The 'if' of Covenant

Yesterday I preached my penultimate sermon in our Joshua series: Living Life Without the Fear. (See videos here) My focus was on Joshua's final words to the Israelite leadership in Joshua 23.

After stressing the importance of an individuals final words using the illustration of the scene of the frog king in Shrek 3 where he draws Shrek close to him to tell him essential words. I called the people of X1 to heed the emphasis of verse 11 in this chapter:

"So be very careful to love the LORD your God."

The words here talk of a 'cleaving' to God. The verse speaks of a steadfast, diligent and applied watching of our relationship with God in order not to fail in our fulfillment of our part in our covenant relationship with the Lord. I spoke of the many warnings and exhortations in the NT not to turn away, or fall away from God, or to entertain temptation by not resisting the devil written not to unbelievers but to believers.

Joshua speaks here of God being astonishingly faithful to His part of His covenant with the Israelites but also of the dire consequences that come from not ' being very careful to love God.' Tragically, and I feel the words I'll quote now are some of the saddest in all of scripture, the Israelites do not listen and intermingle with the destructive spirituality/immorality of the nations surrounding them with this result

"The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel...After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel." - Judges 2: 7, 10

This is so possible for us as the people of God in a generation virtually devoid of a God-consciousness saturated in consumerism and materialism and pluralism (all faiths are the same). He can have, and does have, such stunning promises and grace towards us to live life truly abundantly in the power of the Spirit, but we can forget to 'be very careful to love the Lord our God' and not enjoy any benefits of relationship with Him.
We will not lose the justification that comes from our being renewed by Him in new birth but we certainly can live out a life of mundane, legalistic, apathetic, guilt-ridden obedience earthed in human striving instead of Spirit-empowered joy filled loving obedience and we must be careful to heed the words of Joshua and the other biblical authors to ensure that does not happen.

Seek strength in His Spirit, as Jesus said, "If you love me you will obey what I command."

Simon

On NOT speaking on 'Tithing.'

This week at X1 I had the joy/challenge of speaking, or NOT, speaking on tithing to our people. The reason it is a challenge is twofold really, I feel.
Firstly, you are entering into a great emotionally charged/ 'do not invade' space of the western believer's psyche. This is one of those 'do not go there' areas of our walk. The personal area where it is hard to determine how a church leadership displays any God-given authority.
Secondly, as I mentioned to the people of X1 on Sunday, it is a definite Spiritual Warfare battleground because we are confronting a very significant idol in the Western world. As a preacher and leader entering into this territory it is a case of 'get locked and loaded,' put on that 'heavenly armor' and get ready for some attack. As I suggested to the congregation it is akin to confronting biblically people from my home country of Zimbabwe about Ancestral Worship (African Traditional Religion) and declaring that these idols are to be knocked off their perches by the only true, living God. Some of you may know how that goes - speaking about money here is engaging in similar combat but the enemy here appears to wear far more inconspicuous clothing and one wonders where he is actively gunning people down.

My preaching was out of Joshua 21 continuing on in our series in Joshua - 'Living Life without the Fear.' Here we see the Levites given their cities out of the inheritance of their fellow Israelites and the obvious point is that without the God-honoring, other-centered obedience of the Israelites there would be no Levite cities to speak of.
Without them giving 48 of their cities and giving of their grain, livestock and income there would be no places of Spiritual input and direction within the nation of Israel. These Levite cities were the Spiritual Communities offering TRUTH, JUSTICE & MERCY within the Israelite community - which like any other human society (as seen by the tragic and dreadful Cumbria shootings of last week) was/is fragile and fractured and prone to soul-atrophying, rebel-making distance from God.

We too as God's people have the great joy and privilege (According to Paul in II Cor. 8 & 9) to give generously as tasters of God's grace in Christ to the building of Levite cities within our own fractured and fragile communities. And nowhere is it meant to be 10% - the NT makes absolutely no obligation along the lines of a percentile of your income it is purely as an overflow of being transformed by the grace of God and wanting true 'equality' for all people and 'investing' in such through their local 'home of spiritual sustenance' and hub for God's mission - the local Church.

I can only hope the people of X1 will arise to give much to see X1 truly be a Spiritual Community offering refuge, hope and direction to the community in Watford. It should not be my compulsion but a resposiveness to their tasting of the abundant, lavish grace of God.

Blessings
SLJ

Joshua's Gilgal and Calvary

A true joy of being called to 'feed' the flock God has enabled us to lead as an Eldership here at X1 is that of searching deeply multiple resources to provide the most beneficial sustenance possible. I love this, even when it is a chore (as it can be demanding spending 10 - 15 hours a week preparing a sermon) as the input it gives to me personally is great - I only pray it will have the same effect on those who hear the sermon weekly.
With that said I want to highlight a brilliant quote from one of the commentaries I am using for the "Living Life without the Fear" series here at X1 in relation to the camp of Gilgal as a 'Spiritual Home Base' for the Israelites. The quote is from the British Expositor Alan Redpath and it gives a 'fascinating parallel between Gilgal and Calvary:

"May I remind you of the great words of NT truth and salvation which have their roots deeply imbedded in Gilgal. Here they are; refresh your memory. It was a place of rememberance, where all of God's people together went down unto death; it was a place of resurrection, where together they came up with their leader into life. It was a place of renunciation, where they cast off the carnal existence of the wilderness; it was a place of restoration, where they came again into fellowship with the lord. It was a place of realization, where they began to taste of the strong food of the land; it was the place of revelation, where they met their captain with a drawn sword.
The Christian life has its own roots firmly imbedded in Calvary, the place where we died with Jesus and rose with Him, where we have deliberately renounced carnality and have entered into a living fellowship with our Lord, where we have begun to take the strong food of His Word and to realize every moment of our lives that the Captain of the Lord's hosts is with us."

Yes o Yes - the great victory of Calvary!

Simon

"Living life without the Fear" Week 12

Finally made our way back into the book of Joshua after a break for Advent and early January. We have got to chapter 4 after 12 weeks in the book, strangely although that may seem like slow progress there is much more content in those first 3 chapter we could have lingered over.
I took this week speak to our church quite personally as I saw this moment in the life of the Israelites and their Godly leader Joshua mirroring our situation currently.
Here is a break down of the sermon:

LIVING LIFE WITHOUT THE FEAR
I reminded us again that we live in a 'culture of fear', check this quote out as a reference to exactly that

“The culture of fear is not a spontaneous reaction by the public to a truly dangerous world. The worldwide anthrax panic sparked by a handful of anthrax-related deaths in America shortly after 9/11 was not caused by a genuine and widespread mortal danger facing US and European citizens. Our propensity to panic about everything from child abductions to mobile phones does not come from the fact that modern life contains more risks than ever before - on the level of everyday reality, the opposite is the case. . . . The culture of fear comes from the top down. It comes from society's leaders, and their inability to lead. . . .” – Jennie Bristow

If we allow fear to enter our faith relationship with Christ, if we are drawn into our fear culture and defined by such rather than being transformed into the likeness of Christ - we will not know the Spiritual blessings in Christ

Fear is a grave enemy of faith!

A MIRROR MOMENT
At this time I recognized that there is immense theological significance in this passage but that at this time I wanted to highlight how this moment mirrors our life as a church.
We as a church have set aside this year to seek Greater Health through Greater Impact and one of the core values we have as a church that needs to be embraced, owned, is this
“WE VALUE THE GIVING OF OUR LIVES, OUR TIME, AND OUR MONEY TO GOD’S MISSION”
If we become a serving people, caught up in the mission of X1 to fulfill the mandate of Christ in Matt. 28 then we will know joy, but as in this passage some things need to be in place -

LEADERS LED BY ‘THE’ LEADER
4: 1 – 3 “The Lord said to Joshua...” Here we see that Joshua is not the real, ultimate leader of the Israelites. And that is so true of X1 as a people. We, your elders are not the leaders of this church. We are a leadership that, like Joshua, are led by Jesus Christ who is actually the leader of ChristFirst.

ANONYMOUS, OBEDIENT & UNIFIED SERVANTS OF THE MISSION
4: 4 – 8 “So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them...”
Here the scripture expose a stunning truth about leadership – Any great Christian leader is surrounded by obedient, unified, co-warriors working together to fulfil the mission for the glory of God and the joy of the people. (Ps. 84: 10; I Cor. 12;Eph. 2: 14 – 22)
These 12 men were anonymous – they are never named – but get this they were absorbed into the building of a sign that would testify to the faithfulness, mercy and awesome power of God to future generations.

SELFLESS SERVANTHOOD
4: 10 – 13 “The men of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over, armed, in front of the Israelites...”(1: 12 – 13; Deut. 3: 18)
These men who had already claimed their inheritance served the mission and joy of the other Israelites.
This has been true of the initial core group of people who came with us to VUe cinema but...
It is time now for us all to rise up and claim our inheritance: To live a life of joyous, obedient mission, realizing the stunning life there is to be had in giving our all to see a church that actually affects the culture of a whole town.

The call to serve the mission of X1 - GET IN!

Simon

Here are the Joshua series Videos Part IV - thanks Vimeo

11-10-2009 - Simon LJ - Joshua - Part 1 #1 from X1 Video on Vimeo.