I have had the privilege of spending time with people who are dying or who have recently been bereaved in the past few weeks, and this inevitably focuses thoughts on the reality of heaven and what awaits those who have surrendered their lives to Christ (and what awaits those who have not). It can be difficult for us to hold on to the invisible in the face of pain and suffering, but the gospel of Christ offers reassurance that what we see with our natural eyes is not the whole story. Paul reminds us ‘For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (1 Cor 15:53-57)

We may not yet see, with our natural eyes, the victory that Paul proclaims here. Death inevitably brings sorrow, grief and loneliness to those who are left behind – and often a whole host of practical problems which are not easily solved. But as we meditate on the transitory nature of life and the certainty of death in this natural world, we are both encouraged to see beyond the temporary (2 Cor 4:18) and to realise the importance of preaching the gospel to all.

The songs below remind us of these truths far more eloquently than I can. Click on the link to listen to the songs.

‘I Will Rise’, Chris Tomlin

‘Heaven Song’, Phil Wickham

‘Endless Hallelujah’, Matt Redman

‘There Will Be A Day’, Jeremy Camp

‘Tears of Joy’, Phil Wickham

Last night, we also had a birthday to celebrate:

Tony informs us he will be 8 on Friday, but we will leave you to ponder on the (simple) mathematics behind his reasoning. A clue can be found in the fact that his son will also be 8 next month…

The Haribo advert shows us how difficult the concept of delayed gratification can be. In the advert, the children are unable to resist the one Haribo sweet in front of them, even though they have been promised more if they can resist! Delayed gratification or deferred gratification is defined as ‘the ability to resist temptation for an immediate reward and wait for a delayed reward.’  The Haribo advert is actually based on a psychological experiment done in the 1979s called the ‘Stanford marshmallow experiment’, whereby children were offered a choice between one small reward (sometimes a marshmallow, but often a cookie or a pretzel) provided immediately or two small rewards if he or she waited until the experimenter returned (after an absence of approximately 15 minutes). Subsequently studies showed that children who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment, body mass index (BMI) and other life measures.

The principle of learning to wait patiently is Biblical and is a sign of maturity. When we are immature, we think everything must happen now and we often become very impatient with God because He doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry! Acquiring a willingness to wait is a sign of growing maturity.  Ps 27:14 tells us to ‘Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.’ Psalm 130:5-6 tells us ‘I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.I wait for the Lord  more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.’ Isaiah 40:31 tells us ‘those who hope in (wait on) the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.’ The principle of waiting patiently (Ps 37:7, Ps 40:1, Hab 3:16, Rom 8:25) is firmly established in Scripture and this concept of delayed or deferred gratification can be found in many aspects of everyday life.

If we are mature, we will be content to wait patiently and to do things God’s way. We will resist temptation because we know God’s ways are better than our ways. It’s why we should be prepared to wait until marriage for sex, even when everyone around us may seem to be going their own ways and living together, because the gift that God has promised us in marriage is without shame or guilt and should be reserved for that lifelong union between one man and one woman. It’s why we should resist the temptation to break our marriage vows through adultery because the short-term pleasures of adultery cannot compare with the beauty and strength of faithfulness and loyalty.  It’s why we should resist the short-term pleasures of sin – whether that’s from food, drink, smoking or drugs – because we know the long-term consequences can be devastating. It’s why we should resist our current consumer-led society and not be beguiled into buying things on credit that we cannot afford, for we do not want to be slaves to possessions or weighed down by debt. It’s why we need to learn to live lives that are free from a love of money because we know we have the assurance of God’s presence with us at all times. (Hebrews 13:5)

Being able to take the ‘long-term view’ is a sign of maturity. Jesus exemplified this for us (Heb 12:1-3) and Paul showed us that it is this attitude which enables us to bear suffering and hardship. (Phil 3:14-15, 2 Cor 4:16-18) We will never leave childish ways behind unless we are prepared to wait for the Lord. (‘My Hope Is In You’, Aaron Shust)

When I was at school, I learned about two dimensional and three dimensional shapes. I always liked two dimensional shapes (squares, rectangles, circles etc.) more than their three dimensional counterparts (cubes, cuboids and spheres) because they were easier for me to visualise when I was counting corners and faces! We can be equally simplistic in our understanding of the faith, failing to appreciate complexity or to embrace mystery. When we are being childish, we tend to see everything in black and white and fail to understand there can be shades of grey (or even colours!) We want God to be predictable and tame and rebel against the fact that His judgments are unsearchable and His paths beyond tracing out! (Rom 11:33)

For us to grow, we have to accept that there are questions we are not skilled to understand (let alone answer!) If we fail to appreciate the complexity of life and treat serious problems as though they are inconsequential, the consequences will be devastating. Jeremiah warned against those ‘who dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.’ (Jer 6:14) We cannot simply count our progress on the Christian way by the number of years we have been walking on it. Have we really learned the lessons God wants us to learn or are we simply going round in circles? For us to grow, we have to recognise and understand the depth of our desire for independence and the fact that sin is deeply embedded in our natures. Christian discipleship is totally radical, involving daily dying. (Luke 9:23)

Learning to hold truth in tension with not knowing requires great skill, rather like a juggler. We have to be content at times to simply leave our questions with God and embrace the mystery.

‘When the Father long to show
The love He wanted us to know
He sent His only Son and so
Became a holy embryo.

That is the Mystery
More than you can see
Give up on your pondering
And fall down on your knees

A fiction as fantastic and wild
A mother made by her own child
A hopeless babe who cried
Was God Incarnate and man deified

Because the fall did devastate
Creator must now recreate
So to take our sin
Was made like us so we could be like him.’ (Michael Card, ‘To The Mystery’)

A worldview (in German, ‘Weltanschauung’) is how we actually view the world and what we really believe to be the way things are. It ‘refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs forming a global description through which an individual, group or culture watches and interprets the world and interacts with it.’ The predominant worldview in our modern Western society is secular humanism which is antagonistic to God and refuses to take Him seriously. That means we all grow up exposed to wrong thinking whereby the selfishness which is at such odds with God’s way of living is promoted as being the proper way to live: ‘you’ve got to look after number one!’ is the mantra we hear all around us on a daily basis.

For us to grow spiritually, we have to realise that the worldview to which we have been exposed every day is false and we need to have our minds renewed so that we can learn to think God’s thoughts, to think like God thinks, and to allow the mind of Christ to dwell in us. (Rom 12:2) Far from being out of touch with reality, Christians are really people who are completely in touch with reality, because they are in touch with the God of reality. This is where the whole idea of paradox comes to the forefront, however, for how God acts in the world defies our reasoning and common sense and if we desperately try to hold on to human reasoning and common sense without ever making room for faith, we will not grow up.

In God’s kingdom, the first will be last (Matthew 19:30), the least will be the greatest (Luke 9:38), life comes through surrender and death (Mark 8:36, John 12:24-25), God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom and His weakness stronger than man’s strength. (1 Corinthians 1:25) For us to grow up, we have to accept God’s way of doing things (even if this doesn’t make any sense to us!) and respond to Him by faith. When challenged to do something God’s way (eg to forgive a hurt, or to tithe our income, or to turn the other cheek), we have, in essence, to say ‘I don’t see how this way of doing things can work, God, but if that’s what You tell me to do, that’s what I will do.’ If we decide we will do it our way and not obey God because His way seems frankly ludicrous to us, we will never grow up… and we will miss out on the miraculous at the same time, for God’s ways works precisely because He works, and He does that in ways that are marvellous to behold!

The first sign of immaturity we looked at last night is one any parent of a toddler is very familiar with! – namely, wanting our own way. This facet of our characters is, sadly, not limited to temper tantrums known as the ‘terrible twos’ (we learn to hide this more effectively than the toddler!),  for original sin runs through our veins, which means we all ultimately want our own way more than we want anyone else’s way and certainly more than we want God’s way. Maturity is a life-long process of learning to put God’s will before our own, hence the need to pray daily ‘Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’, as Jesus taught us. (Matt 6:10) Whilst we initially begin our Christian journey with immense thankfulness for all God has done, there generally comes a stage when we are demanding and selfish, wanting God to answer our prayers exactly as we deem fit. If we are to mature beyond this phase, we need to soak ourselves in the Biblical revelation of who God is and accepting that God is wiser than we are and that He knows best. He is not only our Saviour and Friend, He is our Lord and Master (1 Cor 6:19-20) and we are commanded to no longer live as we used to live, ‘gratifying the cravings of our fleshand following its desires and thoughts.’ (Eph 2:3) Instead, we are  ‘to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.’ (Eph 4:22-24) That way, we can learn to accept God’s ways as wiser than our ways (Is 55:8-9) and understand that even when He says ‘no’ to us, it is not out of malice or a desire to harm us, but arises from His loving omniscience which sees much farther than we can!