Book Review - The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God

The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God
John Piper with photography by Ric Ergenbright
Crossway Books

I don't read much poetry but the book of this book with its stunning photography appealed to the designer in me. This is John Piper as you have never read him before. He is well known for his heavier theological writing, and perhaps for his two devotional books, but here he takes himself into the realms of poetry. In a wonderfully moving way he retells the story of Job. Piper takes us inside Job's mind and lets us see the great glory of God in the story of Job. The long arguments of Job's friends are condensed and Piper, writing with beautiful cadences, proves himself to be a capable craftsman of the poetic form. Each of the four chapters ends with Piper applying lessons to the believer and highlighting Christ in the book of Job.

Perhaps you're not much into poetry, try this and I guarantee that you will find yourself marvelling at God.

This is a book to read some morning before church, or in a quiet moment some evening - I intended to read its four chapters over the space of four mornings, but I was captivated and couldn't put it down.

The book is a bit more expensive, but it is lavishly illustrated with photographs which subtly underscore the themes in verse, and is well worth the price. The edition I have came with a CD with Piper reading the poem.

"He is not poor nor much enticed
who loses everything but Christ."

More than numbers

I sat in the intensive care unit one evening and watched numbers counting down as a life slipped away. How unfitting it seemed that life in all its preciousness should be reduced to a few numbers flickering on a screen.

It was all the more poignant because it was the life of a young person that was fading away before me. Life in all its richness, in all its colour, reduced to a few numbers. And the numbers couldn't even begin to capture the richness of who they really were.

Life can't be summed up by numbers. But yet so often we choose to do it. We reduce life to numbers. How much money we have, or want to have. How fast a car we have. What size its engine is. How big our hard-drive is. How fast our computer runs. How expensive a house we have. How many children we have. How many hours we work. How much money we earn. How many animals we have. How much weight we have lost, how much we have put on. How many holidays we go on in a year. How many cars we have. How many TVs are in our homes. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

I have seen life reduced to numbers, and seen that there is more to life than that. These verses from Psalm 90 make this point:

Three score and ten the years we see,
Or if by strength fourscore they be,
Their pride is labour, grief, decay;
For soon 'tis gone - we f1y away.
O teach Thou us to count our days,
And set our hearts on wisdom's ways.

The real meaning of life is not found in numbers, but in what the Bible calls 'wisdom' - a life lived according to God's word. Life is about living God's way. Does that describe you, or is your life just a collection of numbers?

Food for thought - "We call our sons Peter and our dogs Nero"

(Local newspaper column)

What's so special about Easter anyhow? Is it the death on Good Friday? Not for me. It's the events of the Easter Sunday that grab me. What must it have been like to see a man you knew was dead standing before you?

Of course it's all too much for many sceptics. Dead people don't come back to life, they say. They claim that maybe Jesus wasn't dead when they put him into the tomb, or that he was dead and that he is still in a tomb somewhere in Palestine.

Personally that's a bit too unbelievable for me. Lets look at the objections:

Did Jesus die?
It starts on a Friday morning nearly 2000 years ago. A young carpenter receives 40 lashes from a Roman soldier. The whip is made of leather with pieces of metal and sharp bone woven into it. His back is ripped open, and a huge quantity of blood spills out onto the cobbles. Many men do not survive this flogging.

At the place of execution his arms are stretched out and nailed to the beam with sharpened spikes driven through his wrists, crushing the main nerve.

He is then hoisted to attach the cross bar to the vertical stake. With his body-weight hanging only from his wrists, his arms are wrenched out of their sockets. Nails are driven through his feet - again crushing the nerves. In order to breathe Jesus has to push himself up, scrapping his lacerated back against he coarse wood, breathe in and then sink down again. This goes on and on until complete exhaustion takes over, and he dies through lack of oxygen.

Often the legs of the victims were broken to speed up the process, but in this case it isn't necessary. A spear is thrust though his side into his heart to ensure his death.

And so we have this battered body with its back ripped to pieces, its nervous system smashed to a pulp and a gaping hole torn in its side by a spear.

Was he dead? Surely he must have been. But don't take my word for it; let's ask a few of those present.

The Centurion. Here was a man who knew death when he saw it. When Pilate summons him that evening we read in Mark 15:44,45 that he assures Pilate that Jesus was indeed dead.

The Jews. From the lips of his enemies comes confirmation of the fact of Jesus' death. When they see that he is dead they go to Pilate and ask to have his tomb guarded. They want to make sure that his body, dead and all as it is, is not stolen by his disciples.

Medical Experts. We read in John 19:34 "One of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water". Medical experts tell us that when someone dies in this manner, the sack around the heart and lungs fills up with a clear fluid. So when it was pierced, and the spear withdrawn, John saw exactly what you would expect to see coming from a crucified corpse - blood and water.

We could add Joseph of Arimathea and the women who watched - they all knew he was dead. The universal testimony of all involved in the events of Easter Friday is that Jesus of Nazareth died.

Well that leaves us to answer the claim, "If he was definitely dead, maybe he still is"

Did Jesus rise?
Witnesses say He is alive. Paul, writing only 20 years after the crucifixion to the church at Corinth, lists more than 520 people who saw Jesus Christ after he rose. He effectively says to his readers, "Go and ask them." You don't say that sort of thing unless you can be sure that all those people will back you up.

What about these witnesses? What sort of people were they? Were they emotionally unstable? Simple? Deluded? Gullible? Lets meet a few of them.

The Women. The women were on their way to anoint a dead body - they had no fond hopes that Jesus was alive. They were not hoping against hope that he was still alive. In fact they were so convinced of his death that even when he did appear to Mary Magdalene she still didn't accept it. These women were expecting to find a dead body not a living Saviour.

The Disciples. When the women told the rest of the disciples, we read in Luke 24:11: "they did not believe them because their words seemed like nonsense."! And then there was Thomas who certainly wasn't going to be fooled. He had to see the nail holes and spear wound to be convinced.

Paul. To this highly intelligent man this resurrection/messiah nonsense was a blasphemous heresy, to be annihilated at all costs. Was he likely to be vulnerable to hoping against hope that Jesus was alive? And yet we find him writing "He appeared to me also".

Not only were there many witnesses, but the resurrection was seen and believed by those who were least expecting it.

The Empty Tomb says He is alive. The gospels make it clear that the women took great care to note exactly where it was Jesus was buried. Matt 27:61 "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb". They did not go to the wrong tomb. The simple fact is - it was empty

The real question is, why was it empty? The Jewish leaders had to answer that question, and the best they could do was blame the disciples, even though there was a guard on the tomb - What a weak story! If the guards were asleep how did they know it was the disciples?

The Lives of the Disciples say He is alive. Did the disciples really believe he was alive? When Jesus died his followers scattered, they fled as cowards. How is it then that a few weeks later we find them standing in front of the very people who had lynched their teacher telling this resurrection story?

These uneducated fishermen and tax collectors took the world by storm. Not even the threat of death stopped them proclaiming the resurrection for the rest of their lives. Men do not die for something they know to be false, and yet each of the disciples was to lose his life for his Lord.

What made the difference? Why didn't they fear death? They had seen death defeated - they had nothing to worry about. How else can you account for the transformation from quivering wrecks to triumphant bold witnesses?

The Spread of Christianity says He is Alive. There is no way to explain the growth and spread of Christianity apart from the resurrection.

If you were an alien looking down on the first century, would you think that the majestic Roman Empire or Christianity would be most likely to survive? You probably wouldn't put money on the ragtag bunch of nobodies whose main message was that a crucified carpenter from an obscure village had triumphed over the grave. Yet it was so successful that today we name our children Peter and Paul and call our dogs Nero and Caesar.

2000 years later the Roman Empire is nowhere to be seen, but Christianity is mushrooming across the globe. Why? Because the grave couldn't hold Jesus of Nazareth.

This has only been a whirlwind tour of some of the evidence, much more could be presented, but the same conclusion would always be drawn - Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. It is the only answer.

Where does this leave us then?

• The Resurrection is proof that the bible is true

For more than a 1000 years the bible had foretold that death would not hold the Messiah. It was right.

• The Resurrection is proof that God exists and that Jesus is who he said he was - the Son of God.
  

Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and the Jews executed him for this blasphemy. But in his resurrection we see God reversing this decision, effectively saying, "It was no blasphemy, He is my Son."

• The Resurrection is proof that Death is not the end.

In the resurrection God shows us that death is not the end. There is a life after death, of which Jesus of Nazareth is King.

• The Resurrection is proof that Sins have been paid for.
  

Why did he die? He died so that when judgment day comes his people will not have to hear the crushing verdict of 'Guilty'. In his resurrection God is saying that his payment for sins has been accepted. We need to ask to be included in this payment.

• The Resurrection is proof that Jesus is the only way to God.

No other religious teacher has ever come back from the grave. Jesus Christ did, and he says that the only way to Heaven is through faith in him alone.

The resurrection is the single most important fact of history. You cannot afford to ignore it.

Come rejoice with me!

I don't often go in for the personal achievement stuff on this blog, but I've just finished Stephen Charnock's "Existence and Attributes of God."

In case you're not familiar, this is a mamoth 1100 page discussion by a Puritan preacher on God's attributes. He lived in England from 1628, through the Civil War, the plague, the Great Fire of London (in which he lost his entire library- argghh!) and died in 1680.

I've read other puritan writings, but not much. But this was the first big work I've read.

Facts
Started September 2004
Finished March 2005
Aimed to read 10 pages a day for 5 days a week

Opinion
Wow! Jerry Bridges speaks of this as being one of the most inluential books he has read. I would have to agree. There have been times reading this when I have been struck by my sinfulness, and the myriad of ways I fail. But the overwhelming impression from this book, and from preaching this series on God's attributes is this, I cant wait to go to Heaven and be in the presence of this most wondrous being.

It appeared to affect Charnock in that way to an even greater degree. William Symington writes in the introduction:

"The intense interest which he was observed to take in the subjects of which he treated, was regarded as an indication that he was nearly approaching that state in which he was to be 'filled with all the fulness of God'. Not unfrequently was he heard to give utterance to a longing desire for that region for which he gave evidence of being so well prepared. These circumstances were, naturally enough, looked upon as proofs that his mighty mind, though yet on earth, had begun to 'put off its mortality' and was fast ripening for the paradise of God."

Reading Charnock hasn't been easy though. Some bits are like chewing concrete. But there is much gold buried in the concrete. The digging is worth it. I think that setting a goal of 10 pages per day was good to get me through the good, but sometimes reading the 10 pages became the goal, rather than reading what Charnock was saying.

I'd like to read it again, but more slowly, and dwell on certain passages more.

Ahh well, volume one (of 16) John Owen's works is next on the list.

Some Favourite Quotes

Transcendence
"Whatever God is, he is infinitely so: he is infinite Wisdom, infinite Goodness, infinite Knowledge, infinite Power, infinite Spirit; infinitely distant from the weakness of creatures, infinitely mounted above the excellencies of creatures: as easy to be known that he is, as impossible to be comprehended what he is. Conceive of him as excellent, without any imperfection; a Spirit without parts; great without quantity; perfect without quality; everywhere without place: powerful without members; understanding without ignorance; wise without reasoning; light without darkness; infinitely more excelling the beauty of all creatures, than the light in the sun, pure and unviolated, exceeds the splendor of the sun dispersed and divided through a cloudy and misty air: and when you have risen to the highest, conceive him yet infinitely above all you can conceive of spirit, and acknowledge the infirmity of your own minds. And whatsoever conception comes into your minds, say, 'This is not God; God is more than this.'" - p200

Eternity
The counsels of a boundless being are not to be scanned by the brain of a silly worm, that hath breathed but a few minutes in the world. Since eternity cannot be comprehended in time, it is not to be judged by a creature of time. - p295

The strongest man is but compacted dust - p303

Goodness
"While the gardener commands his servant to shake the tree, he intends to fasten its roots, and settle it firmer in its place; and is this an ill-will to the plant?" - v2p313

Knowledge
"But when we give the reins to the motions of our hearts, and suffer them to run at random without a curb, it is an evidence we are not concerned for their falling under the notice of the eye of God; and it argues a very weak belief of this perfection, or scarce any belief at all. Who can think any man's heart, possessed with a sense of this infinite excellency, that suffers his mind, in his meditations on God, to wander into every sty, and be picking up stones upon a dunghill?" - p482

Wisdom
"We see the gardener pulling up some delightful flowers by the roots, digging up the earth, overwhelming it with dune; and ignorant person would imagine him wild, out of his wits, and charge him with spoiling his garden: but when the spring is arrived, the spectator will acknowledge his skill in his former operations." - p606

Our worship of God
"It is against the majesty of God when we have not awful (awe-filled) thoughts of that great majesty to whom we address… It is a contempt of the majesty of a prince if, whilst he is speaking to us, we listen not to him with reverence and attention, but turn our backs to him, to play with one of his hounds, or to talk with a beggar; or while to speak to him, to rake in a dunghill… as if a grand mutineer, instead of numbly begging the pardon of his offended prince, should present his petition not only scribbled and blotted, but besmeared with some loathsome excrement." - p263

Holiness
"The holiness of God is injured by our unprepared for address to him, when like swine, we come into the presence of God with all our mire reeking and steaming upon us. A holy God requires a holy worship; and if our best duties, having filth in every part, as performed by us, are unmet for God, how much more unsuitable are dead and dirty duties to a living and immense holiness!" - v2p176

"There is as little proportion between the holiness of the Divine Majesty, and that of the most righteous creature, as there is between a nearness of a person that stands upon a mountain, to the sun, and of him that beholds him in a vale; one is nearer than the other, but it is an advantage not to be boasted of, in regard of the vast distance that is between the sun and the elevated spectator." - v2p193

Your God is Love (4)

God's love in Salvation is a Secure Love
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

God's love is secure. Sadly, not many people experience secure love today. Children should know the secure love of parents who love their children and love each other. But often children grow up unsure and uncertain about whether their parents love them or love each other. A husband or a wife should be able to rest content and secure in the love of their spouse, knowing that mistakes will be forgiven not allowed to fester.

Lack of security breeds unease and fear and worry. But God's love is secure. Once he takes you in his arms he never lets you go.

This verse tells us that there are only two options available to every human being who has ever lived and will ever live - perish in Hell forever, live in Heaven forever. Those who trust him are secure. They will never perish. God isn't going to give up on you. God is going to let go. He isn't going to wash his hands of you.

His love for you is based on Christ, not on you. He loves you because of Jesus. And his love for his son will never change. So you are secure. Do you struggle to accept that God loves you? Its not because you're lovely, it because Christ is. And because Christ will never stop for a moment being lovely then you are secure. Utterly secure.

That gives us great confidence. When we sin it isn't the end of the world. When we sin we can still look confidently to God's unfailing love. That doesn't mean we can sin cheerfully - that would prove we weren't converted at all, but it means we don't need to sit wondering if God still loves us or not.

And when those times come when God seems far away, or is chastening us as he will do from time to time - what does his love have to say? Doesn't any good father discipline his children if he truly loves them?

God's love is holy. The love of God is no mere attitude of indulgent benevolence. It cannot and will not deny God's holiness. It is stern love: love which desires your highest good: love which holds your eternal perfection and joy more important than your immediate happiness.

God's love is eternal - so you are eternally secure.

God's love is for ever. God does not fall in love and He does not fall out of it. He chose to love you before the foundation of the world and He will love you, just the same, for all eternity. His love is not fitful, it does not change from day to day, it is steady and persistent.

It is everlasting. It keeps on flowing.

Our response to this immense love?

Love Him
What Can You Say?

There is nothing you can say to love like that. Instead, bathe in it, glory in it, immerse yourself in it, feel what it is like to be really loved.

You will adore Him, you will delight in Him, you will long for more of Him: more time in His presence, more knowledge of His Word, more occasions to serve and please Him. You will want to tell everyone you meet about Him: you will not be able to help yourself. You will want to be like Him. Your heart will overflow with so much love that you will pour that love out upon others.

Trust him
Is it true that God is love to me as a Christian? And does the love of God mean all that has been said?

If so, certain questions arise.

• Why do I ever grumble and show discontent and resentment at the circumstances in which God has placed me?
• Why am I ever distrustful, fearful, or depressed?
• Why do I ever allow myself to grow cool, formal, and halfhearted in the service of the God who loves me so?
• Why do I ever allow my loyalties to be divided, so that God has not all my heart?

(Questions taken from JI Packer - Knowing God)

Your God is Love (3)

God's love in Salvation is a Giving Love
People who love much will give much. You can see the truth and reality of their love by their generosity and sacrifice and self-denial. Theirs is a love that spares nothing. It is a giving love.

"For God so loved the world that he gave"

He gave although it was us who owed.
We owed everything and yet he is the one who gives.

He gives the best
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son"

There is no-one to compare with Jesus. No being anywhere in the universe whose worth can even be expressed as a fraction of the Son's. There aren't words to describe his majesty. When God gave God for us he gave himself. What more could he give? God gave his all: he gave himself. Who can measure this love?

He gives what we need
If you want to see Gods love, go and stand at the cross. It seems an ugly place to stand to see something so beautiful. But let me tell you why. God's love is not his overarching quality. First of all he is a holy God, and in his holiness he cannot and will not tolerate sin. All sin must be punished. There is no way that God will let anyone off the hook. But as sure as he is holy he is also loving, and in his love he has provided what we don't deserve. He has provided what we need most - the opportunity for a switch to take place - he offers to take our punishment so that we can experience the delights of his Heaven. How loving! What love!

He gives extravagantly
He gives and he gives and he gives. God's love is extravagant. God is not niggardly in the way He loves. He lavishes blessings upon His loved ones.

Eternal Life
Holy Spirit
Christ's perfect righteousness
Clear conscience
Forgiveness
Strength to withstand temptation
Grace to endure difficulties
Promises never to lack anything we need
A future; secure and planned entirely for our benefit
Hope
Rest
Peace
Answered prayer
Unanswered prayer
Family
Friendship
Happiness
Contentment
Health
Possessions

The list is endless. The psalmist says, "He does not withhold any good thing from them". Paul writes, "He causes all things to work for their good".

When we consider the glories we are going to enjoy, the pleasures of Heaven, we see something of the extravagance of God's love. But these are nothing compared to the extravagance in his giving his son. It is the greatest gift, far above and beyond anything else we will ever get.

This is of great comfort too. Like a father who buys his son the most wonderful toy, which has cost hundreds of pounds. He's had to work overtime and take on extra work to save enough. And you should see the excitement on the little chap's face as he opens his present - he's thrilled. He looks and turns the box round and round. And then he opens it and looks at it in all its glory. And then after a moment his face falls. His father asks, "what's wrong?" The little chap comes and says, "It needs batteries Daddy". "Son here they are, do you think after all I've spent I wouldn't get you batteries?"

Sometimes we worry about batteries. After all God has given us in his son we worry about the batteries of life.

Paul writes in Romans 8:32

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

God's love is a giving love and he gives extravagantly.

Are you worried about something, or someone? Are you wondering whether God's love is enough to love you in spite of your past? Are you wondering whether God will love you enough to give you the grace you need to get through a particular situation?

He's given you his son. Lift your eyes to the Son, see his great value and trust God for he will freely give you all things.

They are as nothing. After all he's given, he'll be to you and give to you all that you need for every situation you find yourself in.

He gives freely
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes"

How much does it cost to he the recipient of this great love? What do I have to do? Nothing - just come to him in faith. Believe what he says. Believe what he holds out to you.

His love is priceless, yet he offers it at no price to you.

Fellow believer - how thankful we should be. Look at how low a price God requires. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.

God's love is a giving love

Quote of the Day

This brought a smile to my face:

"To sin because mercy abounds is the devil’s logic. He that sins because of mercy, is like one that wounds his head because he has a plaster."

From Thomas Watson's 'Body of Divinity' p96

Your God is Love (2)

God's love in Salvation is a Great love
The immensity of God's love is captured in the smallest word in the verse.

"God so loved"

Spurgeon says of this word 'so':

"so" loved it - even the writer of the book of John could not tell us how much; it was so deep, so wide, so strong, that even inspiration could not compute its measure, and therefore the Holy Spirit gave us that great little word SO, and left us to attempt the measurement.

How could we measure the greatness of God's love?

The word 'so' points us forward to the measure of the greatness of the love - not that it was the world in all its badness that he loved - but that he gave that which was most precious to himself: His only Son, his unique Son, His beloved Son.

Oh if we could grasp the depth of the love between the Father and the Son we would be overwhelmed at the vastness of his love. A good father son relationship is wonderful. But there is no love greater in this universe than the love between the members of the trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And yet, mysteriously, and wonderfully it is exactly that love that we are told that God has for each person here who has come to Jesus seeking forgiveness. Listen to Jesus' words in John 17:23

May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

You have loved them inasmuch as you have loved me.
You have loved them to the degree that you have loved me.

God's love for you is the same as His love for His Son. He delights and rejoices in you. You too are His beloved child with whom He is well pleased.

I can't describe it to you - its indescribable. But come and stand on the banks of the Jordan river. A man in his 30's is standing down at the edge. He has just been baptised. There is a noise like thunder, but through it you hear a voice coming from the heavens, "This is my son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased."

Here we get a glimpse of the father's love, his delight and joy in his Son. That's the joy God has over you at this moment. "You are my son, my daughter whom I love."

You are the object of a great love, the greatest love. One writer puts it this way:

"The love of God is like the Amazon River flowing down to water one daisy."

There's great comfort here - it will never run out. You will never exhaust the resources of God's love. When you feel particularly unlovable - God's love is greater. Whne you feel that there is nothing in the world that will comfort you in sorrow or trouble or heartache - come to God, his love is greater than all these.

Your God is Love (1)

Nobody loves like God loves.

He has given us a whole book in the Bible that is about love. The Song of Solomon tells a story of love lost and found again; of a lovesick heart made joyful.

It helps us see what true love is, for it is only when we have seen that that we can begin to understand what God means when He says, "I love you."

As noted below in a separate post God's love refers to different things. In this post we considering what it means to the believer.

The familiar words of John 3 16 teach us several important truths about God's love in salvation that we should be convinced of. We'll look at each of them in turn over the next few days:

God's love in Salvation is a Sovereign Love
"For God so loved…"

The verse starts off with God because God's love starts off with God. Not with us. Nothing in you caused Him to love you. Quite simply, he chose to. Paul shows us this in Ephesians.

1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.

Ephesians 2:3 Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.

God is sovereign, and God's love is sovereign. God is under no obligation to love any person.

We are so used to our ideas of love. A girl looks at a boy and sees something in him she likes, likes a lot, and because of that she falls in love. Our love is called into being by something in the other person, something that attracts us, something that pleases us, something that delights us. But the love of God is free, spontaneous, uncaused. Think about that for a minute.

God loves you just because He loves you

Great comfort in this. God didn't see how loveable I was and then set his love on me. He loved me when I was unlovable. There was nothing attractive about me. In fact we were positively unattractive, repulsive to God.

And when our verse tells us that "God so loved the world" it isn't telling us about the vastness of God's love, although it is vast. It isn't the bigness of the world that is in view, but the badness of it. John uses the word 'world' to refer to mankind set against God, intent on disobeying him.

God loved us while we were sinners. God loved us before we looked to him. God loved us while we were disobedient. God's love is sovereign. That doesn't give us an excuse to do what we like, but it does mean that when you fall, God doesn't say, "Oh so that s what you're really like, well if that's the case then I don't love you any more." He knew what you were like anyhow. Nothing comes as a surprise to him.

I find it hard enough to grasp that my wife loves me, and even though she knew what I was like before she married me, I'm amazed that she still went ahead and married me. But to know that God knows exactly what I am like, right to the very recesses of the darkest corner of my imagination, and to know that although he doesn't like what he sees, nevertheless he has chosen to lone me - it is beyond understanding.

God the sovereign King has chosen to love you. His love for me, and for you, is not based on our attractiveness. And it does not depend on you being loveable. He has chosen to love and that's just it.

Grasping this is the first step for the believers to living confidently in God's unfailing love.

Food for thought - Woodpecker Proof

(Local Newspaper Column)
Evolution says things just happened, the Bible says that God designed and made all things. Which is it? I believe the Bible is right. But what proof do we have?

Take the woodpecker for example…

The woodpecker spends its life spiralling up tree trunks looking for insects. To do this it feet need to be a different shape from all other birds, its legs need to be different, and it needs special stiff tail-feathers to prop it in tight against the tree.

The woodpecker pecks at a rate of 16 times a second, that's twice as fast as a submachine gun, so its head is travelling twice as fast as a bullet. The rate at which its head comes to a halt as it hits the tree is 1000 times the force of gravity. Just to put that in perspective - an astronaut is subject to 4 times the force of gravity (4g) during take off; and 6g-9g is enough to destroy a person! The woodpecker survives because it has an especially reinforced skull and beak.

Joining the beak to the skull is a shock-absorbing system that is vastly superior to anything we humans have ever invented. To keep this high speed kango-hammer under control is a finely tuned inbuilt gyroscope to make sure that it doesn't hit the tree at an angle and rip its beak off.

And then once it has the holes bored in the tree it has a hugely long tongue to remove the insects.

The woodpecker looks like it was designed to do what it does do, and what it does do, it does very well. It's just one example from nature that shows how evolution can't work. Why can't it work? The woodpecker can't evolve step by step because all these component parts need to be there for the woodpecker to function at all. If any one of these factors was not present then the woodpecker would be a complete disaster, there'd be lots of beakless, brain-damaged, hungry woodpeckers about.

In the Bible Job says, "But ask the animals and they will teach you. Or ask the birds of the air and they will tell you. Speak to the earth and it will tell you. Or let the fish of the sea tell you. Everyone of these knows that the hand of the Lord has done this." - Job 12:7-9

All of nature shouts at us of the presence of a designer; to believe that it all just happened by chance requires a much greater faith - faith that goes against all the evidence. Personally I find it much easier to have faith in creation than in evolution.

Mark Loughridge is the minister of Milford Reformed Presbyterian Church and Letterkenny New Life Fellowship.

Wrestling with God's love

I've been skimming over DA Carson's little book, "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God".

I've been reminded of what a fantastic little book this is. In fact I think it is one of my favourites. For a long time one thing has riled me: badges, stickers, posters, ministers and well meaning Christians who proclaim to all and sundry, "God loves you". I remember being at a wedding where the minister had done his best to set before the mostly unconverted guests, the claims of Christ over their lives. All was going well until he came to the end when he said, "If you only remember one thing from all I've said, remember this: God loves you." I hung my head.

My problem stems from the fact that the most important thing for them to hear is not that God loves them, but that God is angry with them. If we keep telling people that God loves them, then they see no need to worry about meeting God when they die.

Of course I understand that in some measure God does love them, and that he loves enough to send his Son to provide salvation for anyone who repents and believes. But to walk about proclaiming scriptural truths without a context or without due precision is dangerous.

Whenever I expressed such thoughts to other believers sometimes they were quite shocked, especially when I followed it up with the idea that God might actually hate the same people that they were assuring that God loved them. Could God really hate? Surely he only hates sin, but loves the sinner?

This brings me back to Carson. In his book he clarified a lot of these things for me.

He points out that the bible speaking of God loving in 5 different ways:

• The love of God Father for God the Son, and the love of the Son for the Father
• God's providential love over all he has made
• God's salvific stance towards a fallen world
• God's particular effective selecting love toward the elect
• The love God has towards his own people is sometimes said to be conditional on their obedience
  

Carson goes on to say that we cannot emphasize anyone one of these to the neglect of the others, otherwise the doctrinal and pastoral implications will be disastrous.

Carson also has a great section on whether God hates the sinner or the sin:

"How, then, should the love of God and the wrath of God be understood to relate to each other? One evangelical cliché has it that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. There is a small element of truth in these words: God has nothing but hate for the sin, but it would he wrong to conclude that God has nothing but hate for the sinner.

A difference must be maintained between God's view of sin and his view of the sinner. Nevertheless the cliché (God hates the sin but loves the sinner) is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, his wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Rom. 1: 18ff.) and on the sinner (John 3:36).

Our problem, in part, is that in human experience wrath and love normally abide in mutually exclusive compartments. Love drives wrath out, or wrath drives love out. We come closest to bringing them together, perhaps, in our responses to a, wayward act by one of our children, but normally we do not think that a wrathful person is loving.

But this is not the way it is with God. God's wrath is ... an entirely reasonable and willed response to offences against his holiness. But his love wells up amidst his perfections and is not generated by the loveliness of the loved.

Thus there is nothing intrinsically impossible about wrath and love being directed toward the same individual or people at the same time. God in his perfections must be wrathful against his rebel image-bearers, for they have offended him; God in his perfections must be loving toward his rebel image-bearers, for he is that kind of God. "

Book Review - Questioning evangelism

Questioning Evangelism
Randy Newman
Kregel Books

Randy: How's the weather down there?
Grandma Belle: How could the weather be in Florida in the middle of July?

Randy: How's your family?
Aunt Vivian: Compared to whom?

In this way Randy Newman starts off his book on evangelism. Responding to a question with a question was the daily routine for Newman as he grew up in a Jewish home. Yet he points to Jesus, the master evangelist, as the supreme example in this. For Jesus answering a question with a question was the norm; a clear concise direct answer was a rarity. Take the rich young ruler for example - if ever there was a great opportunity to demonstrate how to explain the gospel this was it. Yet when asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?", Jesus responds, "Why do you call me good?"

Newman argues that so often we are too quick to answer, and that as we answer with our perfectly accurate answer, they aren't listening anyway. His point is that we need to engage their minds as well as simply present the truth. He says, "Answering a question with a question… brings to the surface the questioner's assumptions. It also takes the pressure off you… this is important because as long as we're on the defensive, the questioners are not really wrestling with the issues. They're just watching us squirm."

I came across this book while listening to some DA Carson talks. He recommended it as one of the best books he had read on evangelism. I think he's right. Certainly, it is extremely useful.

Throughout the book Newman illustrates with excerpts from his own work as a college evangelist over the last 20 years. With great openness he shows, not only the times he got it right, but also the times he got it wrong, and the lessons he learned from each occasion. He also gives practical suggestions throughout for questions you could ask, as well as giving dialogues to show how a conversation might go. These illustrations go along way to making the book practical, applicable, and easy to read. There is also a gentleness throughout the book that is extremely winsome. His way is not a triumphalist approach to evangelism, seeking to display wisdom and crush the opposition with knowledge, but a gentle way, seeking to understand the questioner, and seeking to provide real answers.

The book is divided into three sections, each full of useful content:

Part 1 - "Why ask questions?" - deals with the rationale and principles behind asking questions.
In Part 2 - "What questions are people asking?" - Newman shows how to, and how not to, answer questions like, 'Why are Christians so intolerant?' 'Why are Christians homophobic?' 'Why does a good God allow suffering?'. There is a lot of practical wisdom packed into these chapters.
The third part - "Why aren't questions and answers enough?" - turns the focus towards ourselves and deals with our lack of compassion for the lost, the problem of when our disgust at sin becomes disgust at the sinner, and how we can fail to listen.

Newman speaks about recognising the 'fool' of Proverbs who shouldn't be answered, of how and when to ignore questions, he speaks of asking questions to discover what really lies behind the original question, of grasping the hurt that someone has been through that may be disguised in a casual question.

As well as providing a useful method for evangelism Newman also conveys a lot of useful facts on a variety of topics that will strengthen the believer in their faith. This is a great book that will equip you for evangelism, and give you a way of thinking that will be much more useful than simply learning a set of rules or facts.

Mark who?

Sorry for the lack of posts these last few days/weeks. Things have been fairly busy around here.

On holidays last summer I was reading a newspaper interview with Nevin Maguire, the Irish chef. Afterwards, my wife and I had a bit of fun trying to answer the questions ourselves. It was quite an interesting set of questions, in fact it has become a fairly standard interview, based on two questionnaires the French writer Marcel Proust once filled in. Here's what I came up with:

1. What is your current state of mind?
Relaxed, it's Monday, my day off. And I'm just about to head for bed.

2. What is your favourite way of relaxing?
Reading a good book, cooking, walking with my wife, going to the swimming pool with my daughter, or flying my wife's kite.

3. Who are your favourite writers?
Non-religious books - Robert Ludlum, Terry Pratchett, Fredrick Forsythe, Alexander McCall Smith
Christian writers - John Piper, Jerry Bridges, RC Sproul, The Puritans

4. What was the last book you read?
A biography of Johnny Cash, "A Man Called Cash" by Steve Turner
And the last Christian book was, "Questioning Evangelism" by Randy Newman. (Review to follow at some stage)

5. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Heaven - no sin, no pain, no sadness, just pure happiness in the presence of God.

6. What historical figure do you most identify with?
Peter the apostle - a man who, although deeply flawed, loved to serve his Saviour.

7. Which living person do you most admire?
My mother, who copes uncomplainingly with Multiple Sclerosis.

8. Who is your favourite fictional hero?
Sherlock Holmes (& Winnie the Pooh)

9. Who are your real-life heroes?
Christians who are persecuted for their faith

10. What is your most treasured possession?
My Bible

11. When and where were you happiest?
In Letterkenny Hospital on 19th September 2003 at 6.31pm, when our daughter Eva was born.

12. What is your most obvious characteristic?
Some people would say my handshake, or my long stride.

13. What is your greatest fear?
That people whom I care for will not accept God's offer of forgiveness, and will end up in Hell.

14. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Lying & self-seeking vulgarity. You can hardly watch TV, go to the cinema, read a newspaper, or listen to pop music without there being some form of crudeness, mostly for publicity.

15. What is your greatest extravagance?
A pair of Oakley sunglasses.

16. What is your favourite journey?
Any road with nice scenery and no potholes, for example, travelling over Knockalla towards Port Salon.

17. What do you consider the most over-rated virtue?
Tolerance. We are constantly being told that we must be tolerant of the actions and opinions of others, but there are some things that are wrong and that we must not tolerate.

18. On what occasion would you lie?
I can't think of any situation that justifies lying.

19. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
There are lots of areas where I need to become more like Christ.

20. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Persuading my wife to marry me!

21. Where would you like to live?
Thailand - I love Thai food

22. What is the quality you most admire in a man?
Godliness, manliness and strength of convictions

23. What is the quality you most admire in a woman?
Godliness and selflessness

24. Who has been the greatest influence on you?
Jesus Christ, my Saviour.

25. What is it you most dislike?
Cod liver oil

26. What do you value most in your friends?
Honesty, understanding and a sense of humour

27. How would you like to die?
Looking forward to Heaven

28. If you were to die and come back as a person or an animal, what do you think it would be?
Reincarnation is nonsense, but I am glad that God made me what I am, because only humans were made to know God intimately.

29. What is your motto?
To bring glory to God and enjoy knowing and trusting him.

Food for thought - Facing death without fear

(My local newspaper column)

Perhaps the saddest of Anna Nolan's three programmes in the series, "Is there anyone out there?", this third programme looked for people's views on life after death. There were a wide variety of opinions…

"Where to you go after this life?"
"There is no Heaven and no Hell; there is only today and what you make of it."

Another common response was, "A hole in the ground".

Some were adamant, some were wistful, "I hope there's something better". "There's nothing, but I pray that I could see my mum just one more time."

Some displayed all sorts of ideas, "I believe that people who die suddenly need help to pass through to the other side." "I believe that they [the dead] are up there looking out for those left behind." "Your bodily energy changes into something else, some other form of energy and becomes pure."

And then there were the plain honest, "Are you frightened of death?" "Yes, I'm terrified" said a girl in a travel agents. Anna Nolan herself said, "I'm petrified of death."

In the 1960s when most people generally believed in heaven John Lennon penned the song 'Imagine' which has the lines:

"Imagine there's no Heaven, its easy if you try,
no Hell below us above us only sky."

By 1990 we had imagined it; people generally didn't believe in Heaven or Hell. Chris Rea, another song writer, released his album titled "The Road to Hell". In the final song he is being asked by a little girl about all the suffering in life and the purpose to life. Rea's song realises that the utter injustice of this life, along with its brevity points to a time and a place where justice will be done, and where happiness will not be cut short. His plaintive song, as he seeks for answers to his little girl's questions, is entitled, "Tell me there's a Heaven."

There is something in us that cries out for there to be more to life. Someone interviewed on the show said, "There is something too unbearable about just vanishing into nothing, something cries out against it. It feels like such a waste." He is right; each of us has a spark of eternity in us. We were made to live forever; death is only the doorway to more life. We were made for relationship with God; how we relate to him here determines how we relate to him forever.

You might wonder how I'm so sure that there is life after death. A man interviewed on the show said, "I'd like to think there is, but nobody ever will know unless you could speak to someone who has been there, and the likelihood of that happening is pretty small."

He's right; and he's wrong. He's right about the only way to know is if someone came back to tell us that there was a place. He's wrong that no-one ever did.

Jesus said,

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going." (John 14:1-4)

Jesus' death and resurrection proves that there is life after death, and also proves what sort of life it is. It is not reincarnation, for Jesus came back as himself, not anyone or anything else. It isn't some sort of disembodied spiritual existence, for Jesus had a body. Jesus also tells us how we are to make ourselves ready so that we can face death without fear. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." We are to trust him, not ourselves. We are to trust him to save our lives, to save us from the power of sin and the guilt of sin; and not trust in our own efforts.

And if we are relying on Jesus, then we can face death without fear, and like the apostle Paul say,

"Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"

Mark Loughridge is the minister of Milford Reformed Presbyterian Church and Letterkenny New Life Fellowship. He can be contacted on 074 9123961 or Milfordrpc@eircom.net

Offending God's holiness

It's so easy to think of our sin as something minor, especially if we are Christians seeking to live holy lives. Here are a few thoughts from Stephen Charnock on offending God's holiness which cast things in a different light:

The holiness of God is injured

1. By unworthy representations of God and imaginations of him in our own minds

2. In defacing the image of God in our own souls

3. By blaming our sin on God

4. When men study arguments from the holy word of God to colour and shelter their crimes

"…this is to feed the roots of Hell with the dews of Heaven." - v2p175

5. When man will put up petitions to God to favour them in a wicked design

6. In the hating and scoffing at the holiness in a creature

7. By our unprepared for address to him,

"… when like swine, we come into the presence of God with all our mire reeking and steaming upon us. A holy God requires a holy worship; and if our best duties, having filth in every part, as performed by us, are unmet for God, how much more unsuitable are dead and dirty duties to a living and immense holiness!" - v2p176

"God is so holy, that were our services as refined as those of angels, we could not present him with a service meet for his holy nature." - v2p177

"To be conversing with sordid sensualities, when we are at the feet of an infinite God, sitting upon the throne of his holiness is as much a contempt of him, as it would be of a prince, to bring a vessel full of nasty dung with us, when we come to present a petition to him in his royal robes; or as would have been to God, if the high Priest should have swept all the blood and excrements of the sacrifices from the foot of the altar into the Holy of Holies, and heaped it up before the mercy seat, where the presence of God dwelt between the cherubims, and afterwards shovelled it up into the ark, to be lodged with Aaron's rod and the pot of manna." - v2p177

8. In depending upon our imperfect services to bear us out before the tribunal of God

"as if this injured perfection could be contented with the dregs of their purses.2 - v2p177

"the best duties in this life, are but as the steams of a spiced dung-hill" - v2p178

9. When we charge the law of God with rigidness, when we feel it shackles us and prohibits us from our desried pleasures

10. When we rate some sins as less serious than others, or think that by doing something godly we make up for our errors

Food for thought - "I haven't sinned for years"!

(My local newspaper column)

"Do you believe in the Devil?"
"No, sure no-one has ever seen him, have they?"

So began the second in Anna Nolan's series, "Is there anyone out there?". This one was about sin, the Devil and evil.

I wonder if the man questioned doesn't believe in the wind either - after all, no-one has seen it, have they? Of course we see the effects of wind, and likewise we see the effects of the Devil.

I quoted from CS Lewis last week - odd how this Irishman seems to have answers to most of Anna Nolan's questions - and he commented on our attitude to the unseen world of demons:

"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail the materialist or a magician with the same delight."

Some people have an excessive interest, some none at all, but like the hypochondriac and the person who thinks that they will never get sick, both are flawed positions.

The response of another person on the programme surprised me, "Do you believe in evil?" - "No, there is no evil in the world." I wondered what planet was she living on!

For me the most revealing thing was when Anna asked people, "When did you last sin?". For me the answer is always, "in the last couple of minutes" - for there have been wrong attitudes of the heart or mind, words said that shouldn't have been said, or thought. So it was with a measure of amazement that I listened to a couple of women on the show declare that they hadn't sinned for quite a number of years.

Now, either, I'm miles worse than the average human being, or one of us is using the wrong measuring stick. The Bible tells us that, "the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked," that "no-one is good, not even one", and that "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."

I think most people tend to grade sin: there are the really serious sins - murder, adultery, rape, violence; and then there's the other sort, that aren't so bad, an occasional 'white lie', a sharp tongue, an envious glance at someone's new car or house.

Unfortunately God doesn't grade sin in the same way we do. He says, "The commandment against adultery also includes looking at a woman lustfully". He says, "Being unjustly angry with someone breaks the command not to murder." He says, "If you break the law even in one place (one of the places we think of as insignificant) then you are guilty of breaking all of it."

When it comes to sin, some of us may have smashed the window completely, others may have only cracked it, but it doesn't matter, it's still broken.

Human beings, and even churches, may come up with elaborate scales and divisions of sin into different categories, but with God there is only one category, and we're all in it. Anna Nolan asked, "Wouldn't it be great if you could just be forgiven and the slate wiped clean?". And thankfully, the woman she said it to was able to tell her that such a dream was possible. That's exactly what Jesus came to do. None of us can ever make enough amends for our sin to please God; it's far too serious for that. But Jesus comes and offers to wipe our slate clean. We have to admit our wrongdoing, apologise and ask God to change us so that Jesus is now in charge of our life. That doesn't mean that we won't ever sin again, but it does mean that he will give us the strength to fight sin, and will wipe the slate clean when we mess up. That's the good news of the gospel.

The simple truth is this:

We're all sinners. Evil is real; and it exists in each of us. We need God's help to get it out.

Camp Reunion Talks (3) - Christ and your Relationships

(Some of you who were at Camp Reunion, or who missed some of the talks had asked for notes of the talks. Here's the text of each of them. For those who weren't, and who haven't a clue what I'm talking about - these are three talks I gave at a young people's weekend on Keeping Christ the focus of our lives.)

Christ and our Relationships
Sometimes we can view Jesus as a measles jab. You get the jab and then you can get on with life.
Sometimes we can view Jesus as a burden, like a brother or a sister who is always watching you ready to report back on everything you do.

That is not how the Bible portrays the Christian life. If all we needed was a measles jab to vaccinate us against sin, God would have sent a giant syringe. If all we needed was to be watched - well he could do that anyway. But he sent his son, who became a human being. Why did he do that? Not just to identify with us which is important, and vital, but to let us know that God wants us to relate to him. You can't relate to an idea, or to a force, or to a syringe. But you can relate to a person. Ands that what we have with Jesus - a relationship. And I think that this is one area that we miss out on. We are so conditioned to think of becoming a Christian as a step, but it's a journey. We think of it as a starting point followed by a list of rules, but it isn't. It's a whole new relationship - with God the Son.

Read Phil 3:10-14

Paul's great longing was to know Jesus. Jesus had saved him and now he wants to know him. What I have as a Christian is a relationship with almighty God. This is for me a whole new way of looking at Jesus. It gives us a different perspective on our quiet time. On worship. On obedience. On relationships.

Lets look at the passage

Our relationship with Christ is the central thing in our lives
I'm not going to go over what we did on Friday evening - you'll remember how we saw that everything in the universe revolves around Christ Jesus. And if we are Christians we need to make sure our lives revolve around him too.

But Paul goes further than that. Many people's lives revolve around one thing - football, soaps, computer. Everything they do is focused on this. But Paul is different, it wasn't just that Christ's kingdom was at the heart of all Paul did. What Paul did was, in a sense, by the way. Paul's life wasn't driven by doing things for Jesus' sake, it was driven by a desire to get to know Jesus. Do you see the difference. Sometimes it is easy to be busy doing things for Jesus, or because of Jesus, or out of gratitude to Jesus, but in all the busyness we actually move further away from Jesus.

So often when we are involved on mission teams etc, what is the one thing that suffers? Our daily time with Jesus!

Not so with Paul. Listen to these words:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

Everything is focused on his relationship with Jesus. He wants, he longs to know him.

Look at verse 12:

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Start at the end of the sentence and work backwards. Jesus took hold of Paul. He took hold of him for a reason - "for which". That reason is something that Paul wants to see in himself, come to fruition. And so he presses on to get this thing for which Jesus has taken hold of him. What is it? He tells us in the opening words, "Although I am a Christian, I haven't got this completely yet." What is the 'this' he is referring to? All that he has just said it the previous verses. - "I want to know Christ, and the power and the fellowship and become like him."

That's what Paul wants, and that's why Jesus took hold of him on that Damascus road - so that Paul could enjoy a relationship with the Lord Jesus. And that's why Jesus has taken hold of you - that's the reason, so that you can know him. And you will never know him fully, but he has called you into relationship with him so that you can grow closer and closer to him.

This is what you have been saved for.

In v14 we see it again:

14 I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.

NIV not so clear here - but it seems best to take it that the prize is Christ. The call is a call heavenwards to know Christ, for whose sake all things have been counted loss.

And that ties in with the rest of scripture. The predominant New Testament description of heaven is being with Jesus.

Christ assured his disciples that 'I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am' (John 14:3). He also says in John 17:3, "This is eternal life; that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Heaven is being with Jesus. Heaven is relating to Jesus. And our relationship with Christ is the start of Heaven. We can experience a slice of Heaven on earth. This is our key relationship.

What's your relationship with Jesus like? Is it key to you? Is your relationship something that you cherish and delight in? Is he someone you cherish and delight in?

It's hard to do that with a person you can't see. But Paul gives us three things we can do in v13,14:

Make it Key - "One thing I do" v13
Paul did many things in his life, and with his life. You have many different aspects to your lives. School, sport, work, studies. But for Paul, one thing took absolute priority. His relationship with Jesus. It was guarded and nourished at all costs. If he had only one thing he was allowed to do this would have been it. One thing I do. And at this stage he was fairly limited to one thing. He was imprisoned. But he was still free to do the one thing that really mattered.

Where is Christ on your list of priorities?
Where is spending time with Christ on your list of priorities? - Tell about my week.
Is it something to be squeezed in at the end of the day? Is it something to be hurried over at he start of the day?

Here is the one thing you need to do with your life - develop your relationship with Christ as much and as far as you can.

And we will never do this if we continue to think of meeting Jesus as some sort of duty that we have to fulfil. We need to change our mindset completely. We talk about 'quiet time' or 'daily Bible reading'. Both of those terms remove Jesus and replace him with silence and a task to be done.

Its time with Jesus, and sometimes it will be anything but quiet - it will be delightful, and we'll want to sing and praise him, and tell him how much he means to us. Its not time with our Bibles. Its not even time with God's word - its time with Jesus.

When you go to meet with your girlfriend would you take someone else along with you, and let them whisper in your ear, while your trying to talk with your girlfriend? No! If we believe that Jesus is going to communicate with us - why do we always take other people with us into that private conversation? We take commentaries and notes etc. These have their use, but first lets just spend time with our Bibles and our saviour and read the passage and praise him, and pray about sins we're convicted of. And ask him for help with lessons we need to put into practice. Then have a look at what someone else has to say.

If we're going to make it key and keep it key we need to see Jesus as the great lover of our souls. Our greatest and closest friend. And already that starts to change how we think about spending time with him. But here is something we can look forward to, not Bible reading and prayer. Talking and listening to Jesus.

We need to make our relationship with Jesus key.

George Mueller. George Müller lived from 1805 to 1898 and is famous for establishing numerous orphanages and relying on God for help in remarkable ways. Listen to his testimony about how and why to meditate on Scripture.

"I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished.

Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord."

Don't be satisfied - "Forgetting what is behind"
Paul has come towards the end of his life - he has achieved much. He has preached the Gospel in Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Crete, and now in Rome. He has established churches, ordained elders, trained ministers and missionaries.

"Forgetting what is behind" he says. He says, I am not satisfied with where I am spiritually. I want to know more. There is a sense that as Christians we are to be dissatisfied with our lives. We are to be satisfied, content with what we have materially. But there is another sense in which we aren't to be satisfied.

Paul writes, "I want to know Christ… not that I have attained this already, I press on".

He had met Christ in a vision, he had been swept up to Heaven, he had glimpsed the wonders of glory, and still he wanted more of Christ. To experience even closer fellowship. What does that tell us about this relationship - it just keeps getting better.

Some of you have been Christians for some time. Don't sit back on your laurels. Don't look at those around you and think to yourself, I'm not too bad. When you talk to other Christians, and you are talking about what you're reading and learning, and you mentally measure yourself against them - don't do that.

Paul doesn't look at himself and think that he has made it as a Christian. His relationship with Jesus means so much to him that he always wants more. That's the hallmark of great Christians.

Have you a hunger and a longing to know Christ more. Are you satisfied with where you are at. What we could have is always so much better than what we do have. Don't measure yourself with others, measure yourself against Christ - see how much more he has to give. Illustration - if we gave out a free book to you all, some of you would be looking past me, and looking at he warehouse of books, and wanting more and more, walking out of here with armfuls of books. Some of you would be content with one. But that's only books. With Christ it is real riches of the soul.

Don't let anything get in the way - "Straining, I press on"
Devotion - one thing I do. Dissatisfaction - forgetting what is behind. Determination - "Straining towards what is ahead, I press on"

Literally - "I pursue." Picture of a charioteer bearing down on the finishing line, straining at the edge of the chariot, leaning out over. Pushing himself to the limits. Giving it all that he's got.

Do you drive yourself in your relationship with Christ? Yes there will be times when our souls will be bogged down in the mire of lack of enthusiasm and reluctance. And we don't feel like reading or praying, or developing.

And we will have to drive through our feelings, and seek to spend time with Christ. Sometimes we need to take our emotions in a headlock and drag them with us, like a child who wants to play truant from school. Takes discipline. It takes determination. We wont only read or pray when we feel like it. Paul wasn't a 'feel like it' man. Being with Christ, knowing Christ was everything to him.

It was everything to him because Jesus is everything, he is so utterly glorious so wonderfully majestic, that we just can't describe him.

Play "My King" clip - SM Lockridge

Don't let anything get in the way of knowing him.

Our other relationships
Let's apply this. This relationship is our greatest relationship. Its the one that is key. It is the relationship that everything else revolves around.

In other words, if you get this relationship right, every other relationship will fall into place.

4 Principles

Remember Marriage is only a Picture
There is one thing that can consume much of our waking moments - whom will I marry? Help I'm not in a relationship and I'm nearly 17. And sometimes the whole thing becomes an idol.

Do not make marriage, or being in a relationship your goal. Listen to Paul, "I want to know Christ" "I long to depart and be with Christ which is better by far." Don't make a relationship your goal; make Christ your goal.

Very simple reason for this. Let me illustrate it. All his life John has longed to see the Niagara falls. He has heard all about them. And one day a friend sent him a postcard of the falls. And often John would take out his postcard and look at the falls, and imagine what they must be like. Eventually after many years John found himself staying in a hotel right beside the falls, and as he sat there at his window overlooking the thunderous roar of the crashing torrents, he took out his postcard and sat and looked at it instead. He then took it and stuck it to the window so that he couldn't actually see the falls clearly because the postcard spoiled the view.

Friends, marriage is only a postcard, a signpost, to tell us about the reality of the relationship between Christ and his people. Paul writes in Ephesians about how Christ is the bridegroom for the church, and how marriage between man and woman is based on this, and a picture of this. The relationship with Christ is the reality. Marriage is only an illustration.

Marriage isn't a goal it's a picture. That's why in heaven there will be no marrying or giving in marriage - there is no need for postcards when you live by the falls.

Some of you may never marry. But you have Christ, you have the reality. And what's more, if your Saviour permits you to remain single, it is because he intends to provide for you, and he has a task for you that is only possible if you aren't married. Marriage and its joys are only a pale reflection of the joys that are available in Christ.

Some of you will marry, but you don't have Christ - how sad, to have the picture on the wall and never know the true value.

Some of you will marry, and are Christians - don't ever forget that marriage is only an illustration of your much greater relationship. Don't make it an idol. Don't let your postcard get in the way of the view.

All your friends may be in relationships, the world tells us that we are not complete unless we are in a relationship. And that is true - 100%. You are not complete unless you are in a relationship. But that relationship isn't with a boy or a girl. Its with Christ. That's the relationship that makes us complete.

Life is not about getting a boyfriend or a girlfriend, its about getting Christ.

There is another reason not to make marriage or relationships more than they are - if you think that marriage is the greatest thing on earth you will be disappointed. If you think that if only you were married all your problems would be over, you're fooling yourself. Marriage has problems - it has twice as many problems as single life. Two different people's worth of problems, 2 sinful people trying to get along day in day out.

Pour your energies into your relationship with Christ
Some of you are in relationships.
Some of your aren't and desperately wish you were
Some of you aren't and aren't terribly worried.

No matter where you are - your relationship with Christ is what is central. Pour your energies into your relationship with Christ. Seek to become the man or woman Christ wants you to be. Concentrate on being the man or woman God's wants you to be, not on finding the man or woman God has for you.

And the wonderful thing is this: Be Christ-like and Christ will provide. "Delight yourself in God and he will give you the desire of your heart."

I will not promise that he will provide a partner. Scripture doesn't promise that. But I can guarantee that he will provide.

Sometimes we can be in too much of a hurry to get into a relationship. All our friends have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, and we feel left out. Sometimes we can start into relationships too early before we have grown much as Christians, and things happen in the relationship, words are said, things are done, not necessarily sexual sin, but sinful things nevertheless that we will look back on with even an extra years maturity as a Christian and say, "I wish we were only starting now. I wasn't mature enough."

I'll be honest - this is where many of you are. You have a few years of school, or university left. During these years you will lay down many of the foundations for your later life. This is a time to be concentrating on Christ, and not on relationships. When a builder is pouring the foundation, he isn't thinking about the people who will live in the house. He thinks about the foundation, and getting it right, because if he gets it right the people will be safe.

Pour your energies into your relationship with Christ. That way you'll become the sort of man or woman that others will want to marry, that they will look at and say, "she'll be good for me".

Blokes - Don't pour your energies into impressing the girls, pour your energies into godliness.
Girls - Don't pour your energies into worrying about how you look, or is he looking at me, or worrying that you're the only one who doesn't have a boyfriend - be godly.
That's what your life should be about. That is God's will for you. So often we scratch our heads about is it God's will that I go out with so and so. Be godly - that's God's will at its clearest.

Some of you may worry about finding the right person. Don't! If you pour your energies into your relationship with Christ, you will be able to see the real treasures in people, and you will be guided to someone who is perfect for you.

And if you are in a relationship the best thing you can be to the other is Christ-like. Don't neglect your quiet time because of late night phone-calls to your beloved.

I can promise you - be godly and you will have the best marriage imaginable. You will lay a foundation that will last, and bring delight and joy to yourselves, to your children and to your grandchildren. Your husband /wife will thank God for your Christian character. Your children will, your grandchildren will. This is a legacy that lasts.

Only go out with or marry someone who will be good for your relationship with Christ
Two sides to this coin

· Do not enter into a relationship that will hurt your relationship with Christ

If Christ means the world to you, then how should you feel about someone who thinks so little of Christ's death that he can't be bothered to seek salvation? If someone despised your parents, and ignored them you wouldn't have much time for them - Christ is no different.

Perhaps some of you are going out with non-Christians at present. What are you saying to Jesus who died for you? Does he mean so little to you that you would disobey him and jeopardise your relationship with him for a boyfriend/girlfriend? Would it not break your heart for the rest of your life to be married to someone who is going to Hell, knowing that you could do nothing about it? And banking on the Jesus that you slap in the face, to save them? If you are prepared to treat Jesus so lightly you need to look at whether you are a Christian at all.

Perhaps some of you know of someone who married a non-Christian and God has graciously saved them. Just because God did that doesn't make it any less of a sin, and doesn't give any guarantee to you.

Girls - 'no man' is better than an ungodly man.
Men - 'No woman' is better than an unconverted girl

· Only enter into a relationship that will promote your relationship with Christ

But there is another aspect to this. Sometimes amongst blokes there's still the lingering effects of sinful thinking. And the thinking goes something like this - girls I'm sorry to reveal how shallow we can be - "Well I know I've got to pick a Christian, so I'll pick the best looking one." Or I suspect that a girl may think the same way, "Well at least he's a Christian, and we get on so well anyway.."

Being a Christian is not enough of a qualification. God's word commands us to be wise.

All Christians are not equal. Some are more Christ-like than others.

A man may well be a fine specimen of manhood, and a Christian, but as a Christian he is weak and frail and tottering, and unsure and liable to fall into error. He may like a little toddler - immature and childish. What will it do to your walk with Christ to join yourself to such a man?

A girl may be beautiful, but in spiritual terms - she may be wizened and malnourished, and stunted.

And some of you may be setting your sights on shrivelled nobodies and sickly toddlers. And in thirty years time some of us will be talking and we'll say, do you remember so-and-so - and there'll be a shake of the head - "She's gone nowhere, he's gone nowhere.

Guys - Look for someone who will be an asset to you in your walk with Christ.
Girls - Look for someone who will be an asset to you in your walk with Christ.

Be on the look out for people who speak naturally about spiritual matters, where you can see that they have a real walk with God.

If our relationship with Christ means as much to us as it should we will look for someone who is positively going to be good for us in our walk with Christ.

And that leads us to our fourth principle

Encourage Christ-likeness in others
In your relationships be the sort of person who encourages your partner to spend time with Christ. Be someone who will challenge sinful areas in their lives.

Pray for the other that they will grow in godliness, and that their daily walk with Jesus will be a real blessing.

Guys this is something you need to take the lead in. You should be suggesting that you do a Bible study together, that you pray together.

Conclusion
Your relationship with Christ is your key relationship. Keep that one right and all the rest will fall into place.

Camp Reunion Talks (2) - Christ and your Sin

(Some of you who were at Camp Reunion, or who missed some of the talks had asked for notes of the talks. Here's the text of each of them. For those who weren't, and who haven't a clue what I'm talking about - these are three talks I gave at a young people's weekend on Keeping Christ the focus of our lives.)

Christ and our Sin
The Christian life isn't just about making the right choices, and making the best choices. It is also about not making wrong choices. Sinful choices. We live in a world that bombards us with temptation from every angle. It offers us pleasure, and lets be honest about it. Sin is pleasurable. Sin is enjoyable. The devil is not so stupid as to make sin distasteful. Often there is great pleasure to be had in sinning. And often ministers paint it as black as your boot, as if all sin was was eating rotten fish guts. But you know and I know that there's more to it. The devil comes and he offers you all this pleasure, and there are times when we are so attracted by the pleasure that although we know that it is wrong, we can make all sorts of excuses to justify what we are doing, or we can make all sorts of preparations in the hope of sinning. We can flick through the channels late at night - there's nothing wrong we tell ourselves with doing that, but all the while we are hoping to stumble across something we shouldn't, and then we'll watch it for a few minutes and then move on, telling ourselves, "It just happened to be there."

Or we can disguise spiteful gossip as wise warning to another person; all the while it gives us the pleasure of putting someone down, and building ourselves up. Or we can join in with others, and follow the crowd, saying to ourselves, "Well I may get a chance to witness to them" and we find ourselves in places we know we shouldn't be in, or even doing things we know we shouldn't be doing.

And if we are anyway sensitive as Christians, afterwards we feel and great tidal wave of disappointment and sorrow, and remorse. And we hate ourselves for it.

How can we resist temptation? How can we see past the real pleasures that are temporary to the real pleasures that are lasting.

For every situation we could discuss and come up with an answer to, the devil would invent another one, slightly different, but different enough so that the rules we make would not apply. So like last night, we'r going to look to Jesus to get our perspective on sin.

Is sin such a big deal?

We're going to see what it cost to set us free from sin

Read Phil 2

Two headings

The dignity Christ gave up to free you from your sin
The humiliation Christ undertook to free you from your sin

then application

The dignity Christ gave up v6
I think we're so used to hearing that Jesus died that we forget who exactly had to die in order for human beings to be set free from sin.

In order to appreciate sin and salvation we need to grasp who our saviour is.

His nature is what makes our salvation possible

V6 - "Who being in very nature God"

Paul could not have stated more clearly that Jesus is God. Greek = form of God. Form = essense of being. He was unabridged, undiluted Godness. He was:

Transcendent - that means that he is far above what we can ever get our heads around. So that means that when you have been amazed at who Jesus is and what he left to save you, you need to say to yourself - "No this isn't it, he is even more wonderful that."
Eternal - all of time before him like an open book
Immutable
Sovereign
Powerful
Glorious
Holiness - angels covering their faces even sinless angels
Infinitely wise
Righteous
Omniscient
Omnipresent

This great being is who we are talking about. He commands the universe, he is worshipped by the angels. He has existed forever in a perfect relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It has been a relationship of perfect love and glory and delight.

This is the dignity that Christ had before he came here. This is the God who came to save us. This is the one who came to die.

Not only 'very nature' but v6 "Equal with God." The Son was fully God, completely God. He was not he poor member of the Trinity who got landed with the dirty work. Utter equality. The Son is as much God as the Father and the Spirit.

Listen to these verses:

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We need to grasp the dignity Christ had if we are to love him more and love sin less.

And this dignity is seen in another way - God, Father Son and Spirit, did not need us, didn't need our worship. Illus of a rich lady who needs her drains unblocked, and goes searching for the ordinary working class man. She needs him despite all her dignity. Listen God didn't need us in any shape or form. What God did was out of choice, not out of need.

V6b - He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped" - clung to. Some versions, "thought it not robbery to be equal to God" - it wasn't robbery it was his right, that's who he was.

This is what it took for you and me to be set free from sin. It took nothing less than God. Sin was so powerful and the punishment so severe, that for you to escape the clutches of sin and to be free it took nothing less than almighty God to leave the glory of Heaven and come to earth to rescue you. No angel could be sent - that wouldn't be enough. It took God.

But it took more than God just to come and set us free. He didn't just come like some Maximus all conquering warrior striding onto the battlefield and thrashing sin. It wasn't going to be that easy. Sin is a personal problem so it had to be a battle fought in person. Like a disease - not just an easy injection for mankind. In a sense to produce the right antibodies, the disease had to be injected into someone, they had to battle against the ravages and horrors of it themselves, and having conquered it, the antibodies that their body produced can be used as a vaccine for the rest of us.

The humiliation of Christ v7-8
7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!

Here we see what was entailed in rescuing you and me from sin.

And again we see how much we owe to Jesus. What he did for you to set you free from sin wasn't something that was forced on him. Look at the words:

"He made himself nothing" - NOT "He was made nothing"
"He took the form of a servant" - NOT "He was made a servant"

All active verbs, not passive. Underscoring the voluntary nature of what he did for you.

Four steps seen here. Remember this is what he did for you:

1 Left the glory of Heaven
Heaven was home. It was to be with his father, it was pure and holy and glorious. There he was the endless subject of the angels praise, and the fathers delight. John 17:5

John 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

He left it. He didn't consider it something to be clung on to. Although Heaven was his home and it meant everything to him he left it so that you could go there. So that you could be free from sin.

2 Became a Man
Paul uses three phrases:

Made himself nothing
Care needed - he gave up nothing of his nature. He wasn't any less God. He didn't stop being God in any aspect. He relinquished nothing. He was fully God. But now he was also fully man. His deity was restrained, not relinquished.

But yet to look at him he had made himself as nothing. He passed up his rights to glory and honour. This phrase refers to his status and privileges of Heaven.

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Taking the Nature of a Servant
The one who owned everything became as one who owes everything. This is what he emptied himself into. Think of it - the Ruler of Heaven serving. The Creator serving. Remember this is what had to be done for you to be free from sin. The angels served him in Heaven, and yet he came to this earth, I'm sure the angels marvelled at our ignorance, as people came into the carpenter shop and made demands of the Creator of the universe. But he came as a servant.

Being made in Human likeness
Think of all that that means. Born as a fragile defenceless baby. The King of the universe vulnerable. Born in a dark dank cave, and placed not in some royal cradle befitting a king and saviour of the world but ina cattle rough. Where once angels praised him, now dirty shepherds gather round. Placed in the care of two young people. Having to flee to Egypt.

Made as a human - For centuries the angels had watched these creatures, humans, rebel against the creator. And now the mighty God has made himself like one of them.

All for you

3 He Suffered
3rd step in his humiliation. We tend to think of just the last few hours of his life being marked with suffering. Did you know that he suffered throughout his life? Think about it. What must it have been like to come and live on an earth surrounded by sin? Seeing the effects of sin daily. Pollution all around him. HIS earth defiled. Holy eyes beholding sin. Holy ears hearing his father's name blasphemed. All around him sinners, sinning, in all their ungodly ways.

He suffered - as a man he was subject to weakness, pain, temptation, hunger, tiredness.

As the end approaches his suffering increases. He is not just man, but he is a cursed man. And as he approaches the end he knows what is coming and the horror of it sweeps over him in relentless waves.

On the cross he didn't just suffer physical pain. That was the easy part. He bore your Hell and my Hell in his own soul. No-one else could feel what he felt. The sinless man, was bearing sin, and bearing punishment, and bearing the wrath of his father. The cross is where God pours out his wrath on your sin and mine. Oh the depths of the suffering of Jesus, bearing the awful wrath of the Father at our sin. Here is God suffering Hell.

So terrible is it that he cries out in anguish at the separation from his father, "My God, My God why have you forsaken me."

And still his humiliation isn't finished

4 He died
Philippians 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!

Death - God the Son experiencing death. Not just any death but a death in which the innocent Son of God suffered the indignity of being found guilty and executed as a criminal.

Even death on a cross - the ultimate shame - a death that was a public display that he was cursed by God.

How the angels must have been horrified. Death - the ultimate withdrawal of God's blessings and happiness from man and visiting him with his wrath.

And in all this he was silent, as a sheep before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth. He could have scattered his accusers, he could have demolished their arguments, he could have come down off the cross, but a greater power was holding him there: obedience - his love to the father, and through that his love for us.

This is what Christ did for you to free you from the chains that sin had held you tight in. You languished in the dungeon of death, and by all that he gave up, and all that he suffered he has set you free.

If you aren't a Christian - this is what it takes to get to Heaven. It takes God to leave the glory of Heaven to become a man, to live and suffer and die and go through Hell. That's what it takes. How do you intend to get to Heaven?

How does this apply to us when we are faced with the pleasures of sin, and find ourselves tempted?

Our Hatred of Sin
V9 gives God the father's reaction to this great work of God the Son
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,

V12 gives what Paul expects our reaction to be:

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed-- not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-- continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

"Therefore" - in the light of this then - we are to be obedient, not disobedient. We are to work out our salvation. What does that mean? It means we are to make application of it to every area of our lives.

Like someone moving into a house. Old and dilapidated. Slowly they begin to work their ownership into every room, cleaning and redecorating, and rebuilding what years of neglect had allowed to rot and decay and become filthy. That's what this means. Sin is a burglar who keeps breaking in to vandalise and destroy, and sometimes we welcome him and make him sit down and have a cup of tea, before he goes upstairs to rape our loved ones. We welcome him.

If only we could learn to see sin through the eyes of Jesus.

When we sin it is because we want to sin, even though there may be some measure of reluctance in us. And it is because we do not hate sin enough or love Jesus enough.

Put how can considering Christ help us?

Three applications, three things for you to grasp:

Satan wants you to suffer like Jesus did
I want you to see what sin does. I want you to learn to see sin as something hideous and repulsive. Sin as Satan presents it to us looks pleasurable and is pleasurable. It is pleasurable in exactly the same way a nice big juicy worm is pleasurable to a fish. Satan presents the bait and hides the hook. When we consider Christ we see the deadliness of sin. We see it for the awful thing that it is - it is so awful that God the Father wouldn't even spare his own son when he took our sins upon him.

When Satan tempts you to sin, when he tempts you by painting sin in some bright and beautiful colours. Look at Christ on the cross, coming from the glory of Heaven, to the filth of earth, look at the bloodstained flesh torn body, hear his cry, "My God My God why have you forsaken me" and say to yourself - that's what Satan wants me to end up like. The pleasure that Satan offers is real, but it lasts only for a short time, and then the hook the cruel hook is into you, and it can't be got out without tearing your soul, without leaving its scar. Never lose sight of this, Satan does not want your happiness, he is prepared to trade off a few short years of pleasure, so that you will be as miserable as he is in Hell. Never lose sight of this, Satan wants to do to you what he did to Christ as he was passed through the hands of first the temple guards as they beat him to a pulp, and then as the Roman guards did the same, so that his face was marred beyond all human likeness. That is what Satan wants to do to you. Consider Jesus, and you will never lose sight of this.

I want you to see sin as something hideous and repulsive. Whenever you are tempted to sin, look at the sight of the battered and bleeding saviour - and say to yourself, this is what sin does to people.

Jesus had to pay for that sin you are about to commit
When Satan comes to you and says, "Look see how close to the line you can walk" - so often at your age the big question is what can I do, how far can I go, how close to the world can I get. Jesus did all this, went through all this to extract you from the clutches of Satan, how can we go back to stand on the brink again.

Even those very sins that Satan paints, and puts new names and colours upon, cost the best blood, the noblest blood, the life-blood, the heart-blood of the Lord Jesus.

As he hangs there he is paying for that sin that you are just about to commit. That lustful glance, that angry word, that bitter thought, that muttering at your parents. How can we? How can we?

From Thomas Brooks:
"Consider that Jesus Christ should come from the delight of his relationship with his Father to a world of sorrow and death.
Consider that God the Creator should be made a creature; that he that was clothed with glory should be wrapped with rags of flesh; he that filled heaven and earth with his glory should be cradled in a manger; the God that made the heavens working at Joseph's homely trade; that he that binds the devils in chains should be tempted; that he, whose is the world, and the fullness thereof, should hunger and thirst; that the God of strength should be weary, the Judge of all flesh condemned, the God of life put to death; that he that is one with his father should cry out of misery, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'; that he that had the keys of hell and death at his girdle should lie imprisoned in the sepulchre of another. Consider that that head, before which the angels do cast down their crowns, should be crowned with thorns; those ears, which hear nothing but hallelujahs of saints and angels, to hear the blasphemies of the multitude; that face, that was fairer than the sons of men, to be spit on by those beastly wretched Jews; that mouth and tongue, that spake as never man spake, accused for blasphemy; those hands, that freely swayed the sceptre of heaven, nailed to the cross; each sense annoyed: his feeling or touching, with a spear and nails; his smell, with stinking flavour, being crucified about Golgotha, the place of skulls; his taste, with vinegar and gall; his hearing, with reproaches, and sight of his mother and disciples bemoaning him; his soul, comfortless and forsaken; and all this for those very sins that Satan paints and puts fine colours upon! Oh! how should the consideration of this stir up the soul against it, and work the soul to fly from it, and to use all holy means whereby sin may be subdued and destroyed!"

How can we, how can we?

Whenever you find yourself tempted to sin, and Satan whispers in your ear - "Its OK you can repent afterwards, God will forgive you. 1 John 1:9 - If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us."

When he does that look at Jesus, and look at the nail marks and the lashes and say to yourself - "I am not going to add anymore."

How often is it that we sin in things we don't even need to sin in - things that don't even matter. You were to do something for someone, something not terribly important, and they ask us did you do it - and even though we haven't we say "Yes". Or we are busy and we sit down and waste half and hour watching something we shouldn't, or surfing somewhere we shouldn't. And we don't even need to do it. Its not as if there's a lot riding on it - on a human perspective. And we think to ourselves "Its not that serious" - friends it is deadly serious. Try to see your sin through Christ's eyes as he sobs in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Father take this cup away from me" He saw in those moments the awful tide of sin that was about to sweep over him. He saw your sins and mine lined up like a tsunami of effluent about to engulf him. And it caused this God-man to weep with loud cries, and to sweat on a cold night.

When you are tempted to go into a situation where you know it will be difficult, and you are tempted to justify it to yourself by saying, "I'll maybe get a chance to witness" - think to yourself - Did Jesus go through all that so that I could go in here and to have my mind filled with all the very sorts of things that put him on the cross?

Jesus' suffering shows us that sin has to be paid for
So often we are tempted to envy those who can sin freely without conscience bothering them. Remember that all the pleasure that Satan offers, lasts only for a short time. And each time it leaves a scar upon the soul. And for some of you who aren't yet Christians I want to say this to you - Yes Satan does offer pleasure, sin is enjoyable, but all your pleasure lasts only for this life, and you have an eternity of sorrow. For the Christian on the other hand, all your sorrow is in this life, all of it, and among that you will also have great moments of pleasure, but all the sorrow you will ever have is now, and then you will have an eternity of pleasure beyond anything you can ever imagine, purchased for you by Christ on the cross.

When you are tempted to look at unbelievers around you, and to envy them for their pleasures and fun, remember that's all they'll ever get. And I don't want it to sound as if there is no pleasure for the Christian - life is full of it. Being a Christian is the best life, not the easiest but the best.

Conclusion
Someone might say, "Mark, listen, you're forgiven, all this talk about sin isn't healthy." It is perfectly healthy. A friend of mine has a gluten intolerance and everywhere he goes he has to talk to the chef. He carried a book with him of everything that contains gluten and he'll point things out to the chef. Is he being fussy. No, its how he has to live. He isn't free to eat what he wants. The gluten won't kill him, but it will make his life miserable. Sin will not snatch us out of God's hand. But it will make our lives miserable. We have been brought into a wonderful relationship with the greatest being ever - we'll be thinking more on that this evening - and sin, in all its shapes and guises wants to disrupt that, so we need to learn to hate sin with a passion. To be so caught up in our love for Jesus, and what he has done, so that we see sin through his eyes. And when we are tempted to sin, it will be as if someone has handed us a bowl of rancid fish guts to eat, and we will react instantly with a disgust and revulsion.

Jesus didn't save us to blend in. He went through Hell so that we could stand out. So that we would be a bright light warning people of the dangers of sin. So that by our very presence people would be uncomfortable in sin.

There is one part of the passage we haven't touched yet at all. V9-11

Philippians 2:9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Here is the final encouragement for the Christian. God exalted Christ and gave him glory and honour.

Keep your eye on Christ. Watch him - watch him in these two ways - watch the price he paid to set you free from sin, and watch the way he was exalted. One has happened to you, the other will happen.

Although there will undoubtedly be so called pleasures in this life that we have to miss, God is one day going to exalt you, to lift you up and to glorify you. And you will be seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.