GOD’S KIDS

Message preached on Sunday, October 4, 2009

In our world today there is a lot of discussion about children at risk. Actually, they’ve always been at risk. For instance, in Old Testament times some people worshipped Molech, described as a “detestable god” (1 Ki.11:5, 7: 2 Ki. 23:13). The sacrifices offered to this god were a person’s own son or daughter. Down through the ages children have been sacrificed with a view to gaining the favour of gods or for the appeasement of demons. In modern times, Tantric rituals have claimed children as sacrifices, and perverts have abused children sacrificing them to lust, and have got away with little or no punishment.

The Bible reveals God to be One Who proclaims the worth of children. They have an ordained place in God’s plan for the created world. God did ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, but that was only to test him, to see whether he would God before his son, and whether he would trust God to keep His promise that Isaac would indeed be his heir. Having seen Abraham’s heart, God didn’t let him go through with the test. He stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son to gain God’s favour, and in a way when God stopped him from sacrificing his son it was in the end an object lesson for all God’s people that God didn’t approve of human sacrifices to gain His blessing.

The Bible reveals God to be the God who proclaimed the worth of children. For God children are not consumables or expendables. Children don’t have to wait until they grow up to be adults before they are included in God’s plans and programmes. Children are included by God because God is Who He is.

The God Family

The biblical revelation of God was in three stages. First, God revealed His transcendence─ that He is God above all, that God is Creator, Sustainer, and Protector. In the second stage of the divine revelation, God’s presence was experienced by people among whom God was incarnate in the person of Jesus. God was God with us, taking part in all our experiences and feeling for us. God cares enough to be our Saviour. In the final stage, God revealed His immanence. He came into human lives as the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, who indwells those who received Jesus as Lord. The Creator, the Saviour and the Sanctifier are three distinct persons, but are completely one, each living in the others (see Jn.10: 31, 38).

The Bible reveals that God is one being in three persons. God is triune. The notion of Trinity is one that is totally incomprehensible to the human mind. Humans are able to comprehend the concepts of singularity or multiplicity and therefore human speculation can come up with doctrines of God being just one person or of the multiplicity of gods. That God is triune is pure revelation. If God hadn’t revealed this truth, we would have just remained with our speculations.

But God has shown us these things through the Spirit.

The Spirit searches out all things, even the deep secrets of God. Who knows the thoughts that another person has? Only a person’s spirit that lives within him knows his thoughts. It is the same with God. No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor.2:10-11, New Century Version).

The best known definition of God is that “God is love” (1 Jn.4:8). Most people don’t know that it is from the Bible. Many reverse the order of the words and think that when they say “love is God” it has the same meaning as the original statement. It doesn’t. Love can be false or true, selfish or unselfish and selfless, possessive or committed but liberating, manipulative or redemptive. The love of God is so true and so redemptive that God is definable as being love in essence. The definition that God is love fits in with the revelation that God is triune.

Love is a word about relationships. If God Who is one, was singular in His oneness, and all alone before He created anything, how could He be love? Such a majestically lonely God could not be love—no more than a hermit living in total isolation and refusing any human interaction could declare that he was in love. For God to be love there has to be someone to love and have a relationship with. That is why it is possible to believe that God is a trinity even though we cannot understand how three persons can be one God or how one God could be three persons. The notion is incomprehensible to the human mind. But it is believable because God is love.

God is the surname of the family, and there are three persons in the God family: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Because God is a family, God calls families into His fellowship. When the world was being destroyed in the Flood, Noah’s family was saved. When humankind continued to alienate itself from God, He chose Abraham and his family. In the Exodus from the slavery in Egypt God liberated all the families of the people of Israel. (The Passover was not inaugurated as a national observance, but it was observed in homes according to their families). Prior to their settlement in the Promised Land, God gave Israel laws that recognized and safeguarded people by their families.

In a family, children are important. In a sense, families are about children. Procreation, nurture of children, and aiming for the settling of children is the agenda of any/every family. When a baby is born, the whole family is centred on that baby.

God recognized the importance of little children and ordained that when Israel observed its most important festival, in every family the littlest one would have a significant role to play in the continuing education of people (Ex.13:26).

God is Father

Before Jesus people knew only about the Creator. They knew Him to be all powerful. Though there were songsters and prophets who talked of God’s loving kindness, people regarded God only as the Almighty Lord. Certainly no one had ever taught that God is Father.

Jesus was the first to tell people that God is Abba (Father). The word “father” is too formal. The word abba is more like “papa”. The idea was totally revolutionary. It still is. Today Muslims in India use the word abba when addressing their fathers, but they would never think of referring to God as Abba.

Paul was so wonder struck and impressed with this usage of the word, that he felt the need to preserve the original Aramaic word Abba within the Greek text of what he wrote (Rom.8:15; Gal.4:6) to stress the significance of Jesus Christ’s teaching that God is Father.

The Jews were expecting that when the Messiah would come, he would restore Davidic kingship and establish an earthly kingdom. But Jesus talked of God’s kingdom as a kingdom not of this world. He said that one did not fight for God’s kingdom in the way that people fought for an earthly one (Jn.18:36). To gain entry into God’s kingdom one must be born again/born from above (3:3, 5). Jesus said that we have to become children to enter God’s kingdom (Matt.18:3). When God is Father, it makes sense that we have to become children in His kingdom.

Churches today don’t regard children as full members. Kids are treated as those in preparation for membership, just like they say that children are the future citizens of a nation. But in God’s kingdom they are the owners of the kingdom. Adults have to become children to enter the kingdom. As children they’re already in. The kingdom belongs to them. They belong to the kingdom. According to Jesus, they have their angels looking at God face to face (18:10). That’s a mysterious statement. But Jesus said it.

Obviously Jesus wanted children to be encouraged and affirmed.

• Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me (v.5, NCV).
• Whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward (10:42, NASU)

They are not to be treated as outsiders. That’s what the disciples did to children who were brought to Jesus for His blessing (19:13). The disciples thought that children were not important enough for the Master to bother with. They never tried to stop any adult from meeting Jesus—even if they were social outcasts like leprosy sufferers or known prostitutes. But Jesus went against that typical attitude and said that God’s kingdom belongs to children (19:14). Imagine that! But we don’t and that is why we still try to keep kids out saying that they are not ready to be regarded as followers of Jesus.

Children may not be rational about why they accept Jesus when brought up in the circle of faith. They’re just simple followers. They imitate. That is how they learn. If you lead, they will follow. Lead them to Jesus.

God is Faithful

The Bible reveals God to be one who initiates covenants with people. He makes covenants and keeps them.

Covenants are the formalisation of relationships. A relationship is given official or public recognition. One goes on record that the relationship exists. For instance, a wedding proclaims that a man and a woman have entered into a covenant to be faithful to each other, and that no one is permitted to come between them or do anything to undermine their relationship.

Tokens or symbols accompany covenant-making. Tokens give a covenant a real world presence. They are proof that it happened and is not something that we imagined in a dream state.

When God instituted His covenant with Abraham, God made circumcision the sign that all Abraham‘s descendants were to bear. Circumcision was done when a baby was just eight days old (Gen.17:12; 21:4; Phil. 3:5). The ritual clearly declared that God’s plan included children from their very infancy.

Whole households were baptized in the Early Church (Acts 16:15, 33; 1 Cor.1:16). In that ancient world, a household was not a nuclear family, nor just an extended (joint) family of brothers and their families. A household included even the slaves and their families. There were bound to be some kids in such large groups.

Paul wrote that even if only one partner in a marriage is a believer, the children of that marriage are “holy” (1 Cor. 7:14). Scripture says some strange things, doesn’t it? Who would have thought that kids born in a home where one is from another faith are holy?

The end of the matter is, God loves children. Jesus loved kids and drew them into His circle and proclaimed them owners of God’s kingdom. Adult believers, if they are indeed believers, must believe what Jesus said and not try to dispossess the children of the King.

CONDITIONS APPLY

Message preached on Sunday, September 13, 2009

Old guarantee cards for electrical appliances always had small print. People didn’t usually bother to read the stuff in small print because the print was so tiny. They would read the portion that said that the item was guaranteed for one year and were quite satisfied. When the gadget stopped working, armed with the guarantee card, they would return to the shopkeeper and expect an immediate replacement of the defective piece, only to discover that according to something or the other in the small print they could not expect anything.

These days guarantee cards don’t have small print, but say that “conditions apply.” Yes, the product is guaranteed, but the buyer has to abide by certain conditions. Even today customers discover that the guarantees are not as good as they thought.

Companies announce free offers or the chance to win something or the other in a lucky draw. But “conditions apply.” It isn’t quite so free as the announcement made it appear. When such announcements started to appear, I was in college, and I would say to myself, “I’ll walk into the shop and say, ‘I don’t want to buy anything, but I’ll take the free item’.” Of course, I never did that because I didn’t want to be regarded as someone crazy. The point is there is nothing free. There is always a price to be paid, a condition to meet.

Christian preachers talk about the unconditional love of God. Of course it is:

God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life (Jn.3:16, NCV).

But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners (Rom.5:8, NCV).

It is true that God’s love is unconditional, but we do have to place ourselves in the path of the love flowing from God. Like a river that floods only the villages and habitations in its way, God’s love floods only into the lives that stand in the path of the flow. That is a condition.

Allow Jesus to Fit Us

When humankind fell, it distanced itself from God. Adam and Eve who fellowshipped with God, no longer felt close to God and avoided His fellowship (Gen.3:8). And that is the way it has been ever since. Our hearts are not inclined toward seeking God. Humans were out of sync or out of tune with God. Someone had to come and do the syncing. Someone had to retune us.

That is what Jesus came to do.

But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God (Jn.1:12-13, NLT).

Being fit for God’s company and kingdom doesn’t come with self-efforts. We need to be reborn. Starting a new page won’t do. Only changing the book and starting afresh would bring us back into fellowship with God (Jn.3:3,5).

Human life comes from human parents, but spiritual life comes from the Spirit (Jn.3:6, NCV).

For this complete changeover to happen all that we need to do is believe that Jesus can and will do it for us (see Jn.1:12-13 again).

For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in Him. But anyone who does not believe in Him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants (3:16-21, NLT)

It is only when we believe that Jesus is able to save us that we will turn to Him. It is only when we believe that Jesus is the only one who can save us that we will turn to Him. Until then, we will try to fit ourselves for the kingdom, but all our own efforts will be unacceptable to God, because like Adam and Eve we declare our independence from God. We declare that we can fit ourselves and become like gods. That’s revolt. That is why it won’t work at making us fit for heaven.

Allow Jesus to Do His Work

The Bible tells us that on the night before His crucifixion, Jesus went around washing His disciples feet. All of the disciples were in shock. They sat there like dumb machines that can be grabbed and manipulated by a living person. The disciples didn’t know how to respond to this act of Christ’s and mechanically extended their feet as Jesus came to each of them. That’s what happened until Jesus came to Peter. The big, blustering fisherman roused himself from his stupor and protested that he wasn’t going to allow His Master to wash his feet. To this Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me” (13:8, NLT).

Many people don’t allow Jesus to do His work in their lives. They think that by being a decent sort, they can make the grade. But Jesus is very clear. Unless He is the one washing us clean, it won’t suffice. We just won’t belong to Him. We won’t be fit company for His Father and the Holy Spirit. If we don’t allow Jesus to wash us clean, we declare to Him, “We can become gods without any help from you.” If we don’t allow Jesus to do His work, then we’re still in revolt against God’s rule in our lives.

Some people after coming to Christ, take over handling the rest of their transformation. Peter thought that he would be different from all the others. He was not going to be like others in allowing the Master to touch his feet. He didn’t realize that he was claiming that he could be different from all the others without the Master’s help. Jesus says that it can’t be done. He is the one who can transform us. Without Him, it won’t happen.

Allow Jesus’ Power to Flow

Hard stone in the middle of a river, though awash with water, will still not be able to grow anything. Only soil that is soft enough to allow the water to flow into it is any good for growing any plants. So, it is not enough to stand in the flow of God’s love. There is a need to open our lives to let the love of God enter our lives. Jesus said,

Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples (15:4-8, TM).

Oh yes, the love of God is unconditional. But only the person who will let that love flow into his or her life will experience the unconditional love of God. Nothing can stop the love of God reaching us and entering our lives.

Can anything separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can troubles or problems or sufferings or hunger or nakedness or danger or violent death?…But in all these things we are completely victorious through God who showed his love for us. Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom.8:31-19, NCV)

No one else can prevent us from experiencing the love of God. It is absolutely unconditional. The only one who can stop me from experiencing God’s love is my self. The only condition that applies to experiencing God’s love is that I must let it flow into my life.

CONDITIONS TO FULFILL

Message preached on Sunday, September 20, 2009

In any agreement there are two sides. An agreement is a two-way street. It is a relationship. There is a contractual element to an agreement. There are conditions that apply to both parties.

The condition applicable to being a Christian is that we need to let Jesus do His work in our lives (Jn.13:8). What then are the conditions that we need to fulfill on our part? What does Jesus want me to do?

After Jesus had washed the feet of all His disciples He said,

Do you understand what I was doing? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them (vv.14-17, NLT)

“Do what I did,” is all that Jesus says to us who wish to follow Him. He said that the reason to do this is because we are disciples. That is implied in calling Him “Master”.

Be a Disciple

Many folks think that the word “disciple” is a term that is exclusive to the religious world. That word just means “student” or “learner.” There is nothing religious about the word.

What does a student have to do? Today parents tell their children, and student counselors tell youth, “Concentrate on your studies.” What they mean is that their wards should get book-knowledge or head-knowledge. They should learn the theory. They are being advised to learn with their heads.

Learning was very different earlier on. First of all there was a relationship between teacher and student. That is no longer the case. That is why they have parent-teacher associations in schools today. But it isn’t such a good idea. Parents today don’t want their kids to learn wisdom. Parents want them to learn for a career. They want them to learn, not for learning’s sake, but for something ulterior. With that agenda, parents are the ones to derail any attempts to reform education.

Nehem’s parents admitted him to a school that advertised they would only teach toddlers to learn by playing with toys and with one another. To their dismay, after the first PTA meeting, Nehem started to come home with homework. He had to do reading and writing. His father said, “There should be no PTA meetings.”

In the school of Christ, the teacher-student relationship is important. It is only because of that relationship that anything is required of the student.

Learn by Following

The second thing about education in the ancient past was that the teaching method was what we describe as “show and tell.” There was greater emphasis on learning with hands. Students learnt to do. They gained hands-on-knowledge. Jesus the Teacher told His students, “Just do what I did” (v.15).

When the disciples asked about rank in the kingdom of God, the Lord drew their attention to a child. He told them to be like a child in humility (Matt. 18:1-4). A child may pretend to be a king or a soldier and strut around, but has no airs. He is only playing. Little children do all their learning by imitation. They are humble enough to imitate those that they admire. That is all Jesus is asking us to do. Imitate Him whom we admire. Only then would it be true admiration.

Of course, learning does involve getting head-knowledge. Jesus said that His disciples were to do what He did (v.15), but He also talked of them knowing or learning things and following up the learning with doing it (v.17). Do, learn, and do: that’s what Jesus said.

We think that we must first become a follower of Christ’s and then serve Him. But the Lord turns that notion on its head. He said, “If anyone serves me, let that person follow me” (Jn.12:26). When John Wesley didn’t understand about salvation through faith, the German Moravian Peter Böhler said to him, “Preach faith until you have it, then, because you have it, you will preach faith.” Böhler seems to have said, “Imitate faith and learn.”

What exactly was Jesus Christ’s act of washing the disciples’ feet about? The Apostle John recounted that episode with the following introduction:

Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love (13:1, NIV).

Mark of the Disciple

Jesus demonstrated to His disciples that He was not offended by their self-centredness, selfishness and disrespectfulness. In their quest to race to the top in the kingdom, thinking it was like all earthly power structures, they didn’t even wash the Lord’s feet. No one wanted to wash the Master’s feet lest he found all the other disciples queuing up to have their feet washed right after Christ’s, and he would be manoeuvred out of the race. Each one thought of himself, not of the Master. As the Teacher, He could have ordered anyone into subservience and servility. Instead out of love, He Himself picked up the basin and served them.

What is love? For a Christian it is keeping the Jesus rules—doing what Jesus would do.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another (13:34, NIV)

If you love me, you will obey my commands… Those who know my commands and obey them are the ones who love me, and my Father will love those who love me. I will love them and will show myself to them …If people love me, they will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Those who do not love me do not obey my teaching (14: 15, 21, 23-24, NCV).

I loved you as the Father loved me. Now remain in my love. I have obeyed my Father’s commands, and I remain in His love. In the same way, if you obey my commands, you will remain in my love…This is my command: Love each other as I have loved you (15:9-10, 12, NCV)

When we love others the way Jesus does, we become one with Jesus and His Father. We will be demonstrate by our imitation of Christ Jesus that we are children who belong to God’s family.

When aristocratic families grieve they manifest a quiet dignity unlike the uneducated. While the unschooled give complete expression to their grief with loud wails, and tearing at their hair, or rolling on the ground, the aristocratic will show a calm exterior, even though they feel sorrow just as much as others. But they are conscious of their identity and it makes them conduct themselves in public in a manner that befits their status. In a similar way, we, who are royalty (1 Pet.2:9; Rev.5:10), the children of the King of Heaven, show by our conduct that we are God’s children. Our conduct sets us apart. It distinguishes us.

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (13:35, NIV).

For children imitating father or mother is not drudgery, but a joy. Jesus said that we would indeed find joy in obedience.

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love. I have told you these things so that you can have the same joy I have and so that your joy will be the fullest possible joy (15:10-11, NCV).

As we obey, we will find ourselves drawn into friendship. We don’t obey because we are slavish about the laws of God, but because of love being our motivation. We are not slaves. Jesus says we become His friends as we follow Him.

You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father (15:14-15, NCV).

As a disciples of Christ there are just two basic things we need to learn and do. We need to let Jesus do His work in our lives, and we need to just follow what Jesus did.

PLAYING THE FOOL

Message preached on Sunday, August 23, 2009

Have you ever played the fool? In a sense, playing the fool is biblical conduct. At least, the idea of playing the fool comes from the words of a biblical character. In the King James Version  of the Bible, King Saul described himself as having “played the fool” when he looked back on how he had behaved with his loyal subject David (1 Sam.26:21). Saul had to come to that conclusion because he had manifested a total lack of discernment about two matters:

• The sincerity of the godly, and
• The sovereignty of God

Saul’s History

Saul had not dreamt of being a king. He seemed to have an inferiority complex. When the prophet Samuel indicated that Saul had been chosen by God to be the king of Israel, Saul’s response was that he was a nobody (9:21). Seems a bit silly and futile to say that to God’s prophet who was announcing what God had planned.

As Saul travelled homeward, along the way, everything that Samuel had predicted had happened, even the fantastic experience of coming under the power of God’s Spirit and exercising the gift of prophecy (10:9-11). Still, when Samuel turned up at his home to go public on God having chosen Saul, the man went and hid himself in a storeroom (v.22). That was how reluctant he was to shoulder the responsibility of leading a nation. His bearing and behaviour made some troublemakers raise the question whether such a man could save the nation and they wouldn’t accept his kingship (v.27). Anyway, after the public investiture by anointing had taken place, incredibly Saul went back to farming (11:5).

Finally, Saul rose to the task when confronted by an enemy nation threatening destruction of an Israelite city (vv.6-11). Riding a triumphant wave, his supporters wanted to punish the troublemakers who had questioned his authority as king, but Saul was magnanimous in victory and said that no one would be punished because the Lord had given the nation its salvation (vv.12-13).

Exceeding the Limits

Up to that point in his life, Saul had shown proper humility. But it would appear that being king did go to his head thereafter. He lost his “sense of proportion” and began to exceed the limits of his kingship.

It so happened that Saul had to go into battle with an enemy nation. When Samuel didn’t come in time to bless them for their campaign, Saul took things into his own hands by not continuing to wait for God’s prophet and assumed the role of God’s prophet (13:7-10).

When Saul took over a task that was not his to perform, Saul forgot that he had been anointed king of the people, but in God’s court he was not king; he too was just one of the people.

Gentile nations believed that their kings were demigods to be worshipped. Not so with Israel. Their king had no authority in the tent of worship. (Israel had no temple until the time of Solomon, and instead the focal point of religious activity was a movable tent containing the ark of the covenant, and other equipment necessary to their style of non-idolatrous worship). In the tent of worship, only the man of God dedicated to worshipful activity had authority to function as the intermediary between God and His people. Saul exceeded his authority and brought his kingship into play in the presence of God.

Saul’s excuse was that his army was beginning to disband (vv.11-12). Gone was the Saul who had attributed the earlier victory to God. He now demonstrated that he believed that Israel’s salvation depended on him. Gone was the dependence on God and instead his behaviour seemed to shout, “Yes, I can.”

When Saul didn’t wait for Samuel, the prophet of God, he indicated that he wasn’t willing to wait for God to choose the moment to act. He would take things into his own hands and proceed. He was going ahead and God’s prophet could follow whenever he wanted to.

Defying the Lord’s Order

If exceeding the limits was a matter of attitude, Saul next flouted a clear order. God had ordered that nothing was to be saved from the next battle. Everything would be dedicated and untouchable and consigned to the flames like a great big sacrifice to God (1 Sam.15:3). Instead of doing what God wanted him to do, Saul led his soldiers in saving the best along with being partial to the enemy king. They burnt up only what no one wanted (v.9). When confronted with this blatant disobedience to God’s command, Saul pretended devotion as the reason for saving the best of the enemy’s possessions: he said that they had saved them to sacrifice to God (v.15). This claim was patently false, because the total destruction that God had commanded was itself to reflect total devotion to God.

The prophet Samuel said then,

What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams (v.22, NLT).

Samuel was not alone in challenging God’s people about pretended religiosity.

What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?” says the Lord.

“I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams

and the fat of fattened cattle.

I get no pleasure from the blood

of bulls and lambs and goats.

When you come to worship me,

who asked you to parade through my courts with all your ceremony?

Stop bringing me your meaningless gifts;

the incense of your offerings disgusts me!

As for your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath

and your special days for fasting—

they are all sinful and false.

I want no more of your pious meetings.

I hate your new moon celebrations and your annual festivals.

They are a burden to me. I cannot stand them!

When you lift up your hands in prayer, I will not look.

Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen,

for your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims.

Wash yourselves and be clean!

Get your sins out of my sight.

Give up your evil ways (Isa.1:11-16,NLT; cf. Jer.6:20; 7:21).

Losing It

His disobedience left Saul disturbed internally. The Lord’s Spirit left him, and he was tormented by a demonic spirit (1 Sam.16: 14-15).

When people give up their faith in God, they become tormented souls. In early science lessons, I learnt that nature doesn’t allow a vacuum to exist. Similarly, in the spiritual realm, there cannot be a vacuum. The space emptied by God, gets taken over by demons. When people leave God, they become open to occupancy by evil spirits. That is what happened to Saul.

Our Lord told a story about an evil spirit being cast out and rendered homeless. It kept searching for a place to stay, until its wanderings brought it back to the space it had been thrown out of. The evil spirit discovered that the space was still vacant. The soul that had been liberated from being possessed by the evil spirit had not bothered to fill up the emptiness. The evil spirit quickly repossessed the space along with a bunch of its friends. The Lord said that the last state of that soul was worse than its first state of being possessed by one spirit (Matt.12:43-45).

In Saul’s disturbed state, he was not able to recognize his own friend. Even though, David had joined Saul’s service earlier to be a personal attendant who would soothe and heal his disturbed state with gentle music (1 Sam.16:21-23), he is unable to recognize David when David showed that he was a very brave soul (17:55-57). Blinded by his envy of David (18:6-9), Saul tried to kill David at the very time when David was doing him good with his music (vv.10-11). Saul then plotted David’s murder by assigning David a task that required bravery knowing that David would rise to the task (vv.17-29) and kept on trying again and again to murder David. Even after David had spared his life (24:1-22), Saul was unable to discern loyalty when he saw it in David. In the end, he lost the services of his most loyal servant (27:1-2).

Another Loses Sanity

One aspect of Saul’s lack of discernment was that of his not discerning the sovereignty of God. From time to time, he did manifest an awareness of it (18:28-29; 24:20-21), but he didn’t go beyond the awareness to submit to the Lord’s sovereignty. Instead he kept bucking God’s authority again and again. Having had a taste of power, he was not ready to give it up even at the Lord’s command.

Beware power. It not only corrupts the soul in its relationships and dealings, but it stands defiant before the Lord God Himself, because power sees itself as power. Within its own circle power is absolute and defies the sovereignty of God. That is what happened to Nebuchadnezzar.

God gave Nebuchadnezzar a vision of the future of generations to come. He sensed that this dream of his was different from all the meaningless ones he had shared with his wise men allowing their silly interpretations to amuse him. So unlike other times, he refused to tell the wise men his dream. He figured that if they really could discover the meaning of a dream, then they ought to be able to discover the dream itself. His wise men assured him that they could come up with an interpretation for his dream, if they were told the dream. But Nebuchadnezzar was determined to safeguard against fraud.

When the order to kill wise men unable to tell him the dream and its interpretation went out, Daniel and his friends prayed for God’s revelation. The dream was revealed to Daniel and he told the king that the dream was about four empires, starting with himself (Daniel chapter 2). Even though Daniel’s interpretation made it clear that ultimately Nebuchadnezzar and all other earthly powers would be displaced by the last King, Nebuchadnezzar decided to honour himself by erecting a huge statue of himself to be worshipped. He forgot that the displacement order was already given from heaven.

When Daniel’s friends refused to give in to the command to worship the king’s image, Nebuchadnezzar should have remembered that he was not the main point of the dream, that he was not the aim of it all. He should have backed off from demanding to be worshipped. After seeing God’s intervention rescue Daniel’s friends from the fiery death that he had planned, Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged the Lord God’s greatness and power (chapter 3), but otherwise continued to ignore all that God’s servant had taught him.

God tried to reach Nebuchadnezzar a second time with a dream. It was a disturbing dream with weird images: a tree trunk, that has the mind of a man, and that mind becoming like an animal’s. This time the wise men don’t try to interpret the dream, knowing that the king would know when they were winging it. Daniel gave warning that doom was coming, but the king, while honouring Daniel as the man who could interpret dreams, continued to enjoy his power as though God didn’t matter. The dream happened. Nebuchadnezzar became insane for seven years as predicted. Healing and the return to sanity came only with Nebuchadnezzar acknowledging God to be God (chapter 4).

Coming to Oneself

In the story of the prodigal son, we see the younger son insanely asking for his share while the father was alive. No one inherits while the original owner is still around. He mistook the father’s kindness and generosity for his own craftiness.

The man went as far away as he could to get away from all the influences of his home. As long as he had the means to ply people with food and drinks and have a good time, he was surrounded by fair-weather friends. When the means were gone, the friends were gone. No one would give him a helping hand when he needed it, and he ended up looking after pigs. He was so desperate that he tried to live on pig’s food. That is when he “came to himself” (Lk.15:17, KJV).

The young man had thought that he could find happiness far from his father, his home, and all the godly influences in his life. He let himself go. He thought he was enjoying himself. In the end, it was the memory of his father and his home that helped him retrace the steps in his life till he found himself once again in his father’s home. Thank God for the godly influences in your life. Their memory may one day save you when you wander off and they will serve in bringing you back to your spiritual home.

The prodigal youth did not have the discernment to see that bad friends cannot be good friends. They don’t know how to be friends. They’re not in it for your good. Sometimes we too fool ourselves with such “friends”, imagining that they are our friends. They are not friends, who only want a good time all the time

The rule of thumb that the prodigal discovered is that any friendships that require us to do a one-sided spending of all of our worldly goods are not friendships. Any relationship based on possessions is not a relationship.

The prodigal son came to himself: that is when he came to his senses. He knew he had to go back to his father whom he had hurt with his demand of his share as though he wished the father was already dead. He knew he had hurt his father by going away and he knew it was time to end the exile and return home even with a sense of unworthiness. It was foolish to have gone away. It would be foolish to stay away after coming to one’s senses. It would be foolish to not recognize that it is time to go home.

Two Fools

While the prodigal came to himself, our Lord taught about two who were fools to the end. One thought it foolish to waste time on foundations. He believed in quick results and proud displays of how quick he was in achieving his aims, while another was plodding along with slowly and painstakingly laying a foundation in rock. The foolish build on shifting sands. The wise build on rock. Both superstructures look the same, until the storms come. Then it is that the structure built on rock shows its solidity (Matt.7:24-27).

The second fool thought that planning his life was all important. His plans were great, and he had bigger and better plans. He thought that all he planned was all that mattered. Sounds like one of us, doesn’t it? The man made all the plans for this life, and none for the next. God looked down from heaven, shook His head and whispered, “You fool. Tonight when your soul is required to appear before me, who will all that belong to?” (Lk.12:16-21).

We do not have all the time in the world. We have so very little time. If we had all eternity to make up our minds and take decisions, then we could delay the moment when we must stop playing the fool. But we don’t have all eternity for that. The time to stop playing the fool is now.

EXALT YOUR COUNTRY

Message preached on Sunday, August 16, 2009:

Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards their spots? (Jer.13:23, NRSV)

The rest of that verse reads, “Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.”

When travelling internationally, I am ashamed to be an Indian. Here are my reasons. While waiting for our flight to be announced, an earlier flight is announcing its “last boarding call” asking Ms Rukmani Das, Mrs Rani Chatterjee, Mr Raj Chatterjee and Mr Deepak Rajsekar to get to the gate immediately as the flight is ready to leave. The “last boarding call” is made several times. After about ten minutes of this four persons are seen rushing to the gate, loaded with shopping bags of stuff they’ve bought at the duty free shops. And this is typical. If it is a flight to Delhi or any Indian airport there will definitely be such last calls, and 9 times out of 10, the missing people are Indians.

After our flight has been boarded, and we’ve settled in our seats, there are announcements about switching off mobile phones, laptops and similar electronic devices that would interfere with the aircraft’s systems. Close by is a smart young Indian guy with a fancy mobile phone who ignores the announcement and continues to talk to his contact. The flight attendant approaches him and asks him to please switch off the phone. He nods and indicates that he is doing it, but when the attendant moves on, continues to talk. The attendant returns to repeat her request. This time he raises his palm and indicates that he will do it in a minute. The airhostess hasn’t moved on, and repeats her request. This time there is an edge to her voice. Finally, 7 minutes after the announcement was made the man switches off his phone. This too is typical. In the movie Love Aaj Kal, Deepika Padukone is shown talking on her mobile phone and the flight attendant having to repeatedly request her to switch off her phone. The producer of the movie probably wasn’t showing that to correct any behaviour but to suggest the intensity of her relationship with Saif Al i Khan whom she is talking to. Still the producer did capture an Indian trait. On any flight headed toward India, there are always some Indians who will behave in this manner.

The head attendant makes the announcement that our flight is approaching Delhi. She also adds that everyone is to remain seated until the seat belt sign is switched off. But the moment the announcement is over, two or three men have sprung up from their seats to open the overhead storage bins and retrieve their hand baggage. The attendant makes a strident announcement that everyone is to not open the storage bins and to immediately return to their seats. In one case, a flight attendant had to go up to the person and insist on immediate compliance.

Some may sheepishly grin and make light of it: “We are like that only.” But I cannot take this lightly. I say that at the least, this kind of behaviour is inconsiderate, and at the worst it is dangerous—for others.

Why?

In my view, the reason Indians behave this way is that we are a nation in “civil disobedience mode”. India won its independence through Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement against the British. It was passive resistance. He called it satyagraha. The term literally means “truth force.”

The principles of satyagraha are:

Sat—openness, honesty, fairness: Truth. Ahimsa —refusal to inflict injury on others. Tapasya —willingness for self-sacrifice.

Gandhi’s ideas on civil disobedience were not original, though his attempts gained him more prominence than the original propagator. In 1849 Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay to explain his reasons for refusing to pay a poll tax that the American government had imposed on citizens in to order to finance a war against Mexico and to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law.

Martin Luther King picked up Gandhi’s example when he led the revolt against laws that kept blacks oppressed and suppressed in the US of A. Later on blacks in South Africa along with whites who had a sense of justice resorted to civil disobedience methods to overthrow apartheid. American students stopped the Vietnam War with their non-cooperative sit-ins.

What we need to understand is that civil disobedience involves a conscientious objection to a law. Civil disobedience announces its intention to disobey, and accepts that, as long as the law remains unchanged, such disobedience merits punishment.

As “descendants” of freedom fighters our people are in civil disobedience mode. But it’s just a mode. They are just being modish, that is, fashionable.

Our notions of freedom are that we are free from rules. Most Indians have the attitude that rules are not for them, but they believe that it is for everyone else.

The Bible Says

The Christian’s Bible has another take on the law. The Bible says that the law in summary is aiming at everyone loving their fellow humans. What the law does is to prevent any one person exceeding the limits of liberty and intruding in someone else’s space. It prevents us from treading on another’s toes.

This notion comes from the Lord Jesus who described Himself as having come, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matt.5:17). Jesus said that all God’s law could be “hung” on just two: love God and love neighbour (Matt.22:40).

Paul followed with an elaboration of this idea, when he wrote that the entire law is summed up in one commandment—to love one’s neighbour as oneself (Rom.13:1-7).

The Bible is clear:

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people (Pro.14:34).

How shameful it is when, year after year, we read that according to Transparency International, the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption, India is way at the bottom of the list. We are ranked among the most corrupt of the world. Come let’s break the mould. Let’s not be “like that only.” Let us show that there is another kind of Indian—the kind that is a pleasure to live with and work with, because we are followers of Jesus, who said,

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s (Matt.22:21).

We have a call to be the most law-abiding people in the country. Peter wrote:

For the Lord’s sake, respect all human authority…It is God’s will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you. For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. Respect everyone, and love your Christian brothers and sisters. Fear God, and respect the king (1 Pet.2:13-17. NLT).

To get the thrust of what Peter said understand that we are to

• Do good.
• Live free.
• Live as God’s servants

Peter spelt out that living as God’s servants involved

• Showing proper respect for authority
• Loving God’s faithful ones
• Fearing God
• Honouring those in authority

Between AD 125-200, an unknown Christian wrote to a government official named Diognetus, wrote as follows to explain the distinctiveness of Christians:

Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life. This doctrine of theirs has not been discovered by the ingenuity or deep thought of inquisitive men, nor do they put forward a merely human teaching, as some people do. Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man's lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land. They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring. They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed. It is true that they are "in the flesh," but they do not live "according to the flesh." They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require. They love all men, and by all men are persecuted. They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are put to death, and yet they are brought to life. They are poor, and yet they make many rich; they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete abundance. They are dishonored, and in their very dishonor are glorified; they are defamed, and are vindicated. They are reviled, and yet they bless; when they are affronted, they still pay due respect. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; undergoing punishment, they rejoice because they are brought to life. They are treated by the Jews as foreigners and enemies, and are hunted down by the Greeks; and all the time those who hate them find it impossible to justify their enmity. To put it simply: What the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, but does not belong to the body, and Christians dwell in the world, but do not belong to the world. The soul, which is invisible, is kept under guard in the visible body; in the same way, Christians are recognised when they are in the world...The flesh hates the soul and treats it as an enemy, even though it has suffered no wrong, because it is prevented from enjoying its pleasures; so too the world hates Christians, even though it suffers no wrong at their hands, because they range themselves against its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and its members; in the same way, Christians love those who hate them. The soul is shut up in the body, and yet itself holds the body together; while Christians are restrained in the world as in a prison, and yet themselves hold the world together. The soul, which is immortal, is housed in a mortal dwelling; while Christians are settled among corruptible things, to wait for the incorruptibility that will be theirs in heaven. The soul, when faring badly as to food and drink, grows better; so too Christians, when punished, day by day increase more and more. It is to no less a post than this that God has ordered them, and they must not try to evade it.

While we may not agree entirely with the theology regarding the relationship between the soul and the body, we can understand from the context that the author wrote to show that Christians were the breath of fresh air that comes to revive a nation. Our Lord said they serve as salt that preserves and flavours our food (Matt.5:12), and light that shows the way to those on the inside, but are not hidden from those on the outside, for they are the city set on a hill—the hill of Calvary (5:13-16). No doubt, Calvary is a very small hill, but from the point of view of human history, there is no higher peak than Calvary. That is why everyone expects more from Christians, and when Christians disappoint them, it is the light in our lives that is dimmed.

EXITING THE WORLD

Message preached on Sunday, August 2, 2009, after the cremation of a pastor aroused questions and controversy.

Different societies of people have various funeral practices. Did you know that the Zoroastrians or the Parsis of India place the dead bodies of their people in towers of silence? A tower of silence is a place where Parsis leave dead bodies to be devoured by vultures and other scavenger birds. Seems a heartless and gruesome way to dispose of their dead.

The reason they do it this way is that like most religions there is a notion that the body is evil and impure, and disposing of it in one of the elements (the sky, soil, water, air, fire) would defile them. When I was in school, there was no subject like “environmental studies.” Now that they do, I wonder if anyone would say that this method is the most environmental-friendly way to dispose of the dead. Not only is there no contamination of soil or water, but birds in the wild are fed. (What if they are a nuisance to aeroplanes—which are anyway machines that pollute?)

There is another method of disposing a dead body that seems rather uncaring toward family sentiments. I refer to donating the body for research or to harvest as many of the organs as needed. I carry a card in my purse, so that in case I die on the road, attending docs and nurses may go ahead with harvesting all available organs. Some people think that donations will affect their resurrection, because they think that somehow they will be complete in heaven only if they hold on to all their organs. (This argument will be confronted when we look at the arguments against cremation).

Sacred History

Most Christians choose burial to dispose their dead. They think that this is the right way to do it because it is the biblical way. They think that cremation goes against the teaching of the Bible. Most people think that the Bible doesn’t have any record of instances of cremation.

Saul and his sons were killed by Philistines. Later in order to shame Israel, the Philistines identified their bodies, cut off their heads and displayed their stripped bodies ignominiously on the walls of the city Beth Shan. Hearing of the ignominy people of Jabesh Gilead mounted a rescue operation to recover the dead bodies and on succeeding, quickly burnt the bodies (1 Sam.31:to prevent the Philistines getting hold of the bodies and shaming them again). Even if we discount Saul because of his apostasy, Jonathan, a good man was among those slain. The Bible records the story of his cremation without any disapproval of it.

The second argument against cremation is that Jesus was buried, not cremated, and Christians are to follow in Christ’s steps. Sounds very devout, except that Jesus was not buried. His body was laid in a tomb carved out of rock and a stone cover was rolled into place closing the mouth of the tomb. The Jews didn’t practise burial in the same way that we do today. When Sarah died Abraham bought a cave for her burial (Gen.23:19-20). He needed a cave to prevent animals from desecrating the dead body of his loved one. We don’t bury that way. Our way is to dig a hole in the ground, put the body into the hole and then cover it up with soil. There is no record of anything similar to that description being done in the case of any of the burials described in the Bible.

In 1963, the Roman Catholic Church allowed cremation as one of the ways in which to dispose of dead bodies. Usually the Roman Catholic Church is the conservative bit of the Church, and the last to give up any tradition or practice. When they give up a practice, it is most often because they have come to the conclusion that they have run out of reasons and excuses for clinging to custom.

Practical Reason

If we were Christians living in Japan, there would be no question about what to do. It is illegal to bury in Japan and so we would be opting for cremation without questions or qualms.

If the RSS had its way in India, it would soon impose laws that make all minorities conform to whatever the group wished. And we would all fall in line. We are known to accommodate to prevailing law and custom. Christians in the UAE have changed their day of worship to Friday because the weekly day off there is Friday. Christians are not clinging to Sunday as though there is a sacred compulsion to worship corporately on Sundays only.

While we would have no difficulty to changing our customs to suit the RSS, and in this case there is nothing wrong with the change, such readiness to do what we are told should be what is questioned. Do you recall that the excuse of Nazi criminals was that they were merely following orders?

Theological Arguments

The most often asked question that Christians have in the matter of donations or cremations is that of how our resurrected body could be raised if we burn it all up or raised complete if we donate its parts.

If God couldn’t raise people who were totally reduced to ashes by cremation, then what hope would there be for the martyrs burnt at the stake? What hope is there for those eaten by the lions, for those lost at sea, for those who die in disasters such as wild fires or are struck by lightning and incinerated?

Those who ask this, have a very small god, who is totally lacking in sovereign power. If we believe in the absolute sovereignty of God, we would be echoing the line of John the Baptist. He told the Jews that they were not to pride themselves on their lineage and heritage, because if pure bloodline was all that God required, God could produce that out of stones (Lk.3:8). After all, God is the one who created everything out of nothing.

Early Christians did insist on burial (similar to what was done to the body of Jesus, not similar to our practice of putting the body into a hole in the ground and then covering it up with the soil). Their insistence was in contrast to the Roman practice of cremation. Why didn’t they adapt to Roman custom (in line with the notion, when in Rome, do as the Romans)?

For Early Christians, their insistence on burial was a statement of their faith. They believed that their dead were “sleeping” (see Stephen’s death—Acts 7:60) waiting to be awakened by the resurrection call of the Returning Lord. You must remember that their expectation that Jesus would return was an expectation that this blessed event would happen in their generation. They never thought that Jesus would wait for generations before returning. It is because of this belief that their departed were sleeping that they needed cemeteries. The word “cemetery” is derived from the Greek word koimētērion which means “dormitory” or “sleeping chamber”.

Not Soul Sleep

One of the best pictures we have of the present state of departed souls is in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man’s soul is not asleep but acutely aware of his own surroundings and also perceptive of how envious was Lazarus’ situation (Lk.16:19-31).

Paul described life here as living in tents. They are good for camping, but no one thinks of them as permanent dwellings (2 Cor.5:1-5). As a song writer put it,

This world is not my home,

I’m just a passing through...

Paul expressed a longing to be with the Lord, and said that the moment we are absent from the body, that moment we are present with the Lord (vv.8-9). In his words, “mortality is swallowed up by life.” The paraphrase that is echoing in my mind is the line, “Death is swallowed up by life.” We think that death snatches our loved ones from us. The perspective that God gives us is that life eternal has snatched our loved ones from dying and death. From the time we begin life, we are dying. God snatches us from the dying. That’s a totally different picture from what we see when our eyes are filled with tears.

One of the best pictures we have of life in heaven is given us in Revelation 7:14-17:

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Therefore they are before the throne of God,

and serve him day and night in his temple;

and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;

the sun shall not strike them,

nor any scorching heat.

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of living water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (ESV).

At a recent funeral, when I thanked the Lord that He had called the departed one to “serve” Him more fully, one who heard me protested. She said, “I don’t want to be working. I’m tired of working.” Somehow, we imagine that in heaven we will sit around on clouds and have golden harps in our hands and we will be lazily singing. But the Word of God uses the word “serve” and one meaning of the word is no doubt “worship”, but it is more than a rite of worship or why use the loaded word “serve”, suggesting that we will be working for the Lord, except that we will not be tired by drudgery, but enabled for the task. The passage also says that the Lord will shepherd and guide us. And you thought that when you arrive in heaven, you would have arrived. But the passage suggests that we will be going on a journey. This time it won’t be one of trial and error like when we try to find places here in our cities. The Lord will be our guide and He is taking us on a journey of discovery. And the best part is that the hand that wipes our tears away, will wipe them away forever. Here on earth when loved ones comfort us and wipe our tears away, the tears will come again and again. But when the hand of the Lord wipes our tears away, it will be for the last time. There will be no more tears.

Indulge me. I’m not being crude. There was a time when I used to be worried about wearing underwear with any tiny holes because I thought that if I should die suddenly, whoever discovers my body would find me improperly clothed. A while back, I realised that it was ridiculous to worry about how I would appear in death. I would be gone. I wouldn’t be there at all. What did it matter what the shell (the tent) looked like.

Similarly, funerals and cemeteries are only way stations. They are not the final destination. Let’s not get bogged down fighting wars about them. Let’s remember that what is important is when our final rites proclaim, “Death is swallowed up by life. It isn’t death that has snatched our loved ones. God has snatched them from dying.”

THE BEST BUY

Message preached on Sunday, July 19, 2009

Food, clothing, shelter, employment—these are the essentials of life, aren’t they? But I want to add one more to this list of essentials: shopping. Without shopping you can’t get your food and clothing. You have to shop around for shelter and employment too.

Shopping wasn’t always the way people went about choosing what they would get to fulfil their needs. At the beginning there was the barter system. Men would sit around at a commonly designated place to exchange what they had produced in excess to get something else they hadn’t produced but needed. Maybe the guy with rice would approach the guy who had eggs and offer him 10 hands full of rice for 4 eggs. But the weaver with a bale of cloth was in trouble. No one was buying what he had because people wanted to get new clothes only for festive occasions. A number of people approached the guy with the goat. One said he wanted just a pound of meat, another said he needed three pounds. All the orders came only to about 6 pounds, but there were 60 on the hoof. The worst off was the guy who had nothing in front of him. When people asked him what he was selling he said that he could play 20 songs for anyone who needed a bit of music to be played for a special occasion. The people laughed at him and told him to go home and come back during the wedding season.

As time went on the barter system became exploitative. Those who had essential goods to barter began to take advantage of those whose goods were not that desperately needed. The man who had rice told the weaver that he would give him 20 hands full of rice for his entire bale of cloth. He told the man who had eggs that he would give him a handful of rice for each egg, and told the man who had the goat that he would let him have half a sack of rice for the live goat. It’s when that sort of thing happened that elders of societies began to develop a currency system. In primitive societies cattle were often used in the way we use currency. Imagine going to the market to buy some rice and oil, and taking a cow or two to give as payment for the items needed. In India and other parts of the world there was a time when cowries (porcelain-like shells) were used before currency was minted.

When the barter system ended, community sharing came to an end. It was replaced by selling. Markets and sales depend on exploiting needs and driving hard bargains. When anyone takes more than a fair price people describe is as “highway robbery.”When the highway robber wants to take your purse, he says, “your money or your life.” The challenge of the robber is one that makes us realize what truly matters when we strip our lives down to the bare essentials.

In your life what are the things you are buying? Or, to put it another way, what are you investing in? Never thought that your shopping would reveal your character, did you?

Our Lord talked about two men and their investments. The circumstances of their lives were the exact opposite. One was a poor man, a labourer, the other was rich, a merchant (Matt.13:44-46). The first man wasn’t searching for anything. He was just going about doing a hard day’s work. The other man was a shrewd man on the lookout for bargains and good buys. One found buried treasure; the other found the pearl of great price. Both men decided that what they had discovered was worth all that they had hoarded until then. When they succeeded in getting possession of what they had concluded was worth it all, their dull life of digging or searching was rendered ecstatic in one moment.

Our Lord Jesus said that we are to store up treasure in heaven. On earth stores can be robbed, or spoilt, or destroyed in some way (Matt.6:19-21). Since money can’t be dispatched to heaven, how did Jesus expect His followers to store up money and riches heaven, but let’s face it that all the storing up we Christians do is done on earth. We preach about storing up in heaven, but our aim and goal is to have valuables stored up for our present life and our retirement on earth.

The Apostle Paul, taking his cue from our Lord, said that we are not to run after what the world values, but instead make plans for increasing our riches in heaven:

…run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you…Teach those who are who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life 1 Tim.6:11-19, NLT).

Paul appears to have been the one to clarify how storing up in heaven takes place. He said that we are to be generous toward those in need. But that too came from our Lord, who said,

If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously (Matt.5:39-42).

Instead of hateful tit-for-tat, Jesus said that our tit-for-tat should be one of love. John the Baptist who was Christ’s herald told people that if they had more than what they needed, they were to give away the extra stuff:

Whoever has two shirts must give one to the man who has none, and whoever has food must share it (Lk.3:11, GNB).

When the Early Church started up, one of the Spirit-inspired and Spirit-empowered phenomena that manifested the arrival of the Spirit was that there was a whole community of believers practising a life of sharing what they had:

All the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved (Acts 2:44-47, GNB).

Allow me to give you something to easily remember what we must value: 

• Hang loose where it concerns possessions.

  Hang on to what is of value—your faith in Christ.

  Hang out with those who love the Lord.  

BUYING WITHOUT MONEY

 

The message preached on Sunday, July 12, 2009

There have always been sales prior to holi and diwali. But these days throughout the year shops have sales and free offers. When I was in college and for the first time noticed the shop signs announcing free offers, I imagined walking into a shop and saying, “I don’t want the item you are selling, but I’m here to take the free item.” Of course, I never did that because I knew that I couldn’t just get the free item. I knew it really wasn’t free. I had to buy the unwanted item before I could get the item that was being advertised as free. The free items aren’t really free are they?

The prophet Isaiah, speaks for God, and announces,

Hey there! All who are thirsty, come to the water! Are you penniless? Come anyway—buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk. Buy without money—everything’s free! (55:1, TM).

What a ridiculous idea! How can anyone buy without money? Has the prophet lost his wits?

Right to Buy

The invitation to buy is given to everyone who is thirsty. To find your way to the market where food and drink are free, you must know that you are a person in need. If you don’t recognize your need, you are not going to turn toward the market of free goods.

Knowing your need is to know yourself. People adopt different ways of dealing with need. One of them is to deny the need. The person who denies his need, may appear to be handling his trouble well, but in reality is foolishly blocking himself from reaching a solution to his problem. It certainly isn’t wise to live in denial.

The second condition by which one gains admission to the free market is that of the buyer not being able to buy whatever is on sale. The invitation is given only to people without money or the ability to take care of their needs.

Centuries later when Jesus arrived on the scene, He said,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt.5:3).

That is not the rule by which the world runs. One has to be “spirited” to get on in this world. The strong-willed and purpose-driven are the ones who get ahead in our world. J B Phillips depicted that in the world’s version of the beatitudes:

Happy are the “pushers”: for they get on in the world.                     Happy are the hard-boiled: for they never let life hurt them.            Happy are they who complain: for they get their own way in the end. Happy are the blasé: for they never worry over their sins.               Happy are the slave-drivers: for they get results.                              Happy are the knowledgeable men of the world: for they know their way around.                                                                                           Happy are the troublemakers: for they make people take notice of them (When God Was Man, pp. 26-27 Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1955)

But in God’s kingdom, only those who have no money can buy milk and honey; only they will possess the kingdom.

What Options?

The rich are always looking for options. They want options on anything and everything. They live their lives in supermarkets. They love the choice. They just love it all.

But for the poor there are no options. They are poor and they are therefore helpless. They cannot afford choice and are given none. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” you know.

When God’s prophet says to the poor that they can buy without money, Isaiah was saying that they are being given a choice. A buyer has choice. A buyer has the right not to buy. God says to you that even though you don’t have what will pay for what God gives, you can still get it. But it is your choice.

How does one decide what to buy? People buy what they value. They want their money’s worth, and they buy to own what they buy. They want to keep what they buy. People don’t buy things in order to throw them away. As Alvin Tofler pointed out in his book Future Shock, originally the ballpoint pen was invented as something to be used and thrown away. But people were unhappy with the concept, which is why the body was reinvented in such a way that it could be reused with a refill.

Earlier Buys

Isaiah looked around at what people were buying in his day. He considered the history of their purchases. They call it “market research” these days, but he was scrutinising things from a prophetic viewpoint. Isaiah was dismayed when he saw all the stuff people had bought earlier:

Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare (v.2).

They had bought

• What wasn’t essential
• What didn’t satisfy
• What wasn’t good
• What wasn’t pleasing

The prophet literally begs people to buy what he has to sell. But when the prophet spoke, he spoke for God. The Lord wants people to have the things that are essential for their life, and God is the only one who can give them what they need.

How?

The big question is, how can one buy without money. The answer to that question is, “If daddy pays.”

Come to me with your ears wide open.                              Listen, and you will find life.                                                        I will make an everlasting covenant with you.                              I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David.          See how I used him to display my power among the peoples.       I made him a leader among the nations.                                 You also will command nations you do not know,                   and peoples unknown to you will come running to obey,   because I, the Lord your God,                                                the Holy One of Israel, have made you glorious (vv.3-5, NLT).

Junior armed with daddy’s credit card can buy things without money. God has given us a promise that allows us to buy. He has set up a covenant account for us. He has given us unfailing love. And the glory of God’s grace is going to dazzle people.

What To Do

To take advantage of any free offer, you have to fulfil requirements. What God has offered is truly free. You don’t need money, and you can’t buy what God has to give. But there are still requirements. The prophet said,

Come to me with your ears wide open.                              Listen, and you will find life (v.3).

What God wants people to do is to give up their way and try His way (v.8). They tried their own way and managed to buy only misery. God offers something good and satisfactory and delightful.

Every sale and special offer is for a limited period. And so it is with God offers:

Seek the Lord while you can find him.                                    Call on him now while he is near (v.6).

You don’t need money or anything else the world considers enough to be a person with options in God’s kingdom, but you do need to remember that the options aren’t open forever. The offer is time-bound.

God says, “At the right time I heard your prayers. On the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you that the “right time” is now, and the “day of salvation” is now (2 Cor. 6:2, NCV).

The Guarantee

When you buy something you want a guarantee. We want it to last. The buyer is never one who is in love with a throwaway society. The seller wants it to be that kind of world because it is to his advantage. But the buyer is looking for the assurance that what he has bought is better stuff than what he didn’t buy. He wants it to be a sure thing and one that is durable. That is exactly what God has guaranteed.

• God offers what is better: its worth is sky-high (vv.8-9).
• God offers what is sure: His Word is sure; it’s guaranteed (vv.10-11)
• God offers what is durable: the joy and peace promised by God will last forever (vv.12-13).

In the world’s markets, sellers have only one interest: their profit. God is not a seller like them. He is the only seller whose interest is yourself. It is your salvation that He is interested in. When God “sells” His salvation, you are the one who profits.