As we REALLY should be.

Surely the role of a church leader must be to orchestrate, to guide, to lovingly lead a people who as a whole reflect the life and love of Jesus -simple hey? NOT! It is obviously lifelong, perhaps even unattainable in this life, but, that said, it is our goal. It is certainly my goal.
There are obviously a myriad of things that hinder such 'reflection' (this is a pivotal idea/word for the Theological Aesthetics that I believe is becoming the essential Theological stance I am drawn to take - Led there primarily by Jonathan Edwards and Hans Urs von Balthasar).
One major hindrance is what I will term 'absorption'. It is really a term to denote the osmotic process of Christian people adapting to and living by the values and ethics of the culture in which they live. There is no malevolent ambition behind this it is simply an adapting or a giving over of the radical ethical values of New Testament Christianity to those which are far easier to live by.
One small section of scripture is perhaps sufficient to expose the ease with which 'absorption' redefines our essence as the people of God and stains or muddies our reflection of Christ.

It is from Ephesians Chapter 5 and is the third & fourth verse:

"...sexual immorality, and all uncleanness, or greediness, must not even be named among you (as is fitting for saints), and obscenity, and foolish talk, or coarse jesting..."

What Paul is here impressing upon us as a model of living would, I absolutely assure you, be laughed down and cast out as a model of life for the majority of believers whom I lead and with whom I interact. Hey let me say it more effectively: it is a model of life I, yes 'Pastor' me, would say is not REALLY one by which we are meant to live today. I've said from our pulpit that I am stunned at some of the DVDs in the collections of X1ers; John Piper, speaking to aspiring Pastors, highlights that he could never ever watch many of the films those listening to him speak would consider entertainment.

Challenging?
I know!

Absorption has certainly drawn me away from the biblical model of life. It is the power of the Spirit, not renewed striving that will draw me - any of us - back to that lifestyle which Paul intimates here.

Simon

Grace Tasters

This Sunday I have the great pleasure of preaching one of the sermons in our series Town Takers. It feels like forever since I preached; it isn't but when you always want to do it every extended period when one doesn't get a chance can feel an age. It is critical for our church and for the ongoing development of the brilliant guys brought here to us at X1 that others get to preach (or learn to preach, or teach - long discussion!).

I am preaching on Grace with this fundamental premise: Grace Tasted is Grace Treasured is Grace Transferred. Sadly there can be a vicious disconnect between those three or between two of the the three at the very least. As part of my exhortation that Grace must be tasted I felt it helpful to expose us to the glorious articulation - the effusive overflow really - of several of my 'Giants of Faith" as they tasted grace. So without further ado, ingest these delights!
(Note Jonathan Edwards has an obligatory feature!)

"But where was my free will during all those years and from what deep and secret retreat was it called forth in a single moment, so I gave my neck to your "easy yoke" and my shoulders to your "light burden," O Christ Jesus, "my Strength and my Redeemer"? How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the sweetness of petty things! And it was now a joy to put away what I formerly feared to lose. For you cast them away from me, O true and highest Sweetness. You cast them away, and in their place you entered in yourself -- sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled than all mystery; more exalted than all honor, though not to them that are exalted in their own eyes. Now was my soul free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting, of wallowing in the mire and scratching the itch of lust. And I talked like a child to You, O Lord my God -- my light, my riches, and my salvation." - St. Augustine

“One day as I was passing into the field, with some dashes on my conscience, fearing yet that all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, “Your righteousness is in heaven.” I thought I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God’s right hand. There was my righteousness. Wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me that I lacked His righteousness, for that was ever before Him. Moreover, I saw that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, “the same yesterday, today, and for ever”.
“Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions and irons, my temptations also fled away.” - John Bunyan

"I remember that sort of inward, sweet delight in God and divine things that I have lived much in since, was on reading those words, I Tim. 1:17. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever, Amen. As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before ... I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to him in heaven, and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever! ...
From about that time, I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ. and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by him. An inward, sweet sense of these things, at times, came into my heart; and my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them. ... The sense I had of divine things, would often of a sudden kindle up, as it were, a sweet burning in my heart; an ardor of soul, that I know not how to express." - Jonathan Edwards

You tasted grace, can you articulate it, does it look like you have?

Simon

100% and 100% = 100%

We had a brilliant discussion at our X1 Explore group last night (check out more about Explore groups here). We met in the home of two single men (pre-legends I may say) who hosted excellently and one of them leading on the evening asked this, deliberately difficult, question, "In living life for Christ, who's responsibility is it to obey, God's or ours?" The response, the ensuing confusion, dare I say the apparent tension proved it's effect! (Questions can be hard, and can force us to have to REALLY think, it's not a sin!)

For many the conclusion was, "It's 50-50. 50% God and 50% us." Wrong! It's All God all us! It's 100% God and a 100% us. It is a delightful insight first highlighted to me by the ever-remarkable Jonathan Edwards and, fortunately, an insight profiled by John Piper on Twitter on July 4th for his invite to Desiring God's Upcoming Conference, "Act the Miracle" (See link here).

Here is Piper quoting directly from Edwards

"We are not merely passive in [efficacious grace], nor yet does God do some and we do the rest, but God does all and we do all. God produces all and we act all. For that is what he produces, our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are in different respects wholly passive and wholly active.

So God is said to convert [2 Timothy 2:25], and men are said to convert [Luke 11:32], or turn. God makes a new heart [Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26], and we are commanded to make us a new heart [Ezekiel 18:31]. God circumcises the heart [Deuteronomy 30:6], and we are commanded to circumcise [our hearts, (Deuteronomy 10:16)]. Not merely because we must use the means in order to the effect, but the effect itself is our act and our duty." (Writings on The Trinity, Grace, and Faith, WJE Online Vol. 21, 251.)

Thus Edwards exhorts us:

"I would earnestly exhort those who hear me, to make to themselves a pure heart (James 4:8). Though it be God's work to purify the heart [Psalm 51:2], yet the actual, or rather the active, procuring of it is your act. . .

We must not think to excuse ourselves by saying that it is God's work, that we cannot purify our own hearts; for though it be God's work in one sense, yet it is equally our work in another; James 4:8, "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded."

If you do not engage in this work yourselves, and purify your own hearts, they will never be pure. If you do not get a pure heart, the blame of it will be laid to your own backwardness." (Sermons and Discourses, 1730-33, WJE Online Vol. 17, 85)

Even John Piper on his brief commentary for these words of Edwards for the invite notes that this is what? Yip, paradox!

Do ALL you can to obey God, He'll do His bit I assure you!

Simon

Edwards on Christian love, giving and the poor.

In a simply excellent book I am reading through which is a thorough overview of the theology of one of the greatest Theologians to have lived, Jonathan Edwards, I have encountered these thoughts in relation to Edwards' on Christians and the poor:

"He preached to his church in Northampton that charity to the poor was a Christian duty as important as prayer or church attendance. No commandment was 'laid down in stronger terms' than the commandment of giving to the poor. It was therefore an all-important test of grace [This means a test of whether one was in grace - controversial I know!]. 'And the scripture is as plain as it is possible it should be, that none are true saints, but those whose true character it is, that they are of a disposition to pity and relieve their fellow creatures, that are poor, indigent, and afflicted.' ..."

"... Edwards practiced what he preached. His first biographer, disciple Samuel Hopkins, who lived in the Edwards home for 6 months, reported that Edwards was a stellar example of giving to the poor and usually did it secretly -- despite his having a large family to support and remaining in debt for most of his career ... Hopkins told of a time that Edwards heard of a family in another town that had fallen into poverty because the father had become sick. Edwards made arrangements to have the man receive a bundle of money without knowing its source. Among his last words on his deathbed were the following: 'May my funeral be like Mr. Burr's, without pomp and cost. Any additional sums of money, that might be expected to be laid out that way, I would have it disposed of to charitable uses.'" - The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (519)

God has a radically open and gracious heart to the poor, as did Edwards. Do we? Does our church/es?

Sow people, sow and be God-like!

Jonathan Edwards on the 'minister.'

A little taste of Jonathan Edwards' thoughts on a minister/pastor/church leader;

"If the minister is to be successful watching over his flock, he must be a man of 'holy ardour. It is not enough to have 'speculative knowledge or opinions, or outward morality or forms of religion.' True faith 'is an ardent thing with true spiritual comfort or joy.' The heart of the good minister 'blazes with divine love or charity,' which is 'a holy flame enkindled in the soul.' He will likely suffer reproaches and defeats if he preaches the true gospel, but he will still have an inner power that comes from the 'participation in the divine nature',' which is a divine principle -- 'the life of a risen Saviour, who exerts himself in the hearts' of all true saints and their ministers. The Saviour will within will inspire a love to both Christ and human souls. That love will produce a fervour or zeal that animates the minister's prayer, preaching, exercise of church discipline and counselling.

A life of secret prayer is what keeps the inner flame growing brightly. Ministers 'should be much in seeking God, and conversing with him by prayer who is the fountain of light and love.'"

Quoted from The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, McClymond and McDermot (2011)

Edwards on the Tragedy of the Fall & Redemption

Check this out from JE on the fall and redemption:

"The ruin which the Fall brought upon the soul of man consists very much in that he lost his nobler and more extensive principles, and fell wholly under the government of self-love. He is debased in his nature and become little and ignoble. Immediately upon the Fall the mind of man shrunk from its primitive greatness and extensiveness into an exceeding diminution and confinedness. As in other respects, so in this, that whereas before his soul was under the government of that noble principle of divine love whereby it was, as it were, enlarged to a kind of comprehension of all his fellow creatures; and not only so, but was not confined within such strait limits as the bounds of the creation but was extended to the Creator, and dispersed itself abroad in that infinite ocean of good and was, as it were, swallowed up by it, and become one with it. But as soon as he had transgressed, those nobler principles were immediately lost and all this excellent enlargedness of his soul was gone and he thenceforward shrunk into a little point, circumscribed and closely shut up within itself to the exclusion of others. God was forsaken and fellow creatures forsaken, and man retired within himself and became wholly governed by narrow, selfish principles. Self-love became absolute master of his soul, the more noble and spiritual principles having taken warning and fled. But God hath in mercy to miserable man contrived in the work of redemption, and by the glorious gospel of his Son, to bring the soul of man out of its confinement, and again to infuse those noble and divine principles by which it was governed at first. And so Christianity restores an excellent enlargement and extensiveness to the soul. It again possesses it of divine love or that Christian charity of which we read in the text, whereby it again embraces its fellow creatures and is devoted to and swallowed up in the Creator."

Charity & Its Fruits (Yale Ed. Vol. 8) Pg. 252-4