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God
Discipleship in Today’s World: The Way to True Blessing SERMON NOTEBOOK - Nineveh MORE THAN CONQUERORS: On the loss of a beloved daughter When raindrops keep falling on your head Worship and status In touch – through Yoga?
Discipleship in Today’s World: The Way to True Blessing
A few years ago the WWJD wristbands (What would Jesus do?) were very popular. They remind us that disciples of Jesus Christ are called to live Jesus’ life on a daily basis in order to impact society today. In the opening section of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5: 1-12) Jesus outlines the values which form the basis of this lifestyle. The eight beatitudes each bring a promise of the blessing of kingdom life. As ‘be–attitudes’ they emphasize being as opposed to doing as the foundation of a Christian countercultural lifestyle for today.
What do they look like in practice?
Letting go of my need to be somebody: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Letting go of my need to feel good: ‘Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.’ Letting go of my need to be right: ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth’. Letting go of my demand to have it all now: ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.’ Letting go of my need for revenge: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.’ Letting go of my need to look good: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.’ Letting go of my need to win: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.’ Letting go of my need to be liked: ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’
Of course, as G K Chesterton said ‘this is ‘impossible stuff’ unless we allow the Holy Spirit to empower to live out these values on a daily basis. So it’s over to you now!
SERMON NOTEBOOK: “Location", Location, Location” Nineveh: Jonah 3
It has been said that ‘no other book in the Bible has been so greatly maligned, so persistently undervalued, so commonly rejected as the book of Jonah, and so little read.’ Despite the questions over its historical validity, it still has a powerful message for us today. Jonah was called to alert Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, to God’s judgment upon them. However his story shows what God can do even with a reluctant prophet!
Jonah’s Obedience Initially God sent Jonah to Nineveh, but he fled in the opposite direction! However, when ‘the word of the Lord came a second time’, he willingly obeyed God. Although Nineveh was an immense city, sixty miles across with a population of a million people, Jonah spoke God’s message faithfully to them. How has God given us second chances when we’ve let him down?
Nineveh’s Repentance Jonah’s uncompromising message, ‘forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed’, led the people to respond to God’s word with a genuine repentance. From the greatest to the least of them (including the king himself), they fasted and covered themselves in sackcloth. They ‘believed God’ even though they were not part of his covenant people. In what ways have we seen God working in our friends and neighbours?
God’s Mercy Despite Nineveh’s great wickedness, God showed a total commitment to communicating his message to them. With unrelenting persistence he sent Jonah so that he might reveal himself to the people. This demonstrates how God’s judgement and mercy are not incompatible but complementary. What does it mean for us to demonstrate God’s mercy in our world today?
One of the key lessons that we learn about mission from Jonah’s experience is this: ‘Find out what God is doing and join in!!’
MORE THAN CONQUERORS: On the loss of a beloved daughter
By Herbert McGonigle
‘Father, Thy mercy never dies’… the Bible is rich in passages telling us about the mercies of God. They are ‘great’ (2 Sam. 24:14); ‘manifold’ (Neh. 9:19); ‘tender’ (Ps. 25:6); ‘endure for ever’ (2 Chron. 7:3), and by them ‘we are saved’ (Tit.3:5). A personal story that illustrates what it means to trust in God’s mercies comes from the life and ministry of the Revd Dr Samuel Parkes Cadman (1864-1936).
Between the years 1900 and 1930 Dr Cadman was the best-known evangelical preacher in America. For many years he was the minister of the very influential Central Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York. In his own pulpit and wherever he preached crowds gathered to hear him. Then began a ministry that gave him even-greater fame as a preacher. He became America’s first radio preacher. He was the pioneer of this new means of communicating the gospel to millions of homes. In the 1920s and 30s, Cadman’s was the most-recognised voice in every state in the nation. In fact he was so popular that the millions of people who listened to him thought he was an American.
Cadman, however, was born in Shropshire in England, into a very devout Primitive Methodist home. His father, a miner, was a local preacher and class leader. Samuel also became a miner and a Methodist local preacher. He trained for the ministry at Richmond College in London and emigrated to America in 1890. He often told of an incident that happened in his home when he was nine years old.
His younger sister died suddenly and the whole family was engulfed in grief. That evening his father was due to take his weekly Class Meeting. He didn’t want to leave his family but at the same time he didn’t want to disappoint the people waiting for him in the Methodist chapel. After much heart-searching he decided to keep the engagement and he took Samuel with him.
Samuel could see that his father was struggling with his emotions. Was it right to go to the chapel? Should he not stay with his broken-hearted wife? Half way to the chapel, Samuel recounted later, his father did something that he remembered for half a century. His devout and godly father stopped on the road, took off his hat – and began to sing!
In that hour when his heart was breaking with grief and loss and pain, he expressed his deep and unshaken faith in the words of a favourite hymn. He chose a translation made by John Wesley of a German Moravian hymn, beginning:
Now I have found the ground wherein Sure my soul’s anchor may remain..
‘But,’ said Dr Cadman, ‘it was the fifth verse my father chose to sing that night on the road to the chapel, and I’ve never forgotten the impression it made on me. With his voice quivering and tears running down his cheeks, he sang his faith in God’s unfailing mercies in those wonderful words.’
Though waves and storms go o’er my head Though strength, and health, and friends be gone Though joys be withered all and dead Though every comfort be withdrawn. On this my steadfast soul relies Father, Thy mercy never dies!
Father, Thy mercy never dies! Like Samuel Cadman’ father, we too can have faith in the love and mercy of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such a faith will hold us, and assure us, and strengthen us in the darkest hours. In him we are more than conquerors!
Dr Herbert McGonigle is Senior Lecturer in Historical Theology, Church History and Wesley Studies, Nazarene Theological College, Manchester.
When raindrops keep falling on your head
One rainy afternoon a father was driving along one of the main roads in his local town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the roads are wet and slick. Suddenly, his young daughter spoke up from her position in the back seat. "Dad, I'm thinking of something."
This announcement usually meant she had been pondering some fact for a while, and was now ready to expound all that her six-year-old mind had discovered. Her father was eager to hear. "What are you thinking?"
"The rain," she began, "is like sin, and the windscreen wipers are like God wiping our sins away."
Taken aback, but intrigued, her father ventured: “The rain keeps coming down – what does that tell you?”
The little girl did not hesitate: "We keep on sinning, and sin all around us makes our path in life dangerous and slippery. But - if we keep going with God anyway, God just keeps on forgiving us."
Remember that next time you turn your windscreen wipers on.
Worship and status
Status is important in today’s world, but what do we mean by status? The Oxford English dictionary says that it is rank or social position in relation to others, relative importance, superior social or other position.
What gives people status is something that makes them feel more than others: more powerful, successful, important, richer in monetary and material terms. In many societies the way to go is up, making it to the top, gaining fame and fortune along the way. Those few that reach the top of their particular tree often find it rather hollow. Those that never have the opportunity or ability often spend their lives in awe or envy of those that have it all.
This is nothing new. In Jesus’ time people were arguing over who was the greatest, even his followers began to compete with each other for who was the most important. There was the meal in the Pharisee’s house where, as each guest arrived, they picked the best seat for themselves; they worshipped status just as many worship status today, and Jesus needed to remind them of the consequences.
Jesus, Son of God, has the highest status of all humans, yet he came to live among us and wash our feet like a servant. He shows us downward mobility, how to choose the last place. He tells us that if anyone wants to be first he must be the very last and the servant of all, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled; yet those who are last will be first and those who lose their life for his sake will find it.
Jesus chose powerlessness over power, and that is what he is offering us, if we accept it we will find greater riches than we have ever dreamed of.
In touch – through Yoga?
Are you thinking of taking up Yoga this autumn?
Have you ever wondered how far Yoga provides a valid way to meditate and be at peace with the world and the universe?
The word Yoga means ‘union’, and in Hindu philosophy the person who practises it does so to gain in self-control, but more importantly to reach union with the Infinite – who/which can be perceived.
Thus, even though the recruit to a Yoga class may be reassured that the exercises are ‘non-religious’, it still represents a Hindu world-view. ‘Yoga’, says one of its top advocates, “is not a Friday night or Sunday morning practice; it is an entire way of life, and should occupy 24 hours of every day.” The little ‘popular’ books on Yoga never tell you that! In Yoga we are presented with:
1. An alternative interpretation of the universe ‘Position One’, in a standard book, begins with: ‘Mantra: Om adi deva nameh. Here we face the spiritual son. Standing upright with the breath suspended, fully composed, we represent Purusha, the primeval god Adi Deva, at the very beginning of time.’
The basic Yoga ‘Lotus position’, in which a circle is made of thumb and forefinger – implies the unbrokeness of life in a never-ending circle of successive reincarnations. But that is not how the Christian sees life on this world (Hebrews 9:27). Just to read Colossians chapter 2 gives us the answer. Then how does Yoga view the divine?
2. A degraded image of God. Another quote: ‘This posture, Hanun-an-asana… Hanuman was the name of a powerful monkey chief who was the son of Anjana and the devoted friend and servant of Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu…’
A contrast with Colossians 2:6-10 shows the main difference between the basically Hindu concept behind Yoga, and the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. To go down the Yoga route is to make a shift towards a pantheistic standpoint, in which God is identified with nature, and finally towards a monistic view, in which God is conceived as an impersonal ‘It’, without form or personality.
3. A negative view of personhood Again I quote: ‘You will literally be moving, being in the nothing. The experience of nothing is Yoga.’
But the art of emptying one’s mind is foreign to the Christian – who focuses the individual not upon Nothing, nor even upon ourselves, but upon Christ (Colossians 3:1, 2). Paradoxically, in finding Christ we discover ourselves, and our identity becomes enhanced with the fullness of life that he promises (Colossians 2:10).
4. A deviant way of Redemption The ‘sin’ question is never raised in Yoga, and the answer to sin – the Cross of Christ – is never in view. Rather, it is ‘enlightenment’ for the ignorant that is offered.
Breathing exercises and meditation (upon Christ and his Word) are commendable. But we are unwise to open the door for the entry of a system that in Paul’s words, causes someone to lose connection with the Head, Christ Himself (Colossians 2:19).
From The Top 100 Questions by Richard Bewes (Christian Focus)
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