Inward or Outward?

Philippians 3:1-11                            Luke 2:15-21

Inward or Outward?

At this time of year, many people make vain pronouncements which they call “New Year’s Resolutions”. Usually, these declarations involve something one has not done or something one should have done better during the past year. Then the so-called “new” year begins and for a while renewed effort and delusion work together to convince the person that they are succeeding until the busyness of life gets in the way. Reality heaves resolution overboard and the ship sails on.

Of course, resolutions have been around for centuries, in fact ever since Eve resolved to embrace a life of self-actualisation, deciding that she wanted to be her own god. Of course, failure to meet expectations and the realisation that perhaps the resolution was not such a good idea after all has been around for the same amount of time. 

So, it is interesting to explore the rationale behind making such pronouncements. Aristotle (and here I hasten to insert an apology to Connie and other philosophy majors for my gross oversimplification) maintained that we become what we do and so he resolved to act right so that he might be right. Plato went in the exact opposite direction, perhaps after observing the repeated failure of his teacher. He believed that right action followed from right thinking and so he resolved to think right so that he might act right. 

And then in 1826, in his book “The Physiology of Taste: Or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy with Recipes”, the French Lawyer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin stated: “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are,” an idea later incorporated into various food ads by Farmer Brown and KFC and shortened to something like “you look so good because you eat so good”. Just testing to see how many of you are still awake since Jurgens unequivocally gave you permission to sleep during my sermons. 

But seriously, while there is some truth to what Aristotle and Plato and perhaps even Brillat-Savarin taught, they skipped over a very important detail…they all missed the essential and foundational fact that no human being appears to be able to act right or think right consistently. Even a cursory glance over the pages of history will confirm this. If we are honest, we will admit that despite our best resolutions we always seem to stumble and fall at some time or other. 

Scripture gives us the reason for this universal dilemma. In Jeremiah 17:9 we are told that the heart (or the core of humankind) is corrupt, deceitful, and desperately wicked…and Proverbs 23:7 tells us that humans are outwardly what they are inwardly – in their heart or in their innermost being. 

So, from the very outset, any unaided reason or resolution is doomed to failure.  This is why Paul declared in Philippians 3:3 that we ought to have no confidence in the flesh. In other words, if we are going to make any kind of decision for change, we must start from a point of moral and ethical bankruptcy, looking for radical inner renovation from a source other than or outside of ourselves.

And, again at the risk of oversimplifying the matter, this is what the Good News is all about. God is in the heart exchange business. The prophet Ezekiel spoke about a time when God would take out the dead heart of stone and replace it with a living heart of flesh…but more than that. He promised to give us a new life – to fill us with his life-giving Holy Spirit…to take up residence within us…to come down upon us as he did on the Tabernacle and the Temple, and to dwell among us and in us – Immanuel – God IS with us…so that his Spirit might cause us to live as we were created to live…to walk in his statues and to keep his commandments to do them.

Biblically, what followers of Jesus do is a result of who we are in him…from what the prior grace of God makes us and allows and assists us to become. Consequently, any resolution we make as believers must be based upon what God has already done for us in Jesus. Any changes we need to make in our lives depend upon the divine aid of the Author and Finisher of our faith. Without him, even our best efforts are as useless as filthy rags. In short, if we are to succeed at life we must live out and practice and embrace what we are in him.

We can see this clearly in the life of Paul. The Apostle lived out what he was in Jesus and accordingly was not derailed by adverse circumstances. 

Paul had been a rising star in Israel…schooled by the best and advancing well beyond his peers in religious fervour. He apparently moved in high circles, rubbing shoulders with the Jerusalem elite. He was so arrogantly sure of himself that he resolved to kill anyone who did not live according to his principles. 

Then, in a single moment, everything he held to be of value was exposed as worthless. On the road to Damascus, Paul met the God he thought he knew, and his life was never the same again. 

But then, once he had his life turned right side up and he wanted to tell the whole wide world about his eye-opening discovery, it seemed the whole wide world was not all that enthusiastic about the message…in fact, they were downright hostile. Suddenly, he found that the hunter had become the hunted and he had to defend himself, flee for his life, deal with rejection, misunderstanding, imprisonment, death threats, and actual attempts on his life. 

Gone were the days amongst the elite…his former friends and colleagues were now his worst enemies. And, if that was not bad enough, he had to constantly deal with the waywardness of various church members.  One of the reasons Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians from prison, was because he had received news that the church was being torn apart by two former female co-workers of his, Euodia and Syntyche…or as someone once renamed them, odious and so touchy. Their interpersonal disagreement was threatening the unity of the church! 

It was in the context of his current imprisonment and this painful division that he took up his quill and wrote: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” You may well ask, how on earth could he write that given the circumstances? 

I believe the key to Paul’s inner serenity was a radical inner renovation. He could resolve to rejoice because of what the grace of God had made him and was making him. His eyes were firmly fixed on what God intended him to be in Jesus…he considered all other things…even those things he once thought so very important…he considered them totally peripheral…they faded in the light of the glory that was his in Jesus. Circumstances hadn’t changed…if anything, they had got worse…but Paul, the person, had been progressively changing from the inside out since the time he first met Jesus. 

And so, even though life was hard and harsh and even though he was disrupted and disturbed by the consequences of his shortcomings and the shortcomings of others, Paul could rejoice and tell the struggling church to rejoice with him because he knew what God had done and what God was doing…and that nothing in all creation could ever change that or derail that.

For Paul, all the many resolutions and restrictions and rituals from his past counted for nothing in comparison to knowing Jesus and the power of his resurrection. Participation in his sufferings and his death meant that he could rise in and with Jesus to life as it was meant to be. And that was worth more than all the riches this world could afford.

You see external observance means very little when there is an internal contradiction. This was our Lord’s contention with the Pharisees. He called them whitewashed tombs which appeared outwardly beautiful but inwardly filled with death and decay. And Paul had been one of them. In our Epistle reading, he listed his many accomplishments. But even the Old Testament pointed out that circumcision of the flesh without the circumcision of the heart meant nothing (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4; cf Romans 2:29). Jacob and Esau demonstrate that fact perfectly.

The outward is really nothing without the inward. You can make as many resolutions as you like this year, but if the Lord has not changed you and, indeed if he is not changing you day by day from the inside out, you might as well write your decisions in water. 

Better to pray and ask God to graciously resolve to change and empower you to do his will…to love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbour as you love yourself. Things might get better, things might get worse, but you can be certain of one thing. Regardless of the circumstances, you will be able to rejoice in the Lord, because your focus will no longer be on yourself…rather your focus will be on the prize for which God has called you heavenward in Jesus. Your focus will be centred on his resolution to conform you to the image of Jesus. Once you make his will and his goal and his purpose more important than yours, you will gain the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. 

If all the things the world strives for become as dung to you in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus and the power of his resurrection, then you will be fulfilled, and content come what may.

So, rather than making useless “New Year’s Resolutions” this year, compare the sides of the ledger of your life. Anything and everything you once highly valued on one side…and Jesus and his kingdom on the other side. The choice is simple…but never easy. May God in his grace grant you the inward conviction to choose to live as he would have you live outwardly.

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2023

Defying all odds

Haggai 2:1-9                        1 Peter 2:4-5; 9-10                         John 1:1-14

Defying all odds

How does one pick up the pieces of a broken life? The rising astronomical numbers of poverty and war-related deaths around the globe stun the mind and one cannot help but wonder how those who have lost loved ones, friends, homes, and most if not all their possessions will ever manage to salvage the battered wreckage of their lives again. How will they rekindle meaning and purpose after their whole world has been ripped apart? How will they piece together the fragments of their shattered hopes and dreams when they reflect on what appears to be the futility of it all? Humanity only seems to make peace to break peace.

In our Old Testament reading for this Christmas Eve, we read about the struggles of the returning Jewish exiles living in the ruins of what had once been the thriving and prosperous city of Jerusalem. In chapter one, the prophet Haggai wrote about how he had to deal with the discouragement that threatened to destroy them religiously, economically, politically, and socially. The people had initially returned with great excitement and enthusiasm, but their expectations were soon reduced to rubble by the sheer magnitude of the devastation that greeted them. Most began to think that any form of rebuilding was pointless and so had given up and turned to a life of self-preservation…an attitude rebuked sharply by the prophet. “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled houses, while this temple lies in ruins?” (Haggai 1:4)

He then challenged them to review their experience since they had returned. Had God blessed them? No, they had remained poverty-stricken despite their best individual efforts to gain personal wealth and stability. The solution was quite simple. If they were to rebuild anything, they had to unite and work together for the common good. To live in the shadow of grief and despair would restrict all forms of healthy recovery and growth. 

The response to this challenge was a unanimous decision to band together and resume work on the rebuilding of that which was the focal point of their lives as the people of God. A building that served to remind them of God’s presence among them. 

No doubt, a lot of preliminary work had to be done first…clearing the rubble, redressing usable stones, testing the safety of remaining walls and structures, and organising work teams to do the various tasks. In many ways, the same is necessary for emotional rebuilding. We must deal with the rubble cluttering our inner being. Some things must be removed before we can start the process of reconstruction. As painful as it is, there comes a time when one must dry all tears, take stock of the losses, and press on ahead. 

The theme of Haggai’s second sermon is that despite snags and hassles and delays and disappointments, the people needed to remain focused…not to lose courage…to be strong. He first addressed the nostalgic…those who remembered Solomon’s Temple in all its former glory. He knew that nostalgia often produces negativity. A morbid and often unrealistic preoccupation with looking back over your shoulder can have a paralysing effect on life. 

Nostalgia can also cause people to make disastrous decisions. Nostalgia can cause people to live in a fantasy world…to think that if they could only go back things would be better again…like the liberated Jews in the wilderness wanting to return to Egypt…or the liberated Jews in Haggai’s time wondering if giving up or even going back to Babylon would be a better option than trying to live in what must have seemed like a pipedream. 

For the Jewish returnees, nostalgia confused the issue. “Look,” they seemed to say. “This new Temple can never measure up to the one we remember. We don’t have the resources needed to get the job done properly. It simply cannot be done.” Backwards gazing can very easily cloud the present and make the future seem dark and foreboding. 

But Haggai’s message cast some light on their gloominess. “Be strong,” he said, echoing words spoken many centuries earlier as Israel faced the formidable task of taking the Promised Land. Two seemingly impossible situations and yet, in both cases, God promised that he was with them. Three times in this discourse God reminded them, “I am with you”. It is not by your effort, nor by your power or expertise or ingenuity or your resources, but by my Spirit. I will accomplish all I have promised. Trust me…believe me and move forward in faithful obedience.

This promise is repeated in the opening chapter of John’s Gospel. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt (or tabernacled or, if I may, “templed”) among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” How many times in the Gospels are we not reminded of his constant present and future abiding with us…even amid trial and trouble, suffering and sorrow, Jesus promised that he would be with us even to the end of the age. 

Knowing that God is with us is enough reason to pluck up our courage, renew our determination and strengthen our conviction that he will not permit his cause to fail. We base our hope on God’s track record, as it were. Not only do we see his faithfulness in the Exodus, the Conquest, the Restoration, and, indeed, throughout the 2nd Temple Period, but we also see it in the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and crowning of our Lord Jesus Christ as the triumphant and universal Davidic King of kings. And we have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit as well as the continuing growth and expansion of the Church, despite severe persecution, oppression, resistance and, I dare say, despite ourselves.

Has God ever failed his people? Many thought he did as they struggled with frustration, and disillusionment, and despair. “How long, O Lord?” was and still is a frequently asked question. But Scripture and history testify to the fact that God has never deserted his people. 

Through the prophet Haggai, God reminded his people that his covenant cannot be annulled by circumstances be they ever so bleak. “Work,” God said, “for I am with you…according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.”

In the final verses of his second message, Haggai gave the people a glimpse of God’s purpose and goal. Regardless of small beginnings, struggles, and setbacks, in the end, their efforts would not be in vain…God would prevail. Haggai portrayed the vindication of God’s people using an image of a global earthquake. Earthquakes are usually unexpected, devastating, and life-changing…there’s nothing like a massive shakeup to wake up humankind. Sad, but true.

But Haggai was not predicting a literal earthquake. What would shake the earth was not the earth itself, but rather the Messiah who, in the words of Simeon was destined for the rise and fall of many in Israel. His advent would change and has changed the world forever…nothing will ever be the same again. Immanuel. God is with us.

This messianic “upheaval” would result in a great influx of resources from the nations. The returnees complained that they could not build an adequate Temple because they lacked adequate resources, but Haggai told them that God would bring aid from unexpected sources, and the Temple that seemed so small in their eyes at that moment would become more glorious than anything they had ever experienced before. 

In one sense this was fulfilled when their oppressors were instructed to pay for the repairs and much later when an Idumean pretender to the throne built a Temple so vast and so luxuriously and magnificently decorated that it stunned and delighted visitors to Jerusalem. Herod began with an enormous expansion of the Temple Mount itself quite literally doubling its original area. From 7 hectares to 14.4 hectares. 

But like a gold ring in a pig’s snout, the spectacularly beautiful building was deceptive…it was not what God had intended it to be. Unlike the pagan gods of the nations, God does not live in buildings made of stone…he lives in the hearts of his followers. 

Haggai’s prophetic word concerning the Temple was fulfilled and is still being fulfilled as the people of God are joined together by the Holy Spirit to become a spiritual house made with living stones…where a holy priesthood offers themselves as living sacrifices to God through Jesus. His glory in and through the Church surpasses the glory of the former and latter Temples as much as the peace he gives surpasses the brittle and breakable peace offered by the world. 

If there is any value to be found in the message of Christmas at all, we must find it in the one who chose to be born amid the rubble of this devastated world…the Divine Son of God who took on human flesh so that he might become the cornerstone upon which broken lives can be rebuilt.

And so, we need not fear what to so many may seem like insurmountable odds. God will and does see us through if we trust him and continue to follow him in faith. The physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual devastation experienced by so many people around the world cannot and must not be dismissed or diminished or demeaned. The losses are real, and the pain is real, and the horrors are real. 

But no one can move forward in the light if they are shackled to the darkness of the past. Through Haggai, God tells us we can do more than survive…in Jesus, we can, and we must thrive. Out of the pain of betrayal…out of the terrors of trial and torture…out of execution and death, the Babe of Bethlehem rose…not only to conquer but to reign. 

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2023

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Johann and Louise: Training Disciples to Make Disciples in the Netherlands Louise and I wish you a joy-filled Christmas and a New Year overflowing with God's very best blessings.  Just like the Christ-Child, we too are called to be lights in the darkness, so we continue to pray for hope, peace, joy and love in a world that often only experiences hopelessness, war, despair, and hatred.  Thank you for your ongoing partnership in the Gospel! What would Missionaries be without their faithful Senders? We are truly grateful for everyone who prays with and for us...who feels the burden for a Europe that has largely lost its moorings...and who loves as sacrificially as our Lord loves.  MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!! Johann will be interviewed about "Breakfast on the Beach: The Development of Simon Peter" on “Mornings with Carmen” at www.myfaithradio.com at 6:30 am CT on Tue, January 9th.  Just adjust the time zone to your preferred time zone.  These are Carmen’s accounts: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ReconnectwithCarmen/ Twitter/X - @CarmenLaBerge Instagram - @carmenfowlerlaberge Faith Radio can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/myfaithradio Enjoy every precious moment with family and friends...build memories...share his love. Blessings, hugs, and love Johann and Louise Support Us Johann and Louise spent two years helping to develop the St. Frumentius Seminary in Gambella, Ethiopia. They then worked in Southern Africa, serving in seven southern African countries, while continuing to work with the Diocese of Egypt, North Africa through engaging in a disciple making movement in order to grow the body of Christ. They are now serving in Heiloo, the Netherlands. We are sent  through the Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders, a missionary sending community, engaging in building relationships with the worldwide church to experience the broken restored, the wounded healed, the hungry fed, and the lost found through the love and power of Jesus Christ.  Support SAMS Copyright © 2016 Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders, All rights reserved. www.sams-usa.org      Our mailing address is: PO Box 399 Ambridge PA 15003 Attention to: Johann and Louise van der Bijl Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

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Journey to the Cradle

Carol Service 2023: Journey to the Cradle

In our Carol Service this afternoon, we found in the Garden of Eden, the beginning of the thread that weaves together the grand tapestry of salvation history. 

The disobedience of our forebears began the story that we traced through from Patriarchs and Kings and prophets…from promise to enslavement, to deliverance, to conquest, to exile, to restoration, and finally, through to the great fulfilment of what was first predicted in the Garden…the birth of the Seed of the woman. 

We saw that even from the very beginning of our disobedience, God's mercy shone and still shines through. His promise to send the Redeemer echoes through the corridors of time. 

Abraham, a man of faith, became a pivotal figure in this divine narrative. God's covenant with him marked the beginning of a chosen people…a people through whom all the families of the nations would be blessed. Through Abraham's descendants, God unfolded His plan for salvation. 

The covenant continued with David, a shepherd elevated to kingship, as God promised an everlasting kingdom through his lineage. As generations passed, the whisper of God's promise became a clear resounding melody. Prophets proclaimed hope and foretold the coming of a Messiah…a Deliverer. 

Then, in the fullness of time, Jesus, the Divine second member of the Holy Trinity, broke through onto the stage of human history, taking on human flesh and becoming a Man. Born of a virgin in Bethlehem in fulfilment of the prophetic word, he embodied the culmination of God's redemptive plan. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, salvation history reached its zenith. The Lamb of God, sinless and sacrificial, took upon himself the weight and the penalty of our sins, nailing the requirements against us to the cross and disarming the rulers and powers of darkness. 

The Cross, as such, became the bridge between a dying world and the promise of eternal life. In Jesus, God's covenant with Creation finds its ultimate fulfilment. Through faith in Him, we become heirs to the promises made to Abraham and the beneficiaries of the Davidic kingdom. Salvation history, a narrative woven through with threads of love and grace, invites every one of us to participate in the divine drama and to embrace the free gift of redemption.

Through Jesus, we may once more enter through the gates once barred and shut because of sin, and, as such, end where we began. In the Garden. Through Jesus, we come full circle to re-enter Paradise where we may once more walk freely with our Father and Creator God.

And so, the journey we have followed to the Cradle in this service continues…but now in the lives of those whom he weaves into his grand design for Creation. You and I are the threads he uses to bring his beauty to bear upon a bleak and strife-torn world.  Each step forward brings us closer to the time when sin and sorrow will be wiped away by his blessing. We are all participants in the weaving of this grand salvation tapestry as we make known the triumph of our lowly King, but the final stitch is yet to come.

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2023