September 2015

My heart – beliefs

2 Comments / Home Bulletin, Special Message / Christopher Peppler

Sometimes a description of a heart-belief is more revealing than a Statement of Faith.

When I find a Christian website or blog that looks interesting I always try to ascertain what the author believes concerning key doctrines. Sometimes I find Statements of Faith, but these tend to be rather bland and impersonal. From time to time people ask me what I believe concerning Jesus, the Bible, and the Church, and, quite frankly, a full answer would take a book to describe. So instead, I want to rather share my heart with you concerning what I consider to be matters central to the Christian Faith. I will post further heart-beliefs in the weeks to come, in between the regular Revelation Revisited posts.

Jesus

The Lord Jesus saved me from certain death when I was a ten month old baby and then as a thirty year old he gave me spiritual life as well. I am so grateful to him; he is truly my saviour. Now for the last thirty-eight years I have been slowly getting to know him and I am wonder-struck. His grace astounds me, his power amazes me and his persistent love overwhelms me. He is the focus of my preaching and my interpretive key to unlocking the meaning of scripture. He is my plum line, my yardstick, and my corner stone. His life prescribes my life and his words guide and instruct all of what I do and who I aspire to be.

The local church

I pastored a local church for 27 years and yet I am not its longest standing member. People have come and gone but many have remained for decades. We are an extended family but I have never been the patriarch, for the Lord Jesus fulfills that role. I truly love this local church that Jesus has built around himself. Its highest good is my chief concern and in a very real sense its wellbeing is my wellbeing. Like all families it has some troublesome members and moments, but the difficult bits are far outweighed by the regular glimpses of glory. When we meet together we are noisily happy to be with each other, but when we worship as one the family becomes a temple and joy transforms into awe. I feel privileged to be a part of something so eternal and so precious to the Lord Jesus – he shed his blood so that churches like this could exist. I love the local church for it is the fullness of him who fills everything in every way – Jesus.

The Bible

From the day I was born again of the Spirit of God I acquired a hunger for the written Word of God, the Bible. I still find it fascinating. I accept its divine inspiration and authority and rejoice in its trustworthiness. I appreciate its absolute honesty and I am constantly encouraged by how transparently it records human frailty. However, what fascinates me about the Bible is that, whilst being divinely inspired, it is also an obviously human production. God did not compel men to write exactly what he wanted penned. Rather, he allowed specially chosen people into a working partnership and together they produced the Holy Scriptures, to God’s specifications. The result is not a theological textbook, or a divine dictionary. It is not a mystical recipe book for proving all things, nor is it a user’s manual for living. Rather, it is paper-and-print forum for encountering God and discerning his purpose and plans. It reveals his character and nature and it also contains his values, principles and priorities. Most of all, the Bible reveals Jesus, the living Word of God.

My heart – beliefs Read More »

Jesus loves the church

4 Comments / Blog, Home Bulletin, My Blog / Christopher Peppler

It is easy to be critical of the church and to sometimes want to stop attending and being involved – but never give up on church for it is much loved by the Lord Jesus.

In Christian parlance we often hear the church of our age referred to as ‘laodicean’. Those who use this term usually mean that they perceive the church in general to be apathetic and materialistic. This idea is reinforced by dispensationalist scholars who take the seven churches of Revelation as representing seven different church ages; Ephesus representing the early church, and Laodicea standing for the end-time church. There is a lot wrong with this way of thinking because, among other things, it makes much of Revelation inaccessible and irrelevant to the church both now and in years gone by. A better way of understanding is to see the churches as representing different aspects of the church in all ages. We can therefore be both admonished and encouraged by what Jesus wrote to all seven churches.

It is easy to see the negative aspects in the letter to the church of Laodicea. It is lukewarm and therefore nauseating; deluded and complacent; spiritually blind… and so on. However, I want to focus on the positive message to the church that shines through the dark smoke of divine displeasure evidenced in this letter.

In verse 19 Jesus writes, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline”. If He didn’t care then He wouldn’t bother to correct us. The author of the letter to the Hebrews expresses this more fully when he writes:

‘Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it’. (Hebrews 12:7-11)

Yes, apathy and consumerism infect the body of the church, especially in an age of affluence, but Jesus still loves His church. If He had given up on us He would simply write something like “… so I have decided to close you down”. But, instead of this He writes, “so be earnest, and repent”.

After these words come probably the most misquoted text in all of scripture – “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me’”(Revelation 3:20). This phrase is so often trotted out as part of an alter call or some other attempt to encourage people to “just say yes to Jesus” – ‘Jesus is standing at the door of your heart knocking but the handle is on the inside so all you need do is open your heart to him and he will come into your life’. Not only is this a pathetic understatement of the Gospel message, but it is also taken totally out of context. Jesus is writing to the church, the local community of believers, not to individual unbelievers!

When applied out of context it becomes an excuse for a form of spiritual inoculation that often inures the recipient to the true Gospel. But, taken in context it is a great encouragement to the church. In effect, the Lord Jesus is saying, “even if just some of you in this church open it to me then I will come in and fellowship with you”.

So, never give up on the church…. Jesus hasn’t. Yes, you may find hypocrisy, apathy, greed, and pride in the church, but you will also find love, spiritual passion, wisdom, and healing. And bear in mind, dear fellow Christian, you and I are part of the church; part of its problems and part of its glory.

I believe in the church. I have faith in the head of the church, Jesus Christ, and I love the church because I cannot love Him without loving his Body.

Paul instructed husbands to ‘love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her’ (Ephesians 5:25-26), and then a few verses later he wrote, ‘but I am talking about Christ and the church’. When he was on his final journey to Rome he said to the Elders of the church of Ephesus that they should be ‘shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood’ (Acts 20:28). This is a powerful declaration of just how much Jesus values and loves His church!

The leaders or members of the church may sometimes offend you or even hurt your feelings but they, and you, are members together of the Body of Christ and He loves his church. Never give up on it because you are a part of it and Jesus will never give up on you.

Jesus loves the church Read More »

Loving promises

1 Comment / Blog, Home Bulletin, My Blog / Christopher Peppler

Philadelphia means ‘brotherly love’ and of all the letters of Jesus to His church I love this the most. It contains loving promises for both the church and the individual believer.

The city of Philadelphia was in an earthquake zone and so the assurance that Jesus would make those who overcome ‘a pillar in the temple of my God’ would have been particularly appreciated by the believers of that day. During earthquakes pillars and walls would often crumble and fall, and the inhabitants would have to flee the city and sleep out in the open country until the danger had passed. Jesus alludes to this when He writes, ‘never again will you leave it (the Temple)’. The promise is that if we obey and stay faithful to Him then we will be secure within His ‘temple’, the place of His presence.

The letter starts with a reference to the ‘key of David’ followed by the wonderful words, ‘What he opens, no one can shut; and what he shuts no one can open’. David, as king of Israel had the keys to the city in both a literal and a metaphorical sense. Jesus, the descendant of David in his earthly lineage has the ‘keys’ to EVERYTHING! The doors He opens before us, only He can open, and nothing can shut them. There may be delays and interferences but the ‘doors’ will stay open – we just need to walk through them. However, I must qualify what I understand by an ‘open door’. I don’t believe that Jesus is saying that He will underwrite whatever we decide to do. So often we seek our own opportunities and even kick down doors that are closed before us. There is nothing wrong with this as making decisions and persevering in executing them is part of growing into maturity. Of course, in these cases we need always to prayerfully submit our decisions and strategies to God and, as importantly, not ‘deny His name’ in the way we go about executing our plans. The open doors Jesus guarantees to keep open are the ones He opens before us in the first place. In my experience, and in my understanding of biblical precedents, when Jesus opens a door of opportunity before us He communicates this in many ways and we become convinced and convicted that it is indeed He who is at work in our lives.

The words that come just after this wonderful promise are even more precious to me: “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name’. The older I get the more aware I become that I am severely limited in what I can achieve. I can develop my skills and use my abilities to their fullest but at my best I cannot change a person’s heart, heal a broken body, or create something from what isn’t already there. Only God can do this, and if I want to be truly effective in this life then I need to rely on Him and trust Him for real results. When my children were young I taught them the adage, ‘Try your best and trust God for the rest’ and I realise more and more that in this is simple yet profound truth.

If you want to get the full impact of this wonderful letter from the Lord Jesus then carefully read Revelation 3:7-13 several times and pay special attention to what follows the words “I know”, “I have”, “I will”, and “I am”.

My next post in this series will draw from the last letter to the churches of Revelation, the church of Laodicea’. After that I plan to summaries the contents of Chapters Two and Three before starting to unpack part Two of Revelation, which starts at the beginning of Chapter Four. What is revealed there will surprise and delight many of you!

Loving promises Read More »

The Remnant

8 Comments / Blog, Home Bulletin, My Blog / Christopher Peppler

Consumerism and apathy are endemic diseases in the church of our day but this is not new for the church of Sardis suffered from this same malady nearly 2,000 years ago.

There are some very cool facets to the letters to the seven churches. One of them is the way the names of the cities represent a key characteristic of the church there. Another is how the Lord Jesus uses the geographic, historical, religious, and commercial attributes of each city to help the church members understand what He is saying to them.

Today we look at the 5th city church addressed in Revelation Chapter Two and Three – Sardis. There is some debate about the ancient meaning of this name but the most plausible is that it means ‘precious remnant’. Jesus has nothing to commend this church for but He does say that they have ‘a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes’; in other words there is a faithful remnant within this church.

Sardis was a center for the wool trade in that part of the world so, unsurprisingly, Jesus weaves this into His letter by referring to the soiled clothes of the many and the white garments of the righteous few (Revelation 3:4). The Lord rebukes the church with the words, “Wake up!” and warns them that if they do not then He will come like a thief (Revelation 3:3); it is obvious from the context that this will not be a happy visitation. Now the city of Sardis was built around a steep plateau some 460 meters above the valley floor and only accessible by one narrow and very steep road. The original town was on top of this cliff but at the time of writing only the decaying remains of the citadel were at the top and the main city was at the foot of the cliff. The fortress city had been invaded only twice in ancient times. On both occasions a party of enemy soldiers had found their way up via the deep cracks in the cliff face. When they ascended to the top they found the citadel completely unguarded for the occupants had thought that they were unassailable.

The lesson to the church both then and now is obvious – Wake up! Like the complacent ancient inhabitants of the citadel city we too are to wake up, repent and obey. If we relate to the condition of Sardis then we need to wake up from the delusion that we are alive when we are in fact dead, despite an alive reputation. This applies particularly to churches that are surviving on the reputation of past vitality, but I think it also applies to churches that appear to be alive but are not. Programmes and social activities are easily mistaken for spiritual vitality but only the presence of the Lord in a church community gives it life.

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting to a friend who has been traveling to many parts of South Africa during the last couple of years. She and her husband stay at each location for a few months, freely serve the local church there with their gifting and talents, and then move on. They have interacted with about 15 churches so far. I asked her if there was any stand-out characteristics shared by these churches. Her answer was, “Yes, in every church the pastors are working frenetically and the church members are largely apathetic and uninvolved”. O dear! Perhaps we need to take Jesus very seriously when He says, “Wake up!”

The Lord’s prescription for this deathly disease is firstly to remember what we have received and heard. What all members of a once alive church have heard in the past undoubtedly concerned the centrality and lordship of Jesus Christ, the inspiration and authority of the Bible, and the need to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit. If only our reputation is alive then we have no doubt forgotten or no longer obediently live by these foundational truths. The medicine is a large dose of Repentance and the treatment regimen is daily Obedience.

Repentance + Regimen of obedience = Righteous Remnant.

The Remnant Read More »

Two new Sermons to Bless and Challenge

Leave a Comment / Blog, Home Bulletin, My Blog, Special Message / Christopher Peppler

Hi everyone, this week I am posting two new sermons onto the site which I think will bless you. Next week we will get back to the Revelation Revisited series.

The first sermon is an exposition of Luke 4:14-30. This portion of scripture contains several problems which I try to illuminate. For instance, the Isaiah text Jesus reads out in the synagogue does not exactly match either the Hebrew or the Greek Septuagint (early translation of the Old Testament) versions. Also, without appreciating the parallel accounts in Matthew and Mark it is difficult to make sense of the sudden change of the crowd’s reaction apparent half way through verse 22, and Jesus’ response to this. But the sermon is not just a background study of the passage because I pick up on three major points that come from the text; the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the really good news of the Gospel, and the danger of missing the Lords presence through familiarity and lack of faith. Here is the link.

I preached the second sermon just a few days ago. It is called ‘God is Able’ and is an exposition of Jude verses 24 and 25. God’s ability, His miraculous power, is not restrained by natural laws, supernatural forces, or by us. He is able to keep us from falling away from The Faith during this life-time, and when we die He is able to complete our salvation and present us faultless and acceptable to the Godhead. Here is the link to this sermon.

These sermons, and many more, can be found at www.truthistheword.com/sermons.

Next week I will be writing about the Lord’s letter to the church in Sardis, the church that thought it was alive and dynamic … but wasn’t.