Just a quickie for the holiday season – I preached at The Crown Church on Sunday and the sermon is available online to listen to…enjoy!
http://crown-church.org.uk/sermons/audio/20091220_sam_isaacson.mp3
Two big stories in the world of entertainment right now:
1. Tiger Woods (need I say more?)
2. Joe McElderry (need I say more?)
Tiger and Joe are both lovely guys. Any normal person would say that both ‘deserve’ their fame: ‘ooh Joe, no-one deserves this more than you!’ Cheryl Cole last night welcomed Joe into the world of fame and celebrity, where Tiger has lived for a while now. It’s Joe’s dream come true.
But Tiger seems not to think so. He’s richer than almost anyone, has a great house, cars, a beautiful wife, kids, success…and he still needed more. Nothing satisfied enough.
I’m really happy Joe won The X-Factor, what a lovely guy, but I really don’t want him to fall into Satan’s lie that fame is the dream come true – fame is just another evidence of God’s grace that will ultimately disappoint and leave you thirsty for more…without Jesus. Jesus is the living water, and with him you’ll never thirst again.
I pray for Joe McElderry. I pray for Tiger Woods. Neither deserves it, but I don’t deserve Jesus’ sacrifice in my place, so I will pray – join with me!
I wrote a book about the Parable of the Talents – you can get a copy here: samisaacson.co.cc
But anyway, we normally treat the parable in the way I think it was primarily intended; we have been given gifts by God, and we are called to be good stewards of them, whether it’s our income, our possessions, our talents, or anything else for that matter.
But how about if the parable was also referring to us corporately? What if the servants in the parable refer to local churches, and the talents are gifted leaders (see Ephesians 4, leaders are a gift to the church)? Do we as local churches use and submit to our leaders well, or do we try to bury them under hierarchy, policies and procedures? Do we give everyone an equal voice, thereby quelling the voice of the gift given by God?
Just a thought on a Friday afternoon.
A commenter posted a link up to someone saying that Pascal’s wager is silly…here’s the background:
Pascal’s wager basically states that God can’t be proven, and therefore we ought to ‘wager’ that He does exist, because of the eternal consequences. Pretty sensible theory you may think, but here are the blogger’s issues with it:
1. Evidence – there’s not enough evidence for God to make the wager a good enough bet.
2. Many gods – even if we go with Pascal’s wager, who do we believe in?
3. The gamble – the chances of there being a god are so small we ought not to wager on it.
–
Here’s a picture that may help. Imagine I am blindfolded, and running in a straight line with no intention of stopping. I hear a voice saying: ‘take my hand and I’ll lead you across the bridge over that chasm you’re about to run into’…I didn’t even realise there was a chasm! Now here’s the wager. I can choose to ignore the voice, and continue running – I don’t believe there is a chasm. I looked at the map before I put the blindfold on, and didn’t see a chasm…I think…or I can take the guy’s hand.
Now let’s apply this to my life. I was the guy who reacted by taking the hand, but the voice’s owner didn’t just begin to lead me towards the bridge, but also took off my blindfold. Now all I can see is tens, hundreds, thousands, millions of individuals running as fast as they possibly can into this chasm. I’m screaming at some: ‘TAKE HIS HAND! TAKE HIS HAND!’ Some are arguing back: ‘There’s no chasm, and even if there is, I’ll be able to jump across it. From the sound of your voice it sounds like you’re a pretty boring guy, and I’m really enjoying running fast, so stop bothering me with your opinion.
If you think Pascal’s wager is daft because of any of the above arguments, you have not understood what it means. You are actively choosing death over life.
If you are worried about which god you want to believe in…then why not try one, and see if the blindfold is taken off! I can promise you that Jesus’ promise is too strong for you not to ‘get’ it if you go with him.
I can tell you this. If you go for some religion, you will end up either becoming proud or despairing. Either you will do everything the religion tells you to (enough Hail Marys, enough pilgrimages, enough penances, enough praying in the day, enough good karma) and therefore will know it, and will sin by being proud…or…you will discover that you can’t do everything the religion tells you to, and therefore will be plunged into worry and fear.
Jesus’ way? Don’t ‘do’ anything. He’s done it all. Every bad thing you’ve ever done? Jesus has already taken the punishment in your place. Every good thing you’ve ever wanted to do? Jesus has already done it. Every good thing you didn’t want to do, but should have, and didn’t? Jesus has done that too. Only he can make that claim, and only faith in him puts us in rightstanding before God. Either choose to run headfirst in whatever direction you are, or respond to Jesus’ call.
Your call.
I read a great analogy this morning, in response to that, and in response to the whole Christian thing:
Imagine you fall off a steep cliff. Halfway down there’s a branch, and I shout: ‘grab the branch, it’s strong enough!’ Now, you could be intellectually convinced that the branch is strong enough, but not grab it: you will die. But if you have some little doubts and grab the branch then you will be saved. Why? Because it is the object of your faith that will save you, not the strength of your faith.
Jesus is capable of saving you.
That’s the subtitle for a new book written by a brother based in North London, Adrian Warnock. And I think he’s right. I think the Christian church appeared almost overnight and grew faster than any other mindset in history. It did not develop from popular ideas at the time but was something completely new and different. And it all really began because people met and interacted with the resurrected Jesus.
Now we could go into the historical and logical evidence for his resurrection, but let’s not for today. Instead, I’ve been thinking about our response. If Jesus wasn’t really raised from death then his followers all lied and therefore his teaching should be completely ignored – their testimony is about as accurate as someone who gives a witness in court but thinks there’s an invisible man next to them.
But if it was real, if Jesus really genuinely resurrected from the dead, then our lives should be transformed! We shouldn’t mess around with silly habitual sin because Jesus is all powerful! We shouldn’t not go to church because we feel better alone, Jesus commanded it! My life often doesn’t look like I really believe Jesus rose from the dead, but he did, and it should.
When I became a Christian I thought it was so unfair. I wanted to get involved in the church. I wanted to get my keyboard out and play in the band. I wanted to be invited to the leaders meetings…but that didn’t happen! I thought it was ridiculous – I was just as good a musician as anyone else in the band but wasn’t able to get involved…but I didn’t understand what the church is.
The church is not an organisation. You don’t get promoted based on your performance and your appraisal meeting. You don’t get offered an opportunity to pursue your Christian career because you have the right skillset – we have the wonderful privilege of serving in God’s church because we are a family. And as a family, who would the leadership rather have playing the piano accompaniment? A member of the family, of course! If a really talented guy turns up and can do a guitar solo, great. Play away, we’ll cheer, then can get back to family life.
So my advice back to myself as a brand new addition to the family would be: enjoy your new family. Love being a part of it. Look for ways to serve. But don’t be desperate, because it’s not about you. It’s about Jesus.
So what do we do about welcoming new faces into the church? Let’s start here, by making sure we understand and can explain adoption. I have no answer for the next bit yet, but watch this space. Comments welcome.
http://ow.ly/z0os – I’m just sayin’
I’m reading the paper – here are two unconnected articles:
A boy born 16 weeks early – ‘could have been legally aborted but defied doctors to survive’…good job the mum knew better than the doctors on this one: ‘Jack smiles and is a happy little boy.’
More babies with Down’s syndrome – in the last 20 years there’s been a 71% rise in babies diagnosed with Down’s, but ‘the number of babies born with Down’s has remained fairly static over the same period owing to improved screening and subsequent abortions’. Well, that’s nice: ‘Oh, you have Down’s, how tragic. Here, I’ll help by killing you.’
Here are a few reasons why people may choose to have an abortion – 1 in 5 pregnancies nowadays end in abortion so this is important…the most dangerous place for a baby to be? The mother’s womb.
Reason 1: the mother doesn’t want the inconvenience. If a Mum killed her 6-month old baby because she didn’t have the time for her job/friends/etc any more, she would be branded an awful person. Not a good enough reason to commit murder.
Reason 2: the baby will be born with a significant disability. If you met a child who was physically disfigured, had learning difficulties and was deaf, for example, and you killed them ‘out of pity for them’, you would be a murderer. Not a good enough reason to commit murder.
Reason 3: the pregnancy came about because the woman was raped. While an absolutely awful thing to happen, imagine that a woman saw a child whose face reminded her of her rapist, so she killed the kid. Sorry, the issue of rape is horrible and not one to discuss right now but not a good enough one to commit murder.
Reason 4: the birth of the child will endanger the life of the mother. So imagine a child runs at a woman brandishing a knife, and it is very clear that he/she intends to kill her. The woman kills the child in self-defence. Now we’re starting to have genuine reasons, although this is clearly the vast, vast minority of abortion cases.
SO…I’m sure we all agree that murder, at least in the first 3 cases, is unacceptable. The question of abortion, therefore, is whether or not the baby in the womb is a human being, or a different animal. The child in the womb is alive. He or she moves, breathes, eats, excretes, grows, feels, hears – if you are pro- murder of children in the womb I am genuinely interested: what animal do you think they are, if not human?
