Waiting for God - the Lost Art

Is 40:28-31 ESV “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

How willing are you to wait for the Lord? I am not talking firstly about having quiet times, but not moving until He speaks; until He releases. Let’s face it, there is so much activity in the church today, but so little revival.

Who is building His church?

1. Waiting for God in times of trouble and danger

Most of us take matters into our own hands, like the King of Israel who said to Elisha “this trouble is from the Lord – why should I wait for the Lord any longer?” (2 Kings 6:33). Samaria was being besieged, people were eating their own children from hunger. Or what of King Ahaz in Isaiah 7, surrounded by two marauding armies, checking his supplies and munitions? Or fearful King Saul, facing the Philistine army and making the sacrifices because Samuel was late?

It always seems to happen to kings! Why? Because when we are our own kings, we are responsible for our own safety. Jesus is our cleft in the Rock. He is the Conqueror Who makes us more than conquerors! Read Psalm 27 sometime, to catch the spirit of meekness that blesses God and brings us His deliverance.

How does this apply to you? You don’t need to react when attacked, misunderstood, slandered, overlooked. You don’t panic with the rest of the world. You don’t seek refuge in debt. You don’t make your boss or elder your refuge.

2. Waiting for God’s blessing

Psalm 37:34-38 "Wait for the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it. I have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing like a green tree in its native soil, but he soon passed away and was no more; though I looked for him, he could not be found. Consider the blameless, observe the upright; there is a future for the man of peace. But all sinners will be destroyed; the future of the wicked will be cut off"

He will exalt you. If He does not, then either you remain in obscurity or you exalt yourself. That is the only choice. But when you choose the road of self-exaltation, you always need to pull others down to pull yourself up. That is the root behind the spirit of gossip and slander and deceitful speech in a church too.

The curse of the LAW is at stake here – the law of Cause and Effect, best captured by the older brother when he said ”all these years I have slaved for you”.

HUMANISM is at stake here…. “who holds the remote control to your life?”. Your boss? Your pastor? Have you read the account of David – Saul tried to slaughter him but could not!

The PROCESSES of God are at stake here. Our intervention always results in premature blessing that becomes the curse. Whole church systems are based on rewarding gifts! (“there are no reward for using God-given gifts; only for love” - RT Kendall). Remember Abram, lost in Mesopotamia; Moses, forgotten in Midian; Joseph, a slave in Egypt; Paul in the obscurity of Tarsus. Oh how we need to enjoy obscurity, because we are fellowshipping with the Unseen!

SIN is at stake here. Mean-spiritedness is sin. 8 of the 15 sins of the flesh listed in Galatians 5:19 are to do with the sin of brotherly jealousy…. hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy

And JOY is at stake here. There is no joy in drivenness. In watching over your shoulder. In carrying the heavy yoke of your own destiny. In all the anxieties that result. In knowing in your heart, once you get there (to the "top") that it was your cleverness, your maneuvering, your flattery, your cunning, THAT GOT YOU THERE.

3. Waiting for God’s vindication

Vindicating yourself is a terrible temptation. You forget that most dead saints and martyrs are waiting for the Day of Judgment for their vindication.

Mostly, our own attempts at self-vindication are not based completely in truth. We have blind spots. We are proud by nature. We almost always start of from the position of our own “rightness”, not our righteousness in the mercy that is the precious Blood of Jesus.

The sick thing about self-vindication is we lose things we cannot afford to lose: we lose our revelation of the cross, which speaks mercy not judgment; we lose our fellowship with the Spirit, who tends us towards meekness and forgiveness; we lose our peace.

And further, we lose our witness in the world. The world does not need us to be a hardworking charity, but a forgiving community…a community that reveals Christ. Mark Dever writes how many of his unsaved friends gladly join with him in speaking out against the sex trade, child abuse etc….but NONE of them will ever share in his task of preaching the gospel. Nothing robs you of your Christ witness and presence quicker than a desire to prove yourself, advocate yourself, vindicate yourself. It also shuts of the flow of covenant blessing to those you are trying to prove yourself to.

The spirit of vindication always turns my attention towards myself. How am I looking? How am I coming across? What did that look mean? Does she like me, does she hate me? Is he an ally or an enemy? People have to be in one of those two camps!

So, we ought to repent of rushing ahead of God in our own self-awareness…. “for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God”. We ought to ask God to give us over to releasing all debts. We ought to reflecting on things we are rushing ahead in – promotions; expectations of upward mobility; religious traditions.

Even now, across the worldwide church, the Spirit is bringing a new and unknown wave. May we be found in the number of the saints who wait on God, who cleave to Jesus, and not re-invent another church system to replace the obsolete one.

Nick

How Deep is your Love?

Jesus was a loving and compassion Man. He wept. He longed to gather Jerusalem to the gospel. He cried out to God. He forsook comforts to be in the villages and amongst the people. He had no place to lay His head. He took pity on people. He fed people. He washed people’s feet.

He saved you to take you into Deep Love too. To know His love for you, how true. But then to love others like He loves them. This is the Fulness of Life - to share in His Life, His Love, His Ministry!

Are you still self-obsessed? Do you spend too much time worrying about your looks, your clothes, your friends and their opinion of you? Are you Mary Mary Quite Contrary, worrying about how your garden and children and church doth grow? What is the trend? The Holy Spirit delivers us into the Life of Christ!

Are you too happy? Is happiness your goal and god? Is it the reason you are a Christian? Secular psychologists have often made this assumption, in studying “faiths” – people choose them "on the basis of which one makes them most happy". Do you avoid unhappy times, places and people? You might just be avoiding the bulk of Christ’s ministry!

Is it only the world that is suffering, or are you feeling their pain too? Too often church websites seem to paint a picture of Perfection in a Bubble. We dismiss the Way of Christ, because some have done it the wrong way. His Way is loving the unlovable. His Way is touching the untouchable. His Way is comforting the lonely, mourning with the broken, living amongst the dying. And in that place, bringing life. We too will bring His life in that Way!

I was told a was "a discipler of leaders". Wow. And I did that well. But does the Word call me to train leaders, or make disciples of all nations? And how did that affect my heart and compassion for the "nothings"? It did. To whom did Jesus give His finest time? To the rejects. To the sick. To the poor crying out to Him. The "leadership model" intruded into many minds and churches and became the best excuse of all to pass by on the other side of the road to the Bleeding Man. The Gospel of Love fell under its heavy eclipse. We stole His Way, and that stole our hearts.

I am convinced Satan targets our faith-love above our material wealth and physical health.

So, what false altars are there in your heart and mind? What price are we paying for our middle class expectations? What price of faith? What price of love and service and eternal rewards? “He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”” (Luke 14:12-14 ESV).

These are the days of shallow perfection; of faith to look good while being not so bad; of church to empower me, not to disempower me; of meetings for healings instead of healings for meetings; of virtual friendships and virtual love; of limiting the agony of a shattered and sinful world to 5 minutes on Sky News; of succumbing to the Highwayman and giving our money instead of our life; of embracing a grace that helps us avoid everything nasty; of instant flyweight heroes who no longer need to be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything”.

Flee from gratification, into the unknown path of losing yourself. Ask Jesus right now to deliver you from self-obsession, the sin of our postmodern post-renaissance, post-community age. He will take that kind of prayer seriously. It will change your life course. Ask Jesus today to strip you of everything that would rob you of eternal riches, and of a deeper walk with the Spirit now. You won't know where this will lead you, but He is totally trustworthy!

God loves His church; His Son died for her to live. Love her too. And die for her, as unto Jesus.

Nick

Five Plain, One Purl - Knitted to Jesus

It was so good to be back in South Africa in October. Wow, to see friends who have grown in grace. My friendship with Wynand has endured through 12 choppy churchy years, as we have both swum through deep waters in different cities. But to stand and minister into the flock he has raised up through sweat and tears, through an outrageous passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ - scandalous really, except in knowing that we have shared each other's burdens over many a long telephone call! God is busy to this day in Rustenburg. And what a profound unit of fellow soldiers He has assembled there!

Our time in Durban was full of pathos as we ministered to Glenda's dad, who has lost his wife very recently, and also suffered a horrible criminal attack a few weeks later. All my theoretical theology crumbled in the sight of this weeping, frail man, who brought my wife into this world. Now I know for sure that a cup of cold water "for the least of these" is worth more than all my studies in scriptures, if those studies don't make me a more compassionate man.

To preach in Red.Point Church in Pinetown was more emotional than I thought it would be - not only because it was our church for over 7 years, but also because they were so hungry for the word of God, and so warm in receiving us.

3Ci is so uniquely special to Glenda and I. The week there was full of highlights, special people and profound ministry moments. One thing I know is that true friendship is the glue of the Kingdom. "Love must be sincere" was part of my Romans reading this morning, and 3Ci has that sincere love. "Anupokritos" means "without dissimulation, genuine, not fake". To love like that takes time, sacrifice, openness and a fleeing from all things superficial.

On the back of my SA trip, I invited a small group of friends (not all could make it) to come with me to have a week in Kenya with Michael Eaton - the man who has singularly shaped my theology more than any other, since first sitting under his ministry in 1985 (and first hearing him say, "walk in the Spirit deliberately and you will fulfill the law accidently"!). What a glorious time in Nairobi, somehow so Biblical. The hours spent asking questions and listening to a continual stream of revelation, coming from decades of labour in the Word, was a life highlight for us who went. And then there was the time together - 8 pastors and preachers from UK and RSA, together on the "unknown path". Cool, man!

So, now to my title - "Five Plain, One Purl"... I have had a growing awareness since getting to the UK that the future will be DEEPER and PLAINER, more expensive in many ways, but willingly paid from the growing revelation of the "Purl of Great Price" (apologies to English language purists):

1. Expensive in the plainness of preaching the true gospel. The naked gospel. Take the Atonement for example - should we not be horrified as to how many theologians are trying to de-stigmatize the Cross by doing away with the "curse motif"; emphasizing the Love of God at the expense of the Wrath of God; trying to abolish penal substitution as out-of-date? These things stand at the very centre of our gospel! May there be many preachers who rise up in this time, in the fear of God before the favor of man, to preach God's virtues plainly and purely.
2. Expensive to make things plainer in the local church, so crowds are not gathered to whoop-making things, but to the Word, around the Cross, to come and die so they might live. This is the trigger for the priesthood of all saints to emerge from the theatre productions that typify so much of church meetings today.
3. Expensive in the plainness of apostolic ministry. The future of apostolic ministry is going to look more and more like Paul and his friends in Acts. Organic, one-way tickets, suffering, bleeding for churches, longing for people "in the bowels of Jesus", "poor yet making many rich, having nothing yet possessing everything". I cannot see how apostolic organizations and denominations that have reduced preaching ministry to conferences and speaking circuits will in any way prepare the churches for revival, or be the "tomorrow's wave". God has judged this cute and neat surrogate, even in me, and found it wanting.
4. Expensive in the plainness of repenting of sin, as men and women covet more of God's voice and presence in the private place. The Age of Tolerance for compromise is nearly over. The room for grace to be preached in ways that foster low level ambition for God and even the "anaesthetic of antinomianism", is narrowing by the day.
5. Expensive in the plainness of being aliens and strangers in this world. Not wierd ostracized communities, no - saints in the world yet so not of the world that they shine in any place, at all times.

May you and I "be found in that number".

love

Nick

The Boy who would be King

(Lament for the Christian Manager)

He was a waif of gutter born;

God took him in, a child forlorn.

He smiled at last, a son of grace;

A prince unveiled, all stains displaced.

He grew up strong, he ate fine fare;

He lost his frown, he lost all cares.

His robes they shone with firstfruit love;

Hopes rose like suns in skies above.

But then one day he took to fear:

"What if I lose this life, this cheer?

What if my God forgot my name;

What would become of all this fame?"

And so his worry worked its way

Into his heart and then some day

He stole into the King's throneroom

And took a sceptre, with a broom.

He shut himself up in a wing;

He made a crown and wore a ring.

With that mace he ruled his room

And swept his tears up with his broom.

He sang some songs to cheer his heart

On days he thought of life apart

From One Who washed him clean that day -

A stolen heart stole him away.

And so he sits as Lord of Small

With built-up shoes to make him tall.

The door is closed, the doorbell rings...

To open now is to not be king.

God loved him then, God loves him still;

He knocks and calls as Fathers will.

House is open but Room is sealed -

The key's within; the love's congealed.