Sorted 09

So today I was at Sorted 09! Sorted is a big youth event run by Capital Youth Works that happens at the famous Westminster Chapel every year. I think this was my sixth year in a row, going right back to when I was a kid and then today going as a leader, how time flies! I have been with three different youth pastors in that time!

Anyway it’s always such a great event, it is always great to see people who you haven’t seen in a long time and having the chance to catch up and share about life and the Lord.

We looked today at Luke 15 and the story of the lost son, Jonty Allcock was the speaker. I must admit when I saw it was Luke 15 I was slightly disappointed hoping that they would be trying something slightly different, with all the hype that surrounded The Prodigal God by Tim Keller I feared that this would be simply a regurgitation of that, however I wasn’t thinking

that by the end of the day as we heard 3 great talks on Gods heart for sinners!

The talks were titles as follows

1. Pursuing Freedom (Luke 15: 11-20)

2. Experiencing Grace (Luke 15: 20-24)

3. Staying Outside (Luke 15: 25-32)

The things that struck me most was, firstly, the incredible love of the father. When the son got home he would have been sweaty and smelly because of his travels and his work in the pig sty, but the father runs straight to him and throws his arms round him, embracing him, thus making himself dirty. It was great to reflect on the fact that this is exactly what Jesus does with us! He throws His arms round us and becomes dirty in our place! He loves sinners!

Second it was great to be reminded that this is the very heart of God! Jesus came into this world to save sinners and the story of the lost son reflects they point amazingly! Jonty helpfully said you can sum up Luke 15 in 4 words… This man welcomes sinners!

If you are a youth leader and have never taken your youth group to Sorted before then I would totally endorse it! It is such a great, encouraging day both for kids and for leaders!

The Unquenchable Flame

Last week I read The Unquenchable Flame by Mike Reeves which, as stated in the sub-heading, is an introduction to the reformation.

At New Word Alive this year Mike Reeves led the seminar on Justification in which he used most of the material of this book.

It was just amazing to learn about how all of 500 years ago some people started reading the Bible without the Pope’s interpretation and how there eyes were opened to the reality of what the Bible really says! This is the faith that we now hold to and truly say that we are justified by faith alone, not by our works!

My favourite person to learn about has to be Martin Luther, ‘God’s Volcano’ as entitled in the book, a fitting description. Here is a great quote from the book that Luther said after he understood that his justification lay in God’s hands and not his own:

‘At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, ‘In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, “He through faith is righteous shall live.”‘ There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’ Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered through paradise itself through open gates.’

It is so amazing to learn about how this great doctrine turned the Church and most of Europe upside down. If you want to download the talks on it they are on the NWA website.

This book not only was so interesting, but also really encouraged me in my faith!

What is Idolatry?

Recently I have been thinking a lot about Idolatry. This is mainly because I was giving a talk on Ephesians 5:1-21 at our youth groups in which Paul talks about imitating God, and not anything or anyone else, which is essentially idolatry.

I had some really useful material from a seminar track at New Word Alive 2009 by Dr Dan Strange. Here are some really useful thoughts on idolatry.

‘Idolatry is radical self-harm. It is also radically, terribly ironic. In trying to be as God, we have ended up less human. The principle affirmed in several places in the Bible is that you become like the object of your worship (e.g., Ps 115:8; Is 41:24; 44:9) is very apparent. If you worship that which is not God, you reduce the image of God in yourself. If you worship that which is not even human, you reduce your humanity still further.’ The Mission of God by Chris Wright

We never learn that false gods never fail to fail. This is the only thing about a false god you can depend on.

Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry. Tim Keller

Here is what I think is a prominent example of these points, in a very sad situation. The quote is From Johnathan Edwards, the Gold Medalist who once professed a real love for Jesus.

“I never doubted my belief in God for a single moment until I retired from sport. Faith was the reason that I decided to become a professional athlete, in the same way that it was fundamental to every decision I made. It was the foundation of my existence, the thing that made everything else make sense. It was not a sacrifice to refuse to compete on Sundays during my early career because that would imply that athletics was important in and of itself. It was not. It was always a means to an end: glorifying God.

But when I retired, something happened that took me by complete surprise. I quickly realised that athletics was more important to my identity than I believed possible. I was the best in the world at what I did and suddenly that was not true any more. With one facet of my identity stripped away, I began to question the others and, from there, there was no stopping. The foundations of my world were slowly crumbling.

When you think about it rationally, it does seem incredibly improbable that there is a God.” (Taken from The Times Online – read full article here, an interview of Johnathan Edwards with Matthew Syed on June 27th 2007)

When the object of your worship is taken from you, your world will begin to fall apart. Unfortunately, this was Athletics for Johnathan Edwards. I hope you don’t feel I’m personally attacking him, I’m not, I just think his situation is a very real and scary example of how, without knowing it, we can build our lives upon idols.

Is The Bible Really Homophobic?

A while ago now there was a debate on the above issue and this was a post that I put on HughBo’s website that I thought I would claim rights to on here now!

Tuesday 27th January saw this debate take place, organised by the LGCM (Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement) at St. Nicholas in Brighton. Throughout the course of the night the different view points on homosexual sex were debated, having reflected upon the debate I would like to make a few observations.

Firstly, Clive Gardner, speaking on behalf of the LGCM was arguing from silence. He was not trying to say that the Bible condones gay sex, rather he was trying to say that the Bible never actually condemns it, which is inevitably going to be a weak argument. I believe that with an issue as serious as this, one that we’re told has eternal consequences (1 Cor 6:9-10), that not being able to prove convincingly that the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexual sex is very dangerous.

Secondly, after the debate I chatted to Clive about celibacy outside of marriage or a civil partnership. His response was to say that he would not confront a couple in his church that were sleeping together before marriage/civil partnership, because given our culture it’s an unrealistic to ask people to be celibate. But the Bible wouldn’t agree with this position, rather we are shown that in intercourse and marriage a man and a woman become ‘one flesh’ (Gen 2:24). Clive told me that he would however confront incest, or underage sex because these acts are illegal. Surely we cannot say that God’s standards for holiness change with our culture or are dependant on the laws of the land. The culture in Corinth said that sexual impurity was great, but God, through the Apostle Paul told them otherwise. To say that sex outside of marriage is acceptable because the culture says it’s acceptable is a typical post-modern perspective and goes against what the Bible says, it is to say that the perfection we see in Eden and God’s order within creation is no longer relevant to us now.

So I would like to ask Mr. Gardner in response, if creation is how God intended this world to be then why did He create Adam and Eve, and not Adam and Steve? Why did God create His perfect world with females as the males’ companion? (Gen 2:18-24) If God had meant for Adam and Steve, then why would He not have made it this way? So why Adam and Eve, and not Adam and Steve?

Bible By The Beach

Bible by the beach was a great event that happened last weekend (1-4th of May) at the Congress Theatre in Eastbourne.

The highlight of the weekend for me had to be hearing Ben Kwashi, Archbishop in Northern Nigeria, talking about the suffering Church, and how he personally has suffered for his love of Jesus. In this talk he really smashed the fact that we in the western world are so caught up in technology and the latest and newest ‘stuff’ that some places in the world think we are beyond God….. This is a real challenge to all Christians to stand up for Jesus.

LMC 2009

On Saturday I went to the London Men’s Convention at the ExCel centre in London. The main theme of the day was that we were to be men of Jesus and the main speaker was Tim Keller.

The talks were set out in the following themes:

He came as King (Matt 14:22-23) – Wes McNabb

He died for sins (John 19:23-37) – Tim Keller

He rose to rule (John 20:1-3, 10-18) – Tim Keller

He will return in glory (2 Thess 1:1-12) – Mike Cain

There was one thing in particular throughout the day that really struck me. It was while Tim Keller was preaching on the resurrection of Christ. Mary has arrived at the tomb and dosen’t recognise that the people talking to her are Angels! Then she dosen’t recognise Jesus when He begins to talk to her! Keller pointed out that when Mary was at her most bemused, her most crushed, her most hurt and feeling so alone, that actually at that moment there were two Angels in front of her, and Jesus behind her!

I found this so encouraging! Often when life is hard and it feels as though Jesus isn’t there or is so distant and we begin to just look down, all we have to do is just look up and know that there are two Angels behind us, and Jesus infront of us, just as He was with Mary at that very moment!

We always have Jesus in front of us, and two Angels behind us!