Filthy Lucre

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1 Peter 4:12-5:14

On the surface it’s a quaint archaism.  But it speaks of a deadly trap.  “Filthy lucre” is used four times in the King James Bible and in each case it refers to a grave temptation for gospel ministers (1 Timothy 3:3,8; Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 5:2).  Eg:

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. (1 Peter 5:2)

The KJV follows Tyndale in leaving the Vulgate’s lucrum untranslated.  Lucrum is the Latin word from which we get “lucrative”.  It just means profit.  The underlying Greek word is a compound word meaning “unclean gain”.  So here’s what we’re being warned against: unclean gain, base profit, filthy lucre.

The repetition of this biblical warning should make us think.  But it rarely does.  Many times people have joked with me: “What attracted you to the ministry? It can’t have been the money!”  Everyone has a good laugh.  Everyone except the Apostles.  They were worried about ministering for the money in the first century.  What about in the twenty first century when Christianity is big business?

Listen to John Bunyan illustrate the dangers of lucre.

Then CHRISTIAN and HOPEFUL went till they came at a delicate plain, called Ease, where they went with much content; but that plain was but narrow, so they were quickly got over it. Now at the further side of that plain was a little hill called Lucre, and in that hill a silver mine, which some of them that had formerly gone that way, because of the rarity of it, had turned aside to see; but going too near the brink of the pit, the ground being deceitful under them, broke, and they were slain; some also had been maimed there, and could not to their dying day be their own men again.

Then I saw in my dream, that a little off the road, over against the silver mine, stood DEMAS (gentleman-like), to call to passengers to come and see; who said to CHRISTIAN and his fellow, “Ho, turn aside hither, and I will show you a thing.”

CHRISTIAN. What thing is so deserving as to turn us out of the way to see it?

DEMAS. Here is a silver mine, and some digging in it for treasure; if you will come, with a little pain you may richly provide for yourselves.

HOPEFUL. Then said HOPEFUL, “Let us go and see.”

CHRISTIAN. “Not I,” said CHRISTIAN; “I have heard of this place before now and how many have there been slain; and besides, that treasure is a snare to those that seek it, for it hinders them in their pilgrimage.”  (Pilgrim’s Progress)

It is indeed a snare and a hindrance.  So how can we avoid it?

At heart, we must recapture a vision of the Generous Father.  Our God treats nothing as a means to some other end.  It is His eternal nature to love the other.  First His Son, and then, through His Son and by the Spirit, He loves the world. “God so loved the world He gave” (John 3:16).  He is a Fountain of life and love whose glory is to pour Himself out.  His activity is not mercenary.  He’s not in the whole “creation-salvation game” for what He can get out of it.  He commits Himself to us for the sake of committing Himself to us.  Because this is the kind of God He is.  He genuinely loves to give and He gives to love.

Once we’ve grasped this, we’ve learnt the secret of life and of ministry. Immanuel Kant wasn’t so far off really.  Treating people as ends in themselves is absolutely right and good.  If even God does it, then it must be the good life.  But such living is the fruit of the gospel.  It’s the good life that comes about with this good God.

So when I’m tempted to minister for “shameful gain” (NIV) or “filthy lucre” I should not be surprised.  It’s actually a perennial temptation.  But look first to the Father, poured out in Jesus.  I have all I need in His generosity. And look, secondly, to “the flock of God which is among you.”  They are not means towards further gain.  They are my “crown” and “joy” (Philippians 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:19).  They are my reward – a reward far greater than that snare and hindrance: “filthy lucre.”

Once and for all

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Hebrews 10:1-18

“Out, damned spot! out, I say!”

Lady Macbeth’s line is one of Shakespeare’s most famous.  In the first act of Macbeth she helps her husband to murder the King.  By the end of the play she is in mental torment and eventually takes her own life.  In her final scene she is before a doctor and cannot cleanse her conscience.

“Out, damned spot! out, I say!… who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?   What, will these hands ne’er be clean?…Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”

The Doctor says “What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charg’d. …This disease is beyond my practice.”

Shame and guilt is a disease.  And it’s a disease beyond the practice of 17thcentury doctors.  It’s beyond the practice of 21st century doctors.  Taking away our guilt and shame is beyond every power on earth, even – and perhaps especially – religion.  But in Hebrews 10 we learn about a “once for all” cleansing that contrasts starkly with the old religious ways.

In verses 1-4, we’re told that even God’s own religion did not cleanse people from sin – it only reminded them of sin.  Every day the blood of animals was shed, yet everyone knows that animals can’t pay for sin.  Every year there was a grand theatrical performance called the Day of Atonement.  The High Priest had a starring role and there was a scapegoat. You confessed your sins over the scapegoat and there were sacrifices and at the end it was pronounced that God was “at one” with Israel.  But… the next year they did it all over again.  They weren’t cleansed from their sins, they were only reminded of their sins.

This whole system was a shadow of the coming reality (v1).  The real atonement was achieved when Christ came into the world (v5-10).

There is a true and willing Sacrifice who steps forward amidst the bloodshed of the temple and says “Enough! Here I am.  I’m the Reality to which these shadows have pointed.”

Jesus, our Scapegoat, died the death of every slanderer, every pornographer, every bully, every murderer,  swindler, adulterer, terrorist… every sinner.  And now

we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  (Hebrews 10:10)

That phrase “once for all” is so precious.  Understanding it will transport you from the shadow-lands of guilt and perpetual striving to the freedom of Christ’s finished work.  Therefore in the next paragraph, Hebrews lays out the stark difference between the reality of Christ’s sacrifice and the shadow of the old covenant (v11-14).

The old sacrifices were continual, Christ’s was once for all

The old sacrifices were powerless, Christ’s was completely effective.

The old priests stood for their constant work, Christ sits having finished the work.

Do you realise the wonder of Christ’s finished work?  Do you understand that, through Him, you are made holy “once for all”?

The final paragraph will help us (v15-18).  Here the writer returns to his favourite passage – Jeremiah chapter 31.  He proclaims the glorious truth that our “sins and iniquities God remembers no more.”

Imagine debts piling up.  You pay off one credit card with another.  It snowballs and suddenly you’re £90 000 in the red.   The debt collectors are after you.  You don’t answer the phone, you pretend you’re not in.

Eventually you get some financial advice.  They tell you to phone the credit card company and explain your situation.  You pluck up courage and give your details over the phone.  Then you begin to make excuses… “Now, about the £90 000, I’ll try to pay it back, I just need some time…”  The woman on the other end of the phone says “We have no record of any debts in your name.”  You ask her to double check.  She double checks, “We have no record of any debts in your name.”

If you’ve trusted Jesus your Scapegoat, those are God’s words to you today.

Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. (Hebrews 10:17)

Don’t live in the shadows.  Don’t try to clean yourself up.  Remember you’ve been cleansed through the cross of Christ – once and for all.

A two-edged sword

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Hebrews 4:1-16

In modern speech a “double-edged sword” is a powerful weapon that “cuts both ways”.  It’s an argument or feature or technology that has a clear benefit and a clear liability.  It’s something that advances both your own cause and that of your opponent.

But the bible’s usage of the term is a little different.   God’s “two-edged sword” cuts only one way.

“The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”  (Hebrews 4:12)

God’s word is a two-edged sword.  And when God wields it, it cuts in only one direction.  God’s word is not judged by us.  God’s word judges us.  We do not assess it.  It assesses us.  We do not interpret it.  It interprets us.  We do not master it.  It masters us.

Have you ever encountered the piercing quality of God’s word?

Last year I was preparing to help a friend in a court-hearing.  We were building our case, establishing our cause, marshalling evidence and feeling more and more justified.  And then I read just six words from Proverbs:

Do not bring hastily to court. (Proverbs 25:8)

It cut to the heart.  And it brought to mind other verses about the dangers of pursuing adversarial legal action (e.g. Matthew 5:25-261 Corinthians 6:1-8).  God’s word came home.  It discerned the thoughts and intents of the heart.  I could tell you many other “piercing” moments and I’m sure you could too.

So often we come to God’s word seeking “discernment” about our future, about our choices.  We seek to “discern” correct theology, or just to “discern” a little dose of spiritual inspiration.  But all of those motives are about us discerning the word.  Or us discerning truths through the word.  Do you see the problem?

God’s word discerns us.  We are in the firing line.  We might consider the word to be our object of study.  But no, we are objects of the word’s study.  We are the ones to be scrutinized.

Is that your attitude as you approach the word?

If it’s not, perhaps that’s because you’ve forgotten that God’s word is “quick” – in other words, it’s “alive.”  When Hebrews speaks of the Word – it has in mind a personal Power working through the Scriptures.  Just listen to how the verse continues:

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.  (Hebrews 4:13)

The “Word of God” in view is the Judge of the World.  Hebrews is speaking of the eternal Word, the Lord Jesus.

This living Word encounters His people through the Scriptures as they’re proclaimed today (Hebrews 13:7).  But because the Word is a Him, Scripture reading can never be impersonal.  To open up the Word is to be opened up by the Word, who is Judge of all.

In these verses we learn that it’s not simply judgement day that uncovers.  Whenever we encounter the Living Word of God we are judged.

“Brilliant” you respond, “Just what I need!  More judgement in my life!”

Ah, but the judging word is not the final word.  For those who belong to Jesus, judgement could never be the final word.  Christ Himself has taken the judgement on the cross.  And as our great High Priest, He has brought us sinners through the sword of judgement and into the presence of God our Father.

That’s why the verse continues:

Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.  (Hebrews 4:14-16)

What a roller-coaster!  Cut to the heart, then lifted to the throne.  This is a true experience of the Word of God.  First exposed, then covered by His blood.  First pierced, then healed.  First judged, then saved.  First brought to our knees, then raised through the heavens.

Do we ever impersonalise the Word of God?  Do we ever domesticate God’s Word?  Do we ever get stuck in the judgement and fail to appreciate the salvation?

Remember that God’s Word, Jesus, only exposes so He can cover.  He only cuts so He can cure.  He only brings low, so He can raise up.  Let us expose ourselves to His piercing.  Then let us come boldly through His priesthood.

Keep the faith

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2 Timothy 4:6-8; James 5:7-12

At the end of your days, what would you like to say?  How would you want to summarize your life?

Facing death, Paul was able to say he’s “fought the good fight”, he’s “stayed the course” and he’s “kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

We’ve seen how these three phrases parallel the images of Christian service he gave in chapter 2.  Christians are like soldiers, like athletes and like farmers.

As a soldier, he’s “fought”.  As an athlete, he’s “finished”.  As a farmer, he’s “kept”.  You see in Bible terms, farmers “keep” their land and their livestock (see for instance Genesis 2:15).  And Paul says the life of faith is like farming: an arduous, unglamorous life of perseverance.

But it’s not all hard-work.  There’s also reward along the way…

The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.  (2 Timothy 2:6)

Farmers get to eat their own food and Christian workers get to enjoy the fruits of their labours too.  In the New Testament, this fruit is understood as those who come to faith (e.g. Romans 15:16; James 1:18).

This is what sustains the hard-working Christian.  In all our labours there are the encouragements of new life and fruitfulness in the gospel.  But the real goal is at the end.  When Christ returns there is a glorious harvest.  So Paul would say to us, enjoy the firstfruits and keep going: the final harvest will be glorious.

So then, as you long for Christ’s appearing, as you pass on His gospel hope, meditate on your calling:

– the soldier

– the athlete

– the farmer.

Anticipate the glory of Christ’s return

– the victory

– the crown

– the harvest.

And know that one day too, you will be able to say “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

Finish the course

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2 Timothy 4:6-8; 1 Corinthians 9:19-27

We’ve been thinking about Paul’s parting words to Timothy:

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.  (2 Timothy 4:7)

First Paul compares himself to a single-minded soldier.  The victory is certain in Jesus but the fight remains arduous.   One day, however, it will be finished and peace will reign.

Now we turn to the imagery of an athlete.  The “course” which Paul pictures is a running track.  And the Christian is an athlete – compelled by a vision of the crown and striving to persevere to the end.

Athletes make immense sacrifices to compete in the games.  But a vision of Olympic glory sustains them through long-hours of training and many set-backs.  Paul wants to instil this basic long-termism in Timothy.  After the exhaustion and self-sacrifice comes the prize.  And the prize is worth it.

That’s how he goes on…

Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.  (2 Timothy 4:8)

In our modern games the athletes are awarded medals.  In the ancient games it was a crown.

Who is the crown for?  Well Paul’s phrasing is telling.  He does not say “This crown is for all who have soldiered as hard as I have.”  He does not say “This victory is for all who have run as hard as I have.”  He does not say “This crown is for all who have persevered as valiantly as I have.”  No, the crown is for those who “love his appearing.”

If we simply love Jesus.  If we simply want Him – then we will receive the crown.

What kind of crown is Paul anticipating?  Well he tells us in Philippians and 1 Thessalonians.  He calls them:

my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown (Philippians 4:1)

What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?  For ye are our glory and joy.  (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20)

Paul’s crown will be to share in the victory of Christ with the Philippians, with the Thessalonians, with Timothy.  That’s the prize which makes all our efforts worthwhile: we will enjoy Christ along with all those we have touched with His love.

Think now of those you’ve ministered to in the name of Jesus?  Think of those you want to see sharing in Christ’s future feast?  They are your crown.

Stay the course.  It’s definitely worth it.

Fight the good fight

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2 Timothy 2:1-7; 4:6-8

In the space of one verse Paul gives us threephrases:

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)

“Fighting the good fight”, “finishingthe course” and “keeping the faith” have all become well-known.  Perhaps this trifecta of famous phrases is not surprising since Paul meant it to be memorable.

This is the last chapter of the last letter he wrote.  Tradition has it Paul was beheaded in Rome in AD67 and here is the epitaph he chooses for himself.  He’s a fighter, a runner, a perseverer.  As he approaches the end of his life he inspires us towards the same.

Paul is writing to his spiritual son Timothy, passing on the baton of gospel work.  Crucially, Paul was the last of a dying breed.  He had met with the risen Christ and been an eye-witness of His glory.  Soon there would be no-one left on earth who could say that.

So as the church’s last foundational apostle, how does Paul encourage the next generation?  Chapter 2 gives a sense of his burden.

Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.  Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.  (2 Timothy 2:1-7)

Paul knows that his eye-witness testimony will not die out with him.  In verse 2 he envisions four generations of gospel ministry.  From Paul to Timothy to Timothy’s trainees to their trainees.  On and on it goes until it reaches you and me.

But, of course, it doesn’t stop with us.  We too will commit this gospel message to others.  And they to others, and so on.  The saying is true: “God’s grace always runs downhill.”  It applies to proclamation too.  In fact grace and proclamation are almost synonyms.

From Christ’s exaltation and the Pentecostal outpouring, there has been a gospel flow which has reached even us.  Now we are caught up in its movement.

As I say this, though, I might be conjuring up the wrong kind of imagery – fountains and babbling brooks and floating along.  Paul’s imagery is much more robust.  How does it feel to be gripped by this gospel and pass it on?  Like a soldier, like an athlete, like a farmer.

Today let’s think about the soldier: enduring, obedient, single-minded.  For a soldier, all of life is channelled into the task in hand.  There might long periods when the soldier is not “at the front”, but they are always battle-ready.

At the end of it all, though, there is a goal.  Beyond the discipline and gruelling hard-work there is victory.

As Paul ends his final letter, this is where his mind goes – the end of his “good fight.”  Thus it completes an image he initiated with his first letter:

Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  (1 Corinthians 15:57)

From the outset, the victory is given.  But there’s still a fight and it lasts till the day we die.  One day, though, the fight will be fought.  Peace will reign and all of Christ’s soldiers will rest.

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Itching ears

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2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

One of the most pervasive myths of the modern world is this: We think we know what we want.  We think we know what’s best for us.  And we think we ourselves are the best judges of these matters.

The truth could not be further from this common misconception.

In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom spoke a frightening truth:

“All they that hate me love death.”  (Proverbs 8:36)

The natural state of the human heart is to be estranged from Christ our Wisdom.  And in that perverse condition our desires are completely twisted.  We hate the Fountain of Living Waters and we love the pit of curses and death.

Therefore what do we look for in our moral and spiritual guides?  The truth?  Never.  Not naturally.  Instead we look for leaders who will tell us what we want to hear.

Notice how Jesus put it: “Because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.” (John 8:45)

Jesus doesn’t say ‘In spite of my truth telling you don’t believe.’  He says ‘Because of my truth-telling you don’t believe.’  We are not naturally oriented to truth.  We flee it when it’s spoken.  Instead we ‘turn to fables’ as the Apostle Paul put it so memorably:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.  (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

An “itching ear” is such an evocative phrase.  Itches aren’t just satisfied by scratching – they demand to be scratched.  They only seem to increase if they go un-heeded.  Paul says our ears are like this.  We don’t merely like to hear pleasant lies, we demand to hear them.  And Paul says there’s always a ready supply of phoney prophets who will scratch us where we itch.  It’s not just a problem for the last days.  The prophet Isaiah spoke of the same reality 8 centuries earlier:

This is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: Which say to the seers, “See not;” and to the prophets, “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.”   (Isaiah 30:9-11)

I don’t think Isaiah is imagining that the people are articulating these words.  I’m not sure any Israelite was literally saying “speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.”  It’s just that they would not put up with God’s word, they reacted angrily to the truth of the gospel but warmly to the “smooth things.”  At an unspoken level they had struck a deal with the false prophets – “Tell us what we want to hear, and we’ll give you an eager audience.”  In every age people have found such a deal attractive.

Therefore we must question this myth of the modern world.  We do not know what is good for us.  As the Proverb says “Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out.” (Proverbs 20:5).  We don’t know ourselves very well.  We don’t know what we need.  We need The Man of understanding to tell us the truth.  We need truth to come to us from the outside.  The kind of truth we would never conceive ourselves.

The truth that says we are utterly lost and damned in ourselves but completely loved and redeemed in Jesus.  The truth that leaves our own desires and schemes out of the equation but takes up our cause anyway.  The truth that puts us to death on the cross and raises us up in resurrection.

Don’t trust your natural itches.  Don’t pursue the lies that puff you up.  Listen to the truth from beyond.  It will burst your bubble but, then, it will give you a hope you could never have dreamt of.  The truth from which we flee is the most extreme but wonderful news in the world.  It’s far worse than we’d ever feared – but far greater than we’d ever imagined.

Money is the root of all evil

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1 Timothy 6:1-12

Here’s a verse of the bible which everyone knows.  Except that they don’t.

1 Timothy 6:10 does not say “Money is the root of all evil.”  It says “the love of money is the root of all evil.”  And if we really wanted to pick up on the nuances in the Greek, we would render it: “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

Not quite as snappy though is it?  Which is why the blunt version has survived.  It has the advantage of being comprehensive, memorable and sensational.  It gets dropped in conversations as an epitaph when the banker is busted for fraud.  ”Ah, just goes to show, money is the root of all evil.”

The (mis)quote was commonly placarded at the Occupy movements last year.  When I spoke to protestors at St Paul’s I was surprised by how often the phrase was mentioned.  In fact I was surprised in general at how many spoke in biblical terms.  (And, by the way, their translation of choice seemed to be the good ol’ King James!)

As a placard it’s pleasingly reductionist.  If we’re looking for radical solutions (remember “radical” means going to the “root”) then money is an obvious target.  It’s simple then to focus on the financial system as the source of our woes – and, hey, biblical support just adds weight.  For some anyway.

But it was interesting when I spoke to one protestor about the verse.  I said to him, “Do you know that the verse doesn’t say “money is the root of all evil”?”  ”No?” he asked.  ”No, it says “the love of money is the root of all evil.  And you can love money whether you’re rich or poor can’t you?”

This hit home with him.  We’d just been chatting about the “fat cat bankers” who walked past St Paul’s every day.  He’d been wistfully spinning a tale of these bankers’ imagined lifestyles.  The protestor was unemployed, living in a tent, but he realised he was just as capable of a love of money as any pin-striped City worker.

He’d been plotting the demise of the global financial system.  He’d been speaking of “expropriating” the wealth of the 1% to build a better world.  But what if “money” wasn’t exactly the problem?  What if the “love” of money was the radical evil at the heart of us all?

There’s no ‘new world order’ that can get to the heart.  No fat cat tax can fix the affections.  If we’re looking for “roots” we need to go deeper than money.  We must get to the heart.

Don’t get me wrong, money can be a deadly trap.  As Paul has just said:

“They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.”  (1 Timothy 6:9)

Such strong language.  And just after our phrase, Paul says:

Some coveted after [money, and]… have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Money is incredibly dangerous.  Just consider some of the phrases Jesus Himself gave us:

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also

Ye cannot serve God and Mammon

A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions

Camel through the eye of a needle

Money has every chance of becoming a competing god in our lives.  In Paul’s language, it’s something that can “tempt”, “ensnare”, enflame “lust” and make us “covet”.  But money itself is not the problem.  It’s the love of money that is so dangerous.

Which is why Paul’s revolutionary teaching on riches does not focus on redistribution. Instead he rounds off the chapter  like this:

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.  (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

Sharing the wealth is part of what Paul charges.  But that’s only part.  Notice the true riches Paul directs us to?  The living God gives us richly all things to enjoy.  Money promises to give us… freedom, comfort, protection, provision.  But money can’t really deliver on those things.  And if we trust in “uncertain riches” they will prove a snare.

Instead, look to the unsearchable riches of Christ, who is given to us so freely and so fully.  He is Heir of the cosmos and shares all things generously with us.  One day – in “the time to come” – He will show us our inheritance here on the renewed earth and it will take our breath away.  In the words of Isaiah we will see the King in His beauty and a land that stretches afar (Isaiah 33:17).

How can money hold a candle to Christ?

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Labour of love

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1 Thessalonians 1:1-9

The Christian life is one of waiting and of working.

Advent puts us in mind of the waiting.  We look not only to Christ’s first coming, but ahead to His second coming, to judge the living and the dead.

Here is how Old Testament saints waited for that first coming:

“I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.  My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning:  I say, more than they that watch for the morning.  Let Israel hope in the LORD:  for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. 8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”  (Psalm 130:5-8)

The long-awaited Lord did indeed come to redeem Israel from all their iniquities.  But His first coming does not do away with waiting.

Paul explains this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 (the passage from which our phrase originates).  He narrates the conversion story of the Thessalonians:

“Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”   (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10)

The Christian waits for Christ to come again.  We don’t wait nervously for ‘Judgement Day’, unsure of the outcome.  No, through His first coming Christ delivered us from the coming wrath.  We wait confidently as those who love Him and long to see Him face to face.

When I was engaged to my wife we were on opposite sides of the planet.  In fact our relationship was ‘long-distance’ for over a year.  But here’s what kept me faithful to her – and more than that, here’s what kept our long-distance relationship positively vibrant:  We were waiting for our wedding day.  And that expectancy shaped virtually every minute of our lives.  Simply waiting for this future rendered any notions of infidelity unthinkable.  Waiting was not an absence of activity.  It wasn’t a lack that needed filling.  It was not a nothing preceding a something.  It was a something of enormous substance.  Waiting in this sense is a tangible reality.

So it is with the Christian.  We wait to see Jesus.

But how do we wait?  Like the picture above?  Scanning the sky for signs of His coming?  Scouring the newspapers for clues to His advent?

We’re called to be on the welcoming committee, but many want to be in the planning group.  It’s something Jesus refuses to bring us in on.  Just before He ascended His followers wanted to get an eschatological timetable from Him:

“When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?  And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.  But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you:  and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”  (Acts 1:6-8)

They wanted to know times and seasons.  Jesus says ‘That’s not your job!  Your job is to be witnesses to the ends of the earth.’

We do not wait by worrying about when.  We wait by witnessing.

It’s interesting how Acts 1 continues.  Jesus ascends to heaven, the disciples are – understandably, you’d think – gazing into the heavens.  But angels appear to tell them to stop gawping at the skies (Acts 1:10-11).  The posture of the church, as we wait for Christ, is not stationary, faces heavenwards.  Instead our posture is shaped by Acts 1:8 – we’ve been given our marching orders and out we go – to the ends of the earth as witnesses of Christ.

And so in the same chapter that tells us of the Thessalonians “waiting for God’s Son from heaven” Paul also gives us this description of their current life:

“[We remember] without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (1 Thessalonians 1:3)

Here again is Paul’s famous trio:  faith, hope and love.  Our faith looks back to Christ’s first coming and it inspires work.  Our hope looks forward to Christ’s second coming and brings patience.  And love is the atmosphere of our present lives – confident of the salvation Christ has won, and expectant of the cosmic redemption He will bring.  Now we are free from having to build our own identity or secure our own future.  Now we can love.  And this love will be a busy, active thing.  It is a “labour of love.”

We’re not working towards our vindication, our joy, our purpose in life. We’re working from that sure gift from Christ.  Therefore Christian work is a “labour of love.”

Are your Christian efforts “a labour of love”?  If they’re feeling more of a “millstone around your neck“, then these aren’t the kind of labours that will honour Jesus.  Let me suggest that you may have forgotten the other two elements of the trio.  Remember, we have a sure faith, grounded in Christ’s first coming.  And we have a certain hope, expectant of His second coming.  If you want to rekindle the love: look again to Christ this Advent – His faultless work for you and your expectant wait for Him.  A fresh vision of Jesus turns labour into “a labour of love.”