Do we really want revival?

The latest ‘Sons of Blunder’ podcast was recorded yesterday; it’ll be released soon. In it, we discuss how to re-evangelise the Highlands and during the conversation the subject of revival came up. It got me thinking, what would revival actually look like? And do we really want it?

What is revival?

JI Packer describes revival as “God touching minds and hearts in an arresting, devastating, exalting way, to draw them to himself. It is the God accelerating, intensifying and extending work of grace that goes on in every Christian’s life.” Revival is an extraordinary move of God’s Spirit that causes us to pursue God above everything else.

In the Highlands revival is something Christians say they are desperate to see. Previous generations have experienced it; most recently in Lewis in the 1949-1953 but there’s lots of others you can read about in Tom Lennie’s excellent book ‘Glory in the Glens’. For Highland Christians, revival is thought of like the bath after a day in the mountains; the cup of tea on the couch after a long, hard day at work. It’s a time of refreshing on weary people and the truth is we’re tired out, the ground is dry so we want the Lord pour out His Spirit and revive us again.

Everyone seems to want revival but have we ever stopped to considered what it would mean? I can think of 3 things:

1 – Revival means change.

When God’s Spirit falls, people outside of the Church come to faith. The Spirit gives spiritual life to people that don’t have any spiritual life in them. If revival came, people would start asking questions about God, church buildings would be fuller, baptisms would be more regular. But the Spirit isn’t just after converts, He makes disciples, so if revival came our churches would need to teach people to follow Jesus. Just like a family changes when a baby is born, church families change when people are reborn.

So if God brings revival, then our cosy little families would need to change. We’d have to answer ‘How do we disciple all these people?’ Our existing structures wouldn’t be enough to make disciples of lots of new believers. Revival would mean new wineskins for new wine. Our well established home groups would need to be split to make room for more people. Our weekly conversations with the same people would need to be sacrificed to talk to new people. We might even need to let someone else sit in ‘our’ seat. If God’s Spirit moved powerfully today our nice little church would change.

Do you still want revival?

2 – Revival means confession.

When God’s Spirit falls, people confess their sin. The Spirit convicts us of sin and gives us power to repent. If revival came people would become painfully aware of their imperfections and put their trust in Jesus’ perfection. But here’s the thing – the Spirit doesn’t just call people outside the church to repent, He also calls Christians to repent because we’re also sinners.

It’s often said that ‘revival begins with us’ but do we actually think about what that means? If that’s true, then it means that revival begins as we confess our sin and put our trust in Jesus. Revival begins when we become so painfully aware of our rebellion against God that we bring it to light, that let other people see it. Imagine what that would mean? People who have known each other for years revealing the deepest and darkest parts of their hearts. Secret struggles they’ve had for years becoming public. Revival would mean us taking off our masks of respectability. It would mean us rejecting the reputation that we’ve built for ourselves through our achievements. Revival would mean us looking weak and foolish. If God’s Spirit moved powerfully today our morally respectable form of Christianity would disappear.

Do you still want revival?

3 – Revival means mess.

So imagine God heard our prayers and revival broke out. What would it look like? It’d look like a family having loads of babies all at the same time! We’d be trying to work out how to cope – how do we make disciples of all these people? But not only that, it would also mean the people already in the family opening up about secrets they’d never told each other. Imagine all of that going on at the same time!

Revival would be all hands on deck, it’d be thinking on our feet, it would be pure and utter chaos! But as a friend once said to be ‘If you’re going to pray for rain, you’ve got to deal with the mud.’ If God’s Spirit moved powerfully today it’d mean lots and lots of mess.

Do you still want revival?

What do you want?

In the Highlands we all say we want revival. We say that we want the Spirit to fall just like He did in Lewis. We say that we want Him to revive the Church. But when we think about what that means do we really still want it?

Are we really willing to sacrifice our neat, tidy Church structures? Are really we willing to exchange our respectable reputations for foolishness?  Do we really want the hassle of revival?

The real issue behind the question is what do we want most? Do we want God enough to change? Do we want God enough to be honest? Do we want wet mud more than hard ground?

Do we really want revival or are we happy with how things are? If we want it, revival begins with us…

Why bother with church membership?

‘This blog series is based on one idea from the sermon each week. This week’s blog is written by Jodie Murchison. It’s based on the sermon ‘Thessalonica’ which you can listen to here: https://soundcloud.com/livinghopeinverness/acts-171-9-thessalonica’

Why bother with church membership?

This question is often levelled at ministers and those who are part of a local church. There are undoubtedly numerous reasons as to why this question is asked – one reason is that people are curious and looking for answers, another reason is that people are sceptical of membership and are making a tongue and cheek remark.

In the Highlands of Scotland, I think that we have people who fall into both categories. However, from my own personal experience of talking to Christians who aren’t members of a local Church – lots of them have had a bad experience and been hurt by the church in the past. There are those who have been affected by legalism; they’ve grown up in the church, but have later left due to the overbearing strictness which was imposed upon them. Then there are those who have been victims of liberal views of church – they have been taught that membership doesn’t matter and that it is only Jesus that they need to have a relationship with. Kevin DeYoung puts it this way ‘Some Christians–because of church tradition or church baggage–may not be convinced of church membership no matter how many times “member” actually shows up in the New Testament’.

So, let us try and answer this question together, why bother with church membership?

1 – It’s a public declaration – Joining a local church is a visible sign that you have committed to God and His people. It displays to the world that you believe the Good News of Jesus and are committed to living in light of that. This is a huge statement – the culture that we live in is, one which is consumeristic and uncommitted. It is countercultural to commit to being part of something.

2 – It displays something of God – Many have taken the word ‘Church’ and settled for a definition which only means a building. However, this is lowering what Church is. Church is the invisible body of Christ which is visibly displayed to the world through local communities of people who are covenanted to one another, in other words we are a family. The Church is the people of God, not a building. This displays something of the character of God in that He lives in perfect community in and of himself – therefore living in community with one another tries to mirror this characteristic.

3 – It provides accountability – Christians are called to live in submission to Gods Word – we are not to self-govern our own lives and do as we please. Membership of a local church allows for when we wander from how we are supposed to live that we are held accountable for that. It allows for the leaders of the church to lovingly speak Gods Word into our situation in order that we would once again be in submission to it.

4 – It promotes unity – The reason that many Churches have membership courses is so that those who are looking to join the local church agree with the values and beliefs of that community. This is vitally important as it allows for there to be unity, the people of God are able to worship Him with one Spirit.

On Sunday in Acts 17:1-9, we seen people hear the Gospel and respond to that by forming a church. Paul had gone to the local synagogue announcing the Gospel in a language which the Jews would have understood, this resulted in some believing it and joining Paul and Silas. In the following verses, it seems that they had been received by Jason and started to meet in his house. This is an example of Christians living in community with one another in the early church – this is church membership on display.

John Piper says, “Church membership is a blood-bought gift of God’s grace. More than most of us realize, it is a life-sustaining, faith–strengthening, joy-preserving means of God’s mercy to us. I urge you not to cut yourself off from this blessing.”

Scotland is grey.

‘This blog series is based on one idea from the sermon each week. This week’s blog is written by Pete Rennie. It’s based on the sermon ‘Philippi’ which you can listen to here: https://soundcloud.com/livinghopeinverness/acts-166-40-philippi’

The Spiritual climate of Scotland, just like our weather, is grey. According to a recent Barna Trust survey, 70% of Scots don’t go to Church because they “are just not interested in religion.” The majority of Scots are neither strongly for, nor strongly against Christianity, they’re just ‘meh’ towards it.

And we feel the weight of that greyness within the Church.  We have a desire to see people come to know Jesus so we put effort into organising and running programmes to serve our community, we invite people to our events, we try to share our faith with our friends and what happens? Not much, most people just aren’t interested. It’s just grey.

Scotland today can be a very discouraging place to live as a missionary. Mission gives us plenty opportunites to put into practice our natural ability for dourness.

But into the greyness Acts 16 offers us hope.

There the Holy Spirit prevents Paul, Timothy and Silas from going North to Asia, or East to Bithynia. Instead, He leads them West to a city called Philippi. That’s significant because Jesus promised His disciples that they would be His witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth; this is the gospel arriving in Europe. Acts 16 shows that God hasn’t taken a back seat role in mission, the Spirit is at the front leading the Church forward. God is committed to fulfilling His mission.

What does that mission look like? We see in the rest of the chapter. Luke tells us about 3 people who become Christians from all sorts of backgrounds. A wealthy fashion designer called Lydia, a demon-possessed slave girl and a Roman jailer all put their faith in Jesus. The mission of God looks like people joining His family. And we see in Acts 16 that nothing can stop that from happening; not Lydia’s wealth, not the girls demons, not even Paul and Silas being locked up in jail.

Acts 16 shows us that God is fulfilling His mission, He is relentlessly gathering a people for Himself from every tribe, language, people and nation. And nothing can stand in His way. God is on mission and He will be successful.

And we need to remember those 2 things in Scotland today. You see, sometimes mission here feels like we are fighting against God. It can feel like we want people to become Christians but God doesn’t seem as eager as we are. It can seem like He has sent us to a place that’s just too grey for His mission to advance.

But Acts 16 splashes colour onto the grey canvas of Scotland. It shows us the missional heart of God. He is still committed to extending His family; every Christian is a splash of colour on the grey canvas. And God is still able to add more, the greyness isn’t too strong.

Scotland is grey but there’s colour on the canvas and God can add more.

So let’s be encouraged and keep pressing on.

 

Gospel Freedom.

‘This blog series is based on one idea from the sermon each week. This week’s blog is written by Anne Rennie. It’s based on the sermon ‘Gospel Freedom’ which you can listen to here: https://soundcloud.com/livinghopeinverness/godly-freedom’

Over 95% of people in Inverness don’t go to any church of any kind.

So how do we let people know the good news of Jesus Christ if they’re not interested in coming to church to hear it?

We go to them.

Paul explains through Timothy in Acts 16 that we have been given a ‘gospel freedom’ or an opportunity to meet people where they are, in order to bring the good news to them. As Christians we’re free from following one specific cultural code, we’ve been given the freedom to adapt to the culture we’re in.

Therefore we have the ability to participate in the culture God’s put us in. We’re free to get along side people, to get to know them, to eat where they eat, to watch TV programmes with them, to go on work nights out with them, to walk our dogs with them, to drink coffee with them, to climb a hill with them and be to them what they need us to be.

But we aren’t to use our freedom as an excuse to sin. We’re to use it to make Jesus famous.

Christ Jesus came to us. He met us where we were. He denied Himself in order to make us His family. He gave up His rights in order to give us an inheritance. He gave up His life in order that we can have true life.

There is no way we would have ever met Him if He left it up to us.

What a beautiful example to motivate our hearts to go to those around us.

The Desire for Conflict.

‘This blog series is based on one idea from the sermon each week. This week’s blog is written as a poem by DI Murchison. The poem is based on the sermon ‘Godly conflict’ which you can listen to here: https://soundcloud.com/livinghopeinverness/godly-conflict’

The Desire for Conflict

Hello dear readers, it’s time to prepare,
for a report on the sermon in a manner deemed fair.
That which looks at the conflict of kin,
And the potential to harbour unrepentant sin.

Alas, it was told by the good reverent Rennie,
That community is to be shared by the greater many.
And where two or more meet, there’ll be He,
Yet with hearts still sin-tainted we’d be sure to disagree.

On many simple matters, families have been breached,
Over worship, prayer or how the Word be preached.
Among these are matters so painfully trivial,
There could be no hope of a church as convivial.

But how may you ask, is there desire for this?
We want to be a church that’s united, not a church that’s remiss!
For that my dear reader I must take the time to explain,
That for a child to grow there must be some sort of pain.

An example may be, a small scar on your arm,
No doubt to obtain it you experienced some harm.
Say it was caused by a fire, tell me what did you learn?
That to reach into the fire will result in a burn!

The same is with people, that when life is on life,
We’ll be partial to sorrow, stress and much strife.
If people see us at both our worst and our best,
Then we can show them how with grace we are blessed.

And with conflict we’re given the chance to mature,
To repent and agree, we’ll either obscure or procure.
We ought not to pinch splinters with logs in our eyes,
But in love, discuss, and give sin no disguise.

To do so is hard, and not a cultural norm,
But by doing so, to Christ we will slowly transform.
And through each battle, and person offended,
We have a chance that through grace the friendship be mended.

Just as Pete said, a boil must be burst,
But doing so without love makes dear friends accursed.
Yet in love, we may see both our sins laid to rest,
But to do this we must see said sins being addressed.

To know how to do this, we need just look to Christ,
Who for fellowship with man, became our sacrifice.
If the Son of God can humble Himself so low,
Forgiveness and reconciliation is something we can give a go.

If we want to be seen as a church that serves,
We’re likely to get on at least one person’s nerves.
Even as Christians we’re prone to doubt and lie,
Even the disciples gave Jesus many reasons to sigh.

Just as our Father has both forgiven and forgot,
We remember that through a great price we’ve been bought.
And if God can forgive the sins of our past,
We can live in unity without a soul being outcast.

If there’s only one thing you ought to remember,
It’s to love the Church, yes indeed every member.
To conclude, please look up Japanese ‘Kintsugi’,
Until next, God-bless, your faithful servant, DI.

Why do we make disciples?

‘This blog series is based on one idea from the sermon each week. This week was our weekend away where Doug Fell taught on ‘disciple making disciples.’ You can listen to two of Doug’s talks here: https://soundcloud.com/livinghopeinverness.’

This weeks blog was written by Jodie Murchison.

As Christians, we are far better at talking about discipleship than we are at actually doing it. This is true of people in general; we agree something is a good idea, but things change when we’re asked to actually do it. However, I believe that when our motives behind disciple making is correct, then the overflow from that will drive us into action. As Paul Tripp teaches if the roots are healthy, the fruit will follow.

There are numerous motivations that can be given for disciple-making but here I will offer only two:

1. Obedience: Making disciples is rooted in the great commission; in Matthew 28:19 Jesus tells His disciples to ‘Go and make disciples of all nations’. This is often called the great command. Jesus does not offer a suggestion here, something He feels is a good idea; He issues a command. Our job, as disciples, is to obey Him, to put disciple-making into action.

2. Love: Our obedience towards Jesus should not be one that is driven by fear or duty. In John 14:15 Jesus tells us that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. Jesus does not want our sterile obedience. He wants an obedience that is driven by love for Him, we should obey out of an overflow of our hearts.

When love driven obedience motivates why we make disciples then we can move from merely talking about making disciples to actually doing it. For Christians, disciple-making isn’t an option; it’s a command. For Christians, disciple-making isn’t a duty; it’s a natural overflow of a heart that loves Jesus. For Christians, disciple-making is the call because it’s through disciple making disciples that Jesus is fulfilling the great commission by gathering a people for Himself.

Here’s some questions to ask ourselves this week:

1 – Am I motivated to make disciples?
2 – If yes, why? What are you doing about it?
3 – If no, why not? What holds you back?

What is true faith?

‘This new blog series is based on one idea from the sermon each week. You can listen to the full sermon here: https://soundcloud.com/livinghopeinverness/unity-and-diversity’

 

Salvation by grace alone through faith alone

At the heart of the Christian faith is the declaration that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. Which means that human beings are forgiven of their sin and made right with God, on the basis of what Jesus has done not what we do and that we receive that forgiveness by faith alone, we do not earn it. That is the good news of Christianity.

That message is all over the Bible. On Sunday we saw it in Acts 15:9 where Peter declares that “God cleansed the Gentiles (non-Jews) hearts by faith”. So since we are saved by grace alone through faith alone it’s really important to ask ‘what is faith?’; after all our forgiveness from God depends on it. So what is it?

What faith isn’t

Let me start by saying two things that faith isn’t:

1 – Faith is not just mental agreement. To have faith is not just to know the facts about Jesus. Faith includes knowledge of what Jesus has done but true faith is more than knowledge.

2 – Faith is not a one time event. To have faith is not to say a prayer for forgiveness once and then go on living as we were. Faith includes asking for forgiveness but true faith is more than just a one time event that leaves us unchanged.

So if faith isn’t just mental agreement and it’s not a one off event. What is it?

What faith is

1 – True faith means to have put your trust in Jesus. It means to acknowledge your sin and your need of a Saviour, to see that through His perfect life, death and resurrection Jesus is that Saviour. He has lived the perfect life none of us can live, He has died on the cross taking the punishment for our sin and He has risen again to prove that our sin has been paid in full. True faith means to trust in Jesus as your Saviour, the only one who can make us right with God.

2 – True faith means a new life. The Bible doesn’t talk about a one-time decision to follow Jesus it talks about us being born again. To be a Christian means to become a new person; someone who obeys God. That’s why James 2:26 says “Faith without works is dead.” The evidence that your faith is real is that you live differently.

True faith means to have trusted in Jesus for forgiveness and the evidence of it is the change in your life.

So how do I know if I’m a Christian?

1 – You are professing faith in Jesus. You cannot be a Christian without faith so if you do not trust Jesus as your Saviour then you are not a Christian.

2 – You are changing. You don’t have to be perfect, none of us are but you will find that your thoughts and behaviour are changing. Some of the things you used to do you won’t want to anymore, and some of the things you didn’t want to do you now will. The most obvious example is that you weren’t interested in Jesus or Church but now you are and you want to find out more, you want to be around Christians, you want to pray. A Christian isn’t perfect but a Christian is changing.

Test yourself

So think about your life. Do you see the evidence of true faith? Have you asked Jesus for forgiveness? Are you different than you were 6 months ago? If you see that evidence then you can be confident that you’re a Christian and if you don’t then you shouldn’t be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary

This blog is the final part of our advent series I was unable to preach due to tonsillitis.

Over the course of our advent series we have learnt some important lessons about God:

1- He uses human sin to accomplish His purposes.
2- He works out His plan in unexpected ways.
3- He uses messy people for His mission.

As we look at Mary we learn a fourth – He exalts the humble.

Mary’s humility
Having learnt that she is the person God has chosen to give birth to the Saviour of the world, Mary bursts out in song. Why? Because God has looked on the humble estate of His servant. (Luke 1:47-48)

See, Mary wouldn’t be the obvious choice to care for God’s Son, she didn’t have the qualifications you might expect. A teenager from the backwater town of Nazareth, a town that people questioned “could anything good come from?” A virgin who’d never cared for a child. There was nothing on Mary’s CV that would make us take notice of her. She was of low estate, way down the world’s pecking order.

Mary’s exaltation
Yet while the world wouldn’t notice her, God sees Mary and chooses to work out His salvation plan through her. And what’s the result? All generations will call her blessed. (v48)

God looks on this lowly nobody and chooses her for a lead role in His plan for the world. He takes a humble teenager and exalts her as the mother of Jesus. God exalts Mary by giving her a main part in His story in the world. Luke demonstrates Mary’s exaltation by contrasting her belief in God’s message to her with Zechariah’s unbelief at His message to him. The priest on duty at the temple doubts that God can provide a baby for him and his wife in their old age while the teenager from Nazareth believes that “nothing is impossible with God.” (v37)

Gods glory

And that’s one point we learn from Mary God exalts the humble. Why? To show His strength (v51)

God uses the lowly, He chooses the weak so that His power will be shown off. He doesn’t choose Mary so that we’ll look at her and say how great she is but so that we’d look at God and say how great He is. That’s why Mary’s song is so God focused, she calls us to gaze heavenwards because the mighty God has done great things for her. (v49)

Mary is exalted so that we might marvel at the strength of God.

Our call
And the good news for us is that the underserved kindness that God shows Mary isn’t just for Mary. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. (v50) God has done great things for us too.

At Christmas we remember that God sent His Son into the world in the person of Jesus. In Jesus, God put on flesh to live the perfect life we can’t live, to die the death we deserve and to rise to new life so that we can live forever. The greatest thing God has done for us is send Jesus to save us from our sin. We receive the gift of salvation by humbling ourselves and confessing our need for Jesus to save us. Phillips Brooks sums it up in ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ where he writes “where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Lord enters in.”

But that isn’t the only great thing God has done for us. Through Jesus, God has invited us to join Mary in the cast of His mission in this world. As God’s people us nobodies have a role to play in His ongoing mission in this world. Like salvation we play that role by humbling ourselves. To participate in God’s mission means we humble ourselves and live for God’s name instead of our own name. We’re called to be servants like Mary who cause others to see the greatness of God.

The question to consider this Christmas is have you humbled yourself before God?

The gospel of John Lewis.

Unless you’ve been hibernating for the last few years you’ll have noticed that the worlds pretty divided at the moment.

Trump v Clinton.

Brexit v Remain.

Black v White.

Rich v Poor.

East v West.

All over the world division reigns but fear not the John Lewis Christmas advert is out and it brings good news of great joy.

If you haven’t seen it yet click here – if not, spoiler alert.

The advert begins with a Dad building a trampoline in a snowy back garden as his little girl goes to bed on Christmas eve. Before long 2 foxes appear and begin to bounce on the trampoline. Suddenly, a badger joins them. Before you know it a squirrel and a hedgehog join the party while buster the dog watches on desperate to join in.

‘Jesus out, trampoline in’

The advert is a beautiful picture of animals that should be divided uniting together because of a trampoline. The good news message of John Lewis is that we can all come together through trampolines (or any other product they sell) The gospel of John Lewis substitutes Jesus in the manger for a trampoline in the garden. 

It promises peace through trampolines, if everyone buys one all division in the world would disappear.

Jesus at the heart of Christmas

But Christmas is actually about the coming of Jesus, something that was promised 700 years before it happened. In Isaiah 11 we read this “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump on Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” Trampolines aren’t supposed to be at the heart of Christmas, Jesus is.

And what will Jesus do? Isaiah 11:6-9, looking ahead to the new creation, says: “The wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion,and a little child will lead them all. The cow will graze near the bear. The cub and the calf will lie down together. The lion will eat hay like a cow. The baby will play safely near the hole of a cobra. Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes without harm. Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,for as the waters fill the sea,so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord.”

Jesus came as the God-man to destroy sin and all it’s effects. Through His perfect life, death on the cross and resurrection from the grave He has secured a better future. A world of peace where as Isaiah 11 explains wolf and lamb will live together, leopards will care for baby goats, calves will be safe with lions and where babies will play near Cobras. Maybe foxes, badgers, squirrels and hedgehogs will even bounce on trampolines together?

Jesus has promised to restore a world of peace.

The gospel of John Lewis v the gospel of Jesus

You see, the gospel of John Lewis speaks into our God-given desire for a peaceful world and it offers us peace for the cost of a trampoline. The gospel of Jesus speaks to the same desire but it offers true peace for free because Jesus has already paid the price.

Two gospels, two saviours but one true hope.

 

What teenagers think of Christianity.

Each Tuesday I get the privilege of helping out with the SU group in our local High School. There’s around 20 teenagers who come along, most have no Church background whatsoever. Every week brings new insights into their hearts but yesterday was fascinating.

As part of an exercise the students were given a sheet and asked to answer ‘What do most people think about Christianity?’ The options were boring, pointless, out of date, full of rules, important, only for Sundays, interesting or the same as other religions.

What do you think the answers would be? I presumed the group of 5 unchurched teenage boys I was with would say boring and out of date. I was wrong.

5 out of 5 said important and full of rules and 4 out of 5 said interesting. None of the others got a tick. Fascinating.

See, often Churches presume that people today just aren’t interested in Jesus. We lament about our culture not seeing the importance of Christianity. However, (I know it’s a small sample) it looks like this generation don’t match up to our presumptions. And from my experience I think this is a trend that stretches across generations. I often meet people, of all ages, who are  interested in Christianity.

Why? Because they’ve never heard about it. They’ve never set foot in a Church. They’ve never had Bible stories read to them at home. They haven’t heard about Jesus at school assemblies. It’s not that people have heard and rejected Jesus it’s that most people have never heard the gospel before. And it’s our job to let them hear.

So as Churches lets leave our pessimistic presumptions behind and optimistically get on mission. Instead of complaining about the lack of interest in coming to our events lets use that energy to get out into culture to share the gospel with the people we meet. And while we’re at it let’s demonstrate that Christianity isn’t about the fullness of rules but about the fullness of life.