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Today I was wrong. And it was glorious.
One of the most liberating things in the world to me is running into a brick wall. One of the most freeing things is discovering a wrong opinion or view that I have had. Make no mistake, whenever I discover that I am wrong it is incredibly painful and somewhat humiliating. I should know better. I am a pastor.
But the joy of being wrong is that it reminds me in one moment that I am not always right. It reminds me that I need help, that I can’t do all things on my own, that Christ’s blood is really needed by me and not just being saved for a ‘rainy day’.
And for me, who wants to be right, get everything correct, and never lose face, being wrong and hitting the wall is the most liberating thing in the world. It throws me back onto the mercies of God. It puts things back in perspective – apart from Him I can do nothing. Apart from His mercy I can’t last til tomorrow. Apart from his sustenance I would have ruined the church a long time ago.
Isn’t it amazing that sometimes the hard reality about us ends up removing the weight from our shoulders and setting us into a spacious place once again? Jesus said it like this: “You know will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. I feel so free.
Think about it: in the Kingdom of Heaven, you find your life by laying it down, you become the greatest by becoming the servant of all, you get riches in heaven by selling your possessions and giving to the needy, you minister to Christ when you serve the ‘least of these’, you become first by becoming last, you can gain the whole world yet forfeit your soul, the faith that pleases God is achievable by a child, and Jesus Christ, the world’s most influential figure never owned a building, started an ‘organization’, or overly structured his followers. As much as we look for patterns and strategies in the life of Jesus, the thing that strikes us about the way the gospels record his life is the lack of emphasis on ‘strategy’. He is by no means disorganized or random, but his ways are quite different to what we would expect from a world changer. The Kingdom is counter intuitive.
And we want to change the world. We want our community to ‘percieve that we have been with Jesus’ (Acts 4.13), we want ‘there to be much joy in that city’ (Acts 8.8) we want ‘the word of the Lord to go forth from us into [Singapore and Asia]’ (1Thess 1)’. We want our lives to count, our church to usher in His Kingdom.
But we will not achieve this through ‘conventional’ wisdom. We will not gain influence through traditional channels of power. Our size, bank balance, structure and strategies won’t get us far in the Kingdom. If we want to change the world, best we allow the gospel to change us. Best we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit. Best we serve no other God but Him. Best we seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. Best we devote ourselves to the scriptures, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer. Best we invest ourselves wholeheartedly in other people. The ‘magic bullet’ doesn’t exist. There is no shortcut to ‘abiding in vine’ (John 15). Unless we do that, we cannot bear any fruit that lasts.
I found this devotion in Spurgeon’s Evening by Evening on June 29 to be very challenging and true. I shared it on Sunday at RHC in my message on the Kingdom of God’s view of people, and thought I’d post the devotion here:
“How be it, in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.” 2 Chronicles 32:31
Hezekiah was growing so inwardly great, and priding himself so much upon the favour of God, that self-righteousness crept in, and through his carnal security, the grace of God was for a time, in its more active operations, withdrawn. Here is quite enough to account with the Babylonians; for if the grace of God should leave the best Christian, there is enough of sin in his heart to make him the worst of transgressors. If left to yourselves, you who are warmest for Christ would cool down like Laodicea into sickening lukewarmness: you who are sound in the faith would be white with the leprosy of false doctrine; you who now walk before the Lord in excellency and integrity would reel to and fro, and stagger with a drunkenness of evil passion. Like the moon, we borrow our light; bright as we are when grace shines on us, we are darkness itself when the Sun of Righteousness withdraws himself. Therefore let us cry to God never to leave us. “Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from us! Withdraw not from us thine indwelling grace! Hast thou not said, ‘I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day’? Lord, keep us everywhere. Keep us when in the valley, that we murmur not against thy humbling hand; keep us when on the mountain, that we wax not giddy through being lifted up; keep us in youth, when our passions are strong; keep us in old age, when becoming conceited of our wisdom, we may therefore prove greater fools than the young and giddy; keep us when we come to die, lest, at the very last, we should deny thee! Keep us living, keep us dying, keep us labouring, keep us suffering, keep us fighting, keep us resting, keep us everywhere, for everywhere we need thee, O our God!”
3. Christ died for our sins. Phil 2.8: ‘And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross’. The gospel story is humbling on a number of counts:
Firstly, the wonder of it all: To think that Jesus (who enjoyed equality with God and the glory of heaven) would empty Himself and take on the nature of a servant is beyond comprehension. That He would do it for the sake of wicked men who hated Him is incredible. But that He would allow himself to be murdered at the hands of those same wicked men? That’s another thing altogether. The clincher comes in when we realize that we are those men. How undeserving we are! How great He is!
Secondly, it’s gravity of it all: Think of how serious a matter our sin is, that the only penalty payable is the life of the Son of God. How great the debt must be! How vast the sum of it. How this would make us humble. My sin is utterly unsolvable outside from Him, I am utterly lost apart from Him, utterly helpless without Him, and therefore utterly indebted to Him.
All I am I owe to Him! He is my life, my confidence, my salvation, my all in all.
2. God calls us to salvation. 2 Cor 4.6: ‘For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’.
The truth that God calls us to salvation, rather than us choosing Him is immensely humbling. If we believed God’s work in salvation was 99% and ours was 1%, how we would glory in our 1%! It would give us some ground of boasting. We would believe that we had chosen rightly, while others had not made the right choice. But Jesus says, “you did not choose me, but I chose you”!
Scripture says that we are dead in our sins and transgressions before Christ makes us alive. We are not a drowning man looking for a life buoy. We are not looking for a helping hand. We are dead. A life buoy will not help. A helping hand will be too late. What we need is new life! We need to be resurrected! This is something no man can do for himself, only God. This scripture uses the imagery of God speaking light into being when He created the world. It is the same miraculous act of creation by which God speaks life into us and ‘makes us alive’ Eph 2.5.
2 Cor 4 says that God has shone His truth into our hearts. He has called us, he has opened our eyes, he has made us his own. As Luther says, the only thing we add to our salvation is the sin we must be forgiven of. God has saved us, not because we are good or worthy, but because he is good, and full of mercy and compassion.
May this truth become a conviction in us, leading us to live with wonder, awe and delight in the abundant goodness of God towards us. We don’t want our humility to stem from our weakness, but from God’s goodness and mercy.
1. Growth Comes From God. 1 Cor 3.7: “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.. each will receive his wages according to his labor”
We all have our favorite scriptures. And this often isn’t one of them. This one is often quoted as a qualifier when people are giving practical advice on church growth. 20 minutes are taken up explaining what you should do, shouldn’t do, things to avoid, ways to attract people, etc. Then right at the end of the advice, almost as an admission of it’s man centeredness, comes this caveat: ‘Of course we all know that ultimately growth only comes from God’.
This verse tells us that our job is the labor of planting or watering. We get rewarded for our labors, not for the growth. Our duty is to labor and we should be faithful. His prerogative is the growth and He should get the glory. According to Paul, the size of your ministry doesn’t make you anything. Only God.. who gives the growth. It’s His Sovereign will.
If we really believed this, it would result in a few things: Firstly, we would endeavour to be faithful, not to look good. Secondly, it would take a lot of pressure off of us. Thirdly, we would seek Him more, rather than attempt techniques and methods for success. Our desire would be to hear His voice and have Him lead us. Fourthly, it would prevent us from elevating ourselves above others. Finally, it would make us worship and honor Him, giving Him all honor and credit for any life in our ministry. May we believe this truth, that neither he who plants nor waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
A few months ago we were in a prayer meeting where God’s presence was very tangible. There was a great sense of excitement about what God was doing with us as church, and the moment could easily have lent itself to bold prayers, compelling visions and fearless courage. Suddenly someone read out a scripture concerning our humility before God. Over the next few minutes, about 5 people shared in turn how God had given each of them different scriptures, yet one theme: our humility before God. It was a powerful time: people bowing to their knees, confessing dependance on God, the need for His Spirit and gratefulness for His love. I have come to believe that humility is one of the biggest issues for any believer. Humility is God’s way. He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. We must remember that before any leadership responsibilities we carry, we are weak sinners, saved by the merciful, effective call of God and the blood of His Son.
This has been our first year of planting a church, and I have felt God constantly reminding me about humility. He has done it in the most wonderful way too: by revealing truths of scripture that leave me with no other option but to humble myself before Him. I am convinced that only scripture will bring about true humility. The man who is only humbled by life’s events, will quickly be proud when life’s events turn around to his advantage again. Only the truths of scripture can really make us humble, as long as we keep holding to them. The next few posts on this blog are going to be around some of these truths that God has shown me. I trust that they are bearing the fruit of humility in my own life. I have called them ‘Convictions that make you humble’.
