Another hour of your life

So this week I have given an hour of my life to the following...

1 - Watching Man City v Blackburn (not sure why I did this)

2 - Watching Real Madrid v Barcelona (wish I hadn't done this)

3 - Playing Fifa 11

4 - Playing Tennis

5 - Playing Monopoly (First time for about 15 years and I remembered why it had been so long)

Much like last week my week has involved a mix of enjoyable and not enjoyable. A mix of things which were a good idea and things which weren't.

Now for those of you who decided that an hour on Easter Sunday was too much to give up to see if it had anything to say to you let me suggest you join us this Sunday (10:45am at Browning Avenue Baptist Church) for the start of a new series we're doing looking at the meaning of life from the book of Ecclesiastes. If you don't normally go to church why not give it a whirl and see if the Bible has anything interesting/useful to say about the meaning of life.

An hour of your life

As you look across your life I guess all of us can think of any number of things which we will give up an hour for. Here are some things I have recently given up an hour of my life for

1 - An episode of the Sopranos

2 - Watching Middlesbrough Football Club (I guess this is longer than an hour)

3 - Playing Angry Birds on my phone (I'm going for 3 stars on each level)

4 - Playing football

5 - Speaking to friends on the phone

6 - Visiting a farm

7 - Watching Beauty and the Geek (only once I feel I must add)

I guess if you were to list some of the things you give up an hour to do you would get a list of some worthwhile stuff and some stuff which is quite simply a bit of a waste of time.

Here is my question - When most of us are willing to spend an hour doing practically anything, why is it so hard to get people to give an hour of their lives to come to church and see if Jesus' death and resurrection actually has anything to say to them?

That's what we're going to be looking at tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 10:45 and let me encourage as many of you as possible to give up just an hour of your life to hear me talk about what this Easter weekend is all about.

So join us for 'A matter of death and life' at Browning Avenue Baptist Church - Sunday 24th April - 10:45am.

Hope to see you there!

Syncretism

I apologise if this makes no sense but I am aware of this problem in myself and feel like I should try to articulate it!

So idolatry is a bad thing. Well at least according to the Bible it is. Idolatry is in essence allowing something else to take things which only God deserves.

So when we love something instead of God then that thing has become an idol.

Idols are rarely bad things but normally good things which we allow to become too important to us.

So a high view of family is a good thing but when I love my family so much that I allow it to dictate my actions, thoughts, attitudes more than God then it has become an idol.

Football is a good thing but when I love that more than I love God then it has become an idol.

However, this is quite a narrow view of idolatry. In the Old Testament when God's people turned away to idols they rarely gave up entirely with God. No rather they worshipped God along with other gods. This was called syncretism. Trying to worship two things at the same time. God may even still have been number 1 but they wanted another god as well.

I do wonder whether today syncretism is more of a danger than straight out idolatry. It's not that I want rid of God I just want success as well. It's not that I want God out of the picture entirely I just want to be rich as well. The problem is that syncretism is more difficult to spot. You see idolatry is in some ways easy - Do I love this more than God? If I do it's an idol if not then it's not.

But syncretism is harder. Syncretism is harder to spot because in order for something to be an idol now it doesn't have to be more important than God it simply has to take something belonging to God.

Let me explain...

Say if you were a person who likes to do things well and be successful. There are 3 things which could be going on here.

1. You could just like being successful. You like doing things well but it's not a problem you still love and follow God and your desire to be a success has no impact on this. Your success is nothing more than a means by which you serve, enjoy and glorify God.

2. You could be an idolater. By this I mean you could actually love being successful more than you love God. You therefore choose success over God and thus show that success is your real God.

3. You could be a syncretist. You love God and want to follow him but you have allowed success to take some of the things God deserves. So some of your significance is found in being successful and so you have allowed success to be part of what identifies you as well as God. But your identity should come from God so by doing this you have allowed success to provide something only God should provide. So you are a syncretist. You want God and like being identified by him but you have allowed something else to provide your worth which should only belong to God. You have allowed something else to take your energy and steal your affection apart from God.

Now this becomes more complicated to identify because enjoying and loving God through success is a good thing. It is when these things become disconnected from God that we have a problem. However, for people within church it is more likely that you are a syncretist than simply an idolater. It is much more likely that you have allowed other things to give or take things which only God should than that you have allowed yourself to love something more than God. However, syncretism is still idolatry so we need to be serious about identifying it and rooting it out because God is the one worth being loved with heart, soul, mind and strength.

The god I don't believe in

I believe in god but...

I don't believe in a god in the traditional sort of way. That's just a social construct.

I don't believe in a god who makes moral requirements on my life. It's my life why should he care!

I don't believe in a god who allows such terrible things to happen. If he's out there this stuff must be beyond him.

I don't believe in a god who cares about what I think of him. Surely he should be above that?

I don't believe in a god who sends people to hell. Hell? I mean come on!

I don't believe in a god who lets rapists get away with it. He should step in there!

I don't believe in a god who lets children be abused. He shouldn't stand for that.

I don't believe in a god who'll just forgive anyone for anything, no matter what they've done. Anyone can be sorry but it doesn't make it o.k.

It's easy to think of the things you don't want to believe and then turn them into a list of things you don't believe but at the end of it the question you have to answer is what do you have left to believe in?

If all we simply do is state all the things we don't believe in we run the risk of never actually battling with the issues in order to work out what we do believe. Beware you don't assume that stating what you don't believe and why is the same as being able to justify what you do believe!

P.S. The views stated at the start of this blog certainly do not all represent what I don't believe (it was a rhetorical tool)

21st Century Island Syndrome

The film 'About a boy' (which I like more than I should) begins with Hugh Grant telling us what rubbish the statement 'no man is an island' is because in our age now is the perfect time to be an island. The film goes on to suggest that he is wrong however, I reckon a lot of us still think he is right. What with computers, books, tv, sports etc sometimes being an Island can feel rather nice. It feels especially nice when you have been let down and hurt by people. As life goes on and we grow in our realisation that people are unreliable and often hard work it's often tempting to pull up the draw bridge and withdraw to our private island.

I see a whole host of people within the church who seem to have withdrawn from people. Perhaps they cross paths with other people occasionally but in terms of real, vibrant, honest, committed friendships they have given up on them. They view them as unimportant, not worth the effort and something they don't have time for.

To be like this is to rebel against God's purposes...

God's purpose in creation was to make something which was capable of real friendship with him. That something was us. We are designed for real friendship.

However, when man was alone (in a perfect world) there was still something not right in the world because God had created something in his own image which meant he had created something which needed real, strong and loving relationships.

Humanity messed that up so God came down to earth to redeem his people. Why did he do this? Well the whole purpose of this redemption was to rebuild these friendships. To make it possible for people to have a real and vibrant friendship with God and strong, loving friendships with each other.

To reject honest, genuine and loving friendships is actually not simply a question of choice but a rebellion against God's purposes in creating you and redeeming you. It is worrying to see how many Christians seem to have opted out of real friendships, for one reason or another, considering that it was in order for you to make real friendships that you were both created and redeemed.

Love Wins

Well following Rob Bell's video and the christian media storm which erupted I am aware that many people have been waiting with baited breath to see what the Parker line is. I mean they know where Piper stands but they just want to see where the other big guns stand before nailing their colours to the mast. So somewhat tardily I have decided (prompted by a tweet I read) to state my official line on the matter!

The triune God before time itself decided to create a universe as an overflow of the love they had always enjoyed. In a battle between inaction and love - Love wins

The people God created turn their back on him and start making something of a mess of the universe he created. However, God continues to be long suffering, patient and kind with them as he reveals himself to them and works to restrain evil and bring people back into relationship with him. In a battle between indifference and love - Love wins

Knowing full well mankind's inability to relate to him, each other or creation properly, God the Son becomes a man and suffers incredible hardship and difficulty as eventually he is crucified by the very people he came to rescue. Through this crucifixion forgiveness is made possible and through this a renewed relationship of love between people and God. In a battle between comfort and love - Love wins

One day God promises a new creation in which everybody relates to each other, and to God, in perfect love. God will not allow hate, suffering, and all kinds of evil to go unchecked and one day he will do away with them forever. Ultimately in the battle between sin and love - Love wins

So about this much at least Rob Bell is right - Love definitely wins!

Who decides who loves Jesus?

It has become popular to talk about Christians as people who love Jesus. This is a great definition of a Christian and it is not new. This is surely the definition Jesus gives when he talks about the importance of loving him more than anything else (Matthew 10v37-38). Christianity is not primarily about the things you do, the things you say or anything like that it is about a relationship of love with Jesus Christ.

However, today someone said to me how come such a person gets to decide who loves Jesus and who doesn't? You see if it's about loving Jesus then surely I am the only person who can say whether I do or not and everyone else should just get their nose out of other people's business. You see the idea behind this statement is a really popular one which states that as long as I love Jesus (by my own definition of love) then I'm o.k. and no-one can tell me that I am or am not a Christian. So what we end up with is a group of people who can say anything, do anything but still claim to be Christians because they love Jesus. What we end up with is a community whose only response to any teaching, lifestyle choices or anything is to say 'well they seem to love Jesus' or 'well as along as they love Jesus' or 'they seem to love Jesus more than these other people'

So Christianity has become about nothing. It's become about whether people say they love Jesus and whether they talk about Jesus in a loving way and nothing else.

So back to the original question. Who get's to decide who loves Jesus and who doesn't? Well let me suggest that Jesus does. What does he have to say about the matter? Let me quote but a few things he says on the matter?

1 - John 21v15-19 - When Jesus meets with Peter after the resurrection Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, Peter says yes and so Jesus tells him to 'feed my lambs/sheep'. Jesus here says that people who love him will feed his people.

This means that you can't lead people astray and love Jesus. You can't teach people things which leads them away from Jesus and still love him. So people who talk about loving Jesus but are teaching error can and should be confronted because what they are doing is not loving Jesus.

2 - John 14v23 - Jesus here clearly says that those who love him obey his teaching. This means that it is a contradiction to pursue a life of disobedience to Jesus whilst still claiming to love him. This means that disobedient acts can and should be confronted because what they are doing is not loving Jesus.

3 - 1 John 4v20-21 - Here John says that Jesus taught that it's impossible to claim that you love God if you don't love your brother. This means that it is impossible to say that 'I love Jesus I just don't love Christians/the church'. How can you love Jesus but not love the church he purchased with his blood? So this means that a disregard, indifference or hostility towards God's people is incompatible with love for Jesus. Therefore yet again this attitude towards Christians can and should be confronted because this is not loving Jesus.

That's just a few examples I'm sure there are more but my point is that although Christianity is about loving Jesus this should not make it the subjective wishy washy thing which it seems to have become with so many people and so many Christian communities!