Malachi 1

Discipleship: responding to God's love; respect for who he is

Malachi was the last prophet of the OT. The name means “My Messenger”, and may have been been the surname of Ezra (who lived about the same time) although we don't know. He spoke into the situation after the exile. In Malachi, “Israel” but strictly speaking what was left of the kingdom of Judah (representing all of God's people) who were back in their own land, though under the rule of the Persian empire. The Temple had been rebuilt; the people were struggling to keep going – and they were apparently seeing nothing much from god. So where is God and what has become of his promises? What ever happened to the idea of dedicating the temple, and the Lord coming down so powerfully that the “priests were overcome.” So there's possibly a sense of disappointment, disillusionment and exhaustion present among the people and their priests.

And in that context, something had happened to their worship in this second temple. They brought the sacrifices; they burned incense every morning, they put the “bread of the Presence” out fresh every day, they kept the lamps lit... but it had all become... routine. Dull. Boring. A chore. A drag. And in the end, a matter of legalism: how little they could get away with, and still keep up appearances, still hope to satisfy God that they were his people and he would have to look after them. So bad had it got, that God shames them by saying that the day is coming when all the nations – including these people they detest - will worship him properly.

All pretty sad, really, but it rings bells, doesn't it? A people living kind of “late in time”. We have experienced some difficult and challenging things in our history. We have worked and sacrificed to keep going, and to build what we believe is right for the Lord.... but contrary to expectations, we have not seen much from God in return. So there might well be disappointment, disillusionment and exhaustion present among us as well. And it's a temptation, in a time when we are not seeing God at work in power, to experience a shift of gear: we are no longer expecting God to “turn up”. We are not longer expecting a mighty visitation of God's power. But we no longer live in awe of God's holiness, either. And our worship can me marked with legalism, dullness, boredom. It all seems like a chore and a drag.

So that's the situation that God speaks into through his messenger, Malachi. And he says “I have loved you!”. Plain and simple. Although the word God uses here is not “Chesedh” the Covenant word, none the less the Lord's love still establishes a covenant agreement with his people. Can you hear that cry of heaven today from Jeremiah 31, 3. “I have loved you with an everlasting love and have drawn you with cords of mercy (chesedh)”.

When we were giving things away to kids yesterdy at the Gala, I heard Several Mums or Grannies ask their children “What do you say?” Your Heavenly Father loves you.: “what do you say?” What do you do? How do you respond? Well, God's people didn't respond all that well: “OK Lord, how have you loved us?” In their tiredness and business and disillusionment, they can't really see God's love at work. God says, “I have loved you” and we answer back “How have you?” Our hurts, our disappointments, get in the way and we only see part of the picture.

God answers “Remember Jacob and Esau? They were not only brothers but twins – and I loved Jacob and hated Esau.” (v. 2-3) Now that sounds harsh and arbitrary, like God chooses one and not another, and pity help you if you are not one of the chosen. But that is not what Malachi is saying and it is not what God is saying. Let's look a bit more closely at this:

1. "Love" is about favour and ''Hate" does not imply the level of vehemence we associate with it. It is a deliberately exaggerated way of speaking. Jesus talked talked about his followers "hating their father & mother. He didn't mean us to dislike our parents but to love God so much that by comparison it looks like we hate our parents. In the same way God shows such unique favour to Jacob (Israel) that in comparison he seems to hate Esau. God is emphasising the tremendous favour he has shown to his people.
2. The original Esau had in fact treated God's favour -- his birthright as the older son -- with contempt. He traded it for a bowl of soup! (Gen 25. 29-34} And the tribe that had come from him, "Edom" had always caused trouble for Israel. Most recently, when the Babylonian army had come, and taken the kingdom of Judah off into exile, Edom had happily moved into their land and taken over!

Judah had been in exile for 70 years. Then they got their land back. But in the meantime, Edom had actually been ransacked by the Nabataeans. (Arab people who carved the City of Petra into the rocks). And as Malachi spoke, Edom looked looked unlikely to get into their land any time soon. So God is saying to his people "Listen, I favoured you, and brought you into a special "Covenant"relationship with me. And you can see that worked out in history. Your exile lasted 70 years -- but you're now back in your land. But Esau, Edom, is still suffering for their mistakes". We need to read the facts of our story and see the ways in which God has blessed us. When the prophet Elijah was having a bad time because the wicked queen Jezebel wanted to have him killed, we are told he "saw" and ran for his life (1Kings 19. 3 AV).The enemy loves to make us "see" our problems. We need to look at what he has done for us: to "count our blessings."

So God had loved his people in real, practical ways. He had favoured them; he had entered a covenant with them. He had forgiven them and looked after them. But they weren't seeing that. They had allowed their religion to become routine,and a chore and a bore, They were content to be "Serving God the Leftovers".

The reason he gives law is not because he is a legalist: it's Satan who is the legalist! But God gives law to teach us and assess what is in our hearts. There are four symptoms of heart trouble in this chapter:

1. Contesting God's word. God says “I have loved you.” The people say “How have you?” God says “You show contempt for my name” and the priests say “ How have we?” God says You offered defiled food on my altar” and the people say “How have we?” If our hearts are right, we will live under the authority of God and of his word. That doesn't mean we will never ask questions or always obey what a preacher tells you. Btu yo will have an attitude of submission to God's word.
2. Contempt towards God's person. Our actions are unspoken words. To offer cheap and nasty offerings is to say “God's table is contemptible” and to imply “God's name – his very person – is contemptible.” We need respect instead of contempt. God is concerned about "the Heart of worship!" It is legalism to look only at the outward actions: hats, ties, best china, polished silver & polished choir – & long prayers. God looks at the heart! "Giving God our best" is not meant to be about religious snobbery and showing off. We get too concerned about “dignity” - I guess it would not have been too dignified for the Ark of the Covenant to fall in the mud – but when a guy called Uzzah reached out to steady the Ark, God judged him for it. God is not concerned whether you wear a tie or a hat. But he is concerned about what is going on in your heart! True respect is internal, and is the response of our hearts to being loved! Only when sacrifices represent penitence & faith are they of any value. (V13) 
3. Conventional religion instead of passionate faith. They were "keeping up appearances" while breaking the law. (Lev 22. 22) "Do not offer to the Lord the blind, the injured or the maimed...". You can't cheat God by off-loading all your least profitable animals as sacrifices. God says, “If it's burden, to come and worship, if it only about keeping up appearances, shut the place down.”
4. And all of that came from Coldness instead of love. We get our passion back, we learn to respect who god is, we obey God's word, when we learn to love him.. And we learn to love him when we learn that he has loved us, and that he is “The Lord almighty, whose Name is to be feared among the nations.

© Gilmour Lilly May 2016

John 14. 1-21 Getting to know God

Trinity Sunday

As Jesus headed towards  the Cross, talked about going away, his followers hearts were troubled... 

And in the context of that troubling change, Jesus called god “Father” 12 times, and another four times “my Father” in this reading.  In fact John refers to god as “the Father” 118 times in his Gospel – far more often that any of the other gospels.  He is giving us a hint about what God is like.    

The father
This, a "good good Father", is the nature of God. 

1. As Father, God is the source of life, the creator and ruler of all things.  We often say “well done” to a mum who has just given birth; but in other societies it is the Father who gets the credit! And it is the father who rules over his household and his children. 
2. As Father, God is to be respected.   In Malachi 1. 6 God asks “If I am a father, where is the honour due to me?”   Father, then emphasises the dignity and majesty of god and his right to our worship and obedience.  Jesus lives in submission to his father (verse 10).
3. As Father, God provides for us and looks after us.   Jesus teaches us when we pray, to start by calling god “our Father”  because you trust him to act like a good father (Luke 11.  2-12) .  The father gives what we ask in Jesus name (Jn 15. 16; 16. 23)  
4. As Father, God is a nurturer, who wants us to grow and become strong.  When Guillemot chicks are a few weeks old they have to jump from the ledge where the have hatched, high on the cliff, into the sea. Their wings are not properly formed.

Image:  DickDaniels. Creative Commons SA3

On “Scotland's wild heart” this week, one wee bird couldn't do the jump, and its father flew up, and coaxed it, until it made a wee jump, and landed down a ledge, where other birds began to attack it, until Dad fought them off. That process was repeated until the chick got to the water.  Fathers do that.  The protect their children; they encourage their children to take new steps, to grow up.  God protects us.  God calls us to take risky, sometimes frightening steps.  Sometimes we need to get out of our comfort zone, off the we ledge where we have been safely fed the odd fish by Mum or Dad, and jump in the water where we learn to fish for ourselves.  And we need to jump to get there, even though we cant' fly.  Our nurturing Heavenly Father coaxes us, encourages us, to get there.  I need that from my heavenly father.  

We need to wrestle with this and come to a place of understanding and being reconciled to the father heart of god.    He does have the end of time in his hands (Jn 14. 1);  he does have the authority to command;  but he is reliable, generous, loving and good.  God wants us to be able to come to him in submission; in obedience and respect but in intimacy and absolute confidence and faith. Jim Graham  used to say about this chapter, that kids going to the seaside don't ask if Dad has packed their clothes, remembered his wallet, got their passports.  He is Dad; they trust him.  The only thing they want to ask is “Did you bring the bucket and spade?”

For some of us, the way we understand “Father” is marred by the parenting we have received, from abusive fathers, harsh fathers, unreliable fathers, or absentee fathers.  We need to cuddle up lose to our heavenly father and let him love us.   


The Son
Jesus shows us sonship. He relates to his father. Jesus' sonship was not like ours.  He relates to the Father in a unique way as “his father”.    Jesus is not the Father. Jesus calls both the Temple and Heaven “My father’s house” (v 14, cf Jn 2. 16); and because both of them are “His Father’s House” Jesus has the right to clear people out of the one and prepare places in the other.   He is the only-begotten of the father.  (John 1. 14)  And that claim, to call God not just the Father but “my father”, was for the Jewish leaders, a claim to equality with God, that got Jesus into trouble (John 5. 8) 

So Jesus also shows us the father.  That is what he says: “He who has seen me has seen the father; I in him and him in me....  (v. 9).  There is a close, mysterious unity between Jesus and the Father.   Jesus as the unique son, shares the father’s God-nature.   

HE is the way, the truth and the life....  Jesus is looking towards the cross.  Eh knows his road is going to take him to crucifixion and death.  And eh knows that that road will lead to eternal life in God's  true presence.  So as he looks to the cross, Jesus promises hope for a future with God: “in my Father's house are many rooms, and I am preparing a place there for you...”

The disciples aren't too excited about that.  They don’t want to know about Jesus going away... “We  don't know where you are going so how can we know the way to get there....”   But Jesus replies, that He is the way, the truth and the life.  He travels the road to the cross, dying and rising again; and walking with him we experience dying and rising again: new birth; and that new birth is the way to get into God's presence in a living relationship.

Some of us want to have the truth first to know what God is like, then find the way.  But Jesus is the way first, then the truth and the life.  Yo will never really know God, until you journey along the Way; until you come to him through Jesus!  When we have that new birth, we know what God is like, and we are fully alive.   So Jesus opens the way into God's presence, reveals what God is like; and he and gives us new life.  And you want to get to the Father, to know that you have a place ready for you – get to know Jesus.  You want to be really alive with the life of God, get to know Jesus.  He is the Way the Truth and the life.  

And Jesus, God the son has the authority (verses 12-14) to equip us to take part in his works, to empower us to do the works he has been doing.  The “greater works” refers to the scale  of the works: through us, Jesus intends to go global!  .

And he has the authority  to answer our prayers; to give us whatever we ask for in his name. That means when we pray as his representatives.  Prayer is an awesome privilege and one that we need to take seriously.  When we pray we are being like Jesus: he prays for us to receive the Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit.   
Jesus will ask the Father to give us another comforter or advocate, the same as Jesus.  Greek has two words for other: "Allos" means "another of the same" and "heteros" means another - different.  The word here is "Allos": another of the same.  

An advocate is literally “one called alongside” and the word was used in the Greek world, of the one who stood beside you to speak on your behalf.  Jesus does that for us in heaven; and the Holy Spirit does it from within our lives. He applies in our lives the work of Jesus, to have us declared “not guilty”; he assures us that we are in that sonship place with our heavenly Father (Romans 8. 15f)  The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a term referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture.

He empowers us – to do the things Jesus did and greater things.  The Spirit comes because Jesus has gone to the father. He enables us to do the things Jesus did, and to do them with  global scope. 

He enables us to pray, in Jesus' name.    Paul says that the spirit helps us when we don't know how to pray as we ought, groaning inside us with groans too deep for words.(cf Romans 8. 26f)

He teaches us.   Jesus says the Spirit will not speak on his own authority but will constantly be pointing to Jesus (Jn 15. 26; Jn 16. 13-15)

The whole business of going away, will leave the disciples bereft: like orphans   The word refers to a child without a father – but also to a student without a master, a disciple without a teacher.  But in his going away, Jesus is commencing a “round trip" (like the "Flying Scotsman" did last Sunday evening on the "Fife circle"): he is coming to them, in the resurrection; in the coming of the Holy Spirit; and in the clouds at the end of time.  

Image: G Lilly.

And in promising to ask the Father, to send the Spirit, Jesus shows us the relationship between himself, his father, and the Spirit.  Three persons who love each other, dancing together. Three persons, one God.  So if your heart is troubled, the Father loves you; the Son opens the way to the Father, and the Spirit comes to make you God's Son. 

© Gilmour Lilly May 2016

Pentecost: Acts 2.

The Story
So, Jesus is alive, ascended, triumphant, seated at the Father's right hand in Heaven.  He is the Victor.  What he came to do, he has done!  He has taken our sins.  He has defeated Satan, and death.  He has won the battle that means the Kingdom can and will be established.   We know that, from reading the stories of the resurrection appearances of Jesus.  

The next stage, living the Jesus life and spreading the Good news of the Kingdom, He has entrusted to those who have followed him for the past three years.  He has promised, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses...” (Acts 1. 8)  So the disciples do what Jesus. tells them to do: they wait.

And now, fifty days after the resurrection, ten days after Jesus was taken away in the clouds, it happens... as they wait and pray, together in an upstairs room somewhere in Jerusalem, they find themselves in the grip of something bigger than themselves, something supernatural... There's a sound like a wind, blowing from heaven, and filling the house they are praying.  The disciples didn't think in English, or even in Greek but in Aramaic or Hebrew.  They heard the sound like a mighty Ruach.  That's the wonderful Hebrew word  that can mean wind, breath and Spirit.  It's the word that is used right back in the beginning, in Genesis 1. 2.  They recognised that the Spirit of God was coming.  And they saw tongues that looked like fire resting on each of them. When God revealed himself to Moses, he “descended n fire” (Ex 19. 18) The they wanted to praise god – at the top of their voices! And the words that came out were not words they had learned;  and as they rushed out into the street, they realised that the people passing by understood: people from all over the Roman empire.  This God experience, the arrival of the promised Holy Spirit, breaks the boundaries, turns Galilean fishermen and Jewish freedom fighters into globe-trotting internationalists!  Amazing!

The point is that God has moved in.  They are breathing a different atmosphere.  There is fire in their souls that they can't keep in.  They are caught up in God's mission; they are seeing the Kingdom of God worked out in their lives. They are making connexions with people they had previously passed by as strangers.  When the spirit comes, eh transforms us.  He gives us a taste of God's Kingdom; he gives us power to engage in mission; he builds community, a sense of connectedness with one another and with people...

But not everyone agrees.  Some in the crowd wonder what it's all about.  Some have an easy answer – they're all drunk!   Always – for some people – this business of God moving in, is too freaky.  It's just weird stuff – evidence of something not quite right in the head... Some of us prefer the predictable.  An hour on Sunday morning; praise, a sermon, Communion.  Serious Bible study, all the bits of the theological jigsaw fitting together.  I was in St John's Primary School on Thursday, talking about the baptist church to the P3 class.  One of the children asked my how I feel when I am preaching: do I feel afraid or nervous?  Answer, “not really...”  because I have been preaching for over 35 years; actually probably over 40 years now.  It's OK.  When I was young my dad used to quote – probably from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, though he build his house in the woods the world will make a beaten path to his door.” We believed good preaching attracted people to churches. My role as  a preacher fitted nicely with the expectation that God would send his Spirit, people would see God at work and get saved. I would love life to be that simple.  But life isn't that simple.   What if the Church no longer needs preaching?  I don't like the idea of ministry in a brave new world where the old certainties no longer work.  It's possible to pay lip-service to the Spirit while depending rather heavily on ones training, well-thought-out strategies, and human devices.  It's possible to look down on “simple faith”.  It's possible to dismiss the Spirit's gifts as just too freaky. 

Peter stands up, and answers all of that:  “These men are not drunk as you suppose...it's only 9 a.m. – the pubs aren't even open yet. This is what god promised...”   There is a healthy, wholesome logic to this. 

Point one. Peter quotes Joel, and Joel's message was focused on a plague of locusts that

Image by Christian Kooyman, in PD

destroyed the harvest. Joel warned of an invading army coming like locusts.  But then he says, "afterwards I will pour out my Spirit on all people ... even these foreigners."  There is an "afterwards": grace and renewal, God's kingdom will come and all nations will receive the Spirit.  And as Pentecost was a harvest festival, it's possible that Joel preached his message at Pentecost when the cupboard was bare.  So now Peter on the day of Pentecost, quotes Joel, to people who felt the cupboard was bare, who felt oppressed by an army of foreigners. There is an afterwards: God's grace, the kingdom comes and all nations receive the Spirit – all barriers of nationality, race, class, gender broken down as everyone receives God's gift.  Peter says that "afterwards" has arrived.  And it has arrived, through Jesus.

So, Pentecost was the fulfilment of prophecy.  It was the next stage in the coming of the kingdom; it was and is the experience that lifts us into the work of messiah, of Christ; it is the experience that makes us community and extends that community to be worldwide, and makes us fully human. It is the fulfilment of why you were made. 

Remember, this what God wants for every human being.  It is not weird.  It doesn’t' matter who yo are, or what you've done, or how you've messed up in your life: God made you in his own image; God made you to be spiritually alive, to have his breath in you.  God made you to receive his Spirit.

And  point two.  What Jesus did in his life, death and resurrection, makes that a possibility.   We can be right with God.  We can be new people.  We can receive the Spirit; we can have God living in our lives.  Because Jesus has won the victory of evil; because Jesus. has done what it takes to deal with the rubbish in our lives...This life, being fully human, welcoming God's spirit, is possible because of Jesus.   Peter was speaking in the city where, less than two months earlier, Jesus had been betrayed and executed.  The whole city had been part of that.  “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”  Jesus is central to all this – even if we have sneered and giggled about him, it is to him we must come....

What should we do?   This spirit-filled life is a desirable thing.  It's what we were made for.  It's God's promise to every believer.  It's not just for a special few.  And it’s not weird.  It's not optional, it's part of the package.  What are we to do, if we are not there, today? 

Peter says
1. Repent: “think differently afterwards” to have a change of mind.  Men and women who had shouted “Crucify him” needed to change how the thought about Jesus.  And they needed to change how they thought about the whole of life. 
2. Be baptised – a public, decisive step to declare that you belong to Jesus., and trust him to take the bad stuff out of your life; it's about the forgiveness of sins, knowing that God has dealt with the bad stuff. 
3. Receive.  It's a promise: you shall receive.  But that word “receive” is and active one, that suggests laying hold of something, grabbing it, being determined to have it.  It's not just about sitting waiting for the gift to fall into your lap.  Grasp it.

So how do we enter this Spirit-filled life?  We begin by changing our minds about Jesus.  We need to come to the place where we realise that he is God's son.   We need to determine that he is going to be in charge of our lives.  We publicly declare our commitment to Jesus. and our need of his forgiveness.  If you've never done business with Jesus, you need to start with that change of mind and that public act of trust in him..

If you have put your trust in Jesus. and you feel stuck, on this Holy Spirit question, you need to repent – to change your mind about who's in charge; God isn't interested in giving you an experience for your enjoyment.  You need to accept the forgiveness of your sins. Guilt – feeling unworthy – can make you wonder if God is going to give yo anything at all.  And you need to receive it, to take hold of it.  God wants to give you his Spirit.

© Gilmour Lilly May 2016

Acts 1.1-​11; (Matthew 28. 16-20)

Sunday after Ascension

"Go and make Disciples"

Luke alone describes an Ascension in Bethany (Judea); he is not concerned about the "direction of travel" -- he isn't saying heaven is" up there" -- but stresses the importance of a cutting-off point, a break, a change that prepares the way for the spirit to come. Michael Green observes that all the Gospels look towards a future mission. Matthew finishes his Gospel with an encounter that took place "on a mountain in Galilee"; but he reflects that same sense of a cutting off, the launch of a new stage for Jesus, enthroned as king; and the hand-over of his earthly work to his people.

The starting point: They worshipped but some...

So Jesus meets the Eleven, on a mountain in Galilee. Their response is to worship him. Plain and simple. Our response to the presence of the Risen Jesus, is to worship Him. But among the worshippers were some who were not quite with the rest of them. They were effectively divided between those who were able to worship with unrestrained joy, and those who weren't. They were divided. Not a great place to be starting. But that is the reality: maybe when we get together for worship, not all of us are able to join in with unrestrained joy.

Confusion: Some doubted.

They were unsure: ''in two minds." But is that not where some of us are at? We aren't too sure about things. Maybe not too sure about Jesus. Maybe not too sure about all this new stuff in church . Maybe unsure about the future,. as we all get older and maybe face things that are unpleasant & uncertain. I reckon the disciples were to some extent facing all these areas of doubt and uncertainty.

And there was another layer of confusion. At one point, they were all asking him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” There was confusion due to self-interest. Not a great place to be starting at all. You would expect Jesus to give them a slap! To say "Look -- it's me. You guys who are doubting are just a bunch of losers. To everyone else, all power has been given to me. Go and make disciples". Listen, it doesn't matter how much you have messed up or now messed up you feel. We start as worshippers. And it doesn't matter how messed up we are or feel, Jesus has his plan for us and invites us to be involved in what he is doing in his world!

Jesus speaks. All authority has been given to me.

Post Resurrection he is triumphant over death. Post ascension he is seated at the father's right hand, in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority. And God placed all things under his feet. (Eph 1. 20-22) He is the Victor. He has authority: The "right to act". The "right to command". The "right to expect obedience. "

He has authority to choose, touch, send, who he chooses. He is not limited by our failures. He has authority in the context of our inadequacy! And he exercises that authority "for the church" (Eph 1. 22f)

The Commission: "Go and make disciples"

1. go ... the need to get out of our comfort zone. Movement is one of the signs of life, that differentiates between living things and inanimate objects. Jesus says "Go!" How far are we to go? As far as it takes! God is interested in all nations. The very place where Jesus said this was what Isaiah called Galilee of the Gentiles". (cf Matt 4v15f, lsa 9v2) where Jesus shines his light and meets his followers. The same Greek word (ἐθνῶν) means both "Gentiles" and "Nations" .That means all races, classes and attitudes of people, even the ones we think aren't worth bothering about.. God is not just interested in people like us! And all nations -- all races and classes of people -- have the potential to become "Disciples"

We need to"move"towards the lost: to recover the" go" of mission. We "go as a sending church and a giving church -- in our relationships with Andrew & Mania or Peter & Silje; and as a giving Church to compassion or Food Bank. We can all "go" by

• going out of our way to spend time with family members who don't know Jesus
• going to ask a neighbour in for a cup of tea
• going to the shops, or to school, or work, looking out for someone you can bless
• Going to a club that's not part of Church.

2. and make disciples... Discipleship,not just "conversions" is the outcome of mission. Changing the world through changed lives.' not just getting people to make "decisions".

• Baptising them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Discipleship begins decisively, with a step of commitment and encounter with The Three-in-One God. This mystery is who God is! The new disciple begins with an encounter with the Triune (implying some knowledge but not necessarily understanding)
• Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Disciple-making is an irreplaceable core task of the and needs to be structured into every church's basic formula. (Alan Hirsch, "the forgotten ways" p 24) The mission principles of Matthew 10 still apply (as does the sermon on the Mount!).

To make disciples means we have to be disciples. Another of these signs of life is reproduction: and when we reproduce we pass on our genes: the stuff that makes us what we are. We can only "Make disciples" -- people who are leaning to live as Jesus lived --if we are people who are leaning to live as Jesus lived.

Jesus promises his presence: I am with you always. ...

Jesus promises that his authoritative Person, will be with them by the Power of the Holy Spirit... cf .Luke 24:49 "I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high"; Acts 1. 4- "wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

© Gilmour lilly May 2016

Ephesians 4

Ephesians 4

We have been looking at what it means to be “Easter people”. Easter People are those who are are together encountering Jesus. We are people who in that encounter are moved from confusion, fear, and uncertainty, to peace, the power of the Spirit and to engage in God's mission. I want to look again at what the Risen Jesus wants to do in us by his Spirit, with a look at Ephesians 4.

It is difficult to tell the story of the letter to the Ephesians: Romans has a historical setting: Paul was planning to visit Rome; But there’s no such story for Ephesians: rather we have to try and imagine the kind of conversation that Ephesians is part of. And I can kind of imagine a conversation like this: “Paul, remind us about Jesus; tell us how Jesus affects our lives today, what difference he makes here in Ephesus.”

So Paul writes back, with two aims in mind: Firstly, to strengthen their commitment to the truth about Jesus, and secondly, to stir them to action that is consistent with what they believe. He will answer the question and fire back another question: “What are you going to do about it?”

Maybe there were specific questions: “Where is Jesus?” Seated at the Father’s right hand in glory! Gods power to us is the same as the power he used to raise Jesus from the dead! In Mph 1.19 Paul refers to Gods hyperbolical - extreme - power towards us who believe. Four different "powers" in this verse...dynamis, energies, Kratos, lschos.” Paul piles word upon word to show how extreme and pwoerful God's power is. Andrew Lincoln says that the point is not the difference but  the similarity between these words. In v 20 - which he energised (accomplished seems a weak translation) when he raised Jesus from the dead and seated him at his right hand...   The extent of the power is seen the resurrection of Jesus. Paul, it seems, is not too much bothered about the "gap" between the resurrection and The ascension. For him, what matters is that the Risen Jesus is exalted at the Father's right hand, and has everything under his feet.

“Where is Jesus?” Seated at the Father’s right hand in glory! Hallelujah! All things are under Jesus feet, he is head over all things for the church which is his body... So the So Paul is pressing on from the truth about Jesus, to the practise of life together in him.. The Church, the ekklesia: Paul mentions it 9 times in Ephesians. It's Christ's body (1. 22f); it's there to show God's wisdom and carry Jesus' glory (3. 10, 21); It's Jesus' bride, his girl, under his authority (5. 23f); object of his love (5. 25), focus of his plan (5. 27) and his care (5. 29). Being the Church – the real Church, alive, beautiful, glorious, united, global – is part of what it means to be Easter people.

And I believe that as Christians in Rosyth, as a Church in Rosyth, part of the outworking of what it means to be Easter people, is to be a local expression of that global reality – alive, beautiful glorious, united. The Vision of Jesus is in no sense to build a building or even an institution: it is to build a COMMUNITY! - It is "organic". It is about a "body" in a living connexion with the Head! (Eph 1:22). Throughout Ephesians Paul uses the language of the organic. "Joined"". "bodily growth" ...joints and ligaments.... So Paul teaches about Christian living- growing up into Christ...

“Where is Jesus?” Seated at the Father’s right hand in glory! He descended to the lowest parts of the earth – and has now ascended far above all. From there he has poured out his gifts. (verse 8-11) The gifts God gives to men, come from the risen and ascended Jesus. Paul quotes Ps 68. 18 which was a Pentecost psalm; so he links the exaltation and victory fo Jesus with the coming of the spirit. There is in the Bible a direct time-line, a direct link of cause and effect, running from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, through the ascension to the coming of the Spirit and receiving his gifts.

The NIV gives a good translation of 4. 11 is “Christ himself gave the Apostles the  prophets,  the Evangelists, the Pastors and Teachers.” 

Does that mean that the rest of us are none of the above, but maybe hewers of wood and drawers of water? That is the trouble with the traditional interpretation of this passage: it identifies a select list of people with “ministry gifts” – one (or more) of which became redundant shortly after the letter was written – while the rest of us just get on and use our ordinary gifts?

There is a strong connexion between what this passage says about gifts and Romans 12. and 1 Cor 12 The language used is very similar. Unity and diversity in the Church are shared themes of all three passages. To each grace was given (v. 7) The idea of a group of people who are "God's gift to the Church", called to equip the saints and do the work of ministry makes sense if Ephesians was written by someone else a generation after Paul, when the church was beginning to fossilize into an"institution" with a structured hierarchy. But it doesn't make sense if the letter was written by Paul or someone close to Paul - who had (as Jesus did) a vision of a "flat", non-hierarchical structure in an organic church. Apostates, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are expressions of the grace we are all given. God's gift to the church: but not necessarily office-holders or leaders. So, YOU can build up the body.

Do you have an orientation towards mission? You want to keep bringing us back to this: there's a world out there that needs Jesus; how can we reach the unreached, unchurched? I'm not talking about being an apostle like Paul or Peter. I'm talking about a heart for new ground among the lost.

Do you have a passion to speak out God's word? A heart to know what God is saying to us today, a conviction that God speaks, applies his eternal truth, specifically to each generation.

Do you have a passion to share the good news? Do you have a burning desire to be part of a Church where everyone can articulate what the Good news is, and is irrepressible about sharing that Good news?

Do you have a passion for the sheep? Do you long to see people cared for, led clear of the pitfalls, healed in their times of brokenness, and growing safely into the image of Jesus?

Do you have a heart for teaching? Do have a desire to wrestle with, and to see people knowing and applying the teachings of Scripture?

And the big purpose “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up”. To understand verses 9 onwards, we need the first part of the chapter. Paul is talking about “living a life worthy of our calling, with humility, patience, bearing with one another, love unity and peace.” It's about how we live our lives.

So the gifts are given so that we can be enabled to live holy lives and to be united. They are about life-change!  And that – holy living, effective mission, spiritual power – is what it means to be an Easter people. That kind of Church life, that kind of mission, that kind of anointing and gifting is the direct result on earth, of the resurrection, exaltation, and victory of Jesus.

© Gilmour Lilly February 2016

John 20. 19-23

Easter 2 - More on encountering the Risen Jesus
Last week we looked at the puzzle at the end of mark's Gospel, and learned that it is in encountering Jesus that we are set free from confusion, fear and uncertainty. Being Easter people, believing in the Resurrection means encountering Jesus today.  And it means being transformed by that encounter.  We are going to look at one of these encounters this morning.  We will try to learn how an encounter with Jesus will transform our lives.

1. Community... They were together (verse 19).  Behind closed doors, but all in the one place.  Jesus loves to reveal himself to us. He reveals himself to us when we are on our own, but he loves to reveal himself to us when we are together (See John 21. 2) to pour out his Spirit when we are together (See Acts 2. 1, 4 24ff), united in prayer, and to join us ever closer by giving us his spirit (Acts 2. 44).

2. Evidence... We see his hands and side (verse 20).  This is not a ghost.  This is the real Jesus, the lamb of God, different yet the same, bearing the wounds of crucifixion, yet fully alive!  A physical body yet able to pass through walls.   Jesus gives evidence that he is really alive, that it is really him, and that God cares about the physical world.

3. Peace... (verse 19, 21) “Shalom” is Jesus' response to their confusion, fear and uncertainty. Our English word peace is more about the absence of conflict.   “Shalom” is bigger than than that. It is about total well-being.  On the Cross he said “it is finished!”, so now he is able to say “Shalom!” and really to impart peace.    Jesus is our peace, so his creative word bestows peace.  We need to hear the word of God, and to receive what he wants to bestow on us  through his word.  What he speaks about, he speaks into our lives.  Shalom.  Total well-being. And shalom is the springboard for mission.  

4. Mission...(verse 21) As the Father has sent me so I am sending you.  How does the Father send us?

• It starts with God.  Not a double mission but an extension of the mission of Jesus.  “One single action, the great movement of the missionary heart of God.”(Milne)  
• it is incarnational.  Jesus was sent physically.  The word became flesh.  As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.  We are sent incarnationally.  Not just to talk about Jesus as a nice person or a good idea.  But to demonstrate the father’s love and to introduce Jesus as a  real person. 
• It combines submission and authority.  Matthew 28.  18-20 tells us “All authority is given to me..therefore go...” As his messengers we have the authority and dignity of the One who sent us.  But in order to exercise that authority we must live in full submission to him.  The authority to ask “in my Name” (John 16. 23f) is for those who remain joined to Jesus and bear fruit (John 15. 5-8) 
• It is sacrificial.  For Jesus, it was the sacrifice of the cross.  It was being despised and rejected.  In being lifted up form the earth on the cross, people were drawn to him.  We all want to be respected; we all dislike being looked upon as idiots for what we believe.  Now, sometimes we are idiots.  We talk in archaic language and expect people to understand it.  We live in our little religious ghetto that is designed for us, and complain because nobody else wants to come in and join us.  We need to do the best we can in terms of communication, and in terms of understanding and responding to what is going on out there in society.  But once we have sorted that out, we will still find that we are looked on as idiots.   We will still be called narrow-minded, bigoted, out-dated, superstitious. 
  

5. Holy Spirit...(verse 2,2)  Mission is a call to the impossible!  But Jesus breathed on his disciples and said “Receive Holy Spirit!”   Who is the Holy Spirit and what does he come to do in our lives?  Jesus gives an object lesson. The Holy Spirit is breathed into the disciples, just as the breadth of God was breathed into man at the creation.

• The Father's work.  The coming of the Spirit is the beginning of the New creation.  “The ruach – wind, Spirit or breath – of God was moving on the face of the deep” Genesis 1. 2.  In breathing the Spirit into them, Jesus was saying that a new beginning was happening, as the the Spirit comes from the Father to make a new creation.  
• The Son's Presence  In breathing on the disciples "Jesus communicates and commits himself to the disciples" (Wm. Temple). When the Spirit comes, Jesus comes! 
• The Spirit's power.  Alive, pulsing with the life of his resurrected humanity, vibrant with his God-life –he breathes on them.  His life, his God-life, imparted to them,breathed into their lungs, entering their bloodstream, energising every muscle in their bodies and every synapse in their brains. That's what the Holy Spirit comes to do.  To distinguish between what happens here and what happens in Acts 2,  is to miss the point. The Holy Spirit wants to fill our lungs and energise of lives.  If you are not experiencing that respiratory work of the Spirit in the whole of your being, then be assured that is what he wants to do. You need to have Jesus breathe upon you afresh and receive Holy Spirit afresh today.
  

6. Grace... (verse  23)  Jesus says “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”  It's tempting to tie that in with mission: those to whom we preach the Gospel are those to whom we give forgiveness. Yes, to withhold the Gospel is to withhold divine forgiveness.  But this ministry is a Holy Spirit ministry, and it is a ministry "given to the body” (William Temple).  The whole of life is about forgiveness and grace – in our dealing with one another as well as in our mission in the world.  Loving one another is not a distraction from mission – it is the essential preparation for mission.  The Spirit comes to make us grace givers.  

"Jesus vision is not of a multitude of inspired individuals" but "a community bound together by...the Spirit, sent forth to gather his 'other sheep'"(Milne)

© Gilmour Lilly April 2016

Mark 16:

So the three women found the stone rolled away from the tomb, met an angel who told them Jesus had risen, and that they were to tell his friends to go to Galilee where they would meet him.  The women ran off in panic and said nothing to anyone – because they were afraid. 

Isn't that a strange way to end a “Gospel”?    After all, a “gospel” is not just a biography: it is “good News” written so that people may believe.  There are four possibilities...

1. Mark didn't know, or wasn't bothered, about what happened next.   That is highly unlikely. Mark gives us a bit of a spoiler in v. 7: “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”  There's obviously something else to follow.  Mark had spent time with Peter (we think Peter told the story to Mark and Mark wrote it down) and with Paul.  Peter knew the story and paul was clear hom important that story was (1 C0r 15.1)  So Mark's Gospel needs what the other Gospels have – the actual meeting with Jesus promised in verse 7.
2. Mark wrote more but what he wrote has been lost, perhaps torn off the end of the scroll.  I don't believe that answer either: the first thing you would do if you knew the last page of the book had been damaged, would be to re-write it from memory.
3. Mark wrote the next section that we call verses 9-20.   There is in the AV and in small print in many other Bibles, a “Longer ending” to the Gospel.  It is a good ending in its way – but it's not Mark's original ending. One old manuscript names an author, an elder called Antipas.  I believe it was written by someone – to sum up what the different Gospels say about the resurrection – and then used to fill the obvious gap. Because there is an obvious gap.
4. Mark was prevented from finishing the work fully: wither by sudden death, murder, arrest and imprisonment.  Maybe he was getting the story from Peter, stopped for a break, and Peter was arrested.   That requires a wee bit of imagination. 

There are problems with every possibility suggested. Whatever the reason,  I believe Mark wanted to write more but was prevented for some reason.   And I believe that the ending we have in our footnotes, although not from Mark, is “Scripture”. 

Mark, then, as it stands,  tells a story that ends – yes, ends – with confusion, fear, and uncertainty, and with an uneasy silence about the whole resurrection message.... He knows it has happened. He has heard that from Peter.  He knows it is important – he has learned that from Paul.  But he also knows about doubt and fear.... he has been there.  So it's OK to take a break, stop for the night, have a meal, with the words “For they were afraid” freshly written on the page.  It's OK to pause there and recognise the reality of “Confusion,  Fear, Uncertainty”. These are as much part of an honest telling of the Resurrection story, as are victory, joy, and hope. 

Mark knew it.  He may well have been the young man who ran away naked, leaving his cloak in the hands of the soldier who made a grab at him, in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He certainly ran away again, later, when the going got tough in Pamphylia (Acts 13. 13).

Peter knew it.  Mark records that the angel said to the women “Go and tell my disciples – and Peter...”  Peter had failed so badly by denying Jesus, that he only felt fit to be a fisherman, not a disciple.  He knew about uncertainty, fear, and confusion.  

The Gospel writers all admit the first witnesses to the resurrection didn't believe their eyes and the first people to hear the report didn't believe what they were hearing!  John tells us about Mary crying in the garden, and then he tells us about Thomas.  Matthew tells us the women were “Afraid yet filled with joy”, and that even after meeting with Jesus “”Some doubted”.  Luke tells us the women’s “words seemed to them like nonsense and gives us the story of the two on the road to Emmaus. 

We are like that too. “Confusion,  Fear, Uncertainty”  all too often reflects where the Church is at – resurrection or not.  We are afraid: afraid of being too supernatural; afraid for our reputation; afraid of the future; afraid of change; afraid of our culture.   We are confused: we hear voices questioning what we believe.  Are we sure we believe it? How do we answer?  What does this resurrection imply in our lives?  We want certainty, but “faith is the evidence of things unseen....”  And all so often, our uncertainty, our fear, our confusion, mean we don't feel able to talk about what is really important.  We are silent about the resurrection, about the supernatural, about the power of Jesus to change lives today.   We fail.  We let Jesus down.  Or am I the only one?

I believe we need to face the uncertainty, to face the mess inside. It's OK, with Mark, to pause, to put the pen down and reflect, at this point of failure and uncertainty.  Someone very wisely said during Holy Week “You have to mourn to celebrate!”   I don't believe in “re-enacting” the death and resurrection – but I do believe it is hugely helpful to be able to pause, reflect on the two sides to the Passion-tide coin – the death of Christ for our sins and his resurrection – and to “Experience Easter” on the back of having solemnly remembered – called to mind – the suffering of Christ for us. 

And you have to mourn your own sin and failure, to celebrate fully the victory and power of Jesus. 

But you have to move on from there.  Just as it is a mystery why Mark left his Gospel unfinished, is really is a mystery  why we get stuck in our confusion, fear and uncertainty. There are lots of possible answers to do with hurt, lack of knowledge, deliberate disobedience, enemy attack and the fallen state of the world.    How can we get out of that place?

Mark gives the spoiler in verse 7.  The disciples were meant to meet up with Jesus in Galilee.  Antipas's (if that was who wrote verses 9-20) summary of the resurrection appearances points us to the other Gospels, and they are united in this:  it was in meeting with Jesus, in encountering Jesus, that confidence, hope, joy and victory replaced  uncertainty, fear, and confusion.  It was in meeting with Jesus – and in the coming of his Spirit – that John and Peter and Mark and Paul. were transformed.  It was in meeting Jesus that the disciples became a movement, a community, something life-changing. 

 And it is in meeting Jesus, in an encounter with Jesus and a touch from his holy Spirit (which is an encounter with Jesus!) that we are set free from  uncertainty, fear, and confusion today.  We need to seek that encounter at the Lord’s table, in the word, in prayer including silent waiting on God, and in praise and worship.  

Someone recently said “Resurrection is the Christian term for defiance”.  Resurrection was the way Jesus defied death.  Imagine death as a great big hand: all of that hand held Jesus – physically, emotionally, spiritually Jesus as in the grip of death.  But Jesus showed he is bigger, stronger than death itself.  “Death could not keep his prey. He tore the bars away!”  In his resurrection Jesus defied all the powers, political and religious – that had opposed him.

Because of the resurrection, we can be victorious over our sins, over our habits, over our fears.  Because of the resurrection, we can defy the powers that say “the church is finished!”   We can defy the sneering intellectualism that says “there is no god, man is the master of all things, glory to man in the highest.” ut that comes not just from knowign about the resurrection. It come as we meet Jesus.  We need to encounter him today.  

We need to do what Mark clearly intended to do.  We need to return to the narrative, where we are in confusion, fear, uncertainty, pick up the pen,  and write up the truth of our encounter with Jesus. 

© Gilmour Lilly April 2016