January 24, 2017

Getting to the end of ourselves

We need to get to the end of ourselves to fully experience God’s power in and through us.

Would you agree with this statement? Well, it seems to be one of the things Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 12 where he defends his apostolic ministry. First he mentions that God caught him up to heaven where he ‘heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell’. Then, he continues, God gave him a ‘thorn in his flesh’ to prevent him from becoming conceited. But Paul’s affliction also served another purpose; it kept him dependent on God.

When he asked the Lord to heal his progressive blindness, for that is what I think the ‘thorn’ was (see Galatians 4:13-16 and 6:11), God responded with, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”. The first part of this could well mean something like, “Paul, don’t worry what others think of you because my favour and regard is all you need.” However, it is the second part of the statement that I want to zoom in on; “My power is made perfect in weakness”. A loose paraphrase of this could be, “My power only really manifests fully in you when you stop trying to do it all yourself. For me to be strong in you, you need to know that you are weak in yourself.” Now that is a rather strange thought for many of us. Certainly it contradicts the way the business and political world thinks; one of their motto’s is ‘the only one you can rely on is yourself’, and there are several others that express the same sentiment. But does God mean that He wants us to do nothing so that He can do it all? I don’t think that is quite it.

In the Old Testament there is the fascinating story of how Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord at a place he later called Peniel. Jacob was a tricky fellow who had thrived by using his wit and abilities to excel, largely at the expense of others. He had stolen the rights of a first born son from his brother Esau and now the time had come for him to face up to both himself and his brother. He sent his family and possession on ahead of him to impress and placate his brother in a final attempt to get ahead through guile and strategy. Then he stayed alone all night at a spot where the Jabbok and Jordan rivers meet. The Lord appeared to him in material form and wrestled with him until dawn. Finally, when all of Jacob’s strength and endurance were at an end, the Lord permanently impaired him by throwing his hip out of joint. God then changed the ’victorious’ man’s name to Israel.

I have three questions concerning this powerful interaction between God and Jacob. The first is, ‘Why did the Lord wrestle with Jacob the whole night when he could have beaten him in a nanosecond?’ I think that it was because He wanted Jacob to get to the very end of himself; of his strength, skill, and endurance. Secondly, ‘Why did the Lord give Jacob a permanent limp (a thorn in the flesh)?’ My belief is that this was to constantly remind him that God was stronger than him. Lastly, ‘Why did the Lord change Jacob’s name to Israel?’ Well, the name Jacob means ‘supplanter, trickster, con-man’. Israel, on the other hands means either ‘he strives with God’, or ‘Prince with God’, or even ‘Let God rule’. By the way, the reason one Hebrew word can be translated in different ways is primarily because the language has no vowels and so these are added when translating to make sense of the word within its specific context. By renaming Jacob I believe that God was, among other things, saying, “Jacob, in yourself you are just a con man, but in me you are a prince.” Jacob came to Peniel in his own strength but he left it to meet his brother in the Lord’s strength.

Paul expressed the principle of getting to the end of oneself as, ‘For when I am weak, then I am strong’ (2 Corinthians 12:10). However, it is clear from his attitude and actions that he didn’t stop trying his hardest to be and do what was honouring to God. For instance, in Philippians 3:13-14 he writes, ‘Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus’. The proper response to the realisation that Gods strength is manifest in our weakness is not to give up or to try less, but to come swiftly into line with God’s purpose and power. It is mostly a matter of attitude.

What usually happens with us, if we are honest with ourselves, is that we try to do everything we can in our own strength and then, like Jacob, we only come to God for help when we have tried everything but are still not succeeding.

We seem to have to get to the end of ourselves before we rely on God’s grace and strength. What a pity! Wouldn’t it make so much more sense if we realised up front that we can’t do it on our own and asked the Lord Jesus to partner with us from the very beginning.

I think the words ‘partner with us’ are the key here. God is the senior partner and we are junior partners – but partners never the less. We need to do our very best, but in partnership with Almighty God. Our prayer needs to be, “Lord I can’t do this on my own so I want to do it with you, and your way, from the very beginning”.

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Faith

“Pat, where is your faith?!”

The exclamation came from a lady in our congregation just after my wife had shared her concern about the church finances. I had left a secure and well paid executive job in a major bank just months before to pastor a very small but growing church. A flu epidemic was sweeping our area and Pat had said something like, “If everyone is sick and they don’t come to church then how are we going to make ends meet?” It was in the days when most people used cheques or cash, and so non-attendance usually meant non-giving. Despite our concerns, everything worked out just fine and has continued to do so till this day, but I wonder what the lady meant by her question.

Today when I hear people talking about faith I still question what they mean when they use the word.

To some people faith equates to ‘standing on the promises of God’. By this they usually mean all the general promises of scripture irrespective of when or to whom they were originally given. Some take this even further by constantly reminding God what He has promised in the Bible. Some even claim the promises as their right and confess that God is bound by His Word to fulfil them all. Is this biblical faith? I don’t think it is, in fact it sounds more like presumption to me. I have serious reservations about placing unqualified trust and dependence on generalised biblical statements such as ‘”I will restore you to health and heal your wounds” declares the Lord’ (Jeremiah 30:17). Surely I cannot ‘claim’ this promise in my current circumstance irrespective of context, time, and purpose, simply because it is stated in the Bible as a promise to ancient Israel?

Some folk believe that faith is a force that can be used to achieve what we want. They base this on the King James Version of Hebrews 11:1, ‘now faith is the substance of the things hoped for…’ A dictionary definition of ‘substance’ includes the idea of something tangible, like electricity, so accordingly ‘faith’ is something tangible that can be manipulated in a similar way to, say, electricity. According to this doctrine, we should grow our faith and use our faith in order to obtain what we hope for. Of course words like ‘substance’ in King James’s day meant something else entirely and modern translations render it as ‘being sure of ‘(NIV) or ‘assurance’ (NASV), or something similar. So is this ‘faith is a force’ idea biblical? I don’t believe it is. Having faith in faith is both unbiblical and almost atheistic. Where is the need for God in such a doctrine? All one needs is to believe that belief itself will achieve for us what we hope for – God is superfluous! Our faith is not in faith, but in Jesus, who is the source and object of our trust and dependence.

In the Old Testament, faith is defined as resting, trusting and hoping in God, with the idea that we should trust in and commit ourselves to the Lord. In the New Testament, faith is defined as believing and accepting a statement as true, and further, to place personal trust in this belief. To have faith in Jesus for salvation is therefore to believe what He says and to rely on Him to accomplish what He says He will do.

However, faith in itself is not limited to Christians. To my mind, atheists are people of great faith because they choose to believe that God does not exist and they live accordingly, trusting implicitly that life ends at the grave and that there is no eternal accountability for how they live out their lives. However, to the Christian, faith should never be separated from the one in whom we have faith, the Lord Jesus Christ

In essence, faith is a divinely motivated decision to believe and trust in the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit illuminates the testimony of the scriptures to us in such a way that we believe sufficiently to act on or rest completely in the promise. The basis of our faith is the nature and character of God as revealed in and through Jesus Christ. God is good, faithful, and totally trust-worthy.

Perhaps the lady who responded to my wife’s concerns should have addressed her as follows; “Pat, do you believe that God has assured you that He will provide for your needs? Then have faith in what He has said to you; believe Him, trust Him and don’t worry about the flu epidemic. You might be short of funds for a month, or maybe longer, but you will come through because God will not desert you; He is faithful”

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What on earth is an ehtit?

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

Giving to the local church is biblical and important, but tithing is a self-serving remnant from a long distant age.

On numerous occasions, I have sat through Sunday services where there have been two sermons; one on tithing and the other on whatever topic the preacher had on his heart. I am not being facetious or sarcastic here, but some churches preach on tithing every Sunday. The exhortations I have heard on this subject usually take one of two forms:

There is the appeal to God’s Law, routinely built around, what I call ‘Malachi’s mallet’; “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.” But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse — the whole nation of you — because you are robbing me” (Malachi 3:8-10). Then there is the…
…‘let’s do a good deal with God’ approach, and here the continuation of the Malachi passage works well; “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it” (Mal 3:10-11). So, great, let’s give 10 and He will give us 100… a good deal indeed!

Does the Bible insist that disciples of the Lord Jesus give a tenth of whatever they earn? Are pastors righteous when they insist that their members tithe to their local church? Should we be financially funding our local church? My answers are No… No… and Yes!

Tithing, which is a word describing a tenth of something, has its origin in the life of Old Testament Israel and was what we today would understand as Income Tax. The tithe paid for Israel’s system of government before the advent of kings and kingdoms. The priests administered religious ritual and the judges administered justice and provided national leadership. All adult citizens paid the tithe to fund the religious and judicial systems (Leviticus 27:30, Numbers 18:26).

Ehtit Do we find the concept of tithing in the New Testament? No, we do not, but we do find a few references to it. Its first New Testament appearance is when Jesus was declaring dire woes on the Pharisees; “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone” (Luke 11:42 and also in Matthew 23:23). Advocates of tithing often link this to what Jesus said concerning the Law; “I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). Here, Jesus is not only said to be endorsing the tithe, but also claiming that non-tithers will not go to Heaven! But is this honestly what these texts mean? I don’t think they do; in fact I think that this understanding is as back-to-front as ‘ehtit’! The address to the Pharisees consisted of woes, not affirmation. The Matthew 23 passage starts with Jesus telling His followers that they were to obey the Pharisees, despite their hypocrisy, because they were the custodians of the Law of Moses. Before Jesus died to settle the demands of the Law, the Jews were still under the Law and could only be deemed righteous before God if they obeyed all of its requirements. His statement recorded in Matthew 5:20 simply reinforces this truth. However, Jesus put to death the demands of the Law when He died on the cross of Calvary. Paul wrote of how Jesus abolished ‘in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations’ (Ephesians 2:15). He also wrote, in Romans 3:21-22 that ‘now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe’. Jesus was not endorsing the law of tithing for His followers, He was simply pointing out that outside of salvation in Him there was no righteousness for the Jews apart from scrupulous obedience to all of the dictates of the Law of Moses.

In his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul spelled out the gospel-oriented understanding of financial giving (2 Corinthians chapters 8 & 9). Giving, and especially giving to the local church, which is the extended family of God, is a privilege and a joy. It pleases God and it makes us happy. It also provides the financial means for the local church to function, serve, teach, care, and reach out into its environment with the Gospel.

Some pastors preach tithing and even demand the tithe because they sincerely believe that it is biblical, but I believe that they are sincerely wrong.

Perhaps others think that they will be financially insecure if they do not constantly exhort their people to tithe. But insecurity comes from not trusting God rather than from concern over people’s adherence to a redundant Old Testament law. I left a very well paid executive job in the banking industry to pastor a tiny church of 17 or so people. I continued to lead that church as it grew and thrived over three decades, and never in all that time did I preach tithing, and never did my family not have the essentials of life. God provided for us adequately and faithfully through the local church. God does that you know!