True Colours

Exeter Temple Bible notes

13^th April 2014                
Bible Reading             Luke 19:27-40
Today the phrase false colours refers to intentional deception of one kind or another, and "true colours" indicates straightforwardness or honesty in some regard. Jesus used His entry into Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday to drive home to everyone who He really was.
1. A Declaration of Kingship
It was time to make things clear, once and for all. It was time for Jesus either to lay the rumours of His identity to rest and say, “I’m just a carpenter or declare once and for all, I am the Messiah”.
Jesus arrival in Jerusalem became a declaration of Kingship.  He didn’t paint a banner that said “I am the Messiah!” but He might as well have done. His actions were as provocative as say the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, turning up for the trooping of the colours in the Queens carriage and then riding her horse!
Even behind the scenes Jesus had been acting in a king-like of way.
It was the custom of the day that a major political or religious figure could request the use of livestock. Just as a police officer can commandeer a car in an emergency Jesus requested the use of a young donkey. He sent His two disciples as envoys and they were obeyed.
Jesus then acted out a prophecy from the Old Testament which was all about the Messiah. Then when the people began to welcome Him as that Messiah He refused to stop them. Jesus was declaring Himself and offering Himself as their king and their leader.
He has never withdrawn the offer. There is no ambiguity. Jesus claims to be an eternal king and He asks for our allegiance. The question is whether we first of all believe Him and whether secondly we are willing to submit to Him.
2. An Endorsement of Kingship
Claiming to be the Messiah is one thing but people claim all sorts of things and they might not be true.
Jesus did not make his claim to be the Messiah on the basis of his popularity, the size of any army or what the religious establishment said.  
Jesus’ belief that he was the Son of God and the Messiah who was to rule God’s kingdom came from an inner conviction that God had declared this about him.
At His birth angelic messengers proclaimed, “Today in the city of David a Saviour has been born.  He is Christ, the Lord”.
And on two very special occasions God gave Jesus an endorsement of his kingship.  Once at his baptism, God said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And again on the Mount of Transfiguration where He said the same thing but added the words, “Listen to Him.”
The New Testament also declares to us in Philippians 2:9 ‘that God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord’.
God is totally satisfied with Jesus. He has no plans to substitute Him with anyone else.
In today’s world people want to be at peace within themselves, to find happiness and stability, to have certainty about the future, some want spiritual enlightenment and to be in touch with their inner selves but many have no room for Jesus. But God has said that unless people accept and embrace His Son they cannot inherit the rest. 
3. The Character of the King
Actions speak louder than words or image.
Frank Cooke writes, “Your theology plain or fancy is what you are when the talking stops and the action starts”.
Jesus certainly did not choose the way of the image maker but always showed His real self regardless of the cost.
When we consider Jesus’ passionate desires to have His revelation of God accepted in the lives of men and women it would not have been surprising if Jesus had resorted to any means to win over the influential people of His day.
He could have trimmed His speeches so as not to anger them. The Pharisees and Sadducees had particular faults He could have spoken to them about, something else for the sake of His work.
On the contrary, Jesus was in the habit of telling the plain truth no matter who it alienated. He spoke to men who over emphasized religious forms and told them their faith was a sham.
And even deeper evidence of Jesus’ inner and perfect sincerity and genuineness of character is that however how much He wanted followers He never lied to them about the cost or the hazards of joining Him.
To understand Jesus’ passion for truth and hatred of insincerity we must look at His actions under circumstances where ordinary men are tempted to lie. Think about Him in Pilate’s court with the Roman ruler rather kindly disposed towards Him and the mob outside crying for His crucifixion.
Put yourself in His place and consider the excuses that would have suggested themselves to you to justify a lie. How easily compromise could have been constructed that would have mollified Pilate and effected His release. But Jesus would not lie even to save Himself from the Cross.
4. An understanding of the Kingdom
When Jesus declared Himself to be a king people misunderstood despite the fact that over and over again He had explained He was a different kind of king who ruled a different kind of kingdom.
Welcoming Jesus as King on Palm Sunday is all very well but do we understand what that means.
We need to understand that this King is a king of the people. A Roman emperor would have ridden in a chariot with white stallions. A politician would have been surrounded by security guards. A general would have rushed past on his way to the battle field, a religious leader would have moved more slowly but he would have kept the “unclean” at a distance. But Jesus borrowed a donkey from a peasant, rode among the crowd, at their pace and didn’t shrink from anyone’s touch. He totally identified with us.   We need to understand where Jesus rules.
Jesus said when He started His ministry, “The Kingdom of God is near.” He didn’t mean near in the sense of time, like it’s nearly lunch time but near in proximity. Jesus says, “I’ve come near to you. I am with you”.
Jesus is King wherever He rules. The place where He wants to rule is in the heart of believers, not just places and property.
Jesus challenged Jewish people to give up their revolutionary agenda to topple the Romans and give themselves to the Kingdom of God where forgiveness rules, where social status is irrelevant, where every tribe and nation is welcome, where the meek and the lowly are considered important.
Jesus doesn’t just preach such a manifesto of what He would like to happen, He provides the means for it to happen Himself. He is the King like no other king ever was or ever will be.
Napoleon recorded in his diary, “Alexander, Ceasar and myself found great empires but upon what did the creations of our genius depend?  Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded an empire upon love and to this day millions would die for him.”
In the coronation for the Monarch of the United Kingdom the Archbishop of Canterbury presents the newly crowned King or Queen to the people as “Your undoubted sovereign and rightful sovereign”.
The claims of Jesus present us with the same confrontation, “Will you have this King rule over you”.
In a democracy it depends on what other people vote whether the candidate gets into power or not. Not true with Jesus.
Our decision to make Him ruler of our lives e depends upon no one but us. If we choose Him, He is immediately able to come into our hearts and live in power to begin effectively changing them and transforming them into something new and wonderful.
Submission to Jesus as king is hard for us. We live in an anti-authoritarian society. We are taught independence and not submission. It is good that Jesus is seen as our friend and our teacher, our shepherd etc  but we must not let our culture blind us to the fact that Jesus is not being unfair when He asks to for absolute rule over every aspect of our lives.
He won’t be our Saviour without being our Lord.

God bless

Alan  

 

Blue is the colour

Bible Message notes: Sunday 6^th April 2014             
Theme: Blue is the Colour

Blue is a colour that represents both the sky and the sea, and is associated with open spaces. Although when we feel down in the dumps we might say we are feeling blue it is many experts will say that the colour blue has positive effects on the mind and the body by invoking rest and causing the body to produce chemicals that are calming. It is believed that it helps to slow human metabolism, is cooling in nature, helps with balance and self-expression and is also an appetite suppressant!  

In the Bible the colour blue is used as a teaching tool about the character of God and as a reminder of how we need to respond to him. The Hebrew word used in the Bible for the blue used in worship is tekhelet.  Tekhelet was produced by a special blue dye which came from a sea snail found in the Mediterranean.                                                                                                                                            

There are four uses of tekhelet in the Hebrew Scriptures.
1. Royalty
The process to produce the tekhelet dye is complicated and so tekhelet was always been expensive. For this reason alone it became a symbol of kings in the ancient Near East.  Ezekiel 23:5–6 speaks of the Assyrian nobles who were dressed with blue and Esther 1:6 describes the Persian royal palace has having white and blue wall hangings.
There is also a connection with blue and authority.  When God was confirming his covenant with the Israelites he invited Moses, Aaron Nadab and Abihu and 70 elders to come before him.
Exodus 24: 9-10 says that they went up and “saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself.” 
The two most powerful things in the experience of man outside of God were the blue sky and the blue sea. Life and death came from them both as in many ways it still does. Here in Exodus is a God who has them both as a pavement upon which to rest his feet. He is not subject to nature, he is above it.
The book of Ezekiel opens during a time when Israel had been overtaken by the invading Babylonians.  People of any leadership ability were taken into exile and those left behind struggled to survive after years of war and famine.  At this worrying time the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel. In the midst of many spectacular visions Ezekiel sees the throne of God.
“Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord and when I saw it I fell down and I heard the voice of one speaking.”  (Ezekiel 1:26-28)
 Following this vision of the sapphire blue throne, Ezekiel would forever remember that though things seemed out of control, God was still on his throne.
Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father in heaven hallowed by your name.” (Matthew 6:9)
When we prayer that prayer we are not just announcing God’s postal address but declaring his status in the universe. What Moses and Ezekiel realised through their experience was that God’s heavenly position was not about location but about his ability to take control.
When children are small they often assume that their parents can do anything. They soon learn that whilst sometimes parents can do what is asked there are other occasions when it is beyond their power to do anything about it.
But with God we do not just have a father but a Father in heaven. A God who can act without the limitations of humanity to support, provide for, redeem and liberate his children.  
2. Priesthood
The second use of blue in the Bible is in the tabernacle and later the temple. There were four layers of curtains covering the tabernacle. There were patterns woven into the inner curtains and blue was a main part of the colour scheme. 
Also the formal ritual clothes of the High Priest who served in the house of God were dominated by the colour blue.  Exodus 28:31-43.  In these verses  the linen robe called an ephod, the breast piece, and the headpiece all had blue in them. Overall the High Priest’s outer robe was to be entirely made of material dyed with tekhelet.   
This was a reminder of God’s sovereignty but also of his holiness. Whilst white is the most obvious symbol of purity to us, the Israelites lived in a climate, where much to the year they experienced the clear, blue cloudless skies and the sun shining down on the unpolluted blue waters of a lake. It is dazzling and breath-taking. 
The High Priest represented people before God, while at the same time representing God to man. When they saw the robe of the High Priest, they were meant to catch a symbolic glimpse of the dazzling and breath-taking righteousness and purity of God.
The reality was that the priests themselves just wore the robe.  Although hopefully they lived obedient lives, like all men they failed to perfectly reflect the righteousness and purity of God.  The priests themselves were sinners and therefore had to make sacrifice for themselves as well as the people.   Also when they died the priests had to be replaced.

 

If we have a God who is so great that he can have a sapphire sky as a mere footstool but we also have the image of the blue robed priest, who is a forerunner of the great high priest Jesus of whom Hebrews 4:14 “We have a great high priest who has gone into heaven and he is Jesus the Son of God.  That is why we must hold on to what we have said about him. Jesus understands every weakness of ours because he was tempted in every way that we are. But he did not sin! So whenever we are in need we should come bravely before the throne of our merciful God. There we will be treated with undeserved kindness and we will find help. “

What an amazing God we serve!

3. Obedience

It is a fact of human nature that if we do not have something to remind us we tend to forget about God and fall back into our old ways.
In the Old Testament the way God’s people were helped to remember God and his commands was through blue ribbons.
In Numbers 15:37–41 God instructed His people to put tassels on the corners of their garments.  On each of the fringes they were to place a blue cord or ribbon.  This instruction had this purpose. “You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord that you may obey them.” (v39-40)
The tassels are a reminder of God’s word, his truth and his commands. When they looked at the tassels they were reminded that the God who is holy as command that his people be holy as he is holy.  They are called to live lives in line with the character and ways of God, which has been revealed to them through the law.
A problem arises from the fact that people despite the reminder on their clothing they failed to be holy as God is hold and failed to keep the commands. Sometimes they lost sight of the fact that keeping the law was not just a matter of outward observances but a matter of loving God with all their heart mind and soul.
This sometimes led to hypocrisy.  In Matthew 23:5 Jesus says about the Pharisees, "But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries, and lengthen the tassels of their garments.”
So what is to be done?
The prophets of old saw the problem and received the promise from God when the word of God would just not be written on tablets of stone and remembered by tassels and ribbons on clothes but it would be internalised. Through Jeremiah God promised “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)
And this promise was fulfilled through Jesus. According to John 1:1 and 14, Jesus is the word of God made flesh. Jesus lives out the written word of God.  We are promised that through the Holy Spirit, Jesus the living word comes to live in us and empowers us to fulfil God’s command to be holy and righteous. Paul prays with confidence, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”  (Ephesians 3:16-17)
We are a people who are called to a performance religion but a people who are given the means to actually fulfil the commands of Christ through his indwelling presence in our hearts.  We call that holiness.
We are not any different to Pharisee who lengthened the tassels on their robes to parade their religious superiority if all we do is turn up for parade on a Sunday morning but don’t live the life and if we are just outwardly conforming to rules but not loving him. 
The blue in our flag doesn’t just point to the fact that God is holy but that through the sacrifice of Jesus and the empowering of the Holy Spirit I can be holy too. 

Blessings
Carol

Children of God

Sunday 30^th March 2014

Exeter Temple Message notes
Bible Reading:      1 John 3:1-3
The Authorised Version of 1 John 3:1 says, “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the sons of God.
Behold is derived from an old English word bihaldon which is a combination of bi meaning thorough and haldan which means to hold. So beholding is about being thorough in the way you observe something.
The CEV says: “Think about how much the Father loves us. He loves us so much that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are.”  

1.  Think about what the love of God is like

The NIV misses the phrase out but still declares God’s love to be great. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us.”
Whatever translation we use it is clear John wants to realized that God’s love is beyond the ordinary.
After the disciples saw Jesus still the storm on the lake they asked each other, “What kind of man is this?” (Luke 8:25) They knew they were dealing with a man who had power that they had never seen the like of before. 
Someone has said, “God may be out of the world, but he’s not out of the picture.”
Instead God’s love has been lavished upon us. It is more than just someone loving us. It is someone loving us in an uncommon and extraordinary way. We take this too much for granted. John was not a young man when he wrote these words but he still stands in awe of it

2.  Think about who we are in his love 

There is a sense in which all people are children of God just because God loves and created every person but John is clear in his letter that there is a personal child/parent relationship we can have with God that we have to deliberately enter into.
"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed on his name, he gave the right to become children of God." John 1:12  
God extends the free invitation to be a part of his family to everyone, but it is up to us to choose whether we will receive it or not. 
This is astounding because of our sin and rebellion and the fact that to bring us into his family God sacrificed his own son.                                                                                                                           
In the world there are three ways that you can become part of someone’s family.  First of all you can be born into it biologically.  And the majority of us stay with that family and grow up in it.  Another way is through the law. Adoption is a legal action by which parents take into their family a child who is not their own, in order to give that child all the privileges of their own children. An adopted child according to the law of the land is entitled to all the rights and privileges of a natural born child.
A third way is through marriage. Two people from two different families join together and become a new family but also in a sense join the family of their spouse.
All three ways of becoming part of a family have their parallel with becoming a child of God and part of God’s family.
When we join with Jesus Christ we enter into a covenant relationship as deep as a marriage that separates us from our old life and joins us to the divine family. Collectively believers are known as the bride of Christ and Jesus Christ as the bridegroom.
Adoption is referred to in the New Testament. Ephesians 1:5 “God was kind and decided that Christ would choose us to be God’s own adopted children.” (CEV)
There are reasons why people adopt children; a person has a longing for children but they cannot have any of their own, they might feel compassion towards children who have no family;  they might be attracted to a particular child or a bond may exist between the adoptees and the child’s natural who have died. When we ask what makes God adopt us there are no logical reasons. God is God, he does not need us his life in order to complete him; there was nothing about us that he should be attracted to us. Such is our sin, that we do not even deserve his compassion. We have been adopted simply because God loves us.
When John writes about our becoming children of God he is not thinking just in terms of marriage or adoption but of new birth.  The word translated children” is the translation of a Greek word meaning "born ones." John Piper writes that when a child is adopted as a baby, the new parents loved it and their love and their values influence its life but nothing they do can cause the child to be born again with their personality traits and temperament. But God does. God does not merely take care of paper work and adopts us but he moves into our very nature by his Spirit and implants his nature in us.  Jesus described it like this, “Humans give life to their children. Yet only God’s Spirit can change you into a child of God. Don’t be surprised when I say that you must be born from above.” (John 3:6-7 CEV)
John says we are called the children of God and adds, “And that is what we are.”  We are not just children of God through covenant, through adoption but by rebirth. We are not merely “called children of God” but we actually “are children of God.”

3. Think about how his love shapes our future

Only a person who knows God through Christ can appreciate what it means to be called a child of God and even they do not fully grasp the full implications of this for their future lives.
“We are already God’s children though what we will be hasn’t yet been made known but we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3v2)
We know something of Jesus here and now, we are being changed in this world and are becoming increasingly like the Lord Jesus but that is nothing compared to the fact that when Jesus Christ returns we will see him as he is in the fullness of his glory and we shall be like him.
The famous preacher Charles Spurgeon reflects on this.  “We shall never see him as he was. In vain our fancy tries to paint it, or our imagination to fashion it. We cannot, must not, see him as he was; nor do we wish, for we have a larger promise, "We shall see him as he is."
He goes on to consider that this means we will not see him bound by human limitations or battered by temptation or suffering under the onslaught of evil.  We will see the nail prints in his hands but not the nails for they have been removed. We will see the marks of thorns but as the song says, “the head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now” We shall not see the Christ wrestling with pain, but Christ as a conqueror.
The result of Christ's appearing is that we will be like Him.  Christ’s victory is ours. We like him will no longer be bound by our human limitations, battered by temptation or suffering under the onslaught of evil.
Yet you and I were not adopted into God’s family to simply sit around and wait for Christ to return.
We have human limitations but we are also born again so we have the life of Christ within us through his spirit, yes we are battered by temptation but we are children of God and we love him and that guards our hearts. A true child of God, who has experienced the love of God, has no desire to sin against that love. We suffer from the onslaught of evil against us but what we have already seen and experienced Jesus helps us to keep faithful. We have the promise of the Word of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit which supports our confidence in the hope of our future state.
 “And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” or as the CEV says, “This hopes makes us keep ourselves holy, just as Christ is holy.” (v3)
The Holy Spirit inspired hope of seeing the Lord Jesus arouses the determination to be pure like Him. Then the grace of God touches the will of the Christian to motive him to action.
A Christian writer said, “When I didn’t know as much about Jesus as I know now, I wasn’t as impressed with Him as I am today. And this is amazing because in every other case, the better you know people, the more disillusioned you become as you begin to see their cracks and flaws. Not so with Jesus. The longer you walk with Him and the more you learn about Him, the more you will be impressed by Him, and the more you will long to see Him. Even though now we only see Him through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13:12), I like what I see! The more and more clearly I see and understand Jesus, the more and more I want to be like Him. What about you?”

Think about how much the Father loves us.  

Think about what that love is like
Think about who you are know because you have received that love
Think about what you have to look forward to because of this love
Think about how that affects the way you live now because of all you have through this love.

Blessings
Carol

 

Like children

Exeter Temple Message notes

Sunday 23rd March 2014
Bible Readings:          Mark 10:13-16   Matthew 18:1-6

                                           He called a little child and had him stand among them."
                                                                          (Matthew 18:2)
Some parents brought their babies to Jesus for Him to bless them but the disciples tried to prevent them. Jesus intervened, welcomed the children and went on to teach an important lesson through them.
1. Everyone is welcome
It was the custom of the times for mothers to bring their children to some distinguished rabbi on their first birthday that he might bless them. The parents were acting according to the custom of the day but in doing so were recognising Jesus’ position and authority as a teacher and leader. They hoped that his blessing and contact with their child would have a positive effect. These parents came to Jesus because they wanted their children to be winners not losers. Throughout history society has seen the rich, the powerful or the accomplished as winners and the rest as losers.
In Jesus’ day it was also believed that being a winner depended upon a person having the favour of God.  Disability, illness, bereavement, childlessness, low social status, scandal could all be reasons to label a person a loser. It was believed that if these things affected you then somehow you or your parents had earned God’s disapproval or even that  the devil had cursed you. In addition your inadequacy, your failures, your lack of moral fibre could also exclude you from God’s blessing. 
Jesus didn’t condemn these parents for wanting his blessing to guarantee immunity for their children from that.  
Jesus also actively called the ones who were able to walk to Him to come to Him themselves. Jesus still calls children to come and follow him. 
85% of the people who come to Christ are people under the age of 18. 
This story is not just about the importance of children’s ministry, but an example of Jesus living out the message he was continually preaching. 
We have lost the impact of it, today but Jesus revolutionary statements which we call the Beatitudes upset the religious establishment to the core. 
See Matthew 5:1-12
Some have interpreted these as a recipe for right living, a list of attitudes we should have But what if Jesus was actually saying something like this? 
“Hey! You who have no spiritual references! Come and belong to my kingdom. You, who have lost so much and you who has never been noticed before, I want to give you all the riches of heaven. And those of you whose longing for things to be put right have never been satisfied, I can meet your need. You over there, who have been taken in again and again, used, abused and put upon, you can come under my rule and I guarantee you will never be taken advantage of.  And those who standards are impeccable, my Kingdom will help you be all that you long to be because you’ll see God himself in it all! If you are worn out with the strain of maintaining relationships or mistreated or misunderstood you can lean on the Father because you are a son of God and a citizen of heaven itself for all eternity.”
If Jesus is actually saying that those who are labelled losers can still be blessed by God then these are an announcement of good news.
It is easy to get sucked into the world’s view perception of who should be welcome and drawn into a religious perception of who God blesses.  
Even as committed, Christians we get to feel that somehow there are some things the word of God offers or expects of us that doesn’t quite include us.  Somehow we’ve thought that the Holy Spirit is for extroverts, that ministry is for the gifted and that prayer is only for the pious!
We have to think differently about ourselves, what we can do and what we can be.  
2.  No one should be hindered    
If the kingdom of God is for everyone, then nothing should get in the way of people knowing that and having access to it. Everyone is welcome and no one should be hindered from coming to Jesus.
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these”.
Why did the disciples try to block these parents from getting their children to Jesus?
One problem was that they were extremely busy. Some days they didn’t even have enough time to eat, so they didn’t want to be interrupted.
Maybe the disciples could also see the strain of the impending crisis that Jesus would face in Jerusalem beginning to wear on him and they were trying to watch out for the Lord.
But Jesus’ was still displeased with his disciples and his reaction to the disciples’ attempt to protect him show us that there is never a good reason to consider some people too insignificant or too irrelevant for our consideration.
The disciples hindered the children; Jesus rebuked the disciples and invited the children. The lesson is clear: Disciples of Jesus should remove all hindrances that keep anyone from coming to Jesus.
We do not actively say to people, “Don’t come to the Salvation Army, we don’t want you.” But people are sometimes hindered from exploring faith or receiving the ministry of Jesus through us by things other than words.
It might simply be that people are hindered by lack of knowledge. They don’t know what is on offer. It might be simple things like the times we are available for people.  It might be a perception that they are not welcome because they do not already have their faith sorted out.
Some people are hindered by bad publicity about the Church and stories of abuse. Some are fearful that the church will make unreasonable demands on their time or even that we are after their money.  Jesus is quite clear that we must not hinder people from coming to Him. 
May God help us to see ourselves through other people’s eyes and the message we are giving out. 
3. We all need to be like children
This story is often depicted in nice scenes of Jesus surrounded by cute kids but it is not a totally comfortable one. It contains a warning.
Having child-like qualities is not only desirable but essential. 
The disciples of Jesus had fixed ideas about how Jesus would rule as a King. They were very concerned that when Jesus set up his government they would hold influential positions. Jesus used a little child to illustrate his point that “Unless you change and become like little children you will
never enter the kingdom of heaven.” They might not even get in to the kingdom let alone hold office in it.
Jesus says that unless we learn from children we are losing out on something so vital that we lose touch with God and how He rules the universe.
A child at birth is helpless and cannot provide for himself. There is nothing they can do to feed themselves, keep themselves clean, keep warm or safe. They are completely dependent. 
In our need to be rescued from the power of sin, we need to recognise that we are as helpless as babies. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves.
This was something that Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus, “I tell you the truth no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
As we grow learn to play “let’s pretend”. Let’s pretend we are coping OK. Let’s pretend we are more in control than we really are, let’s pretend we don’t really care etc. etc. As we grow it’s easy to try to hide behind masks and we can find ourselves being less than honest with ourselves, others and God. 
Unless we go back to the place where we cry out to God to help us, in the same way as a baby cries out to be fed or changed or held we will never find our place in the kingdom. 
A child does not have blind faith, but keeps on asking questions and keeps on discovering more. Some adults never come to faith in God because they need all the answers first, but God is just too big for that.
Other adults have a faith which never asks any hard questions but that kind of faith is no use to us in really testing circumstances. Jesus welcomes both belief and questions just as He freely welcomed children.
Jesus loved children. They are teachable. They are not proud, self-important and critical.
We are to come simply to Jesus not with any pride of knowledge or achievement but with the trusting dependency of a small child.

 

God bless
Alan

 

 

Battles

Exeter Temple message notes

Sunday 16^th March 2014
Bible Reading:            Exodus 17:8-16
Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. We know that Esau as the firstborn had a valuable birth right but one day when he was physically hungry he exchanged it with his brother Jacob for a bowl of lentils. The bible says he despised his birth right.
Later he was also tricked into losing his father’s blessing to Jacob and this meant he had to go out and build his own inheritance. He was successful and created a dynasty. He had a son Eliphaz who had a son called Amalek. The Israelites were descendants of Jacob and the Amalekites the descendants of Esau. 
The origins of each dynasty, lead to two very different approaches towards culture and destiny.  The Israelites, when they are not busy grumbling see themselves a people, called into being by God, dependent upon him, rescued from slavery and on a journey to fulfilment of God’s plan and purpose for them as a people.  The Amalekites on the other hand are a people who have forged their own way; they have what they have because they have grabbed it and made it theirs.  Theirs is a culture of self-reliance.  Deuteronomy tells us that they had no fear of God. 
1. Sign up for the battle
In the desert the two opposing cultures came to blows.
In the world today, we face a choice between two opposing ways of living life, of culture and destiny.  Are we a people, with a sense of calling by God to belong to him, to look to him for salvation, purpose and direction?  This is the way we choose, if we choose to follow Jesus. Or do we live life to please our own dreams, driven by our own ambition and reliant upon our own human plans and skills to bring them into being. 
It is our version of the battle of the Israelites with the Amalekites. This passage of scripture is a passage of firsts. It is the first battle Israel fought. It is the first mention of the Amalekites and the first mention of Joshua.
The first battle we fight as Christians is the battle within us, the battle of the worldly thinking against spiritual thinking.
In v9 Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out and fight the Amalekites.
The church is often so weak because its members have not dealt with the part of them which is antagonistic to relying upon God and not on self. There is a part of me that loves God and spiritual things. But there is another part of me that hates the things of God. There is a part of me that wants to read my Bible and a part that says read something else. There is a part of me that says Pray and another part that says don’t bother.
It is interesting that Deuteronomy tells us that the Amalekites method was to pick off those who lagged behind.  Why were they lagging behind?  Who knows but at a guess I would say it was because they were distracted and pre-occupied with something other than the journey they were supposed to be on.
Having fallen prey to the Amalekites once, Moses was not prepared to let it go at that. He knew that they must be dealt with decisively.
Some of our biggest problems are because we won’t go into the battlefield to fight. In other words we want to avoid the issues. But although God will win victories for us he won’t win them without us being engaged with him in them.
2. Rally round the banner 
V9b “Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.
All battles need someone at the top of the hill. Moses rod raised in the air was a sign of his leadership and his authority under God. When the rod was raised, the Israelites started gaining ground, when it was lowered they began to lose ground.
This would all seem foolish to the Amalekites. Can you imagine their army joking? “Why on earth is he holding a stick in the air? Do they think a piece of wood will save them?
But that is exactly what they thought.  When they saw the rod of Moses the Israelites remembered how he had used it to defeat Pharoah’s magicians and how when he had raised it over the Red Sea they had passed through it on dry ground.
It might look foolish but they knew that whilst there was no power in the rod itself, it symbolises God’s power.
God also saves us through a piece of wood. We call it a cross. It is foolishness to some but to those who believe it is the power of God for our salvation. In this battle against relying upon ourselves, the devil might tell us we are fools but our answer lies in looking to the victory of the cross. When we look to the cross we remember we could do nothing to release ourselves from the bondage of sin, just as the Israelites couldn’t get through the Red Sea without God using Moses rod. We start to realise again that it is God who will see us through this battle too. 
The determining factor in this battle was not which side had the better army or the greater military strategy. The determining factor was whether or not Moses could hold up his hands.
This incident is was a lesson for Moses and all of Israel that they had to come in subjection and humility before God, relying on him and him alone. Only when Moses held up his arms – as if calling on God and surrendering himself to God could God act. When he forgot about God or grew weary and dropped his arms God was not able to work.
God is always there to help us. He will do the fighting for us if only we are open to him and rely on him.
Holding up one’s hands was a symbol of appeal to God for help and enablement. It means prayer. The action on the hill top determined the outcome of the action in the valley . The real spiritual success or failure of a church will not be the talent of the leaders or the size of the congregation. God’s message was this.  In our spiritual conflicts the outcome is not determined by what is seen on the field of battle but rather what happens in the place of prayer.
After the battle was over and won Moses set up an altar and called it Jehovah Nissi which means “The Lord is my banner.” 
A banner even now is a standard that bears the colours by which a military unit is identified. The flag has no power in itself, it signifies that the soldiers who are fighting have behind them the authority power and resources of the person, the nation or the organisation name upon it.
If we are Christians we can fly God’s flag or banner because we have at our disposal all of God’s authority, power and resources.
In our battles of which the first is the battle against our own worldliness God does and is providing us with his banner. He is your banner, he is my banner, he is our banner. We need to rally behind it. If we lock him out of our life and fly our own flag he can’t work.
3. Keeping the flag flying   
In the battle against the Amalekites, Moses became Israel’s focal point and whilst they kept their eyes on him and his shepherds rod was raised the Israelites prevailed but when his arms fell they were losing.
So what could they do?  First they got a seat for him and Aaron and Hur held his hands up so that he hands remained steady until sunset.
This reminds us too of how Jesus needed his disciples to pray with him in Gethsemene. Can you imagine that if the Son of God needed his disciples to pray for him how much more we need intercessors to pray for us?
Why are we so often struggling with our spiritual battles? Why don’t we win the battle of the flesh at times?  Why don’t we want to even engage in dealing with our inner issues sometimes?  We like Moses often plan to go to the hilltop to lift our hands in prayer but we don’t always do it.
Why not?
It is often because we are trying to go it alone. Moses was not so foolish. He took his friends with him Aaron and Hur with him.
T - Together
E – Everyone
A - Achieves
M - More
We are too embarrassed or too ashamed to ask our church family to help with our battle.
Unfortunately, the enemy wins way too many battles because we don’t help each other on the battlefield. Galatians 6:2 (NIV) Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
God bless
Carol

Choices

Bible Message notes

Sunday 9^th March 2014
Bible Reading: Exodus 17:1-7
Choices are important and often what we choose to do reveals the underlying values which drive us.  As the Israelites journeyed through the wilderness they had choices to make, not just about whether they did what God told them to but choices about the attitudes they took in the circumstances they faced.
1. Rest or Rush
The place they came to was called Rephidim, It was supposed to be place of refreshment but when they got there, there was no water. 
The immediate response was to rush to demand that Moses resolve the situation, there and then.
In their panic and under pressure they lashed out with the accusation that Moses had made them leave Egypt. Their quick analysis of what was going on was that they were going to die of starvation.  Rushing to conclusions they came near to stoning Moses.
It seems a tall order to have expected the people to rest in such circumstances but that is what faith can do, even when there seems to be no way forward and it looks like we’re finished.
God would not have allowed His people to die of thirst, as they accused.
Had they but waited, God would have provided for them. Their lack of faith was manifested in their impatience. 
Looking back on this part of Israel’s history the Psalmist wrote,
“But they soon forgot what God had done and did not wait for his counsel”. (Psalm 106:13) 
In every instance where Israel lacked either food or water, Israel acted prematurely. God would have provided for His people’s needs in His own time, but this was too late so far as the Israelites were concerned. Unbelief is often hasty; faith is patient and endures. 
2. Respect or Rebellion
The second choice that the people had at Rephidim was to show God the respect His person should command or to arrogantly rebel against Him.
In verse 2 Moses wanted to know, “Why do you put the Lord to the test?”
It seems the people of God are turning the tables on the Lord and assume that they can test Him.  They put Him on trial.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “The modern man approaches God as the judge: Man puts God in the dock. Man is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock.”
And we are wrong. We are not the judge. He is.
And He will judge rightly every single time.
So we’ve got to get the order right. He’s the Lord. He calls the shots.
They presumed that God must work according to their plan. They sought to demand that God do what they want.
When we demand that someone prove themselves to us we reveal our lack of trust in them.
God is not at our beck and call, a kind of heavenly servant to jump to our every tune. It finally will not be we who will test our God; it will be our God who will test us to see if that God can finally find faith on the earth.
 3. Responsiveness or Resistance
Israel’s response to the lack of water is no mere repetition of their previous grumbling. Their attitudes had hardened.  
When there was no water at Rephidim they went further than just have a moan. They went from grumbling to quarrelling.  They turned on Moses who had put his life on the line for them so many times but more than this they asked the question; “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Based upon what was going on right under their noses that should have been a silly question.  
They had been in the place where there was no water before and God had provided but even at Rephidim whilst there was no water, the manna still turned up every day and the cloud which was the visible manifestation of God’s presence was still there. 
There was no water but there was still plenty of evidence that God was with them, if they could keep their hearts open to Him.  But it seems that somehow the miracles of the past had become co-incidences, the supply of manna, a right rather than a gift of grace and the presence of the cloud an irrelevance. 
It is normal to ask God questions and nobody wants to be  naïve, but there is something so soul destroying about becoming reluctant to believe in the genuineness of people and ultimately that God is not out to get us but genuinely loves us and wants the best for us.
None of us want to be taken in, but if our first reaction is always to assume that people who are successful must be manipulating, or that a response to an altar call must be emotionalism, or that people who come to ask for help are really on the take, or that if a method, ministry or expression of faith does not fit my own experience it must be defective will eventually fur up our spiritual arteries and have a devastating effect on our relationship with God.  
As a result Moses renamed Rephidim, and instead called it Massah which means test and Meribah which means quarrel, an epitaph which the Israelites would gladly have stricken from their history.
Thankfully, Moses kept his head. His choice when faced with an escalating tension between him and the people was not to run away but to cry out to God for help.
If it is not presumption to say so, God also had choices.
In the face of the rebellion and resistance God’s response could have been retaliation but instead we see a revelation of his grace.
God said, “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did this, in the sight of the elders of Israel.
The people are faithless but God is faithful.
This is not an encouragement for us to be faithless, it is an acknowledgement that we often are and that even in those times God meets us with one grace after another.
He is a good God. He is faithful. His constant supply and His boundless grace are intended to teach us that He can be trusted.
In the middle of their worst hour, God was there. And He still is and He still pours water from a rock.
Do you know that this story is a foretaste of what God provided through Jesus?  
1 Corinthians 10:1-4  “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.”
The rock that was struck and broken so that it released life-giving water reminds us of Jesus, whose body was broken so that salvation and life could be poured out upon a world that have no hope of life without Him.  
Do you remember singing in Sunday School, Jesus is the rock of our salvation and his banner over me is love?  I have tended to think of that as meaning that Jesus is a sure foundation upon which to build a life, but it takes on added meaning when we think of Jesus as a rock from which living water flows into our souls.
We face choices as the ancient people of God did, and like them at times our hearts become hard and dry but God’s grace is still the same and we can come to the rock which is Jesus to receive healing and new life.

God bless

Alan