Heaven on Earth

There's a peculiar view of Christians that has rather unfortunately become quite a common misconception. It's the idea that Christians hunker down, hate the world and all it's awful worldy things like television and cakes, and wait for heaven.

But what is heaven?

And what did Jesus mean when he said 'the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand' back in Matthew?

The way I understand heaven is quite simple: stuff being as it was meant to be. A return to Eden, if you will. Things being right, or as the Revelation puts it, all things being made new.

The thing about Jesus is that he didn't talk all that much about the 'after you die heaven' that some views of Christianity tend to focus on. In fact, he didn't really talk about death in the way we do at all. Jesus talked about those who follow him having 'already' passed from death to life. Kind of fitting in with all this incessant 'kingdom of heaven' talk. It's not all for later, over the hill and far away, in the happy every after. It's 'at hand'. It's now.

Which means that heaven is on earth. Not completely, not fully. But hints, glimmers, tastes and reflections of heaven are all around us. Whenever stuff is right, working as it should. A little taste of heaven. Whenever we get back into right relationship with God and with each other. A foretaste of heaven.

When husband and wife live in committed, selfless and passionate love for each other. A little bit of heaven. When family works as it should - love, grace, forgiveness, laughter, joy. A bit of heaven. When you get a sun bathed view of Loch Long, the Cobbler and Loch Lomond from the shoulders of Ben Narnain. A taste of heaven. For me anyway.

And just think. None of those things, not one, are the true picture of heaven. When things will truly be made new, when we will finally be reconnected fully and eternally with the source of all joy, life and fullness. If all of those reflections of heaven are so glorious, just imagine what the glory of the true thing will be like.

See Christianity isn't about the rejection of the good things. It is about the discovery of what really is good. Eternal life starts now. Like the Psalmist, we can say not only that we will 'dwell in the house of The Lord for ever' but also that 'goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life'. In other words, heaven starts - little by little - on earth.

The Pursuit of Holiness

This is a sermon I preached a few weeks ago that a couple of people have asked for a copy of - here it is in note form. Enjoy, endure or ignore as you see fit!

Follow: The Pursuit of Holiness

“As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:14-16). “It is written” is a reference to three points in Leviticus where God commands Israel, and Peter extends the command to us, “be Holy, because I am Holy” (11:44, 19:2, 20:7).

So holiness is an essential part of following Jesus. In fact, properly understood, holiness IS the pursuit of Jesus. But holiness has become an uncomfortable subject, with two extremes arising in Christian culture.

On the one hand there is pharasaical rule-keeping religious Christianity, where the call is "obey in order to be accepted by God". This being entirely untrue, some have then over-reacted to the opposite extreme, preaching that because God loves you just as you are, he's far too nice to ask you to change, he's far too polite to disagree with your choices, and even if he did, he's far too timid to do anything about it. Holiness is a thing of the past, they say, and it doesn't matter any more.

So who is right? Well, as with so many things in this wonderfully complex and beautifully simple thing we call following Jesus, the answer is both, neither and somewhere in between.

This is a huge topic and what follows is no more than a basic framework, scratching the surface at a couple of points. But my prayer is that even as we scratch the surface of a biblical view of holiness, God will pierce our hearts, changing us and drawing us closer to him to make us more like him. That's the point.

Justification vs Sanctification

The most important thing to grasp when dealing with this topic is the distinction between two wonderful theological words. Justification and Sanctification. True Christianity must include both, and all of the tension over this issue comes down to our understanding of this distinction. It is vital, as it cuts to to the core of Christianity itself. It hits the very core of the gospel.

Justification

Justification happens the moment you give your life to Jesus. At that instant, you were justified before God.

The bible describes that transformative moment in a number of ways:

- Being cleansed from every sin and stain. 1 John 1:7

- Declared Not Guilty. Romans 3:23-26

- Made right with God. Romans 3:29
- Made right in his sight. Romans 5:1
- Restored to friendship with God. Romans 5:10-11
- As of that moment, there is no condemnation. Romans 8:1
- You are assured of his glad welcome. Ephesians 3:12
- You are perfected forever. Hebrews 10:14

Because of Jesus, when you say yes, you are immediately, fully, completely justified. That means more than just forgiveness or the absence of punishment. So much more. It means being completely restored to perfection in the eyes of God. A restoration to right relationship. If you have given your life to Jesus, God sees you as completely clean, completely new, completely perfect, completely justified. There is no lingering suspicion, no secret grudge against you, no reluctance to embrace you. You are completely, utterly and wonderfully restored into perfect intimate and loving relationship with God. You are justified.

And yet... if we’re honest with ourselves, we know we’re not perfect.

And that realisation is the beginning of sanctification.

Sanctification
Hebrews 10:14 captures this perfectly: "For by one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy”

At once, we are already perfected forever, and yet still being made holy. It is the now and the not yet tension of the Kingdom of God. God has declared you holy in his sight, and now he is setting about the work of making you holy. Sanctification follows justification. You are not saved by your holiness – you live a holy life because you have been saved. As John put it last month in his sermon, we don't "do in order to be", rather you "be, in order to do".

No effort of yours or mine to live a holy life can ever save you. We are saved by the grace of God - unmerited, underserved. A scandalously and ludicrously free gift of God, when you turn to him and place your trust (faith) in him.

And once you have been saved by the unmerited, undeserved and unstoppable grace of God, the command comes “be holy”.

Misunderstandings

 

Often we misunderstand this pursuit that is so close to the core of what it means to follow Jesus. When we misunderstand the nature of the pursuit of holiness, it can influence the motivations and attitudes we carry into our relationship with God. I know I have caught myself living in accordance with these various false statements from time to time - I wonder if you can relate to any of these?

1.“Be Holy in order to be assured of salvation” 

In other words - be really good, just in case God's grace doesn't stretch as far as my sin... be holy just in case his grace isn't good enough. This mixes up justification and sanctification. It leads to a guilt-ridden pursuit of the perfect life, driven by insecurity in our salvation. It means we attempt obedience, but we are driven by guilt, shame and fear.

It is the trap the Galatians fell into, and Paul corrects them in the strongest possible terms in Galatians 3:2-3: “Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?”

Romans 8:15-16: “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children”. If you have accepted Jesus Christ and have decided to live life in relationship with him, then you do not need to be concerned about your salvation – you don’t need to live in fear, trying to obey because you’re secretly not sure if this grace thing can really stretch as far as my sin. Rather, you are brought into an intimate father-child relationship. And the father is asking you, as his child, to be obedient to him.

2. “Be Holy in order to win God’s affection”
 
You say, ok - I've got my 'get out of hell free' card. I accept that the salvation part is done. Maybe you're not trying to earn salvation - but you're trying to earn affection. Maybe you are someone who had a difficult relationship with your parents and you felt you had to perform in order to earn their affection – to make them proud. Maybe you put that on to your relationship with God: obey in order to be loved.

But the bible says the opposite: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). When you became a Christian, you were adopted into God’s family, and he said “you are my son/daughter, and I am fully pleased with you”. Those were the words spoken to Jesus in Matthew 3:17 – and that same love, acceptance and affirmation was given to you because of the cross (Romans 8:16-17).

We are not striving for the affirmation of the father - he has given it! And from that relationship where we are affirmed sons and daughters of the father - loved and fully pleasing to him - he calls us to holiness.

3. “Act Holy on the outside so people don’t suspect what’s going on inside”

This is one of the false statements we perhaps most easily fall into. We put on masks of the perfect Christian lives. God told me to be holy – so I better not admit that I am struggling in marriage, struggling with temptation, struggling with dilemmas of integrity, struggling with spiritual disciplines. Even worse, I certainly won’t admit that I gave into temptation, that I gave up my integrity, that I haven’t read my bible in a month.

Holiness is not about looking good on the outside. It’s about being changed from the inside. And often that looks awful on the outside for a while! The Pharisees were all about looking good on the outside: Jesus said to them in Luke 11:39 “You are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness!”. In interesting analogy Jesus uses, isn't it? Think about the cup: what matters more for its use? A clean and sterile inside? Or a clean outside?

In Romans 12:2 it says “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think”. It all begins on the inside.

4. “God loves me, so why should I change?”

We can sometimes forsake the pursuit of holiness out of a wrong understanding of grace. The pursuit of holiness was part of the salvation package. God loves us and accept us just as we are, but he loves us far too much to leave us that way. A Christian is a disciple – someone who is learning to follow and become like the teacher, Jesus. He expects us to be committed to it too: he says to count the cost before following him, because following Jesus means change.

The moment of becoming a Christian is often called “repentance” which literally means turning – I've been looking after number one, following the false Gods of this world, and now I am going to turn and follow Jesus. Following in the knowledge that I will make mistakes, with the awareness that I have so far to go before I am what I should be, but my heart has turned towards Jesus Christ.

Christianity is the pursuit of holiness.

The Nature of Holiness

Holiness is not a religious exercise in sticking to a set of rules

When we do that, we usually just pick a particular rule to judge ourselves and each other by. For example we obsess about sex: you can gossip, you can oppress the poor, you can be malicious and anger prone and bitter and jealous - but if you want to be holy just don’t have sex.

Maybe you can relate to times of life where you judge your holiness level by the number of days since you lost control of your sex drive either with someone else or on your own.
Maybe your religious rule of choice is religious observance: Holiness means spending three hours in prayer per week and attending four services per month.

Holiness is not a record keeping exercise in self-discipline.

You can discipline your body, you can discipline your time, you can even to some extent discipline your thoughts. The Pharisees loved this kind of holiness. They were good at it. They lived by the law, and they were good at it. But they fell well short of the standard required by holiness.

Law v Grace

The difference between 'law' and 'grace' is a wonderful thing to study - Galatians is a good place to start (I don't have time or space here to fully explore it). The Pharisees were offended by the early church because they preached you can't be saved by the law. They thought that Christianity was an easy way out - "you don't need to keep those rules anymore". I know Jewish and Muslim friends of mine often feel that way when discussing the concept of grace.

But the standard of grace is actually higher than the standard of law. Law says love your neighbour. Grace says love your enemy too. The law says give 10%. Grace says give everything. The law says don't commit adultery. Grace says don't even look at a woman with impure thoughts in mind. The law says don't murder. Grace says don't even speak a word in anger.

Holiness requires a transformation of the heart

Holiness requires more than keeping the rules. the holiness that we are to pursue, having been saved by God's grace, requires a complete transformation of the heart. The inside of the cup.

Holiness = set-apart-ness

God is described as Holy Holy Holy…. Completely set apart from everything. We are to be Holy… set apart for God – marked as his. My wedding ring tells the world that I am set apart for my wife. So our transformed lives should tell the world that we are set apart as God’s.

Be Holy = Be Different

As a child, being a Christian was great - lots of bouncy castles and singalongs. When I hit teenage years it became more difficult because it meant actually being different. Having a different view of sex, alcohol, drugs. Having a different attitude to the class loser. It meant being different. But that's the point! Even as you look at the most obscure laws in the old testament (like not boiling a young goat in its mother's milk) the reasons they are in place are to mark God's people out as different to the pagan cultures around them at the time.

Be Holy = Be like Jesus.

 

Be holy because HE was and is holy (John 14:9 – Jesus shows us the father, Holy Holy Holy). The only man who's eyes never looked at a woman with lust. The only man who never acted in jealousy or selfish anger. A man for whom nobody was too low on the social ladder to be worthy of his time, affection and love. A man who spent his life with his will aligned to his father's, listening to his voice and acting on what he heard. A man who sacrificed his life out of love for a broken and needy world.

 

Holiness is Christlikeness. That is the standard each one of us is called to. To say in every situation, as Jesus did “your will be done”.
It means prayer. Not for the sake of ticking the box, but because our hearts hunger for his presence, and our eyes have been opened to our need for him.

It means worship. Not out of religious obligation, but because we have seen a glimpse of God and our hearts have been changed to love him.

It means sexual purity. Not because God wants to keep from you from having fun, but because your heart is being transformed, your view of women is being transformed. Because you start to see in sexuality something beautiful about the very self-giving character of God, and you start to see in the world’s version of sexuality the opposite of that – selfish hedonistic sensuality.

It means love. Genuine, selfless, boundless sacrificial love.

It means honesty and integrity. Not because “good boys don’t lie” but because you love that person, so why would you cheat them? You care about that person – so why would you gossip about them?

It means doing the will of God when it makes sense and when it doesn’t – because it means trusting that God is good, and that his will is good.

Holiness looks like Jesus

How Does Holiness Happen?

Holiness happens as we follow Jesus. It is the unavoidable result of any genuine relationship with God. We talk about this all the time in the language of fruit. We know that as Christians we are meant to produce good fruit – John 15. We know that in our lives we should be developing the fruit of the spirit – Galatians 5. Anyone who has every been into gardening knows that you don’t plant a seed and then the next day drink fully pressed apple juice from a full-grown tree. It is a process of growing.

That raises an interesting question: is it my job or is it God’s job?

That’s another one of those questions to which the answer is both, neither and somewhere in between.

It comes from your relationship with Jesus.

Paul talked about his ministry in these terms: “I work very hard at this, as I depend on Christ’s almighty power that works within me” – Colossians 1:29

He counselled the Philippian church in Philippians 2:12-13 “Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

Romans 12: 2 “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”

It takes God's commitment, and it takes our commitment.

We know about Jesus' commitment: Philippians 1:6: “God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

So what about your commitment?

There is a wonderful prayer that a pursuer of holiness prayed long ago – found in Psalm 139:23-24 – “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

With that kind of prayer we lay ourselves before him and say: take every part of me. Show me the areas of my life where habitual sin still lurks. Show me the thoughts and attitudes that don’t glorify you. Make yourself Lord of every dark and hidden corner of my heart.

That kind of prayer is a marker of an intimate relationship with God. That is the kind of prayer that God loves to answer. Because he is committed to making us holy.

Products of Holiness

1. Deeper intimacy with God: as you open up the most vulnerable and secret parts of your life to God, you begin to see him change you deeply, and that makes you love him even more deeply. By the same token when we begin to pull a veil over parts of our lives, keep them for ourselves, we start to place barriers between us and God.

2. Other people notice: Matthew 5:14-16 “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father". Holiness shows God to the world: let your good deeds shine. 1 Peter 3:15: “You must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it”. The implication is that if you are worshipping Christ as Lord – i.e. if the fruit of holiness is becoming apparent in your life – only then will people start to ask about the faith you have.

If your life looks no different from the rest of the world, then why on earth will anyone listen to you when you say that Jesus offers life to the full? Worship Christ as Lord of your life - and then the light shines.

Trust

It's been a strange old month.

We will never grow in faith unless we go through times where our faith is tested. It's easy to say you trust God when everything is coming up roses. It's another thing entirely to say it when the future seems uncertain.

What does it mean to trust God when things are down?

The thing about trust is that it isn't always a good thing. The worst of life's emotional anguish comes from broken trust or trust that was misplaced. Trust is only a good thing if it is placed in something worthy of trust. No matter how much we trust - how much faith we have- unless that faith is in something with a firm basis in truth, it is useless.

If you are falling from a cliff, and have faith in a branch to hold your weight - it's not the strength of your faith that determines whether you fall to the ground, it's the strength of the branch.

I can tell myself that my wife and I will get the jobs we want - I can even believe it as I say it. I can squeeze my eyes tight shut and believe it so hard I burst a blood vessel. But does that mean it will come true? It isn't the strength or unshakability of your trust that matters, it is the truth or otherwise of what you are trusting in.

As Christians, should we 'just believe' that everything will be fine - it will all work out as we want? Of course not. Things are manifestly not all fine. Life clearly doesn't go (at least not consistently) just as we would like.

And it is in precisely these difficult times that trust becomes important. The most wonderful statements of faith in God come at the close of the most melancholy Psalms. Trust clearly isn't some crazed assertion that everything is ok. To say that is to deny the nature of the world in which we live. And the nature of the world Jesus lived, suffered and died in.

So what does it mean to trust God?

That depends, again, on the truth behind your trust. Are we trusting God for who he has actually said and shown he is, or are we trusting in a God of our own making (idolatry)?

Do I believe God is never angry? No, I believe he is slow to get angry.

Do I believe God gives us everything we could ever want? No I believe God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes.

Do I believe that nothing could ever harm me? No I believe that nothing can separate me from the love of God.

Do I believe that God's will is the same as mine? No I believe God's thoughts are higher than mine.

Our trust can't be in some particular desired outcome from a situation. That is faith in something which is not based in fact. I hope for that, I pray for that.  I might even go so far as to say I pray to a God whose revealed character of love and generosity makes it LIKELY that he will answer those prayers. But I cannot say I can trust in that outcome. Because God sometimes has other plans. 

Daniel's three friends (for lovers of mid 90s talking vegetable bible cartoons, we can call them Shack, Rack and Benny...) are an incredible example of this kind of trust. They said 'our God is able to save us from the fire... but even if he doesn't...'

Their trust was in God, regardless of the immediate outcome. Their devotion to, faith in, trust in God was not conditional on God complying with their will.

The challenge is to trust him regardless of whether his will is our will.

So what does it mean to trust God in uncertainty - when we can't say that what we want to happen is what will happen?

Well, if we trust God, we trust in what he HAS promised us. I trust he will provide for me. Because he told me so. I trust he has a plan for me. Because he told me so. I trust he is working all of these things together for my ultimate good, because he told me so. I trust that at the end of all of this, when as the hymn writer said 'earth's joys grow dim, it's glories pass away', I will see him face to face, and every tear, pain, worry and burden will finally be gone. Because he told me so.

I trust that no matter what happens, and no matter how bad - or good - things get, he will never leave me or forsake me. And if we really grasp the glory of who Jesus is - the pearl of great price - then that has to be enough for us.

As a side note, I've talked about how faith (trust) is powerless unless it is faith placed in something which is objectively reliable. I hear the secular materialist say 'see, you admit it - blind faith is useless'. Yes, of course I agree with that.

But this branch I am hanging on - my faith in Jesus - is rooted in objectively rational fact. There are good reasons to trust this branch to hold my weight. The trustworthiness of the branch is also confirmed by subjective experience. In other words, my faith is not blind - it is faith in a person who I know, who I have experienced, and who is as real to me as the woman I married.

When we decide to trust God we do it on his terms. And his terms are that he is God, and we are not. He might not do as we thought / wished he would. But we can know that in all things, he is unequivocally and eternally FOR us. He loves us. And he asks for our trust.

I trust. I don't know how it's going to work out, I don't know where it's going to take us. I don't know what's around the corner.

But I know Jesus.

And that's enough.

Four Deaths. And Life.

I don't think death is ever a cause for celebration. Certainly not in and of itself. I was saddened that when Osama Bin Laden was killed celebrations broke out, not at the idea of a victory over a legitimate foe, or the idea of freedom from a certain danger being achieved, but simply at the death of a man. I was quite simply repulsed today by the thought that some people in this nation - even this city - would consider celebrating the death of Baroness Thatcher. What an example of the failure of human dignity, the failure of mankind to live up to even the basic standards of decency once more. An old lady, suffering from Dementia, has died, leaving behind a grieving family. She also happens to be the first (and thus far only) woman to have held the highest political office in the country. This frail old lady still arouses such passions, that one otherwise gentle and jovial old man who sat next to me on a plane once told me 'I'd dance on her grave'. Grace? Forgiveness? Not for her. Such is the attitude of many tonight, sadly.

That gets me thinking about another death we've been remembering these past few months, a death that (some might argue) we do celebrate. I refer of course to Jesus. It would be wrong to say we celebrate his death. That was on the Friday. That was a sombre moment and a cataclysmic moment. The celebration came on Sunday, with the resurrection. It is rather important not to confuse them. One lawyer this Easter in a Scottish court was pleading for a light sentence for his client, and said 'after all, M'Lord, it is Easter time'. To which the presiding Sheriff replied 'yes, it is good Friday - are you asking me to impose crucifixion?'

In the Easter story God brought life from death, not unlike the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes of it's former self.

Which is interesting.

Because death come to us all. This is a subject that has, for better or for worse, occupied my mind for the past few days. Not deliberately, but I wonder if subconsciously I have been heeding the advice of the writer of Ecclesiastes, who counsels us that 'a wise person thinks a lot about death'. 

I am currently writing and revising a talk I am to give on Thursday at an Alpha course launch night, and death raises many of those wonderful and horrible questions of life that Alpha is designed to explore. Is death the end? Do my decisions now make a difference to what happens in the end?  Or, as Tolstoy asked in typically poetic language, 'is there any meaning in my life that will not be annihilated by the inevitability of death that awaits me?'

In addition to Alpha and Ecclesiastes there is another thing that has made these issues the focus of my thoughts of late. It was a Christian writer (I won't name names) who was providing some remarkably pleasing answers to horrendously difficult questions. It was enticing. It is that simple after all! That's just what I'd like to believe! Except as I thought it through, and went back to basic truths, I saw that it just isn't that simple. There are big things at stake. Big questions to which we each need to find an answer. And the answer you find matters enormously.

Which leads me to death number four. (Maggie, Jesus, Everyone... Have you been counting?)

Our deaths. (Wait, that was number three wasn't it? Have you lost count?). What I mean is our pre-death deaths. Perhaps it's too late at night for such nonsense. I soldier on regardless.

What I mean by a pre-death death, is a kind of death that, like the Easter story and like the Phoenix, leads to new life. It is a kind of death that leads to new life of such a vibrant degree, and of such an increasing fullness, that the 'official' bodily death becomes just a mere formality to seal the transition. It is the death Jesus asks us to die in order that we can follow him into resurrected life. A death not brought about by violence, disease or age, but a death brought about by the decision to throw yourself  spiritually from a great height.

I have never bungee jumped. I don't have the cajones for such a feat. I consider that my impulse NOT to jump is a prime example of natural instinct at it's most effective. But when it comes to the big questions, the surprising answer (or so I've found, at any rate) is that dying a spiritual death, throwing the whole broken lot of me over the edge, has resulted in a Phoenix-like rebirth, where behind every lost cause there lurks a miracle story, and over every insurmountable object there is written 'hope'. What glorious grace, to fall from a great height only to fall into the arms of the God who was waiting to catch me, and then to give me wings.

Death comes to us all. But then so can life.

Marital Coercion

How disappointed I was to learn from the Vicky Pryce case that marital coercion is not a defence which will be accepted by a modern jury as excusing someone for committing an act they had previously thought unthinkable. Because I never thought I'd write a blog. In fact, for so long I have (gently) railed against the first-order vanity of the blogger, who thinks their thoughts are of such invaluable quality that the whole world should read them.

And here I am writing a blog.

But Roxy made me do it.

Or rather, she said she thought it was a good idea. And making her smile seems to be at least a contributing factor to my motivation for most things in life, since that strange girl made me fall in love with her.

So here it is, for what it's worth. My thoughts, deliberations, ventings and musings (and perhaps even some not-fully-formed sermons) on the things that matter to me. If the same or similar things matter to you (imaginary reader) then perhaps my contributions will be of some mild interest if there really is nothing in the telly.

And if all else fails, please remember - she made me do it.