Garry continued his series ‘Looking For Heroes’ last night by preaching on Matt 5:8 TNIV (‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.’)

‘Pure’ meana to be clean, to be purified, washed out, cleared of stains. It can be used literally (think of all those washing powder advertisements!) and figuratively. When Jesus healed lepers, they were clean and pure; in John 15:3 TNIV, Jesus told His disciples that they were already clean because of the word He had spoken to them.

In our natural state, however, we are not pure. Prov 20:9 TNIV and Rom 3:23 TNIV makes this very plain: we cannot keep our hearts pure. The only way we can ascend the hill of the Lord is to have clean hands and a pure heart (Ps 24:3-4 TNIV), but purity is not something we can attain on our own. The most we can ever hope to achieve is to be ‘pure in our own eyes’ (see Prov 30:11-12 TNIV), which might seem good enough if we’re comparing ourselves to other people, but won’t stand comparison with God! The natural state of mankind is to be unclean (see Rom 1:18-25 TNIV).

Thankfully, we do not have to employ caustic washing powders to cleanse our hearts; rather, God has promised us cleansing and a new heart (see Ezek 36:25-26 TNIV). We are given a new heart, a new start and a new outlook. God Himself gives us the pure heart we need to stand before Him (Heb 10:22 TNIV), but we have to maintain that through our own lifestyles and choices.

2 Cor 7:1 TNIV says ‘Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting ourselves out of reverence for God.’ God is working in us and with us to change us and to bring His work of grace in our lives to completion. Heb 12:1 TNIV reminds us that we have a part to play, however. In the Message version, it talks of ‘parasitic sins’ and it is true that sin can cling to us like leeches or mosquitoes, sucking on our very blood and weakening us over time, even though we may feel the ‘sins’ are inconsequential or insignificant in themselves. We have to be relentless with ourselves (2 Tim 2:22 TNIV) since God did not call us to be impure but to live a holy life (1 Thess 4:7 TNIV).

The process of becoming pure is likened to the refining of gold and silver (and God’s word is compared to these precious metals in Ps 12:6 TNIV). Precious metals were refined through a repeated process of heating and skimming the scum off the top of the molten metal. This is what times of testing and trial do to us (see Ps 66:10 TNIV). Every time we resist temptation and refuse to give in to the parasitic sins which so easily entangle us, we are made stronger and refined further. It’s easy to stop and think we can afford to ‘take it easy’ (Prov 6:10-11 TNIV), but the consequences if we do are deadly. We never ‘arrive’ on earth in the sense that this struggle with sin will always continue while we are in this mortal body, but as we persevere, we have the promise of seeing God as our reward.

‘My One Thing’, Rich Mullins

One of the things I tend to do when I am thinking about a sermon is to look at different ways of expressing the truths I have heard. Synonyms are similar ways of saying the same thing. So as I was thinking about ‘pivotal point incidents’, moments in our lives when things are ‘tipped’ in one direction and the direction of our lives changes, I considered other ways of putting this.

‘Coming to a crossroads’ reminded me of Mark’s sermon ‘The Dream Cross Code’ back in April. You have to decide which way to take when you’re at a crossroads; you can’t just stay there forever!

A ‘defining moment’ or ‘do or die’ time are other ways of putting this. You’re at a ‘critical juncture’ or a ‘crisis point’. You’re at the ‘point of no return’ or we could say it’s a ‘sink or swim’ time. You’re at the ‘turning point’, or ‘zero hour’. You’re at ‘high noon’; it’s the ‘moment of truth’ for you. You’re about to ‘cross the Rubicon’ (which refers to Julius Caesar’s army’s crossing of the river in 49 BC, which was considered an act of insurrection, and therefore signalled ‘no turning back’ for him in that situation.)

All of these synonyms show us how crucial a P.P.I. is in our lives. There is usually a build-up to these moments; they can’t always be predicted ahead of time. But an encounter with God will always transform us and change us. Paul says, ‘we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.’ (2 Cor 3:18 TNIV). Let’s contemplate Him and be aware that in so doing, our lives will be transformed into His image.

P.P.I. usually stands for ‘personal protection insurance’, the mis-selling of which has been of great interest and controversy over recent years in the U.K. Mark’s sermon on P.P.I. today had nothing to do with insurance, however, but instead looked at the pivotal point incident in Jacob’s life when he wrestled with God (Gen 32:22-32 TNIV).

In engineering terms, a pivot is the point of rotation in a lever system. A lever is a machine consisting of a beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge or fulcrum. I’m interested in its etymology, since the word comes from the French ‘lever’, meaning ‘to raise’. When I think of a pivotal point, I tend to think of a seesaw, which is, in its most basic form, a long, narrow board pivoted in the middle so that, as one end goes up, the other goes down.

Jacob’s encounter with God in Genesis 32 was a pivotal incident in his life. Prior to this, he had been known as ‘the deceiver’, ‘the grabber’, one whose whole life had been spent in deception and selfishness. He had lied to his father, stolen his brother’s birthright and worked alongside Laban, taking what he wanted and living in a ruthless manner with little regard for anyone else except himself. He was a master con artist. The world may commend such methodology, but so far, we do not recognise anything in Jacob that speaks of righteousness and goodness. The fact that God chose him to become Israel – the name by which His people would ever after be known – gives hope to us. No one is hopeless in God’s eyes; He cna choose the most unlikely characters and through His stunning love, faithfulness and goodness, transform their lives.

At this point in Jacob’s life, everything he has ever done is catching up with him. He has lived in exile for years because Esau was so enraged with him that he wanted to kill him. Now he has had enough of Laban’s scheming and has reached the point where he must confront all he has done. He sends a bribe on ahead of him to Esau and is alone in the desert. Laban is behind; Esau is ahead. He feels he’s in a dark place, unable finally to manipulate his circumstances, powerless to control his destiny. Often, God has to bring us to this place of exhausted desperation before we will surrender and allow Him to shape our future and control our destiny.

In the midst of all this, Jacob has to spend the whole night wrestling an unknown man! It seems this encounter is more than just a human fight, for this ‘man’ (generally regarded as a theophany, or an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ) has the supernatural power to wound Jacob’s hip at a touch. Wrestling for even a few minutes is tiring and exhausting (professional wrestling usually has rounds lasting about three minutes), but Jacob had to wrestle all night. He was desperate for the man’s blessing and had to confront all his sins and surrender finally to God. Sometimes the process of struggling with God is necessary before change can occur. We have to be tenacious with God even when painfully injured; Jacob would simply not let go.

This P.P.I. with God led to great changes for Jacob. First of all, he was given a new name (the deceiver became ‘he who wrestles with God’, Israel). He receive a new blessing: God’s favour on his life meant things were never the same again. As the new day came, he saw that God works everything together for good.

Our lives, too, can be transformed by our encounters with God. Blessing often follows struggle. Life often seems messy and chaotic. We get dirty, bruised, wounded and torn in the struggle. Jacob limped for the rest of his life after his wrestling match with God, but he was changed from a manipulative schemer to a man who would forever be known as Israel. Though we may fight God in the dark of the night, a new day will come and there will be new blessing to sustain us. Surrender is not the end of the story but is actually the pathway to finding the purpose of our lives in God.

Our household is eagerly anticipating looking after a little girl called Grace for a day and the code for all our plans for this day is ‘Grace day.’ ‘What are we going to do for Grace day?’ ‘What will we be eating on Grace day?’ ‘Where are we going on Grace day?’ As we plan and look forward to spending time with this bundle of joy and vitality, it occurred to me that every day of our lives could be termed ‘Grace day’. A different kind of grace, maybe, but grace nonetheless!

One of my very favourite Bible verses which reassures me constantly is James 4:6 TNIV which says ‘But he gives us more grace.’ Grace – that undeserved favour from God which enables sinners to be reconciled to a holy God – is essential to our Christian lives. Philip Yancey, in his book ‘What’s So Amazing About Grace?’ (which I heartily recommend) says ‘Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.’ He goes on to say, ‘God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.’ Again, I find that reassuring, because it means I can’t do anything to earn God’s love or favour but can rest secure in the ongoing fact of His love and favour because of His unchanging nature.

When every day becomes a ‘grace day’, we are less likely to feel abandoned, rejected, thwarted or powerless. Though our circumstances may be difficult and our moods unreliable, we have a God whose constancy becomes our anchor. Every day there is grace available, sufficient grace to meet every trial (2 Cor 12:9 TNIV), grace for every need.

I struggle with being patient. I hate journeys, if I’m honest, always wanting to be at the destination so I can ‘get on’ with the next stage. Mark’s sermon has made me reflect on patience. These signs are quite helpful!

Mark challenged us to continue the study of ‘in between’ stages by doing some homework. The task we were given (our mission, if we choose to accept it!) is to read and study Numbers 33 throughout this week, looking at this chapter which details the stages in Israel’s journey from Egypt in the wilderness, to find out:

1) what God did for Israel
2) the different stages they went through on their forty-year journey
3) the ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ of that long journey

Once that is done, he urged us to do a similar exercise for our own lives, looking at all that God has done for us since we became Christians, noting the different stages we have gone through and the ‘highs’ and the ‘lows’.

It’s easy for us to feel that ‘nothing is happening at the moment’ or even to feel that ‘nothing ever happens’ in our lives. Sometimes, on a journey, progress seems achingly slow: think of all those holiday journeys when you’ve been stuck on a windy road behind a tractor and there’s no way of passing them or those journeys on unfamiliar roads when you’re looking for a particular landmark and you have to move so slowly for fear of missing it that that ‘mile and a half’ on the directions seems to go on forever. Sometimes it’s only when we take the time to stop and reflect that we actually see the progress we have made. We are not who we once were; we are not yet what we are going to be, for God is still at work in us. We are ‘works in progress’ and though we may feel the progress (in our own lives, in our church, in our families etc.) is slower than we would like it to be, we do well to pause and reflect on how far we have come.

We also celebrated a birthday: