Missions Paul

She did it first on 16^th November 1952. Charlie Brown explains to Lucy: “All you have to do is hold the ball. Then I come running and kick it.” She’s not so sure. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea.” Charlie Brown comes running, but, at the last moment, Lucy pulls back the football, explaining to the prostrate kicker: “I was afraid your shoes might be dirty, Charlie Brown. I don’t want anyone with dirty shoes kicking my new football.” He tells her: “Don’t you ever do that again! Do you want to kill me? This time, hold it tight!” She does, so tightly, he kicks a ball, which doesn’t move, and tumbles onto his back. “I held it real tight, Charlie Brown.” He laments: “I’m not going to get up. I’m going to lie here for the rest of the day.” Lucy would continue some variant of the football snatch in almost every subsequent year of the strip, all the way to 1999. The same would happen nine times in animation. Drawing the strip for the last time, Charles Schultz said that he realized, sadly, that Charlie Brown would never kick that football, but, he also thought, having him succeed would have been a disservice to the character.

Are you living with hope of kicking the ball?

Maybe you wake up today and you can describe your situation as a prison. Paul, the prisoner, encourages the saints to know hope.

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you,” Ephesians 1 v18.

This is a real, tangible, definite, guaranteed hope in Jesus. All of us need times of reawakened hope in Jesus where we begin to hear again the voice of the Spirit, “You are worth more than this! You have not been put on this earth to go under and stay under, to be overwhelmed and eaten away at the predicament you have found yourself to be in. You were created for something much better.”

Not that you should be free of problems and the many difficulties of this life, for your time on earth can have many challenges. But you are worth more than what those challenges can cause in you. You are worth more than just accepting that your life consists of isolation, rejection, defeat, disillusionment, anxiety, frustration, lack of self-wroth, loss of identity and the list goes on.

Do you need to begin again to put your hope in Jesus?

Priest and theologian, Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) said this of hope, it “expects the coming of something new. Hope looks toward that which is not yet. Hope reaches out beyond ourselves to a power beyond us. Hope is grounded in the historic Christ-event … and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light on the other side of darkness.” (in Seeds of Hope)

After quitting school early and a brief time in Europe working as a Red Cross driver taking soldiers to the frontline he returned to Kansas to become a cartoon illustrator. But he lost his job because the editor claimed he had no imagination. How wrong that was! He headed out to Hollywood and had failure after failure with his ideas. Universal stole his ‘Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’ idea and MGM rejected his talking mouse and his ‘Three Little Pigs’ never saw the light of day. But he kept going. Half the audience walked out of his ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’; ‘Pinocchio’ was a financial disaster; in fact all the classic films that I grew up on and which broke record after record at the Oscars and which billions of people have now watched was only possible because one failed man held on to hope. Of course the man is Walt Disney (1901-1966); the Walt Disney Company is estimated now at around $130 billion.

February 1st 1975, a famous prisoner, Nelson Mandela (who spent 27 years in prison) wrote to his wife Winnie, “You may find it difficult at first to pinpoint the negative features in your life, but the 10th attempt may yield rich rewards. Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying. … No ax is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise and win in the end.”

Hope is more than optimism. There may not be any hopeful aspects of a situation which optimism clings to. But hope is found not in a situation but in a Saviour.

Hope is more than being positive. There may be no moving forward, no direction and no increase. But hope is found not in progress but in a Person.

In his book ‘Deserted by God?’, Sinclair Ferguson shares the following story:
“The first physician to die of the AIDS virus in the UK was a young Christian. He had contracted it while doing medical research in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In the last days of his life, his power of communication failed. He struggled with increasing difficulty to express his thoughts to his wife. On one occasion she simply could not understand his message. He wrote on a note pad the letter J. She ran through her medical dictionary, saying various words beginning with J. None was right. Then she said, “Jesus?”
That was the right word. He was with them. That was all either of them needed to know.

Hope has a name and that name is Jesus.

 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. Ephesians 1:17

 

It’s more than knowledge and intellectual growth. You can’t say you received it because you previously achieved something.

It is a gift.

It is to know the right decision at the right time.

It is to know how to live in this next chapter of your life which may have suddenly changed or you may have chosen it.

It is to know how to do life the way your Creator wants.

There have been moments when I made the wrong decision. There are times when I have done the opposite of what I have searched for. I don’t know why. But God brought good out of the bad and I regained my footing and sought after wisdom so that it looks like it was meant to be.

When I held my child for the first time, ‘Give me wisdom’.

As I began new places of work, “Give me wisdom”.

Approaching difficult meetings, “Give me wisdom”.

When people have come into my life and when people have had to walk away from me, “Give me wisdom”.

In the seasons of loss and sadness, with tears of grief preventing me seeing the promises in the Bible, “Give me wisdom”.

The more you experience wisdom the more you long for it. So 40 years on from learning the prayer it is still the greatest thing I pray for, “Give me wisdom”.

A little while ago I wrote this prayer to God. I hope it helps someone …

 

Within me lies the potential to know you more. Outside of me lies the potential for a new illumination in my life.

I need to know your ways. I need to know what is from you and what is from man. I need to know the counterfeit. I need discernment.

I desire wisdom in dealing with people. In my listening and in my speaking I need to not fail. I don’t search for wisdom of my mind only, I do need to grow there in my intellect. But this is a wisdom of my spirit that I seek.

There are days when I walk with what seems to be a flickering candle. Today I ask for more than a candle. I ask for divine beams of revelation so that I may know you more in all that I do. Lead me from the shallow end where the deep calls to deep. Let my words become far more significant. Words are just words. Yet words that are illuminated, that come from the place of wisdom and revelation carry so much more weight. I want my spirit, soul, mind and strength to be in my words. I want my words to move people.

Break me so that I no longer love the dark or the candle. Break into me so that the shekinah fills every part of me. I seek no idolatrous God-shaped substitutes. I seek the glory of Yourself that cuts and burns and melts and removes all strange fire within me. I was made for your glory and your glory I desire.

So I draw near to the light, to the illumination, to You.

Amen

Ephesians 1: 15-16 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”

For this reason: for what Christ has done, what the Spirit is doing and what is ahead of us and also for what I am hearing of you …

Paul carried appreciation for these people in his heart and it soon spills out after the first 14 verses of praise.

You are called by God for people. Its others before you. It is putting people ahead of you. Serving others, reaching others, others all the time, every time. It is never about us. Never, never entertain the thought ‘Well what about me? What about what I want? How I feel?’ for they are destructive thoughts. The prison wants you to have those thoughts for they will take you into an inner prison that is hard to get out of. How do I know that is true?  Is it a doctrine given in the Bible? No, it is a letter sent from a prison.

It is incredible that someone in a prison can be not only thinking of others but writing to them to thank them for their lives. Of course, Paul is not thinking, “Okay today I shall write part of the Bible.” Nor when the people read or hear the letter do they stop and understand that this is Scripture. This is a personal letter revealing a man’s appreciation for people he loved.

But here is the point. We can learn a lot from doctrine (and Paul gives his fair share on this). We live in a world of accessibility to teaching and opinion, it is all around us. However never forget the impact of seeing someone express their appreciation for others or having a glimpse into another’s prayer life of thankfulness, especially when it comes from a difficult place. Your expressed thankfulness can turn out to be the greatest doctrine. There are times when your doctrine needs to be seen and not heard.

Value people, be genuine and influence them to keep going by thanking them for where they have been. Specifics are hugely important. Being thankful generally isn’t good enough. For what are you thankful? “Your faith and your love” that is what Paul thanks them for. He was there in the beginning as the church first started and now he has heard a report of how they were doing. Can you imagine how they felt when they heard that Paul had not stopped praying for them? This was not some random sporadic prayer. They were on his daily prayer list. Who’s on your list?

Make sure you send them a text, an email or a letter, a zoom or a FaceTime call to tell them.

We come to the end of this explosive and exuberant praise from Paul who is sat in a Roman prison as he writes to the saints in Ephesus.

Ephesians 1:13-14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you 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—to the praise of his glory.”

He clearly is not thinking about the constraints of the prison but his mind has been on the Exodus and the redemption of the Jews which is now overshadowed by the story of Christ’s blood, the mystery of God, that we can now see will “bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” v10.

The Promised Land, our inheritance, is not some far-away place where we leave the earth behind to rot or burn up. Rather it is ‘Heaven on Earth’ not created by some man-made utopian experience, but by His plan. God is bringing Heaven to Earth.

So why is this exciting? Apart from the fact that it is; you and I get to be in that united inheritance.

I am marked, branded, sealed by the Spirit. Why?

The Spirit is our guarantee.

During this virus many of us have had the experience of missing out on our holiday destinations or concerts, theatre bookings, parties etc. For those with deposits then we know the experience will still be there (unless we get the deposit back) for the deposit is our guarantee. The assurance that we make the inheritance is the presence of God within us, the Holy Spirit. He is speaking to us continually saying, “You’re going to make it, I will be there and I am in you, so you’re going to make it.”

The Spirit will take us there.

Just as the cloud led by day and the fire  by night, the Spirit leads us through this wilderness into our inheritance, the wonderful new Heaven-Earth world. That leading involves the protection of our souls, revelation of our mind, the inspiration for our spirit, it is to make us more like Christ. “So our faces are not covered. They show the bright glory of the Lord, as the Lord’s Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18

The Spirit witnesses to us.

A deposit is an experience in itself. Clearly it is not the full experience that will come, but this gives a taste, a glimpse, the certain hope that we will soon experience everything. So is the Holy Spirit in our lives a taste of what is to come. That is because the Holy Spirit, the presence of God, is already there ahead of us, He is in the new world, but He has come to us to take us there. In doing so He continually speaks to us about what we should stand up for or withdraw from simply because it doesn’t belong to the culture of the new Heaven-Earth order. So we love our neighbour as ourselves, we are kind and considerate, we are not rude or self-seeking; we stand against injustice, racism and hatred of all kinds. Those involved in it won’t make it out of the wilderness.

The Holy Spirit guarantees us and takes us, witnessing to us of the new Heaven-Earth order. Which John saw in his Revelation, “He will wipe all tears from their eyes, and there will be no more death, suffering, crying, or pain. These things of the past are gone forever.” (21:4)

We will be there because the Spirit got us there through the powerful blood of Jesus.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1 v11-12

 

I’m in this prison but He is working it out, the prison is in His plan.

I’m in regret, how could I have been so stupid, I ate from the tree but the tree was in His plan.

I’m drowning and it has gotten worse for I’ve been swallowed by the fish but the fish is in His plan.

I’m on the cross, put there by Herod, Pilate or the Religious leaders, but the cross is in His plan.

I’m in the grip of an enemy, Satan intends to harm me but God intends it for good, for that grip is in His hand, it is in His plan.

I’m in a confused, criss-crossed, messy reality but turn the cross-stitch the right way round and it is a tapestry of grace for the working out is in His plan.

I’m in a pandemic but when disaster comes to a city has not the Lord caused it, for the pandemic is in His plan.

Today there are estimates of 20 Christian martyrs per hour. How do they go through this? Is there someone reading this who is going through the trauma of their worst day? God doesn’t always give us what we want. But He is certainly the God who determines what is best. He has perfect timing, who appoints everything. He permits, assigns, chooses, selects, prescribes and establishes. Everything works according to His will and purposes which are perfect. It takes faith and discipleship to be able to say this abomination is in His plan.

I Am In His Plan

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. Ephesians 1: 7-10

When you cannot see the future or when it frightens you make sure you can see the past. ‘Don’t look back’ is often given as positive advice but it isn’t always the case.

In looking back Paul sees the Passover story but through the filter of the cross.

This is the fulfilment of that.

This is my testimony.

This is my Passover story.

I have a story.

Don’t move on without taking your Exodus with you.

A few days ago in a conversation about some childhood story, I said to my daughter, “Ask your gran, she knows all the details.” I recognised how important it is for the next generation to know the ancient stories.

There are stories that our children and our grandchildren need to hear us say. We don’t need to rewrite our history to make the story more palpable. But we do need to let grace rewrite our story.

You may have a story of a life of work. A story of marriage and family. A story of life containing failings and achievements. Speak it out.

Can you imagine, as Paul is in prison, he sees the mystery of the freedom of his life bought by Christ and out of the overflow of his heart he sees the fulfilment of the ancient Passover? Can you imagine what this does for him in his present reality?

I have a story.

Exodus 12:13. “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”

The story of my Passover. The blood preventing the destroyer. Oh the blood of Jesus!

I needed rescuing and Jesus did it.

The blood is greater than this prison. It is greater than my fearful future. The blood of Jesus overcomes the powers of sin and death, racism and hate. This is my story.

 

Happy Pentecost Sunday! The birthday of the Church! Jews from every nation of the world gathered as pilgrims from different cultures in Jerusalem to celebrate their Pentecost. It was then when God decided to birth His Church who would then reach the nations of the world.

Paul in prison, but in the right place, the heavenly realms, chosen, a child of God now tells us we are highly favoured.

“… to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” Ephesians 1 v 6

Where are the words ‘highly favoured’? It is found in the word ‘grace’.

The word is Charitoo.

It not only means highly favoured but surrounded by favour.

I have a chair. It’s my chair, it is one of the house rules. However, if there is a guest in my home and they sit in my chair the family may wonder how I will respond but I will happily let them enjoy my chair. I am honouring them. The word Charitoo is to be given the best seat in the house.

Your circumstances may be that you feel the weight of prison chains but you know you have the front row seat in Christ.

There is only one other time when this word is used and that is with Mary. When the angel went to Mary to tell her he had chosen her he used the words ‘highly favoured’. ‘Charitoo’, it means ‘a once in all role’. Mary was deliberately chosen for a once in all history role. There was no one else like her; special; privileged; chosen.

Today on Pentecost so is the Church. So are you. We have been given a once in all role. There is no one like you; unique; special.

We live in days when the powers of evil are all around and at work. The powers of racism, sexism, hate speech, persecution and intimidation are waging war. The Church highly favoured needs to be welcoming guests into their best chairs and to honour, respect, speak love, bind the wounds and bring freedom to the broken. We belong to the One who brings glorious grace!

If I am highly favoured then I practice it.

In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will 1:5

Paul would call himself later in his letter a prisoner of Christ Jesus and also a prisoner for the Lord. He is never just a prisoner. Never let your circumstance or situation label you.

God foreknew this prisoner. Maybe some will think this is a stretch too far. That Paul is referring to the Church as a whole. I am sure he is. However, it is a stretch I am prepared to make. So that Paul is saying whether you are free or not, whatever the circumstance of your life, you may be outside living your life or inside a prison like I am, it matters not, God foreknew you not based on the situation around you but for what He has done in you.

What did He know? Paul has already told us that God knew before the creation of the world that we were chosen to be holy and blameless in His sight. He knew He would come and do the work to make that possible through Jesus Christ. But there is more in this verse today. God foreknew He would adopt us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ, to be His sons and daughters, His children, His family.

We nearly ran over her. It looked like just a pile of clothes on the road. But it was a person, a young girl, 15 years of age, she was called Maria meaning ‘sea of sorrow’ or ‘wished-for-child’. Both applied to Maria. She had a traumatic story, a painful ironic story as a rejected child. My mum had only had 2 sons I’d wondered if she ever wanted a daughter, here she was. My parents never adopted her legally but for the next few years they put her back together again and gave her a new start in life. For me, it was strange to have a female peer, who was 1 year older than me, in my space. Now I had 2 older siblings bossing me around! Our family all had to adapt. With adoption there has to be adaption. I look back on my own walk with God who adopted me and I thank Him for the many times He has adapted to my waywardness. When I have gone left or right, He adapted and found me and brought me back to the centre. When you were sinking into a sea of sorrow He adapted, He stopped and picked you up and brought you to Himself again and again, time after time. The adaption of God for your life is as precious as your adoption.

Why does He do all this?

It is in accordance with his pleasure and will.

Meditate on those words, they are so beautiful.

Let me start with His will. He wanted to. He didn’t have to because God is love and He has to do that. It is in His will to have you as His child. Think for a moment with tears in your eyes of the many lost people in this world who don’t feel wanted anymore. We have to let them know that they are wanted by Him. You see when you are sat in a prison as Paul was it is very easy to think you are not wanted.

But as I close I do so with the best bit for me. His pleasure. I am blessed and truly graced to have a beautiful relationship with my son and daughter. As I reflect on our story of life together pleasure has been a central component. I have seen their desire and enthusiasm to please me with not just kindness but with a desire to live their life for God. They are strengthened, inspired and empowered by my pleasure. So I know they are trying to please me and they know they are a pleasure to me. In that place we both thrive. Now how much more with God! As we come closer to Him, as we walk with Him and try and please Him we also feel His pleasure, we know His smile and His applause.

So today we can sit in any prison that may come our way and we say I AM HIS CHILD.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. Ephesians 1:4

Even though it is now over 30 years ago I remember studying 1 year of New Testament Greek in Bible College. I actually don’t remember enough but this one thing has come back to my mind this morning as I have meditated on this wonderful verse. These first 14 verses in the original Greek are a single sentence!

As you know every morning in my time with God I am typing out a blog on a verse. I have known those moments when I can’t stop typing words and then I look back and think oh no this sentence is far too long. Not being a grammar expert I think I need at least commas, a semi-colon, I need to put a full stop somewhere in the middle and create another sentence. Looking back at the moment I am trying to bring a better order so that it can be read a little easier. This is what the translators have done with verses 1-14. But in the moment, Paul had no breaths, no full stops. He is bubbling over and praise just seems to spill out from his lips. This is a cascade of adoration. This is a burst of worship coming from the depths of his heart in a prison.

In this prison I am chosen. Whatever the circumstance of our life, left behind, locked down or in prison, it is easy to look through the bars of the prison and see that all the activity is outside. Everyone else seems to be advancing rather than me. I see they have great marriages, perfect families, nice homes and satisfying jobs. But it is not the activity of life, the destiny of life in terms of experiences gained, qualifications and accolades earned that is of any importance. None at all. It is this and this one thing. To be chosen. Not to be chosen for the stages of the world. Not to be chosen by a man or woman. But by Him, God.

I recall the time when a leader said to me, “Paul, I want you to know I nearly chose you for my team. You were in my top 12. I could have chosen you out of those 12 people. But I didn’t. You nearly made it. I just want you to know how close you were to being chosen.” I smiled, lost for words, gazing at a leader who had become lost.

You may wake up this morning and realise you were nearly chosen. Friends! You are! By the one who really matters!

What matters is that you are chosen not for activity but relationship with Jesus! How we need more people to realise that!

When did that choosing happen? Was it when you did something amazing? No of course not! It was when you was never even here. It was before any of us were here. Before the world began He saw you and He chose you. He actually chose us. He saw in His mind the Church, you and me, together as a community being built for His glory. Not chosen to be an island but in connection.

What were we chosen for? To be holy and blameless in His sight.

Here is what happened:

• We were made in His image.
• We were significant, we had a purpose.
• We were provided for, safe and secure.
• We had a sense of identity and belonging to God and others.
• We had an environment.
• We sinned and lost it all.

What we lost was our image of who we belong to and what we are here for. So we began to bear sons and daughters of our image and not God’s. Then we built a world set against the Lord’s image in our lives. And all the time we carried a hurt, a gaping wound in our heart.

And God saw it all. He saw how we would be holy and blameless in his sight. And of course that is the work of Jesus.

You may wake up a failure. Maybe you are not where you should be. Or perhaps you wake up in a prison charged with accusations that are just not true and in truth you should be anywhere but where you are right now. Let the words of the Spirit fall into the recesses of your mind and heart: you are holy and blameless in his sight. How? It is Jesus. If we fail tomorrow, how? It will be Jesus. It will be Jesus until He takes us home.

And he chose us to be his very own, joining us to himself even before he laid the foundation of the universe. Because of his great love, he ordained us, so that we would be seen as holy in his eyes with an unstained innocence. Ephesians 1:4

It was the weekly filming day. I knew what that entailed. I had to try and make my birds-nest hairstyle sit in one position. I did the comb over and it seemed to work. I had to put a shirt on after living in t-shirts for the last few days. Then I had to position where I was sitting having been told not to have the light behind me. I was being careful especially with any reflections as my son said my last film showed I was secretly wearing shorts! I had to put my camera phone on the best setting then position it what seems to be back to front but it’s the best way apparently. In my hand I had my list of 10 top tips for producing the best digital sermon ever. I had invested in my new digital ministry with a £10 tripod for my phone. I positioned that on the stool and checked a few times that I was actually in view. After a few dodgy starts (there’s a rumour that I’m known as ‘one-take Hudson’ but it’s not true) I was rolling. Point one was brilliant and smooth. Point two was magnificent and I was feeling confident. Point three, the tripod fell off the stool.

It was then that I realised I was beginning to hate lockdown and I entered into a few hours of being fed-up.

When our circumstances are anything but pleasant we face a battle to choose how to respond and live.

Paul is under house arrest with a Roman guard. He is contained, limited and not free to travel like he has been. He is restricted to reach the many churches he still wants to visit.
This is where Paul was.

According to Jewish custom a bereavement is followed by a week of mourning known as ‘shiva’. Mourners sit on low stools as near to the ground as possible. Remember how Jobs friends could not recognise him because of his suffering and for 7 days and nights they sat on the ground and in the dirt with him (Job 2:13)? Similarly the ‘shiva’ demonstrates their heartache of the mourners by bringing themselves as low as possible. The enemy of your soul wants you to stay low, to keep you down and to be hard-pressed (as Paul would write to the Corinthians).

You may know where you are today. You can describe your condition and the place where you have ended up in life. It may not be where you would have chosen. You may have hoped for better things. Your circumstance may be trying to bring you low, you may even have those feelings right now.

But Paul says to us that this is not where we are.

He knew where he was physically, the prison was real; there was no doubt in his mind.

This is where I am. However, it is not where I live.

Paul was actually not under Roman guard, he was not under house arrest, contained, limited, not free to travel like he had been, restricted from reaching the many churches that he still wanted to reach. He was not at that place. Paul saw it differently,

“I am limited under Roman guard but that is not where I am living my life.”

He says, v3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ”.

For us today we are not sitting low to the ground.
“I am not sitting in this prison, I am living my life in the heavenly realms!”

The heavenly realms is the unseen world of spiritual reality where we are one in Christ. Through Jesus God has made us alive and in relationship with Christ! That relationship is found in the unseen world but the proof of that relationship is evident in the seen world!
I am under arrest but I am at the horizon. The horizon is the point of the physical and spiritual, the visible and the invisible. The prison and the praise.

I’m under arrest but I’m at the horizon.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, how is that possible?

Because the physical circumstances will not define me, I will find a way because I live at the horizon of 2 dimensions. I am not where you think I am.

“I am blessed in the heavenly realms.”