driven to drink

I suppose I should consider myself duly honoured.

I’ve been chosen to judge the relative merits and qualities of potential new celebrities.

This is not some merely parochial thing, I should quickly add.

It’s never actually happened to me (yet – but please don’t read this as a hint that I would like the job, I’ve got more than enough to keep me thoroughly occupied) – it’s never actually happened to me, but there is [at least for some, I guess] a certain dubious ‘kudos’ in being invited to judge, for instance, a Woman’s Rural jam-making competition.

I can see why they might invite the local minister for such a task. They’d presume upon his honesty and conclude that in this jam-maker-eats-jam-maker sort of scenario, and against a backdrop of increasingly widespread ‘match-fixing’, he’d be less liable than some to accept sticky back-handers from contestants in this sport.

And they’d perhaps presume as well that he’d be as well placed as any to handle with great pastoral sensitivity and wisdom the likely fall-out of mutual recriminations, emotional distress, and relational tensions.

As I say, I’ve yet to be asked to fulfil such a role as the local parish minister. But I guess if I were to be asked, I’d take it as an honour, reflective of the high regard in which I was held by these matriarchal leaders of this thriving local realm.

How much greater the honour, then, to be asked to fulfil such a role at a national level! I have to say the invitation took me completely by surprise: I had to read it twice to be sure it was really me they were  inviting.

I mean, this is ‘Move-over-Simon-Cowell’ stuff – the platform, perhaps, for some widespread national recognition. Who knows?

And I suppose, as I said at the start, I should have felt duly honoured by the fact I’d been invited. But right from the start, there was a certain nagging feeling that I maybe shouldn’t build my hopes too high or read too much into this invitation.

Why?

Well, the invitation started very warmly.

“Jeremy, come and judge…”

It was personal right from the start. They knew me, plainly. And knew me well enough not only to address me on Christian name terms, but to know how suitable a judge I would be.

The date for the judging was unfortunate. That was the first thing that made me suspect that perhaps they didn’t know me quite as well as they’d seemed to suggest.

The competition’s being held on the 29th April. Check your diaries. It’s a Sunday. Not exactly the best of days for an extra-curricular national responsibility. Not for a guy like me, anyway. How well do these folk actually know me?

‘Jeremy’ as a form of address began to seem ever so slightly ‘forward’, just a little bit presumptuous on their part.

However, if that particular detail about the date aroused my suspicions, the nature of the task they were asking me to be doing made me rather more incredulous.

They were asking me to judge some new beers. This is Sainsbury’s 2012 Great British Beer Hunt: and they were looking to me to adjudicate.

Along with (presumably) a metaphorical half-a-million others.

A singular honour, I’m sure.

But despite their personalised, e-mailed invitation, the fact that I’m otherwise occupied on a Sunday every week, the fact that I’m not in truth a beer-drinker (and therefore plainly not a connoisseur of any sort), and the fact that I only very rarely (and always entirely randomly) have occasion to buy any beer, combined to make me feel, and suspect, that I was little more than a name pulled from a bag (one of their re-usable ones, doubtless).

Which, despite the hype in the invite, sucked any life there had been in the sense of the thing being an honour. I was simply a pawn in a marketing move on the cut-throat chessboard of supermarket supremacy.

It was cyberspace junk-mail.

It crossed my mind that that’s the very nature of the line the devil adopts. Temptations are examples of his advertising genius: so attractive, so persuasive, so complimentary.

‘Jeremy’. So very personal, warm and friendly. He knows me so well! He thinks of me so highly! He likes me so much!

‘Come and judge …’ You’re so wise, so knowledgeable: your opinion counts for so much, your judgments are so astute, your experience is so valued.

He flatters only to deceive.

You are the best, you deserve the best, you shall have the best.

It’s simply spiritual junk-mail. The sort of thing that came through Jesus’ ‘letterbox’ on the parched wilderness of Judaea: three times over. The ‘temptations’.

The sort of thing we all have coming through the postbox to our souls. Junk-mail. Presenting as such an honour. Offering such desirable things. But resulting in only shame.

What an upside down world is the world of today’s advertising!

The Advertising Standards Authority down in London have received a complaint [they dismissed it later] that the adverts presently appearing on buses here in Edinburgh, and saying simply trypraying, are “detrimental to the psychological wellbeing of people by giving them false hope.”

Don’t laugh too quickly or too loudly. The self-same ASA recently upheld a complaint against the ‘Healing on the Streets’ team in Bath because their website stated that “God can heal.”

Presumably that, too, is thoroughly detrimental to the psychological well-being of people. Commending the God who heals is now harmful to your health.

Naaman was fortunate enough to live in Syria rather than Bath. And his Israelite servant girl, thankfully for him, didn’t have a website.

Otherwise the Bible would have been a chapter short. 2 Kings 5 simply wouldn’t be there. A circumstance perhaps only a man by the name of Gehazi would have welcomed.

Of course, no one objects when the adverts for beer are paraded across our screens and streets and down the sides of buses, suggesting that this will really make a man of you, this will satisfy your longings and will slate your thirst.

The Junk-mail, beer-drinkers’ flattery.

You are the best, you deserve the best, you’ll have the best.

No word of the beer being potentially “detrimental to the physical well-being of people.” No hint of the damage the beer may cause to your waist line or your liver. No mention of the harm that’s brought to countless homes and families and the often fatal accidents occasioned by such drink.

What an upside down world it is when objections are made to trypraying along the side of an Edinburgh bus, but none are raised if those buses instead suggest you tryboozing.

Crazy. It’s enough to drive some to drink.

But “God can heal”?

Well, yes, I’ll happily be the judge of that!

survival kit

Sunday past saw us face to face with some pretty searching questions. Like, what’s the point of seeking to honour the Lord when the bad guys seem to flourish and get off ‘scot free’ – and those who seek to obey the Lord get nothing but troubles  and trials?

That sort of theme touches a load of raw nerves. A lot of our folk are being dragged through the mill. Struggles, sorrows, setbacks, strife. A catalogue of crises which resembles the experience of Job.

It doesn’t take much to start thinking along these lines – what’s the point? It doesn’t seem to pay.

Of course, that’s not only not true – in an ultimate sense at any rate – it’s also not that relevant. We’re not in it at all for the ‘pay’ – whatever that might mean.

The afore-mentioned Job didn’t obey God because it paid. It was only the below-the-belt allegation of Satan which suggested that about this godly man’s motivation.

He’s only pious and godly because it pays, claimed Satan. It’s not altruism which Job shows (this was his charge), so much as greed: not a desire to glorify God so much as a concern to advance himself. It’s idolatry dressed up as worship.

There’s a lot of that around today, certainly. You see it every time a person drifts off in a huff with the Lord because he hasn’t delivered the goods – or delivered the goods in the way the person desired.

That’s idolatry dressed up as worship. Into ‘religion’ (in this case Christianity) for what we can get out of it. We’ll continue to pay our subscription as long as we feel we’re still getting value for money.

There’s a good deal more of that around than we maybe like to think. It’s a subtle contemporary heresy. Because at its heart lies the undisclosed, and ultimately blasphemous, conviction that the customer is king.

Of course that’s not the way things are. We’re not in truth ‘customers’ so much as creatures, dependent for our every breath on the grace and goodness of God. And the Creator is king, and never for a moment his creatures.

We’re not servants of the Lord for the pay.

We serve him out of gratitude and love. What we’ve already been given in Jesus Christ is infinitely more than we could ever deserve. And even if we’d been given nothing, when once we’ve caught a glimpse of the beauty and glory of our matchless Creator and King, we’re glad, in adoring love, to pour out our all, without a thought for anything given in return.

We’re not serving the Lord for the pay.

The way this week has begun serves simply to highlight that truth. Sorrow and hardship is rife in this world.

I encountered a man whose lovely young wife has been rushed to emergency care in the local general hospital.

A woman who’s had a condition that’s seen her in and out of hospital most of her life, and who’s coped with that so brightly, bravely and defiantly, is now facing yet another massive crisis.

A friend whom I’ve known for 40 years totters now between life and death having sought to take his own life. A lovely guy, simple, down to earth, and wanting to make a go of life; seeking, searching, open to knowing the Lord. And then in the darkness of the spirit, it’s all become too much for him.

Bad things happen to the good guys.

We need to know how to handle that reality. And that’s why we’re given the Scriptures. Malachi was pretty moving stuff last Sunday morning.

I called it The strugglers’ survival kit. And we all need it: and need to learn to use it.

It’s not complicated. And what Malachi says is replicated all the way through Scripture.

Get your eyes on God – he doesn’t change. He’s wise, he’s kind, he’s strong, he’s  good, he’s king. None of that ever changes. Check out the cross on which Jesus died any time you doubt it.

Get talking with fellow-believers. Meet with them often; pray with them; let them pray with, and pray for, you. Support each other, encourage each others, sustain each other, exhort each other. Christians do it together. We need each other.

Get focussed on the future. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, wrote the great apostle Paul, we are to be pitied more than all men.

We don’t live for the here and now. We live for the future which the Lord has secured for us and promised to us in his Son.

You will be mine, insists the Lord through Malachi – you will be his for all eternity: you’ll belong.

You will be spared, insists the Lord further; there is, and there will be, no condemnation.

And you will be safe.

It’s a future always worth waiting for. And we finished with that lovely song by Krystin Lennox and Keith Getty –

There is a higher throne
Than all this world has known,
Where faithful ones from every tongue
Will one day come.
Before the Son we’ll stand,
Made faultless through the Lamb;
Believing hearts find promised grace:
Salvation comes.

2. Hear heaven’s voices sing;
Their thunderous anthem rings
Through emerald courts and sapphire skies.
Their praises rise.
All glory, wisdom, power,
Strength, thanks, and honour are
To God our King, who reigns on high
Forever more.

3. And there we’ll find our home,
Our life before the throne;
We’ll honour Him in perfect song
Where we belong.
He’ll wipe each tear-stained eye
As thirst and hunger die;
The Lamb becomes our Shepherd King;
We’ll reign with Him.

© 2002 Thankyou Music

the demands of grace and the dictates of law

Sometimes behind the question a person asks there’s a whole queue of people wanting to ask the same (or a similar) question – but either too afraid or too busy to ask it themselves.

After last Sunday’s message from Malachi where the challenge which the Lord directs to his people is in essence – Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse: test me in this and see if I will not open the floodgates of heaven… – I had a question from someone basically about how that applied to their own particular situation.

The person is neither wealthy nor with anything other than a very low income: she’s a student – a student who loves the Lord, and is glad to give of her time and energies in her involvement in SU camps.

She has to pay for the privilege of sharing thus in the work of God – and is more than happy to do so: but when that cost has already eaten into her rather meagre income, should she still be thinking of giving 10% of that income as her financial offering to the Lord?

She’s a young woman of real integrity and wants to do right by the Lord.

I guess it’s a question which in one way or another a good many folk will often want to ask (albeit the details will obviously differ from person to person). Insofar as that’s the case, it’s perhaps of help to give below the substance of my response, after a few brief opening greetings.

“Anyway, to your question. And you might find it helpful to look up (and have open in front of you) 2 Cor.8 & 9 where Paul speaks at some length on this whole theme of giving. Here are some basic principles which the Bible sets out.

1. A person should give what she has decided in her heart to give (2 Cor.9.7). In other words, part of the process of giving is the thought we put into it (“it’s the thought that counts”): whatever it is that we give it’s the result of a conscious, thought-through decision on our part, rather than because someone else (including God!) has told us.

2. Closely related to that, a person should give willingly (“God loves a cheerful giver” – 2 Cor.9.7), and not ‘under compulsion’. Again, we don’t give (whatever it is that we decide to give) because we have to give but because we choose to give, and are glad to do so out of gratitude to God.

3. A person should give ‘proportionately’. “They gave as much as they were able.. Now finish the work .. according to your means”(2 Cor.8.3, 11). This is where the ‘tithe’ comes in.

In the Old Testament the people of God are given the tenth very specifically as the proportion they should be thinking of, and, although Christians disagree as to whether the Old Testament law remains binding here as a mandatory thing for us, it’s generally recognised that the principle of the tenth remains a helpful guideline for us as we prayerfully think the matter through: but many would take the view that it’s no more than a (helpful) guideline as to what an appropriate proportion is.

4. A person should give sacrificially. You probably know Isaac Watts great hymn ‘When I survey the wondrous cross’: that reflects just this perspective on giving – in the face of the great sacrifice the Lord has made for us, our response of giving should be characterised by sacrifice.

Perhaps the best one-liner fromthe Bible in this respect is that of King David – “I will not offer to the Lord that which has cost me nothing” (1 Chron.21.24)

Those are some basic principles; and the challenge which each of us faces, of course, is that of applying them to our own circumstances! So here are some pointers for you.

1. In the light of what I’ve set out above, it’s obviously not for me to tell you what you should be giving! It’s for you to take these principles and determine prayerfully before God what they will mean for you and your giving – remember your giving is to be a delight and not a duty!

2. Bear in mind that your offering yourself as a leader is itself part of your giving to the Lord. Paul speaks of the way the Christians in Macedonia “gave themselves first to the Lord..”, and that’s in essence what you are doing: you are giving yourself to the service of the Lord.

And, of course, that itself ‘costs’ you – in terms of time (you could be doing other things with it, but you choose to give it to the Lord’s service in this way), energy (you will know how demanding a camp is in this respect, but you gladly give your energies to this work of God), and money (it costs you financially to go: you are giving your money to this particular work of God through Scripture Union)

3. The way you handle your finances at this early stage of your adult, wage-earning life is very formative: you want to be establishing from the start a good pattern of giving, and exercising through your financial giving a healthy spiritual discipline.

As I said, we must all make up our own minds before God (in line with basic biblical principles certainly). But as an example (no more than that), in a different but related context, I resolved early on as a Christian that I would honour the Lord through his sabbath  by doing no study as a student (even revision, and even if there was an exam the next morning!) on a Sunday.

That was a personal ‘discipline’ which I established for myself as a way of declaring to the Lord my love for him and my gratitude to him: I don’t (and wouldn’t) impose it on anyone else, but it’s been a helpful ‘discipline’ for me down the years, and to this day I ensure that I am doing no preparation on a Sunday: it involves the discipline of getting the work done by Saturday night (sometimes quite late!) and of trusting the Lord for the next day.

Establishing healthy disciplines is best done in the early years of our Christian lives, not least in the realm of giving; and the way you handle this issue will put down a marker for the future and be starting to establish a pattern of Christian living for the rest of your life. So aim high – but don’t be or become in any way legalistic!”

Here’s Isaac Watts summing up his perspective: Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offeringfar too small: love so amazing,so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

That’s the demands of grace, not of law, of course.

That’s a man so moved and stirred to the depths of his being by the sheer magnitude of the astonishing generosity and grace of God in Jesus Christ, that every fibre of his being is  driving him to pour out all he is and has in worship, adoration and thanks.

Such love demands my all.

How subtly, how easily and how often the father of lies turns those demands of grace into the dictates of law. Oh, for the wisdom to see and to spurn such devilish lies, while requiring of ourselves in humble love that nothing but our very best is offered to our Lord.

what’s the point?

What’s the point?

That was the perspective which many in Malachi’s day had adopted, as we’ll be seeing this coming Sunday.

It’s got its attractions as a perspective, I suppose. It’s a pretty good excuse, for one thing, to give up on commitment, to give in to temptation, and to give vent to a load of frustrations.

The pressure to do so is strong – both from within ourselves, and from the culture outside. But it’s a pressure we have to resist. And few folk in Scripture show us better how to resist that pressure than a guy called Asaph.

Asaph was King David’s ‘musical director’, a fine spiritual man with the keen sensitivity which goes with the territory of simply being an artist – in his case a musician and a poet.

Maybe a person like that is more vulnerable than most to the pressure on the spirit of a cold and cruel world: maybe they have to wrestle harder and more often with the waves of doubt which the godlessness all around sets in motion.

Be that as it may, we all benefit from that providence of God whereby this man, Asaph, set down the struggles which he had in this regard – and how he battled through them. Here’s his very honest testimony –

Psalm 73

A psalm of Asaph.

¹Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

²But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. ³ For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.  ⁴They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. ⁵ They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills.

⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.  ⁷ From their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits. ⁸ They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression. ⁹ Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.

¹⁰ Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. ¹¹ They say, How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?

¹²This is what the wicked are like— always carefree, they increase in wealth.  ¹³Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. ¹⁴ All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.

¹⁵If I had said, I will speak thus, I would have betrayed your children. ¹⁶ When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me ¹⁷ till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.

¹⁸Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. ¹⁹ How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! ²⁰ As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.

²¹When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, ²² I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.  ²³Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. ²⁴ You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will take me into glory. ²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. ²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.  ²⁷Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. ²⁸ But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds

What a wise, mature guy he plainly was! More about him another time.

robbing God ..

Malachi on giving. Or, more accurately, the Lord on giving, through his messenger Malachi.

Invest in the future. Here’s tomorrow’s passage –

Malachi 3

⁶I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. ⁷ Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD Almighty. But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

⁸ Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are under a curse— the whole nation of you— because you are robbing me.

¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the LORD Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. ¹¹ I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit, says the LORD Almighty. ¹² Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the LORD Almighty.

The guy is always to the point!

your ‘piece’ today, or ‘peace’ tomorrow?

It stands to reason, I suppose, in a moral universe, that the principle of ‘proportionality’ should run through what the Scriptures have to teach about giving.

‘Proportionality’ means that you give what you can.

You give’according to your means.’ There’s not a fixed tariff, in other words. The church is not some sort of religious ‘club’ with an annual membership fee: we don’t operate like that at all.

Christianity is a relationship more than a religion: and while good relationships require all manner of ‘giving’, they only work when people give because they want to and not because they must.

So – no fixed, across-the-board tariff. But ‘proportionality’. We give what we can, a proportion of our income and our wealth.

When God first addresses the matter (ie in the Old Testament) he’s very clear and consistent in the guidelines that he gives. An appropriate proportion is a tenth. The tithe.

As we’ll see this coming Sunday morning, right on through to the last book of the Old Testament, that’s what the Lord is saying – Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse [Mal.3.10].

This was not his suggestion just for those times when his people were flush, when the good times had come and their ‘incomes’ were high. This was an across-the-board percentage which, as a proportion, served three primary purposes.

1. It reminded the people that all they had was the Lord’s. Their giving to him the tenth of their income was a humble recognition that they owed everything to the Lord, and that in respect of their wealth it wasn’t ever ownership they had, but merely stewardship.

A tenth is a wise percentage figure.

Larger than that and we might start to feel the pinch. The tithe, in other words doesn’t leave us totally skint: it still leaves nine tenths for us to use responsibly: it still leaves ample space for us to make careful decisions and choices as to how we live and what we do with the resources at our disposal.

Less than a tenth, though, and we might not feel the ‘pain’! We might lose sight of the underlying truth behind the tithing principle, and begin (albeit subconsciously) to assume that our wealth was our own, that what we have we had earned ourselves and was ours to use as we wish.

In the world in which we live today, where there’s often that feeling of our having somehow ‘come of age’, of our being self-made and self-sufficient people, the ‘tithe’ is a helpful and perhaps more than ever necessary reminder to us all, that that perspective on life is not in fact the reality at all.

Other ways of finding that out can be painful in the extreme.

2. It enabled every person to invest in the kingdom of God. They all had their own work to do. Land to cultivate, homes to maintain, all the hundred and one different tasks which form the basic ‘infra-structure’ of life.

A lot of it pretty mundane and routine. The humdrum and ordinary business of making life work.

Only a few got to work in the temple. Only the few were priests.

But although they were not maybe all at the sharp end of the gospel work of proclaiming the glory of God [the sharp end I say, please note – they were all of them called to be wholly involved in that basic gospel business through the way they lived their lives, conducted their relationships, ran their businesses, etc],  they were all of them able [enabled] by the tithe which they gave, to invest in the work of the Kingdom.

Sometimes that work of the Kingdom is likened to the farming which was always so familiar to these folk. A lot of farming is a hard, long slog. Clearing the ground of the stones, ploughing the fields (in the days before John Deere and co were around), sowing, watering, and so on.

You don’t see a lot for your labours in all of this work. Not at the time anyway. And it may even be someone else who does the fulfilling work of harvesting the fields.

But they all play their part: they all invest in that future. And the tithe was their investment in the work of the Kingdom.

3. It obliged them always to place their trust in the Lord. Could they afford to give him a tenth? Well, far more to the point, could they afford not to? Could they really live their lives without any reference to God?

The giving of the tithe was a practical way in which their trust in the Lord could find a meaningful expression.

We’ll be seeing just this again this coming Sunday morning. The Lord says to his people – ‘Test me in this and see if I do not open the windows of heaven…’

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse and test me. Trust me, he means. Trust me when I tell you I can do far more than you might ask or think. Trust me.

The more you trust him, the more you’ll prove that true.

And that’s the other sort of ‘proportionality’ which the Scriptures teach: you reap what you sow.

Sow sparingly, and you’ll reap sparingly. Farming’s all about trust, and the risks of faith.

The seed which you sow (with a view to the future) you might choose instead to use for making bread (in the here and now).

Farmers exercise faith. They work for the future and run all the risks that entails (the seed which they sow may come to nothing at all). But were they to live for the present, yes, they’d have their ‘piece’ today – but they’d have no peace at all tomorrow.

Sow generously, and you’ll reap generously.

2 Corinthians 9

¹There is no need for me to write to you about this service to the saints. ² For I know your eagerness to help, and I have been boasting about it to the Macedonians, telling them that since last year you in Achaia were ready to give; and your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action. ³ But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove hollow, but that you may be ready, as I said you would be. ⁴ For if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we— not to say anything about you— would be ashamed of having been so confident.

⁵ So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given.

⁶Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. ⁷ Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸ And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. ⁹ As it is written: He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever.

¹⁰Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

¹² This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. ¹³ Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. ¹⁴ And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. ¹⁵ Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

 

giving

Giving. It’s a dodgy subject for preachers to go on about.

We’re often, I think, rather frightened away from the subject by the knowledge that the big bazooka of ‘The church is always asking for money’ will likely be wheeled out once again and aimed in our direction. We get enough criticism as it is without our going looking for it.

So we often prefer to hide behind the pious-sounding line which says that we leave it to God by his Spirit to put it in the  hearts of folk to give: we’ll not mention the subject – if God wants his people to give, then he’ll surely prompt them to do so.

We’ll pray instead. The classic Hudson Taylor line. The great, large-hearted pioneer missionary to China took as his stance the resolve that he would (and that we should ourselves learn to) ‘move men, through God, by prayer.’

He never asked for money. He left that to the Lord. And that became a  foundational philosophy of the China Inland Mission which he founded.

There’s no doubt that that is always our starting point. We look to the Lord to provide for his work, and to prompt his people to give.

But the Scriptures, and not Hudson Taylor, are our final authority under God – and they both address the subject of giving, and give careful and thorough instruction to God’s people about this ‘grace’ of giving.

Dodgy subject or not, the apostle Paul had no great qualms about tackling the issue head on. So here’s the next section in his treatment of the subject in his letter to the church at Corinth.

2 Corinthians 8

¹⁰And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter: Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. ¹¹ Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. ¹² For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.

¹³ Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. ¹⁴ At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, ¹⁵ as it is written: He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.

¹⁶I thank God, who put into the heart of Titus the same concern I have for you. ¹⁷ For Titus not only welcomed our appeal, but he is coming to you with much enthusiasm and on his own initiative. ¹⁸ And we are sending along with him the brother who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel. ¹⁹ What is more, he was chosen by the churches to accompany us as we carry the offering, which we administer in order to honour the Lord himself and to show our eagerness to help. ²⁰ We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. ²¹ For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men.

²² In addition, we are sending with them our brother who has often proved to us in many ways that he is zealous, and now even more so because of his great confidence in you. ²³ As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow-worker among you; as for our brothers, they are representatives of the churches and an honour to Christ. ²⁴ Therefore show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our pride in you, so that the churches can see it.

There are a number of gentle reminders about this ‘grace’ of giving which Paul flings in through the course of this passage.

For one thing, he underlines the  importance of a basic willingness. It’s hardly a gift if it’s given under duress. And it certainly doesn’t mean much to God when it’s duty (often reluctantly done) instead of delight which lies behind the offerings which we bring.

It’s the thought that counts, as we often say. And, yes, it’s the fact that we’ve thought the thing through and chosen to give, gladly and without any compulsion – it’s that which conveys our love.

But you’ll see, as well, how Paul makes clear that giving is according to your means. “The gift is acceptable according to what one has.”

And, of course, as Jesus himself made clear in other connections, from those to whom much has been given much will be expected and required. Which stands to reason.

Because ‘our means’ are not strictly ours at all. They are the Lord’s resources entrusted to our careful stewardship.

Use those ‘means’ wisely and well, reflecting in the way they’re used the generous giving of God himself – and it may well be that he deems it safe and wise to entrust you with more!

Use them in a self-indulgent, self-advancing manner – and it may well be that even what you have, or thought you had, begins to seem inadequate, and may even be taken from you.

Can the Lord trust us to use his ‘means’ well? The burden of the work of the kingdom is to be spread among his people – and spread ‘equally’ so that none are either too hard pressed, and none too comfortable. Are we pulling our weight?

So, as Paul exhorts in his earlier letter to the church at Corinth,

“each one of you should set aside a sum of  money in keeping with his income..”  [1 Cor.16.2]

Another important emphasis to which Paul alludes is the concern to honour the Lord. That concern affects not only what we give, but how our offerings are administered. In both respects there’s a need to avoid any criticism, which means ‘taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men.’

I wonder if we’re always as careful as we might be. Do we take pains to do what is right?

But it also means not just avoiding any criticism, but, more positively, actively promoting the honour of our Lord through both what we give and how such givings are administered.

Read the last two verses of the passage again. Think what it means to be yourself an honour to Christ. Consider what it might mean for us to show the proof of our love in a way that is visible to all the churches – and therefore both an encouragement and a challenge to our fellow believers, throughout the land and across the world.

Think big, in other words! Expand your horizons! Let your giving itself gladly and loudly proclaim the greatness of your God!

sensitive subjects

There’s  more from Malachi this coming Sunday morning.

Someone was asking why my focus the other week had been on the failure of the people of God to give due weight to the ‘spiritual pedigree’ of the person they chose as their spouse.

Why pick on that particular issue? the individual asked. Are there not a lot of other issues you could have addressed? Like the materialism and greed that’s rife? Why didn’t you preach on that, instead of a sensitive subject such as who a Christian marries?

My answer was three-fold –

1. I preach what’s in the text of Scripture. Since it happened to be this bit of Malachi we were looking at as we worked through the book which bears his name, and since this is the issue which Malachi addresses, I don’t really have an option.

I preach what’s there in the Scripture: I don’t have either the liberty or the luxury of skipping over awkward bits of Scripture on the basis that the material touches on sensitive issues.

2. What’s sensitive varies from one person to another. Who you married may be a touchy subject for you (and perhaps not at all a sensitive subject for someone else); while the issue of materialism and greed may touch a  lot of raw nerves for someone else (and seem perfectly ‘safe’ a theme so far as you’re concerned).

In other words, there’s not  an issue I  might be addressing which is not going to be a ‘sensitive’ subject (often very ‘sensitive’ because it’s so very close to the bone) for someone. God does have a habit of wisely putting his finger right on the issues which need to be addressed. To require of the preacher that he treads on nobody’s toes and is  careful to touch no raw nerves is to neuter the gospel.

3. Hang in there with Malachi for another Sunday. Because what we do with our money, and how we steward our money, is the issue the man’s addressing in the passage we’ll be looking at this coming Sunday morning. You want something on materialism and greed? Well, strange to say, that’s there on the menu this coming Sunday. And there may well be folk who’re left feeling that this is touching some pretty raw nerves in their lives.

In other words, if you expose yourself regularly (week by week) to the preaching of God’s Word, you can be pretty sure that most of the issues you could think of will be being addressed. The gospel embraces all of life.

* **

This coming Sunday, then, sees our current preacher, Malachi, addressing the issue of giving. It’s as if this guy knows with uncanny insight exactly the issues which are crucial in our present congregational life.

As background reading in the lead upto Sunday coming, then, take a  look at Paul’s extended treatment of the theme in his letter to the church at Corinth. Here today is how he starts.

2 Corinthians 8

¹And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. ² Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. ³ For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, ⁴ they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.

⁵ And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will. ⁶ So we urged Titus, since he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. ⁷ But just as you excel in everything— in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us— see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

⁸ I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. ⁹ 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.

There’s lots which might be said about this, but it’s helpful, perhaps, to note how this exhortation to excel in this grace of giving is ‘bookended’ by reference, first, to the remarkable generosity of the Macedonian churches [effected in their hearts and lives by the grace of God], and then, secondly, and more significantly still, to the supremely generous and uniquely sacrificial ‘grace’ of giving displayed by the Lord Jesus.

The wealthiest Person in all the universe simply emptied his pockets, blew his whole spiritual bank account on us, impoverished himself beyond recognition – to make us rich.

Astonishing.

You know that grace of the Lord Jesus. Well, do we? Maybe we know it as a theological doctrine. Do we know it as away of life?

Paul seems to suggest that if we really know the grace of the Lord Jesus, we will ourselves excel in this grace of giving.

gospel people

After the wedding I conducted on Saturday past one of the guests approached me.

“Thank you,” he said.

(Isn’t it great when people take time, and go out of their way somehow simply to say a ‘thank you’?)

The man knew the bride from a good many years back.

“She worshipped with us,” he went on.“But when she returned to Scotland, we weren’t quite sure what she’d be going to.”

He was Welsh. I’d have gathered that from the accent, though he told me that from the start.

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by the uncertainty he’d expressed. But I soon found out.

“I’m so pleased to find that the gospel’s still being preached in Scotland,” he explained.

It’s interesting the perspective that others have. They’ve seen and heard enough about this land (which once was known as ‘the land of the book’) to have no great confidence that it would be the gospel that this friend would be hearing when she’d returned, those years back, to Scotland.

A couple of reflections on that brief encounter stand out.

The first was the ease with which I could tell from the start that this was a man who loved the Lord Jesus. I could tell it in his very eyes, in his manner, everything. Strange, in some ways, how without even having to open his mouth, far less actually explaining that he was a Christian, within my own spirit, through the Holy Spirit, I recognised a kindred spirit.

I narrated that little episode at last night’s service, in touching on the note which Luke gives that at Puteoli “we found some brothers” [Acts 28.14]: have you ever wondered just how they found these brothers? There’s a dimension of ‘recognition’ which the Holy Spirit gives whereby we readily ‘find’ such kindred spirits.

The other reflection is this – that even in a marriage service, it will be evident to an outsider immediately whether or not a church is a’gospel’ church: that’s to  say, a church  where the gospel of God’s saving grace through the costly, sacrifical death of Jesus, is proclaimed and where Jesus is known personally, served eagerly, and proclaimed constantly.

Every part of such a church’s life will breathe, and be infused with the message of the gospel. That’s how it should be.

And not just with church’s but with every individual who knows and loves the Lord. In our homes, at our work, everywhere – in all that we’re doing, it will surely be more and more evident that we are ‘gospel’ people.

The gospel is anything but just a ‘Sunday’ sort of thing.

More from Malachi

It’s been a busy week again, I’m afraid!

So without more ado, here’s tomorrow’s reading in Malachi.

Malachi 2

¹⁷ You have wearied the LORD with your words. How have we wearied him? you ask. By saying, All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them or Where is the God of justice?

Malachi 3

¹ See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come, says the LORD Almighty.

² But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, ⁴ and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

⁵ So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud labourers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me, says the LORD Almighty.

A lot of what this man says sounds quite tough! He was plain speaking, for sure. But he was also pretty positive, too: and we need to learn to see that.