God’s Plan for a people
This transcript has been automatically generated
Well, I’ve been asked to speak to the title God’s Plan for a People, and I don’t quite know what you read into that title, but I assume I’m allowed to read into it what I can read into that title, and that’s what I’ll be following. It’s under the sort of overall theme of corporate Christianity, that Christianity is to do with with more than just me.
And what I am wanting to do this morning, if you will bear with me, is to look firstly at God’s plan, that is to say, at the theory, the doctrine, if you like, and then to see some of the applications of it. And next month John Samuel is going to be taking that on as he looks in more detail at what is involved in living together. But I suppose really this is the background to it all.
I am going to begin by doing the kind of thing that used to bore me silly up until a year or two ago, and now I have got fascinated by it. So forgive me if you switch off right at the beginning. I will tell you when to wake up again, which is just to kind of look through the Bible. We will do a paper chase through the Bible to see how God’s plan begins to unfold from the beginning of the Bible through to the end. Now, on the whole, once you’ve listened to the first bit and you’ve worked out what’s being said there, you know we’re just going to echo it all the way through.
So you can nod off for a little while and we’ll wake you up again the other end. But I found it actually very helpful myself recently to start looking at the way these threads can be pulled out all the way through the Bible, because it stops us landing up in silly positions where we, we seem to think that suddenly God’s changed his mind and done a different thing halfway through our Bible when we switch from Malachi to Matthew. That we’re not really sure whether God means it that seriously, or we’re reading too much into it. If you discover here’s a thread that goes all the way through from the beginning of time to the end of time, I take it it’s something we need to take seriously. And this idea of God planning for a people is one of those threads, and that’s why I’d like to do this paper chase.
I did write up all the references on an overhead. I then threw it up to beforehand onto the board and saw that it was so small none of you will be able to read it, but it will encourage me to think I have done something visual. We are beginning in Genesis chapter 12.
Some of these references, like this one, are absolutely crucial verses. They are key points in the whole Bible saga. Others of them I have, so to speak, dipped into the Bible at random for. And you could go to many, many other places to find them. But this is an absolutely crucial passage, Genesis 12:1-3.
We’ve got to the stage, you remember, where things have gone from bad to worse from Genesis 3 all the way through to Genesis 11. We’ve just had the Tower of Babel built— well, it wasn’t built, was it? But they had a go at it, and mankind is now really in complete rebellion against God and against each other. They are scattered abroad all over the place. And when you come to Genesis 12, you begin to get what has been shot through all the judgement passages at the beginning of Genesis, this next strand of God’s mercy.
And his plan begins to take shape as he calls Abraham.
That’s why Abraham is such a crucial figure, of course, in the New Testament as well, because he marks one of the real starting points and developments of God’s plan. Listen to these first verses of Genesis 12. The Lord had said to Abram, leave your country, your people, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Now it is obviously not crystal clear as you look just at these verses exactly what God’s blessing is going to be. But for the moment that is not the point. I want you to see what form it’s going to take, who it’s going to be given to.
Notice he says in verse 2, I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.
God’s plan is already involved, isn’t it, in not just calling out Abram, the one individual, but in a great nation.
And by the end of verse 3, you’ll notice that all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. It’s very ironic, isn’t it, that when you come to the New Testament you discover that the Jews of Jesus’ day and indeed the Jews of New Testament times are constantly looking back to Abraham as their father and they are resting on that security and it’s giving them as well a sort of nationalistic identity and a limitation on God’s plan. Whereas when you actually come to Genesis 12, you discover that though it is Abraham he’s picking out, the plan nevertheless is to bless all peoples on earth, all the families of the earth.
Well, there’s the theme. That’s the point on which some will leave us for a few minutes until we wake them up again. Those of you who want to come on the trip, we’ll carry on through the Bible. Exodus 19 is our next stopping place.
It’s always unwise to miss out the Exodus just because that’s again one of the great themes, one of the things that marks out who God is all the way through the Old Testament, isn’t it? The Israelites refer back to the God who rescued them from Egypt, and when he’s done that and he’s brought them to Mount Sinai, Moses goes up the mountain to God and God calls to him and says in verse 3, this is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
So you discover that out of all the nations, God is actually picking a group who are going to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Indeed, he’s rescued them en bloc.
And the thread I just want us to see— we’ll come back to this phrase of kingdom of priests and a holy nation later on— but again is this business that though we focus, even as we go on in the Old Testament, don’t we, on the great individuals, the Abrahams and the Moses and the Joshuas and the Davids and the Elijahs and the Elishas, nevertheless the Old Testament storey is the storey of a people. And these individuals are significant insofar as they have bearing on the people.
For God isn’t just going to bring one prophet in Moses out of Egypt, but a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Now it looks as if he suddenly abandoned the plan for the rest of the world, but that’s not true.
Yes, he is working through— just as he works through an individual, so he’s going to work through the people of Israel. But consistently through the Old Testament, you’ll find there’s echoes all the time that God’s vision is nevertheless than worldwide. Come on again to 1 Kings chapter 8. Here’s the dedication, if you like, of the temple, the blessing of the temple.
1 Kings 8:41: Solomon is praying as the temple is finished. This tremendous achievement, this other great central theme, isn’t it, to the Old Testament, the position of the temple in Jerusalem. It’s constantly re-echoed. And look at verse 41, what Solomon has to say about those who are not Israelites. As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name— for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm— then he comes and prays towards this temple.
When he comes and prays towards this temple, then hear from heaven your dwelling place and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that— notice this— all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel.
Yes, you see, for Solomon and for many others through the Old Testament, they haven’t lost this vision, that though God selects individuals, though he is working through one nation, he is working through those to reach all nations.
That’s a central theme actually in the Old Testament, and it becomes increasingly explicit as you hit the New Testament. Not only is it faint, but half of John is rubbed out. But we’re into John’s Gospel. We’re on more familiar territory here. And really, we could have dipped into any Gospel to make this point, but as Jesus bursts on the scene, he makes it crystal clear, doesn’t he, that there are none of— there are no sort of nationalistic boundaries for Jesus.
I’ve just been studying a bit in the first half of John’s Gospel and it’s hit me again how very clearly Jesus makes this point. John echoes it in almost every chapter. You come into chapter 1— chapter 2 rather, verse 13. It’s there in chapter 1 as well, by the way. But here’s one of the the themes of John’s Gospel, you remember Jesus comes and he clears the temple.
And it’s rather striking because where the other Gospel writers put that incident at the end of Jesus’ life, John has it right at the beginning of his Gospel storey.
I suspect that the other Gospel writers are accurate chronologically, but for the purpose of the storey that John is wanting to tell, he’s making the point that John has got to tell us.
That Jesus comes into the temple and he clears out the money traders. And in a sense, it lays down one of the great benchmarks that John wants us to get clear, that Jesus is bringing something radically new, that the religion of his time, at least as it was practised at his time, is about to be overturned and done away with.
And indeed, what it symbolised is now coming in reality. But one of the points that many commentators will make is that all these money traders, as they set up their stalls, they did so in the court of the Gentiles.
And it made it very difficult if you were a Gentile to ever get to the temple because your court was cluttered up with these endless sort of pens and tables and sheep and cattle. And who wants to stand amongst them all the time while you’re in there? So the thing had been barred in practise to many Gentiles. And one of the themes that John will constantly re-echo is how Jesus is going to burst all these boundaries between the nations. So you’ll find in each chapter the emphasis is on the world.
You’ll know many of these verses. John 3:16, for God so loved the world, he tells Nicodemus. That’s just one of the many things that poor Nicodemus has to kind of cope with as his mind gets blown in that conversation with Jesus. It’s followed instantly, isn’t it, with the conversation with the Samaritan woman, which breaks virtually every convention convention in the book. And the conclusion of that storey in verse 42 of chapter 4 is this.
You remember the woman has the conversation with Jesus. She discovers that all her religious ideas are getting blown out. It really doesn’t matter whether you worship on the mountain or at the temple. No, no, it’s going to be a question of worshipping in spirit and truth, and here’s the Messiah come. And she goes and tells the village about this person, and they come flocking out to hear, and then they get converted, as we’d put it.
And they go back and they say to the woman in verse 42, we no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we’ve heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.
Well, yes, we’ve broken the boundaries between the Jew and the Samaritan.
Well, he goes on, chapter 6, verse 51. He’s speaking about himself as the bread of life, and he says, the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. Chapter 8, verse 12, he stands up and says, I am the light of the world.
Now, I think that in the West we find that kind of statement not really very surprising in many ways because We kind of expect things to be true across the board. Well, that’s— we don’t necessarily believe about truth, but we certainly expect them to be across the board. We’re used to things being open.
Dick pointed out to some of us a few weeks ago that you’ve actually only got to look to other parts of the world and you can see how religion in the past has very often made narrow bands and limited itself that way. India at the moment is the classic example. I don’t know whether you followed the news from there, but the Prime Minister, Mr. Singh, is in a lot of trouble because he’s tried to make a move where he’s allocated— I think it’s 27% of certain government jobs or municipal jobs to people of the lowest castes.
The commentators say that it was made as a very good political move because they, of course, are the vast majority, and if you’ve got them on your side, you’re going to win almost any election. But it’s causing mayhem in India at the moment, almost literally, for those of higher castes will then find themselves made not just socially but actually of it all is a religious factor here. Unclean if they’re going to mix and we’re going to have more of these people in, let alone the fact they’ll lose their jobs as well.
And I was reading in the paper this week that the 50th person has set fire to himself in protest against this.
It is an astonishing thought, isn’t it, actually, in this country? We can’t really come to terms with that, can we?
It’s not actually a racial thing, you see.
This is within the same race. It’s a caste business.
Well, understand how staggering it is, isn’t it, when someone comes on the scene speaking about themselves as a Saviour of the world right across all these divisions, as a light of the world.
And when we’re talking about God’s plan for a people and to call out a people, We must realise that his plan right from the beginning, you see, has been to go across all of these barriers.
Well, let’s push on because we mustn’t spend too long on it. It becomes increasingly obvious. You’ll see it in the storey of Acts, that famous verse which I think probably sets out the whole pattern of the book of Acts right at the beginning. Acts 1:8, Jesus says to His apostles, He says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
And again, we nod at that now because we are on the receiving end of that promise. And it’s all happened and it makes obvious sense.
Why should we be left out?
And we forget what it was like if you were back in their shoes or sandals.
For you read the storey of the Acts sometimes, you don’t need to stop over any of the details, just get the gist of it and you’ll see in spite of— I mean, Jesus could hardly have made it clearer, could he?
You’ll see what a terrible battle it was ever to carry out that promise.
You’d have thought once the day of Pentecost had come, which it did in the next chapter, that someone would have rolled up their sleeves and said, right, well, now that’s happened, we can get to— can’t we? And the job, you remember, is Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. Well, who’s going where? But you can read on for another 6 chapters and you’ll discover they haven’t budged from Jerusalem. Indeed, the only way God ever gets them out of Jerusalem is to raise up such a persecution that they’re driven out.
He leaves the apostles behind. They probably hadn’t worked it out, so he drives all the other people out. That’s a great lesson for us, isn’t it? Not to depend on the bigwigs. And they have to gossip the gospel, and they do it all around Judea, and Philip rolls up in Samaria.
Well, once he’s had a great crusade in Samaria, you’ve got to send a couple of the apostles from Jerusalem to cheque it’s all kosher, and that has to be checked up on. Well, that’s bad enough, breaking the bounds from Judea to Samaria. When you start hitting a Gentile, a full-blooded Gentile, have they learned their lesson by now? No, of course not.
So Peter has to go sunbathing on the roof, doesn’t he, and have to have one of those funny dreams, and that has to drive him off to see Cornelius. And then God has to make sure Cornelius gets converted very dramatically so that when Peter goes back, he can say, we didn’t really have any choice but to accept him as a Christian because God had done exactly the same thing for him as he did for us.
And that, of course, doesn’t settle the matter because you’ve got all the arguments that rage through the rest of Acts with Paul and the sort of Jewish enclave, and you’ll find echoes of that all the way through the New Testament letters, don’t you?
See, God’s plan is to call out a people from all nations, and he does it in spite of the church.
That’s the picture. That’s the people.
Well, time is flying. We must keep moving. Romans 8:29 is just another little reminder that God’s purpose is always for a people.
I put it in because there is no passage that speaks more clearly of God’s purpose than Romans 8.
Romans 8:28, we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Now listen to this verse. What is that purpose? Well, for those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he, that is Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brothers.
See what Paul is saying? That God’s purpose all along has been to have an enormous family. God’s a believer in big families. So those of us who feel we’ve got too many, let’s cheer up. God knows exactly what it’s like.
And that’s his desire.
Which must leave us discontented for anything short of a big spiritual family for God.
That’s God’s plans. Now, as we come on towards the end of the Bible, we’ll discover, of course, nothing lessens on this. We’ve got exactly the same themes going forward, but we begin to get the the plans being refined just the way we’d expect them to be. You come to 1 Peter chapter 2, page 1218, and you get this staggering description of the Christian church that Peter’s writing to. And I think almost certainly the Christians he’s writing to are a mixture of Jew and Gentile.
I think there must have been Jews the way he speaks to them, but equally the way he speaks to them, there must have been Gentiles in this congregation. And you will notice in verse 9 he uses all sorts of words that are echoes of Old Testament language that was applied to Israel.
He writes to the Christian church and says, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. A people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Do you see, we’re getting God’s plan beginning to be fulfilled. We get the signs of it here, don’t we? You are, he says, a chosen people.
God’s plan is for a people. A royal priesthood, a holy nation. Now I want you to notice this is the echo, isn’t it, of what we had earlier back in Exodus. It’s going to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And now he says, look, you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
The one was given to the people of Israel when they’d been rescued out of Egypt and brought to worship God at Mount Sinai. The other is given to the Christian church When they had been rescued out of darkness and brought into his glorious light.
Now here is God’s plan working out. And you will find it finally in Revelation chapter 7.
Now if the person next to you switched off about 20 minutes ago, wake them up at this point because they might as well find that it is in Revelation as well as Genesis.
Revelation 7:9-10: Page 1238. This comes just after the great passage about the 144,000, which you may have been told about on your doorstep from time to time. And it’s worth knowing that this passage comes next because it puts 144,000 into perspective.
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count.
And I think some of us could manage it up to 144,000.
But look, the important bit is the next thing. He’s speaking of heaven, of course. And who’s going to be there? A great multitude that no one could count. That’s how big the family is going to be.
From every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.
And you see that this plan that began way back in Genesis 12 when God called out Abraham and said through him all the families of the earth will be blessed reaches its fulfilment in Revelation 7 when those promises that seemed so silly to Abraham about, you know, as many as the stars in the sky will be your children. There he was knocking 90 and he hadn’t got one.
Well, it’s going to be a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language.
That is the Christian church.
That’s God’s plan for a people.
Well, now forgive me making rather heavy weather of that which could have been said probably in 2 sentences. But I just want you to see how consistently that’s the plan all the way through the Bible. That that’s the way God has been working, is working, and what he’s working towards.
Because I think if we’ve got that clear, it makes significant differences, vast differences, to the way we live as Christians.
It makes crystal clear, for example, let’s do some applications. The first obvious example, I suppose, and there’s nothing new about this one, is to evangelism.
You can understand that favourite text of everyone who’s telling you to get on with evangelism, can’t you, at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew 28, where Jesus says in verse 19, Page 1001. Jesus says in verse 19, therefore go and make disciples of all nations.
Well, of course. I mean, if God’s plan has always been to reach all the peoples of the earth, if one day in heaven there are going to be people from every nation, tribe, and tongue there, How are they going to get there? Only if they have responded to the gospel, for that is God’s means of winning people.
So where else is he going to send his people if it is not to all the nations?
It just needs to remind us that the gospel is for all.
That is such an obvious truth, isn’t it? And yet it is the one we do constantly forget. I suspect all of us put our little limits on it. It’s not that we’ve all got to sort of go around the world doing it, but it’s probably for young and for old.
I mustn’t despise the Sunday school teacher.
I’ve just caught Talia’s eye. I mustn’t despise— I mustn’t despise the person who walks around, works around the sort of old folks’ homes, the shut-ins. It may not be you and I But it’s as integral a part of the gospel message, isn’t it?
I may not be able, though I live in the East End, to communicate the gospel to the Bengali community there, but I’ve got to long that it’s done.
I can’t kind of feel it’s a British thing.
It’s true for the rich and the poor.
You know, we need to face that one squarely. We need to face the plus and the minus of that, particularly at St. Helen’s where everyone thinks we’re a rich church and where there’s a measure of truth about that, and that those are the kind of people we mix among. There’s nothing wrong with giving the gospel to the rich, and yet the gospel also needs to go to the poor.
And by the way, we realise, don’t we, as soon as we start talking in these terms, why we need each other. It is very difficult for any one person to get across all these sections of community, let alone the fact that the gospel is for home and abroad.
We must keep our perspectives worldwide. We must keep our prayers worldwide.
We must keep our giving worldwide.
That is to say, giving of money but also giving of people.
I think it is rather humbling to us at St. Helen’s to see actually how few people we have who have come out of St. Helen’s who are in Word ministry abroad.
I wonder if there is something wrong, if we have lost that perspective. For God’s plan is to call a people from all of those groups.
Now I think again, you know, it’s just reminded me, hasn’t it, because of the task being what it is, how I desperately need everyone across the world. I’m so glad that Barbara is going to go and sort out Nigeria. You know, that’s a great relief to me. But we do need Barbara and James to do that.
There’s one country you can cut off the list. No, it doesn’t work like that, does it at all? But you realise why we need churches across the country, across London.
And we must be careful before we decry one another, before we either feel especially proud or this is the only way of doing things. And they ought to in return as well.
We’ve got our own little field that we can reach that others probably can’t and vice versa. But actually the evangelistic task ought to drive me together with other Christians. Not necessarily that I’m spending endless time with them, but it ought to make me grateful that God has got a people to call a people.
And anxious to see ways in which I can help— we can help one another. Secondly, more importantly, it ought to change— this truth about God’s plan for people— it ought to change my perspective on the Christian life.
Now I think as this truth has been drummed home to me, this is the area where I have begun to see the most radical change of thought for me. May not be for you. You may have always got this, but I think when I was converted, I began to think of the Christian life— and it may be that I was taught it a little bit like this— something like this: that there’s me, put me down here, and there’s God. And I was well aware that he was up there, and that becoming a Christian meant that these two had to be linked.
And then I put that link in. Let’s make the arrow two-way in case I’m caught out on theological whatsits.
And in a sense, I went through the day living my Christian life with myself and with God. And there are things that God expected of me, and there was a relationship that I had to foster and nurture and so on, and that, that was the essential of the Christian life. Now, I don’t want to deny anything of those early days, nothing of the positive of it. It’s just that when I begin to see what God’s plan is, I suddenly realise that I cannot view the Christian life just in those terms.
For God hasn’t actually been working from Genesis to Revelation just to get Hugh Palmer into heaven. I mean, I’m very grateful that I’m caught up in that plan. But it isn’t just for me. And that there is another sense. You see, he is calling a people.
And that I relate not just to God but also to all the other people that God has called into relationship with him through Jesus.
So that becoming a Christian is not just about my relationship with God. I’ve now been placed into a new community, a new family, a new nation. Call it whatever language you like.
But there’s a massive emphasis on that in the Bible.
Let me point you to one, I think, very striking example. Well, 2 if we have time. One is Acts chapter 2.
Acts chapter 2, verse 40.
You remember the scene. It’s the day of Pentecost. Peter’s made his great sermon. He’s given his appeal, the chance for them to come on the sawdust trail, as the Americans would say. And this is what he says to those who are coming forward, so to speak, collecting their booklets, whatever they’re doing, actually repenting.
With many other words, verse 40, he warned them and he pleaded with them, save yourselves from this corrupt generation. Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day.
Literally, it’s actually about 3,000 were added that day.
I just want you to notice that their number that they were added to has suddenly appeared in this context. You notice what’s happened is it’s not that I’ve got to break off from my friends and get united to God. That’s not the picture that’s used in 40 and 41.
That was the picture he used earlier on about repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ. Yes, I must stop rebelling against God and turn around and be united with Jesus Christ. But now he speaks to them in a different context. He says you must come out of the community, this crooked generation in which you are circulating at the moment.
And be added to the number.
He’s not meaning there never again to speak to those who are around them. That becomes crystal clear as you read on. But what he is saying, isn’t it, that when I become a Christian, there’s a transfer of community.
I do join a new people.
And I think that I I learned— whether I was taught it or not— I learned a Christianity that was far too individualistic.
Don’t misunderstand me. Some people, of course, then start twisting it and say, well, as long as you love the person around you, then that’s fine, that’s all there is to it. No, no, it has to begin with God and myself.
Gotta have verse 38 first.
I think it was Michael Green who said, Christianity that doesn’t begin with the individual doesn’t begin, but Christianity that ends with the individual ends.
There’s some truth in that.
So you take the, the letter to the Ephesians, and unless I understand this, I won’t understand half the thrust of these New Testament letters, and particularly their practical applications as Paul tries to get people to live together properly.
Now let me just give you again, in one of these little sweeps, what the letter to the Ephesians is all about. You can fill in all the details, which will be the tricky verses, later. I’m not a mug, I’ll miss them.
Ephesians 1:9.
Paul speaks about how God made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ.
See that? The mystery of God’s will, God’s plan if you like, which he purposed in Christ. What was God trying to do in Christ? There is a mystery about it, says Paul, and it has been revealed to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
What is the name of the game? The name of the game is to bring all things together under Jesus.
What exactly does that involve? Well, Paul begins to get this— make this clear. Look at verse 12. God worked things out, he says, in order that we who were the first to hope in Christ, that is to say Jewish Christians, for they were the first in time chronologically, might be for the praise of his glory. Notice this, verse 13, and you also, The Ephesian Christians, the Gentile Christians, were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession. Now there is the key to what is going on in Ephesians, that God’s great plan was to bring not only we Jews but you Gentiles together in Christ. That’s the family he’s trying to build. And you’ll find it’s echoed all the way through. Chapter 2, verse 14 speaks about how Jesus himself is our peace who’s made the two, that is the Jew and the Gentile, one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility between them because he abolished in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.
That’s why he says in chapter 3, verse 6, this mystery again— it’s the same mystery he’s really speaking about— is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. And he takes 3 chapters to spell that out so that when we reach chapter 4, you see, it goes like this: As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you’ve received.
Now what do you think he’s telling you to do? Be a good Christian?
Well, yes, he is. But once you start reading what it means to be a good Christian, it’s all to do with how we relate to one another.
Maintaining a unity that’s been given us. Making sure we treat each other properly.
Why this big thrust on the way we treat one another? Because that’s what God’s whole plan is, to create a people. And we’ll have to spend all of heaven together.
Might as well start getting used to one another now.
No, actually, the New Testament puts it stronger than that. You see, not only is this really showing me that the Christian life has this whole corporate element to me, it also begins to explain why this business of love is a great test of life. Last reference. And last stopping point, 1 John chapter 4— chapter 3.
1 John chapter 3, verse 14, page 1227.
Anyone asleep yet?
Not even the children. It’s been a failure. I’m sorry.
Now you see what John writes here?
Never the test that I was ever given when I was a young Christian. I was always told that I knew I’d passed from death to life if I believed God’s promises. I’d ask Jesus into my life and Various things like that. It’s not what John says. We know we’ve passed from death to life because we love our brothers.
Anyone who does not love remains in death.
Now you have to look for yourselves for the context to see exactly what he’s meaning here, and you’ll discover that when he talks about love and brothers, he’s speaking about loving those who are righteous.
He’s speaking about the Christian.
This is the acid test. Actually, do we love our Christian brethren, our Christian brothers and sisters?
He makes it quite clear that that love is more than something we say, it’s something we do.
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need, verse 17, but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
But do you see why it is such a big test of life for John? Because it is really saying, am I caught up in God’s purposes or not? If God’s plan is to bring all of us, let’s say it was only limited to all of us, we were the 144,000, into one family under Christ. How can I possibly say, yes, I am caught up in God’s plan, If I’m going around hating you, not loving you, I’ve misunderstood God’s plan, haven’t I?
And I think sometimes we soft-pedal this whole business about loving one another because we’re task-oriented, orientated people very often. We know we have got to get ourselves right with God and then we want to get on with the job. But because we have got out of perspective what God’s whole plan is. Yes, it has got a task orientation, but it is also people-centered.
And it is to call out this people from every nation, tribe, and tongue.
And to be a Christian is to be caught up in that plan. And to be living with that purpose in mind. Now, how in practise that works itself out, well, that’s for John next month. One of the nice things to be speaking before other people, you can tell them what they’re going to say whether they like it or not. I’m going to stop there, it’s far too long.
I’m sorry, Sarah, what do I do now?
Fresh ideas. Thank you very much. Drew, are you happy to take some questions? Easy ones, yes. Hard ones I’ll pass on to you.
Yeah, yeah, sure, yes.
Thank you. Let me say that the 1 John test I believe to be speaking of our love for the Christian family.
I don’t think by that mean to say that we exclude loving anyone who isn’t a Christian, because there’s plenty of other verses that’ll teach us to do that. And the evangelistic command which I think is part of the whole business of actually loving those around us, encompasses them.
Yes, I find it very hard. It is why it actually takes a miracle, doesn’t it, for God’s plan to take place. It takes a miracle to get me reunited with God. I realise the whole size of the miracle when he doesn’t just want to get lots and lots of us reunited with him, but he’s calling out a family.
Yes, I find it very hard. If you’re asking me how in practise do we solve it, well, I think that I do not have the simple answers. I don’t believe that love is just the weak thing that solves it by putting the coin in the hand. I do think it’s again one of these areas where we desperately need one another. We have the problem because we have 2 or 3 regulars who are around our doors at St. Helen’s and St. Andrew’s here.
They will have a cup of coffee whenever they are, whenever they get one, even when they can’t.
And at one level, that is all we do for them. I think where we can, I think what has driven on us, we have talked about it amongst the staff 2 or 3 times, we have realised our need for places like Christchurch Spitalfields.
Which have actually developed a work to try and reach people like this and do things for them. That actually we could probably, for 2 or 3 people, you could ask 2 or 3 people to look after them and do it. It is just a hugely time-consuming job to do something worthwhile, which doesn’t mean to say I think that we must ignore that, but I think it’s again a reason why we have to call upon the Christian family as a whole. And be involved that way.
The truth of the matter also is that I think it would be true of the 2 or 3 that we see regularly, they don’t want help, and that any endeavour is actually run into the ground. Now, how you go back in love again and where you start from there, I’m sorry, I’ve got no easy answers. I mean, other people may well be much better equipped. Has anyone got the nice practical helpful suggestion for Vicki on that?
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It would be great if you could perhaps sort of get a list like that. If you could let us see one and circulate it, that would be great. I mean, it does depend obviously on what area of the The city we live in is centred around Camden. It’s possible to get some of these areas, some of these night shelters, to know about them and do it, but it does vary from what part of London you’re in as to what addresses are relevant. Again, a lot of the people know them, but it’s an increasing problem in London.
Yeah, no, thank you, Liz.
I think that’s right. I think some people do— God does seem to have called them, to use that expression perhaps a bit loosely, but to work in there. And I mean, I thank God for them. I thank God for the patience they’ve got to do it.
I don’t mean that as a nice way that we can shrug our shoulders and therefore avoid them all.
Any other practical advice or questions?
Great, you can have your lunch, I can have my lunch. Yes, that’s nice. Thank you.
