‘We believe…’ series, ‘in the resurrection of the dead’ – Revelation 21:1-8
Do click on the above link to listen to a recent talk I gave at Holycross on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina. Belief in the resurrection brings confidence, comfort and challenge. Below are a few of the juicy quotes I shared:
Dallas Willard: “We should not think of ourselves as destined to be celestial bureaucrats, involved eternally in celestial ‘administrivia’. That would be only slightly better than being caught in an everlasting church service. No, we should think of our destiny as being absorbed in a tremendously creative team effort, with unimaginably splendid leadership, on an inconceivably vast plane of activity, with ever more comprehensive cycles of productivity and employment.”
C.S.Lewis: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Smith Wigglesworth gave this challenge to Christians: “Live ready. If you have to get ready when the opportunity comes your way, you’ll be too late. Opportunity doesn’t wait, not even while you pray. You must not have to get ready, you must live ready at all times.
Be filled with the Spirit; that is, be soaked with the Spirit. Be so soaked that every thread in the fabric of your life will have received the requisite rule of the Spirit – then when you are misused and squeezed to the wall, all that will ooze out of you will be the nature of Christ.”
It was said of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, that she ‘loved the truth enough to live it’. Will we?
‘Shortly before racing in the 1993 World Championships in Toronto, his brother rings to tell him his parents have been murdered and their bodies dumped down a latrine. He still runs and gets a medal, the first Burundian ever to do so…’
Below is the link to Nkaza’s testimony that we put on film last year. It’s well worth a listen.
He’s a national hero and using his influence for good. We support his organisation ‘Amani Africa Burundi’, and their latest strategy as peace-makers is to mobilise the youth nationwide to sign up to seven core values – integrity, honesty, humility, non-violence, unity, being agents of reconciliation and pursuing good over evil (my translation).
He wants to get every young person to sign up and embrace a positive role leading up to the 2020 elections. Everyone carries their identity card by law, but this could accompany it and be used to resist violence and broker peace in many tense situations. Whereas many in the past have been negatively manipulated, this is a beautiful vision which could have a key role in the nation. If anyone gets excited by this and wants to get behind him by sponsoring x hundred/thousand cards (100 at $5, 1000 at $50), do let me know.
Today was a day feared by many, as Burundians went to the polls in a referendum on changing the constitution. We were told to lie low and stay indoors. As the day draws to a close, it looks like it has all gone peacefully, with the results to follow shortly – although we all know the result already.
I had an important meeting upcountry, so went ahead with that, with the wonderful result that Gitega International Academy has qualified for international accreditation with ACSI, which is a massive feat, achieved in record time. Well done Freddy, Opondo, and GIA and YFC staff! Great news!
Below is my latest sermon, given last weekend in the UK, from which I flew back two days ago. It involves probably my favourite Jesus encounter in the gospels, and is called ‘Radical Grace’
Below is a talk I gave a few weeks ago in the UK. Am just returning from a superb weekend of speaking in Rwanda, with the highlight being a powerful time in a 7,200-men prison.
“We are at war, and the bloody battle is over our hearts. I am astounded how few Christians see this, how little they protect their hearts. We act as though we live in a sleepy little town during peacetime. We don’t. We live in the spiritual equivalent of Bosnia or Beirut. Act like it. Watch over your heart. Don’t let just anything in; don’t let it go just anywhere. What’s this going to do to my heart? is a question that I ask in every situation.” (John Eldredge)
“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” (Francis Chan)
This is last Sunday’s sermon in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, on Moses. And below are some more juicy quotes to stir and challenge your soul:
C.S.Lewis talked of how sometimes people experience extraordinary times of intimacy and closeness to God. “But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs – to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be.”
Michael Green: “There is one test and one test only of the extent of our love for Him and it’s a very uncomfortable one: how have we handled the poor?”
Nouwen: “Look at the many ‘if’ questions we raise: What am I going to do if I do not find a spouse, a house, a job, a friend, a benefactor? What am I going to do if they fire me, if I get sick, if an accident happens, if I lose my friends, if my marriage does not work out, if a war breaks out? What if tomorrow the weather is bad, the buses are on strike, or an earthquake happens? What if someone steals my money, breaks into my house, rapes my daughter, or kills me?” But if we let such questions guide our lives, we end up taking out a second mortgage in the house of fear.
Safety is not in the absence of danger, but in the presence of God!
Fear of other people’s opinions: “We would worry less about what people think about us is we realized how seldom they do.” Whose opinions matter? The Audience of One.
Brennan Manning: “Freedom in Christ produces a healthy independence from peer pressure, people-pleasing, and the bondage of human respect. The tyranny of public opinion can manipulate our lives. What will the neighbours think? What will my friends think? What will people think? The expectations of others can exert a subtle but controlling pressure on our behaviour.” “When I was eight, the impostor, or false self, was born as a defense against pain. The impostor within whispered, ‘Brennan, don’t ever be your real self anymore because nobody likes you as you are. Invent a new self that everybody will admire and nobody will know.’” ARE YOU WEARING A THICK MASK? Do you know where the most lies are told? In Church on Sunday morning: “How are you?” “I’m great!”
To sinful patterns of behaviour that never get confronted and changed,
Abilities and gifts that never get cultivated and deployed –
Until weeks become months
And months turn into years,
And one day you’re looking back on a life of
Deep intimate gut-wrenchingly honest conversations you never had;
Great bold prayers you never prayed,
Exhilarating risks you never took,
Sacrificial gifts you never offered
Lives you never touched,
And you’re sitting in a recliner with a shriveled soul.
And forgotten dreams,
And you realise there was a world of desperate need,
And a great God calling you to be part of something bigger than yourself –
You see the person you could have become but did not;
You never followed your calling.
You never got out of the boat.
“You have listened to fears, child” said Aslan, “come, let me breathe on you. Are you brave again?”
“The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.” (Carl Henry)
Above is last Sunday’s sermon at James Island Christian Church, South Carolina. I feel like it’s a classical ‘old school’ sermon on mission and the gospel, one that simply doesn’t fit into our post-modern relativist age – except that it’s THE TRUTH!
Below, if you’re like me and enjoy juicy quotes and great stories, are some of what I shared:
When the ship ‘Empress of Ireland’ sank… the few survivors told of how the [Salvation Army] officers, upon discovery that there were more passengers than life belts, took off their own life belts and strapped them on other passengers, even strong men, saying, ‘I can die better than you can.’ … Every day among the unreached, over 50,000 people die… Jesus, when He looks upon those who still have never heard His name and of His love, sees the equivalent of 14 [World Trade] towers collapsing every day. He watches them with the same horror that we watched New York. This is why He begs us not to consider this rescue casually, but to urgently give all we have for their salvation.”
John Piper: “All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and his Son among all the peoples of the earth. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man…. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”
William Booth’s last speech to Salvation Army: “While women weep, as they do now, Ill fight. While little children go hungry, as they do now, I’ll fight. While men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight. While there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight – I’ll fight to the very end!”
Amy Carmichael: “We profess to be strangers and pilgrims, seeking after a country of our own, yet we settle down in the most un-stranger-like fashion, exactly as if we were quite at home and meant to stay as long as we could. I don’t wonder apostolic miracles have died. Apostolic living certainly has.”
A certain society in South Africa once wrote to David Livingstone, “Have you found a good road to where you are? If so, we want to send other men to join you.” Livingstone replied, “If you have men who will come ONLY if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them.”
Adoniram Judson of Burma. When proposed to his wife, “Give me your hand to go with me to the jungles of Asian, and there die with me in the cause of Christ.” Reached Rangoon in 1813, 6 years language learning before preached first sermon, 7 years before first convert. 20 years to translate whole Bible. Twice widowed, lost 6 kids in lifetime. Illness, 2 years in prison camps during Anglo-Burmese war. One return to usa in 37 years there. Then 7000 baptised Karen in 63 churches, now 3million. Here is the letter Judson wrote to her father asking for her partnership in missions:
‘I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?’ Her father let her decide. She said yes, and indeed she died out there on the field for the King.
“The reason for the growth of the church in China and for the outbreak of genuine spiritual revival in many areas is inextricably linked to the whole theology of the cross… the stark message of the Chinese church is that God used suffering and the preaching of a crucified Christ to pour out revival and build his church. Are we in the West still willing to hear? The Chinese church has walked the way of the cross. The lives and death of the martyrs of the 1950s and 1960s have borne rich fruit.” Tony Lambert
A single woman, off to China, leaving everything, was asked: “Are you not afraid?” She answered: “I am afraid of only one thing, that I should become a grain of wheat not willing to die.”
David Livingstone wrote in his journal on one occasion concerning his “selfless” life:
“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice, which is simply paying back a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice, which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind and a bright hope of glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege.”
“If Jesus Christ is God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.” Charles Thomas Studd (1862–1931)
“Our notion of sacrifice is the wringing out of us something we don’t want to give up, full of pain and agony and distress. The Bible idea of sacrifice is that I give as a love-gift the very best thing I have.” Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)
Earlier last century, William Borden went to Yale University as an undergraduate and afterward became a missionary candidate planning to work in China. When he made his decision to invest his life in this service, many of his friends thought him foolish. He had come from a good family. He had wealth and influence. “Why are you going to throw away your life in some foreign country,” they asked, “when you can have such an enjoyable and worthwhile life her?” But William Borden of Yale had herd the call of God. While in Egypt, on the way to China and even before he had much of a chance to do anything, he became sick. Soon it was evident to everyone, including himself, that he would die. At this point Borden could have said to himself, “What a waste. My friends were right. I could have stayed in New Haven.” But Borden did not think this way. As he lay on his deathbed in Egypt, he scribbled a farewell not to his friends that was in some sense his epitaph. The note said, “No reserve, no retreat, and no regrets.”
In the film, Chariots of Fire, there is a marked contrast between the two leading characters: Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddle. On one occasion, before a race, a friend says to Abrahams: “I hate losing. How about you?” Abrahams replies: “I don’t know, I’ve never lost.” You see his drive for recognition. Then there is the contrast, having already lost the 200m, now 100m, when he says to the friend: “I’m forever in pursuit and I don’t even know what I’m chasing. You know, I used to be afraid to lose. Now I’m afraid to win. Because I only have 10 lonely seconds to justify my existence. And even then I’m sot sure I will.” He does win and in record time, but he goes away as the loneliest man, huge sense of despondency. He thought he’d accomplished what would bring meaning but it let him down. Whereas Liddle ran with a terrible style, arms and legs all over the place. He was about to run the 400m, and there is a flashback to a conversation with his sister. She wants to get him off to the missionary field, and thinks he is too caught up in this running thing. “Eric, when are you going to stop?” He replied: “God has made me for a purpose – for China. But he’s also made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure. To not run would be to hold Him in contempt.” That’s life and worship in every area of life.
“If you have to calculate what you are willing to give up for Jesus Christ, never say that you love Him. Jesus Christ asks us to give up the best we have got to Him, our right to ourselves.” (Oswald Chambers)
A sermon from the summer at Lee Abbey on Love.
A few more quotes:
“Breezy, self-confident Christians tell us how wonderful it is to accept Christ and then have a good time all the rest of your life; the Lord won’t demand anything of you. Yes, He will, my friend! The Lord will demand everything of you. And when you give it all up to Him, He may bless it and hand it back, but on the other hand He may not…” (A.W. Tozer)
John Wesley’s ‘Covenant Prayer’
“I am no longer my own, but Yours.
Put me to what You will,
Rank me with whoever You will.
Put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for You,
Or laid aside for You.
Exalted for You, or brought low for You.
Let me be full
Let me be empty.
Let me have all things,
Let me have nothing!
And now, O Father,You are mine and I am Yours. So be it.
And the covenant I am making on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”
David Livingstone wrote in his journal on one occasion concerning his “selfless” life: “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paying back a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind and a bright hope of glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege.”
“The eyes of the Lord are still searching out those willing to live their lives above the gunnels of mediocrity and beyond the realms of inevitability. In our cynical age, God is looking for those naïve enough to believe that the world can still be changed, those simple fools whose vision is to live and die for Christ alone.” (Pete Greig)
