John R W Stott

Few evangelical clergy will have their death announced by the BBC, and the fact that we awoke this morning to this announcement on Radio 4 shows what a worldwide tour de force John Stott was. Churches around the world have been blessed by his ministry, tens of thousands of people have come to know Christ through his preaching, teaching, writing and godliness. Even more than that, tens of thousands of church leaders have better understood the Bible as God's word because of his ministry, and that influence has cascaded down to millions.
If you have no idea who John Stott was, then please, read some of his books:
The Radical Disciple
Basic Christianity
The Cross of Christ
The Living Church

Growing in grace

Any well-taught Christian will know that to grow in the knowledge and love of Christ, Bible reading and prayer are essential. But perhaps this has become something of a cliche.
For some, the problem is legalism or ritual; "So long as I've read my Bible and prayed, I'm OK with God and I must be 'going on' with him."
For others it may be intellectualism; "I've discovered the melodic line in 2 Peter and know what God said there."
And there are many other problems when it comes to Bible reading: anti-intellectualism (which at it's worst is just an excuse for self-indulgent and lazy emotionalism!), hypocrisy (the Bible always applies to someone else), and pride ("I know what it says, so I don't need to think about it again").
As for prayer, well there are different and possibly more complex problems: if our understanding of God's sovereignty and human responsibility is out of kilter, then we may become fatalistic and so stop praying, or at the other extreme, fail to believe that God answers prayer at all because we trust our own efforts too much. If God delays his answers to our prayers, then we can also begin to think that prayer is pointless. Distractions and lack of discipline also weaken our prayer life.
So what to do?
First, we need to rediscover what it means to ponder over God's word. I don't say 'meditate' because it has so many unbiblical connotations (e.g. emptying one's mind - something Christians are never encouraged to do). We often talk about 'studying the Bible', and while we should apply all our mental capacity as we read God's word, it's not academic study for its own sake. Reading God's word involves the mind, yes, but also the heart and the will. We need to ponder over our daily reading so as to allow the Spirit to engage our affections (which are deeper and more 'motivational' than mere emotions). Communication is always two way, so we need to bring God's word and our lives into contact with our life - our ambitions, our priorities, our passions, and the everyday practicalities of life. And this takes time.
This year I've been using a reading scheme to take me through the Bible in a year. No bad thing, but this morning, it meant reading 3 Psalms and 3 long chapters of Isaiah. Just reading these to gain a superficial understanding takes a good deal of time, so it's tempting to read them, tick them off, and move into prayer without really pondering what God's saying to me today. So I've decided to slow down. Some days, if the meaning is plain I'll read all 6 chapters, and still be able to ponder. But other days, a complex chapter might need more time to sort out the meaning and then allow the Holy Spirit time to apply it into my life and affections.

When it comes to prayer, I hesitate to say anything, but to quote Bunyan,

And verily, may I but speak my own experience, and from that tell you the difficulty of praying to God as I ought, it is enough to make your poor, blind, carnal men to entertain strange thoughts of me. For, as for my heart, when I go to pray, I find it so loth to go to God, and when it is with him, so loth to stay with him, that many times I am forced in my prayers, first to beg of God that he would take mine heart, and set it on himself in Christ, and when it is there, that he would keep it there.

 I found that quote in Michael Haykin's book, 'The God Who Draws Near', and Haykin goes on, 'Bunyan knew the allergic reaction of the sinful nature to the presence of God that still resides in the bosom of every believer. Instead of coming into God's radiant presence to pray, it wants to run out...' (p59).
I find that really helpful because it explains so bluntly why I find prayer so hard. And once I know the reason, I'm in a better place to deal with it. Not only that, but the guilt of praylessness is easier to confess when I know its origin, and everyone knows that guilt is one of the biggest inhibitors of prayer - guilt makes us flee from God.
So it is still absolutely true that prayer & Bible reading are essential for growth in grace. But I'm going to ponder more and, with the help of the Spirit, fight my sinful nature which, whenever I turn to prayer, points me to my emails, my to-do list, my diary or an untidy study.

Haykin points out a number of other helpful things, one of which is the importance of cultivating strong, helpful Christian friendships, and I'll leave you with this thought of Maurice Roberts, quoted on p75: 'Our best friends are those whose company most makes us afraid to sin.'

The privilege of church

1 Peter 2.9-12

Have a look around at St Peter's church this morning...

...I trust that everyone is looking at the living stones of the church and not the hard, dead, dry, stones of the building.

What do you see? A group of ordinary people? Men & women. Married & single. Widow & widower. An accountant, a plumber, a manager, a full-time mum, a receptionist, a surveyor, a nurse. Some younger, some older. Some retired, some at school...

As you look at St Peter's, you could see that and no more – a bunch of ordinary people who happen to be interested in Christianity. Perhaps you view us as more than that:

• we're a church – a C of E church – a church that's not growing fast, but has seen a slow but steady stream of people coming to faith.
• We're a united church and a caring community.
• We're a church which is struggling financially, but, thanks to the generosity of a few people and some grants from other organisations has managed to stay in the black – for now.

But, in fact, the reality of who and what we are is gloriously and wonderfully and infinitely greater than that:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  1 Peter 2:9f

So, we are God's chosen people.

That might sound incredibly arrogant – to claim that God has chosen us from amongst all the billions of people in the world is surely pretentious pomposity! But understood correctly, this claim actually drives us to our knees in humility. 

In verse 10, Peter says 'Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.' It is only because of God's great mercy to us that we are his people. God chose us, not because we were good or great. Not because we were deserving or worthy. Quite the opposite. God chose us when we were sinful, rebellious, dirty, no-hopers. 

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians who were in danger of becoming proud Christians, he said,

Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no-one might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

So there's absolutely no reason for Christians to be proud. We were the nothings & the nobodies. But God chose us because... we don't why, he just did. 

When we choose something, we look for the best – the best value, the best looking, the fastest, the most powerful, the most modern. And we learned this early on in the playground when we lined up to be chosen by the team captains for a game of football or rounders. The best or the most popular were always chosen first. The last person wasn't chosen at all – and everyone groaned when they realised that two-left-feet Fred would be on their team.

Well, we were the last, the least, the worst. And yet God chose us – he set his affections on us and was merciful to us, forgiving our sins & failings. We may be a chosen people, but we're not a choice people. But now, as his people, he is our one and only God. We serve no-one else because we belong to no-one else. We are God's chosen people and a royal priesthood

Priests are people who are appointed to offer sacrifices: Sacrifices to take away sin; and sacrifices of praise & thanksgiving. We know that we don't need anyone to offer sacrifices to take away our sin because Jesus has done that. And so when we come to the Lord's Supper, we say to God, 'We praise you especially for your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, who by his death on the cross offered once and for all time, the one true sacrifice for sin, reconciling us to you and satisfying your just demands.'

So we don't need to make any more sacrifices for sin, Jesus was the full & final sacrifice for all our sin and guilt. And now, with our sin forgiven, we're free to approach God – to come to him to offer sacrifices of praise, worship and thanksgiving. 

So at the end of v9, Peter says that God called us so that we might 'declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light'. Your calling, every bit as much as my calling, is to be a priest declaring the praises of God. And so Christians love to tell God how great his is and just how much he means to us. We love to sing his praise. And we love to encourage each other by singing God's praises. But we also love to tell non-Christians how incredible God is.

So just think about this: God chose you when you were rebellious & sinful; his Son, Jesus, willingly took away your sin and just punishment when he died for you; God called you out of the darkness of disobedience and filled you life with the light of life. He appointed you as priest to his royal majesty. Now as his priests, you will only find true satisfaction and joy when you fulfil your job description.

I know it's not always easy to praise God, and I find that it's hard to praise God when I've become absorbed in myself. But a few minutes thinking about the greatness of God, and praise can return. Use the Psalms, listen to some songs of worship, spend a few moments pondering the love of Christ and the sacrifice of the cross. Turn out from yourself to Christ.

One of the mistakes we make is to think that God saved us for our own sakes. But God saved us for his own sake – for his praise and glory. And the wonder of this is that we discover our purpose and our goal when we worship him: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

So we're God's chosen people and his royal priesthood. But there's still more: we're also a holy nation, a people belonging to God.

Had you ever thought of the church as a nation?

Yes, we have a national church – the Church of England – but that's very, very different from what we're talking about here. We're talking about the church universal – our congregation here together with churches in Kabul, Almaty, Sydney, Beijing, Guatemala, Asuncion and everywhere else – including the congregation of believers who have died and are with Christ – we together constitute God's holy nation. And each individual congregation is like an embassy of God's nation.

Every nation has it's distinctives – the Germans make things that work; the French cook; the Australians want to win everything. And in Britain, we have men who wear socks with sandals! And the church is holy – a people belonging to God.

Now holiness, as most of us know (and perhaps we're over-familiar with the idea) means that we are called out to be separated from the ways of the world, called to be special for God, called to belong to him. So, v9, we have been called by God out of the darkness of this world and into his wonderful light. And v10, we have received mercy. So, v11, we are urged to live as aliens and strangers in the world – we're people from another planet – planet heaven. And we're to live as aliens, and not conform to the beliefs & practices of the natives.

The church is often called to be more like the world – people within the church make this call – but we must resist it. The whole point of the church is to be holy; to be different from the world; to live in light when the world lives in darkness; to be holy as God is holy.

So we will not follow the sinful desires of the world – we must not crave what they crave. Of course it would be easier to give in to those desires, of course the world would stop criticising us if we adopted their morals and their ways, but then what would the point of the church be? Our rallying cry must be, 'We are God's holy people, and we will be God's holy people.'

Is this easy? No. Life is never easy for the stranger, for the person who is different from the majority. But even harder than the external pressures is the pressure from within our own hearts and minds. These sinful passions wage war within against us, v11 – and we must fight with all our strength to resist the invasion.

But this resistance isn't only to protect our own souls, it's also so that we can declare the wonders of God to the heathen population around us. We will not conform to their ways, but we will, by word and deed, invite them to join us in God's wonderful kingdom.

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

So we will do what is good. And we will allow our King – the Lord God himself – to determine what is good and what is not because we are his people. But as we do what is good in God's eyes, non-Christians will accuse us of doing what is wrong. We tend to think that this is something new – something that's only happened in the last 10 or 20 years. In fact, it's always been so.

And we shouldn't despair when the world criticises us for:

• wanting to preserve the life of every unborn child
• or to care for those who are terminally ill until life is taken by God
• or to uphold heterosexual marriage as the only good and right context for sexual activity.

Why shouldn't we despair? Because some might see our good deeds as good deeds, and so glorify God on the day he visits us. We never know when God will 'visit us' – I certainly didn't expect God to visit me in Leatherhead Leisure centre that day many years ago when he showed me that Jesus had died for me.

And so as you live a life that is very different from the lives of those around you, you never know when God will speak through your words or actions. You don't know if this year will be the year when, through your words and deeds, God will visit your non-Xn husband or wife, your friend, your colleague, and they begin to glorify God.

So we're not different from the world out there because we happen to come to church. We're different because God has chosen us to be his royal priesthood, his holy nation, his own people. And when we ponder the enormity of what God has done for us in Jesus, then surely we can't help ourselves – we simply have to declare it. Declare the praises of this amazing God: to God himself, to one another, to non-Christians.

And when we think about the people we now are, the surely we can't help ourselves – we simply have to live out what we have become – God's holy people.

Cornerstone or stumbling block?

1 Peter 2:4-8

It's estimated that c.135000 stood in the mud & rain to hear U2 at Glastonbury this year. Meanwhile a crowd of 1200 went to Glyndebourn to hear Mozart's Don Giovani.

Music has the capacity to unite crowds of people. And yet, I know only one person who would happily listen to U2 and Don Giovani – music also has the capacity to divide us in a way that few other things do.

It is also true that Jesus both unites and divides people. And in 1 Peter 2, Jesus is pictured as two different kinds of stone:

• the cornerstone of a temple bringing honour to those who trust in him;
• a stone that trips up, those who reject him, making them stumble and fall.

Which he is to you depends on your attitude to him. But while our attitude to music is of no consequence at all, our attitude to Jesus determines our relationship with God and our eternal destiny.

We begin with Jesus the living cornerstone.

If you look at 1 Peter 2 in the church Bible, you'll see that Peter gets his illustration of Jesus as a stone from the OT – the three quotations are clearly set out – two from Isaiah & one from Psalm 118. So, to understand what Peter's saying, we need to be reminded of what was happening when people first spoke about this stone.

God's people, Israel, was in a terrible state. In a report reminiscent of a tabloid exposé, Isaiah reveals that the nation is full of binge drinkers – even the priests and prophets he writes, 'stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine; they reel from beer, they stagger when seeing visions, they stumble when rendering decisions. All the tables are covered with vomit, and there is not a spot without filth.' The nation is proud and arrogant. They ignore God's word, saying that it's just gobbledegook.

But God will not allow his people to completely abandon him and plunge into utter oblivion. Yes, Assyria will conquer Israel, & destroy her cities, but God will rebuild his people:

“So this is what the Sovereign LORD says, 'See I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.'”

So through Isaiah God promised to rebuild his people around a chosen and precious cornerstone – one that will be a secure foundation for a new people. And when Israel was taken into captivity and Jerusalem was destroyed, the few who remained faithful to God began to look for the coming of a great ruler who would be this tested & precious cornerstone around and upon which God would rebuild his people.

And in passing, notice who this stone will be: Isaiah 8:13-15 shows that the stone is the LORD himself. But Jesus says that he himself is that stone – that chosen & precious cornerstone - thereby implicitly declaring his own divinity:

  “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them.  Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’  But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’  And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.  When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”  They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord's doing,

and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

So the fruitless people of God rejected God's messengers, the prophets, and even killed God's own Son. And even the people listening to Jesus could see that the response of God would be to 'bring those wretches to a wretched end' – to take the vineyard away from them – to take the kingdom of God away from them; and to give the vineyard to other tenants – to give the kingdom of God to a new people – a people who would produce good fruit for God.

So, whereas Jesus likened his new people to a vineyard, Peter speaks of a new temple - but the same principle underlies both:

Jesus says that his people will be a fruitful people for God's glory.

Peter says that they will be a new & living temple, offering their lives as spiritual sacrifices for God's glory.

And today, as we come to Jesus, the living stone, we also become like living stones, v2, Jesus shares his life with us. Without Christ we were hard, cold, dead stones, separated from God, unwilling and unable to please him. With Christ we become living stones – stones connected to God, filled with his Spirit, and shaped by God into stones that beautify his church and glorify him.

But perhaps you're wondering how you can gain this connection to the living stone? Perhaps you're somewhat envious of those whose Christian faith seems so powerful and precious.

Well, the answer could not be more straightforward, and yet at the same time it could hardly be more difficult or more important. The answer is there in v8 – 'the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame'. What God wants from us is that we trust Jesus Christ to be the foundation for life – it's as simple as that. As we entrust ourselves to Christ so he shares his life with us, and draws us into a living relationship with God.

But to make Jesus Christ our foundation means abandoning all other foundations for life and hope. And that's not so easy. All of our life we're told to trust ourselves – to make our own rules and follow our own moral code. Such a transfer of allegiance and trust isn't easy, but God doesn't ask us to make the move alone. God himself offers to help, 'whoever comes to me I will never drive away', said Jesus. And, 'knock and the door will be opened to you'. So if you're struggling to make the move from self to Christ, then ask – cry out to God to help you.

For those who do put their trust in Christ as the cornerstone of life, there's a promise that Peter echoes from Isaiah: that you will never be put to shame – that he will never humiliate or dishonour you. In fact, the reverse is true – God will honour you.

That's what v7 should say. Literally translated it means, 'Therefore the honour is to those who believe'. (ESV: "So the honor is for you who believe."). I can only imagine that the translators of the NIV couldn't bring themselves to say that believers will be honoured by God. But that's what Peter actually says – and he's echoing the words of Jesus, who said as he prayed, 'Father... the glory that you have given me I have given to those who believe in me'. Ponder that for a moment - the glory that God has given to his eternal Son, the Son gives to we who believe!!

So there is this astonishing mutuality in our relationship with God. Although he is God and we are merely his creatures, yet when we honour & glorify his Son, he honours & glorifies us. This means that although entrusting ourselves to him may seem a high risk strategy, in fact it's no risk at all. By aligning ourselves with God our future is assured because Jesus Christ will honour & glorify us as he has himself is honoured and glorified by his Father.

However, there's an ominous 'but' in the middle of v7; 

'But, to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone', and 'a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.'

They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for.'

Again, Peter echoes what Jesus said in his parable of the vineyard – those who reject Jesus end up being rejected. At the end of the parable, the Chief Priests and Pharisees knew that Jesus was talking about them. So they looked for a way to arrest him. And soon enough they did arrest him. And he was falsely accused and found guilty. When he was hung on the cross to die, they thought they'd got rid of him. But they only succeeded in sending him through death to resurrection and ascension to God's right hand where he will judge the living and the dead.

So in his book on 1 Peter, Leonhard Goppelt, says, Christ is laid across the path of humanity on its course into the future. In the encounter with him each person is changed: one for salvation, another for destruction... One cannot simply step over Jesus to go on about the daily routine and pass him by to build a future. Whoever encounters him is inescapably changed through the encounter.

Either you come to Jesus the living stone, and become a living stone yourself. Or you stumble over him and fall from him. In which case you are discarded and excluded from his life.

When it comes to music, it really doesn't matter whether you like opera or not. Whether you like U2 or not. It's just personal choice and there are no consequences. But when it comes to Jesus it is much more than just a matter of personal choice. Your choice matters.

This is more like a decision about whether or not to take life-saving medication. Only it's even more important than that. Your decision about Jesus Christ stays with you beyond the grave and into eternity.

Don't give up!

I'm in the middle of preparing a school assembly on prayer, but it seems that God has a message for me & St Peter's church. The passage is Luke 18:1-8, and Luke leaves us in no doubt as to the meaning of the parable:

Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

The application? Well, yes to prayer in general, but perhaps more specifically to our prayers that God would send us a musician. We've been praying along these lines for several months, and so far there's been no positive answer. But 'don't give up' is the message, 'keep praying, keep asking; individually and together, persevere in prayer.'

The wonders of the Trinity

Mention the Trinity and most Christians (including preacher-teachers) shrug their shoulders and say they can't explain him properly. That's a dreadful state of affairs in terms of our own faith and in terms of evangelism, and it's why I spent last week at Westminster College at the the Cambridge Summer School, run by Christian Heritage.
The speaker was Don Fairbairn, Professor of Historical Theology at Erskine Theological Seminary, South Carolina; a delightful and humble man with a golf handicap of less than 10!
Don's teaching reminded us of how the three persons of the Trinity each possesses the 'divine identity' (a phrase from Richard Bauckham). In other words the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit each possess all of the characteristics of God-ness, and are therefore united as one God. No other real or imaginary god possesses these characteristics, and so there is only one true God.
But the really important aspect of Don's teaching was his emphasis on the relationship between the Father and the Son, and how, when we are united to Christ by faith, we share in this relationship. So, in John 13-17 Jesus reveals how we, as his redeemed people, can now and will in the future, share in the fellowship between the Father & the Son:

if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  (14:3)

 in the Father-Son relationship of leader-follower:

I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them (14:20f). I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me (14:31).

in the love of the Father-Son relationship (and notice how love and obedience go together):

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  (15:9f)

in the joy of the Son:

I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (15:11)

in the knowledge that the Son has of the Father:

You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  (15:14f)

and even in the opposition from the world:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. (15:18-24).

in the generosity of the Father:

In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. “Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. (16:24-27)

There's much more in these chapters, but this idea of sharing in the relationship of the Father & the Son isn't just in John 13-17 . Think of how Paul speaks of our being 'in Christ', 'seated in the heavenly realms', 'adopted as sons of God', united in Christ etc., in different ways all of these contain an echo of Christ's relationship with his Father - a relationship which we now have the glory of sharing!
And one application of this: we tend to think of Christian service as a burdensome command. But surely to love as Christ loved and serve as he served is not a burden but a wonderful, glorious privilege! If we could really understand and believe this, wouldn't it transform our attitude towards serving God's people, the church, and towards loving non-Christians in the way Christ loved us while we were still sinners?