A civil war is a war between citizens of the same country, and you only have to watch the news to realise that the world is at war in many places. It can be frightening when the war is not with a hostile enemy from outside but an enemy within, so to speak.

And even more worrying at times can be the internal battle we face. Last night we looked at Romans 7:7-25, that famous passage where Paul talks about the struggle between the flesh and the new life, where we see how hard it can actually be to do the things we know we ought to do and even want to do: “What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.” (Rom 7:15, The Message)

Or as Aaron Shust paraphrases these verses:
“I just don’t understand this life that I’ve been living,
I just don’t understand, I just don’t understand.
I just don’t understand the lies I’ve been believing,
I just don’t understand, I just don’t understand.” (Give Me Words To Speak)

Paul talks in these verses about the role of the law: it’s not that the law is bad in itself, for God’s law is holy, righteous and good, spiritual and true. Rather, we see from the law the right way to live, but this only highlights the key problem: we are ‘unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin’ (Rom 7:14). The problem isn’t with the law; the problem is with us. Try as we might (and many of us try very hard to live good lives), we lack the power to successfully live in a way that is wholly pleasing to God. No wonder Paul cries out, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (Rom 7:24)

The answer, thankfully, is not far away, though we will have to wait for next week’s study on Romans 8 to explore fully how the ‘law of sin and death’ is overcome by the ‘law of the Spirit of life’. (Rom 8:2) Here, we are left with Paul’s words, that deliverance comes through the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 7:25). The battle may rage, but victory is available.

Birthdays are important. Our birth celebrates our entrance into this world and our birthdays are public acknowledgement of our progression through life. Some birthdays are deemed more important than others (‘significant’ birthdays like 16, 18, 21, 30, 40, 50, 60, 65, 70, 80 and so on…!), but all are crucial to our ongoing life.

Believe it or not, the ritual of the birthday box is not intended to humiliate or to publicly make a fool of anyone; it’s an acknowledgement of the value of each member of the congregation and a celebration of the fact that we live and worship together in community, not in isolation. So your birthday is important to me, because our lives are inextricably bound together in all Christ has done for us. As we sing ‘Happy Birthday’, including the verse ‘May the dear Lord bless you from the morning to the evening’, we are not just trying to prolong the agony of standing in front of people feeling ungainly or awkward. We are actually wanting to communicate that you matter to us, that you’re part of us, that we care about your ongoing existence, that you matter to God.

So, happy birthday, Karen!

“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.” (Eph 1:11-12)

The Bible teaches not only that God is the creator of everything (Genesis 1, John 1, Colossians 1) but that we were chosen before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in God’s sight. That gives us tremendous purpose and destiny in life – which should counter the meaninglessness and lack of purpose which so often is the malaise of modern living. As Michael Card says, “God shapes every second of our little lives/ And minds every moment as the universe waits by.” (The Poem Of Your Life)

Joseph is perhaps the greatest example in the Bible of what it means to live with confidence in God’s purposes and plans, which nothing can thwart. Neither adverse family circumstances (hated by his jealous brothers so much they plotted to kill him and sold him into slavery!), nor difficult work circumstances (the victim, in modern parlance, of continued sexual harassment), nor wrongful imprisonment nor famine could stop God’s plans being worked out in his life. As we read his story from Genesis 37 through to Genesis 50, we see how difficult life can be, even when we are living godly lives. Yet we are told repeatedly that Joseph found favour with the Lord and it is evident that God was with him in it all. It took years of patient waiting before that childhood dream became reality; Joseph had to learn what it meant to walk by faith and not by sight even when forgotten by the cupbearer and left to languish in prison.

Foresight, the ability to see what is going to happen, is what we’d all like. God is able to see what will happen in the future, because He does not inhabit time. The rest of us muddle along in the now, seeing with our eyes only what is immediately visible. Occasionally, through prophecy or through visions or dreams, God gives us a glimpse into the future, as he did with Joseph back in Genesis 37, but we then have to go through this long process of life whereby we are refined and we have to wait for God’s timing – which is always perfect, but rarely seems so to us as we wait! Hindsight helps us to see the story in perspective. Hindsight is the understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened. At the end of this long narrative, we see how Joseph’s position in Egypt is key to Israel’s survival, for Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to get food, since that is the only place which has food, thanks to God’s providence and preparation. Nothing has been wasted in this long journey from seventeen to thirty; Joseph has learnt to see not with foresight or hindsight but with God’s sight:

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Gen 50:20)

Others may intend to harm us, but God intends everything to work together for good so that we become like Christ (Rom 8:28), so that we may be for the praise of His glory (Eph 1:12). We truly do have great purpose and meaning in our lives; we truly do have a great destiny. Whether our destiny is to ‘just be’ whatever we are called to be in a small-town location or whether God has other plans for us, may we be faithful to God in the small things, never doubting that He is able to work all things out in conformity with the purpose of His will. And while we’re waiting? What do we do in the meantime?

“While I’m waiting
I will serve You
While I’m waiting
I will worship
While I’m waiting
I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait.”
(John Waller, ‘While I’m Waiting’)

Listen to the song here & make it your prayer:
http://vimeo.com/3768562

Dave preached from 1 John 3:1-3 this morning (‘probably the favourite of all my favourite scriptures.’) We are, John reminds his readers, ‘born of God’ and thus we are ‘children of God’. This fact of our identity – not a label, but a description of who we really are in God – is needed if we are to focus on the concept of the majesty of God, as A. W. Tozer put it (something he said the church nowadays had lost). The basic foundations that we have, that understanding of what our lives are all about at present, must be big enough to support the structure of Kingdom life to which God calls us.

Both John and Paul (in Eph 1:17-19) wanted God’s people to get a better understanding of God: of His holines, His might, His power and His glory. John talks about the nature of true conversion and spiritual life in these verses (and again in John 3:3-6 and in 1 John 3:9). When we are born again into God’s family and become children of God, this is something which will never change. There are many changes that will happen to us, but we will never be any more God’s child than we are right now. However, the world cannot see this (because it did not know Jesus) and does not recognise this fact. We don’t see Jesus completely right now, but we have glimpsed His beauty and wonder and so we are being transformed into His likeness. Our likeness is as yet partial, not complete, but John assures us that when we finally see Him fully, we will be fully like Him.

That transformation, which we eagerly await, has begun now (2 Cor 3:18). This vision of Christ, fixing our eyes on Jesus (as the writer to the Hebrews commands us in Hebrews 12:2), is crucial for holiness. Imagine your life, with none of the tainted affections you now possess and none of the cash you now have in the bank and understand that you will look back on these trinkets as though they were nothing but sand and sawdust, for when we see Jesus, there will be no more ‘greener pastures’. It is simply hypocrisy to say you want to be like Jesus at some indeterminate point in the future but have no interest in being like Jesus now (‘Lord, make me holy, but not yet!’) Instead, we need to set our lives in the direction of Christlikeness now with growing anticipation, learning from the limited vision of Jesus we have now so that our hearts are weaned from the downward pull of the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of possessions. The fountain of His life is fresher than the drain of this world, so let’s fix our eyes not only on a better world, but on how the Master will make us better, because we truly are His children.

We are in the midst of serious DIY at home, something (in my opinion) to be avoided at all costs! Some of this chaos was planned (to cut a long story short, the gas people are doing things with pipes and moving our meter as part of this work, which involves upheaval in our lounge, so we have decided to have that room re-plastered and do things with shelving etc. to create more space); some of it was decidedly unplanned (new kitchen cupboards because our main wall cupboard decided to ‘come away’ from the wall and after twenty-plus years was decidedly in need of replacement!)

I have to confess that DIY and decorating are up there on my ‘hated’ list. This is just not ‘me’! For someone who can work through text with a fine toothcomb, noticing every misplaced comma, wrong spelling or faulty punctuation, I have a decided antipathy to the precision needed for successful DIY. I have watched Garry labour over making kitchen cupboards fit into a space that is not the beautifully flat, square space they were designed for (apparently no wall in our house is straight and no angle at corners that you would expect!) with a doggedness and determination that I simply do not possess. I watched a friend sand doors in the kitchen with bewilderment: is all that effort really needed before you even start painting? It all seems too much like work to me!

The other thing I dislike so vehemently about DIY is the chaos it brings, as you can see from the pictures above. Things have to get bad before they get better. You can’t re-plaster a wall over existing fittings and furnishings, so everything has to be removed. I dislike the upheaval needed before progress can be seen. I know that the finished product will be better than the original (I now have 4 kitchen cupboards instead of 2, for example), but in the meantime, the disorder, untidiness, dust and general ‘where did I put…?’ of it all grinds me down.

Imagine my relief this morning then, when, having relocated my Bible and books, I read the following in Eugene Peterson’s commentary on Ephesians, ‘Practise Resurrection’:
“The practice of resurrection is not a do-it-yourself self-help project. It is God’s project and He is engaged full-time in carrying it out.”

Hurray! This resurrection life I live isn’t a DIY project! I don’t have to spend hours stripping sin from my life like the wallpaper off the wall: God has dealt with it in Christ at the cross and now He has removed my sin as far as the east is from the west! (Ps 103:12). I don’t have to work out how to please God: He looks at me and sees Christ’s righteousness! The verbs in Ephesians 1 are all verbs where God is doing the action. We are in on the action, to be sure, but we are no longer in the driver’s seat. This project, our great salvation and redemption, is God’s project. And He is more than capable of finishing what He has started! (Phil 1:6)

Keeping to the theme of famous weddings and famous couples, we had a quiz where we had to identify one disguised half of a famous couple. Sad to say, I only managed 9/20 on this quiz, which says a lot for my celebrity antennae…

Maybe you’ll do better? (Answers at the end of the post).





The main prizes were won by Debbie & Shane:

Answers:
1. Andre Agassi
2. Wilma Flintstone
4. Popeye
7. Ben Affleck
17. Catherine Zeta Jones