A ledge

Sometimes reading the Bible is like a mighty soul satisfying feast, verse after verse, chapter after filling chapter making us glad in our savior.

Sometimes a single verse is like a sturdy ledge on a sheer cliff face:

And everyone who has left houses, or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands or Reading Family Church, or UCCF, or lunches with their family, or time with friends, or afternoons at football, for my names sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life

Matthew 19:29 (Ed's Special Version)

On the Gospels

The Bible is about Jesus. Every book, from 1 to 66, He is the hero, He is the focus, He is the champion. So wherever you read the Bible, you're going to be reading about Jesus...in theory at least.

I think there is something though, about reading the Gospel accounts themselves. Not in a red letter Christian kind of a way, or really even in a 'let Jesus speak for Jesus' way, but just to see Him, to hear Him and look at Him. Not that we can't do that in all 66 books, but it's good just to sit and read the Gospels. Good to read about the last supper, or the transfiguration, or the sermon on the mount, and then speak to Jesus, the same Jesus now invisible as then, visible.

Since March i've been read Matthew, ever so slowly, with a commentry. I've never done my quiet times like this before, and it's been mostly helpful. It's been great to just rub my face in one book for a year rather than simply rushing from passage to passage. And good to spend each morning with Jesus. Of course. Anyway, this has turned into a series of rather unconnected thoughts, so i'll end it with a Spurgeon quote, which amde me think this in the first place:

Consider his greatness, and I again remind you that the blessing comes only by consideration. I may speak to you this morning about the greatness of my Master, but I shall not succeed in fully declaring it. I am never more vexed with myself than when I have done my very best to extol his dear name! What is it but holding a candle to the sun? What are my lispings compared with the loud acclamations which such an one as he is might well expect from those who love him? You must carefully consider, or you will miss the blessing.

It will not be enough for you to hear, or read; you must do your own thinking, and consider your Lord for yourselves. You may even read the Bible itself without profit, if you do not consider as well as read. The wine is not made by gathering the clusters, but by treading the grapes in the wine-vat: under pressure the red juice leaps forth. Not the truth as you read it, but the truth as you meditate upon it, will be a blessing to you. "Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest." "Consider how great this man was."

Shut yourselves up with Jesus, if you would know him. "Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast." In Christ there is shelter, and the more you consider him the greater your peace will be. Come and lay your finger into the prints of the nails, and thrust your hand into his side. Commune with the personal Christ, who ever liveth; and evermore "consider how great this man was."

Matthew 16:24-27 (2)

There are warnings for us when we savour the world too much. But there’s a wonderful promise in there as well. And here’s our second reason to savour the things of God more than man. Jesus says those who lose their life for His sake that they will fund it. That those who deny themselves and take up their crosses today will find their lives. What does this mean? In John 17:3 Jesus refers to eternal life as ‘knowing the Father and Jesus Christ who He sent.’ So eternal life, to which this verse refers isn’t just about living forever, but about knowing Jesus. Suddenly this is where the cost of ‘losing your life’ becomes wonderfully worthwhile. How does this sound to you? Is Jesus your treasure? Does being with Him perfectly make losing your life sound worthwhile? Well lets see what scripture says on the issue.

It’s clear that to know Jesus is to know life. To know Jesus, to see Him face to face in Heaven is, we read in Psalm 16 ‘fullness of joy’. We read in the same Psalm that there are pleasures forever at His right hand. Psalm 46 calls Christ ‘my exceeding joy’. Fullness of joy? Exceeding joy? Pleasures forever? Being able to do perfectly forever what we were created to do, worship Jesus? This is what makes losing your life worthwhile.

Did you know that you were made for greatness? We were made to behold greatness. Let me illustrate. Would you go to hear a band that made music no better than you could? Would you go to a gallery to look at pictures that you could have painted? Would you support a football or baseball team that couldn’t pass or pitch any better than you? No. We pay money to behold greatness. That’s what we do. No one goes to the Grand Canyon and turns round to say how great or important they are. And what makes the Gospel good news is that to bee with Jesus is to behold the greatest greatness of all. It is to have our hearts wholly satisfied. To hear Jesus say on that final day ‘well done good and faithful servant’, is what makes all the ‘losing of life’ worthwhile here.

Jesus goes on to build on this logic in verse 26 and our next reason: for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world but lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’ These verses build on the last two with some divine solid logic. What good is it, asks Jesus, to savour what to can not keep while you reject what will last forever. Imagine for a second you could own the whole world. Or all the stuff in the world you wanted. What good would it do you in the end? When the world melts like snow and you have lost the only thing that then you need, your soul. Why spend so much time and effort on what will one day burn, and not only that, but what will one day burn and may very well take you with it. These are dire warnings from Jesus mouth. The missionary Jim Elliot summed these verses up when he said ‘he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in exchange for what he can not lose.’ He was right.

Weigh up the rewards and consequences of life in light of Jesus words here, and cast your eyes on the next sentence. ‘or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?’ more solid logic from Jesus. What is it in this life that can possibly be worth having that you would exchange your soul for? All the toys in the world are not worth that.

Matthew 16:24-27 (1)

I preached this message twice in the last week. Once at Twin Lakes camp ground, as part of our summer of services there, and once at teen church last wednesday evening. Both times it left me breathless and heartbroken. Breathless with excitement, like the Queen of Sheba, over the glory and majesty of God, heartbroken like Paul, that some people will never see.

What do you savour right now? Are you savouring the thought of the air conditioning in your car as your drive home soon? Are you savouring the start of the new football season? Maybe you’re a Giants fan still enjoying what happened in February. Are you savouring this place? The thought that you have a few days, weeks, or months left here before you return to work. Maybe you’re savouring the thought of lunch.

I ask this because what we enjoy, what we think about, what we set our minds to, what we savour when our minds are at rest is important. It tells us a lot about ourselves. It tells us a lot about how highly we value things in our life. It tells Jesus a lot about how highly we value Him in our life. What we savour is important. What goes on inside our heads matters. It matters because ultimately if will affect the way we live. We what we savour mattered to Jesus.

Shortly before the text that we jumped into this morning Peter had confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. Moments later, however, Peter rebuked Jesus for saying that He must suffer many things, be killed and then rise again on the third day. After Peter rebukes Him for saying this, Jesus turns to Him, and, in verse 23 says ‘…thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be on men’. Peter’s problem was that he was too caught up and preoccupied in the temporary to see the eternal. He was savouring the things of man. He has too world a view of Jesus. But why was this such a big deal. I think, in the next four verses Jesus gives us five very, very good reasons to savour the things of God above the things of men.

Look at verse 24 with me, as Jesus starts to talk about the normal Christian life. He says ‘if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.’ To come after Jesus just means to be a Christian. To the twelve disciples, that’s what being a Christian was, following Jesus wherever He went, literally. They were with Him everywhere for the three years of His ministry on Earth. So this verse tells what we are to expect as we live as Christians. We are to deny ourselves. Being a Christians means not indulging in every carnal wish. The word used for deny here means to utterly cut off and disown. That is what we are to do to ourselves, we must utterly cut off and disown ourselves.

Jesus words could be paraphrased ‘let the Christian refuse any association or companionship with himself. To deny yourself means to fight the old nature, to work against the temptations which always come, and to exhibit self control. We are to deny our ego. Jesus says in Matthew 5:3 that the first requirement for entrance into the Kingdom of God is to be poor in Spirit. To be humble and to be humble we have to deny ourselves because by nature we are proud and arrogant. Being humble is hard. If we’re going to have any chance of real humility, we must always keep in mind our sin and what a great cost Jesus paid for it. In dealing with others we must assume that the most annoying sins we see in them are magnified in us.

The Christian life is one of denial. What does this mean today? It can’t mean wearing camel hair shirts and eating locusts any more can it? Well, if your favourite TV show is too smutty, and leads you into unChristlike thoughts, deny yourself. If there’s something you love to do on Saturday nights that leaves you tired and inattentive for church the next morning, deny yourself, if you find yourself savouring sports, or shopping or gaming more than Christ. Deny yourself. This isn’t needless asceticism; this is a response to the Gospel. This is the recognition that Jesus is much, much greater than all these things. This is to live in such a way that the world will ask us for the reason for the hope that we have.

The second requirement of discipleship is no less costly. Verse 24 continues with ‘and take us his cross and follow me’. Today the idea of taking up my cross has been on the one had mystified, and on the other hand devalued. To take up our cross is not to attain to a higher level of spiritual life that only a few can hope to achieve, nor is taking up our cross having to put up with an illness or a difficult family member or colleague, as real and hard as those problems are.

The original hearers and readers of this verse would have had no difficulty in understanding what Jesus meant. To them the cross was a vivid reality. In the area where Jesus was speaking 100 men had recently been crucified. Just a few years before that 2000 men were crucified in Jerusalem for their part in a rebellion. The disciples would have known that the take up ones cross means to come and die. It means to walk along a road carrying the instrument of your own execution on your back. It means to be seen by all as broken and beaten. It means to be walking on a death march, carrying the wooden beam on which you would soon hang.

When Christ calls you and me to take up our cross he means that we must be willing to do anything, answer any call, make any sacrifice for Christ’s sake. For some it will mean literally death, as it did for some of the disciples, but for most, it will mean the life of self denial. This is why Christ, in rebuking Peter starts off telling him about the cross. Because for the Christian the life of discomfort is normal, not abnormal. Even though what Jesus did on the cross was totally unique, it modeled the sort of life every Christian can expect. Not one of leisure and comfort, but of hardship and suffering.

Why should it be that way though? We haven’t seen any good reasons to savour the things of God yet have we? Well look at verse 25 with me as Jesus gives us our first reason here: ‘for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake will find it.’ This is the great paradox of Christian living. If we lose our life we will keep it, but if we try to keep our life we will lose it. Whatever does that mean? It means that whoever lives to save or protect his earthly, physical life or live like that is the priority will lose it. It means that if we deny ourselves, and take up our cross, and therefore lose our lives, we will keep them. We’ve already seen that following Christ is not about ease and comfort. We can not chase God and money with all our hearts. If we try to ‘have it all’ in this life, we will one day lose it all.

In compassion creation and trust, Jesus is the champion

I'm loving my slow mornings in Matthew. I was in 15:29-39 this morning.

No doubt Jesus was tired by this point. Not long had passed since the feeding of the five thousand men, He walking on water, clashing with the Pharisees and healing the Canaanite woman. In His humanity he probably wanted nothing more than to sit and pray quietly with His disciples. But sure enough word got out that Jesus was on the scene, that the Healer had shown up. 'Great crowds came to him'. Maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, but a large number. Did Jesus turn them away? No, He healed them. These people were Gentiles. Did He refuse them help? No, He healed them. Did He send them away hungry? No, He fed them. What a God to worship. What a challenge to us when we tire, when we need rest, when hope for time with our friends. Jesus had compassion on the outsider.

It is probably impossible that the disciples had forgotten that Jesus had just fed five thousand men. Their question in v33 must be read as a request for help. They give Jesus all they had, and He responded. Another great lesson of faith for the twelve. There was more food this time, perhaps more leftovers, but we mustn't reckon that Jesus power to create was limited be His resources. This was simply a lesson, a demonstration. What a lesson it was. Jesus is the champion in providing for those indeed here. Jesus could have done all this without the help of the twelve, but here again is amazing evidence of his use of fallen man to do His work. He could call those who will respond without the use of preaching, and yet preaching and preachers He uses. Here is the Lords grace to those who love Him and will serve Him. He has compassion on those in need, on those with no hope. He can be trusted with all we have, all the time.

After Jesus healing work, the Gentiles praised the God of Israel. This surely is to be the goal of all our work, be it explicit Gospel ministry or not. All our labours in the scripture are to show Jesus as mighty that people would worship. All our visits, all our long days, all our preaching, all our work where ever we are should be that people would worship. That was Jesus' goal here. That must be our goal always, that through us, amazingly though us people might hear and see what an incomparable treasure Jesus is, and worship Him with their whole lives.

Discipleship 101?

One thing i love about reading the Gospel's slowly is that i'm picking up on (really obvious) stuff i would have missed otherwise. The middle bit of Matthew 10 is a good example of this.

Jesus is sending out the twelve on their first, maybe the first, short term mission. He's told them where to go and what to focus on, he's told them to beware persecutions, both long and short term, and now, in verses 24-31, he'll tell them how to react. How to live, how to be a Christian in a hostile Devil ruled environment. How to sing the songs of Zion in Babylon.

1) Don't be surprised (24-25)
If people hated Jesus, they're bound to hate those who serve Him. And probably much more. They hate the master, they'll hate the servants, they hate the teacher, they'll hate the pupils. This shouldn't surprise us. We shouldn't be put off by it. In fact it's good...it means we get to be like Jesus! We get to know, in a small, small measure what He went through. Their hatred of the twelve, and us will be different, but it will be the same in type. Don't be surprised. Don't be discouraged.

2) The truth will be known (26-28)
Don't fear them, says Jesus. Nothing that is not known now will be hidden forever. All we be uncovered all righteousness will be made known. Their evil and your good, revealed for all to see. So don't fear them. The truth will be known. What have you got to fear. And since this truth will be known, make it known. What Christ has told you in the dark, tell in the light, what you have had whispered to you, shout from the rooftops. What you see in the Bible in study and under preaching, make known to all. Cut with the flow of Divinely appointed history, and preach the Gospel.

3) Do not fear (29-31)
And as you do this, don't be afraid. People will hate you for it, but don't be afraid. Why not? Well not only because all righteousness will one day be revealed, but there is a much greater reason than Jesus gives here. That reason is Himself. Man can kill us, man could kill all twelve of the disciples, and, with the obvious exception, eventually did, as far as we know. But that's all man can do. Jesus can destroy you forever in Hell. So fear Him. I mean, even when man kills you you're just being sent to enjoy eternal pleasure and fullness of joy. You will go to God, your exceeding joy. So don't fear man who can kill, but Jesus who can destroy. Why else shouldn't we fear man? Because we are of more value than many sparrows. Jesus illustration moves from the minor to the major. If the Father knows intimately the movements of sparrows, how can he not know about you? Indeed, He loves you, and knows the hairs on your head.

So preach the Gospel, get hated for it...even get killed for it, because the body they may kill, His truth abideth still.

The Beatitude Man

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I've been slowly going through the Beatitudes recently, the mighty, beautiful, scary prologue to the Sermon on the Mount. As i've said before, the Lord is in the detail, and how! There is so much in these ten verses that i've missed before. Here's just some of it!

Scripture is made up of sixty-six different books. It's not a line of pearls strung together to make nice sayings or pithy catch phrases, but a story, a reality. The same is true of Jesus' teaching in the Gospels, and that was something i'd forgotten when i'd read these verses before. The Beatitudes aren't a string of pearls, they are a line of consistent teaching. So what do they teach? Whats the point?

I'd never seen this before, but they are all linked up, it's not ten different thoughts all placed side by side because it looks nice, but rather one stream of thought about what life, what people in the Kingdom of God look like. So what do these people look like?

They are poor in spirit. Why? Because they mourn. Not in the way that David mourned over his son, but more, i imagine in the way that Jesus mourned for Jerusalem. Kingdom people are those who are humble, because they know their sin and they mourn over it. They hate it. And this knowledge of the horror of their sin leads to meekness. How can anyone be proud when they consider their sin before a holy God? I know i'm missing out half of each verse but we'll come back to why...i know they're there!

What happens to people who are like this? Who are mournful and meek, who are broken for sin. They hunger and thirst for righteousness. They will be satisfied, all those who come to Jesus and drink will never thirst again. They will be merciful, all arrogance is excluded in the face of knowing your sin, humility and mercy are close friends. These people will seek purity of heart. The whole point of Jesus' teaching here is that no one is good enough, and certainly that no one is good enough because they are good enough on the outside. So in people's hearts purity will be sought. What a dazzling reward for those who are pure in heart.

When we see God everything changes. Peace will become our default preference. We will be called sons of God with God the Father as the ultimate peacemaker. When we're like this persecution is bound to follow. If the world couldn't stand Jesus, how will they treat us?

Look at the second half of the verses...somewhere between dazzling motivational reward and natural consequence. Isn't this exactly what we long for, inheritance, satisfaction, comfort? is that that what everyones longing for everywhere? Kingdom life is reward laden.

So is that what the Beatitudes are, a description of normal Christian living? I do very much hope not. I can't imagine anyone being a Christian for more than a week before something stops them mourning over sin, or longing for righteousness, or seeking purity in heart. Of course, on one level the unfulfilled version of these verses is exactly what Christian life is that...but what about the fulfillment? Who is the man who mourned over sin, who was meek and poor in spirit, who was pure in heart, who made peace? Who is man who said that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and Scribes we will never see the Kingdom? Who can say these things without His lifestyle reproaching Him?

Jesus.

It's all about Jesus! Jesus is everything we could never be. he sets the standard impossibly high, as in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, as here. He does not deny His Father, and so sets a high standard, but then wonderful, graciously, He meets that standard. Jesus is the perfect Son of God, He is the only one good enough for entrance into the Kingdom of God, the only one who met these demands...and He is our substitute.

Vanity Lair

It's not often i have a Saturday morning without anything to do, but yesterday was one such occasion. Sadly i ended up watching a few minutes of a new channel four show called vanity lair. Before i turned it off for the sake of my mind i learnt the premise of the show was something like this:

Vanity Lair is home of ten beautiful Lairmates. Each is competing to be crowned the most beautiful and win a cool £10,000. Every week, three outsiders compete for a single place in the coveted Lair. The Lairmates must decide who stays,(the one they consider to be the most beautiful) but at a cost... The outsider they choose will have to pick a Lairmate who must leave the Lair forever (who they consider to the the least beautiful)



Having turned off the tv for the sake of my brain, i opened my Bible to the start of the beautitudes, and was hit in the face fully by how different the values of the world are from the values of the Kingdom.

'blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted'

Do we want to achieve happiness as Christians? Then the Lord says we must mourn, and it will be happiness that world neither understands nor envies. The verse more or less says 'happy are the sad' Mourning can cover many different things in today's society, or at least, cover many different sorts of occasions but it seems that Jesus has mourning over sin in view here. A righteous, holy grief over our rebellion against the King of Kings. Carrying on from His last sentence 'blessed are the humble' he now turns our attention what should make us humble, our sin, and what our reaction to it should be. Mourning.



And why is mourning the way to joy? Because in honesty and humility we can hold our hands up and say tho those around us 'i messed up, in fact, i don't just do bad things, i am bad' in total security knowing that those around us are in the same boat, that our individual weakness combined gives us great strength. And why else are the mournful happy? Because you can't be mournful over sin, not properly, unless you know Jesus, unless you've looked at Calvary, unless you've been with Him, tasted His goodness, and realise that it was your sin that sent Him to the cross. That should make us mourn, that should bring us to a contrite joy in the Lord, and it will make us secure in our communities of the redeemed with others who have done the same. In the Church here, and then ultimately where true blessing is, in unbroken relationship with Jesus forever in Heaven.

That feeling, that pleasing grief and mournful joy is a million miles away from the Vanity Lair house. There may have been outward beauty there, but it manifested itself outwardly in insecurity, pride, argument and backbiting. The cross deal with this. As we kneel together before the cross we realise that none of us, not one us is there because we deserve to be, we look up at the tree and see Jesus hanging where we should be. And we mourn. But in that same moment we rejoice, we rejoice because of the love of the Father for the Son and the love of the Son for the Father that effects our forgiveness, and initiates our relationship with Him. I want that deeply joyful mourning over the microcosm of 21st century culture which is the Vanity Lair any day.

The Lord is in the detail

Before i started Relay i wasn't that systematic in my Bible reading. I'd read it every day more or less, almost always going through a book, sometimes new testament, sometimes old, but there was never any grand plan, any route i was following to help me see Christ through a sixty six book lens. When Relay started i began to follow the Mccheyne reading plan that takes you through the whole Bible in one of two years, or in my case, something like fourteen months! And that was really good, and very helpful in seeing the grand scheme of scripture unfold.

One thing i did miss was the chance to linger over a passage and soak it up though. That's what i'm doing now, in Matthew, with the help of the very excellent John MacArthur commentary series. Normally i read about four or five verses a day, which seems very slow (and is) but its helped me to see some of the detail. And the Lord is in the detail. Jesus oozes through every crack in Matthews gospel, His truth and light shine brightly from every part of the story. So here are some things i've learnt so far.

Chapter 1
Jesus is a royal King and a gracious King. The King of the Jews had to come straight through the line of David, and Jesus did. And look at some of the people in Jesus genealogy. Tamar and Rahab were prostitutes, Ruth was a Moabite, and yet Jesus had them in His line. Jesus was descended from them. In chapter one we see so clearly the work of God in our salvation. What does His name mean? The Lord saves. Who announced His coming? The Holy Spirit. Who's plan was it? The Fathers. God is all over the plan of salvation.

Chapter 2
We begin to see more clearly that Jesus was no ordinary child. The magi were eastern King makers. Who would rule next was up to them in their land. They called Jesus 'the King of the Jews'. Herod's upset reaction to this is more evidence that this baby was special, this baby was to be a King. The Gold signifies His regality, the frankincense His divinity, and the myrrh His humility. What a birth! What a Son, The true Son as his calling from Egypt and the fulfillment of Scripture demonstrates.

Chapter 3
The King has a herald, and opposition. The herald will soon decrease and the opposition be sifted like wheat. Jesus is supreme. And humble. Jesus approaches John to baptise Him that all righteousness might be fulfilled. Jesus will go about things in the right way, there's no doubt about that. I love how Trinitarian this part is. The Spirit descends, the Father speaks, the Son is King. The Father is well pleased. No other sacrifice pleased God. This one will. The King is truly here.

Chapter 4
The King is tested. He overcomes because of who the Father is. He is a trustworthy God. He is a God worth suffering for. All the Devils riches do not come close to relationship with the Father, all the bread in the world will not taste as sweet as doing the Father's will. Jesus succeeds in the desert where Israel failed. He is the perfect Son. Jesus starts His ministry, at the right time, in the right place with the right words. I'm struck by His sheer majesty. Always moving to the tick of the divine clock. And what is His message. Repent. Change your mind, turn your mind around. Turn your actions around. He calls men. Fishermen to be fishers of men. He calls them with absolute authority. Ordinary blue collar men, not leaders or teachers. Fishermen. And they follow Him.

The first four chapters of Matthew reveal so much glorious detail about Jesus, i can't wait for the next twenty four...