Mission Week

Naked Christianity: Uncovering the life changing message of Jesus

Warwick CU's mission week starts bright and early tomorrow at 8am with prayer.  It'll be an entire week of extra events aiming to bring the gospel to every student on campus, whether through apologetics over lunch, evening talks on Luke's gospel, text-a-toastie to halls of residence, or Globe café for internationals.

At church today, the question I was most frequently asked was, 'so, are you ready for mission week?'  To which I confidently replied, 'er... well, yes... I think so.'

Ready?  Probably not.  If 'ready' means confident in my ability to share the gospel with other students, then I'm the most unprepared of the lot.  If 'ready' means I have no fear, then I may as well just hide myself in the library and try to forget that mission week is going on.

I'm not ready, neither confident in my ability, nor fearless.  But that actually doesn't matter.  Most of the messengers and prophets sent by God in the OT were quaking in their boots as they spoke and the disciples were intent on hiding from the world like trembling doormice before Pentecost.

But I, like they did, have a mighty God.  He supplies the strength and the courage.

Most of the CU members have had their pictures taken with a board saying, 'Ask me what I'm living for', the aim being to upload them onto Facebook as profile pictures.  Funny then that just the other day I should read in 1 Peter 3 this gem of a passage:

'But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.' (vv.15-16)

My prayer for the CU this week is that we would fulfill this verse, speaking humbly and lovingly with students of their need of Jesus.  Interestingly, this verse quite naturally couples telling others about Jesus with persecution.  That's something I haven't heard much of in CU, and which may shock some when it happens.  So please pray with us that this hope would be uncontainable, but also that when some do 'suffer for doing good', (for what's better than sharing the truth in love?) that they wouldn't be discouraged, but instead again look at Christ as their example in all things.

 Embarrassing...! Here's how the FB pictures look, so check it out! 

'For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit' (1 Peter 3:18)

Obsession with Identity

In my studies I have been reading a lot about identity, whether in a 19th Century French anarchist context or for a German literature module on the study of the 'self' and the 'other'.  Identity never fails to enthrall us, intrigue, confuse and drive us, more than often, to depair.  'Who am I?' appears to be the fundamental question in everyone's mind.  The way in which you introduce yourself hints at what you think about yourself and what you would like others to know about you.  We commonly start with a brief greeting, an exchange of names, job titles, where we originally come from and whether we are married and have children.

However, I think Elisabeth Elliot puts it well in her book, Let me be a woman.  The question in the search for identity, which often leads people into all kinds of sorrow and heart-ache, should not be 'who am I' but 'whose am I?'  Attempting to discover your identity in complete isolation never works.  It only leads to destructive naval-gazing and a deeper confusion and discontent over the question of identity.  Why is it that when we introduce ourselves we always start by talking about our outward actions and those we have chosen to spend time with?  Because they are a reflection of our feelings, beliefs, tendencies, joys, hurts, decisions and choices we have made.  In essence, they are not our identity, but they do help explain who we are or who we aspire to be.

The problem, however, is that no relationship with another human can ever fully satisfy us.  No job, amount of money, wealth of education or future prospects can conclusively tell us who we are.  We may find parts of ourselves sated for a while.  Our thirst and longing after a defining principle to be quenched momentarily, but it will never eternally satisfy us.  Our identity is far deeper and greater than can be comprehended through a collection of deeds, writings, facts and emotions, otherwise why would even the greatest of writers, thinkers and leaders have carried on in this quest for identity?

Neither can we find our complete identity in simply tracing back our family history.  My Mum works in a cemetary and often has people coming in to trace their ancestry back to local celebrities or, more often, ordinary working-class people!  After all, if we can't discover our identity in our present surroudings we resort to the past.  Family traits (in our family it's the Jewsbury nose...) are passed down, and I daresay even some characteristics, but not one of them ever fully explains our rhyme or reason for being the way we are.

We see ourselves partly then in the reflection of others.  Yet, I would argue that this is completely the wrong way around.  If we start with ourselves, creatures who are limited in our understanding and knowledge of the universe we live in, then we will never, within the short span of our lifetime, discover who we really are or what is our purpose in life.  Instead, we need to look into the face of the One who from the very beginning not only reflected but gave us His likeness.  Our identity as individuals is dependant upon God's identity.  So in looking to the present and the past for clues to our identity we are not wrong, in fact, it simply reveals a more profound trait of the God we have sought to drive out of our own self-fashioned identities.  We were never meant to be isolated, unrelational, stagnant, self-fashioned and destructive.  Rather, we were created with identities that are unique and highly complex, yet which all have their root and fulfilment in God. 

So, our mistake as humans is not our obsession with identity, it is more that we are looking for identity in the wrong place and in the wrong people.  In asking 'whose am I?', we recognise that, in the basic sense, we are all God's in that each human being has been created by Him and for Him.  But just as we find out who we are by tracing back our roots, by asking questions, by seeking knowledge of and intimacy with the ones who have physically brought us into this world, that is, our parents, so we will never find the answer to this identity question until we seek intimacy with God through Jesus Christ, who is the revealed identity of our heavenly Father.

The Wedding pratically everyone is still talking about

A post I wrote and edited ages ago and never posted!  It's actually quite nostalgic thinking back to my year abroad.  Apologies for any possible mistakes in translation...

 (1/5/11)
Wedding fever is still raging. It even made it into the sermon this morning at church. I tell you, the Germans are just as crazy, if not more so, about the monarchy as some Brits are! Even the local newspaper has jumped on the bandwagon and has printed a few articles, one making it onto the front page! Here's a few amusing snippets...

From a german tourist in London on Friday:
'Die Engländer sind verrückt, aber all so höflich.' - 'The English are mad but all so polite.'

One article commented on the length of the smackers William planted on his new wife upon that oh-so-famous balcony, revealing that the first lasted just 0.7 seconds. The latter was slightly more daring and lasted a whole 1.1 seconds.
I think someone has way too much time on their hands...

One article titled 'Longing for the Eternal' (Sehnsucht nach Ewigem), was of particular interest and which I discussed with my class today. Although the number of couples pledging their troth in Germany has declined over the last few years and the number of divorcees risen, still about 90% of young people who participated in a recent survey would like to have their own family one day. It seems, however, that marriage is out of fashion, so to speak. There is a great reluctance to make a committment which some feel is perhaps too restrictive on their personal freedom, especially in such an economic climate where mobility and flexibility appear to be the favoured job criteria. Fear that marriage probably won't last until death do us part and the court costs tied in with getting a divorce are also factors that put some people off. After all, some argue, it's only a piece of paper.

Yet, as the journalist points out, as soon as Catherine glided out of her car in her stunning, laced wedding dress, the whole nation, indeed the whole world, gasped, sighed, cried, sang and screamed almost simultaneously. As the couple met at the altar and nervously gave their wedding vows and immediately after as they trotted out onto the balcony, the sight of a newly-wed couple sent people all wobbly and gooey inside.

Here's what the journalist said:
'Eine Hochzeit ist das öffentliche Versprechen, für immer zusammenszubleiben. Man mag ein solches Versprechen für maßlos halten, da ja niemand ganz sicher garantieren kann, dass er es einhalten wird. Doch die Seele braucht solche Anklänge von Ewigkeit. Wo solche Versprechen verschwinden, bleiben sie als Sehnsucht zurück. Auch deshalb rühren Märchenhochzeiten wie die in London so viele Menschen.'
'A wedding is the public promise to stay together forever. We like to think of such promises as exorbitant because no one can garantee that such a promise will be stuck to. Still, the soul requires such peals of eternity. Where such promises disappear, they still remain as desires. For this reason fairy-tale weddings, such as the one in London, continue to deeply move so many people.'

It seems that although we cry that we do not want to be bound by an eternal promise because we claim it to be too restrictive, we still long after such oaths because we admire the sacrifice, the dedication and above all the deeply grounded love that a couple (hopefully) has for one another as they promise to cherish one another in sickness and in health. I think our souls require someone to say, 'I will love you no matter what and I am willing to die for you'.

But why on earth do we long after such desires in such a contradictory way. We want someone to love us unconditionally, even to death, and yet we reject all notions of stability as an infringement upon our individual rights. We want intimacy but desire to retain our independance.  But therein is exactly the point. By loving someone so much so that you publicly declare, indeed actually bind two families together by a covenant, you give up rights to your own body. Or, more clearly said, you promise to cherish the other above yourself; to put them first as your main priority. You give up your rights to doing what you want.

These longings are no freak consequence of evolution. God is the institutor of marriage. It is a desire that He breathed into our souls when He created the first man and woman. Human, earthly marriage is wonderful. In fact, quite a few good friends are getting married this year and I am over the moon for them! Yet, we cannot just stop here. For what happens when we realise that, despite what the world tells us, we do not feel 'complete' in that other person. What happens to this longing when our spouse dies? What about those men and women who desire to be married and yet can't for whatever reason? What good is this longing after unconditional love in such a person? Is it just to go to waste?

The Lord God is described as Husband and Maker. 'Well, that's a funny concept', you say. 'How is God my husband?!' It's that we have the starting point wrong. Man is not the founder of marriage, God is. Man doesn't define the marriage oath, although we often like to think we can and do. God displays how a husband should act towards his wife. With tenderness, love and unconditional faithfulness. 

If our souls' deepest desire and longing is to love and be loved even unto death, then God satisfies this over and abundantly in Jesus Christ.  God is the ultimate Husband because even after His wife has cheated on Him and rebelled against his love and light, He still desires her!  Jesus goes to the cross, He dies to declare His love for the Bride He is about to redeem, to wash and make lovely again.  We gasped in wonder at Kate's beauty, well how much more should we gasp in wonder at how loving this God should be to die for a people, the ultimate Bride, who do not even desire Him?  He pursues His people, He wins their hearts in the ultimate way: by dying for them.

So why do we still gasp at the beauty of the bride?  Because in a sense her beauty is the result of promises come true, of desires met, of unconditional love which her husband swears to her and before God.  She is radiant because he loves her.  Sacrifice becomes the price of beauty.

Knowledge is the measure of love

'God knoweth best what is needful for us, and all that He does is for our good.  If we knew how much He loves us, we should always be ready to receive equally and with indifference from His hand the sweet and the bitter.  All would please that came from Him.  That sorest afflictions never appear intolerable, except when we see them in the wrong light.  When we see them as dispensed by the hand of God, when we know that it is our loving Father who abases and distresses us, our sufferings will lose their bitterness and become even matter of consolation.

Let all our employment be to know God; the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him.  And as knowledge is commonly the measure of love, the deeper and more extensive our knowing shall be, the greater will be our love; and if our love of God were great, we should love him equally in pains and pleasures.

Let us not content ourselves with loving God for the mere sensible favours, how elevated soever, which He has done or may do us.  Such favours, though never so great, cannot bring is so near to Him as faith does in one simple act.  Let us seek him often by faith.  He is within us; seek Him not elsewhere.  If we do love Him alone, are we not rude, and do we not deserve blame, if we busy ourselves with trifles which do not please and perhaps offend Him?  It is to be feared these trifles will one day cost us dear.

Let us begin to be devoted to him in good earnest.  Let us cast everything besides out of our hearts.  He would possess them alone.  Beg this favour of Him.  If we do what we can on our parts, we shall soon see that change wrought in us which we aspire after.'



From: Practising the presence of God, Brother Lawrence. 15th Letter. (He died shortly after writing this)

Out of the ordinary

I love having those really smack-on-the-head obvious divine appointments. You know, when something so out of the ordinary happens or you meet someone in a place and at a time that strikes you as odd and mysteriously planned. So the theological bods will be musing to themselves that everything is kind of a divine appointment anyway. But do you really notice these moments and stand in awe at a God who delights in shaping and crafting the tiniest, (to you) most insignificant parts of your life?

I had one such meeting today. It was an unexpected, path-crossing moment with a friend, which later turned out to be a direct answer to prayer. The words she spoke to me were so to the point, contained a gentle, godly rebuke and yet were also so encouraging. It was like God was speaking clearly and directly to my heart through her mouth, showing me an answer to my prayers this week over a couple of issues that have been on my heart.

It was a humbling experience.

Quiet time snippet

'I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of
righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a
priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause
righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.'

Isaiah 61:10-11


'Go through, go through the gates;
prepare the way for the people;
build up, build up the highway;
clear it of stones;
lift up a signal over the peoples.
Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth:
Say to the daughter of Zion,
"Behold, your salvation comes;
behold, his reward is with him."

And they shall be called The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the Lord;
and you shall be called Sought Out,
A City Not Forsaken.'

Isaiah 62:10-12

Sitting outside a cafe this morning and reading these passages was like water for my soul. Certainly, it was an encouragement that I am neither forsaken nor cast off because of my sin. Rather, I am clothed and covered with a garment of perfect, pure righteousness and salvation that is not of my own making. I am no longer uncovered, shamefully naked in my sin and attempting to cover myself with clothes which are nothing more than rags. I am clothed with a robe not woven by my own hands, but threaded, beaded, embroidered and carefully tied around my shoulders by the hands of the Son of God. This is no ordinary robe. It is fit for a priest and for a bride. Yet it is worn by a poor beggar.

He is not even willing that I remain with a plain faith, but that I be beautiful and adorned. And this not only for my own good, but for His righeousness and goodness to bloom like wild flowers before the nations, untamed in their beauty. For the beautifying of the nations and the supreme glorification of the Son.

I was pretty fed-up last week and over the weekend and found myself just getting really discouraged by many things. I was quite seriously considering not bothering to cycle across town and climb the enormous hill to church on Sunday for a morning that I felt would 1. contain a light, probably superficial sermon, 2. songs that wouldn't exactly set my heart alight, 3. that would contain more chat, laugh and food than deep-felt fellowship, consequently making me come away feeling thoroughly disheartened and wondering what the point of church was at all.

Before leaving my house I prayed desperately that God would show me again why I ought to attend church, what the point of it was and so fix up my head and heart to get a right view of it all. I was not hopeful, to put it bluntly, that anything out of the ordinary would happen, or that anything would be different at church. Did I doubt God, or was I just discouraged? I was probably filled with some self-righteousness too and no doubt had a very small perspective of the situation.

So when our first song was 'What a friend we have have in Jesus' auf Deutsch, (bearing in mind we haven't sung this even once in the last 6 months) I had a little chuckle to myself at the utter absurdity of my thoughts and this stronge sense of the ridiculous. Ah yes Lord, you know how to get me where it hurts while bringing a smile to my face.

How can you ignore words like this?:

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

--I'm glad He knows my weaknesses!

God made me realise that it wasn't necessarily the teaching that bound a church (though it is integral in many ways!) nor always the songs and prayers themselves as such. But that on the Lord's Day, to stand and sing, worship God, share the Lord's Supper together and remember how Christ has saved us, is certainly a privilege. A lot of what I felt stemmed also from a lack of love for my brothers and sisters in Christ, which only struck me when after looking around at this room of believers the sudden thought came to me, 'I'll be with these people for eternity'.

So no, the service wasn't filled with theological highs and I must honestly say that the sermon was lacking, but God showed me again (as He faithfully keeps doing!) a glimpse of what it will be like to worship and live in the presence of God for eternity. Church is but a shadow and painting (though a glorious one at that) of what is to come.

Whatever sin has touched and polluted, God will redeem and cleanse. If redemption does not go as far as the curse of sin, then God has failed. Whatever the extent of the consequences of sin, so must the extent of redemption be.

-Steven J. Lawson