Deep Creek Anglican Church Blog

Phillip Adam, a regular columnist in The Weekend Australian Magazine, has a fine literary talent.  I read his articles with both interest but also sadness at his often professed atheism.  Today’s column, ‘Rich in experiences‘ is an account of his early childhood, brought up in Kew East, Melbourne on a farm with his Mum’s farmer parents.  This was a life, not rich materially, but obviously very rich in rewarding experiences.  How did he end up on the farm?  Phillip writes:

“Faith and farming were the family business.  Both were non-profit.  Dad was a Congregational minister in a country town so my parents scraped by on the proceeds of the collection, a few coins dropped into what the Reverend Adams bitterly called “the begging bowl”.  With the congregation either impecunious or unappreciative, times were tough.  The Adam’s family were as poor as the manse’s church mice.  So Mum used the excuse of WWII to get a job in Melbourne (at “the rationing”) while the Rev. Adams provided Christianity to soldiers in New Guinea.  In their absence, at the age of two, I was placed on permanet loan to Mum’s farmer parents.”

As I read this touching account, my mind went to 1 Timothy 5:17-18:

¹⁷The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. ¹⁸For the Scripture says, “Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.”

How tragic, that sometimes in the history of the Church, congregations have not obeyed such a clear instruction from the Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ.

When we don’t live out the Gospel (of which 1 Tim 5:17f is but one of many practical directions) the witness of the Church, to a watching world, is severely tarnished and the Lord simply dishonoured.

If you have appropriated the peace dividend, how then are we to live?  That’s the very practical question addressed in the next chapter of God the Peacemaker by Graham Cole:

Chapter Eight: Life Between the Cross and the Coming

How should followers of the Lord Jesus live?  By faith.  And our author gives an excellent exposition of what walking by faith, and not by sight, looks like.  Living by faith means:

• always trusting God, including in the age to come
• living a life of love (Gal 5:6)
• the opposite to living by fear and by sight (Matt 8:26; 2 Cor 5:7)
• giving our total allegiance to the One who won our redemption (1 Cor 6:19f)
• responding to Christ’s love in a “self-donating lifestyle” (eg. Phil 1:13-26). Simply put, Christ is worth it!
• living as a true servant (“worthy of the Gospel”), exemplified in the Lord Jesus’ “great stooping both in incarnation and atonement” (Phil 2:5-11)
• being prepared to suffer for Christ (2 Cor 11:23-28; 1 Pt 4:12-16).  This is the reality for so many of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world
• attracting spiritual opposition from the demonic.  The devil has not disappeared; he is behind human hostility to the gospel and is to be resisted (1 Pt 5:8f).  The armour against his attacks are defensive (shield of faith, breastplate of righteousness, helmut of salvation) and offensive (the Word of God).  Prayer is crucial.  It needs to be specific and gospel focussed (Eph 6:14-20)
• living now, in the reality of what we will be – “Spirit-impelled resurrection life.”  In the most practical of ways, this means worshipping the Lord through the offering of our whole person as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2).  The individual believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19-20) as is the corporate Body (1 Cor 3:16-17) and that’s what needs to be displayed – not a physical Temple.

Living by faith (I think of it as being ‘up close and personal with Jesus, as we walk around the Sea of Galilee together’) means living as Kingdom people.  Graham zeroes in on two of the beatitudes in Matt 5-7: ‘blessed are the merciful’ and ‘blessed are the peacemakers.’  When we are ‘shalom-bringers’ we are acting like God in character.  And active peacemaking will be in sync with justice – reconciliation requires that wrongs are confronted and acknowledged.

As those who have appropriated the peace dividend (ie. those who are caught up in God’s reclamation project), we have a story to tell the world.  And it is undertaken by:

• evangelists, gifted by the risen Christ and equipped by His Spirit (Eph 4:11-13) to tell the story.  Our author gives a succinct account of the gospel content and proclamation approaches in the Acts of the Apostles.
• witnesses.  Every believer is not gifted to be an evangelist but every believer has a story to tell – of God’s ways and deeds.
• apologists.  Again, every believer has the task of answering questions raised by the gospel (1 Pt 3:13-16).  And we are to do so with gentleness and respect – if there is offence its source must be the gospel itself and not our manner!

Life between the Cross and the Coming is a life lived in the Spirit - the great applier of our salvation.  Graham provides a helpful overview on “filling” as seen in Luke/Acts.  And then in considering the Spirit’s role (in relation to the Trinity), he comments:

“…the Holy Spirit…uses our evangelism, witness, apology, shalom-making and mercy-showing…to bring to fruition the divine plan.”

This is a great chapter, linking biblical theology with helpful historical theology examples, with a focus on the way we live out our daily lives now, in this age.  There will be wonderful benefit in chewing on the contents of this chapter with our Bibles open, and hearts submissive to the Spirit’s transforming work.

Chapter Four: Foundations and foreshadowings

Having established important context – the character of God and the multifaceted problem posed by sin – Graham Cole, in chapter four of God the Peacemaker, focuses in on God’s project: to bring shalom to His creation.  And in so doing, our author examines the foundations and foreshadowings of God’s loving provision in Christ.

This chapter is good solid biblical theology.  Prior to embarking on a journey through Scripture, Graham highlights the triune God’s loving motivation in providing atonement, summed up in John 3:16 – a statement expressing the universal character of God’s love, its sacrificial nature and its eternal purpose.

We are then taken on a journey from Gen 3:15 (the so-called protoevangelium) where God promises that the serpent will lose conclusively, crushed by the seed of the woman.

We get greater specificity as to who the male offspring will be in the call and promises made to Abraham (Gen 12:1-3) – a son of Abraham will be a blessing for the sons of Adam.  In Graham’s brief interaction with the Abrahamic framework, he quotes from The Drama of Scripture by Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen.  This is a first-class book that we have used widely at Deep Creek, both in one-on-one discipleship and also in a six part seminar series.  Highly recommended.

Chapter Four is rounded out with an excellent overview of God’s dealings with Israel.  The sacrificial system is put in its correct perspective – ‘allowing’ a righteous, holy and loving God to dwell in the midst of an all too flawed nation.  Read this chpater to get an insightful coverage of the significance of the Passover and the Day of Atonement.

If, like me, you love the section of Isaiah from chpaters 40 – 53, then you’ll benefit from our author’s tight summary of the four servant songs and the connection between the Suffering Servant of Isq 52:13-53:12 and the messianic child of Isa 9:5 who will be a ‘Prince of Peace.’  The faithful in OT Israel looked forward to a time of shalom - and in our next post on Chapter Five, Graham focuses in on ‘The Faithful Son.’

We’ve just finished a three week series on sharing about Jesus with our friends.  John Dickson, in his stimulating book, Promoting the Gospel shows powerfully for Scripture how every follower of the Lord Jesus is able to promote His saving gospel – that’s good news for all you don’t consider themselves to be evangelists.  Praying to the Lord of the harvest and financially supporting Gospel ministry is a privilege and responsibility for all disciples.

And there’s still more each disciple of Jesus can do: participation in corporate worship that proclaims the greatness of God; living godly lives and living out the love of Christ in acts of compassion and mercy – simply being a light on the hill:

Our lives are to be not only visual but also audio! As the Apostle Peter states:

“…Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Pt 3:15)

Chapter Eight: What did the resurrection ever do for us?

I remember the first time I read the Acts of the Apostles in one sitting. I came away with two ‘R’ words embedded in my mind: Repentance and Resurrection.

And the author of Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything, Adrian Warnock is also impacted by the importance of Jesus’ resurrection in Acts.  As he rightly says, “each sermon [in Acts]…highlights a particular aspect of what the resurrection accomplished.”  So let’s make a quick journey with Adrian:

• Acts 1:1-2: this is the continuing story of Jesus – the risen Lord.  The fearful disciples were transformed from ‘fear paralysis’ to bold proclaimers of the Good News through the resurrection and coming of the Spirit
• Acts 2 (Pentecost sermon): Peter told the crowd not only that Jesus had been raised but also the implications of that resurrection for them
• Acts 3:15f, 26 (healing of lame man): Healing through faith in Jesus, who is alive.  And direct link between the resurrection and salvation
• Acts 4:11f: Jesus is the most important being in the universe – the “capstone”.  Salvation by union with Him alone.
• Acts 5:30f: it is the risen Jesus who grants us repentance and forgiveness
• Acts 7: risen Jesus gives Stephen remarkable confidence in the face of martyrdom
• Acts 9:4ff, 20: resurrection, Saul’s transformation and commissioning directly linked
• Acts 10:39ff (Peter/Cornelius): Resurrection, commissioning, proclamation
• Acts 13:37ff: Resurrection and salvation – Paul declares that salvation is more than forgiveness – we are freed from the power and consequences of sin
• Acts 17:2f (Thessalonica): OT record, cross, resurrection
• Acts 17:8, 30f (Athens): resurrection linked with truth of gospel; our resurrection and future judgment of world

Ever read Acts cover to cover?  It is not only a great read but contains life transforming truths. Jesus is risen and that changes everything.  We’ll be looking at the last part of Acts (chpts 18 to 28) at Deep Creek on Sunday mornings, beginning on May 9.  Join us and/or download the messages.

Jesus is risen!

Last Sunday, I preached on Obeying Jesus, the second message in a six-week summer series ’2010: Live it!’ on the fundamentals of being a follower of Jesus.

Early on in my journey of following Jesus, I tried to get my head around what God taught in His Word about covenant and law.  I didn’t find it easy and found that the writings of Covenant theologians in this area placed far too much emphasis on continuity between the Old and New Testaments.  On the other hand, I found Dispensationalist theologians placed far too much emphasis on discontinuity.

As I wrestled with this topic (a very practical topic both in relation to how we live our daily lives and  how we interpret Scripture) I came across articles by Fred Zaspel and Tom Wells that were super helpful and seemed to strike a biblical balance of the reality of both continuity and discontinuity between the Testaments.  Some of their papers were subsequently published as New Covenant Theology.

So last week, in labouring over the upcoming message and specifically the ‘law of Christ’ (1 Cor 9:19-23; Gal 6:2) I dusted New Covenant Theology off the shelves and once again found it extremely helpful.

In catching up on some reading today, I came across a post by Aussie, Steven Coxhead, The Biblical Distinction of Law and Gospel, that is also helpful.