy, but you guys were champs and did an AMAZING job – thank you So many people contributed to making the last 18 months what they are. Our hosts and worship team and kids team and folk sharing words of encouragement and special announcements – everyone did such a great job. Thank you.

Finally, we need to give a special thank you to our production team who worked behind the scenes each week to get church online. These guys slogged away every week with the content that was handed to them and did an excellent job crafting all of that into a coherent service. When we use the word excellence, we simply mean, doing the best you can with what you have, and that’s what these guys did. Guys – thank you.

Oh, and one more thing before we move on. I gave the production team a bit of freedom with the programme today. We wanted to do a good job looking back and remembering, but also looking forward to where we going.

So before I explain what’s happening next week and beyond, where and when we are re-gathering, I want to set this in biblical context and explain WHY we are regathering.

For eighteen months we have trained ourselves to sit at home on a Sunday morning and ‘WATCH CHURCH’. But here’s the thing: Church is not something we watch, it’s something we do. And now it’s time to do it again.

Having content online is useful, but remember: the Christian life is not a download. You can download a truthful sermon, but you can download the encouragement that comes from your brothers and sisters speaking truth into your life.

Remember, our faith in Jesus is personal, but we follow Jesus in community. I can’t believe the gospel for you, you have to do that. But as a follower of Jesus, Jesus calls us into the church that he is building.

The word church – ecclesia - means those who have been called out. The church are those that God has called out of the world and to himself through Christ.  The universal church or invisible church is all Christians of all times and places. But the universal church only ever manifests as local churches.

A local church is a community of Christians gathered for worship, the sacraments, and mission with leaders, under the authority of scripture, working together in God’s mission to make disciples. God gives us to the church and gives the church to us – not only for the sake of fulfilling our mission, but also for our personal development and growth.

You see, I could preach a brilliant sermon (in theory) on God’s call to love our brothers and sisters … but it’s not until you actually have to do some loving that you are forced to grow. Local church forces us to grow in love.

I can do a brilliant sermon (inn theory) on spiritual gifts, and you can gain cognitive understanding of what the gifts are and how they work. But you won’t getter better at using what God’s given you without using that gift to encourage others.

It’s like reading a book on golf. You can read a hundred books on golf, and you can gain deep cognitive insight into the mechanics of a golf swing and the physics of striking a golf ball. But the only way your golf game is going to get better is PRACTICE.

You can win the world cup on Xbox FIFA football, but that doesn’t mean your good enough to make the starting eleven for Stenhousemuir. What you can do online and what you can do on the pitch are two different realities.

Whether its spiritual gifts, serving, loving, encouraging – we grow more like Christ in the context of being together. Just to be as clear as I can – God designed your life in Christ to NEED the encouragement that happens when we come together for worship.

Here’s the point: gathering for in person worship is not an option; it’s a necessity.

We didn’t do online church as a convenience, we did it because we had to. We had no other choice, and now, as we return to in-person worship, we are doing it as a necessity, because God designed us for this and we need this.

So when we talk about the benefit of gathering for in person worship, we’re talking about worship, God’s word, encouragement, and service.

All of those – singing praises to God, being encouraged through God’s word, being encouraging by others, using your gifts and talents to serve others – all of that happens much better when we are together in person.

I deeply appreciate all the work our worship team has done to have singing as part of our weekly worship experience. But it is simply not the same. These areas of ministry are so much qualitatively better in corporate worship to the degree that they really can’t be compared with what we were doing online. The very essence of being the church of Jesus is being together. And you need this.

Before I explain our re-gathering process over the next few weeks, let me mention three key scriptures.  

1) 1 Corinthians 11.18
when you come together as a church

Paul’s assumption is that they were coming together; but notice this little phrase as a church. When they came together they were A CHURCH in a way they were not when they were dispersed. Remember, not only are we part of THE CHURCH, God calls us to follow Jesus in A CHURCH. And to be ‘A CHURCH’ we have to come together.

2) Hebrews 11.24-25
 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

Here the author of Hebrews links encouragement and stirring up one another to love and good works with meeting together. Some he says, neglect to meet together, and he says this is what we are NOT to do. Let me be as clear as I can – if you are follower of Jesus and you are part of this church, the pattern scripture gives us is that you are with us in worship each week. This is normal Christianity. Now – the benefit of that is two-fold: first, when you show up, you are encouraged by others; second, when you show up, you encourage others. So when you’re not with us, it means that whatever encouragement God ordained for you from others, you miss out on that. And when you’re not with us, whatever encouragement God ordained for you to give to someone else, they miss out on that. SO – this is reasonably simple – our corporate encouragement quotient goes up when we are in worship together regularly.

3) Psalm 122.1
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”

Finally, we have this beautiful statement from David. There are three things here I’d like you to notice. The house of the Lord, going, and gladness.

The House of the Lord – when David wrote this, there was not temple; the closest thing to a temple would be the tabernacle. The common denominator is that ‘house of the Lord’ is the place where God’s people gathered together to worship him.

The second key word is ‘go’. There is effort required in gathering witih God’s people for worship. One of the strange things about these last 18 months of online church is that you could roll out of bed at 10.25 and make it to church on time. Those days are over. God hasn’t designed following Jesus to be convenient. Jesus said, if you want to follow me, die to yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me. If Jesus can carry a cross to Golgotha, the least you can do is make it to church on time. But because Jesus did go to Golgotha, the good news for us is that rather than death, when we go to church, we experience life.

But then finally, the key this verse is I WAS GLAD. David was so inspired at the thought of gathering for worship with God’s people that GLADNESS filled his heart just at the mention of it.

David was known to go so excited about worshipping God that he danced on his way to church. Now, I don’t expect you to come into the worship gathering next week dancing … but feel free! But I do expect – God expects – GLADNESS to fill our hearts because we get to gather to worship him.

Gladness because we get to be together; gladness because we get to encourage one another and serve one another – but most of all – gladness because we will be worshipping God, glorifying God, enjoying the presence of God – together.

So, let me summarise: the nature of the church is corporate, connected, and gathered for worship, encouragement and mission. Re-gathering is not an option, but a calling, and as we re-gather, God is going to refresh us in the blessings we have been missing in this season of being scattered.

We are regathering for weekly worship beginning 19th September 2021. For Edinburgh, we will be meeting weekly at 4pm at King’s church; the details are here. For Bathgate, we will be meeting weekly at 6.30pm at the High Church; the details are here. Our Bathgate will return to Simpson Primary School, hopefully soon, possibly from the 3rd of October. All the details will be available here on the website

Finally, regarding our online worship gathering, this is changing. From next week, we will be posting videos of the sermons. As before lockdown, audio sermons will be available by Monday of each week. Sermon videos will be available one week after they have been preached.

See you soon!

A jarring scene in one of my favourite films (Chariots of Fire) occurs when Harold Abrams, the famed British athlete, lost his first race ever. In fairness, he was competing against one of the top four fastest humans known at the time, the ‘Flying Scotsman’ Eric Liddell. Having trained relentlessly, he made a fundamental mistake at the finish line.

Rather than looking straight ahead, rather than keeping his eyes on the prize, he turned left to catch a glimpse of Eric Liddell, who was slightly ahead. Any chance he had of winning was dashed. He learned his lesson, and he never made that mistake again.

In Philippians 3.12-16, Paul reminds us to keep our eyes on the prize. After teaching that his confidence with God is based on Christ’s righteousness, not his own, Paul turns to describe how he lives life. He wants others to live like he lives, and so he points to a prize, a posture, and a pattern.

The prize Paul points to is knowing Christ. He writes in verse 12 that ‘I press on to make it my own’. The question is, ‘what is the it?’ He also references the ‘it’ as ‘this’, and both the ‘it and ‘this’ of verse 12 point back to what he described in verse 11: I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

The resurrection of the dead is simply the means to the ultimate fulfilment of knowing Christ. Paul’s primary passion is to know Christ. This word ‘know’ means more than cerebral head knowledge; knowing Christ, and being known by him, is the ultimate privilege any human has.  Paul prioritizes the resurrection because this is the final step towards knowing Christ.

Verse 14: I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

To get where he is going, Paul has to forget the past and reach forward. Paul had some bad things in his past to forget – like trying to kill Christians. But he also had some good things in his past – preaching the gospel, planting churches, enjoying God. Paul has to forget it all.
What do you need to forget? Remember, your destiny is being written by God, not your past mistakes. As long as we let the past define us, we run the risk of missing out on the ‘upward call of God in Christ’.

With the future in view and past forgotten, we live in the ‘in between time’, having tasted the kingdom but not brought home. How do we live in this in between time? Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, keep your eyes on the prize of knowing Christ.

Paul concludes with a simple encouragement, a pattern to follow: Let those of us who are mature think this way (verse 15). In other words, don’t over think this; don’t complicate this, don’t mess this up.

The most rationale thing you can do is adopt Paul’s attitude towards life. Because here’s the deal: this isn’t simply about our future lives in eternity; this is about living our best lives now. And regarding that best life, you will experience your greatest joy now when you have your eyes on the prize of knowing Jesus in eternity.

Look, I get it. This is hard. We are all susceptible to distraction; we can all succumb to the tyranny of the ‘lesser’. That is, we can be distracted by the lesser things of this life and devote our energy to things that in the grand scheme really don’t matter. We sometimes enter periods of fog, darkness, and confusion. The light seems to dim and the darkness speaks to us. We can lose our way.

In the face of life’s challenges, Paul’s remarkable focus is a great example for us: 1) forget the past; 2) focus on the future; 3) remember what Jesus has done for you; 4) strain forward to what lies ahead. If you find yourself drawn to what's on the right or the left, your not looking at Jesus. Straight ahead - eyes on the prize.

If this were easy, everyone would be doing it. We face too many distractions, too strong, and too compelling, to not be tempted to pull a ‘Harold Abrams’. We REALLY want to look to the right or the left. But that’s a fool’s game. Rather, let’s fix our eyes on Jesus, looking straight ahead, running towards the light, our life, our destiny, our Christ.

Some portions of scripture are memorable because they powerfully condense into a few key phrases the core message of the Bible; Philippians 1.2-11 is one of these texts. Please read the scripture here.

In this passage of scripture, Paul raises important questions and provides dramatic answers. What is it that makes a person righteous? What is it that gives us right standing with God? Our relationship with God depends on getting the right answer to this.

v2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

Look out for dogs and evildoers! The problem Paul faced is that some Jewish Christians were coming into churches he planted and teaching that circumcision was necessary for right standing with God. To be fair, these folk believed in Jesus – but it was Jesus +. They believed that in addition to Jesus, to be a genuine Christian you had to keep the Mosaic law, and this included circumcision. The reason Paul addresses this is that it doesn’t work. It’s Jesus, not Jesus+, that is the basis of righteousness.

vv. 5-6 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

If anyone should have confidence in the flesh, it was Paul. By confidence in the flesh we mean trusting in our ability to be pleasing to God through our own human effort, through good works, through trying to keep God’s law. Paul’s spiritual CV is impressive. Everything a good Jew should be expected to do … and it still wasn’t enough.

vv. 7-8: But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss … I count everything as loss … I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish.

Imagine going for a job interview and handing your prospective employer your CV. They look at, read through, and then pull out a box of matches and light it on fire, saying, ‘Absolutely nothing you have done qualifies you to work here’. This is essentially what Paul does with his own spiritual CV. Remember, the question is how can we be righteous before God? Paul looks at his CV, his own personal accomplishments, and says ‘It’s a pile of dung’.

Here’s the point: nothing we do qualifies us to know God and be part of his family.

vv. 7, 8, 9: for the sake of Christ … the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake … in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him … that I may know him.

Paul had one singular focus in life – knowing Christ. There is no higher privilege offered humans other than knowing Christ; this is the pinnacle of human existence. Understanding this is what makes it easy to discount everything that doesn’t work.

If you cannot say with Paul, ‘I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord’, you do not yet understand the glory of what is available in Christ.

v. 9: I will be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith

So if Paul had a CV that amounted to nothing, why continue to live with the passion of knowing Christ, something that is impossible for people without divine intervention? This is precisely the issue – God has intervened. And that is the gospel.

Righteousness – right standing with God – is a gift from God (Rom. 5.17) that comes not from the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. We are given this gift – we are given right standing with God – not because of what we do, but because of what Christ has done.

This is really a topic for another blog, but I’ll mention here it: the gift of righteousness comes to us through imputation. In short, our sin is counted to Christ who bears the penalty for it on the cross. His righteousness is counted to us through faith. That is, we believe the promise of forgiveness through his death on the cross, and we are given the gift of righteousness – right standing with God.

vv. 10-11: that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

The reason Paul yearned for the resurrection wasn’t so that he could live forever but so that he could be with Christ. Eternal life is not simply the state of ‘living eternally’ and not dying; rather, eternal life is knowing, enjoying, and fellowshipping with God in great intimacy, forever.

Though Paul knew and walked with Christ on planet earth, he longed for the day when he could do this in person.  

We all have confidence in something, but often in ourselves, not Christ. We all cling to some kind of righteousness, but often not that of Christ. What about about you? What do you trust in? What is the source of your confidence? Can you say, with Paul, that you have counted all things – including the good stuff – rubbish? Is your passion, like Paul’s, to know Christ?

The good news is that if we will turn to Christ whole heartedly, we can experience more of God than we ever thought possible. Not because we’re good, but because He is good, and in Christ, He has given us more goodness than we can understand.

One of the deepest human longings is to feel significant. Deep inside we all want to feel important, to feel needed, to feel like our lives matter. Everyone wants to feel like they are special.

But we live in world that has crafted a narrative of not special. The world tells us, ‘You are just the random result of matter plus time plus chance; you are  nothing more than lucky mud; you are biological accident!’

Amidst this deluge of meaninglessness in a random universe, people spend their lives searching for significance, hoping that somehow, in the midst of a ginormous universe, their life matters. There are two things people do to gain this feeling of significance. First, they seek it in affirmation, the verbalised value others express for who we are and we do. Second, we seek to gain significance through action, doing things that we think are important. So the stuff we do, and the stuff others think about us – this is where many people try to derive a sense of significance.

But the impact of our actions and the affirmations of others fades over time; this is why ‘the world is not enough’. The search for significance goes on throughout our lives. And for many people this search becomes very individualistic: craft your own goals, and interpret what people think about us in the context of those goals. By matching your own efforts and the affirmations you receive with individualistically-crafted goals, you can create, at least superficially, your own sense of significance.

The gospel gives a different, better, and enduring foundation for feeling significant; the gospel answers the search for significance in a deep and profound way. The gospel answers both of these – both the internal need to feel important and the external need for accomplishment-based affirmation.
 The gospel sets us free from the tyranny of what others think about us and draws us into the sphere of what God thinks about us.

Here’s what the gospel does – it gives us intrinsic personal value and a deeply important mission to accomplish for which we receive commendation from God (2 Corinthians 10.18). We see these two coming together in Ephesians 2.10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Notice what we learn:

The first part of this is that we are created in Christ Jesus. This speaks to our intrinsic value through what God has done in Christ. We are significant because God first loved us and gave Jesus to die for us and bring us home. God puts us in Christ, he creates us in Christ, and as part of Christ’s body we are valued by God as much as Christ is valued by God. This is the most intense value any person can ever experience.

But a new identity in Christ is only the beginning.  In addition to being created in Christ, we are the why behind the what is for good works.  God has stuff for us to do – stuff that matters, stuff that is of eternal value.

This is what we have to understand: the kingdom of God creates a different risk/reward assessment: nearly dying for the work of Christ makes sense. The kingdom of God redefines purpose: what we do for the gospel is of eternal value. In God’s economy, sacrifice for the gospel makes sense.

But with Timothy and Epaphroditus we also learn that gospel advance is personal. Timothy and Epaphroditus are real people, real men, involved in real relationships of genuine care and concern. Timothy didn’t merely represent the gospel, he was an extension of Paul’s personal care. Epaphroditus wasn’t just a commodity, but the Philippians were appropriately concerned when they heard about his sickness, and Paul himself was also distressed.

We started by recognising that every human has a deep need to feel significant. Many people try to fill that need by crafting a narrative about their lives that makes their lives feel significant to themselves, either through their accomplishments or what others think about them.

Paul is reminding us of a simple but profound truth: in addition to the intrinsic value you have in Christ, there is nothing more significant than devoting your life to the gospel. This doesn’t mean you need to quit your day job; it does mean that you interpret your life as an opportunity to participate in gospel advance.

Here's what it looks like to live a gospel-focused life:

1) Show up. This is what both Timothy and Epaphroditus got right. These weren't the greatest guys, but they could at least show up and give what they have. Someone once said that 80% of life is showing up. You can't steer a parked car, and gospel impact begins with showing up.

2) Give up. Not as in surrender, but give what you've got. This simply means to be faithful. None of us can't give what we don't have, and God doesn't expect us to. But, he has given all of us something, and our job is to use what he has given us for gospel advance.

3) Ante up. This simply means 'to do one's share of something'. In a word, to sacrifice. The term comes from poker where a player has to meet the stakes raised beforehand. Timothy and Epaphroditus have raised the stakes; let's make a commitment to embrace the economy of God's kingdom in which personal sacrifice for gospel advance makes sense.

Remember, you have been created in Christ Jesus for good works. The new creation in Christ is who you are; you are significant because God has paid a high price for you in Christ. But your significant value is meant to be spent, not hoarded; to be poured out, not preserved; to be devoted to the gospel of Jesus, not wasted on trivial pursuits.

You will experience your greatest sense of significance when you join Timothy and Epaphroditus in a life lived for the glory of God.

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I’ve got a simple question for you followed by a less than simple answer: what does Paul mean when he tells us to ‘work out your salvation with fear and trembling’? (Philippians 2.12). If we’re already saved, what does it mean to work out our salvation?

One of the central ideas that helps us understand spiritual dynamics and the nature of our relationship with God: salvation is a process and an event. When we way that salvation is an event, we mean that there is a moment in time when God accomplishes in our lives something called salvation. When we say that salvation is a process we mean that God is doing something over time. Let’s unpack this a bit further.

Immediately following God’s great deliverance of people from Egypt, Mirriam declared in song, ‘The LORD is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation’ (Exodus 15:2).  In Acts chapter 16 we read about a troubled jailer who asked Paul and Silas, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ (Acts 16:30)? The answer to this question is the central message of the Bible.  A concise way of stating the gospel is simply that ‘God saves sinners’. Note the three components of this statement: God, sinners, and salvation.  God is the one who does the saving, sinners are the ones who experience salvation; salvation is thus what God does and what sinners experience.  And we know this is all done on the basis of God’s grace (Ephesians 2.5, 7, 8-9).

Salvation is a rich, full, multi-faceted concept. When we discuss salvation, we refer to the entire work of God to deliver people from sin and its consequences.  Remember, the human condition is that we are dead in our sins, alienated from God, guilty of breaking God’s law, and morally polluted. The good news is that the salvation God provides solves all of these problems: God makes us alive, he brings us to himself, he forgives our sins and pronounces us not guilty, and heals our pollution, both pronouncing and making us righteous.  This is indeed a great salvation! (Hebrews 2:3).

The Hebrew word for salvation is יֵשׁוּעַ yeshuah and means ‘deeds of deliverance, deliverer, helper.’   The Greek word for salvation is σωτηρία soteria and means ‘welfare, prosperity, deliverance, preservation, salvation, safety’.   Thus, salvation is God’s rescue by which He delivers people out of destruction and into His safety.  More specifically, salvation is the work of God in Christ that brings people from death to life, from alienation to belonging, from guilty to forgiven, and from slavery to freedom. All of this is the event of salvation.
So why do we say that salvation is also a process?

One way to think about salvation is in three time zones. You can say this about your life: I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved’. When we say ‘I have been saved’, we mean that at one point in the past we experienced God’s work of justification. When we say that we will be saved, we mean that we will experience God’s work of glorification. But between these two we live in the ‘now and the not yet’ tension between justification (what has happened) and glorification (what will happen). This is what we call sanctification – the process of being conformed to the image of Jesus (Romans 8.29).

With that 'salvation background' in mind, here’s a brief answer to the question I asked at the beginning: to work out your salvation means to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to live consistently with the new identity you have in Christ. But even this working isn’t by ourselves; even in the working out out of salvation God works in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2.13).

Paul’s point to encourage the Philippians to honour God by living consistently with the work that God has already done in their lives through Christ. This is why he tells them ‘Do all things without grumbling or questioning’ (Philippians 2.14). The attitude of gratitude should mark those delivered by God from sin and death into forgiveness and life. It is more than coincidental that Paul targets grumbling and complaining; that's an entire sermon in itself. Let's get back on point: living well and living honourably doesn’t save us; it doesn’t ‘get us on the team’; rather, this is how we live on the team. Working hard doesn't make us part of the family; we work hard because we are part of the family. We honour God by growing into the conformity to Christ, living consistently with our new identity in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Not long after Jean and I got married, the Chicago Bulls won their first NBA championship. They were led by Michael Jordon whose name often comes up in ‘Greatest Of All Time’ conversations. He subsequently led them to five more championships.

Not long after winning the first championship, Jordon starred in a sports drink commercial. The theme of the advert, underpinned by a catchy tune, was ‘Be like Mike’, like Mike, I want to be like Mike!.

If you’re an aspiring basketball player, there are worse things than being like Mike. But as great as he was, Michael Jordon was not known as a great team player. He was once asked if he understood that ‘There is no ‘I’ in team’. He responded, with a smile, But there is WIN!

Though he could be selfish with the ball, he understood that it takes a team to win basketball games. One of his teammates, Scottie Pippen, is ranked as one of the 50 greatest basketball players of all time. The point is simply that even with Jordan’s greatness, winning takes a team.

In Philippians 2.1-10, the apostle Paul points to Jesus and says, ‘Be Like Christ’. The winning attitude that marked Jesus was very simply: he was great because he made others great.

He begins by reminding them about rich promises they have in Christ, he points to practices he wants them to live out in Philippi, and he points to Jesus as the example of how to live.

V1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy.

Paul is not questioning whether or not the Philippians have experienced these benefits; he is basically saying, because you have these benefits in Christ, I want you to do something. But first, reflect on these amazing benefits. The key thoughts are all confirmed in other great scriptures throughout the New Testament:

1) Encouragement/comfort
2 Corinthians 1.5: For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

2) Comfort/solace from love
Romans 5.5: God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

3) Participation (sharing, fellowship) in the Spirit
2 Corinthians 13.14: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

4) Affection/compassion and sympathy/mercies.
2 Corinthians 1.3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.

What amazing blessings we have through gospel! But since all of that is true, there is something Paul wants the Philippians to do.

Philippians 2.2-4: complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

At the heart of this encouragement is unity. It seems like Paul has detected some seeds of division, and he wants to deal with it head on before it grows and becomes unmanageable. He will engage this directly in Chapter 4 when he writes, ‘I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord’. He uses the same phrase, ‘being of the same mind’. Being of the same mind means to prioritise relational unity over petty difference.

Note the three ways that Paul wants them to walk in unity:

• Thinking the same way – not necessarily agreeing on every point, but having the same mindset – the mindset of unity – able to discern the difference between what must be agreed and what can be flexible.
• Loving the same way: sharing with each other the love God has shared with us.
• Feeling the same way: a shared commitment to the family ethos.

There are some non-negotiable things that we must take a stand on. But most of the things that cause friction in churches are relational, not theological. The point: do everything you can in your local church to help create a loving local church ethos marked sense of unity.

Philippians 2.5-10 is one of the most profound bits of scripture in the Bible. Paul points to Jesus as the example of the necessary attitude to build unity in the local church.

First, Paul told the Philippians to THINK LIKE JESUS
v.5: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

Second, he reminds them WHAT JESUS DID. Beginning with Christ’s pre-existence in eternity, considering his incarnation, life, death, resurrection and glorification, Paul points to Jesus as the example of what it looks like to embrace an attitude of humility. Note especially verse 6
v. 6: who, though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

The phrase he was in the form of God means that Christ shared the very nature of God; he shared the essential qualities that make God God. But the point is that he did not use his God-ness for self preservation but for saving others.

Christ’s God-ness was not about grasping but giving; not about seizing but surrendering, not about preserving status but powerful serving.

Look what he wrote in verse 7:
v. 7: but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Jesus was fully God before the incarnation; while remaining God, he became a man, and in so doing, took the position of a slave. This is the most extreme contrast possible: the one who had the highest glory as God serves as a humble and obedient servant to the point that he died for the sins of the world.

This section concludes by noting that Jesus was given the name above every name. Jesus achieved the highest honour by going the lowest to bring others into their destiny.

Imagine being part of a church where everyone shows up looking to make someone else great. How good would be it be part of a church where we all show looking to be a blessing. That's the kind of church I want to be part of!

So what do we do? Ask God for the grace to live Philippians 2.3-4: In humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

If we do that, we’ll become the church wants us to be and fulfil the mission God has for us.

Because salvation is a gift that cannot be earned, Christians instinctively deflect thoughts of worthiness or attaining God’s favour based on performance. But this does not mean performance is unimportant. In Philippians 1.27 Paul clearly challenges Christians to live in a manner worthy of the gospel’. What does this mean?

Paul was an adamant preacher of the gospel of grace – the good news of salvation through Christ on the basis of faith. He was often combatting works righteousness – the notion that anyone can achieve right standing with God on the basis of good works. He does this explicitly in Philippians chapter 3 when he rights that he does not have ‘a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith’ (Phil. 3.9).

So here’s the question: if righteousness comes through faith, what is the purpose of good works? What does it mean to live a worthy life?

Paul answers this in Philippians 1.27-30. To live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ is to strive together as one for the faith of the gospel. To strive together is a compound word in the Greek that means both unity and striving; that is, striving together is to cooperate vigorously. This is done ‘in one Spirit’. Other components of this striving for the faith of the gospel include being without fear (v. 28) while facing persecution.

All of the phrases Paul uses to describe this worthy life relate to gospel advance. For Paul, living a life worthy of the gospel is to devote one’s life to the ministry of the gospel. If we have been saved through the gospel, the least we can do is share that message with others.

Paul understands that time, talent and treasure invested in gospel advance is not wasted. It is those able to pierce through the temporality that marks our age to devote our lives to eternal things. Everything we do for gospel advance – striving together for the faith of the gospel without fear – everything counts.

Remember: We bring no worthiness into our relationship with God. But as those God has saved, a worthy life is one devoted to gospel advance. And this honours God.

The energetic and effervescent character named Dani Rojas in the sitcom Ted Lasso shares his life philosophy: Football is Life! This reminds me of the Scottish football manager who, when asked, Is football a matter of life and death?, responded by saying, ‘No, it’s much important!’.

Football is life! For Dani Rojas, football is what gives them life and what gives meaning to life. But notice what he does not say: Life is football. That doesn’t even make sense!

In the book of Philippians we read one of Paul’s most enigmatic sayings: To live is Christ. This takes the Dani Rojas formula and makes it backwards. Notice he doesn’t say, ‘Christ is life!’. If we he did, we’d be shouting, ‘Amen!’ And that’s because Christ is our life! When we repent and believe the gospel we are united with Christ; we are made partakers of the life that is in him (John 1.4). We experience true, eternal life, God’s life when we are made partakers with Christ of the life that is in God. This is the profound blessing of salvation.

As compelling and beautiful as it is to say, ‘Christ is life!’, that’s not what Paul says. Rather, he says, To live is Christ. What does that even mean? Before I give you the answer, we’re going to put this in the context of Philippians 1.19-26.

vv. 19-20: Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

Remember, Paul is in prison writing to a church that had been birthed in a prison (Acts 16). At the time of his writing, he is standing trial and wanting to be faithful. He ends this section by saying, whether I live or die, it doesn’t matter! And the reason it doesn’t matter is that his main ambition is not to live or to die but that Christ will be exalted!

But that raises the key question: facing trial and possible torture or death, will Paul remain faithful? He expects that he will remain faithful, he says, ‘I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage’. Why is that? It’s because of your prayers and the supply of the Spirit.

God answers pray, and by his Spirit he provides whatever we need to remain faithful. But he phrase supply of the Spirit is best understood – not ‘what the Spirit supplies’ but ‘God’s supply of the Spirit’. This doesn’t mean that Paul didn’t have the Holy Spirit but that even for someone who is Spirit-empowered and Spirit-filled, God ministered to Paul with fresh supply of His Spirit to such a degree that Paul could be confident that he will be faithful and courageous.

vv. 21-23:  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.

So this is the meat of this passage: to live is Christ, to die is gain. What does this mean? Very simply, living is all about Christ – knowing Christ, honouring Christ, serving Christ. Paul makes it plain, the main benefit of living is fruitful labour. We get to know and enjoy and be with and worship God forever in heaven. But we only get to do fruitful labour -  preaching the gospel, making disciples, reaching lost people – we only get to do that now.

But more than affirming that his life is all about Christ, Paul goes on to say that to die is gain. This doesn’t mean that Paul has a death wish or is suicidal; rather, ‘we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord’ (2 Corinthians 5.8). For a believer to die is to instantaneously transition to God’s unmediated presence. For Paul personally, dying is beneficial because he gets to go be with God. But if he stays … to live is Christ.

vv. 25-26:  Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.

Paul speaks as if he has a choice. He doesn’t; he stands before Caesar and will be judged. But he is confident that the Lord will leave him on planet earth at least for a bit more. Why? Because Paul wants to work, he wants to continue with the Philippians for progress and joy in the faith.

This is a good and helpful instruction providing guidance for Christians; Paul’s passion for the Philippians should be our passion for each other, to help advance progress and joy in the faith. Paul wants to continue and remain for this focus. But he works and leads in such a way that when the Philippians receive from him, they don’t say, ‘PAUL IS GREAT!’. No, their boasting is in Christ Jesus. That is, God’s grace poured out to them through Paul accrues to God’s glory.

What do we do with this? Very simply, the Lord is inviting us to say with Paul, To live is Christ. For many of us, we can’t say that honestly. Rather, we think and live as if to live is Christ plus … Christ + family, job, hobbies, wealth. What is your plus? The danger of having a plus is that eventually the plus becomes the main thing. So that rather than saying, To live is Christ plus X, we say, To live is X plus Christ. The order gets completely inverted. If we’re not careful, our lives become centred around X, and we try to sprinkle some Christ on it because we know we’re supposed to have some Christ.

Football is not life; true life is found only in Christ. But in experiencing life in Christ, our lives become all about Christ. Your best life now – and tomorrow, and next year, and the rest of this century, is to say – and live – like Paul: to live is Christ.  

Read Philippians 1.12-18.
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defence of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

To help us understand this text, think about this: let's ask a key question: Paul found himself in a difficult situation: What filters did he use to understand his situation? In short, what we're going to see is that Paul looked at God’s providence as the key explainer of his life’s details, and this enabled him to see opportunity where others saw problems.

A core dimension of the human experience is the search for meaning. More than noting the facts of our existence, we are hard-wired to try and understand the bigger picture. What’s it all about? What does our life mean? What is the meaning of the events that happen to us?

As we seek to attribute meaning, not only to our lives, but to the details and circumstances of our lives, we tend to revert to filters. A ‘filter’ is an explanatory premise, like X happened because of Y. And so as students we might say, ‘I did poorly on this test because I didn’t study much’.

But our deeper questions are not really about the basic cause and effect details of our lives, but why did I have the parents I have? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen to Christians?

We understand that, theologically, bad things happen because we live in fallen world. But in addition to the condition of fallenness, there is a God-factor we cannot ignore. One of the key doctrines the Bible teaches is providence.

When we used the word providence we mean God’s purposeful sovereignty by which God superintends the universe to accomplish his will. Historically different Christian creeds have given definitions of providence:

The Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Q27: What do you understand by the providence of God? A: The almighty and ever present power of God1 by which God upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures,2 and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty3 — all things, in fact, come to us not by chance4 but by his fatherly hand.5 (1Jer. 23:23-24; Acts 17:24-28; 2Heb. 1:3; 3Jer. 5:24; Acts 14:15-17; John 9:3; Prov. 22:2p; 4 Prov. 16:33; 5Matt. 10:29).

The Belgic Confession (1561): We believe that this good God, after creating all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without God’s orderly arrangement.

The doctrine of God’s providence is taught in many scriptures, such as Isaiah 46:9-10:
I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.

Providence is also taught in the book of Jonah:

1.4: The Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea
1.17: And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah
2.10: And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.
4.6: Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah
4.8: God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint.

Notice that God is the actor controlling wind, fish, plans and sun. And he did all of that for the sake of getting his message to Ninevah, and to teach Jonah about his goodness. Remember, providence is God’s purposeful sovereignty. God is exercising his sovereignty – his raw power to do what he wants; but more than that, he is doing is on purpose, to accomplish something.

And so when Paul looked at his situation – being in prison in Rome – he didn’t feel like God had abandoned him; just the opposite. Paul saw this is a gospel opportunity. The theological interpretation Paul gives to the details of his life is Romans 8:28: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

This belief in God’s providence and the trust in God it promotes become the lens by which Paul interprets his circumstances. Not only is God working all things together for Paul, but there is a bigger purpose at stake:

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. Philippians 1.12

This is an amazing statement. Rather than being bitter; Paul adopts a better attitude; rather than feeling abandoned, Paul feels strategically placed. And not only gospel progress generally, but those close to Caesar were hearing the gospel: it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ). Paul's rejoicing isn’t because everything is going perfectly, just the opposite:

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. Philippians 1.15

But Paul is able to use this gospel filter to come round to a place of rejoicing:

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Philippians 1.18

The advance of the gospel became the filter Paul used to interpret his life. Rather than assuming that life was random and without meaning, Paul assumed life was superintended by God and had purpose. And that purpose was wrapped up in the gospel.

Remember that, like Paul, your life too is cared for by the providential hand of God. Remember that, like Paul, God is working all things together for good in your life if you love God and have been called through Christ according to his purposes. And remember that, like Paul, when it feels like God has abandoned you and you find yourself in a situation of darkness and isolation and bad circumstances, it may be that God has orchestrated everything for a gospel purpose. Open your eyes and look around to see the opportunities God opens for you every day.

Here’s the big idea: God has invested so much to purchase you through Christ, he will finish what he started.

The book of Philippians is marked by encouragement and joy. Paul is in prison in Rome, writing to a church birthed in a prison in Philippi, encouraging them to be joyful in the face of persecution. The church in this Roman colony had the audacity to claim that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, titles typically reserved for the Roman emperor. And so this church faithfully exalts Christ in the face of difficulty.

Let’s look at two characteristics of this church that make it great.

v. 5: because of your partnership [koinonia] in the gospel from the first day until now.  

Gospel partnership begins with faith in God’s salvation in Christ and continues to share Christ with others. The Philippians had become partners in the gospel by God’s work of bringing them to himself; now they were partners with God in the gospel ministry of reaching out to others.

Note the word because. Paul says that it is because of this partnership that always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy (v. 4). Paul wasn’t praying for the Philippians because they had lots of problems, just the opposite; Paul was praying for them with thanksgiving and joy because they were such amazing partners in the gospel.

v. 6:  And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

When we get in the car and start driving, we usually have a destination in mind. Think about that for a moment. We – broken, sinful, finite, imperfect humans - are able to conceive an end – a destination towards which we are moving, and carry it out. The reason we get into the car and start drying is because we want to get somewhere. We begin the trip with the end in mind.

And the same thing is true about God. God breaks into our lives – not randomly, but on purpose. God initiates the work of grace in our lives – not randomly, but on purpose. God saves us and adopts us and forgives us and regenerates, not on the basis of some random occurrence but because he intends to bring us home to himself.

God begins everything with the end in mind. But unlike us, who are unable to guarantee the outcome of anything, God is able to guarantee completely everything he determines.

In verse 6 Paul says that the moment of completion is the day of Christ Jesus.  

The day of Christ is the end of this age and the beginning of the next when we Jesus returns, is fully glorified and exalted, and judges the world. Paul’s point is that God doesn’t bring us to himself through Christ to leave us half baked; he will finish what He has started.

As a matter of fact, from his perspective, it’s already done. This is how Paul frames it for the Romans:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. Romans 8.29-30

To foreknow means more than God knows ahead of time who he will adopt; he does, but to foreknow is to know in a special, covenantal way; it is for God to set his love and affection on someone – not because they are good, but because God has chosen them. God chooses to enter into relationship with people, and He knows whom he has chosen (Jer. 1.5; Amos 3.2; Deut. 10.15). On the basis of that foreknowing, God he has predetermined that those he saves, those he justifies, those he adopts – He will finish what he started. Paul describes this in two ways: first, they will be conformed to the image of Jesus. Second, they will get glorified.

This is the point he makes to the Philippians: Paul is sure of this – he has absolute certainty – that what God has started in them through the gospel will come to the full completion God intends – they will be conformed to Christ’s image, they will be glorified – and all that will happen on the day of the Lord, which is the day of Jesus Christ. God begins with the end in mind; he only starts the salvation process with those he plans to finish it with. And God completes everything he plans.

Is it worth it? First, why would Paul write this? Just like us, the Philippians were subject to fluctuations of up and down and losing hope. As they began to experience persecution, with greater intensity, they needed to be reminded that God would start what he had finished. The guaranteed end makes the struggle more than worth it.

The more the merrier. By being reminded of God’s completion promise, the Philippians had greater motivation to continue their gospel partnership. God brought them into fellowship with himself through the gospel, and now, through gospel ministry, they were extending this fellowship to others.

To summarise: God's high investment in us through Christ confirms that he will finish what he has started in our lives. This frees us to the enjoy the fellowship of  gospel ministry by inviting others to the party.

Before Jesus ascended into heaven, this is what he told his followers:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”  Acts 1.8

Jesus promised to send his disciples the Holy Spirit, and on the day of Pentecost, he did. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift of himself to believers. Why is this important?

Imagine a parent who gives their young son a new toy car for Christmas. It’s battery operated, but batteries are not included. For the car to work, it needs power. Too many Christians live as if batteries are not included.

The good news for us is that in addition to the Spirit’s indwelling, He also empowers us to be witnesses of Jesus. The Lord himself said, ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses’ (Acts 1.8).

As we reflect on the Pentecost story as described in Acts 2, we learn about the Person, Presence, and Power of the Holy Spirit. In addition to understanding who the Spirit is and what He does in our lives, we also want to position ourselves to be filled with and empowered by the Spirit.

1. The Holy Spirit is God. When we talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit, we’re not talking about God+ or some outside force. Remember the Trinitarian formula: 1) There is one God; God eternally exists in three Persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; 3) all Persons of the Trinity are fully God.

2. Jesus promised the person of the Spirit. In Acts 1.4-5, Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem because they would be baptised with the Holy Spirit. This baptism language speaks to an immersion into the Spirit; the Holy Spirit is the domain in which we live the Christian life (see 1 Cor. 12.13).

3. Jesus promised the power of the Spirit. In Acts 1.8 Jesus told his disciples they would receive power to witnesses when the Holy Spirit came upon them. This is Jesus' way of restating what Joel had prophesied. The Greek word for power is dynamis which means power, force, might, ability, efficacy, energy. The Holy Spirit gives us divine enablement to witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.

4. According to Jesus, the purpose of the Spirit's people was to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. God began his redemptive agenda with Abraham, and now the risen Messiah is sending his followers all over the world.

5. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurred on the day of Pentecost, the ‘first fruits’ feast held annually in Jerusalem and attended by Jews from all over the Roman Empire. In addition to the prophetic significance of this day, God intentionally chose a moment when Jerusalem was overflowing with people.

6. The coming of the Spirit was marked by sights and sounds. There was a sound of a mighty rushing wind; there were visible tongues of fire that rested on people.

7. Those people in the upper room were filled with the Spirit. In scripture, some people like Cornelius got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit at the same time; for others, like the Samaritans in Acts 8, it was a two-step process. The point is not to try to replicate the pattern but to receive everything God has for you.

8. The filling of the Holy Spirit was for all. They were all together in one place; this was not an optional add on for those who wanted to be ‘really spiritual’; it was Jesus’ intention that all of his followers would be filled with the Holy Spirit.

9. The believers who were filled with the Spirit spoke in other tongues. The Greek word for ‘tongues’ is glossa (literally ‘tongue) and can mean tongue, language, nation. The tongues were the native languages of the people who had gathered for the feast from across the Roman Empire.

10.The Holy Spirit gave the believers ‘utterance’. That is, He enabled them to speak by his power in these languages that they had not learned.

11.The people who had gathered in Jerusalem heard the followers of Jesus ‘telling the mighty works of God’ (Acts 2.5-13). The languages were real, understandable languages, and the content of the messages was the praise and glory of God. This was also the fulfilment of what Jesus said - the nations had gathered in Jerusalem, and by the power of the Spirit Peter proclaimed powerfully the gospel.

12.Some people were curious and wanted to know the meaning of what was going on; some people were sceptical and thought the Christians were drunk. The point simply is that not everyone is open to the working of the Spirit. The same thing is true today: when the Holy Spirit shows up doing 'Spirit' stuff, some people rejoice, and others get bothered. Amazingly, even Christians can get bothered.

13.Peter explained that the Pentecost outpouring was to fulfil Joel’s prophecy that God would pour out his Spirit on everyone, producing prophecy, visions, and dreams (Acts 2:6-21). God keeps his promise even when it was made centuries before.

14. Peter used the opportunity to preach the gospel. Jesus had said that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit would produce power to be a witness, and this is exactly what happened; Peter preached powerfully as a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

15. Peter preached the death and resurrection of Jesus. Sometimes we overcomplicate the gospel; Peter put forward the facts that 1) God attested to Jesus through signs and wonders; 2) he was delivered up according to the plan and foreknowledge of God and 3) ‘you crucified him’ through the hands of sinful men but 4) God raised him from the dead and 5) has made him both Lord and Christ.

16. Peter told the people to repent and get water baptised. The modern conception of the ‘altar call’ had not been invented, and so when the people asked Peter what to do, he told them repent – turn from your sin – and get water baptised.

17. Peter promised that they people who repented and got water baptised would receive the Holy Spirit. Remember the Joel prophecy – God was pouring out his Spirit on all flesh – that is – the Holy Spirit is available for all believers.

18. Over three thousand people responded to the gospel. Acts 2.41 describes the beautiful results of this glorious day: So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

God has called us to be a Spirit-empowered community of believers reaching lost people with the gospel. Jesus has told us to go everywhere and make disciples. Our task is so challenging that we need everything God has given to us to get the job done. We need spiritual gifts to get the job done. But the topic of spiritual gifts has sometimes been neglected by Christians.

Professor of Church Growth Eddie Gibbs notes the reasons that spiritual gifts have simply not been a normal part of the experience of some Christian. Why is this the case?

1. We look back over 2000 years of Church history and note that many of the gifts have fallen into disuse during that period.  That shouldn’t surprise us, because their have also been stretches of time when the gospel itself was obscured and not clearly articulated.

2. Look at the crude religious magic of the medieval church, along with some of the folk superstitions that paraded under the Christian banner, it is not surprising that many Reformation Christians have been suspicious of anything miraculous or mysterious.

3. In observing the manifestations of some supposedly supernatural gifts within classical and neo-Pentecostal movements, they have been unconvinced about their authenticity.

Before we look at these lists of gifts, let me address some of these concerns.

1. First, the Bible nowhere teaches that gifts have been withdrawn.  On the contrary, I Cor. 13:8-10 suggests that prophecies, tongues, and knowledge will be needed until Christ returns.

2. Second, when the epistles speak about certain gifts, it is to instruct Christians in their proper use, not about how to phase the gifts out of use.

3. Third, the scriptures do not make a distinction between gifts that seem more natural and those that seem more supernatural.  If you want to do away with tongues and prophecy, you need to do away with service, administration, and leadership.  If you want to keep service, administration, and leadership – you will need to do some artificial and creative cutting and pasting.

A cultural problem
And that brings me to what I think is a core issue. Much of our reservation about spiritual gifts is more cultural than theological.  European Christians live in the slowest gospel advancing region on planet Earth and yet we sometimes exhibit a theological arrogance that views other parts of the world as less sophisticated and informed.  It could be that we have been influenced by the anti-faith scepticism that marks this European context more than we would like to admit.

The entire orientation of the New Testament – of the Bible – is a bias towards faith.  It is a bias towards believing.  It’s a perspective of proactive trusting in a God who is mighty and powerful and victorious and triumphant.  

Matthew 13:58 says that even Jesus couldn’t do many mighty works in Nazareth because of their unbelief.  IF a spirit of unbelief is true anywhere on Planet Earth today – it is true in Europe.  

We have to recognise that we live in a philosophical mileux of doubt, unbelief, and scepticism.  In contrast to all that the Bible says in Hebrews 11:6 that without faith it is impossible to please God.  I’m not by any means suggesting that we should tolerate every wacko manifestation for which people want to claim a divine origin.  Rather, I’m suggesting that if we as a church want to be pleasing to God and to fulfil his purpose for our church, our faith quotient needs to go up, not down.

SO – as we come to this topic of spiritual gifts, let me give you a working definition of a spiritual gift.

A spiritual gift is a special attribute given by the Holy Spirit to every member of the body of Christ according to God’s grace for use with the context of the Body.

Let’s pause here and take a moment to unpack this:

a special attribute:  a trait, an ability, a manifestation

given by the Holy Spirit:  1st Corinthians 12 uses various phrases to describe the Spirit’s role in the giving, animation, and manifestation of spiritual gifts:  they are given through the Spirit, they are according to the Spirit, they are by the Spirit.  It is by, with, through, and in the Holy Spirit that these gifts are given and that they work.

 to every member of the body of Christ:  verse 7 of Chapter 12 says that to each one is given.  These aren’t reserved for super saints; this is something that God gives to everyone who is a believer.

according to God’s grace:  Grace means unearned, unmerited love and favour.  The gifts are little gracelets – little tokens of God’s expression of love towards his people.  He doesn’t give them because we deserve them; He gives them because He wants us to us them to bless His people.

For use with the context of the Body:  It’s for the common good, for the building up of the Church.

As we read through I Corithians 12, its important to notice that Paul uses different words for gifts:

•Charismata: gift
•Pneumatica:  manifestations
•Diakoniaia:  services
•Energamita;  workings.

All of this implies some degree of flexibility with these terms.  This is not some fixed, precise, put it into an air-tight box kind of thing.  It paints a picture of a rich, full, diverse body of work by the Holy Spirit through the lives of believers to strengthen God’s church.

There are four primary lists of gifts in the New Testament (Romans 12:3-8, 1 Cor. 12:8-10, 1 Cor. 12:29-30; Ephesians 4:11-12) and none of them is exactly the same, but there is a good bit of overlap. These lists are not intended to be exhaustive or complete. They are all sample lists of how the Holy Spirit can work in and through believers.  They are ad hoc, given in each case to support the point that Paul is making in each context.I’ve put them up on a church here so that you can see what gifts are in which lists:

The challenge:  Paul doesn’t take time to define all the gifts because the churches would have been familiar with them.  We are looking back through 2000 years of history, trying to understand what each of these was and how they worked and how they were used in the local church.  I don’t think it is possible to know the exact nature of every gift to which the scripture makes a passing reference.  So consider these as working definitions based on the text and wide reading.

In preparing these definitions, I actually consulted many different sources of definitions.  In each case, I thought some of the definitions were better than the others, and so I chose the one I thought was best, and these references are available

First, the 1st Corinthians 12 gifts:

1. The utterance of wisdom (sometimes called the word of wisdom [logos Sophia]):  in the context of all that Paul has said in 1st Corinthians about God’s wisdom being expressed through the  crucifixion of Christ, the word of wisdom is the recognition that the message of Christ crucified is God’s true wisdom, a recognition that comes only to those who have received the Spirit.  So we can summarize what this gift is by saying “God-given insight into the mysterious purposes and workings of God in and through Jesus Christ.”  In particular, the recognition of God’s activity in the crucifixion of Christ.

2. The utterance of knowledge (sometimes called the word of knowledge [logos gnosis]):  the God-given ability to communicate biblical truth or insight to the body.

3.Faith:  The divine enablement to act on God’s promises with confidence and unwavering belief in God’s ability to fulfil his purposes.  Whereas God’s spirit works in all Christians to have a measure of faith that leads to salvation , the gift of faith refers to being able to believe God’s promises and to act on them.  We could describe this gift as the ability to move mountains.
 
4. Gifts of healing: the divine enablement to be God’s means for restoring people to wholeness.  It is interesting to note that the word here for ‘gift’ is plural – this may speak to some kind of diversity within the gift, for example, the ability to heal various kinds of sickness, whether of the body, the mind, or the soul.   This also may mean that this is not a permanent gift, but that each occurrence of it is a gift in its own right.

5. The working of Miracles:  the divine enablement to authenticate the ministry and message of God through supernatural interventions which glorify him.  Sometimes healing can be miraculous, but since this is listed as a separate gift, it can simply mean God’s power working in mighty deeds.

6. Prophecy:  this gift is  central to the main point of 1st Corinthains 12 through 14 and thus worth more intensive discussion. But for now, we can define prophecy as a spontaneous, Spirit-inspired, intelligible message spoken in the gathered assembly for the edification or encouragement of God’s people.

7. Distinguishing Between Spirits:  just like interpretation is paired with tongues, this gift of discernment seems to be paired with prophecy, and seems to mean the divine enablement to distinguish between truth and error; the ability to properly discern, differentiate, and judge prophecies.

8. Various kinds of tongues:  Tongues is a Spirit-inspired unintelligible utterance spoken to God that edifies the speaker, unless it is interpreted. This gift has been called ‘the problem child’ of spiritual gifts – it was a problem in the church in Corinth, and Paul is writing this section to correct that problem.  It has also been a problem in contemporary Christianity – on one hand, because some people have taught that if you can’t speak in tongues, you don’t have the Holy Spirit.  Others have taught that tongues is of the devil.  Paul enters into an extended teaching section on tongues in 1st Corinthians 14, and we’re going to come back and visit this in detail.

9.The interpretation of tongues:  The divine enablement to make known to the church the message of one who is speaking in tongues.  In simple terms, this means to articulate for the benefit of the community what the tongues-speaker has said.  In 1st Corinthians 14, Paul makes very clear that people shouldn’t give messages in tongues unless someone is present with the gift of interpretation.

Second – the Romans 12 gifts:

10. Serving: The special ability that God gives to certain members of the body of Christ to identify the unmet needs involved in a task related to God’s work and to make use of available resources to meet those needs and get the job done.  This is a task-oriented ability to see what needs to be done and get about doing it.  The root of this word is the basis for our word deacon.

11. Teaching:  This is the gift of being able to explain and apply the Word of God in such a way that people can understand and respond.  It is the divine enablement to understand, clearly explain, and apply the Word of God, causing greater Christ-likeness in the lives of listeners.  

12. Exhortation:  the Greek word for exhortation – parakaleo – literally means to come alongside to encourage and strengthen.  Exhortation is the emphatic communication that encourages or challenges someone to action.  This is the God-given ability to challenge, comfort, and encourage so that people move forward rather than shrink back, to go past the breaking point without breaking.  It’s the positive, patient, resilient motivator that prods God’s people forward.

13. Giving:  Everyone has the responsibility to give.  That starts with the basic commitment to tithe – to give to God the first 10% of your income.  But the gift of generosity, or giving, is beyond that basic commitment – it is he divine enablement to contribute money and resources to God’s work with cheerfulness and liberality.  People with this gift don’t ask ‘How much money do I need to give to God,’ but rather, ‘How much money do I need to live on so that I can give the rest to God.’

14. Leadership:  In the Greek, this word literally means to stand before.  Some people function in a position of leadership, but more than a position, this is the God-given ability to cast vision, to motivate, and to direct people to harmoniously accomplish God’s purpose.

15. Mercy: The gift of mercy is the divine enablement to cheerfully and practically help those who are suffering or are in need, having compassion that is is moved to action.

And finally, a couple of gifts from I Corinthians 12:28:

16. The Gift of Helps:  The word translated here as helps means literally ‘to take the place of someone.’  This is the God-given ability to accomplish practical and necessary tasks which free-up, support, and meet the needs of others.

17. Administration:  The Greek Word here actually means pilotage and is used for a ship’s captain.  This is the divine ability to understand what makes an organisation function, and the special ability to plan and execute procedures that accomplish the goals of the ministry.

Now, because most Bible commentators take these lists of gifts to be sample lists, not complete detailed lists of all the spiritual gifts, there are a few other gifts that are sometimes mentioned when spiritual gifts are taught.

One of those is the gift of hospitality, reference in 1 Peter 4:9-10: this is the divine enablement to care for people by providing fellowship, food, and shelter.  When this gift is in operation, you find a home kept where the visitor is invited and guests feel welcome and at ease.  

Another one is intercession:  the God-given ability to consistently pray on behalf of and for others, seeing frequent and specific results.

A third one is craftsmanship, reference in Exodus 31 and 35:  The divine enablement to creatively design and/or construct items to be used in ministry.

One of the natural questions that emerges is, 'How can I know what my spiritual gift is?'. Here are a few practical points on discovering your gift:

1. Through Study
2. Through Trial and Error
3. Through Reflection
4. Through Input from Others
5. Through a Spiritual Gifts Test

A couple of years ago I lost my balance and, in putting my hand out to brace the bang against the wall, broke my thumb. It’s amazing how much we take for granted key parts of our body until we don’t have use of them. I quickly learned how valuable a thumb is – and how difficult simple things like buttoning a shirt can be without one.

The beauty of the church, the body of Christ, is that it’s made up of many part, and each part has a role. But more than that, God gives gifts by his Spirit so that each part can play the role he has called it to play. When God’s people discscover the gifts he has given them, the fruit is that the church is built up and strengthened.

Following are key observations from Romans 12.3-8 and 1 Corinthians 12.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. 1 Corinthians 12.1

Paul wouldn’t write that if there were no one who is uninformed. The reason he wrote these two letter sections is to bring clarity so that we can understand and use appropriately the spiritual gifts God gives.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. I Cor. 12.4-6
The gifts, services, and empowerment for using them all come from God – Spirit, Son, and Father.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  1. Cor. 12.7

Don’t tell anyone, but I have some good books on my bookshelf that I’ve not read. Having them on the bookshelf doesn’t do me any good; the only way to derive benefit from a book is to read it. In the same way, spiritual gifts bring blessing to others when they are put to use.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 1 Cor. 12.7

God doesn’t give us gifts so we can feel better about ourselves; he gives us gifts so we can serve others and build up the body (Eph. 4.16). The ‘common good’ speaks to the church; others are blessed and encouraged when we use what God has given us.

All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit ... 1 Cor. 12.11

After Paul runs through a list of some gifts (1 Cor. 12.8-10), he reminds the Corinthians that all of these gifts – along with the ones identified in Romans 12.3-8 – they are all empowered by the Spirit. That is, serving and leadership are just as spiritual as discernment and prophesy.

... who apportions to each one individually as he wills. 1 Cor. 12.11

There are two key thoughts in this short verse. First, God apportions to each one; no believer doesn’t have a gift, and every believer has something. Second, God apportions as he wills. Many people consistently look at what God has given to others and fail to appreciate what God has given them. The Lord doesn’t make mistakes. God gives you what he wants you to have. That doesn’t mean that you are walking in or experiencing everything God has for you – you may have a dormant gift that has not yet been exercised or discovered. But you can trust that God gives you what he wants you to have.

For as in one body we have many members,[e] and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Romans 12.4-5

In both the Romans and 1st Corinthians passage the basis Paul uses to discuss spiritual gifts is the body. It is by virtue of being part of the body we have gifts; there is no such thing as an ungifted member.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. Romans 12.6

Paul begins his discussion of spiritual gifts by saying by the grace given to me. That is, God gave Paul a unique ‘grace’ to enable him to do what he was called to do. And so as each of us have a different calling, God gives us a different grace. This grace is not ‘saving grace’ but ‘empowering grace’ or ‘enabling grace’ that dispenses and activates spiritual gifts in our lives.

And the point of having a gift is to use it. Remember, don’t leave your gift sitting on the bookshelf – get involved and get that gift going!

For by the grace given to me I say to every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Humility is to think with sober judgment; that is, to clearly understand what God has and has not given you. Different people have different ‘measures of faith’. It’s not your job to worry about what you don’t have but to be faithful with what you do.

Some people err on the side of pride and think they have more than what God has actually given them. Some people err on the side of ‘false humility’, not fully appreciating what God has given them.

It honours God and benefits the church when we earnestly desire spiritual gifts. There is a kind of righteous dissatisfaction – not because of what God has given us, but because so that we can more greatly bless the body of Christ.

According to 1 Corinthians 14, the greater gifts are those that bless the body. Now, this doesn’t mean that Paul does not want us to use gifts that build us up. Paul is very clear: when discussing praying in tongues, he says 1) I do it more than all of you; 2) but I’d rather that you prophesied. The reason he wants them to pray in tongues is clear: praying tongues builds up the one who does it: The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. (1 Cor. 14.4). But the reason he would rather them prophesy is to add spiritual benefit to others.

There are many lessons to take from Romans 12.3-8 and 1 Corinthians 12. Here are three key. things to note:

1. Understand that the Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to the every member of Christ's body.
2. Know what God has given you.
3. Use what God has given you to bless the body.

For a description of the individuals gifts, go here.  

What would it be like to live in a world dominated by love, joy, and peace? What would it be like to be surrounded by people marked by patience, kindness, goodness? How aweseome would it be for faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to be normal?

This is the world that awaits those who are in Christ; this is the reality for which followers of Jesus are destined. The future age in which God’s people will have direct and unmediated access into and with God will be marked by these amazing attributes – love and peace and joy and kindness and goodness. This is the beautiful inheritance God has ordained for his children.

But, you might ask – what about life now? Rather than the sweet bye and bye, what about the dirty here and now? It is in the midst of this life – a life marked by pain and failure and sin and immorality – it is in this life that we need help.

As beautiful as genuine love is as an antidote to transactional relationships, how often do we experience unloving people? As refreshing as joy can be for a downtrodden soul, how much more often do we experience scepticism? As encouraging as kindness is, how often in the course of a normal day do we experience a lack of kindness? How normal is it to bump into anger and resentment and hostility and frustration?

The amazing promise of God is that by the Spirit of God we can enjoy now the realities of the future age. That is, by the Spirit, we become partakers of the age to come, and, while not perfectly, we can know and experience and walk in the qualitative dimensions of the inheritance God has for us.

In his letter to the Galatians Paul refers to these qualitative markers of the age to come as the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22). The key words – the ‘fruits’ – are well known: love, joy, and peace; patience, kindness, and goodness; faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But there are two things I want you to see about these ‘fruits’.

First, notice that Paul speaks of the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruits. Fruit is singular, not plural. That is, these individual ‘fruits’ like love and joy and peace – these are just really part of the fruit of the Spirit. That is, it is the Spirit working in our lives that manifests these different qualitative features.

So the key is the Spirit, not the individual manifestations. Said differently – if you want your life to be full of this fruit, you want a life that is full of the Spirit. That is, this package of outcomes is the fruit of where the Spirit is, where the Spirit is working, and where the Spirit is producing.

But this is what you REALLY need to see: these are not suggested behaviour patterns; this is not Paul telling the Christians in Galatia to go be loving! Go be joyful! Go walk in peace! Rather, Paul is giving them the secret to experiencing this fruit, and it has nothing to do with ‘trying to be loving’ any more than trying to get the fruit of an apple tree has to do with ‘go make an apple’.

Think about that apple tree for a minute. How do we get apples? We get apples as an indirect but predictable outcome of planting an apple seed that produces an apple tree. Apples come from apple trees, and apple trees come from apple seeds.

In the same way, the fruit of the Spirit comes from the Spirit. That is, when we our lives are planted in the Spirit, when we are ‘walking by the Spirit’ (Gal. 5.16), there will be a natural outcome, and that outcome is the fruit of love and joy and peace and patience and the rest.

So rather than doing anything, the Lord invites us to a life of being – being dialed in, rooted in, planted in, open to, enjoying, and walking in the Spirit. In short, the beautiful fruit of the Spirit is simply the outcome of walking in the Spirit. So to enjoy this fruit, position your life every day to walk in and with the Spirit. You have never ever tasted anything so good.