Colossians 3:16-17 Luke 6: 43-49 Disciplines of the Word

Col 3:16-17  Luk 6: 43-49   Disciplines of the Word

Put your hand up if you brought a Bible to Church with you this morning.  Put your hand up if you read something from the Bible at least once in the last three or four days.  We all know the Bible is important to Christians. Jesus took it for granted that God's word - what we call the Bible - was there in the background, and had a particular authority. Time and time again, when engaged in a discussion he would say, "it is written..."  I'm not going to go into the questions today about "Why we believe the Bible is so important." If you want to discuss that we can talk about it over a cup of tea after the service.  But having accepted that the bible is important, what are we meant to do with it?  Let's look at the Disciplines of the Word. Jesus gives us two verbs.  "Hear" and "Do"....

Hearing the Word 
I keep hearing Home Groups referred to as Bible Study Groups.  Some of you immediately are feeling at a disadvantage: you think, "study is what you do at School and I didn't get on too well at School!"    Let's start by opening this up to all the people in Church this morning who struggle with reading and study - even if that is a challenge for all of us to think again about how we approach the Bible...

Replica of early printing press

Jesus talks to people who "Hear" his words... Reading the Bible is not a bad thing: I recommend reading the Bible. Jesus read it; he knew "it is written". But "Bible Readign"  is a comparatively modern thing for every ordinary  Christian.  Remember that Johannes Gutenberg's Bible was printed in 1455.  That was the first printed Bible. Among other things the development of the modern printing press changed the way people read - for the first time silent reading became the norm (before it was normal to read out loud).  But printing changed the whole way culture works and created the modern world.  Remember the Bible wasn't written in a modern, reading culture. The bible has its roots in an aural culture, one of hearing not reading. Therefore to be true to the Bible, we need to recognise that is where it belongs and not assume it is all about a literary culture. (By the way, the development of computers, laptops, smartphones etc has partnered and fostered the development of something else - what we sometimes call the post-modern world: no longer just a reading culture but an immersive culture.)

So to insist only on "Reading the Word"  is to jam the Bible in the world of 1455-1985.  That means when we insist on treating the Bible as a text for reading, we are neither in our own culture nor in the culture of the Bible itself. That's good news for those who struggle with reading and academic study. Our first call is to hear it.

There are huge issues around how we "hear" the bible today.  By reading it we can let God's voice speak to us.  Buy one, and read it, if you can read.  But buy one that fits with your natural culture.  Consider the Message; the Street bible, the CEV... And if you're not a reader, you're going to have to spend a bit more money: try to get hold of a decent quality Bible on CD, and hear it.


Studying the Word
Hearing God's Word, like all hearing, involves making sure we understand what we hear. Finding out, in other words, not only what it says but what it means.  John 5:39  "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me."  We need to "Search"; to study (in whatever way our abilities and gifts will allow us to) so as to expand our knowledge.  We need to know the truth. (John 8:32)

That process involves looking two ways. We use the microscope and the telescope.

We need to listen carefully, to the words themselves: what do they mean? What story is being told? Who is speaking? Who is writing it down? What's the context? What other things were happening at the same time? Does that context affect what it means? It's like using a microscope to look closely at the words and sentences.

But we need to listen in another way.  How does the meaning fit into a bigger picture of all God wants us to know?  (What we would call "God's revelation to us") Does it give us a piece of the jigsaw of what we believe? Does it help us know of what God is like? Does it help build a picture of what it means to be filled with the Spirit? To be a disciple of Jesus?

That's all part of the hearing process.  The discipline of hearing in its own culture, of stepping outside of our written culture to enter the Bible's world.  And the discipline of bringing something back with us to "our world. It's like time travel.

Absorbing the Word.
Jesus speaks in verses 43-45 about what is going on in our hearts. Hearing also involves letting God's word touch you at a deep level. That means not just thinking what it means but "letting the word of God dwell in you" (Col 3:16) letting it permeate your mind and heart and emotions.  It means holding it in your heart and meditating upon it.  That, gazing, is the key to transformation.  (2 Cor 3. 18)  The ancient monks called this way of reading "Divine Reading."

There are four stages to this process. They have been likened to "Feasting on the Word"...

1. Bite.  Listening to or reading God's Word.  Read it more than once, slowly, carefully.  Or have it read out clearly, maybe at different paces.  Make a (mental or written) note of any words or ideas that impact you as the word is read.
2. Chew.  Think, prayerfully asking the Holy Spirit for his light, about what you have read.  Turn it over in your mind.  What is God saying to you through his Word?
3. Savour.  Pray the word you have read into your life.  Pray the world you have read, over the difficult things you are experiencing.
4. Digest. Simply to let the Word of God you have read/heard, become part of who you are.  Like digesting our food, this stage is one of rest.  You are simply letting God's word do its work within you.


Doing the Word.
That's the last discipline of the word.  Putting it into practise. Col 3. 17 says "whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."  Jesus says that the well-built house with the good foundation isn't just the one based on hearing the word.  It's the one based on doing the word.  In fact it is perfectly possible to be hearing the word, listening to it, studying it, thinking about it, meditating on it, praying about it... and still building your house on the sand.

Hearing God's word - including studying it and meditating on it - doesn't give you a strong foundation.  It's doing the word that gives you a good foundation.  Jesus hints that hearing the word is all too easy. Even Bible Study is all too easy.  No matter how hard you have studied, how carefully you have researched, how deeply you have contemplated, if you haven't dug the word in to the hard rock of your life, you're building on sand.  We are so used to the idea of Bible Study. I want to encourage us to call our small groups something else.  Maybe "bible doing" groups.

Jesus wants us to be producing good, pleasing fruit not rotten fruit. It's about the actual flavour and shape of our everyday lives...  Jesus wants us to be producing pleasant, noble, morally good actions (verses 43f) and useful, pleasant, upright speech (verse 45).  There is a discipline involved in living out, day by day, what we are discovering in God's word.

© Gilmour Lilly February 2011

The discipline of prayer. Luke 11. 1-13

(Preached 13th February 2011)

Stick your hand up if you think you're really good at "prayer."   I have a sneaky feeling most of us have to admit we're not... And can we expect that there will be certain people who will be better than others at this?  Am I any better than you?    But how do you define "good at prayer"?  Is it about being good with words, so that you can put it right?  Well, I don't think God is going to be impressed with the way we put the words together.  So is it about being organised so you remember to pray for all the people you promised to pray for?

I am not bothered about the external disciplines of prayer.    When or where we pray or how often to pray: whether to pray first thing in the morning or three times a day.  I am not too excited either about the structure of our prayers - whether we use set prayers like the Lord's Prayer; or whether we use a pattern like ACTS - Adoring God, Confessing our sins, Thanking God and Stating our need.

These are not disciplines. They are patterns and they may help.  The real disciplines are inside us, though.  Of course you won't have the inner disciplines if you don't make it a regular part of your life to pray.  But it's the inner things that stretch us and make us grow.  In response to this request for teaching on "how to pray" Jesus calls those who follow him to the inner disciplines of prayer.  There are two:-

Special relationship - "Father"
What makes prayer difficult?  Maybe it's the feeling that there is a special skill you need. Maybe it is concentration. Maybe it is the kind of sense of strangeness about it.  Suddenly you have to sit down and talk to someone you can't see.  If you are by nature an introvert when you have been introduced to someone new you may not have a lot to say.  How do you start a conversation with God?

It is right that we should feel a certain sense of "strangeness" at this business of prayer. We are after all being invited to enter an unfamiliar environment when we pray.  We are communicating with a being who is totally "other" - who lives outside and beyond the goldfish bowl of our physical world.  We are getting in touch with a different kind of reality when we pray.  We are getting in touch with God. We are talking to the person whose words called the universe into existence.  That's the discipline of prayer. It is the discipline - first of all the mental discipline - to realise what it is we are doing.

This God, what is he like? He's powerful.  He has the resources to do what we need him to do.  And he's pure. He is holy. He isn't just a fallible being who makes mistakes... he is sinless and good.  He is personal.  We are not pushing buttons on a celestial chocolate machine.  When I was at College in London in the seventies (long time ago) I had hair; I had placements and preaching assignments in London Churches and travelled a lot by tube; and I could eat chocolate and was very partial to Cadbury's fruit and nut. There were these chocolate machines on tube platforms. You put in 10p, pulled the drawer of your choice and if you were lucky got your Fruit and nut bar (though I all too often lost my 10p. Getting your chocolate was random and impersonal. There was nobody to shout at on King's Cross Victoria line platform at 9pm on a Sunday.    God is personal. This isn't religion; it's a relationship.

The teaching Jesus gives emphasises this relationship:  Jesus disciples want to know how to pray: "John taught his disciples. Give us our pattern for prayer, Jesus."  The new and distinctive thing about Christian prayer was the new, simple and intimate form of address, "Father" which is actually "abba" - "Daddy" that Jesus gives his disciples. The shorter version of the Lord's Prayer emphasise four key things to pray about and they are all rooted in relationship...
1. Longing for the action of God in setting up his Kingdom. Hallowed be is passive which suggests a seeking for the action of God so that men will revere him. Kingdom suggests the blessings that come when men acknowledge God as King.
2. Dependency on God as Father for daily needs. Keep giving us our daily food.
3. Reconciliation to God and fellow men.
4. Need for power to preserve in temptation. "Cause us not to succumb to temptation". It's no good asking to have no temptation. And there is no shame to experience temptation. We do ask for the power not to give in.

Jesus then speaks very directly (in the words "which of you") to two specifc groups: friends (v. 5) and fathers (v. 11). So the first discipline of prayer is this inner discipline of pressing in, beyond the natural world, beyond sight, beyond the parameters of what we already have experienced, to develop this relationship with God Himself.  The outer structures of having a set time, of silence of reflecting on the Word, and so forth, are simply ways of giving time to develop the relationship, just as we need time to develop all our relationships. It is out of that relationship, out of intimacy with our heavenly Father, that the next bit flows...

Shameless request  - "Faith"
In this very direct little parable of the "Friend at midnight" Jesus makes a contrast between the "Friend's" character and God's character. In that situation, "Which of you..." implies that "Nobody can imagine a friend refusing an inconvenient request."  People can picture the situation.  It could happen like that in the ancient world of Palestine where people would often start a journey late in the afternoon and journey on until well after dark. When they arrived at a village, no matter how late, they would call on a friend or relative. And the relative would feel he had to give food and lodgings. If he couldn't he would get  a neighbour to help out. That sort of help was what was expected of friends...

The difficulty that the parable addresses is a real and practical one: "men wonder whether it is worth praying to God because they do not get their prayers answered."  Is God too busy? Are our prayers too insignificant? In the Jim Carrey film Bruce Almighty, Bruce sets up his PC to deal with all incoming prayers like emails; otherwise he would be overwhelmed.  Is answering our prayers hugely inconvenient to God, like the friend who has already settled down for the night and is cross to be wakened?  Is my request just too outrageous?

The shameless nature of the one in need, asking for what he needs, is a model for us in our approach to God.  We are encouraged, invited to come, and to ask, shamelessly.  We are encouraged to express that shameless request, over and over until answers come, not because God needs to be persuaded, but to "Go on praying because God responds graciously to the needs of His children."

Ask, Seek, Knock, (verse 9-10) are three different pictures of prayer.  Verse 9 means,  "You have to ask for God to give; you have to seek in order to find; you have to knock to get the door opened."  There is one way of guaranteeing, with rock solid predictable certainty, results in this business of prayer. If you don't pray, god won't answer. If you want life totally predictable, then don't pray.  God expects us to ask, seek, and knock. And Verse10 is about God's willingness to respond. It's not a general observation about life: too often when we seek we don't find (certainly if you're like me looking for my keys or mobile phone among the papers and things on my desk!) It's about how God delights to give.

Lastly, Jesus speaks directly to dads.  "Which of you fathers, if your kid asked for a fish, would give him a snake? Or if your kid asked for an egg would give him a scorpion?"  It just wouldn't happen, Jesus is saying.  It's all about relationship, but that relationship leads to confident faith. What father would refuse to give; would deceive the receiver; would give something dangerous instead?  (Matthew talks about bread versus stones and fish versus snakes; in Luke both the substitutes are dangerous.)  We can come to this heavenly father, and we can ask, and seek, and knock, because he delights to give good things.

God gives good gifts - especially the Holy Spirit - to those who ask.

Perhaps that's a good place to start.

© Gilmour Lilly February 2011

Isaiah 40:31 The discipline of waiting

(Preached 6th February 2011)
A couple of weeks ago, Pam and I took Murphy to Lochore Meadows for a long walk round the Loch. There was still some ice on the paths and on the Loch itself.  We were having a great time until Murphy saw some moorhens and decided to chase them He likes a swim, so he charged over the iced, jumped into the water after the birds.  When they flew away, Murphy decided to come back to land - but he couldn't get back because of the ice.  He couldn't climb up on top of it.  He couldn't break it.  We had a few very anxious minutes, with me standing thigh deep in very cold water shouting at him to get him to come to me. He needed to do the "counterintuitive" thing, turn around, and instead of trying to struggle to the shore, to back away from the ice and swim to where I was standing in the water, so I could lift him over the ice.

Sometimes we get worn out, trying to do something that is just too hard; but to do the anything else is "counterintuitive."   So we feel like God is all about hard work.

There's working to get to heaven.  Can I be good enough for God?
Maybe if I can avoid doing really bad stuff like robbery or murder or rape.  But Jesus says that if you get angry with someone then you're as good as a murderer, (Mt 5. 22) and if you look at a woman impurely you're as good as an adulterer (Mt 5. 27 - bad news guys!).
How about if I can do a good deed every day? But the Bible says all our righteousness is like filthy rags. (Is 64. 6)  If I can pray enough to say sorry for the bad stuff I do.  The Jewish faith was built on sacrifices to pay for sin, but all the blood of bulls and goats could not sort it out.  God sent Jesus to die for sins, and offers us the free gift of eternal life.  We need simply to receive it.

There's working to be a better Christian.  Now we need to make the effort.  Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling...

There's whole lot of things Christians have learned we are supposed to do.
There's giving. We were talking about that last week.
There's having what people sometimes call your quiet time - when you pray to God and read the Bible on your own.
There's coming to church - that can be hard work, eh?
There's going to house group, leading a Sunday school class, playing in the band...
There's evangelism!  Telling other people about Jesus. Who thinks that's hard work?
There's being filled with the Spirit. Being a Christian can be hard work.  . We need to give, to pray, to be with other Christians, to share our faith. But it's not all effort.  We need God to be at work in us.

Evangelicals (the Bible believing tribe of Christians) according to David Bebbington, are marked by activism. We're busy, busy, busy.  "Work makes you free" might be the slogan of the Protestant work ethic... But do you know where those words come from?  How about if I tell you they are translated from the German "Arbeit macht frei". It was in fact the slogan of concentration camps including Auschwitz. A life of effort isn't only exhausting. It is from the enemy and is the opposite of what God wants for us.

Isaiah chapters 1-19 are all pretty gloomy. They are all about the coming of a time when the Jews would be marched into a foreign land called Babylon.  But in chapter 40 there's a different song: "Comfort my people," says the Lord.  "Her hard labour is indeed..."

Trying to work your way to God is pretty hard. Sometimes we are busy, busy because we feel that it all depends on us.  But if it all depends on us, where does that leave God?  Either he's the big bully who expects us to run errands for him and give him our lunch money. Or else we have to do thing s for him because he's not really very powerful.  Isaiah asks Did any of you measure the ocean by yourself or stretch out the sky with your own hands? Did you put the soil of the earth in a bucket or weigh the hills and mountains on balance scales? (Isa 40:12)  Then he has a good laugh at idols, false gods made of gold, or for a poor man, wood. "Make sure it's got a good solid base so it doesn't fall down".  That would never do.  But a "god" that needs to be propped up isn't much good.  If that's what your god is like, no wonder you're exhausted and depressed.  Our God isn't like that. He is the everlasting God.

Have you ever watched an eagle?  You will see an eagle, or around here a buzzard, doing one of two things.  One is soaring.  The other is sitting on a fence or the branch of a tree, waiting...

Eagles are big.  They need to eat meat, so they need to catch meat. So they need to fly high and drop fast on their prey. Canaries eat seeds.  They can fly from tree to tree. They flap-flap-flap.  That lifestyle is unsustainable for the eagle.  If it tried to flap it wouldn't survive.  It needs to soar.  How?

Thermals. Currents of warm air. The eagle is solar powered.    We need to be solar powered. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to carry us as we try to serve God.  We need the Holy Spirit in prayer, in evangelism, in ministry.  That doesn't mean we don't pay the cost; it doesn't mean we don't make the effort. The eagle has to do more than just sunbathe. It takes practise to become a good musician or dancer

And in order to get the thermals, the other thing the eagle does is wait.  Waiting means not that we just sit back and let the Holy Spirit do everything. But it means we allow him to be in control. We learn to recognise a current of warm air that can carry us up.

Instead of Bible reading being a chore we do because we have to,  you read in a way that involves letting God speak. You know what I mean by Bible reading being a chore? you begin at Matthew 1 verse 1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, then you say, "what was that all about?".  There's a better way, as you let God reveal truth to you.

Instead of a prayer meeting being a time when we sit down and decide what we are gong to make God do, it becomes a time when we wait for God to show us what he wants to do. So we pray the way Jesus would pray.  Instead of us deciding "I'm going to tell my Mums she's a sinner and needs Jesus" we wait until God opens up an opportunity to witness.  We minister the way Jesus is ministering.  It's a discipline.  

Like Murphy in the frozen lake, what we need to do is counter-intuitive. It goes against our instincts. Paul talked (Hebrews 4. 11) about "striving to enter God's rest". But it's what we need to do, to survive, to eat well, and to go places.
Isa 40:31



© Gilmour Lilly February 2011

Leviticus 23. 1-22 The Discipline of Giving.

(Preached 30 January 2011)

Put your hand up if you've read the book of Leviticus. The very name puts you off. It seems to be full of rules about sacrifices - burnt offerings, about the priests' official garments, about what is clean and unclean, including what to do if you find mildew on your saddle... But there are also things that are as relevant today as four thousand years ago, about sex, about crime and punishment and about justice for the poor.  What we have in Leviticus is a series of snapshots of a community that was being set up to live with God at the centre.

What are we to do with all this stuff? I certainly have no intention of wearing a turban or an ephod.  We're not going to have animal sacrifices; nor will we start having the seven feasts that the Jewish people had.  But there are principles in Leviticus and in the law of the Old Testament generally, that we can apply today. And I believe chapter 23 is a great summary of some of the important stuff in Leviticus. The "Discipline of Giving" - a round of offerings and sacrifices - is part of what it means to live with God a t the centre.  Let's look a bit closer at what we can learn for today...

Kay came round to see us in the week while she was there we decided to prepare the songs for today. Kay asked me what the theme was and I said "Giving." I don't know if it was the shock of that, but Kay bit too hard on a bit of shortbread which went flying across the room. I'm prepared for the reaction: "you're speaking about what?" I know that life is tough; I know that there is a recession on. I heard this week of someone who went to Tesco's and bought the same items this week as last week; but this week they were over £3.00 dearer.  That's the reality we are all living with. The money we spend is buying us less.  It's called inflation and it's part of the bigger economic crisis the Western world is going through. And if we're depending on interest  It is affecting individuals, Churches, and organisations like the Baptist Union of Scotland and the Baptist Missionary Society. And I know that inflation, unemployment, or lack of job security, makes life tough for people. So I don't want to burden you... Right?   But I do want to call us to disciplined faithfulness in this area.

Firstly, offering takes place in the context of festivity.  We were looking last week at the discipline of celebration. It is as grateful people, who have discovered festivity and celebration and joy in our life with God, who bring our offering to Him.   So let's be done with any concept of legalism, and idea that offering is something we "Have to do."  It's part of celebration. It is the joyful response of a grateful heart.  If you're not grateful, you won't give. It's as simple as that.

Secondly, offering was an ongoing thing. There was a discipline about it.  Offerings were the overflow of gratitude but they were brought regularly; they were not a matter of what people felt like. Not a matter of emotion or impulse. It was a priority, and the first priority: when the harvest was brought in God had the first fruits (verse 10).  . There were these seven landmarks throughout the year when offerings were made.  And there was the ongoing, Sabbath discipline of stopping, resting, and an offering of fresh loaves placed on the altar every Sabbath.  Paul says "On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come." 1Cor 16:2   Paul wanted when he visited Corinth, to be able to take money back to the suffering church in Jerusalem.  But he wanted that to be more than just "having a whip round." It was to be an offering, collected on a regular, disciplined basis.

Thirdly, offering was the best... Listen to the specific offerings mentioned in this chapter.
* A male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering (v. 12);
* Four pounds of fine flour mixed with oil, a food offering to the LORD with a pleasing aroma (v. 13);
* Two loaves of bread made of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven (v 27)
* Seven lambs a year old without blemish, and one bull from the herd and two rams. (v. 18)
The point of al this is that God was to be given the best. It wasn't good enough to let God have "what you could spare" - like second hand stuff going to a church bazaar.  It wasn't good enough to give to god the lamb that looked as if it wasn't going to make it to adult life anyway.  In Malachi 1. 6-8 God challenges his people for offering him second best, and asks "would you do such a thing to your employer?  Why then do you do it to me?"

Fourthly, offering was for people.  Verse 20 says the "wave offering" was to be "holy to the Lord for the priests."  That doesn't mean ordinary Christian folks, the poor, should be giving to support Pastors living an extravagant lifestyle; nor to support grandiose dreams and empire-building plans  That is wicked and cynical. It's not something I want to be part of.

But that wasn't the intention when this provision was created in Leviticus.  The idea wasn't to make the priests rich and to bleed the poor to death. Remember that the Priests didn't have any other share in the land when it was divided up. The tithes and offerings were their share. The idea was simply to provide for people.  I don't believe we can turn Old Testament law into New Testament law, but even in the Old Testament, the offerings were used to benefit people.  In the New Testament, the Church had one thing and one thing only to spend their money on: people. First of all, to support those without an income, whether widows or disabled or those called to minister the word poorest of the poor, within the fellowship. Then to support the struggling Church in another part of the empire.

Finally, offering takes place in the context of compassion... The very last verse of our reading speaks about another, very important aspect of people's attitude to money and material things.  There's a wee reminder about the rule about "Leaving something for the gleaners".  The idea was that when you harvested your field, you had to leave some for those whose only livelihood was what was left behind: so cutting carefully right up to the fence was wrong; and so was going back and cutting again any stocks that you missed first time around.  It isn't enough to give away money to Church, and continue to treat the rest of your resources as your own.  God owns all the doughnuts.  Putting something in the offering is recognition of that fact.  But it has to be followed through by right stewardship in how we spend and how we gain what we have.

So whether we are preaching giving; or determining how to give; or using the bit we keep to ourselves, an over-riding principle is this: generous, self-sacrificing compassion.


© Gilmour Lilly January 2011

John 4. 4-30 Faith-sharing – the Jesus way (January 16th)

John 4. 4-30  Faith-sharing – the Jesus way


Over the past few months I have been teaching from time to time about “mission”: what it means to be a missional church in our society and how we share our faith in Jesus with other people. We’ve thought about what the Gospel is, and about how to share it, how to be witnesses. We’ve realised the importance of having our own story to share; of waiting for the opportunity, of being prepared to be vulnerable, generosity, and of the power of the Holy Spirit  I want to top that teaching off today by looking at the example of Jesus and how he actually engaged in sharing the Good News with an individual.  Because it is as individuals with other individuals that we have the best hope of communicating the Good News with other people.


So here we have Jesus, sat beside a well in the town of Sychar, in the fairly inhospitable territory called Samaria: the original “Israel” that had broken away from Judah hundreds of years before, and had often seemed worse than Judah for worshipping false gods. But many Samaritans continued to worship the Lord although they did so in a way that the Jews thought was a watered-down, less-than-the-real-thing kind of religion.  And the Samaritans hated the Jews in return.  Not the greatest place to be trying to tell people the Good News. The problems are similar to those we have in sharing the good News: (1) “They” might not like me”!  (2)  I’m not too sure I like “them”!  


We fear that sometimes the people around us will somehow eat us up. We feel, maybe, that a family member or a work colleague is always watching us, always a bit antagonistic towards us… And we feel, too, that some of the humour, some of the lifestyle, is not what it should be. There are huge gulfs of difference between how we think and how people at work, and even family members, think and react.  I guess a lot of Church people will have to admit that even before we open our mouths to talk about Jesus, we are out of our comfort zone – maybe even among our families.   Jesus must have known all of that, sitting by a well in Samaria; yet that is exactly where we find him – sitting by a well in Samaria…


And along comes someone – a woman, with a water jar. But it’s midday: the sun is at its highest; it's the hottest part of the day. So there’s something wrong.  Nobody in their right mind comes to draw water from the well at the hottest hour of the day – unless they have a good reason for wanting to avoid being seen: a criminal record, a creditor, an angry mob.  For this woman it was the flyting (a Scots word that means sharp criticism) of the other women from the town, the looks, the wagging heads and wagging tongues, the gossip. Because this woman had a reputation as one of the loose women of the area.  


Jesus takes the initiative. He begins a conversation with this lady.  “Give me a drink”, he asks.  We already noted a long time ago that one of the key principles in sharing our faith with other people is to make ourselves vulnerable.  We don’t go to people as those who have all the answers but as those who have human weakness and who need something from the other person. Isn’t it encouraging that Jesus was prepared to put his ideas into practise… he who told his friends, “take no money, eat what they set before you…” was prepared to make himself vulnerable and put himself in the debt of someone to who he knew needed to hear the Good News.  “Give me a drink”.


Well, this request got an immediate, prickly response from the woman.  It was as if he had hit her in the pit of the stomach, because she recognised the accent: he wasn’t just a man and a stranger; he was a foreigner, a Jew.  “Wait a minute. What’s going on here? How come you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink? You lot never have any dealings with us Samaritans.”  Sometimes we will get the prickly response.  What do we do?  Let’s not assume that we are always right and the prickly responses are automatically evidence of how ungodly and sinful people are. Sometimes they can be the result of our insensitivity: we may have come over judgmental or harsh, in which case we need to be prepared to say we are sorry.  Sometimes a prickly response can be the result of another person’s pain. We need to respond to the prickly response with a generous attitude that is based in a sense of God’s authority.  That is what Jesus did next.  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (v10)  He knew who he was; he knew what the Good News was and he knew how to apply it in a relevant way to the situation he was in.  


There’s an amazing mix in this ministry of Jesus, of authority, knowledge, and relevance. Pray for the ability to bring all of these together. Jesus speaks with the authority of knowing who he is.people may ask you,  “Who or what gives you the right to come to me telling me I need Jesus in my life?”  The answer at one level is that your heavenly father has given you that authority. But, when someone asks you that question, the answer, “Sir, I am a child of the King!” is probably going to get a few laughs and that’s all. I'm not talking about an external, imposed authority, a matter of "rank", like Captain Mainwaring from the TV series "Dad's Army," but real, internal authority, a sense of God-given confidence.

It is important that we know in our hearts who we are, and that the activity we call “witness” flows out of that knowledge, not out of a sense of obligation to do this evangelism thing because we are supposed to, or because the Church needs new recruits or because if my neighbour doesn’t get to heaven it will be my fault. Once we know who we are, once we understand our authority at a deep level, we are released to share the Good News as Jesus directs.


Then there is the knowledge. The Good news of the Kingdom of God, is something that can refresh, and cleanse, like living water.  The ability to present the Good News in an appropriate and relevant way is rooted in a depth of knowledge of what that Good News actually is.  And there is that relevance thing.  Jesus is at a well; he is obviously thirsty.  He is talking to a woman who has come to draw water: if she isn’t physically thirsty, she knows that in the southern Mediterranean thirst will come along pretty quickly if she doesn’t have that water jar filled; and as a mid-day visitor to the well, there’s obviously something wrong, so she is spiritually and emotionally thirsty.  To talk about “living water” is a highly relevant and appropriate way of opening up a conversation about spiritual things. The woman immediately responds positively: “I want some of that!”


Then comes a challenge: “go and call your husband.”  This is where it gets embarrassing. At that moment the woman thought, “I’m quite interested in what he’s saying but I don’t want some religious type criticising my private lifestyle; I mean, can I just tell a Bible teacher, ‘well, I’m actually living with a guy’" …  So she said she hadn’t a husband. Jesus knows exactly what’s going on, though. It’s kind of scary: “Too right you haven’t a husband: you’ve had five and you’re now living with a guy you’re not married to”: or maybe “you’re now living with someone else’s husband.”  Jesus knew all about it. That’s scary. But that is the dimension of the power of the Holy Spirit in evangelism.  Now I cannot promise that every time you talk about Jesus you are going to know all about their secret inner lives. But I can tell you that in some way, the Holy Spirit wants to empower you in sharing the Good News with other people. That may be in praying for someone: maybe in praying for healing, or peace in some situation. It may be in having some supernatural insight into their needs. It may be in being prompted to visit just when they need to see someone.  Evangelism is the task of the Holy Spirit within us.  He comes to equip us to be witnesses. Jesus models for us one way in which the Holy Spirit can make that witness possible.


The woman recognises that supernatural power: She says, “Hey, I see you are a prophet…” then, desperate to change the subject, she goes on: “... So where’s the right place to worship: in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem or here in Samaria?”   But Jesus is able to cut through all that with good theology and the word of God.  “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”   No big arguments. Of course Jesus could have gone into why “salvation is from the Jews”. He was himself the final proof of that… Instead he gets back to the all-important inner realities of worshipping God in Spirit and in truth.   That makes the woman cry out in longing for the day when the messiah will come: and Jesus announces “You’re talking to him right now!”  Back to basics; back to the central truths: Jesus, the Kingdom… 


And as the disciples come along and interrupt the conversation – before Jesus has got the woman to pray the prayer – she rushes off, leaving her water-jar behind.  But this isn’t embarrassment at being seen in public; this is sheer excitement, a sense of discovery; she has met someone who told her all she ever did, and in the process he has changed her on the inside, because now she doesn’t mind seeing people. She had a new confidence. She needed to talk, to share this event, to bring the whole neighbourhood out to meet Jesus. When he shares the Good News, lives are changed. If all this message does is put you under pressure to "do evangelism" then it will have failed.  I believe Jesus wants us to work with him, to know him working with and in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  And there is mystery and miracle in the transformation that happened in the woman's life: Her faith was real even if we don't know how and at what point she actually trusted Jesus.  I believe God wants us to know that he is at work among our friends and families, even if we can't see it happening: it's mystery and miracle.

© Gilmour Lilly January 2011

Acts 2. 41-47: A call to Commitment (9 January 2011)

Acts 2. 41-47: A call to Commitment: New Year 2011
This was a new beginning. Here were 3000 people who had just become followers of Jesus. Here was a newborn community of believers.  Everyone was on 100% brand-new, unexplored territory.  It was new for the majority who had for the first time believed in Jesus, been baptised and added to the Church.  It was actually new for the minority, the hundred or so who had been believers before teh day of pentecost, and even for the twelve who had followed Jesus for three years, because for the first time, they had experienced the reality of the holy Spirit at work inside their lives. They were learning to know Jesus in a new and deep way. The Church itself was a new thing. It was all new... Like 2011 is for us.  Some of us have only recently started following Jesus. Others have been Christians for a long time, but things change and there are always new challenges: new gifts, new priorities, new experiences and promises lie ahead.  How are we to enter this New Year?

Luke tells us that the first Church "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." The word "devoted" is a big idea... It is about being ready; about perseverance, about courage, about strength.  The new Church was "devoted" to these four things that were part of their Christian experience, fundamental to the life together of their Church community... and these four things were...

The Apostles' Teaching
Apostolic teaching lived out!!!  The teaching of the apostles (those sent out by Jesus and seen as guardians of the traditions about Jesus). Three things are worth remembering about the "Apostles' Teaching" as the first church heard it and as we need to hear it.  Firstly, it was about Jesus. It was centered on a person not an idea. It's rooted in a story not a concept.  Secondly it was about mission: it had an outward-directing force about it.  And thirdly it was practical.   "Teach them to observe al that I have commanded you" said Jesus in the great commission.

Pam's Mum loved to watch cookery programmes on TV - a few years ago before Gordon Ramsey's expletive-peppered antics. Grandma loved to watch Delia, Nigella, Ainslie Harriot.   She would take notes of the recipes and tips. If there was a nice recipe in the People's Friend she'd cut it out and stick it on the kitchen wall.  But the nearest thing she got to cooking in the last ten or so years of her life was reheating ready meals in the microwave.  In a way she was like a lot of Bible believing Christians: we listen to talks; we watch TV programmes; we take notes(!), we buy books and magazines and stick Bible texts up on our walls. But do we cook and eat the food?

Listen: we are going to be nothing as a Church unless we can live by the Word of God.  That means being taught; it means reading and studying it for ourselves as best we can. But most important it means putting it into practise.

The Fellowship
"Fellowship" is one of the most over-used and misused words in the strange language Christians use.   We often think about fellowship in terms of having a cup of tea after the service... my first church had a huge Victorian barn of a building that had been altered a few years before I arrived there.  It had a lounge that was affectionately and quaintly known as "the fellowship area" - basically, where we met after the service to have a cup of tea.  Koinonia (the Greek word translated "Fellowship") is a bit more than that. The word literally means having something in common; sharing something. It comes from Koinonos, the word for a partner, which comes from koine the word for "Common" or "ordinary" which comes from syn the word for "with".  Koinonia, fellowship, is about sharing, it implies partnership, it speaks of everyone being "ordinary", on the same level; it denotes a sense of "with-ness," togetherness.

What do we have in common?  We have Jesus in common.  He makes a huge difference.  We are called to be inclusive, because we all have Jesus in common.  Fellowship is not firstly about activities but about our inner life, worked out in practical terms in care for and service to each other. The first Christian community lived together: they shared their homes, their finances and their lives together. They couldn't get enough of time together with God's people.  Now I know that it's possible to suffer from "fellowship-itis" where hanging around with other Christians is a great way of avoiding meeting people, being with family members and others - who don't know Jesus.  And I don't want us to catch a dose of "fellowship-itis"! But I do want us to catch real fellowship.  It's the inner life of the Church that makes a difference in the world. Not just being together at meetings but being genuine in our relationships with one another.  You could say, "Withness comes before witness".

The Breaking of Bread

This refers to the central act of Christian worship, invented by Jesus: Paul calls it "the Lord's Supper", but Luke follows the example of the earliest church by calling it "the breaking of bread".   This was a worshipping community. They met to learn about Jesus; and they met to call Jesus to mind, to encounter Jesus in loving and obedient homage. Their temple meal was bread and wine, that Jesus had commanded be shared, "until he come".

This worship was a lifestyle, and it was varied and broad. They went to the temple, where the priests would offer a sacrifice twice daily; they would be part of a congregation that would watch, and join in the prayers.  They broke bread - to call to mind Jesus -  in their own homes as part of the regular habit of sharing meals together.  Do you see, worship wasn't just something they went to for an hour on a Sunday. It was part of the rhythm of life; it was part of their lifestyle. It wasn't just a "spectator sport"; they weren't just like the barmy army going to watch England prove that miracles still take place.  They we open enough that they could worship in the temple; but they were members of the team, like at a youth camp or a or Sunday school outing when everyone plays crocker or rounders, and maybe there are forty on one team...  I want to call us all to a lifestyle of worship.  To be devoted - giving energy and time - to worship as a lifestyle.

The Prayers.
Here was a bunch of people in a brand new encounter with God, through Jesus, by the Spirit.  How were they so see the Kingdom touch lives around them?  How were they going to share this Good News and this Kingdom? How were they going to survive in a hostile environment?  How was the life of this newly founded Church to be shaped and structured?  These were people who needed to be talking to God and listening to him. It seems like there were regular times when the Church set itself to pray: and that when it did, the Christians put time and effort into being part of those prayer times.

Guys, I tell you, at the beginning of 2011, we face challenges. How do we share the Good news with our community?  How do we show Jesus' love to Rosyth? How does a struggling Church reach a changing community with the unchanging gospel?  If we think we can make it happen, with the same old ideas we've been using for decades, we're wrong. If we think we can make it happen with a few new ideas, we're wrong.  If we think all we need is to be a bit more trendy, have better songs and more pictures on the data projector, we're wrong. Not that there is anything wrong with our history; not that there is anything wrong with new ideas, new songs, new technology.  But we need God to come by his Spirit and if we want God to come by his Spirit we need to pray.

The outcome of this inner life of Applying God's word, caring for each other, worship and prayer was that "People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved." (verse 47, The Message).  They had a good reputation and they were growing.   So here we are: looking at a new year. We want to be a Church that is respected in our locality; we would love to be growing.  The answer isn't in renewed efforts to do the same outreach stuff of to try new stuff.  Mission isn't just shoving the message at people.  Mission starts inside. So it is to these inner realities that I call us to be devoted: The Apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer.

© Gilmour Lilly January 2011

The visit of the Wise men... Matthew 2. 1-12 - 2 January

The visit of the Wise men... Matthew 2. 1-12



There's a problem here. These "Magi" aren't Jewish. In fact they aren't even using the right means to find out about God.  They're from the wrong country; they have the wrong religion (possibly Zoroastrian1) They were astrologers, who believed that they find out about events on earth, by looking at the stars. And they are in the wrong place, asking the wrong person (the jealous and murderous king Herod) the wrong question.  "Where is the one born King of the Jews?"

And it gets worse: They then say, "We have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him."  Any self-respecting Jew would have problems with this: they knew that God had forbidden astrology: consulting the stars was a kind of magic; something that the Bible did not allow.  So how could these guys come led by stars? And how could people like that, complete Pagans, take anything to do with a Jewish Messiah? And how could they possibly consider worshipping him?  Worship was for God alone. They had apparently got it all wrong!  And yet the star led them right to the house where Mary was looking after Jesus.

But, amazingly, God was in this. How can God do this? But this is the missionary God at work. The birth of Jesus was a missional action by a missionary God. The fact that Matthew, the author of the most Jewish of the Gospels, tells us this story, presses home the Missional point. This story shows us some important truths about the Mission of God in Christ, and about our mission too. This - this outrageous approach - is how God does mission.

  1. The Shape of Mission...
Worshipping the New Born King was perfectly appropriate - because this baby was Immanuel, God with us. The word - who was in the beginning with the Father - had become flesh. The shape of God's mission is Incarnational - it is an approach that has shape, and form.  Jesus took the form, the shape, of a servant (Phil 2. 7).  Incarnation, taking a very human shape, humbling and emptying himself.  That's God's way of reaching us.  It was in a human body that God the Son died for our sins.  He humbled himself and became obedient to death, his death on the Cross.  It was because Jesus was both God and man that his death was such a significant and powerful event that it could take away our sins.  But in Philippians 2, Paul uses the incarnation of Jesus to say "think the same way that Christ Jesus thought" (v5 CEV)  Incarnation is the shape of God's mission and it is the shape of the Church's mission.

2. The scope of Mission...
The star was for a king.  He is born "king of the Jews" ... but a kingdom recognised by Babylonians, Persians or whoever.  The scope of god's mission is more than simply saving souls. The mission of God is not just about saving individual souls.  It is not just a about the fact that Jesus was "born to die."  Don't get me wrong here. Saving individuals is vitally important.  And Jesus was heading, consciously and deliberately, throughout his time on earth, towards the cross.  But if you think Jesus was born to die, simply to save your soul from hell, you've missed the point. Jesus died for our sins - which are at the heart of opposition to God's reign - so that the Kingdom of God could come.

The scope of God's mission is about establishing his Kingdom, in the world.  It is about bringing the whole universe to the point of acknowledging God's reign and authority.  It is about establishing God's reign across the fibre of the universe.  The rule of God touches every part of existence, human and otherwise.  God is working towards a universe that is in perfect harmony and peace.   Thus, when the miracle of the incarnation took place, when God took action to bring the promised Messiah, who would bring the promised Kingdom, the very stars and planets of heaven jumped to attention.  Despite the fact that Astrology is something God condemns, it was perfectly to be expected thatch on the day when the Kingdom of God touched the physical universe, that, light years away, the universe itself should be affected in the rising of a new star.  For your birth or mine - forget it.  But for Messiah's birth, for the birth of the king of the universe - what could be more natural?

3. The Style of Mission
That God should become flesh, and die our death, is an amazing sacrifice.  The style of God's mission can be summed up in one word: Generosity.

Here are outsiders racially yet they are spoken to, beckoned and welcomed to bring their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  God's mission is inclusive.  He doesn't see his Kingdom, his salvation, his gift of new life, to be just for one particular "type" - Jesus is "born King of the Jews" - but visitors from the east are welcome.

Here are outsiders religiously. These men were doing something that was expressly forbidden in the Old Testament law. They were doing something that I would tell new Christians in Baptism classes they should avoid doing.  And not only did God love them; not only did God speak to them about the coming of the King; but God spoke to them through the very thing that they were doing wrong.  Doesn't that show us a generous God? Doesn't it speak of a generous style of mission.  Sure there were things that needed to be sorted out in their lives.  But there was good news for them.  Guy Chevraux, a Canadian Bible Scholar, points out that when the word "Repent" is used in the New Testament, it is not first a statement about man but a statement about God: the statement "the Kingdom of God is at hand" comes before the command "Repent and believe!"  So the Magi, Zoroastrian magicians, hear first of all not the bad news "You've got it wrong guys" but the Good News, "the Kingdom has come!"

This is our God!   Rick Richardson, an American evangelist, tells how when he was little, his wee brother disappeared after a trip to the beach. They wer in teh car on teh way home, in total five kids all singing the "Arky-arky" song, when they realised Chris wasn't in the car.  When his mum realised this, she turned the car around and sped back to the beach, where they searched desperately until the child turned up.  Richardson describes the experience as "an unforgettable picture of God's heart"  That's what God is like. Reading that story I felt God say, "What would I not do for these people?"

Richardson then goes on to liken the church to his Mum's car. He says, "we are at the steering wheel: if we are happy with who is in the car and who is not, we can continue on home singing our ... songs" but God wants us to "turn ...around and race to wherever lost and hurting people can be found"  And if this is our God, and this is his mission, it's our mission too.

The Shape of our Mission is incarnational.  We do mission, not first of all by speaking words, but by becoming flesh.  We find ways to make the words, the concepts we talk about, become flesh. We need to embody love.
The scope of our mission is the Kingdom.  We demonstrate the Kingdom; we engage with Kingdom realities - w0th the healing power of God; with the justice of God; with the compassion of God for the poor - today. We need to back up our words with actions.
The style of our mission is Generosity.  It is inclusive and it is gracious.  We seek to be relevant, open, hospitable to people who are different to us. We offer people first the Good News - the changes that will happen in their lives are between them and God.  We need to serve.
Practical service in the power of the Spirit.

How were the Wise Men changed by what they saw and experienced?  We don't know. We can only guess from the fact that they were prepared to alter their values, from consulting with a king in a palace to worshipping the King in the carpenter's house, that they were changed: that they recognised that here in Bethlehem in Judea they had seen someone of such significance that they could not risk His well-being.  What happened next in their pilgrimage - whether they in fact found faith when the Good News of Jesus was preached among the nations - we don't know. We have to leave that to God.

And that is how it is in mission sometimes: we don't know; we have to leave it to God. God does mission in risky, messy ways.

© Gilmour Lilly January 2011