Sermon: When God Says No

A parent prays for their sick child to be healed. The sick child dies.

A man tormented by Satan prays over and over for the torment to be taken away. It remains with him.

A church desperately prays for something they want. They do not get it.

A churchgoer prays for wisdom from God. They remain foolish.

A son prays for his mother to be saved. She dies an unbeliever.

Maybe you have read passages like Matthew 7:7-8 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." Or Matthew 21:22, "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Or John 14:13-14, "And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." And so then asked yourself, "Why didn't God give me what I asked for?”

Of course not all prayer is about asking for things, but asking is a part of prayer, it's something that God encourages us to do, and that's what I'm going to be focusing on this morning. The Bible shows us that there are three basic answers we get when we pray to God for something. The first answer is Yes - he gives us what we asked for. This is obviously the answer we want when we pray. You don't ask for something you don't want. When we think of God answering prayer, this is the answer we most commonly think of. Even in the Bible they use the term "God answered my prayer" to mean "God answered Yes to my prayer - he gave me what I asked for". I hope you have all had this happen at some time in your prayer life: you pray for a job and you get one; you pray for a spouse and you find one; you pray for healing and a person is healed, you pray for someone's salvation and they are saved. Every time we receive a Yes answer to prayer, we are beneficiaries of God's incredible grace, his undeserved favour: we see God glorified, our faith is strengthened a little bit, we see good things happening in the world and receive good things. All that is grace, because we don't deserve to have our prayers answered. It's not like God owes any of us a debt. We're the ones eternally in debt to God, and yet, like a loving father, he provides for us as his children, gives us things, answers our prayers. It's incredible.

The second answer we can receive from God is Wait - so we pray, but nothing happens immediately. Perhaps something has to change first, or God gives us what we ask for but it takes time.  We can pray for something for a long time - for years even - before we finally see the result that we were seeking. Sometimes that's normal - when your child starts university, you pray that they might pass all their subjects, but you don't expect to wake up the next morning and find that God has answered your prayers immediately and they've already got their degree! Sometimes we pray for something that could happen immediately but doesn't - like the prayer for healing that God could do miraculously in a moment, but instead happens through years of medical treatment. Sometimes, God will only answer our prayers in eternity. If you've ever prayed for world peace, or for God's kingdom to come or for Jesus to return, or if you've prayed that there won't be any more pain or hunger or suffering in the world, or for justice against wrongdoers... God does say Yes to those prayers, but only in the new heaven and the new earth. We have to wait. Eternity will be fantastic, and sometimes we yearn for it, and so we ask God to usher in that perfect existence, and God says "It's coming, it's coming. Just wait, it's coming." We should acknowledge that God is still wonderful when he answers Wait - even if we have to wait years, or into eternity, for the thing that we've asked, the fact that God will make all things new and that our eternal lives with him will be perfect... that is boss. We might sometimes get impatient, but the fact that God takes his time does not reduce his awesomeness.

The final answer we can get when we pray to God is No - God does not give us what we ask. Sometimes he does nothing, or he even does the opposite of what we ask. A No from God is not simply a Wait – a No is when a door gets closed, when something irrevocable happens that means this will never be. Give up hope on this, it says. And that's the answer we will be looking at today: when God says No. It can be hard for us when God says no to our prayers. Which of the answers to prayer do you think is most likely to shake someone's faith in God, to make them seriously wonder how they can keep on believing in him? "Yes" is usually a boost to our faith; "Wait" can hurt, it can make us question, but it still leaves space for hope; but "No" can feel like God doesn't care, and especially when we are praying about things we really care about, that can cause people to question their faith - if God says no to my prayers, can he even hear my prayers? Is he really able to do what I asked? Does he love me?

Well, the Bible actually has some things to say about why God says no, because it is something that happens in the life of every single believer. I think it's worth us looking into it, because if we don't have the right understanding and the right attitude about it, it can shake our faith. But also, I think that having a good understanding about when God says no to our prayers actually teaches us more about God and our relationship with him, it can help us in our prayer lives to pray better prayers, and it will strengthen our faith by helping us understand why God might say no.

I think that even as Christians, we can sometimes get into this way of thinking about God where we think that because God loves us and wants what's best for us, if we pray and we don't get what we want, then he isn't listening or hasn't heard us: prayer has somehow become broken. My friends, let me tell you that whenever there is a problem with anything, the problem is not on God's end. God is perfect. He doesn't make mistakes. God is everywhere, his ears hear everything, even the thoughts in our heads and the feelings in our hearts. Romans 8:26-27 tells us that God's Spirit lives in us, and translates our rubbish prayers into sweet poetry that is a delight to God in a way that our words could never express. The Holy Spirit is like a prayer auto-correct, but one that actually works. Prayer is in fact the only perfect form of communication in the universe: the network is never down, the lines are always crystal clear, there is no language barrier, and best of all God never misunderstands what we're trying to say. If you ever feel like no-one understands you, then pray. God knows exactly what you mean.

As the perfect means of communication, prayer is obviously amazing. But as simple, finite, not-perfect humans, we have a problem - we can get confused, we can be led astray, we can make mistakes, and we can even deceive ourselves. So the first thing the Bible has to say about our prayers is that when we pray for something, we should examine ourselves and ask the question, "Why am I actually praying this prayer? What is my reason behind asking for this?" Because the Bible tells us that our attitude, the reason behind why we are asking for something, is important to God, and it can be a reason why God answers No to our prayers.

So I've come up with three questions that should help us examine ourselves when we pray, or that we can even ask when we receive the answer No from God to our prayers, to see if the problem might lie with us. And the first one might shock you a little, because the first question I think we should ask ourselves when we pray and receive the answer NO from God is: Do I really believe in God at all?

Wow, Ben, maybe you're going just a little far. I mean, okay, maybe my prayer life is a bit hit and miss, but you're questioning my faith now? Well, it's not me, it's Jesus. What did he say in Matthew 21:22? "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." The question is, do we really trust God to provide for us when we ask things of him? Here's how James puts it in his letter, James 1:5: "5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord."

Now it's important for us to pause a moment here and realise that this verse is not talking about what we might call a faithful doubt. Remember the guy who brings his little boy to Jesus and the disciples, and the disciples couldn't heal him? The man says to Jesus, "If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." Jesus replies, "If you can? Everything is possible for one who believes.” And immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” And what does Jesus do? He heals that boy.

This is not the kind of doubt that James is talking about. No, James has his eyes set on a different kind of person, the kind of person he calls "double-minded and unstable in all they do". It's the kind of person who asks God for wisdom, but really already knows what they're going to do anyway, because they don't honestly believe that God has anything to offer them. They're going to do the worldly thing, the thing that looks smart on earth. The thing that provides worldly success, worldly fame, worldly riches. After all, if it produces such good results, it must be the "wise" thing to do, right? But that is not God's wisdom! How dare you come to God asking for his heavenly wisdom, while you are looking over your shoulder at your back pocket to see what impact it will have on your wallet? That is double-minded! Don't bother asking God if you don't trust that the things he will give you will be good things!

Of course, trusting God means trusting God knows best, even when he says No to your prayers.  If you do trust God, and yet he still says no, then you're in good company. Paul prayed to God asking for God to remove a thorn in his flesh, what he described as a messenger of Satan tormenting him. He prayed for that three times. What was God's answer? It was No. In 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." And Paul's response to that No answer was to accept it, in verse 10: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." Would God have been glorified if Paul’s prayer had been answered with a Yes, and the torment was taken away? Absolutely. But God’s No answer to Paul’s prayer is even better than what he asked: it allows him to glorify God all the more, because God’s power is made perfect in his weakness.

So you didn’t get what you asked from God? Maybe it’s just that he knows better than you what is good for you. Will you accept that? So that's the first question we should ask ourselves: do we really trust God? Because if we do, then we trust that his No is better for us than a Yes could ever be.

Here's the second question we should ask ourselves when we pray: Am I asking for the wrong thing? Am I asking for something not in line with God's will? Am I asking for the right thing but for the wrong reasons? You might think that true Christians don't pray for anything not in line with God's will. But we are still sinful people, and it may be that we ask for sinful things. When a Christian alcoholic pleads to God, "Please, God, just give me one more drink," they are not asking for something in line with God's will for them. When we are greedy, and pray for stuff because we want more stuff, and better stuff, and more better stuff, we are not praying in line with God's will. Is there something wrong with stuff? No. But there's a difference between asking God for your daily bread and asking him for your daily caviar.

Shall we ask James what he has to say about asking God for things for the wrong reasons? When you want a straight-talking answer to questions about the Christian life, you can't go past James. He's a hammer, and he nails us for who we really are. In chapter 4 verse 1 he says this: "1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

James doesn't mince words. And don't you dare even think for a moment that, "Oh, James is talking about non-Christians, all those terrible people out there who fight and kill and covet. Of course God won't give them what they want." But James was not writing to non-Christians; his letter is written to Christians! Christians whose desires battle within them! Christians whose desires lead them to kill! Christians whose coveting causes them to fight and quarrel! Christians whose prayers are answered "No" by God because they are greedy and selfish.

Now again, we can't read this message prescriptively - I mean we can't say it's always true all the time. James cannot be saying that God never answers Yes to the prayers of sinful people. If that were the case, we would never see Yes answers to prayer, because we all fall short. That's not the point of this passage.

In fact, if you say, “Well, I am sinful, so I guess I shouldn’t pray” then you are missing the other side of what James has just said: “You do not have because you do not ask God”! The point is that God is generous, but God also cares about how we live, he cares about our motives, and he wants our motives to align with his motives, in our prayers and the rest of our lives.

But where can we find out what God’s will and God’s motives are? He reveals them to us in the Bible! How do we know that quarrelling and fighting are against God’s will? We find it in the Bible! How do we know that killing and coveting are not godly motives? We find it in the Bible! How can we be sure that when we are praying, we are praying with the right motives, and not for our own selfish pleasures? We reflect on our motives, and then we compare them to what God tells us in the Bible! We must not, we cannot, take up God’s way of us perfectly communicating with him in prayer, while ignoring his method of perfectly communicating with us through his Word.

And sometimes our motives are not wicked, but God’s plan is still different to what we ask. Jesus himself prayed to God in Mark 14:36, "Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me.” Jesus didn't want to be crucified! Is it wrong to not want to be crucified? Of course not! But Jesus knew God's will - he knew that God's answer was no, that God's plan was salvation for all who believe - and so Christ accepted it, and he prayed, "Yet not what I will, but what you will." And aren't we glad that God said no to Jesus that night? Our eternal futures relied on it. So like Christ, we must accept that sometimes when we pray it's not what we will, but what God wills that must be done.

The first question we should ask ourselves is do we really believe in God? The second question is are we asking for the right thing? Now here's the last question: Are we asking to escape the consequences of sin? Now I believe that there is one prayer that God always answers Yes to: "Lord, save me." God will never say "No" if you pray that prayer for yourself. But just because as Christians we are saved from the eternal punishment, that doesn't mean that the consequences of sin in this world will pass us by. Sometimes they might! But sometimes they will not.

The tragic example in scripture is David's prayer for his sick son, born of his adulterous liaison with Bathsheba, in 2 Samuel 12. God tells David through the prophet Nathan, "Because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die." And David tries everything: he pleads with God, he weeps, he fasts, he wears sackcloth, he prostrates himself on the ground. But God says No: on the seventh day, David's little boy dies. He doesn't even make it to circumcision - he dies without the symbol of God's covenant with his people.

I've never lost a child. I have no idea how painful that must have been for David, or for Bathsheba. It must have hurt David all the more to know that his child died because of his sin against God. But I would give anything to have David's response to God's No: he gets up, cleans himself off, goes into the house of God and he worships. He says, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ 23 But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." That is faith. For as long as there was a hope, David was prepared to do everything he could to pursue it, because David knew that God is gracious. But when God's answer was a clear no, he accepted it. He had to live with it.

Now for most of us, we don't get a prophet of the Lord coming and telling us that a certain terrible thing is the consequence for our sin. David was the king of God's people, and he had done something terrible, so God made it clear what the situation was. Sometimes it will be clear to us too. Do some prison ministry, and you will meet plenty of Christians in prison who know that God has paid the price for their sins, and who wish they had never committed the crimes they are now locked up for. But they can't go back and undo what they did. Even though they are saved, that will haunt them forever. Of course there is nothing wrong with praying for God to graciously save us from a consequence of our own sins. As David said, "Maybe God will be gracious." But if his answer is No, we must accept it, because sin has consequences.

And this brings us to what is perhaps the most difficult prayer there is to receive a NO to: when we pray for our loved ones to be saved, and they die seeming to reject God and Jesus. I don’t think there is a prayer that can shake our faith more when it is answered No, because we know that it is God's will that all people be saved. We know that our motives are good. We know that we trust God for salvation, because how else can people be saved? And we are praying for people we love dearly - parents, children, siblings, best friends - and when they die denying God, turning their back on Christ, God that hurts. Of all the prayers we could ever pray, why would God answer No to this one?

I have prayed this prayer, for people to be saved, and I have seen people saved. But I also prayed for my mother for years. She was not a believer. She blamed God her whole life for the bad things that happened to her - and those things were pretty bad. She could not accept that God would forgive the people who hurt her. She said that if God could forgive them, she could not forgive God. My mother didn’t die straight away. Like her mother, she suffered from dementia, and so her life, her consciousness, her decision-making slipped away from her slowly over about 12 years. She died on 4 October 2016, while Penny and I were in our missionary training to come to Namibia.

Now there are some people who will say that you can never really know what decision someone makes in the last moments before their death; you can't know how they conclude their life's business with God. And I do believe in deathbed confessions of faith - the workers who come only in the last hour, and yet get paid the full amount. But I also know that "wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:13-14.) I don't believe my mother changed her mind. She made her choice, and she stuck to it.

I won't pretend to be happy about the fact that my mother is most likely not going to be with us in the new heaven and the new earth. I don't think God wants me to be happy about it, because I don't think he is happy about it either. If it breaks my heart that my mother was not a Christian when she died, how much does it break God's heart, who sent his son to die for her, only for her to reject him? I can't be angry at a God who I know knew my mother perfectly, and gave her every chance she would ever need to freely choose him, and who mourns her loss more than I ever will.

Because, you see, God made sure that I was praying for her the whole time. You might remember what Paul Gunning said a few weeks ago, about when Hannah prayed to God for a child – God had set up her entire situation to make sure that she prayed for what God wanted to give as part of his plan. There is a very real sense that when we pray, we are involved in perfect communication from God to God; God does not simply hear our voice, but he hears his own voice through the Holy Spirit working in us. Which means that when God answers, he is not really answering us, but he is in fact answering himself. And so, just like God the Son praying in the garden of Gethsemane to God the Father, praying for that cup to be taken from him, and the Father having to answer that prayer with No, sometimes even when we pray the prayer most in line with God’s own will, the prayer that is on God’s very own lips – that those around us might be saved – God may have to turn back to himself and answer his own prayer with a no. And we are left with no other answer to give than that of Christ: “Your will be done.”

I haven’t quoted CS Lewis yet, but since that is a tradition here at New Song, let me finish with a poem he wrote that is simply called “Prayer”. I think he sums up this idea beautifully.

“Master, they say that when I seem

    To be in speech with you,

Since you make no replies, it’s all a dream

  – One talker aping two.

They are half right, but not as they

   Imagine; rather, I

Seek in myself the things I meant to say,

   And lo! the wells are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake

   The Listener’s role, and through

My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake

   The thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply

   Nor can; thus, while we seem

Two talking, thou art One forever, and I

   No dreamer, but thy dream.”

Revelation 4-5 Bible study on the Glory of God

Opening Question: What does glory mean?

Glory is a measure of the greatness of someone or something. When we give glory to someone (like God), we are ascribing greatness to them.

What I want us to look at tonight is how God's glory, or his greatness, is different to any other kind of glory or greatness. This will involve us thinking about God's transcendence - that is, his nature is to be above and beyond things in creation. My hope is that in this study we will see a little bit of what it means for God's greatness to be transcendent.

Reading: Revelation 4:2-5

1. Is greatness something we can see? How do we show that something is great or glorious?
   Basically, we make it look expensive. We cover it in special things. We treat it specially.
2. What is depicted in this reading?
   God's throne room. Note lots of special stuff - thrones, elder kings, lightning and thunder.
3. How is God depicted in this reading?
   This is important: God is not depicted as being covered in precious stones. God IS the precious stones. What does that tell us? It tells us that God does not just have stuff that represents his greatness. God himself IS greatness.

What's the difference?

God does not 'have' greatness. God 'is' greatness. We can compare how much everyone looks like me, and you can make a rating system of how much people look like me. But you can't rate me on that scale - I don't look like me. In fact, I can't do anything to look less like myself, because I AM me.

What does it mean that God IS greatness? It means that God is not simply the top on a list of great and powerful people. It doesn't mean that God is first and Elon Musk is second, and there's just a big gap between them. God IS greatness and power - all other greatness and power has its source in God. Without God, there is no other greatness and power.

Reading: Revelation 4:6-11

4. What do the weird creatures symbolise? Why are they covered in eyes?
   All living things; especially powerful things.
5. What do the creatures say? What is the pattern in what they say? What does the pattern mean?
   Threefold, showing the completeness of God's being: Holiness; Mightiness; Existence. All contributing to his being Greatness.
6. What do the elders do when the creatures say their thing? What do they say? What does it mean?
   Lay down their crowns - their glory, their power, their might: all of it comes from God. God is worthy, because all other things come from him.

Let's reflect on that for a moment - all other things. No atom without God. No energy without God. No concepts or ideas without God. No feelings or emotions without God. Even nothing does not exist without God. How does that correspond with your idea of God's glory?

But that's just the beginning of God's glory.

Reading: Revelation 5:1-4

7. What's going on in this passage? Why is John crying that no-one can be found to open it?
   Go back to Revelation 4:1 - this tells us what the scroll is: God's plan for the end of the world, basically.
8. Who can open the scroll? Why doesn't God just open it?
   No-one! Not even anyone in heaven, which means not even God, who is greatness itself, can open this scroll and roll out God's plan.
9. What does that mean?
   Something is missing, preventing God's plan from going ahead.

Reading: Revelation 5:5-7

10. Who is able to take the scroll and open its seals?
    Jesus!
11. How is he depicted in this passage? What do these things mean?
    Lion of Judah, Root of David - the Messianic king.
    Lamb that had been slain - Jesus, the passover lamb, but now victorious.
    Centre of the throne - is God.
    Horns - symbol of power. 7 horns - symbol of God's power.
12. So, what was missing that enables God's plan to be rolled out?
    Jesus!
13. What does this tell us about God's plan? What is the thing key to God's great plan that will be revealed in the scroll?
    Salvation.

Reading: Revelation 5:8-10

13. Why do the elders and the creatures say that Jesus is worthy?
    Because he died and purchased people for God, who will be for him a kingdom of priests.
14. We've already seen that God's glory includes his power, his holiness, his existence. What else does it include? If God's plan can't go forward without Christ's sacrifice, how important is our salvation to God's greatness?
    Salvation. The rest is kind of a rhetorical question.
15. How do we participate in God's glory?
    By serving God as his kingdom of priests.

Let's reflect on this now for a moment. The saving act that brings an end to sin and death for us, that opens up a way for humanity to relate to God as Father, and to Jesus as Brother, and to the Holy Spirit as friend, is as central to the very essence of God as his being the creator of all things. Salvation is as much a part

of God's Glory as these other things Our salvation, our relationship with God, is not an afterthought. It's not even just a piece of the puzzle. It is key to

God's character and his plans. It is as much his greatness as anything else. He has made a relationship with us as fundamental as existence itself. What an amazing reality. What an amazing, wonderful God.

Reading: Revelation 5:11-14

16. There's a lot of praising going on in these verses. Who is being praised? How would you compare it to the praise given to God in Rev 4:8-11?
    If anything, it's even bigger and grander, and contains even more praise and comes from more angles, even from every creature. It leads to praise and worship of both God and Christ.
17. What does this mean?
    That if anything, the glory of salvation is even greater than the rest, or at least all the more pleasing to God.

Let's reflect one last time. I want to bring this home to us. Revelation 4-5 is showing us the reality of God's glory - that his greatness is as fundamental to who he is as existence is, and that it is transcendent - over and above - and kind of greatness on earth. And it includes salvation as a fundamental element.

Now how does that shape how we think about God and his greatness?

The pile of stones fallacy of God's glory. God's glory is not like a pile of stones that we can add to by being good, or that we take away from by being sinful.

The story analogy of God's glory. God's glory is more like sharing a story: when you tell someone a story you don't lose it, but they do gain it. God is the source of glory, and God is glorified by creating us and saving us, and by us sharing the story of our creation and salvation. Rev 5:13 - all will glorify God eventually: God's glory is not under threat.

How do we think about our salvation and our relationship with God? It is fundamental to who God is - it is as fundamental as existence itself. Do we think of it as that important? Or is our relationship with God only really important on Sundays? What do the elders wear on their heads? A crown. What does a crown represent? Power and authority. What do they do with their power and authority? They set it at God's feet. You have been given power and authority from the source of Power and Authority. What will you do with it?

2 Peter 1 Bible study on truth and doubt

Intro questions: How do you know who your parents are? (trust + evidence, and there's a system to let you know for certain)

How do you know your parents love you? (there's no test for that; it's trust plus evidence)

Neither of these questions can be solved purely by logic. You have to trust other people, and trust a system that provides you with information. You need truth. Would it be possible to discover who your parents truly are if you have no idea what truth is, or if you don't care if what people tell you is true or not, or if what you discover is true or not? Truth MUST be a part of the system to discover truth.

Now think about some more complicated questions: how do you know God exists? How do you know Jesus is God? How do you know he loves us? How do you know we are saved through him? You know because of trust, because of evidence, and because of a system that allows us to know for certain. This is what Peter is writing about in 2 Peter, and I want us to look at this and why it's important for us.

Step 1: Read the passage (2 Peter 1:1) What do we know about 2 Peter? Who wrote it? Who is it written to?

Step 2a: Read the passage (2 Peter 1:2-4). Peter describes two processes: one through which we can live a godly life; the other through which we participate in God's divine nature. What are the elements of these processes?

(Christ's divine power -> knowledge of God -> us having everything necessary for a godly life.

God's glory and goodness -> very great and precious promises -> our participation in the divine nature.)

Questions generally?

Today, we will be focusing on one element of these processes that has a lot of overlap: knowledge of God, through which Christ's power equips us with everything we need for a godly life; and knowledge of his very great and precious promises, through which we are able to participate in God's divine nature. It should be noted that when Peter says "knowledge of God" he uses a specific Greek word that doesn't just mean "knowing about something" - it's a deep and genuine. Some translations use the term "true knowledge of God".

Now, remember we were talking about systems of knowledge, how we know things? We said that no system that excludes truth will allow you to discover the truth, right? Now here's a question: how do we know that God exists? I want you to see how complicated a question that is, so let's ask an easier question first.

How do you know your parents existed? (point to yourself; you are proof). The system there is simple, because there are no other options.

But How do we know God exists? Because everything else exists doesn't seem to be as powerful an answer, because there are other options available. When we ask the question "How do we know God exists", it's like we're asking two questions at the same time: "How do you know your parents existed" AND "How do you know who your parents are?" Our existence certainly points to something causing us to exist, but there is a system of trust, evidence and truth that you need to follow. And there's a complication to proving God's existence! God doesn't exist in the same way that your parents exist: God's existence is before all other things. From a human position, if we try to discover God by first assuming he doesn't exist, our system is broken and we're likely to discover God doesn't exist. If we assume that God does exist, then the system suddenly works very differently. God has to be part of the system that reveals him, and that is exactly what we discover Peter talking about here. Without Christ's divine power and Christ's glory and goodness, there is no knowledge of God.

Step 2b: Read the passage (2 Peter 1:12-15). What is Peter's stated reason for writing this letter?

What is his audience like (v12)? So why does an audience that knows and is firmly established in these truths need to be reminded of them? 

Step 3: What does Peter know about doubt? (Mark 14:66-72) Read the passage (2 Peter 1:16:18). What is Peter referring to in this passage as being an eyewitness to?

Did Peter deny Jesus before or after the Transfiguration?

So here's the first point: doubt is a part of the Christian life. Peter isn't writing all this to non-Christians, but to those who have received the faith. You remember at the beginning we talked about a system that allows us to know the truth? That's what Peter is outlining for us here. He gives us two parts of that system.

Step 4: Read the passage again (2 Peter 1:16:18). What is the first piece of knowledge about Jesus that Peter is talking about?

And how does that knowledge come to us; what is the system that brings that knowledge to us?

Jesus reveals his nature as God at the Transfiguration. More than his birth, more than his death, more even than his resurrection, the Transfiguration is the one time that shows without doubt that Jesus isn't just a prophet, or a teacher, or a miracle worker - he is God incarnate. And that most important revelation is seen by only three people in the whole of history, because that's how God wanted it. You don't get to see it. Neither do I. Nor did the nine other apostles. But Peter saw it. That's the system God chose - a system where three people get the proof, and everyone else gets to hear about it second-hand.

And that's enough.  It's enough to put a stamp of approval on everything Jesus says and does as expressing who God is to us. If we need to know who God is, we have Jesus - God as a human being - doing God for us in a way that we can understand because he's doing God as one of us. We can participate in the divine nature because God participated in what it means to be human. That's the great and precious promise - and we can know it to be true, because Jesus was Transfigured, and Peter saw it. Yes, we have to trust Peter. Peter knew he was going to die soon, so he wrote it down.  So yes, we have to trust tradition handing down this story to us as written in the Bible. Yes, we have to trust scholars like Penny who translate it from Greek into English. But God is part of that system - the one who Transfigured Jesus in front of those three apostles is the one who brings us Peter's message.

Here's the second thing that's different about God: when it comes to learning about God, God is the system, and God made the system. There is no system bigger than God we can refer to. Logic, science, reason - these things are all products of God. God is outside them and prior to them. They're not useless, just limited.  Who God is can't be verified against something outside himself because not even truth is outside God: God IS Truth. From a God position, God is the one revealing himself, and the truth about himself, and his love for us, both on a grand level but also on an individual level to people.

Step 5: Read the passage (2 Peter 1:19-21). What's "the prophetic message"? 

What's the link between the OT and the Transfiguration? (Mark 9:2-4)

So even the Transfiguration, the eyewitness event, speaks to the need for the Old Testament. When we talk about the very great and precious promises of God, what are some of those very great and precious promises that God made to us in the Old Testament?

We learned at the beginning that knowledge of God and his very great and precious promises comes from God. How does Peter make that clear about the Old Testament? (v21)

Peter tells us that God speaks through the writers of the Old Testament by inspiring them through his Holy Spirit. The Old Testament is a story of how over thousands of years God has spoken into individual people's lives, relating to them, transforming them, speaking through them to others - loving them. Sometimes God is a pillar of fire and cloud, sometimes he's a burning bush, sometimes he's a booming voice from the heavens; and sometimes, he's a small voice in the wind, he's in people's dreams, he is convicting people through his written word, and he is sometimes just in their hearts, telling them what to say or write. 

That Holy Spirit, who guided the pens that wrote the Old Testament, is inside each of us. It is the key that unlocks God's word to us - it's like the Holy Spirit from back then talks to the Holy Spirit inside us now. When are some times people have had that happen: that the Holy Spirit has brought them to God's word to show them what they need to hear? This is a third element of God's involvement in the system: even the knowledge that God brings to us, he brings to us through himself, by his Spirit in us. Again, God's power is involved in our knowledge - we cannot know God without God.

When times are tough, when things are hard, when you're struggling and suffering and doubt arises, remember that. Remember that God's Holy Spirit is in you. The same Holy Spirit that was with the prophets in the Old Testament; the same Holy Spirit that was with Peter and the New Testament authors; the same Holy Spirit that was with Jesus.  How can you trust that God is who he says he is, that he loves us and will keep his great and precious promises?  Because God has revealed himself through Jesus Christ to all humanity; and because God speaks to us in the written Bible, inspired by God the Holy Spirit, and God the Holy Spirit inside you will connect you to the truth of God's great and precious promises.

You'll also be glad to know that it isn't limited to the Old Testament for us. In 2 Peter 3:15-16 Peter puts the stamp on Paul's writings as other Scripture. We have the whole of Scripture for the Holy Spirit to speak to us through. Of course, we have to read it.

Step 6:  So what? Remember the process: step 1) God's power; step 2) knowledge of God; step 3) living a godly life. This stuff is not just stuff we know. It's stuff we must do. We are not just recipients of the divine nature; we are participants in it.

Read the passage: (2 Peter 1:5-8). From the verses we've just looked at, we see that knowledge of God and knowledge of his promises are the vehicles through which we are able to live godly lives, and participate in the divine nature. So it's little wonder then that verses 5-8 focus on ensuring that our knowledge of Christ is both effective and productive. If our knowledge of God is being ineffective and unproductive, perhaps it is because we are not using it to live a godly life. 

Read the passage: (2 Peter 1:9-11) And if we are having doubts about our faith and our understanding of God and our relationship with God, perhaps it is because we are not confirming our calling and election through the living of that godly life.

On a Facebook post about abortion

If someone was to put forward this argument to me in these terms, I would make two observations followed by asking two questions.

The first observation is simply this: not everyone who supported slavery was free. If we're talking about the grand and broad history of slavery, including everything from ancient Greek and Roman slavery to the slavery entrenched in the Old Testament laws, then we can be clear that this is not the case. Diocletian was the son of a slave, but did not abolish slavery upon becoming emperor of Rome. But even if we focus on the most heinous form of slavery - that which resulted in the American Civil War - there were still slaves who perpetuated slavery from positions of influence. A popular portrayal of such can be seen in the character of Stephen in the movie Django Unchained.

The second observation would be this: the support of slavery by free people does not easily equate to the support of abortion by living people. One is a statement of choice; the other a fairly meaningless tautology. In order to make the statement meaningful, I'm assuming that the premise of the first statement - something like "the class of people who support X are primarily the beneficiaries of X despite the fact that X is a detriment to another class of people" - is seeking to be applied to abortion.

If this is the case, there's two questions I would ask. The first question relates to whether the above argument actually stands on its own merits. To test this, I would offer a simple equivalence: Perhaps, if we are wanting to talk about death, we could say, "The death penalty is primarily supported by those who are unlikely to face the death penalty (and so who benefit from it as an extreme form of general and specific deterrence without facing any real personal consequences) despite the fact that the death penalty is a detriment to that class of people who commit acts the punishment for which is the death penalty." This argument can fairly easily be extended to all criminal acts and punishment for those acts. (There are both subjective and objective detriments involved in this example. So while there is a legitimate argument to be made about whether someone on the receiving end of a criminal sentence can determine for themselves what is beneficial or detrimental to themselves - which is dealt with in the second question to some degree - there are objective detriments to them that exist regardless of their opinions.)

To me, this seems like a legitimate equivalency to the argument that is being put forward in the original post. The truth is that decisions often have negative consequences for a class of people. These negative consequences can include death. If we are against a position simply because the class of people who benefit are those who support that position despite the fact that it also creates a detriment for another class of people, then we should probably stand against a great many positions. If you find the argument of the original post persuasive, then it might be worthwhile you analysing your views of various policy decisions from which you benefit which cause a detriment to others. Look out in particular for those which you don't seem to particularly benefit from, or you feel are neutral or inapplicable to you - those may be the most insidiously difficult, like the broad and immeasurable benefits of general and specific deterrence. Perhaps you're a utilitarian and you think that so long as the detriment of the other class of people is outweighed by the benefit to the first class of people, it's legitimate. I'm not going to get into an argument about all the problems I have with utilitarianism. Perhaps you will claim that the death penalty and abortion are not equivalent because aborted children are innocent. Despite the theological incongruity of that statement, an idea of justice is a legitimate question to raise, and does rather neatly segue into the second question. (That point also raises the question about those people who face the death penalty - or even who face imprisonment - who actually turned out to be innocent... but that's a discussion for another time.)

My second question is a backup to the first, assuming that the person defending the position of the original post takes a position something like, "Yes, all decisions that are supported by a class of people who benefit from that decision despite the decision being detrimental to another class of people are illegitimate. Decisions should be made using another model [that is more just]." The final clause of the position is bracketed because it's unnecessary, yet I feel it is most likely the position that people making this point are likely to take: that there is an injustice that needs to be righted through an alternate decision-making process. This leads us into the realm of the philosophical thought experiment often called the "veil of ignorance". It has existed for centuries, but a pretty popular proponent of it is John Rawls, who calls his particular model the "original position". The idea basically goes like this: that if everyone was forced into a machine that stripped them of their ability to know who they were or what characteristics they had or what class/es they were a member of in a society, and they were then asked to make decisions that would have benefits for one class and detriments for another, people would make decisions that were the least detrimental to everyone because nobody can be sure that they won't end up in the class/es for whom the decision is most detrimental.

Okay, with all that said, here's the second question: how do you overcome the issues that a veil of ignorance position poses? For instance, referring back to an aside mentioned above, how do we navigate the minefield that is subjective determination of benefit and detriment? This is even more explosive an issue for those who have no voice of their own, such as the profoundly disabled or the unborn, because now some third party must put their own subjective views forward as those that "best protect/benefit" the situation of the voiceless party. Third parties may garner no benefit from the position they support, and yet may also differ on the subjective determination of what is beneficial and what is detrimental to the voiceless party. It becomes particularly difficult if someone wants to argue that something as foundational as existence is not an objective benefit. There are lots of people who, upon weighing up their lives, may conclude that they would have preferred not to be born. This position is even taken by a few people in the Bible.

Even if everyone agrees that an objective determination of benefit and detriment in this area can be made, that doesn't get this position out of the woods. Now you are left with this problem: if there is an objective determination of benefit and detriment that can be made, why is the veil of ignorance necessary? If an objective truth can be determined, there's no need to worry about whether people benefit or detriment from the decisions that are made: the decision must be made a certain way because it is objectively right to do so, and that objective rightness can be determined and shown to be the case.

Of course anyone looking at this instantly realises that this is not how human decisions are made: people make bad or wrong decisions all the time; moreover, they even do it knowingly. And this is the final criticism about the veil of ignorance position that I will list: people take risks; people are selfish and aspirational; people are irrational. A veiled decision-making process doesn't protect decisions from that fundamental weakness. 

With all the above in mind, my ultimate question would be this: how is the position in the original post helpful? What idea or concept is it putting forward that is beneficial?

Sermon: Jeremiah 10:1-16

Jeremiah 10:1-16:

·         The instructions given to a people who [should] know they face exile.

·         The one lesson the people of God being punished need to learn; and to teach to the nations.

·         The ever-present problem for God’s people: idolatry.

·         Ultimately, we would rather worship the things we’ve created.

·         Idolatry is not as simple or stupid as it seems when concrete: conceptually, it is deeply foolish.

·         Let’s face it: if someone was going to make up God, it would not look like this.

-----

When you’re a lawyer and your client is on trial for a criminal offence that might involve going to jail, it is your job to warn them about what might happen if they have to go to prison. You have to tell them what to expect in prison before it’s even been decided that they are going to prison. If you wait until they have been found guilty it might be too late, because once you’ve been found guilty your prison sentence can start immediately. You don’t get a chance to go home and pack a suitcase; you don’t get to say goodbye to your family; once that word “guilty” comes, your freedom is instantly gone. You need to be told what to do before that happens.

For a lot of the time in the book of Jeremiah, God’s message makes him sound like the judge. Over and over he declares his people as “guilty”: guilty of idolatry, guilty of unfaithfulness to him, guilty of oppressing the poor and the vulnerable. But here in chapter 10 of Jeremiah, God is actually taking the role of Judah’s lawyer. Here in chapter 10, he is giving them the most important advice on what to do when they go into exile, and he’s doing it before they go.

God knows that he is sending his people into a foreign land with foreign gods: false gods, idols. And God knows that he is sending them into that foreign land for 70 years. 70 years! That is longer than all but the harshest prison sentences. A child born halfway through the exile would be 35 years old when the exile is over, probably having children of their own! Children who would grow up entirely surrounded by a foreign culture of foreign gods, whose parents grew up entirely surrounded by a foreign culture of foreign gods; whose grandparents probably also grew up entirely surrounded by a foreign culture of foreign gods.

God knows this, so this is his message to his people in order to prepare them for the exile, “Do not learn the ways of the nations…their idols cannot speak…do not fear them.” God knows his people, and he knows that their biggest problem, even before exile, was idolatry. This is the reason that they are being punished; it is the reason they are being taken into exile. They turned their backs on their Lord Yahweh, and they prostituted themselves with foreign gods, with false gods who have no power. They trusted their armies, they trusted their diplomacy, they trusted their wealth and their prosperity, to protect them and keep them happy. Oh, Judah never forgot about God completely: in fact, they thought that because of the promises God had made to Abraham, because they lived in the promised land, because God’s temple was in Jerusalem, that they would be safe no matter what they did. They believed so much that they were safe that when God himself sent prophets to them to tell them they were not safe, they ignored God’s own warnings!

And so God will take away their promised land; he will take away their blessed riches; he will take away their freedom; he will take away their temple and their lavish sacrifices; he will take away their kings in the line of David. They will go into exile with nothing except the word of the Lord their God, because that is all they really need to be God’s people; that is where all these other things came from. And when they enter into Babylon, and they see this great empire with all its wealth, its land, its temples and its idols, here is the advice from God they should remember: idols are dumb. They are just things made of wood, covered in gold or silver: they aren’t alive, they can’t speak, they can’t even move by themselves, and they have to be nailed down in case they accidentally fall over. “They are worthless, the objects of mockery” says verse 15. And don’t listen to the dumb people who are taught by dumb idols, God says. “They are all senseless and foolish; they are taught by worthless wooden idols” says verse 8; “Everyone is senseless and without knowledge; every goldsmith is shamed by his idols” says verse 14.

So what does God mean when he says that idols are dumb, and idol worshippers are also dumb? Allow me to illustrate. This is a smart phone, a remarkable feat of technology that allows me to wirelessly contact almost anyone in the world by voice or text, to have the internet in the palm of my hand. It’s an alarm clock, it’s a picture and video camera, it plays games, it’s a calendar, a photo album, a radio and a television – I can even do my banking and send someone money with it! [remove battery from mobile phone, and hand to someone] Do you know how to work a smart phone? Can you call someone with that please? Call anyone, I don’t mind who. Call anyone. No? Do you need my password? Maybe I’m out of airtime? Maybe the internet isn’t working? Maybe the phone network is down? No? Maybe if you just shout really loud into it they will hear?

What’s the problem? The phone has no power! So it doesn’t work. That is what an idol is like: it’s an object that symbolizes the ability to do something, but actually by itself it has no power to do anything. God does not deny that idols are symbols; what he denies is that what they symbolize has any power at all. So what does an idol worshipper look like? Give me the phone. “Hello, De Wet? It’s Ben here. I’m fine, how are you? Good, good. No, it’s fine, I was just calling to say hi. Actually, I was wondering if I could have tomorrow off. I can? Great, thanks! Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Bye now.”

How many of you think I have tomorrow off? How many of you think I was talking to De Wet? He’s right over there! If I really believed I was talking to De Wet right now, you would think I was as dumb as this phone with no battery. See, if your invisible god has power then it makes sense to use their symbol: then you’re not worshipping the symbol, you’re worshipping the invisible God who empowers it. But if your invisible god is actually a false god, a non-existent god, a god as made-up as the idol you use to worship it, then when you pray and make sacrifices and shape your life around its whims you are actually just talking to a piece of dead wood; there’s nothing else to it.

And that is God’s point: idolatry is dumb because there is no power behind the idols. Those gods are man-made. Someone created those gods just as much as someone created the idols that represent them. They can do no harm, nor can they do any good. The gods are false; the idols are worthless; the idol makers are frauds; the idol worshippers are fools. Vs 10 “But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal king. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath.” Vs 6 “No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power. 7 Who should not fear you, King of the nations? This is your due. Among all the wise leaders of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you.”

God’s people are about to leave everything behind and become refugees, carrying what’s left of their lives on their backs, carrying it all the way to Babylon, hundreds of kilometres away. And when they get there, this is the message they should remember: Among all the wise leaders of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no-one like their God; there is no-one like Yahweh.

What can we learn from this today? Obviously the lesson is that we should rely on the Lord our God, and not on the power of idols. Our trust should be in God and nowhere else, in nothing else. But what does that look like? Do we need to be like Judah, and have our land, our riches, our freedom, our churches, and our godly leaders taken away from us? No! Why did God take everything away from them? Was it because there was something wrong with their land, their riches, their freedom, their temple? No. God gave them all these things! Their problem was that they put their faith in other gods to provide for them; or they put their faith in the things themselves to give them what they needed and wanted.

My phone has no battery, and so it has no power and doesn’t work. Should I just throw it away? Or should I put the battery back in? If I put the battery back in, if I connect it back to its power source, a miracle happens – the phone comes alive! It does everything a phone can do. There is nothing wrong with the phone, so long as I understand where its power comes from. In the same way, we will not make the mistake of idolatry if we recognize that the power of all things comes from the Lord our God.

Have you ever thought, “If only I had a little more money, then I would be able to truly be secure” or “If only I had this thing in my life, then I could be truly happy” or “If only I was put in charge of this, then everything would work out” and then actually gotten the money, or the thing, or the power, and then things didn’t work out? Have you ever seen that happen in life? I don’t know about you, but I have seen this happen in life more times than I can count! Rich people can become poor! Happy people can become sad! Powerful people can become weak! And why is that? Because we put our faith in the wrong things, in the things that have no power to give us what we need. Only God has the power to make us secure, to make things work out. Ecclesiastes 5:19 tells us, “when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God.” But then chapter 6 verse 2 says that sometimes, “God gives some people wealth, possessions and honor, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, but God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them.” This story is repeated over and over in scripture. All things come from God; we should not trust false idols, we should not trust things themselves.

And the best way to remind ourselves of these lessons of the past is to give thanks to God for all the things that we have, but especially for the things that bring us power, things that bring us happiness, and things that bring us security. The things in our lives that are most likely to take us away from God are the things that we should thank him for. That way, we are constantly reminded that they come from him, and that the power they have to make us happy, to make us powerful, to make us secure, only comes from God and not from the things themselves.

So let me ask you: do you sometimes find that you put your faith in things to do what you need, instead of thanking God for what he has given you to help you? I know I do. Especially if I am feeling depressed and down, I think if I just watch some of my favourite TV shows and eat some chocolate, then I will feel better. And sometimes it works; but sometimes it doesn’t – and I should never forget that the power of these things to make me feel better comes entirely from God. Do I need to give up chocolate and TV? Not at all, provided that I thank God for them and recognize that it is because of God that I can use these things to feel better. I want to challenge you today to think about that yourself. What do you rely on, what do you fall back on, what do you put your hope in? Do you thank God for those things, or do you rely on them to do the job themselves? Next time you are in that situation, whether it’s as serious as medical attention or as simple as something that puts a smile on your face, say a prayer of thanks to God for giving you something that helps you.

But God does not send Judah into exile just to help them fix their idolatry problem. He also gives them a job to do. What is that job? Look at verse 11. “Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’” This verse, Jeremiah 10:11, is the only verse in the whole book of Jeremiah that is written in Aramaic instead of in the Hebrew language. Look in your Bible at the little footnote for verse 11 and you’ll see it’s true. In the whole book of Jeremiah there is one verse that is written in Aramaic. What does that mean?

Well, if I were to say this: “Elogu hîa ǀhommi tsî ǃhūbaib tsîkha dī tamagu, ǁîgu ge nîra kā ǃhūbaiba xu tsî nē ǀhommi ǃnagaba xu” – who is this message for? If I were to say “Die gode wat nie die hemel en die aarde gemaak het nie, sal van die aarde af verdwyn onder die hemel uit” – who is that message meant for? This one verse is the only verse in the whole of Jeremiah - and one of the few verses in the whole Old Testament – that is written in Aramaic. Aramaic was the language of Assyria; it was the language people spoke in the Babylonian empire. Who is this message for? This message is written for God’s people to remember, to carry with them, and to share with the people they meet while they are in exile! This verse is the first ever gospel tract!

God doesn’t just send his people into exile to punish them for their idolatry. He sends them as a broken people with a message against idolatry to the nations. He sends people who have a known idolatry problem to go and preach to the nations that idolatry is wrong. And it’s a hard message, an offensive message! ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’ Your idols are worthless, and our mighty God will wipe them all out, so ditch them now and put your faith in our God. That’s what that message means.

Maybe you already feel defeated. Maybe your church already feels like it is in exile, because we are surrounded by enemies that shout down our voice, that speak against the gospel, that have money and influence and powerful people, that seem to be taking the world’s attention and even infecting the lives of our own church members. How can we beat the message of materialism that tells people only to trust in what they can see and touch? How can we speak against scientists that tell people there is no God, only atoms and matter? How do we answer atheists, who are saying that humans have no value beyond what we give ourselves? How do we fight against corporations who are spending millions of dollars telling people they will be happy if only they have a Fortuner, or DSTV, or a swimming pool? How can we correct the false teachers who steal our people’s money with their prosperity doctrines and wow them with fake resurrections?

Maybe we need to ask this question first: do we as God’s people deserve to go into exile? Are we idolators, like our forefathers in Judah? At first it may sound crazy: surely none of us have statues of false gods in our churches, or in our homes. None of us are giving the worship that our God deserves to other things. Or are we? Remember, Judah did not just prostitute itself with foreign gods. They trusted their armies, they trusted their diplomatic relations, they trusted their wealth and their prosperity, to protect them and keep them happy. They even trusted in God’s temple and God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to keep them safe and happy. Do you remember Jeremiah chapter 7? “4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.”

What do our churches look to to make them happy and feel protected? Do we think so long as we are tithing enough money to pay a pastor, we are happy? So long as we follow our denomination’s constitution and regulations, we will be safe? So long as churches are given favourable treatment by the government, we will be happy? So long as Namibia remains a Christian country, we will be safe? So long as we have a church building we will be happy? So long as we keep having communion and baptisms, we will be safe? So long as people are prophesying and driving out demons and performing miracles in our church, we will be happy?

Do you remember the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 7? “21 Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

God wants his people to do his will: he wants us to be missional people. He wants his church to be out there sharing his message with people who need to hear it. He knows that the church is made up of broken people, and that’s exactly how he likes it! Our weakness shows his strength. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1: “27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.”

Jeremiah 10:11 represents the other half of the gospel that we don’t often share with people. We are often out there telling people that Jesus loves them, that God wants a relationship with them, that they can be saved if they will accept Christ into their lives. But there’s a reason that the gospel is called an offensive message. “Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’” How offended would you be if someone came to your church and said that about Jesus Christ? How would you feel, bringing this message into the land of your captors, into the capital city of the empire that has defeated you? As 1 Peter says in 2:8, “to those who do not believe, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’8 and, ‘A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’”

But this message is the truth, and it is vital that we preach it alongside the warm, loving message of grace and mercy. There is no “God so loved the world that he gave his only son” without “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” Those people who are believing the lies about money and materialism are going to be disappointed by those things. If they don’t hear the truth ,they will remain in a cycle of disappointment and despair. If we fail to preach that our God is the only true God, the only real power, then who will?  And yes, we are not perfect role models, and yes, we don’t always worship the Lord our God and serve him only. We are broken people that need to hear this message just as much as the rest of the world. But isn’t that all the more reason for us to be out there sharing it? Because even if no-one listens to our message, at least we might listen to ourselves.

Marriage, God and the Infinity Stones (Eph 5:1-32ish)

As is sometimes my practice, here you will find a bunch of working that I did to come up with the final product, as well as the actual talk I gave at this wedding at the end. This talk is meant to go for 10 minutes (probably will go for 11) and is meant to link together God, marriage and the story of the infinity stones from the Marvel cinematic universe. It was fun to write.

God, Marriage and Infinity Stones

Soul (orange)

Reality (red)

Mind (yellow)

Space (blue)

Time (green)

Power (purple)

Two points:

1)      The infinity stones are a representation of the characteristics of God. God is a great thing to build your marriage on. We are made in his image and share these aspects to some degree.

2)      There will come a time when God will click his fingers and all marriages will cease. Our marriages are not eternal. Our relationship with God is.

-----

Ephesians 5:1-2, 21-33

There is no infinity stone of Love.

I think most people who know Emily and Nikki know what I mean when I talk about the infinity stones. If you don’t know what the infinity stones are, let me give a very quick explanation. Emily and Nikki are huge nerds – you all surely know that. The infinity stones are the central plot point of all the Marvel cinematic universe movies. Emily and Nikki have chosen the infinity stones as a bit of a theme for their wedding; even the different coloured stones in Emily’s engagement ring represent the six infinity stones of this epic story.

And it’s a great wedding theme. It represents a big part of Emily’s and Nikki’s personalities they share as total nerds; it plays into possibly the biggest and most expensive storytelling exercise in human history - the Marvel movies – which even if you’re not a fan you can’t have escaped the fact that all there seems to be at the cinema these days are superhero movies; and since each stone has its own colour, it gives you a colour scheme to work with for wedding planning. What more does a wedding need?

Well, for Emily and Nikki, it needs Jesus. Emily and Nikki are huge nerds, but the thing most important to them is Jesus Christ. The thing most important to their relationship is Jesus Christ. And so the thing most important to their wedding is Jesus Christ. While their wedding might have a superhero theme, we don’t get up and read from Marvel comics today. We read from the Bible because they are getting married before God.

And it’s a good thing too! Because the story of the infinity stones is pretty depressing. It goes something like this: these six stones are the last remains of some all-powerful being, spread around the universe, and if someone can harness all six stones then they will have control over all aspects of the universe – Mind, Power, Reality, Soul, Space, and Time.

These six aspects are a pretty typical summary of all the things that people think make up God. The Bible tells us from the beginning that God is both the creator and sustainer of all things. The Bible tells us that God is all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful, infinite and outside of time. And God created us to be with him in that eternity forever.

But there is no infinity stone of Love. And yet love is the number one attribute of God that makes him God. You know how we know that? Because God as Jesus Christ left behind all the powers of the infinity stones to come to this earth as a human being. Jesus died suffering the punishment for our rebellion against God, so that we could have a perfect relationship with him. Let me make it clear: the power that God uses to bring people close to himself, to make a relationship between them and himself, isn’t contained in any of the infinity stones. It’s the power of love. It’s a love that sacrifices, a love that gives things up, a love that costs. That love is central to who God is.

Emily and Nikki want to bring that love to their marriage, the love of God. In the book of Ephesians in the Bible we read this in chapter 5 verse 1: “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children (2) and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Emily and Nikki want to follow God’s example, and in their marriage they want to walk in the way of love.

How does that look when you live it out? The book of Ephesians gives some specific examples of how we should live this out in different aspects of our lives: as children we should honour our parents, and as parents we should not exasperate our children but train them in the ways of Jesus Christ. It says that slaves should obey their masters as if they were obeying Christ; to masters it says they should treat their slaves in the same way! And it says that wives should submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ; and that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. These are all examples of what verse 21 of Ephesians 5 tells us that we should all do: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

As Christians, we are all called to love one another as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, and we are all called to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And Emily and Nikki, as Christians joining together in marriage before God, both of you are called to put the other one first, to ensure each other’s flourishing and wellbeing ahead of your own. Whether it’s a little thing – like the rest of the Avengers watching their language because it upsets Captain America – or a big thing – like learning to curb your Hulk-like rage so you don’t bring down the helicarrier with everyone else onboard – both of you need to put the other one’s best interests first.

And, Emily and Nikki, you are both called to love one another as Christ loved you. You need to take care of one another, and build each other up. Emily, be the Tony Stark to Nikki’s Peter Parker, and give him what he needs to be his absolute best – although I would recommend not installing an instant kill mode. Nikki, be the Thor to Emily’s Bruce Banner, encouraging her that she’s powerful and useful and that you don’t even like the Hulk because he’s all like “rarrr, smash smash smash”.

In the Marvel movies, a super-bad guy called Thanos wants to collect the infinity stones together because he thinks the best thing for the universe would be to randomly kill half of all thinking beings that live there. He essentially things that the big problem is one of overpopulation – there are too many people – and so if you kill half of them, then there will suddenly be heaps of resources for everyone, and those who are left will be happy. Apparently he’s the only person with the strength of will to make this difficult decision, and so his plan is to collect the infinity stones together and make this happen using their incredible powers.

And then he used his great power to resurrect Jesus from the dead to show that in a fight between God and death, God always wins.

In fact, the Bible tells us in Genesis that God made humanity in his own image. Part of that image is our ability to affect all of these different areas of the universe: we can change one another’s Minds by what we say and do; we can harness Powers like heat, light, electricity and even nuclear fission; we can move ourselves around in Space, whether it be to the moon or just to New Zealand; we can look backwards and forwards in Time by reading books about the past and making educated guesses about the future; we can change the very Reality of one another’s lives, for good or ill, by what we do; we can even have an impact on someone’s eternal Soul by sharing with them the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are made in the image of God, and while compared to him we are weak and feeble, we are capable of amazing and life-changing things.

So my first message to you, Emily and Nikki, is to say this: when you harness the abilities that God has given you by making you in his image - Mind, Power, Reality, Soul, Space, and Time – make sure that you use them

God, Marriage and Infinity Stones

Soul (orange)

Reality (red)

Mind (yellow)

Space (blue)

Time (green)

Power (purple)

Two points:

1. The infinity stones are a representation of the characteristics of God. God is a great thing to build your marriage on. We are made in his image and share these aspects to some degree.
2. There will come a time when God will click his fingers and all marriages will cease. Our marriages are not eternal. Our relationship with God is.

-----

Ephesians 5:1-2, 21-33

There is no infinity stone of Love.

I think most people who know Emily and Nikki know what I mean when I talk about the infinity stones. If you don’t know what the infinity stones are, let me give a very quick explanation. Emily and Nikki are huge nerds – you all surely know that. The infinity stones are the central plot point of all the Marvel cinematic universe movies. Emily and Nikki have chosen the infinity stones as a bit of a theme for their wedding; even the different coloured stones in Emily’s engagement ring represent the six infinity stones of this epic story.

And it’s a great wedding theme. It represents a big part of Emily’s and Nikki’s personalities they share as total nerds; it plays into possibly the biggest and most expensive storytelling exercise in human history - the Marvel movies – which even if you’re not a fan you can’t have escaped the fact that all there seems to be at the cinema these days are superhero movies; and since each stone has its own colour, it gives you a colour scheme to work with for wedding planning. What more does a wedding need?

Well, for Emily and Nikki, it needs Jesus. Emily and Nikki are huge nerds, but the thing most important to them is Jesus Christ. The thing most important to their relationship is Jesus Christ. And so the thing most important to their wedding is Jesus Christ. While their wedding might have a superhero theme, we don’t get up and read from Marvel comics today. We read from the Bible because they are getting married before God.

And it’s a good thing too! Because not only is the story of the Infinity stones fiction; it is pretty depressing too. It goes something like this: these six stones are the only remains of some now-dead all-powerful being. These remains are spread around the universe, and if someone can harness all six stones then they will have control over all aspects of the universe – Mind, Power, Reality, Soul, Space, and Time. This big purple guy called Thanos collects these stones and wants to use their power to kill half of all intelligent life in the universe. He's the bad guy.

These six aspects are a pretty typical summary of all the things that people think make up God. And the Bible tells us from the beginning that God is both the creator and sustainer of all things. The Bible tells us that God is all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful, infinite and outside of time. God is an all-powerful being, and it might seem easy to compare God to the infinity stones.

But there is no infinity stone of Love. And love is the number one attribute of God that makes him God. You know how we know that? Because God as Jesus Christ left behind all the powers of the infinity stones to come to this earth as a human being. Jesus died, suffering the punishment for our rebellion against God, so that we could have a perfect relationship with him. Let me make it clear: the power that God uses to bring people close to himself, to make a relationship between them and himself, isn’t contained in any of the infinity stones. It’s the power of love. It’s a love that sacrifices, a love that gives things up, a love that costs. That love is central to who God is.

Emily and Nikki want to bring that love to their marriage, the love of God. In the book of Ephesians in the Bible we read this in chapter 5 verse 1: “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children (2) and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Emily and Nikki want to follow God's example; in their marriage, they want to walk in the way of love.

How does that look when you live it out? The book of Ephesians gives some specific examples of how we should live this out in different aspects of our lives: as children we should honour our parents, and as parents we should not exasperate our children but train them in the ways of Jesus Christ. It says that slaves should obey their masters as if they were obeying Christ; to masters it says they should treat their slaves in the same way! And it says that wives should submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ; and that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. These are all examples of what verse 21 of Ephesians 5 tells us that we should all do: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

As Christians, we are all called to love one another as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, and we are all called to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And Emily and Nikki, as Christians joining together in marriage before God, both of you are called to put the other one first, to ensure each other’s flourishing and wellbeing ahead of your own. Whether it’s a little thing – like the rest of the Avengers watching their language because it upsets Captain America – or a big thing – like learning to curb your Hulk-like rage so you don’t bring down the helicarrier with everyone else onboard – both of you need to put the other one’s best interests first.

And, Emily and Nikki, you are both called to love one another as Christ loved you. You need to take care of one another, and build each other up. Emily, be the Tony Stark to Nikki’s Peter Parker, and give him what he needs to be his absolute best – although I would recommend not installing an instant kill mode in his spiderman suit. Nikki, be the Thor to Emily’s Bruce Banner, encouraging her that she’s powerful and useful and smart, and that you don’t even like the Hulk because he’s all like “rarrr, smash smash smash”. Both of you have been made in the image of God and as such have been given the ability to affect the universe for one another: you can change one another’s Minds by what you say and do; you can harness Powers like heat, light, electricity and even nuclear fission to make your lives better; you can move yourselves around in Space, whether it be to the moon or just to New Zealand; you can look backwards and forwards in Time by reading books about the past and making educated guesses about the future; you can change the very Reality of one another’s lives, for good or ill, by what you do; you can even have an impact on people's eternal Souls by sharing with them the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are made in the image of God, and while compared to him we are weak and feeble, through him we are capable of amazing and life-changing things. Use that power for loving one another, and loving others as a couple, out of reverence for Christ.

God, Marriage and Infinity Stones

Soul (orange)

Reality (red)

Mind (yellow)

Space (blue)

Time (green)

Power (purple)

Two points:

1. The infinity stones are a representation of the characteristics of God. God is a great thing to build your marriage on. We are made in his image and share these aspects to some degree.
2. There will come a time when God will click his fingers and all marriages will cease. Our marriages are not eternal. Our relationship with God is.

-----

Ephesians 5:1-2, 21-33

There is no infinity stone of Love.

I think most people who know Emily and Nikki know what I mean when I talk about infinity stones. If you don’t know what the infinity stones are, let me give a very quick explanation. Emily and Nikki are huge nerds – you all surely know that. The infinity stones are the central plot point of all the Marvel cinematic universe movies. Emily and Nikki have chosen the infinity stones as a bit of a theme for their wedding; the different coloured stones in Emily’s ring or even the dresses of the bridesmaids represent the six infinity stones of this epic story.

And it’s a great wedding theme. It represents a big part of Emily’s and Nikki’s personalities they share as total nerds; it plays into possibly the biggest and most expensive storytelling exercise in human history - the Marvel movies – which even if you’re not a fan you can’t have escaped the fact that all there seems to be at the cinema these days are superhero movies; and since each stone has its own colour, it gives you a colour scheme to work with for wedding planning.

But we are not just here for a wedding day, we are here to start a marriage. And for Emily and Nikki, a marriage needs Jesus. Emily and Nikki are huge nerds, but the thing most important to them is Jesus Christ. The thing most important to their relationship is Jesus Christ. And so the thing most important to their marriage is Jesus Christ. While their wedding might have a superhero theme, we don’t get up and read from Marvel comics to help them in their marriage. We read from the Bible, because they are getting married before God.

And it’s a good thing too! Because not only is the story of the Infinity stones fiction; it is actually pretty depressing too. It goes something like this: these six stones are the only remains of some now-dead all-powerful being. These remains are spread around the universe, and if someone can harness all six stones then they will have control over all aspects of the universe – Mind, Power, Reality, Soul, Space, and Time. This big purple guy called Thanos collects these stones and wants to use their power to kill half of all intelligent life in the universe. He's the big bad guy of the Marvel movies.

Now these six aspects represented by the infinity stones - Mind, Power, Reality, Soul, Space, and Time  - are a pretty typical summary of all the things that people think of when they think of God. And the Bible tells us from the beginning that God is both the creator and sustainer of all things. The Bible tells us that God is all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful, infinite and outside of time. God is an all-powerful being, and so it might seem easy to compare God to the infinity stones.

But there is no infinity stone of Love. And love is the number one attribute of God that makes him God. How do we know that? Because God as Jesus Christ left behind all the powers of the infinity stones to come to this earth as a human being. Jesus died, suffering the punishment for our rebellion against God, so that we could have a perfect relationship with him. The power that God uses to bring people close to himself, to make a relationship between them and himself, isn’t contained in any of the infinity stones. It’s the power of love. The power of love is a curious thing. It’s a love that sacrifices, a love that gives things up, a love that costs. That love is central to who God is.

Emily and Nikki want to bring that love to their marriage, the love of God. In the book of Ephesians in the Bible we read this in chapter 5 verse 1: “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children (2) and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Emily and Nikki want to follow God's example; in their marriage, they want to walk in the way of love.

How does that look when you live it out? The book of Ephesians gives some specific examples of how we should live this out in different aspects of our lives: so as children we should honour our parents, and as parents we should not exasperate our children but train them in the ways of Jesus Christ. It says that slaves should obey their masters as if they were obeying Christ; to masters it says they should treat their slaves in the same way - by obeying Christ! And it says that wives should submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ; and that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. These are all examples of what verse 21 of Ephesians 5 tells us that we should all do: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

So as Christians, we are all called to love one another as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, and we are all called to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Emily and Nikki: as Christians joining together in marriage before God, both of you are called to put the other one first, to ensure each other’s flourishing and wellbeing ahead of your own. Whether it’s a little thing – like the rest of the Avengers watching their language because it upsets Captain America – or a big thing – like learning to curb your Hulk-like rage so you don’t bring down the helicarrier with everyone else onboard – both of you need to put the other one’s best interests first.

And, Emily and Nikki: you are both called to love one another as Christ loved you. You need to take care of one another, and build each other up. Emily, be the Tony Stark to Nikki’s Peter Parker, and give him what he needs to be his absolute best – although I would recommend not installing an instant kill mode in his spiderman suit. Nikki, be the Thor to Emily’s Bruce Banner, encouraging her that she’s powerful and useful and smart, and that you don’t even like the Hulk because he’s all like “rarrr, smash smash smash”. 

Both of you have been made in the image of God, and as such have been given the ability to affect the universe for one another: you can change one another’s Minds by what you say and do; you can harness Powers like heat, light, electricity and even nuclear fission to make your lives better; you can move yourselves around in Space, whether it be to the moon or just to New Zealand; you can look backwards and forwards in Time by remembering your past and making plans for your future; you can change the very Reality of one another’s lives, for good or ill, by what you do; you can even have an impact on people's eternal Souls by being a family that shares the gospel of Jesus Christ. You are made in the image of God, and while compared to God you are weak and feeble, through him you are capable of amazing and life-changing things. 

Ephesians 5:31 tells us, "'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' (32) This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church." Your marriage is a picture of the union of Christians together with Christ. So now that you two are married, don't ever use your God-given powers to wipe out the other person and make the marriage all about you - that would make you the bad guy! Don't be Thanos! Don't click your fingers! There is no infinity stone of love, but always remember that like all the strength and power and ability that you have been given, love comes from God. Use the powers God has given you for loving one another, and for loving others as a couple, out of reverence for Christ. May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you on your wedding day, and every day of your marriage.