The Church as the Family of God

23/09/2018

Jesus said that He would build his church. We’re used to “ground breaking” or “turning a sod” ceremonies, or laying a brick to launch a new building project. A few old men in suits turn up with shovels and pose for pictures. They tend to be genteel affairs with a few claps and some light refreshments afterwards. 

However, there was nothing genteel when Jesus chose to launch his church building project on the day of Pentecost. It was more like an explosion!

On that day, the church was born. The new testament has various ways to describe the church – body of Christ, bride of Christ, God’s household, temple of God. But one man suggests that Jesus had a favourite metaphor for the church – this man! 

Joachim Jeremias said that the metaphor ‘the Family of God’ was Jesus’ favourite image for referring to the church.

Politicians are always keen to stress their commitment to “Family Values”. During a speech in January 1992, then-president George Bush Snr said: “We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family. To make them more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.”

There are two ways in which you can become a member of a family – you can born into one, or adopted. 

Interestingly, Roman Law in NT times allowed you to disown a child by birth but not a child by adoption.

What’s also interesting is that we become a member of God’s family by being both born into it and adopted into it! Belt and braces approach.

Let’s look at being born first. Christians have experienced both a physical birth and a spiritual birth.

Jesus told Nicodemus: 'Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again' (or born from above).

But Christians are also adopted. Listen to the start of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians where Paul opens his letter with some glorious truths about who we are as Christians:

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 he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 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.

Such a lot of good stuff in these few verses, like being chosen. As the old story goes about the child who was being bullied for being adopted – he stood up for himself and said – your parents had no choice when you were born, they had to take you home whether they liked you or not, but me – I was chosen!

There’s something special about being chosen, like being chosen to play on the football team - I still have a team sheet from boarding school where I was picked for the firsts rugby team! 

In John 15, talking about the Vine and the branches, Jesus reminds his disciples that they were chosen: 'I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.' Likewise, we’ve been chosen and appointed by Jesus to go and bear spiritual fruit in His name. 

This is not something that God did reluctantly – it was ‘in accordance with his pleasure and will’ It’s something he was delighted to do, because he delights in us.

God chose us for “adoption to sonship”. The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a legal term in Roman culture referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir. And of course, if you’re an heir, what does that make you entitled to? An inheritance – we’ll get to that later.

Paul keeps going with truth after truth, and he tells us that we have redemption through Jesus’ blood. The concept of redemption comes from the system of slavery. In the Roman Empire, during the time the New Testament was written, slaves accounted for roughly one-fifth of the population. A slave could be redeemed by someone paying a price, called a ransom. And so we have this concept of us being slaves to sin but then being redeemed by the blood of Jesus which makes us in some sense a slave to Christ. Paul told the Corinthians: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.”

Another phrase to describe the church is therefore “the community of the redeemed”. Adoption into the family of God, however, is a much more powerful concept. It's one thing to be redeemed - to be set free, but it's much more powerful to be then adopted. Adoption gives you a new family, a new life, a new future, a new inheritance!

Which leads to another passage which starts with “Praise be….” (from 1 Peter 1)

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Earthly inheritances are unreliable. At one point, I was hoping to inherit my grandfather’s cottage in Connemara – it didn’t perish or spoil, but the dream just faded – we had to sell it to pay for his nursing home. There are so many ways that an earthly inheritance can disappear from your grasp. And even if you get your hands on it, it can be more trouble than it’s worth. It can cause family rows and falling out. Where there’s a will, there’s relatives!

But as Christians we have been spiritually born and spiritually adopted into a new spiritual family, and as sons and daughters of the living God, we have a spiritual inheritance that is 100% reliable, it can never perish, spoil or fade. It is kept in heaven for us.

In the letters above, both Paul & Peter start off with theology and then deal with local issues. So far, I’ve talked about being part of God’s family in a somewhat theological and almost individualistic sense. So now I’d like to focus on the nuts and bolts.

If we only think in terms of being sons and daughters of God, and therefore brothers and sisters in Christ, we miss a key dynamic because today, many families are dispersed – and while the children all share in the inheritance of their parents, they could be living in different countries with not much contact and no meaningful relationship with each other and maybe not even with their parents.

Simply being brothers and sisters in Christ can give us an excuse for keeping a safe distance from each other, while pursuing our own personal relationship with God. In some ways, we are saying “My Father, who art in Heaven” instead of “Our Father…”

Jesus challenged this attitude in Matthew 12: 

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’

He replied to him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’

So Jesus goes beyond the idea of spiritual siblings, suggesting that the family of God should have inter-generational relationships. For example, maybe some of you have people you look up to as a spiritual mother or father in the Lord.

I think one of the most helpful way to localise the concept of the family of God is to see the local church as a spiritual extended family.

Biblical families were extended families. Just one example - when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, he told them to go back and bring the whole family to Egypt. Gen 46:26 says: “All those who went to Egypt with Jacob-- those who were his direct descendants, not counting his sons' wives - numbered sixty-six persons.”

I’ve done a lot of talking, now I want you to do some thinking. 

1.    What barriers are there to the church functioning as a healthy extended family?

Here are some of my thoughts: 

• Lack of extended family in western society
• Western individualism
• Rick Warren - Christianity is seen as a Belief system rather than a Belong system
• The 4th century shift from House Church to Cathedral

2.    What can we do to address them? 

• Make an effort!
• Practice hospitality
• Practice the “One Anothers”

Apparently, there are 59 "One Another" phrases in the New Testament. Some examples are:

• Love one another
• Be at peace with each other.
• Honour one another above yourselves
• Stop passing judgment on one another. 
• Bear with each other      
• Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you
  
• Have equal concern for each other.
  
• Be patient, bearing with one another in love.       
  
• Don’t grumble against each other
  
• Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.

You can't practice the "one anothers" without being in and around people - small groups are the simplest way to do this, so maybe this is something for your to consider as the Bible Studies all start up again after the summer.

Let's Pray:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for our church family and we ask you to help us to see beyond our biological family, to love and embrace the needs of others. Help us to find time to be in the company of our brothers and sisters in Christ, so we can love, honour, accept, bear with and forgive one another. Amen.

An introduction to the book of Proverbs

09/09/2018
We’ve had two dogs, and both had a rather disgusting habit of vomiting, and then quite shortly afterwards, proceeding to return the food from whence it came! This is just one of a variety of real-life events that Solomon turned into a Proverb.

Anyone know the second reference to a dog in Proverbs?

"Like one who seizes a mad dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own." (Proverbs 26:17)




It’s been a while since I’ve read the book of Proverbs, so let me invite you to join with me in reading the whole book of Proverbs for the month of October – one chapter a day! And on the Sundays in October, there will be an opportunity for you to share what you learnt from your reading during the week.

We tend to turn to the Psalms far more quickly than Proverbs and I believe we need give Proverbs more of a look-in. In actual fact, if we look at the Psalms closely, we find that in at least 5 places, they tell us to seek wisdom and of course, Proverbs is where we find it.

The Psalms teach us how to worship, the Proverbs teach us how to act. We tend to use the Psalms in the context of “church” (Sunday Mornings, Prayer Meetings, Private Devotions) but we need the Proverbs when we go out into the world. We use the Psalms on our knees; we use the Proverbs on our feet.

So in order to encourage you to read the book of Proverbs for yourself, I’m going to tell you a little about it. I can’t read the Bible for you. Just like I can’t eat your dinner for you, but I can try to whet your appetite. So let me introduce you to the book of Proverbs.

The book of Proverbs actually requires two introductions – an introduction to a person, namely King Solomon and an introduction to a theme, namely Wisdom. 

Solomon was King David’s son and he ruled Israel for 40 years during what was termed as a golden age of peace and prosperity. He built the first Temple (which replaced the mobile tabernacle built by Moses) and he put Israel firmly on the map as an important centre of culture, religion and trade. Solomon was an international celebrity and many people, like the Queen of Sheba, travelled from far and wide to visit Solomon on account of his extraordinary wisdom, riches and achievements.

So what was the secret of Solomon’s success? It was his wisdom. And where did he get it? From God, of course. One night in a dream, God offered Solomon anything he wanted, and he chose wisdom to govern the people. Solomon excelled in wisdom but unfortunately, he didn’t always follow his own good advice. A recurring theme in Proverbs is to stay away from bad women and be faithful to your wife and of course Solomon did the opposite. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Maybe he wrote much of Proverbs in the light of bad experience and regret.

Solomon composed many proverbs, but he also collected them from other people. Some of the proverbs in the Bible are Arabic and some are Egyptian. Solomon recognised wisdom wherever he found it.

And that brings me to my second introduction, to the theme of Wisdom. 

Our reading from 1 Corinthians 1:17-25 contrasts the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of God. In some cases (such as the Cross of Christ) human wisdom is totally opposed to God’s wisdom but in many other situations, it’s not. People are made in God’s image and given a conscience and intelligence and so they will come up with timeless truths like “a stitch in time saves nine” or “look before you leap” - Proverbs like these are just common sense and are not at all incompatible with God’s wisdom. Solomon knew this and so he had no problem in taking certain proverbs from pagan sources and applying them into the context of a relationship with the one true God, Yahweh, the God of Israel, who is mentioned at least 70 times in this book. And indeed today, we can find wisdom from the secular world of business and finance, but we need to be selective and we need to be discerning. 

A recurring theme in Proverbs is “the fear of the Lord”.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge”;

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”;

“The fear of the Lord leads to life”.

The fear of the Lord is not about being afraid of God, because God is love and perfect love casts out all fear, it’s to do with reverence and awe.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” is translated like this in the Amplified Bible:

The [reverent] fear of the Lord [that is, worshiping Him and regarding Him as truly awesome] is the beginning and the preeminent part of knowledge [its starting point and its essence]            

And so we must approach the book of Proverbs from a place of reverence, respect and awe of God if we are going to imbibe God’s wisdom from its pages.

When we think of the different classes of people in the Old Testament, we think of Kings and Prophets and Priests. But there was another class of people, and they were called “Sages” or wise men.  Proverbs is largely attributed to Solomon – his own proverbs and those he collected, but there are also some sayings of other wise men, the sages. 

      Proverbs is a book of literature – it’s nice to read because it is poetic, but not the type of poetry we learnt in school. It has a rhythm of thought rather than rhyme. 
There are metaphors: Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler.

There are similes: Like a bad tooth or a lame foot is reliance on the unfaithful in times of trouble.

And there are word pictures:

”There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a maiden. “ (Proverbs 30:18-19)

There are short sayings – one or two lines expressing a single thought and then there are longer passages, called oracles. 

      Proverbs is also a book of contrasts.

It deals with wisdom and folly, pride and humility, love and lust, singlehood and marriage, wealth and poverty, work and leisure, gossip and discretion, masters and servants, righteousness and wickedness, diligence and laziness, life and death. It speaks into nearly every situation you could ever find yourself in and helps you make the right decision.

There are a couple of things to watch out for when you read Proverbs.

Proverbs is essentially a book of morality, about right living. So when it talks about wisdom and folly, it is nothing to do with intelligence. Folly is seen as a moral deficiency, not a mental deficiency. Intelligent people can do immoral things. Conversely, wisdom is not about having a high IQ, it’s about making godly choices in life. We see this principle in other parts of the Bible. For example, in Psalm 14 we read:

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."  

I’m sure there are lots of very intelligent atheists in the world!

Proverbs is a book of general principles and observations

General observations don’t always hold true. For example:“Grey hair is a crown of splendour; it is attained in the way of righteousness.” (Proverbs 16:31)

I’m sure there are criminals with grey hair who did not lead a righteous life! And so a proverb, as a general observation, doesn’t apply in every case.

A proverb is not always a promise.

As part of my research on Proverbs, I listened to some material by a guy called David Pawson, a well respected Bible teacher. He was very strong on this point: He says a Proverb is not a Promise full stop. His argument goes like this: A proverb is a general observation on life whereas a promise is a specific obligation. A proverb is generally true but not always and so we can’t apply a proverb to every situation and depend on it to work.

Here’s an example:

Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.  (Proverbs 16:3)

Heard that one? So if you decide to start a business, with no business plan and no market research and no capital and you say, well I’ve committed it to the Lord - is God under an obligation to make it succeed? Of course not!

Here’s another one:

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. 

(Proverbs 22:6)

People often quote this proverb about their wayward children – as if it’s a promise that because they were brought to Sunday School, they will eventually turn to God later in life. It is true that if you bring up a child in a Christian home and environment, they are more likely to become committed Christians than other people, but if they don’t, it doesn’t mean the Bible’s not true, or that God doesn’t keep His promises. At the end of the day, each person has to make their own choice to accept or reject Jesus and God will not violate their free will.

Does that make sense?  I would add one caveat to David Pawson’s argument. I believe that there are times when the Holy Spirit can speak to you through a Proverb, or some other verse of Scripture for that matter, and personalise it to you as a promise. But you have to be very careful that it’s really from God and not just wishful thinking. And that’s all the more reason to seek the wisdom and discernment that God will give us as we read and study the book of Proverbs.

Finally, Proverbs is a book of Edification – it builds you up, it encourages and inspires.

One of my favourite proverbs is in Chapter 3:5-6.

Even if I take these 2 verses as a promise from God, I have to be careful how I interpret them. In Scripture, a straight path is not an easy path, it’s a narrow one and a difficult one at times. Answered promises are sometimes like answered prayers – not exactly what you had in mind!

To conclude, there’s a lot more to be said about the book of Proverbs, but listening to me talking about it is not going to make you any wiser, you’ll have to read it for yourself!

Let me finish with some words from chapter 4:

Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them.  Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.  Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.  Esteem her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honour you.  (Proverbs 4:5-8)

Let’s Pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word, for in it we find words of life. We thank you for the book of Proverbs, for how you’ve managed to cram so much wisdom into one book. We acknowledge our dependence on You and on Your wisdom and guidance for our lives. Help us to read and study Your Word that we might grow in our understanding and practice of the Christian life. Help us to cultivate a healthy and proper fear of the Lord as we continue on a lifelong journey of attaining spiritual wisdom and knowledge, for we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Some lessons from Jesus' Prayer Life

26/08/2018

A man was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place. Looking up toward heaven, he said: "Lord, take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Church every Sunday for the rest of my life and I’ll give up whiskey."

No sooner had the words left his mouth, than miraculously, a parking place appeared. The man looked up to heaven again and said: "Never mind Lord. I’ve got one."

It’s easy to pray when you’re in desperate need, it’s much harder to make it a daily discipline. I was given the book “The Jesus Habits” as a present some years back and I found the section on Jesus' Prayer Life to be very helpful. 

So this morning, let’s see not only what can we learn from Jesus’ private prayer life, but what we can apply to our own devotions. You should all have a pen and a piece of paper, so write “Prayer Framework” at the top and underline it.

The first thing that struck me when studying Jesus’ prayer life is when He prayed. He disappeared off to pray at different times of the day – sometimes very early in the morning (there's only one specific reference to this!), sometimes in the early afternoon or evening and sometimes all night long. Jesus needed regular time alone to pray. He made it a priority, not out of duty, but out of necessity.

Write down on your sheet the word “TIME:” and then the time of day that you think would be best for you to set aside time to pray (it might be on your commute but don’t close your eyes while driving!).

Secondly, I discovered the various places that Jesus chose to pray. For His private prayers, Jesus normally chose private, secluded places like mountains, lakes, the wilderness. Not always – sometimes his disciples were in the vicinity (that may have been by design, so they could hear his prayers and record them for posterity). There’s no mention of Jesus owning a house, but if He did have one, I’m sure He would have created a private space in it for prayer. When Jesus was teaching on prayer, He denounced those who prayed in public in order to be seen praying, and He encouraged His followers to pray in secret. All of us need to be alone with God at some point during the day – this might take some planning, especially if there are small children in the house, but it can be done if we make it a priority. It’s harder than ever to find seclusion in our noisy world, so you might have to be content with privacy (e.g. the train) rather than solitude. Write down on your sheet the word “PLACE:” and then the place that you think would be best for you to set aside time to pray.

Thirdly, Jesus prayed to the Father and prayer was a natural expression of His relationship with God. He talked to God just like we would talk to our parents. He used the word “Abba” (similar to “Daddy”) to refer to God, which would have been considered irreverent by Jews of His day. Jesus’ use of “Abba” was picked up by Paul, who used it to explain this new way of relating to God. God is not distant and uncaring, He is our loving Heavenly Father, who is as near to us as a loving human Parent. And so we should approach God in this intimate way, when we pray. Write down on your sheet the word “INTIMACY” to remind yourself of the nature of your relationship with God – and possibly to challenge any distorted images that you might have of God (we covered those a couple of weeks ago). Psalm 27:4, in particular, is a picture of intimacy with God:

"One thing I ask from the Lord,this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple."

Fourthly, Jesus used praise and thanksgiving in his prayers. In Luke 10, after the 72 returned from their successful ministry trip, it says: "At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

Before feeding the 5,000 and the 4,000, he gave thanks before breaking the bread.

Psalm 100:4 tells us to "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise" – so write that down on your sheet as a reminder that it’s a great way to start a time of prayer – especially if you’re feeling low and don’t feel like it! Praise and thanksgiving lifts our spirits and gets us in the right frame of mind to lead onto to confession, intercession & petition.

Before we move on to number 5, write down the word "CONFESSION:". Jesus didn’t have to, but we do! And then write in brackets (AND FORGIVING OTHERS) which goes hand in hand with Confession, as Matthew 6 reminds us:

"For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

Number 5: Jesus prayed for all kinds of people - His disciples, the future church, little children, those who came to Him with needs (in particular the sick). And for me, the most challenging thing is that Jesus prayed for His enemies. We can assume that He practised what He preached and therefore He would have prayed for the Scribes and Pharisees for example. We know He prayed for those who put Him on the cross and He urged us to love our enemies by praying for those who persecute us and ill-treat us, and by blessing those who curse us. We may not call a person who annoys us our “enemy”, especially if they are a brother or sister in Christ, but we probably don’t often make a point of praying for them or forgiving them.

Let’s write on your sheet the word "INTERCESSION:" and some categories of people that you might pray for – family, work colleagues, friends, sick or bereaved, minister and church leaders, persecuted church, ministries that you support, children you sponsor, topical events.

Finally, Jesus prayed for himself and so in our prayers, we should make time to pray for ourselves – it’s not being selfish! As Gethsemane drew near, we get an insight into Jesus’ petitions. He was brutally honest in his prayers – He told God that He didn’t really want to go through with the cross (“Take this cup from me”). He prayed that if possible the hour might pass from Him. He repeated these prayers. He agonised over what God was calling Him to do.

It’s ok to be honest with God in prayer. There’s really no point in being superficial or trying to skirt around issues, because God knows your heart and your thoughts and your motivations. It’s ok to agonise in prayer, to get emotional, to cry. The Psalms are full of honesty.

But the bottom line for Jesus and the bottom line for us must be “not my will, but yours be done”. In our petitions, we should get everything off our chests and then simply submit to God, trusting Him that His way is always best in the end.

Write down the word "PETITION:" and some broad areas of petition like:

1.    Healing

We all have something we need healing for.

2.    Guidance

Jesus spent a night in prayer before choosing the twelve apostles. It was an important decision, and so it needed much prayer. We should ask ourselves: How much time do we spend in prayer before taking important decisions? We also need guidance for the little things.

3.    Comfort and Strength

From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus attracted criticism, from His family, from the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, from the civil authorities, and even from His disciples. He needed strength to keep going and prayer gave Him this strength.

When John was beheaded, I’m sure Jesus felt under pressure. His response was to take Himself off to a solitary place to pray. There are times when we’re up against it and like Jesus, we need to take ourselves off to pray and to process what’s going on in our lives. As we do this, God will strengthen us and affirm us and encourage us to keep going.

4.    Temptations

Jesus was tempted in the desert but through a combination of prayer and fasting, He was able to resist the temptations of the devil.

We all face temptations every day of the week – they often appear irresistible, but there is hope. 1 Corinthians 10:13 tell us that there is always a God-given “way out” of temptation – a divine escape route. Whether you will choose to take that escape route or not is down to how much spiritual strength you have, and I believe that you can trace this back to your prayer life. Prayer gives us strength to resist and overcome temptation.

"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."

5.    Work (inside or outside the home)/Study/Ministry

These are the areas in which we spend most of our time, so there should be lots of things that can be prayed for.

Having done this exercise, you now have a framework for a time of private prayer

• a time (or times) to pray
• a place (or places) to pray
• a reminder of how to approach God (intimacy)
• a way to get started (praise & thanksgiving)
• a reminder about the need for confession and forgiving others
• headings for intercession – add your own specific names
• headings for petition – add your own specific needs

So, let me encourage you to bring it home and use your personalised prayer plan. But before you put it away, write a word at the bottom: ACCOUNTABILITY? One of the shortcomings of Pulpit ministry is a lack of accountability. I'm not going to ring you all up and ask you if you did what I told you to! A small group is much better for this, as long as it is healthy accountability. Unhealthy accountability is imposed and controlling. Healthy accountability, however, is invited and empowering. So think of someone you know who you could help you to develop consistency in your prayer life. Maybe partner-up with mutual accountability, because we all need it!

Let’s pray: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of prayer and we confess that we don’t find it easy and we usually don’t make enough time for it. Help us to cultivate our inner life by establishing a daily pattern of devotion to you. Help us to find the right time and the right place. We thank you for the example of Jesus and His prayer life – may He inspire us to seek your face, for wisdom, for guidance, for power, and for strength to persevere. We ask all this in His name. Amen.

Some words from my first sermon on the new job

15/07/2018

I don’t have a big ‘manifesto’ for Bray & Wicklow – I’d prefer to pray and see where God leads us, but wherever that may be, I’d like us to be able to know and trust the God that is revealed to us in the Scriptures – that we would have complete confidence in Him, that we would be able to fully trust our lives to Him.

As I’ve been praying about my new role for the past few months, the word that keeps coming to me is “Awakening”. I’m praying for a spiritual awakening in Bray & Wicklow. At Conference, Cheryl Patterson thoughtfully gave me a painting with the word 'Awakening' on it, as i had mentioned it to her in a Peer Supervision group. Shortly after receiving the painting, God showed me that I needed to start praying for a personal spiritual awakening before I would expect to see a move of God in County Wicklow. As the song goes – Lord, send revival, start with me. I met Jim Feely at a prayer meeting recently, and he has the word “Visitation” on his heart, which is very similar.

I chose the 2 readings (2 Chronicles 6:40 – 7:3 & Matthew 4:12 – 25) because one is a Visitation and one is an Awakening. The Visitation in 2 Chronicles 7 came at the Dedication of the Temple. 

When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled it. When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshipped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, ‘He is good; his love endures for ever.’

It must have been something! But it didn’t come from nowhere – it involved sacrifice and prayer and commitment to the task of building the temple over a long period of time. There is usually a back-story to a Visitation of God, an Invitation for God to show up.

So, that was a Visitation, the Awakening in Matthew 4 is in relation to the start of Jesus’ preaching ministry. We had the Incarnation 30 years earlier with his birth, now we have a spiritual awakening, as prophesied by Isaiah about 760 years previously. 

‘Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,

    the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,

    Galilee of the Gentiles –

 the people living in darkness

    have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death

    a light has dawned.’

 From that time on Jesus began to preach, 

‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’

Before an awakening, biblical imagery is usually about slumber and darkness - there is a need for people to wake up from their spiritual slumber, to come out from spiritual darkness into the light of God’s revelation. During Jesus’ ministry, people 'woke up' to the news of God’s kingdom, as introduced by Jesus, the Light of the World, and the church was born to extend that kingdom around the world. But Jesus didn’t do it all by himself – he needed people to commit themselves wholeheartedly to Him and to His cause. An awakening always demands a personal response.

We know from church history, that the power and growth of the church in the book of Acts wasn’t maintained ever since and at various times in various places, the church fell asleep, and in response to fervent believing prayer, God sent revivals – not least the 18^th Century Revival which birthed Methodism. And there were lots of others – the Welsh Revival, the 19^th Century revivals in America, let by Charles Finney and DL Moody. There was even a Revival in 1949 in the Scottish Hebrides and all sorts of mini-revivals all over the place.

And so I’m praying for an Awakening, however small or big that might be. It’s a big challenge, but we have a big God and we have a big message – a life changing message, that everyone needs to hear, so let’s have confidence in God and let’s have confidence in the Gospel as we journey together.