Since the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, His followers have struggled to understand how God works His purposes in the world. John the Baptist must have figured he was part of what God was doing in bringing His own Son into the world. Jesus later called him the best of the best (Matt 11:11). John was arrested and spent at least a couple years in prison before he sent a question to Jesus: “are you the one?” (Matt 11:2) The request was respectful but it still had an edge to it, “are we doing this or what?” John was sitting on the bench, so to speak and I can imagine he must have been saying, “Put me in coach! I can help here. Don’t you want people to know what Jesus is all about. I can spread the word! I know your disciples… You need all the help you can get!” But God’s answer was no.

Jesus responded by quoting Isaiah saying that the blind can now see, the lame can now walk, the deaf hear… but he stopped there. He didn’t continue with the rest of Isaiah 61:1, “…and the captives are set free.” John continued to sit alone in prison, until he was beheaded at the request of a stripper. A humiliating end, perhaps second only to being beaten and then crucified.

None of us get what we want all the time (no newsflash there) but what about when God’s ministry takes a hit? When a ministry of the church (or a para-church ministry) fails, does God not care what happens anymore? Is this punishment for something that WCC did or did not do? Be very careful what you say when thing fall apart because when you are in crisis you speak from the very core of your being.

When we lose or when we are in pain, we reveal the very centre of our understanding of the gospel. Through this gospel without words and it becomes clear how we think the world works. If WCC became financially insolvent this year because of theological changes they made in the past few years, or if they are no longer financially viable because they failed to adopt some theological change of direction then what you are saying is we are only in God’s grace while we are compliant with God’s will. God blesses us while were good and if we fall off the wagon God brings out the stick to straighten us out.

The problem with this understanding of the world is that it isn’t Biblical. Paul teaches in our text this week (Rom 3:21-28) that we are not under God’s wrath anymore, we are under His grace. Good or bad, everything that happens is a means through which God may be glorified. Western Christian College, Great Lakes, Tintern Church of Christ, everything exists for the purpose of bringing glory to God and God will be glorified long after all these entities have disappeared.

God is still in the world working for His own glory even when a church or a school closes. It still hurts, but God’s purposes are bigger than our ministries. God is up to something magnificent in the world and we need to be constantly on the lookout for what that is and how we can participate in it. God is still gracious and good to us even when our dreams die and a new chapter begins.

Noel Walker

On Friday morning, Dylan, the elders and myself dwelled in the Word (Luke 10) like we have sometimes done in adult class. Our reflections together centered on the commands and the prayers of Luke 10. Jesus tells his disciples that “the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send forth workers.”(Luke 10:3)

Have we prayed for workers? That was the question we were asked. I had not thought of it before but it’s true: We should be praying Luke 10 too, not just reading it. The disciples were sent out, just 70 of them and the job that they had to do was bigger than what we have to do here at Tintern. Never-the-less, a God of abundance can work within the scarcity of humanity. We should pray for workers. One of the ministers who was at our cluster group on Friday, Drew Chapados from Windsor remarked, “If we aren’t praying for it, we aren’t looking for it.”

The funny thing about workers is that you sometimes don’t recognize them even when they are right in front of you. Our tendency is to imagine a very familiar worker: someone that looks like us, thinks like us and acts like us. “Yea God, can you send us some more of those!” I think we all probably think that if our church just had a few more of us here that things would be awesome! Sometimes however God has something else in mind for us. God is faithful and true and sometimes God sends us, not what we want but what we need.

Prayer brings about a life of attentiveness so when we start praying about something, it is only then that we start looking for it. We celebrate what we value and we value what we pray for. Where have you met potential partners in ministry? Our mission at Tintern is make disciples together for the benefit of the world. Do you know of anyone who could be of some help in accomplishing that? It could be someone who isn’t a member of this congregation. Perhaps you know someone in need that we could serve in the name of Jesus who indirectly might teach us something that we need to understand. Partners in ministry could be anywhere.

So this is our prayer in 2012, “Lord send workers into your harvest. Please open our hearts and open our minds to make us aware of them when they are near.”

Noel Walker

I have never been a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. Firstly, the date is an arbitrarily chosen convention. There is nothing special about January 1st so don’t let the date put you off. Any day is a good day to make a good change or a fresh start. Secondly, resolutions are not a “once broken, never recovered” proposition. Just because you had a set-back doesn’t mean the resolution is “broken.” A successful resolution is a decision to change that you make again and again, and again. Stuart MacLean says, “quitting smoking is not one big decision to quit smoking, but a bunch of little decisions, multiple times a day to quit smoking.”

What is missing in most people’s New Year’s resolutions is the Gospel. The abundance of life does not consist in your success at behaviour modification. Your greatest accomplishment in life won’t be found in quitting smoking, or losing that 10 lbs. New Year’s resolutions can be a good thing but the Gospel is bigger than just changing the way you live. It doesn’t just change how you live but what you live for. The Gospel doesn’t make bad people good, it makes dead people live!

In Romans chapter eight Paul expands our understanding of New Year’s resolutions, whether you keep them or not. In the paraphrase translation, The Voice, Rom 8:5 reads like this:

“If you live your life animated by the flesh (namely, your fallen, corrupt nature) then your mind is focused on the matters of the flesh. But if you live your life animated by the Spirit (namely, God’s indwelling presence) then your focus is on the work of the Spirit.”

If you obsessively eat poorly and satisfy every physical appetite you have, your health will suffer and Paul would say you are dominated by the “sinful nature” (NIV) or literally “the flesh” (in Greek). On the other hand, if you obsessively work out and eat rabbit food and count your calories, your health will improve but Paul’s diagnosis will still be the same: you are dominated by the “sinful nature”. Think about that for a second: constant attention to physical habits, or bodily features is evidence of bondage to the sinful nature of our world.

“A mind focused on the flesh is doomed to death, but a mind focused on the Spirit will find full life and complete peace” (Rom 8:6 The Voice)

Paul doesn’t contrast healthy and unhealthy habits here but rather he contrasts Spirit filled and not Spirit filled habits. The question is, are you seeking the Spirit’s lead in your life or not? When the Gospel gets a hold of somebody, even their New Year’s resolutions are Gospel shaped. In verse 13 Paul says,

“… if your life is just about satisfying the impulses of your sinful nature, then prepare to die. But if you have invited the Spirit to destroy these selfish desires you will experience life. If the Spirit of God is leading you, then take comfort in knowing you are His children. You see, you have not received a spirit that returns you to slavery, so you have nothing to fear. The Spirit you have received adopts you and welcomes you into God’s own family. That’s why we call Him our Father. (Rom 8:13-15 The Voice)

You are not defined by what you do. You are not defined by how you look. Paul says your identity is formed by who you belong to. If you are a Christian then you are adopted by God into His family and one of our family values is to seek the will of God’s Holy Spirit. So when a Christian makes New Year’s resolutions we invite the Holy Spirit into the process:

Ask the Holy Spirit to destroy your selfish desires. If you want to lose 10 lbs, ask the Holy Spirit to destroy the idol that food has become in your life. Ask God to provide the satisfaction that you are presently seeking to get from food.
And above all, pray about it. Pray every resolution you have made, big or small. If you have resolved to cast off an addiction this year, Praise God! Pray about it. If you have resolved to be a better mom or dad or spouse, then bring that resolution before the Lord too. Don’t be worried about it being too small for Him to worry about. Who do you think you are anyway?!? Everything you pray about is small to God! Gospel shaped resolutions seek to glorify God and make much of Him.

Noel Walker

Noel Walker

In Week 2 we talked about how Jesus comes to subvert the existing empire.  All authority in heaven and earth is derivative of the power and majesty and authority of Jesus Christ (Matt 28:18).  King Jesus will one day rule over all other kings (Rev 4:9-11) so at all times, but especially when we celebrate Jesus’ birth, we need to recognize the primary authority of God in our lives.  What this means is that we are not going go headlong in the commercial craze that dominates this time of year.  Some retailers depend on more than 25% of the annual sales to happen during the Christmas season.  The dominant powers in western culture woo and tempt us to lose ourselves in the frenzy but Jesus calls us to a higher level of engagement with commercial culture.  The message is not, “don’t buy gifts,” but instead to recognize what these gifts can and cannot deliver: they cannot deliver absolute meaning.  When you depend on one special gift to fill the void that you are feeling in your marriage or your family, it is certain to fail.  Only Jesus can provide that kind of ultimate meaning in your life.

This week we are going to talk about how, through an epic act of love, Jesus makes it possible for us to give more.  This is not to say we should give more money; We spend less (last week) so we can give that money to charity or church or family.  There is more to it than that.  We are supposed to give something more valuable than money.

Our culture responds to nothing other than money, but if you think about it there is a commodity that is more rare than money.  It doesn’t matter whether you are on welfare, or you have a six figure salary; everyone has exactly 168 hours in a week.  Time is the one commodity that we all have the same amount of.  Time is the one gift that is truly precious.  God gave himself to humanity in the form of Jesus Christ and that is our model of a truly relational gift.

This will probably take a couple of years for you to implement.  What I mean is, it’s probably too late for this year.   There may be 13 shopping days till Christmas but there is probably no way you can make time for people ; at least not this year.  The decision needs to come in October (maybe sooner) when you say you are going to make time for family and friends over the holidays and set up times to be together.  Back in October you need to sit quietly for an afternoon and think about what relational gifts you could give.  Picking through your favourite pictures of a family member will take hours and hours so you will need to plan ahead.

Go to http://rethinkingchristmas.com/ for some ideas about relational gifts that you can give.  This Christmas let’s all resolve to make room to give more; not more money but more of ourselves, in praise of Jesus.