Stephen preached from Isaiah 42:1-4 yesterday morning, verses quoted by Jesus in Matthew 12:18-21. Here, we see that God’s King is very different to how we imagine earthly kings to be. Kings are normally thought of as being powerful, valiant, heroic, conquering through force. But Jesus is our Servant King.

His birth at Bethlehem is a reflection of the upside-down world of servanthood which Jesus embraced. He is God’s chosen one in whom He delights – accredited by God, not by pomp, ceremony, circumstances or clothing. His mission is to bring justice to all the earth – something no earthly king has ever managed to achieve. Moreover, He will achieve this through quiet strength: “he will not shout or cry out or raise His voice in the streets.”

God’s way of doing things are very different to the world’s way of working. Jesus will not despise the lowly or hurting: “a bruised reed He will not break, and a smouldering wick He will not snuff out.” He will not falter in His purpose of bringing justice and He will not be discouraged, but will bring true justice and true peace to the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBd3ThCResI

I love words. It is no surprise to me that J. K. Rowling studied modern languages; her books resonate with words that have their roots in other languages and so many of the names in her books ‘play’ on words, a literary device that definitely appeals to the linguist in me.

One of those literary devices is the ‘pensieve’, an imaginary magical repository for memories.

The idea behind this imaginary device is that if your mind becomes over-crowded with memories, you can ‘dump’ them in the pensieve and sift through them at a later date. The word itself is clearly a play on the word ‘pensive’ (which means ‘thoughtful, meditative, engaged in serious thought’), a word which has its roots in French (penser, to think) and Latin (pensare, to weigh or consider carefully), but the spelling ‘pensieve’ also brings to mind a ‘sieve’, a device often resembling a screen that can be used to sift through something. Sieves are often used to eliminate undesired objects or items, such as when an archaeologist uses one to sift through sand or dirt in search of fossils or other relics. The pensieve seems to be a way to prevent people’s often sieve-like memories from losing important information.

Ps 139 starts with the realisation ‘You have searched me, Lord, and You know me’ (Ps 139:1) and concludes with David’s prayer “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps 139:23-24)

We all need some kind of ‘pensieve’, some way of sifting our thoughts and retaining only that which is good, profitable, true, right, noble, praiseworthy or admirable. We need some external method of discerning our own motives and thoughts, for as Jeremiah tells us, the heart is desperately deceitful (Jer 17:9). That’s why we need to pray as David did, ‘search me and know me’, or, as the Message puts it, ‘investigate my life, God; find out everything about me.’

Without the insight brought by God’s Holy Spirit and the piercing revelation of His Word (that word which is like a double-edged sword or sharp scalpel, Hebrews 4:12), we are capable of self-delusion and misunderstanding on a scale that is almost bewildering. We desperately need God’s revelation to uncover the duplicity of our hearts and bring us to that place of honest repentance. David committed murder and adultery and apparently had no qualms of conscience until confronted by the prophet Nathan, whose story pierced his defences. Only then did he say ‘I know my transgressions’ (Ps 51:3).

May we be honest enough and willing enough to let God search us and know us and lead us in the way everlasting.

No, I’m not talking about the love of God here, though Paul’s prayer in Ephesians is worth repeating: “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:17-19) Instead, I’m talking about working on the ground… and on the roof…!

Today we had a cleaning-up day at Beever Street. The building there has not yet been sold and we decided to tidy up the grounds (a lot of rubbish had accumulated in the car park there) and do some work on the roof today. It was a lovely sunny day and a group of willing helpers took up their gloves, shovels and brushes to clear weeds and rubbish.

Some of the things we discovered in clearing the rubbish were not very appetising, like this mouldy pie:

or these underpants:

Meanwhile, work was going on higher up, as the roof was being cleared of rubbish and tiles replaced and repointed:


View from the roof:

As usual, it wasn’t all work:

Apart from wanting to make the site look better in our attempts to sell the old building, we also have a reason for needing the building once again, as we are having a baptismal service on 12th November. We don’t yet have a baptistry in the new building, so may well need to use the old one for this service, so it was good to do work on the old site. We are thrilled to need a baptistry as it’s always fantastic to celebrate new life in Christ. We were also struck by how small the old building seemed on our return: we’ve clearly adapted to the bigger building! May God continue to increase our vision and capacity and add to our numbers!

“Almighty God, in every way, You are above and beyond understanding” goes the song by Tim Hughes (‘Almighty God’), words that could be taken straight from Romans 11. Paul concludes this amazing section looking at the ways of God with these verses:
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Rom 11:33-36). At the end of all this teaching about God’s ways and God’s plans, including what He is doing in and with both the Gentiles and the Jews, Paul is left in wondering praise, aware that there is so much more that he does not understand, cannot comprehend and will never fathom, but that God is worthy of all praise.

The preceding verses are not easy to fathom, either! Paul has continued talking about the mystery of what is happening now with the salvation of the Gentiles and how Israel seems to be ‘hardened’ (‘calloused’), not seeing the salvation of the Lord. Nonetheless, Paul is confident that God is working all things together for good and that that will ultimately result in Israel’s salvation (Rom 11:26). He is aware that God’s gifts and call are irrevocable (Rom 11:29). He is aware that disobedience does not negate mercy (Rom 11:30-32). The topics of God’s sovereignty and free will rumble on in these verses. It seems there is, known to God, a fixed number of those Gentiles who will be saved (Rom 11:25) and that ‘all Israel’ will be saved (Rom 11:26). When this will come about, how it will come about and who is meant by ‘all Israel’ (‘spiritual Israel’? ‘Genetic Israel’?) cannot be categorically understood by our finite minds, though the references to Isaiah and Jeremiah in Rom 11:26-27 and the reference to Jacob (the schemer, rather than Israel, the one who struggled with God) indicate that God is still indeed working with His ‘chosen people’, the Jews. We have to ultimately admit that there are still many parts of God’s word which we do not fully understand and that God is God and we are not! We don’t have the knowledge or wisdom to counsel or advise God. We have no right, as created beings, to tell the Creator what to do. We do, however, have an ongoing obligation to worship – a theme that will be taken up in Romans 12, as Paul begins the practical application of his theological teachings in the remainder of the letter.

“That You would leave Your throne
And make this world Your home
Forsaking majesty
Embracing mundane
And all of its shame…” (Aaron Shust, ‘Wondrous Love’)

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor 8:9)

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” (Phil 2:5-8)

These verses and this song have kept me reflecting on the mystery that is the Incarnation. I can’t get my head around this! Why Jesus would want to leave the majesty of heaven to dwell on earth is beyond me. I can’t comprehend such love, only receive it gratefully.

Even more amazing in a way, though, is the fact that Jesus came in the flesh, as man, and lived over thirty years as an ordinary man. It wasn’t all about miracles and glorious sights. So much of it was just, as Aaron Shust says, ’embracing mundane’. I love that phrase. The idea of ’embracing’ (with all its fervour, passion and connotations of love) and ‘mundane’ (‘of this world, rather than the heavenly world’, but more commonly, ‘lacking interest or excitement, dull, common, ordinary, banal’) is indeed an oxymoron. Jesus knew what it was to be fully man. He knew what the banal, the ordinary, the everyday life looked like. He ‘knew rejection, loss and grief’, as the song says, or as Hebrews puts it ‘we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.’ (Hebrews 4:15) We so often crave excitement, adventure, spiritual highs… but God Himself knows what the monotony of the ordinary is all about. He’s lived it.

The chorus goes on to say:
‘What wondrous love is this
What wondrous love is this
That You would lay aside Your glory for my soul!
What wondrous love is this
What wondrous love is this
That You would lay down Your life for my soul!’

We are left reassured that God knows what it’s like to live in our world and encouraged by the fact that this wondrous love took our place, bore the agony of the Cross for us and ‘loved a world that nailed You to a tree’. God is so good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXlqJqsAD7A&noredirect=1

Stephen preached last night on the covenant God made with Noah. The last time he preached on Noah, we looked briefly at Genesis 6:18 (“But I will establish my covenant with you”) and this time, Stephen developed the idea of what a covenant is.

A covenant is a binding agreement between two or more parties. In the Bible, covenants are usually sealed with blood, with sacrifice. There are many covenants described in the Bible (with Abraham, with David, the ‘old covenant’, the ‘new covenant’, the covenant of marriage, for example), but all have the idea of a permanent and fixed agreement and the concept of faithfulness.

In Genesis 9: 9-17, God expands on the idea of covenant: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you— the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you— every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth. So God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

In this passage, we see God’s promise of an everlasting covenant and the fact that He gave a visible, physical sign to remind us (and Him) of this binding agreement. When we see the rainbow, we are reminded of God’s promise never to flood the whole earth again. May we learn to rely on His faithfulness and understand the binding nature of covenants so that we too become faithful people.