Go faster stripes

Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God, who is making things grow. (1 Cor 3:6). I have never been very much interested in cars but a friend I grew up with, he was much more of a boy racer than I have ever been. He learned to drive pretty soon after his seventeenth birthday and got use of the family car – a Morris minor, if that means anything to you. It was a green colour and he proceeded to stick a yellow trim all around it to jazz it up a bit and get it into the nineteen-seventies somehow. I remember him saying they were “go faster” stripes. Now, I am a little bit thick and so he thought it was worth trying to see if I would believe that the car could go faster with these yellow strips stuck on it. I was quite drawn but even I can see that it is the engine that makes the difference in a car not some yellow decals that you bought at Halford's.

Now, in a similar way, though not in exactly the same way it should be said, what counts in the end is God. He is the one who makes things grow. A farmer may boast about his bumper crop but he should be careful to remember that it is God who makes things grow. Someone who wants to have a large family may talk merrily about having six kids, three of each, but they need to remember that it is God who decides all that. And church planters and pastors must work very hard indeed in evangelism and in building the people up but they must also remember that it is God who makes things grow. He is the one who converts and sustains his own. It all depends on him.

No hybrids

Do not make the mistake of thinking you can have a hybrid sort of Christianity. You know how these days you can have a petrol or diesel car or you can have an electric one but then you can also have a hybrid, petrol and electric. The false teachers were arguing for a hybrid form of Christianity. You may be able to have a hybrid car but a hybrid Christianity will not work. If it is based on law at all then it will be all law and Christ and grace will be pushed out.

Don't sell your get out of jail free card

Galatians 5:1 Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. And yet that was the very thing that the Galatians were in danger of doing. Many of them were tempted to listen to the false teachers with their promises of a higher level of Christian life but what they were offering would only curtail the freedoms that they had entered into. It would lead them to be back under the law which does not bring freedom.

It is a little like someone who has been addicted to gambling or to alcohol and who has managed to turn from their addiction. Usually such a person cannot simply live the way they have done in the past. They need to care in all sorts of areas – the people they spend time with, the places they used to go to, the way they deal with problems, etc. In a similar way, the converted person needs to make sure that they do not put themselves in a position where they are likely to become slaves to sin once again.

Or think of someone who has been deep in debt but has managed to pay off what was owed or has accepted bankruptcy and has started all over again. What if that person is tempted to take on a fresh load of debt? They are in danger of ending themselves up in the same situation as before. Believers are like those who have had their huge debt of sin paid. They must be careful not to end up in the same sort of situation all over again by doing what the false teachers were suggesting and thinking that circumcision was the gateway to progress in the Christian life.

Never forget that the believer is essentially free. He has been given a get out of jail free card by the Lord. He must not be tempted to surrender that card by thinking that a religious ritual of one sort or another can take him forward as a Christian. We are sons of God not slaves.

Christ all the way

Gaatians 5:3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. When you start to rely on something like circumcision or baptism or confession or prayer then you are opening the door to a completely different way of thinking about salvation. You are basically saying that you think that you can be saved by law, by obeying certain rules. Now the way the law works, you have to obey everything it says. You cannot pick and choose what you are going to follow. You cannot say, I like circumcision but not keeping the ten commandments; I like church on Sundays but not the other commandments. No, if that is the way you want to go it has to be a total obedience.

Say you were going to a place and as far as you could see there were two ways to get to it – the one way was a straight road leading all the way from your city to your destination and the other a route that went along back roads and lanes and involved catching buses and trains. You could not start on one route and then suddenly switch to the other. You would have to choose your route and then stick to it. There would be no room for chopping and changing. And so with being a Christian – you cannot begin with circumcision and then turn to Christ – you must begin with Christ, go on with Christ and end with him. Christ all the way.

Is passing the entrance exam enough or not?

Imagine you wanted to study medicine at a certain university. Imagine you made enquiries and they said that as long as you pass the entrance examination then you can go to that university to do medicine and say you passed the entrance examination. "I'm in!" you think. "I'm okay". But then they say, yes, but you also need three A*s at A level or you need to be interviewed as well to see if we like you or whatever. That would not be right. Either passing the entrance examination is enough or it is not enough. The false teachers in Galatia were saying, yes, faith in Christ saves but there are these other things you need to do as well. There is a plus. The truth is either Christ is enough or Christ is not enough.

How are you saved? By Christ or by Christ plus something else? We must know it is by Christ alone.

It'll never happen to me

Joshua 23:12 Recognise the danger of turning away and being joined to the enemy

But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them ... that was a real danger and they needed to face up to it. It is important that you know that there are people who profess to be Christians but then they begin to live as unbelievers again. It is foolish to simply think that will never happen to me. It is a real danger.

Following the severe flood events of 1998 and 2000, the UK Environment Agency prioritised the need to increase public flood risk awareness. And so they produced a report drawing on data collected during research undertaken for the Environment Agency. A paper was produced contributing to understanding one aspect of flood awareness: people’s recognition that their property is in an area that is potentially at risk of flooding. They called the paper "It'll never happen to me". The title reflected the way so many people assumed that they would never be flooded even though they were living on a flood plain. Let's not make that mistake. It could happen to you.

Bravery

There are many examples of bravery in the history of God's people. Those stories should encourage us to be strong in our own day. In the sixteenth century one of the greatest preachers of his day was Hugh Latimer. On one occasion he was to preach before the king, Henry VIII. As he thought about what to preach he realised that what he had to say would not go down very well with the king.

As he began his sermon he said, “Latimer! Latimer! Do you remember that you are speaking before the high and mighty King Henry VIII; who has power to command you to be sent to prison, and who can have your head cut off, if it please him? Will you not take care to say nothing that will offend royal ears?”

He then paused and continued, “Latimer! Latimer! Do you not remember that you are speaking before the King of kings and Lord of lords; before him, at whose throne Henry VIII will stand; before him, to whom one day you will have to give account yourself? Latimer! Latimer! Be faithful to your Master, and declare all of God’s Word.”

Latimer eventually died in the reign of Henry’s daughter, Queen Mary but he had already begun on the right road long before. Be very brave.

Growth in grace

When I was a young boy my father was not very good at taking me to see the football games I wanted to see. He was much more a lover of grass roots football and so he took me to games like the local factory team or under 21 internationals. My dad liked to spot the players who were going to become big names in the future. He himself had played football alongside a man who went on to be a professional player with Ipswich Town in the period when Ipswich were working their way up the leagues to eventually be Division One champions in 1961-62. My dad knew then that the most ordinary players could improve and rise to the heights. We ought to think something like that with regard to the Christian life - we begin as young believers but we can make progress. Indeed, who knows how far we may go, by the grace of God, if we keep looking to him.

Forgiveness

Psalm 32:5 And what follows confession? God forgave the sin. That's the last bit (says David) - and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

David had sinned and so he was guilty. He deserved to be punished. But what did God do when David confessed? God forgave him. He removed David's sin and so with it the guilt and the punishment due. David escapes both.

When a person is forgiven it is as though all their sins have been washed away from them.

The huge debt they owe is cancelled. It no longer stands on the account books. A great PAID stamp comes down on the page and no more payment is required.

It is as though the criminal record listing all your sins that is kept on the police computer is wiped clean. It is gone!

Oh what a glorious thing to be forgiven! What can match it? It leads to the joy of fellowship with God and complete amazement at his goodness towards us.

Confess your sins now and find that forgiveness and joy today.

Darwin Awards and their equivalent

The world has a thing it calls the Darwin awards. This is a supposed award given to people who in their words “contribute the most to the evolution of humanity by removing their genes from the gene pool.” For example, two men in Kenya, Leonard Tonui and Michael Shikuku, were capturing selfies with a wild elephant when they were trampled to death by the irate beast who proceeded to bury the corpses with brush. The two men were actually touching the elephant's face while taking the photos.

A similar sort of award could be made to people who every day endanger their immortal souls simply by doing the very opposite of what the Bible urges us to do.

They refuse to repent. They will not trust in Christ. They say this life is all there is. There is no more.

We who believe must not fall into such foolish ways.

The best teacher and little by little

Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Consider the sort of request to make – to be taught. The verse begins Teach us. This sort of thing comes up often in the psalms. A request for teaching assumes ignorance on our part and that is right. By nature we don't know how to live. We need to learn how to do that. Who better to teach us that than God himself. When serious people who know what they are doing go off to university, they find out who are the best teachers and apply to those universities. The best teacher of all is God himself. Go to him and learn. Here then is something we need to learn, something we need to learn from God. It may well not come easy but we must learn it anyway. God is able to teach us.

Understand what it is that Moses wants God to teach us – to number our days. So what is it that Moses wants to learn from God? He asks that we will learn to number our days. We learn to count when we are very young. We start with addition then substraction then move on to multiplication and division. Next come fractions and equations. The highest mathematics there is, is learning to number your days. We need to learn to number our days. What does that mean? He has spoken about death and the brevity of life and the regular manifestations of God's wrath against the people. Every person has only a limited time here on this earth. We may live 70 years or 80. However old we get, we die. What Moses requests then, and it is something that we should all seek, is that we may be able to have the right approach to our lives. It is not that we forget about the past completely but that we focus on the day ahead. He is not asking to know how long he has left but to be able to discern how quickly the days pass, the fact that death can come at any time and that life on earth will certainly end at some point. No doubt he also has in mind that judgement that follows death. If we are to number our days as we ought to then we'll be aware of the coming judgement and we'll order our days in the light of the coming judgement. You read sometimes of people who have managed to lose millions. They once were rich but now they are poor. How does it happen? Probably not overnight. Usually it is little by little. In the same way, we learn to live wisely little by little, day by day. Here is a good prayer for all of us. Ask God to teach you, to help you understand how to live – not thinking we have all the time in the world but realising life passes by quickly and death can call at any time. Ask him to help you prepare for the coming judgement in the right way.

From everlasting to everlastig God

Psalm 90:2 and 4 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. ... A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

Think of mountains. Some of you have been up Snowdon or Ben Nevis. You have heard of Scafell Pike or the Alps or Kilimanjaro and K2 and Mount Everest. They have just always been there. You know that silly joke about Mount Everest. What was the world’s highest mountain before the discovery of Mount Everest? It was still Mount Everest (it doesn’t matter whether it had been discovered or not!). It's like the world itself. It feels like it has always been around. Of course, as Moses shows us in Genesis, the mountains and the earth had a beginning. Now before all that, he says, God was there. From everlasting to everlasting you are God which means that God has no beginning and he has no end. He is eternal. He is the God of the ages. And because he is eternal, for him a thousand years is just like a day gone by or a watch in the night. Moses records the ages of the early men. Before the flood some reached quite amazing ages. Methusaleh was famously 969. None lived a thousand years though. But for God it is like a day gone by. If you are up at night, the hours can seem to drag but when you sleep a watch or two can appear to go by very quickly. For God that is like a thousand years or more slipping by.

One way to think of it is if you think of the long years like a long line of cars. Say each car in the jam represents 10 years. Then a thousand years would be represented by a hundred cars. If you are in car 50 then you can only see so far back and so far forward but if you are up in a helicopter you can see all the way to the front and all the way to the back. That is something like how it must be for God. He can see it all in one moment.

Astronaut Food

You know that the Bible is to be read in many ways like you would read any other book – begin at the beginning and read on to the end. However, because it is also a very special book there are certain places where we find what we might call astronaut food – concentrated rations – or nuggets of gold in the ground or cherries in a Genoa cake. I refer to the way that certain texts can be isolated and great truths can be seen in them. Not all verses of the Bible lend themselves to such a treatment by any means but many do, (Examples John 3:16, Romans 3:23, Galatians 2:20, etc).

Three Rs of sin - recognition, repetition, reputation

1. Recognition. If you have never realised that a certain thing is a sin then you are not likely to feel convicted.

If you don't know that it is a sin to worry or a sin not to keep the Lord's Day special then your conscience will not convict you. It is only when you see such things are sins that you are likely to come under conviction.

2. Repetition. Even when we know something is sinful, we may not feel convicted about it because we have done it so many times so much so that we are hardly aware we are doing it.

Think of a person who feels guilty about swearing or making rude jokes at first but gets so used to it that 

he does not notice it any more. The same with gossip, lying. and other sins.

3. Reputation. As for reputation, we are ashamed of some sins just because we know what others will think of us.

A person may be quite happy to steal or to do something spiteful or malicious to another or to cheat on his wife – as long as no-one else knows about it. The very fact that he may be found out often stops a person from committing a sin and when he does, the reaction of others to it can bring deep conviction.

A great clean up of stumbling blocks

Zephaniah 1:2, 3 "I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth," declares the LORD. "I will sweep away both man and beast; I will sweep away the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea-- and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble." "When I destroy all mankind on the face of the earth," declares the LORD, 

(1. Who is going to bring about this judgment? The LORD himself)

2. What will be its chief characteristic?

You notice the repeated idea of sweeping away. It begins "I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth," declares the LORD. Then there is some itemisation "I will sweep away both man and beast; I will sweep away the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea - and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble." If there is any doubt about what such sweeping away by God entails, the phrase "When I destroy all mankind on the face of the earth," declares the LORD makes it clear.

Just as when someone takes a brush and sweeps the rubbish up across the floor so God will come one day and he will sweep away all unrighteousness. It's a great clean up.

When I was a child my mother would have a big clean up in the house, which was fine but sometimes there were things that I treasured that she would throw away because they were cluttering up the house. It is something like that when God is at work.

In doing what he says he will do, God will destroy the whole earth including the unrighteous, consigning them to hell. The New Testament speaks of this (2 Peter 3:10) But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

3. What will be swept away?

In verse 3 Zephaniah enumerates who will be swept away. It is like Genesis 1 in reverse. There we read of the creation of man and before that of the beasts and before that the birds and the fish. Here he says I will sweep away both man and beast; I will sweep away the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea …. All of creation is going to be swept away when this great day of judgment comes. He adds - and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble. On the fourth day God made the sun, moon and stars, which people have made idols of. But they also will be destroyed.

These idols that cause the wicked to stumble really are stumbling blocks. They get in the way of true worship and cause people to fall into sin. When someone trips over something in the street we say he has hit a stumbling block. That literal thing is a picture of the way idols get in the way and cause people to fall. But they will not last.

It all reminds us of Jesus's own words in Matthew 13:40, 41 As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.

The whole thing may sound negative but in fact it is very positive for this will mean the end of idolatry and all the wickedness associated with it when God judges all the earth. This drive against idols has already begun but it will be completed when Jesus comes again.

(4. How ought we to react? Be holy)