God More than
conquerors: the story of the yellow ribbons More
than conquerors: the story of the yellow ribbons Loved
with everlasting love! (Jeremiah. 31:3). One of the
greatest and most comforting doctrines taught in the
Bible is the love of God for his people. It
is found in almost every book in the Bible, both Old
Testament and New Testament. In the Law and in the
Prophets; in the poetical and historical books; in
Gospels and Letters – all agree to tell us what God
said to his people through Jeremiah. “I have
loved you with an everlasting love” (31:3). It was
that love that moved the Father to send his Son into the
world (John How can
we illustrate the illimitable love of God? Of
course the greatest depiction of that love is Christ
dying for us on the cross. Can we find an everyday
illustration, an event or a true story, that will light
up this great doctrine for us? One such
illustration comes from the life and ministry of John
Wilbur Chapman. Chapman was born in Chapman
used many memorable personal illustrations in his
preaching. In one of them he told of how one evening he
was travelling by train in a rural part of the state of The young
man was a bit reluctant but finally opened up. Many years
before he had run away from home and ‘sown his wild
oats.’ He had not contacted his parents for
many years and now he was afraid they wouldn’t want
him back. He had written home some weeks before and told
them he would be travelling on this train. At a
certain point it passed very close to his home. In the
letter he had begged his parents’ forgiveness and
asked if they wanted him to come home. If so, they
were to tie a yellow ribbon on the old apple tree that
grew right beside the railway lines. ‘Sir,’
he said to Chapman, ‘the train will soon pass my
home but I’m afraid to look. If there’s a
yellow ribbon on the tree, I’ll get off at the next
station and go home. If there’s no ribbon, I’ll
just travel on. But I’m too afraid to look out
for the tree.’ Chapman offered to look for him.
The young man hid his eyes and Chapman kept watch. ‘You
can open your eyes now,’ he said a few minutes later.
The returning prodigal looked at Chapman with tears and
quivering lips. ‘All is well,’ said the
evangelist. ‘There is a yellow ribbon on the
apple tree. In fact, there’s far more than one.
Every branch is hanging with yellow ribbons, scores and
scores of them. Your parents love you so much and want
you to come home.’ If
parents can love their wayward children like that, how
much greater is the love of God! Truly, we are
loved with everlasting love. Worship:
Unity in Diversity – March 2006 Many
Christians attend church regularly and take part in
corporate worship. Many also worship privately in
quiet places both indoors and outside. Yet how many think
about who they are worshipping and what this means to how
they live as Christians? There is
God the Father: holy, infinite, all knowing, all-powerful
and our creator. There is God the Son, divine yet
fully human, who taught and revealed the divinity and
love of God to all people and showed us a new way to live.
Jesus, who is called the Christ, shows us the way through
the gate of death and new life to God, not limited by
time and space. And we have God the Holy Spirit; a
constant presence of power, who helps us to understand
and enables us to worship fully with our body, mind and
spirit. This is
our Trinitarian God, creator, redeemer and sustainer, who
is one, yet three distinct beings, each unique and
diverse, united together as one. The heart of God
is diversity with mutual inter-dependence and love. This is
the God all Christians honour in worship, the one that we
have chosen to follow and be more like. If the
heart of God is diversity, then the heart of the
Christian church needs to be the same. The
different ways that we worship, giving praise and thanks
to God are therefore to be celebrated. Likewise
human variety in race, gender, temperament, age and
culture. There is one God, one faith and one church
which needs to be united in its glorious diversity. |