Monthly Message Jul/Aug 2018

The cost of love is a surrender of the will

Here, rather late I’m afraid, is my message for July, so I shall make it my message for both July and August!  But first, let me say that I am looking forward to seeing you, if you can possibly make it, at the second Saffron Walden Bible Focus event on Saturday, September 29th at the URC church in Abbey Lane, Saffron Walden. Do put it in your diary if you haven’t already done so, and please make sure all your friends know about it as well. 

I believe our theme is most appropriate and timely: “Out of Step? Christ-like Living in Today’s World”.

Jean and I were most encouraged when, at the Keswick Convention last week, we met several people who live near Saffron Walden who had either heard about Bible Focus or were glad to hear about it, and are planning on coming.  It is good to know that word is getting around.  What is even more exciting is that the word of God  is not bound (II Tim 2:9 ESV)!
 
To be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ involves surrendering one’s will to his, and what Jesus said to Peter (in John 21:18) is quite staggering in its implications. He reminded him that when he was younger he was free to dress himself and go wherever he wanted.  Then he warned him that when he became old someone else would dress him and lead him where he would not want to go. In saying this, Jesus was indicating the kind of death Peter would die, and by which he would glorify God. An early church Father tells us that Peter was crucified head downwards, and another wrote: “At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood this rising faith. Then is Peter girt by another when he is made fast to the cross”.

Then, after that solemn and truthful warning so that Peter could be in no two minds about the cost of discipleship, Jesus said to him, “Follow me!” No longer would that mean physically following Jesus since he would soon be exalted to his Father’s presence; but now discipleship would clearly mean to live as Jesus’ lived: by service, by suffering, and, if needs be, by death.     So it is that Peter’s impending death can be said to have ‘glorified’ God, for only a death met at the end of the road of obedience can possibly glorify God.

I do not doubt that, on reaching heaven, I will find that I understood the way of salvation aright.  But I do wonder sometimes if I’ll discover that I got the way of discipleship all wrong.   The joy in the hearts of impoverished believers in the two-thirds world contrasts starkly with the lacklustre, cosy compromise that passes for so much modern western Christianity.  In those parts of the world where it costs comparatively little to be a Christian, we have hardly begun to grasp the radical nature of the gospel.  The gospels have a great deal to say about denying oneself, about taking the narrow road, about following Christ who went the way of  being misunderstood, the way of suffering and of death.  Yet I find myself practicing my discipleship so cheaply, and living it out so comfortably.  Have the few years we have on earth come to mean so much to us, that the glories of the heaven that await us have almost lost their appeal?

Warmest greetings in Christ,

Tony Mason

Chairman, Saffron Walden Bible Focus

Monthly Message Jun 2018

Fear or faith for the future?

 Moses had a hard time, to put it mildly, leading the Israelites for forty years through the desert as they made their way to Canaan, the land God had promised to them.  Many times they rebelled and hankered after the life that they had had in Egypt, strangely forgetting all the misery, suffering and hardship they had endured there.  Their recollection of the luscious fruit and vegetables they had enjoyed seems to have blocked from their memory the more traumatic things. But however uncongenial they might have found the desert to be, and however much they grew bored and dissatisfied with the daily manna, actually entering Canaan would have its problems too.  Since God had promised them that land, they could be absolutely assured of their eventual possession of it.   But it was a hostile land, occupied by peoples none too welcoming and, in some cases, positively formidable.  God knew that, on approaching the border, they would need some special encouragement.  He therefore instructed Moses to send ten people to reconnoitre the territory and bring back a report of it.  These spies returned saying how fruitful the land was but also how fearsome some of the inhabitants were.  One of them, Caleb, confidently declared that they “should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it”.  But others were afraid.  “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are”.  But those same spies had also brought back grapes, pomegranates and figs, samples of the abundant fruitfulness of the land which lived up to the reputation of “flowing with milk and honey”.  Fear overruled faith as the people weighed up the two sides of the report.  It was not that there was no encouragement for them. But they missed the encouragement (Caleb’s positive words and the fruit-sample) because they looked at the obstacle (the powerful tribes).

If we are honest, perhaps we would admit that, had we been in their shoes we might have reacted in a similar way.  After all, what consolation is a bowl of fruit when it looks as if you’re about to be massacred? Had we reacted as they did we would, however, have been as wrong as they were.  The promise of God, backed by the positive report and samples of the produce of the land ought to have served as an encouragement because they represented and symbolised the future that God had in store for his people.  The Amalekites, Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites all symbolised the present, a present that God was well able to handle.  But they ought to have seen in that fruit, the symbol of the promised future, that victory was at hand, a victory that would enable their future to be realised.

”Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”. 

[II Corinthians 4:16-18]

 

Warmest greetings in Christ,

Tony Mason

Chairman, Saffron Walden Bible Focus

Monthly Message May 2018

An encouragement from Pentecost

It goes without saying that you can tell that a tree is an apple tree as soon as it produces apples. Once that happens there is no doubt at all as to the true nature of the tree. Paul, in Galatians 5, lists a number of things that he calls “acts of the sinful nature”. Among these acts are sexual immorality, idolatry, hatred, discord, envy, drunkenness and so on. Such things indicate that the dynamic at work in the life of a person who is living like that is “the sinful nature”, not the new nature that one receives when one becomes a believer. Now that old, sinful nature is not completely eradicated when one becomes a Christian, but the Holy Spirit begins and continues a process whereby the believer becomes more and more like Christ in character and attitude. However, there is a constant struggle between that old nature and the newly bestowed divine nature. Paul puts it like this: “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.” (Galatians 5:17,18). The answer to spiritual growth and maturity (the key to sanctification) is not in our strength to live holy lives, but in our willingness to submit ourselves to the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit, giving us a deeper, richer love for Jesus and thus turning our thoughts and attention away from those values that stand in complete opposition to the values and truth of Christ. All this sounds fine, but how do we know that God is doing this transforming work in us, how do we know we are becoming closer to Christ and, indeed, more like him? In just the same way as we know an apple tree is an apple tree.

Here’s a simple checklist:
• am I aware of being more loving now than when I first became a Christian?
• is there somewhere deep down within me a joy and peace that keeps me going through times of disappointment and difficulty, assuring me of being accepted by God even when I am aware of having let him down?
• am I more patient and kind or, at least, wanting to be?
• is there a solid goodness about me that possibly replaces a certain lack of integrity or purity?
• am I loyal to people, and more ready to trust God than I once was?
• can I detect a certain gentleness and self-control in my dealings with others and also with myself?

If I can say yes to most of those questions, (even if only in a whisper!) then what I am observing is the fruit of the Spirit being produced in my life. (Gal 5:22) That is encouraging!

Warmest greetings in Christ,

Tony Mason

Chairman, Saffron Walden Bible Focus