Prayer This Week

I should be in every morning this week.

Monday will be from a bit after 6:30 but the other mornings from between 5:00 and 5:30.

Phone me if you need the codes


0407431793

Philippians 2:6-8 The Tangible Heartbeat of Heaven - Part Two

Philippians 2

1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.



OUTLINE: FIVE EXPRESSIONS OF INCARNATION

1. THE GLORY OF BEING A NOBODY
Seeing no value in earthly status
“…he made himself of no reputation…”


2. THE GLORY OF BEING A SERVANT
Seeing no value in self centredness
“…and took the form of a servant…”


3. THE GLORY OF IDENTIFICATION
Seeing no value in franchised systems
“..and being made in human likeness….”


4. THE GLORY OF OBEDIENCE
Seeing no value in self determined independence
“…he became obedient to death…”


5. THE GLORY OF REDEMPTIVE PURPOSE
Seeing No Value in Compromise
”…even death on a cross…”





DISCOVERING THE INCARNATION: ONE


THE GLORY OF BEING A NOBODY
Seeing no value in earthly status

“Who being in very nature God did not consider
equality with God
something to be grasped….”


1. Jesus was there when the world was created. On the night he was born the very stars that shone in the sky shone down on the small round face of their creator.

On the day that Jesus stood before Pilate he had the power to command legions of angels to come and deal with the petty derived human power vested in the Roman procurator and overthrow him completely.

When he was misunderstood, ignored, despised and rejected he carried in himself the stature of the godhead.

On no occasion did Jesus call on any one of these things. He came to the world without rank or station. He exercised a ministry totally devoid of human sponsorship

2. What we have to remember is that influence has nothing to do with status. We will never have influence because we have status. We are often going to fall short of understanding the incarnation if we assume that if we can only
Gain importance
Make a lot of money
Be successful in the world’s eyes
We will have influence for God.

The truth is we can have influence for God and those things may or may not follow. But the only influence we have for God will come because of God. It will come from a different source. (Daniel had no status).

3. Be careful of the way you apply the Scripture: “a man’s gift makes way for him.” We can often think that if we excel in the exercise and development of our God given talents, we will have influence for God. Not so. Talents can be useful. They won’t be useful because they are consecrated. They will be useful when they are anointed. It is a flow of the Spirit of God that creates influence.

4. We have the opportunity to represent the incarnation model Jesus gave us. When we accept our identity as sons and daughters of the living God and when we agree to avoid the exercise of human ambition thinking that if we make something of our selves we will have influence for God we will lose opportunity for that influence.




DISCOVERING THE INCARNATION: TWO


THE GLORY OF BEING A SERVANT
Seeing no value in self centredness

“…but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…”



It doesn’t take long for most of us to realize how corrupted the “files” of our humanity have become when we place the words “glory” and “servant” in juxtaposition. This world does not see any glory in serving. It sees glory in being served. This is not true of everyone on every occasion. That’s why I love the ways of God. God has set up our life spectrum so that we will be confronted with eternity without realizing it.
For example he has hidden the idea of indissoluble love in marriage. Not that every marriage demonstrates this, but almost every man and woman who fall in love and decide to be married have “indissoluble unity” in their hearts. They have a hope that this man/woman will ride off into the sunset and that they will grow old together. In all my years as a marriage celebrant I have only ever encountered one couple who didn’t want to be married for the rest of their lives.
He has hidden servanthood in parenting; definitely in loving mothers and very often in loving fathers. Have you ever considered the dramatic introduction to servanthood that occurs when a young woman is taken to hospital by her husband. No one realizes that their lives will never be the same again. And no one could ever adequately capture the life long call that will be made on their willingness to be servants. The little bundle of joy requires 24/7 serving. As the days turn into weeks they will invest unmeasured volumes of time, emotion, energy and money to serve the needs of this unique creature delivered to them via childbirth.

Bur servanthood doesn’t come so easily. Jesus not only threw away access to the power and status of BEING GOD, but he took up the function and position of a servant. In actual fact the world used is the word “doulos” which is the New Testament word for “indentured slave.” It was a common and powerful image in the world of the first century. If you think it doesn’t come naturally to do the “servant” tasks around your household you need to understand that the carrying, washing and cleaning we might designate as servant tasks were nothing compared to the despairing hopelessness of slavery. It is hard for us to connect with the idea that a person could be bought and sold as the possession of another person. Think of the prospect of being owned by someone for the rest of your life to be used by that person to fulfill all the tasks that ordinary people didn’t want to even be paid to do. Think of have no rights, no freedoms, no opportunity and no chance of anything changing. No wonder there are so many “negro-spiritual” songs about heaven!

So take this image and apply it to the incarnational re-location of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Jesus talked about this a number of times. The most direct reference to the servant focus of incarnate ministry comes in the context of a discussion abut whether James and John should be given the seats next to Jesus when he kicks the Romans out and Israel rules the world (Mark 10).

35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” 36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. 37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” 38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” 39 “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.” 41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”


Just add a little context to this discussion by reading back in the chapter a few verses and you have Jesus talking about the fact that they were on their way to Jerusalem. The disciples were perplexed at the tactical value of this decision and other followers were simply scared. Jesus’ face was on “wanted posters” all over Jerusalem. To comfort the disciples he took them aside from the crowd and told them straight up that he was going to be betrayed, condemned, mocked, beaten and killed but that he would rise again after three days. Following that conversation is this conversation. The word “Then…” is a big word here. It puts this conversation in the context of what Jesus has just said.

To underscore the measure to which the disciples never got the message about Jesus’ death and resurrection but continued to believe that he was soon going to kick the Romans out and establish Israel as rulers of the world, James and John, the sons of Zebedee came to him. They knew that they were asking a cheeky question, so that pre-empted it by trying to get him to agree to what they wanted before they asked the question. With a full awareness of the limits on their appreciation of his mission and purpose, Jesus asked them what they wanted him to do. They came clean and admitted that they were wanting to get an inside running on the top jobs in the new kingdom he was going to set up. They wanted nothing less than being second in charge to Jesus as ruler.
Jesus responded by saying that they didn’t have a clue what they were asking for. He was going to be flanked by someone on his right and someone on his left on the cross, but he questioned whether they were really equal to the challenge.. When they professed that they were, he told them that the time would come when they would have to go through similar things to those he was about to go through. His dismissive line was to say that jobs in the kingdom of God were handed out by his Father, not Jesus himself.
The incident raised the need to explain an essential kingdom principle for the disciples. He pointed out that when unbelievers got hold of power they usually go to great lengths to show off their status and acquire all kinds of trappings that send a message to everyone as to their importance. They do this by imposing their misguided idea of authority on everyone and pulling rank all the time just to make sure people know whose the boss.
The kingdom of God works exactly the opposite. If you are going to demonstrate your greatness in the kingdom of God you do it by the zeal you have to serve and to exercise roles that this world would reserve for slaves. The person who is in charge in the kingdom will evidence this in that he or she will zealously serve all the people for whom they carry kingdom responsibility. It will be an indiscriminate servanthood.
Jesus replied that his own ministry modeled this core value. He had not come to make a big play of pulling rank on everyone, but had given himself to everyone as a servant. This servanthood would reach its climax as he literally gave his life to purchase salvation for those he came to serve.

To discover the nature of incarnational ministry is to discover the exalted status of servanthood. It is to discover the power of a life whose agenda is not set by one’s own preferences, predilections and desires. It is a discovery of the selflessness that focuses on other people before it focuses on yourself.

In the text of Philippians 2 we are given some examples of this attitude in action:


a. Do nothing out of selfish ambition
b. Do nothing on the basis of conceit (self importance)
c. Consider others as better than yourselves
d. Take responsibility for the interests of others


In order to attain this life quality we need to see it as something more than a duty. It is not a level of self control it is a change of heart. These things are in the Bible not because they are a personality type for some people. This is what we are designed to become as we allow the Holy Spirit to pour into our hearts and as we exercise faith. What we are after is a change of heart. We want to be different kinds of people. We want to be indiscriminate servants. We do that by exercising faith and we exercise faith by what we do, not what we think. We need to get ourselves into the sphere of servanthood and allow the Spirit of God to fill what needs to be filled and change what needs to be changed.

Why don’t you just try and do some servant tasks indiscriminately for a day. Do them by a faith decision. Just choose to do it. As you make that choice you will find how impossible it is. It may not flow at first. If you keep at it looking for God to change your heart you will find yourself doing it without it being a burden. You are looking for the royal road. That road is to see the status of servanthood like you now see the status of certain positions, certain possessions, certain characteristics etc. Servanthood must rise to be the most desirable thing …..because of the fact that it proclaims incarnational love.

Jesus said that his life modeled this servanthood. He had choices to make the same as you and I. What drove him was the servant heart of God. What directed his choices was the fact that he

“made himself nothing and took upon himself the nature of a servant.”

So what you have do now do is to allow the ministry of Jesus to define for you what a servant is and what a servant does. We have four whole New Testament books that define the heart of servant love. When you see that definition you can begin to desire this and exercise faith for this. Nothing less than this will do. It may be difficult at first because you may not think like a servant or desire like a servant or respond and react like a servant. But for a person to be a follower of Jesus, getting other people to serve you is never going to be satisfactory. Only when servant love flows in your veins will you be satisfied.

And when servant love directs your choices in a given situation, you have discovered what it is like to be incarnational. When you can’t be bought off by ambition that only thinks about yourself, you are touching incarnation. When you enter a room and find yourself wanting to treat every other person as being more important than you, you are touching the incarnation. When you seek what is best for them you touch the incarnation.




DISOVERING THE INCARNATION: THREE

THE GLORY OF IDENTIFICATION
Seeing no value in franchised systems

“..being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man…”


Isn’t it amazing that so many oppressed people in the world have found it so easy to belong to Jesus. The ones who have found it hard are the people who have status and money.

Isn’t it a tragedy that so often the institutional church has missed this completely and has found itself identifying with the oppressor rather than with the oppressed.


Isn’t it amazing that we can see a clear case for identifying with the outcast, the despised peoples through the generations and across the nations but when it comes to making a choice in the day to day experiences of our life we shy away from the despised and rejected people and side with the popular and prestigious people. We can find ourselves vying for their friendship just because they have some kind of human importance.

Jesus was totally human….. but his identification was not with the set of values that drove humans apart from one another: the values of wealth, education, ability, personality, occupation. Jesus identified with the sinners of his day, he embraced the lepers, he had meals with publicans, he took the side of the woman caught in adultery. He didn’t become an adulterer to identify with adulterers, he simply stood with them and offered them redemption. He suffered as a human person; he was numbered with the lowest of the low criminals in his final hour. He was divine, but people saw that divinity through the language of his humanity. It was true divinity that drove him toward humanity. It was divine love that touched the leper and slept beside the road to Judea. It was love that came from heaven, not the tainted self obsessed, self gratifying lust that earth has created and so often hallowed.

We can see this attitude reflected in the heart of Moses as we read what happened to him one day when he was walking in the place of highest privilege and opulence in his own day: the palace of Egypt:

Hebrews 11

24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

The important thing to notice for a person seeking incarnational love is the realization that we are not talking about something that people see as “noble.” Moses choice was a choice of identity. He chose to become one of them because he was one of them. When he made that choice is was like coming home. Do you think Jesus woke up on any morning and said,
“Could I just visit heaven for a while, because that’s who I really am.”

Do you think he said,
“Only three days to go before I get out of here and get back to heaven.”

Not once did he talk to his disciples about what it was like to be in heaven even though he had been there. We have people who talk about their experiences of going to heaven. They sell tapes and books about it. Jesus could have made the odd tape series to say what it was like to be in heaven but he never did. He was too excited about the prospect of bringing heaven to earth every day that he lived.


Hebrews 2
11 Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. 12 He says,
“I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” 13 And again,
“I will put my trust in him.”

And again he says,
“Here am I, and the children God has given me.”
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.


Incarnational love is the love of identity. Jesus took on the identity of humanity. There is a man in heaven. Jesus was not a man before Nazareth and has been a man ever since and will always be a man. He took his eternal identity as a man. This was no tourist trip, staying at a tourist hotel and visiting all the tourist locations. This was total identification. You can’t get any greater identification than taking humanity forever. When Jesus was walking the streets of Jerusalem and the dusty paths of Galilee he was home. He wasn’t making a few public appearances and doing a talk shows to sell his next CD. He was home. He was being totally himself.

We often subordinate incarnation to mission: We have this idea that we want to reach people and so we take note of what it says in 1 Corinthians 9 about becoming “all things to all men that we might win some.” This is what made colonial missionaries go and plant colonial culture in foreign countries in order to “reach the savages.” What people saw was nineteenth century British culture transported all over the world. That’s why the so many British missions organizations could live alongside the traders who were ripping the heart out of the local people for their own gain. That’s why Samuel Johnson could preach the gospel to convicts on Sunday and be a cruel magistrate on Monday. That’s why aboriginal people could be hunted and shot. It was based on the idea that to become a Christian you had to adopt the cultural package. They would have preached against the Jewish believers wanting to make Gentiles into Jews so that they could experience full salvation but would have made the same mistake as they assumed that to be Christian was to enshrine their culture in the form of the gospel.

The focus of identificational love is not to make you like me. The challenge of identificational love is for me to become like the person God wants you to be. People loved Jesus because he WAS them and he wasn’t acting out a role. He actually was them.

This process takes time. We don’t become something that we don’t start out as just by showing up. There is learning to do. We need to research and read and listen and absorb. Incarnation demands that we take up our identity AS the people we are called to exercise ministry to. That’s why the church has made such hash of it in the west. We have become la franchised version of someone’s tapes and books and conferences. We read a book and get excited about it for a while so we can read another book. We listen to some tapes and get a few good stories to tell other Christians but it doesn’t get us closer to our destiny. It doesn’t make us more like the people God has given us responsibility for. We listen to each other so much we don’t know how our neighbours think and when we hear them we just notice how much we want to be different from them. We don’t hear them to understand. We don’t listen to learn. We often listen in order to judge and we hear to condemn.

Just think what Jesus heard. Just think what he knew. Not once did he pull divine rank. Not once did the conversation turn to how good he was. He spoke life to people because he had become “like his brothers in every way.” (Hebrews 3:17) He didn’t invite them to his home. Their home had become his home. This is why we must offer people more than something we can produce here in this building on Sunday or some other day. It may well be an achievement to create a loving community to bring people to. Jesus didn’t seem to think that was particularly important. He could have got chosen his musicians well and rented a great building to invite people to.

John 1
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

It is this identificational love that can produce church anywhere simply because it is not a matter of a worship team and spiritually choreographed symphony. Jesus made his home with us because he was human. His humanity was not validated by sin any more than ours is. There is an idea spread around by some that to be human is to celebrate being sinful. Being human has never been about sin, it has always been about redemption from sin. Jesus’ humanity was the model of redemption. He walked it, talked it, thought it and desired it. It was his modeling of redeemed humanity that gave people hope simply because it was redeemed humanity, not degenerated divinity.

Jesus lived redeemed humanity every day. What is more important is that he lived it in the company of his disciples. Because of this identificational love he was able to build church every day. He set up church in every place. Church happened where he was when he was there. That’s why we need to re-study the gospels to find out how far away from identificational love we have MADE CHURCH.

I think the key is to focus on identification. Let your identity be forged by your understanding of who and what other people are supposed to be. Become that and you will make the presence of Jesus known wherever you are. You will make it known because you will be speaking and living it in a language people can understand. We have missed the identification bit and have lost the power to communicate Jesus. We proclaim church as a sub-culture, not Jesus the cultural revolutionary.



DISCOVERING THE INCARNATION: FOUR

THE GLORY OF OBEDIENCE
Seeing no value in self determined independence

“…he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.”


Obedience is such a dirty word to most post-modern minds. It is an offense to humanistic spirits. Obedience in our society is considered tantamount to servitude. We have made such a virtue of independence that obedience is seen as its thief. It’s simply a dirty word. To ask someone to obey makes you a tyrant and to offer to obey makes you a lackey or some kind of sycophant. In Australia we have made a virtue out of bucking authority and we have written a liturgy to immortalize the idea:
“No one’s going to tell me what to do!”


Part of the experience of Jesus with regard to his incarnation was the role of obedience. This has been highlighted in recent years as John Wimber reminded us that the key to Jesus strategic operations was to do only what he “saw his Father doing.” There are five separate references in the gospel of John to this phenomenon:

John 5
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.

John 8
28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am └ the one I claim to be┘ and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.

John 12
49 For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”

John 14
10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

24 He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

John 15
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.


1. Because Jesus was simply obedient to his Father he lived a life of freedom and innocence
He wasn’t swayed by the opinions of others
He didn’t get embroiled in a game of playing favourites
He wasn’t compromised by personal or personality issues.
He wasn’t drawn in any form of retribution (payback)

2. Because Jesus lived a life of obedience to his Father he was not limited to doing only those things that he could understand.

3. Because he lived to do the will of his Father Jesus could embrace what was difficult, painful and what seemed humanly disastrous. He was free to cross the lines created by his emotions, his personality and his ignorance.


4. Consider this piece of amazing revelation in Hebrews Chapter Four:

7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him 10 and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.


Because Jesus was obedient to his Father the only option was to complete the work not simply make a contribution and then leave. Jesus was a Son who would only be satisfied when he could say: “It is finished.” The only way out of where he was was completion of the task. There was no idea of just preaching a few sermons and making a bit of impact. In this light so many people make a mockery of this when they tie obedience to what is gratifying, or to what they prefer, or to some human system that bows at the altar of convenience and comfort.


5. Because Jesus was obedient he was dependent on his Father. At no time was communication with his Father, or his relationship with his Father an expendable commodity. The Jesus brand of obedience was not simply sticking to a few wise rules. He was as dependent on his Father for the next thing he was to do and say as he was for the last thing he did and said. That’s why legalism is such a travesty when it tries to express genuine Christian faith. On no occasion did Jesus simply follow a “golden rule.” What he did flowed out of the relationship with his Father. That way he could be found laying his hand on one man and spitting on another. We want rules and systems because we find intimacy a burden and obedience a source of aggravation. Cast your eyes over the ministry of Jesus and see how often reverted to what was systematic and customary. Almost never if ever at all. What he had was a relationship with his Father. He didn’t parade it. He didn’t presume upon it. He didn’t use it as a manipulative tool (how many times do you hear Jesus saying, “Thus says the Lord…” in order to get people to listen to what he had to say, or to bolster his credentials. He had authority to do everything that was necessary simply because he was obedient to his Father at any point in time.


6. Because Jesus was obedient to his Father he was freed from the need to be religious. Jesus was spiritual but never religious. He was full of faith but never had to revert to the system. He didn’t simply blast the system out of existence the way some of our brothers and sisters seem to need to do. He focused on providing the genuine article. While Jesus did have things to say about the system it wasn’t his major focus. There was a time toward the end of his ministry where he articulated the failures of the religious leaders of his day: Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, teachers of the law. They all got a serve. But he didn’t build his ministry on this brand of revolutionary behaviour. He didn’t demonize the religious leaders in order to canonize his own ministry the way some Christian leaders do and have done. He got up the noses of the religious spirits of his day simply because he was not prepared to play their game. He simply got on with the job of preaching the kingdom and doing the works of the kingdom of God. He did that because his sole objective on any one day was to do his Father’s will.


7. Because Jesus was obedient to his Father’s will he didn’t have to have a three year plan. Consider the following possibility. Jesus calls twelve men to be his followers and companions in the ministry. When they gather on the shores on Galilee for the first time he gives them the full run down own what he expects of them and what they can expect from him. He tells them what hours they are going to be working and what hours they will have to themselves for personal recreation. He establishes pay scales and hands each one of them an employment contract to sign. The contract is because his insurance company will not pay workers’ compensation unless there is a contract. He then sets out a timetable of dates and events for his meetings and hands out job sheets for all the disciples according to their spiritual gifts.

I don’t think so. Jesus’ introductory talk may have indicated that he wanted them to follow him and that he was going to do everything his Father told him to do.



OBEDIENCE ASSUMES INCARNATION

Jesus obedience was part of what made him like us. He demonstrated a life of obedience because that was the way it was meant to work for created beings. He didn’t have access to the full story while he was on earth. He deferred to the Father on numerous occasions, saying that the particular matter was something in the hands of the Father and therefore not worth speculating about. He wasn’t play acting in saying that. He really didn’t know “the times and season set by the Father’s authority” when he was walking on the earth. Jesus didn’t concern himself with them. On that occasion he pointed clearly to what we should be concerned about: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:7,8)

There is something beautiful that happens when we use our knowledge and understanding to make it easier for people to know and understand, not harder. Some writers are so concerned to make you aware that they know a lot that they rob many of the very opportunity to know what they know. Obedience to his Father was what put Jesus’ intimacy and experience of the Father within the reach of every many and every woman. He once rejoice that the Father had made it possible for babies to understand what was important. (Luke 10)



DISCOVERING THE INCARNATION: FIVE

THE GLORY OF REDEMPTIVE PURPOSE
Seeing No Value in Compromise

“…even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”



Jesus didn’t set out to become the greatest leader the world has ever known. He wasn’t conscious of the fact that he had to be the goodest person on the face of the earth. He didn’t think about gaining a reputation as the leader of a movement. He came give his life as a ransom for many. It was redemptive purpose that lay at the bottom line of the whole experience. The cross wasn’t just a sad turn in the road. It was far more than a great injustice. We shouldn’t find ourselves getting angry with the religious leaders or with Roman brutality. Jesus life was a redemptive mission. He spent three years modeling what it was like to be a child of God and three days making it possible.

The cross will always be the symbol of God’s redemptive purpose because it will always be a reminder to us of what we needed to be redeemed from. It is a reminder of what the alternative is: the alternative to receiving forgiveness is a way of life that takes the world’s only innocent man and putting him to death as if he were a shameful criminal. It is what unleashes systems of human jurisprudence on the innocent as a convenient tool for people wanting to preserve their position and power.


Jesus never compromised this purpose. He didn’t find friendship with his disciples as an alternative. They were such good friends. He called them friends. They stuck around like friends. But friendship was not the core value. Jesus was there to give his life as a ransom for many. That was the goal. For this goal their friendship and loyalty would be questioned and tested in the fires of violence and political intrigue.


Jesus did not compromise this purpose with the opportunity to ride the wave of popularity. He didn’t publish his ten best healing stories in the magazine distributed to all those on his mailing list. He didn’t stand on the side of the mountain and allow his fans to honour him. When they wanted him to run for Prime Minister he slipped away before anyone could sign him up to their political party.
Even though he rejected the idea of using his popularity, he is the many who more people have died for in more generations from more nations than any other single human being. The fact that right now Christianity claims a billion more adherents than any of the world religions is testimony to the fruit of his daily decision to follow after redemptive purpose.


Jesus did not compromise redemptive purpose with political expediency. You only have to think about what Jesus could have done to “win over” the support of the religious leaders. He was a rabbi. He had done the training. He could have had effective influence by cultivating friendships with key people at the temple in Jerusalem. He never saw the idea as having any merit. The reason was because he was primarily about redemptive purpose.
Even though Jesus refused to buy into the political power games of his day, his life and teaching has influenced more political systems than any other in the world. It has challenged many and its wisdom has undergirded many more.


Jesus didn’t compromise redemptive purpose with family obligation


Jesus didn’t compromise redemptive purpose with populist teaching


Jesus didn’t compromise redemptive purpose with cultural compliance.


Jesus never sacrificed redemptive purpose on the altar of career opportunity

The Incarnation: The Tangible Heart Beat of God

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS - I WILL BE ADDING NOTES TO THE FIVE DISCOVERIES IN THE NEXT DAY OR SO. KEEP CLOSE TO JESUS -

and love to you from Brian


I read from an arti cle in the Christianity Today Library that was written by Philip Yancey about Henri Nouwen. Its a great read. If you go to the Christianity Today Library Site you might be able to get to read it. CT Library is a wonderful source of all kinds of stuff on all kinds of subjects. I subscribe because of my interest in Christian History really. Go to CTLIbrary.com

Brian




PHILIPPIANS CHAPTER TWO

1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
14 Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe 16 as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. 17 But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. 18 So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.


INTRODUCTION

1. Today I want to talk about an issue which is as vital to every part of Christian faith as your heart is vital to your body. It is perhaps consistent therefore that this was among the first issues to challenge the church of the first generation and has challenged the church in every generation since then.

A College professor by the name of James Edwards wrote an article a few years ago entitled, “The Jesus Scandal” and the subtitle says, “The church has had a long history of discomfort with Christ.”

He says this:

“The Christian gospel differs most radically from all other religions in the doctrine of the Incarnation. Yet it also seems true that the church is scandalized by the Incarnation no less than the world is.”[1]


We have just celebrated the season we call Christmas. The Christmas story is breathtaking in the extreme. It is the story of a marginalized girl betrothed to a similarly marginalized man from a marginalized town in Galilee. The Christmas event is replete in its commitment to what has no status and no significance. The stable, the birth, the nature of the prophetic witness. It was one of the most disregard-able series of events in history. The son of God lived for thirty years without a mention of his identity, his purpose or his status. Could you keep a secret like that for thirty years. Could you wait for thirty years to begin the ministry for which you have been given breath. Well if you are a follower of Jesus that sort of stuff doesn’t come as a surprise. Its what the master did.

Little wonder that matters like this scandalized the “church world” of the day. What was happening was what we refer to as INCARNATION. The classic Bible verse that talks about this is from John’s gospel:

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; and we beheld his glory. The glory as of the One and only from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

Now this statement was the observation of his disciples. And this wasn’t written twelve days after Christmas. Interestingly the verses that precede this statement are as profound in the negative sense as this is in the positive.

“He was in the world, and though the world was created by him, the world did not recognized him. He came to that which was his own, and his own did not receive him.” (John 1:10,11)

It is clear that the church had a problem from the beginning with the idea that Jesus Christ was not just going to become a man, but he was going to become a very common man. The Bible says there was nothing about him that would make him a stand out. Until the day he stepped into the water to be baptized by John he identity and his exalted nature was totally unknown. It was the very unpretentiousness of Jesus life that was the source of the scandal. The “church” of the day abhorred what we today have worshipped. The church of Jesus’ day ignored what we have honoured. The church of Jesus own day rejected what we have largely embraced.

And they have done it in different ways in every generation since.

1/2nd Jesus was an addition to the observance of Jewish traditions and customs
Jesus was not really a man (Gnosticism)
2-4th Jesus divine and human nature compromise with Greek philosophical worldview
4th Post Constantine Jesus replaced by the church “Christendom.”
13th Thomas Aquinas Jesus replaced by philosophical reason
19/20th Liberalism Jesus replaced with humanism “The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.”
Post Modernism God centred faith replaced by man centred (“solipsism” - self is the only reality)

Theology of transformation replaced by a theology of affirmation


What appears to be the case from this summary of the church’s response to the idea of the incarnation down through the years is that the ministry of Jesus will always qualify as the most easily discard-able aspect of the ministry of Jesus.
If you ask the question of people today whether Jesus was a good man most people on the street will agree – i.e. they cannot as easily set it aside
If you as the same people whether Jesus is the Son of God come in the flesh you will find more people can discard that idea that the previous one.
The same with the virgin birth
The same with the idea that Jesus provides the only way of salvation

But you can find the same thing IN the church as OUTSIDE of the church. Just think what it means today. You and I can walk into this building with sin burdened lives and walk away without embracing the saving life of Christ. We can sing worship songs and remain committed to our self pity, to our resentment, to our idolatry. It is because we have not embraced the incarnation.

The same is true for Christian ministry. The incarnation is the defining character of all Christian discipleship. The incarnation has scandalized very much of what we have come to accept as valid Christian ministry. For some reason we have found ourselves having to re-define it and shape it so that it becomes more palatable. We have rationalized it and spiritualized it out of its true character.

It is precisely this issue that is raised in one of the prison letters that Paul wrote from Rome: the letter to the Philippians. If you can imagine how Paul’s imprisonment must have affected the church around the Mediterranean. Think of the prayer meetings that would have focused on the fact that their great hero and leader was kept for two years in Caesarea waiting for all kinds of red tape to be processed. Then the journey to Rome and under Roman guard – not just any guard but soldiers from the Praetorium. Caesar’s personal detachment. They must have wondered what the God of heaven and earth was doing. No matter what they said, how they fasted, he remained in chains.

When Paul writes about what is happening, he cites the fact that his imprisonment, among other things has had an effect on some people who see Paul’s incarceration as their opportunity to make a name for themselves in ministry. In the light of these grotty little samples of human sin Paul turns to the incarnation for a guiding light.



THE INCARNATION: THE GLORY OF MARGINALIZATION

1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.


The fact is that Jesus modeled a way of living that robbed the following human counterfeits of their power. Christian people down through the generations have testified to this power:

The power of earthly status
The power of human manipulation
The power of independence
The power of self determination
The power of familiar darkness


These powers are broken when we come to understand what it is like to take our cue from the Son of God.


There is encouragement

There is comforting love

There is fellowship with the Spirit

There is the experience of tenderness and compassion



ONE: DISCOVERING INCARNATION THE GLORY OF BEING A NOBODY
NO VALUE IN EARTHLY STATUS

“Who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped….”


1. Jesus was there when the world was created. On the night he was born the very stars that shone in the sky shone down on the small round face of their creator.

On the day that Jesus stood before Pilate he had the power to command legions of angels to come and deal with the petty derived human power vested in the Roman procurator and overthrow him completely.

When he was misunderstood, ignored, despised and rejected he carried in himself the stature of the godhead.

On no occasion did Jesus call on any one of these things. He came to the world without rank or station. He exercised a ministry totally devoid of human sponsorship

2. What we have to remember is that influence has nothing to do with status. We will never have influence because we have status. We are often going to fall short of understanding the incarnation if we assume that if we can only
Gain importance
Make a lot of money
Be successful in the world’s eyes
We will have influence for God.

The truth is we can have influence for God and those things may or may not follow. But the only influence we have for God will come because of God. It will come from a different source. (Daniel had no status).

3. Be careful of the way you apply the Scripture: “a man’s gift makes way for him.” We can often think that if we excel in the exercise and development of our God given talents, we will have influence for God. Not so. Talents can be useful. They won’t be useful because they are consecrated. They will be useful when they are anointed. It is a flow of the Spirit of God that creates influence.

4. We have the opportunity to represent the incarnation model Jesus gave us. When we accept our identity as sons and daughters of the living God and when we agree to avoid the exercise of human ambition thinking that if we make something of our selves we will have influence for God we will lose opportunity for that influence.



TWO: DISCOVERING THE INCARNATION THE GLORY OF BEING A SERVANT
NO VALUE IN SELF CENTREDNESS

“…but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…”



THREE: DISOVERING THE INCARNATION THE GLORY OF IDENTIFICATION
NO VALUE IN FRANCHISED SYSTEMS

“..being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man…”


FOUR: DISCOVERING THE INCARNATION THE GLORY OF OBEDIENCE
NO VALUE IN SELF DETERMINATION

“…he humbled himself and became obedient to death…..”


FIVE: DISCOVERING THE INCARNATION THE GLORY OF REDEMPTIVE PURPOSE
NO VALUE IN COMPROMISE

“…even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
[1] Christianity Today, 2002

Early Morning Prayer This Week

Hi persistent early morning pray-ers.

I should be there every morning this week if you want to join me.

I generally make it sometime between 5:00 and 5:30 am and pray till 7:30 or 8:00 am.

The codes should be the same. If you want to find out what they are email me

lifepurpose@ozemail.com.au

or phone: 0407431793


Have a great week serving Jesus for all you're worth.

I will be attending the "2 the Point" Christian Worldview Conference over at the Watson Technology Park on a few days. Otherwise I am around if you want to be in touch for any reason.

Feel free to log on a prayer item if you would like me to pray for you. I love doing that and its always a bonus to zero in on something specific. All you need to do is to put it up as a comment. Or send it to me as an email if you dont' want it to be seen on the blog page by others.

Brian Medway

How Marriage Works: Four Supernatural Secrets - Part Two

Matthew 19
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. 3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” 7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

INTRODUCTION

Marriage is one of the most profound mysteries created by God as the flow on from creating man and woman in his image.

It was never meant to be a simply tool for recreation, and it wasn’t meant to be a tool for raising kids till they were able to become independent. It had a significance in the plan of God to be a tangible lifestyle reminder of something that was not as easy to see, but was even more exalted: the love God has for his people – or the love of Jesus for the church. Not only so, but marriage was singled out as the one relationship on earth that was going to be described as “two becoming one flesh, so they are no longer two but one” (Matthew 19 quoting Genesis 2:24) We have other examples of unity. There is meant to be unity between believers (Galatians 3:28). That unity was further defined by Jesus by speaking about it in the context of the relationship between the members of the Godhead (John 17:21-23). Jesus even talks about that unity as “I in them and you in me.” The preposition denotes a very strong bond.

But marriage outstrips them all. This relationship to be lived out between a single man and a single woman was to be a reminder and carry something of the flavour of the greater but similar love between Jesus and the church. (Ephesians 5).

Little wonder that Satan wants to tamper with this intention. Since he hates anything that in any way reflects the image and nature of the Divinity, he has attacked marriage from the beginning of time. In our culture that attack is aimed at the core of its foundation – namely the indissolubility of the oneness. In our age when somewhere between 35-40% of marriages dissolve the fidelity of God is being treated as the expendable factor in favour of a hundred different substitutes that are reasoned to have greater value. The disciples recognized this when they said to Jesus that if what he was saying was true, then it was better not to marry rather than risk such a misappropriation of divine grace. It is interesting to notice Jesus’ answer. On yet another occasion he doesn’t answer the question directly. Whenever this happens you know he is wanting to turn their attention away from what they perceive as the issue to what he want to reveal as the issue.

In answer to the question that it was such a profound betrayal of divine grace for the oneness and the fidelity of marriage to be fractured, Jesus referred to the fact that there are three kinds of people who will not be in a position to understand about marriage oneness:

The first is the person who were created to live as an unmarried person. There are people for whom marriage would be like owning two left shoes. If you only have one left foot you have no need for two left shoes. If you are an exception to the general rule (“it is not good for a man to be alone” Gen. 2) then you will never be completed by marriage in the way that other people are completed by marriage.

The second is the person who is created to be married, but because as a result of human failure: selfishness, sin, deceit, etc. In western society many people will remain want to be married but will fall foul of what I call the Hollywood syndrome. The mystery of marriage has been so strongly tied to sexual attraction and the idea of love has been so tragically tied to self gratification that men who should consider marriage will wait for “the perfect girl” to appear. Girls, likewise will fall foul of the same deception and look past possible relationships for the man created by Mills and Boon and the like. As a result of cultural values that are created from human rebellion and sin many will be made eunuchs.

The third is the person who chooses celibacy in order to serve God. They are built for marriage, but they have placed that desire below their desire to serve the living God.

Jesus uses an interesting word as he describes the three kinds of people who will not be able to accept the teaching about indissoluble oneness. He uses a word that basically talks about how much space there is somewhere.[1] These people will never have room in their life to receive this revelation. In citing three groups of people who will never marry he is asserting that the revelation is available to those who do get married.

This is backed up in the final statement when Jesus says: “The one who CAN accept it SHOULD accept it.” The problem in our day is that there are thousands of people who can accept indissoluble oneness but choose not to. There is a very clear testimony to this because just about everyone who got married did no on the basis of the fact that they wanted a relationship that involved indissoluble oneness. They generally stood there and said those very words in the marriage service: “…until we are parted by death.” The reason they said them was because in their minds they were making a commitment for life. I know there are all kinds of ungodly substitutes among the clever people of our day who are all too keen to scoff at their Creator. This is a sign of decay, not a giant step forward. Despite the adversarial sector, ordinary people still have a view that a marriage commitment is an indissoluble oneness relationship. Jesus emphasizes that the only ones who have no experience of that revelation are the people who have not experienced marriage.

If marriage is this mysterious invention of the Creator to accompany the fact that he has made two very different people then we need to embrace its mystery on the basis of divine revelation.

When you next read a statistic that says there is as much divorce in the church as there is in the community please fall on your knees and weep before God for the fact that Christian people have taken up the revelation about forgiveness and the gift of eternal life on the basis of the fact that God has said it, but they have failed to embrace the same supernatural wisdom when it comes to managing their marriage – both before they get married and after they have been married.
The before problem is that Christian people will fail to heed the idea that God wants to create an indissoluble oneness relationship if they proceed. The mistake will be because they approach the covenant of marriage as if it were an episode of “Perfect Match” or “Batchelor.” They approach marriage from the point of view of being desperate and dateless. They confuse core commitment with emotional chemistry (its not that chemistry is wrong, its just that it will not provide all the information needed to build a relationship based on commitment. It is commitment that makes a relationship capable of indissoluble oneness. The chemistry is a divine bonus. It is the icing, not the cake. What stimulate commitment is not the same stuff that stimulates sexual attraction and the rest of the chemical reactions. It is much easier to generate chemistry in a climate of commitment than it is to generate commitment in a climate of chemistry.
The after problem is that Christian people who have access to revelation will often set goals based on the values that come from a sinful, sex saturated society - or they will respond on the basis of past experiences that have no inherent claim on the present relationship. They will also often seek to resolve issues, not by throwing themselves before God to understand how what he has said should be applied and would bring both resolution and redemption, but they default to magazine values and a myriad of humanly generated ideas. Often those ideas will represent values that are opposed to Holy Spirit anointing and power rather than opening themselves up to it. In other words, they will marry under the canopy of revelation and dissolve under the canopy of human ideas.

DIVINE MYSTERY THREE:
DISCOVERING SUPERNATURAL ONENESS

“and the two will become one flesh’ ? So they are no longer two, but one.”


This is a strange use of language. How would you describe a very close relationship between a man and a woman. You might say, “We are very close.” Sometimes people refer to the fact that in a close relationship people spend a lot of time together and we would say, “they are inseparable.” However you describe it, you wouldn’t ordinarily speak about two different human bodies becoming one human body.

We need to take account of what the New Testament says when it describes sexual immorality by saying that when a person has sexual intercourse with a prostitute he becomes “one with her in body.” (1 Corinthians 6:16). There is no doubting that the experience of intercourse symbolizes the oneness, but it is surely not the case that this is ALL it is speaking about. This would be most obvious to me from the text of Genesis 2:

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24).

If all that is being spoken about is the experience of sexual intercourse, that verse would be saying:

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will have sexual intercourse together.”

This matter is further argued by Jesus in the passage from Matthew we are looking at today when Jesus emphasizes the indissoluble oneness idea by adding, “so they are no longer two but one.” If all it was referring to was sexual intercourse, Jesus would have just as easily said, “So they are no longer two people who don’t have sexual intercourse, they are joined by sexual intercourse.”

I want to suggest that the correct way to understand this is to see how the Bible often uses forms of hyperbole to describe things that are patently indescribable. In the same way that we use poetry and music and art to describe reality that is beyond linguistic description. Most forms of the arts create meaning through the use of absurd image. If you want a common man’s example of this look at the never ending list of superheroes from James Bond to Indiana Jones to Luke Skywalker. These characters are deliberately enlarged to represent something that people dream about. They are examples of hyperbole. Does anyone think there are people who can do what James Bond does or what Zorro does. Not in any generation anywhere. It is an example of people extending their finite experience into an infinite one. It is actually part of the God-awareness created in us.

The difference between George Lucas and the Bible is as different as the idea of hyperbole is the same. With Biblical poetry or hyperbole God is wanting us to extend our expectation beyond what is natural to humans into what is made possible by the supernatural working of the Spirit of God. This is the nature of the oneness described in Genesis 2 and here referred to by Jesus in Matthew 19. It is a beyond what is ordinarily possible oneness. I say oneness and not unity because unity describes two separate people working together. The oneness of marriage is two separate people experiencing more than a close working partnership and more than something that is entered into for mutual benefit. It is the formation of a new kind of being. That entity is called Christian marriage.

Let me see if I can describe this oneness in more helpful detail. I think this is the greatest challenge for Christian marriage. It is also the key to warding off the danger of indissoluble oneness becoming a dissoluble disaster.



THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH


This is supernatural - and is designed for every married couple
it is beyond human ability oneness
it is a work of God
it is a mystery to be discovered, not a program to be implemented
it is only embraced the way every other work of grace from heaven is embraced


It is like becoming one person in a way that increases the potential of each individual; it has nothing to do with whether we are together all the time or whether we do everything together and it must never be mistaken for a form of co-dependence or possessiveness
Oneness without that liberates, rather than oppresses
Oneness that enables not controls destiny
Oneness that generates security through trust


It is an oneness with a sense of equality that needs to be honoured, cherished and served
It is not a question of personality based dominance
It has nothing to do with headship and submission: Headship that makes one person’s opinions or preferences dominant is not headship. Submission that makes one person’s feelings and preferences less important is not submission.


It is a process, not an event.


It is permanent. You can learn to live without the other person, but you can never recover from the impact of this amazing indissoluble oneness




The supernatural indissoluble oneness is a process or goal to work toward, not something that suddenly appears. It needs to be committed to as a process. When challenges come they need to be measured by the way they either contribute to, or detract from the God ordained process of two people becoming one flesh Here are some questions that a married couple could ask themselves as they monitor their journey to this destination:

1. Do we have the sense that as the months and years of our marriage pass by, that we are aware of a greater sense of oneness?
2. What are we doing as a couple to exercise faith in the working of God’s grace so that He will produce that oneness in us ?
3. Is our oneness becoming more an more a think that we cannot think of dissolving?
4. Do we have a spiritual life as a couple that would qualify for the grace of God to flow into our marriage and produce this oneness?
5. Do we each have a growing commitment to understanding the other so that we can contribute to the fulfillment of their individual destiny?
6. Is there a growing sense of equality in our relationship rather than competitiveness or dominance (personality based or politically based)?




DIVINE MYSTERY NUMBER FOUR:
DISCOVERING SUPERNATURAL JOINING

“what God has joined together, let man not separate”


The form of this word is only used with reference to something God did when a person becomes married. It is the act of being “God joined.” Its derivative is worth looking at because it comes directly from the Biblical picture of the yoke. Here are the ways in which this word is used in the New Testament. The picture is directly parallel with the work God is committed to and what God has done.


1. Mt 11:29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
2. Mt 11:30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
3. Lk 14:19 “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’
4. Ac 15:10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?

5. Gal 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
6. 1Ti 6:1 All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.



Co-habitation is not co-mittment
Christian marriage is the work of an act of God. God does something when people become married. There is a question to be begged by Jesus words that people from our culture are always keen to ask. In a society where a lot of people live in the same house in a relationship that looks like a marriage but where there has been a decision to co-habit but not co-mittment. If we need to ask the question whether a commitment made between two people without a ceremony is a marriage commitment, the answer can only be “I don’t know.” The issue for me always is: ‘Why would you want to leave the relationship in doubt when you can know for sure that God is going to join you together when you stand before him to exercise faith for a lifetime.

Faith for a lifetime
This is what the wedding ceremony is all about. It is the enacting of a covenant. The Bible clearly places marriage as the tangible human relationship that represents the commitment and love God has always had for his people. (Ephesians 5). For that reason it is a covenant ceremony that God has enacted and having enacted that ceremony, he sticks to this covenant without fail:

If we died with him
We will also live with him
If we endure
We will also reign with him
If we disown him
He will also disown us
If we are faithless
He remains faithful
For he cannot deny himself 2 Timothy 2:11-13



The covenant act of God was not something done between consenting adults in private. It was foreshadowed before the nations of the ancient world as God led a people out from under the tyranny of slavery in Egypt. Part of that act was the shedding of innocent blood throughout the households of God’s people. They went and killed a little innocent lamb and sprinkled blood on the doorposts of their house. It was no small thing that when death passed through Egypt that night their firstborn sons were spared. It was not small thing that they left Egypt with its spoils by the intervention of the God of heaven and earth. It was not by accident that they crossed the Sea and it was not be accident that they stood before a mountain filled with fire and smoke and God came down and began to dwell in their midst.

Then for fourteen hundred years the faithfulness of God put up with every form of rebellion, and petulance and compromise among he people that you could imagine. He watched as people built asherah poles and adopted every foul practice of the people who’s land they were supposed to conquer. He watched as they formed alliances with the kings of nations. He watched as the temple was at times shut down. He watched these people stone the messengers of his love and he watched Nebuchadnezzar pull every stone in the city and the temple from its place and set fire to the mountains of rubble they created. He watched as less than five percent of the people who had initially refused to sing the songs of Zion because of the profession of their love for it, return and when they returned they mucked around building homes for themselves rather than the temple of the Lord.

That was only the foreshadowing.

Then on a day in Jerusalem the sinless One stood before a kangaroo court and was belted and whipped within a human inch of his life, before being taken to a cross. The torture, while horrendous was merely a symbol of the greater burden he would bear as he carried your rubbish and mine to the cross and then into the grave.

This is the covenant act of a covenant keeping God. Its not a little self obsessed moment of sentimentality between two people whose chemical juices have been stirred by one another.

And marriage is the relationship that God has chosen to put his seal upon. The God of heaven has determined to do something very special. You might have thought that it was a great family gathering. You might have been so nervous that you felt like fainting. You might have been almost overwhelmed by the enormous measure of detailed organization.

But God wasn’t looking forward to that as much as he was wanting to bring a supernatural gift to the celebration: God joining ! He was going to join you together in a bond that was created and sealed in heaven before it was represented on the earth.


A seal for a lifetime
This bond is like salvation itself. When we put our trust in Jesus and offer our lives to him God also joins us to something. He joins us to himself forever. We were formerly alienated from him. We were like the orphans from the streets of Calcutta. Our salvation is like the visit of a loving benefactor who comes to the streets and says to all the children there, “Who would like to become my children and come to my house, eat my food, enter into my care for as long as they live?” Can you imagine what would follow? So God invites us on the basis of Calvary love to become a member of his household. We are joined. We become children born not of a human will, born not by any act of human decision but we are born again.

When a man and a women stand together in a church or in some place where they seek the favour of God. God answers. Something happens in that ceremony. God shows up. God joins them….not because they have a certificate published by the Australian Government, not because their ceremony is beautiful, but because God decides to do something in response to their faith. If you seek the blessing of God, you receive the blessing of God….whether you are born again at the time or not, whether you understand everything you are doing or not. God responds to your faith.

God joins you together with a seal that is designed only to be broken by the death of one or the other.

Like the covenant of salvation. God will never break that covenant. Even if we are unfaithful he will remain faithful. The covenant can only be broken if one or the other choose to disown God and separate themselves. That’s why its essential to see what is happening with a decision to separate a marriage. We are tampering with a work in progress of the God of heaven and earth. He is committed to the relationship. He is committed to overcoming the barriers if we will only seek his grace. He has joined us. He wants to make us one. He wants to help us discover our unique destiny. He wants to see both husband and wife experiencing the redemptive program that uniquely happens through marriage.

He can speak but we can refuse to listen
He can provide for us but we can refuse to access his provision.
He can have grace for us to receive help and we can ignore his offer
He can join us together and we can tear oneness apart.

God hates divorce. There is no relationship he cannot restore. There is no problem he cannot overcome. There is no act that cannot be forgiven and healed from. There is no barrier that cannot be broken down. God never institutes divorce proceedings. You will not find him rejoicing after the decision of a human court to agree.

God can forgive people for destroying a marriage in the same way as he can forgive anyone for anything.
God can heal.
God can give another chance, and another.

It’s what he wants that really matters. I hate it when he wants to do something wonderful and we fail to grasp it.

We need to take hold of the divine mystery of marriage.


1. MALE AND FEMALE
The mystery of a man and a women being so different yet belonging together

2. LEAVING AND CLEAVING
The mystery of a single destiny involving two different people

3. INDISSOLUBLE ONENESS
The mystery of a supernatural oneness that gives more of everything that matters

4. GOD JOINED
The mystery of God’s covenant act of joining for life.
[1] The word in Greek is “choreo” and the other places where it is used are cited here.

Mt 15:17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?
Mk 2:2 So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.
Jn 2:6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
Jn 8:37 I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word.
Jn 21:25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
2Co 7:2 Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have exploited no one.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

Marriage: Four Supernatural Secrets - Part One

Matthew 19
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. 3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” 7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”


INTRODUCTION

1. Keep Out! (of Marriage) The Spirit of Religion: Right and Wrong
It is generally the spirit of religion that wants to start with what is right and what is wrong. Right and wrong have to do with the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” That kind of knowledge down through the ages has had little to do with a pre-occupation with what gives life and what doesn’t. Its focus is on right and wrong because the desire of a religious spirit (and it doesn’t matter whether it is Christian or not) is to think that you are right . The desire of the religious spirit to think that you are right is not so concerned about righteousness. It is concerned with self righteousness. The religious spirit wants to know what is right because it wants to think that “I am right.” When this is accomplished it is a mere extension of that fact to know who is wrong. The religious spirit finds some enjoyment in the idea that someone else is wrong. Some of the most secular people you will know will be among the most religious by this definition. The idea of being right takes more comfort in the fact that it is “me” that is right and “you” who are wrong than in whether “right” means that it works better for everyone, or produces more life for everyone or whether it blesses everyone. When you put this feeling in the hands of a person who is by nature a sinner, it becomes the tool we use to justify sin and condemn true righteousness. The other aspect of the religious spirit is that it generally focuses on the fact that I have discovered what is right by my own effort and therefore being right is something that represents an accomplishment. This is so different from the righteousness that comes by faith because of what Jesus suffered on my behalf. That righteousness will only ever be a gift. I can’t brag about having been given a gift. I can only brag about the giver. If that gift is available to everyone, I can’t brag about the fact that I am the possessor of this gift, as if it was because of something special about me. If that gift is available for everyone who wants to receive it I can only once again boast about the giver. That’s why religious people don’t like real Christianity. It provides no reason for me to think that I am any better than anyone else. Since it all has to do with gifts that are imparted on the basis of grace from God, then it has little to do with who is right and who is wrong. It has to do with what life is available and how we can connect with it.

2. Teaching about marriage must never become the basis for being judgmental. Teaching about marriage must never be designed to heap guilt on people who already feel it. Teaching on marriage must be directed toward what brings life to marriages. Marriages need life. They need life because that’s the only thing that will make a marriage strong. I want to present some secrets that God has made known about marriage to offer God’s life to present and future marriages, not for the purpose of finding out who should and shouldn’t be condemned.

3. Jesus made a very broad statement about the purpose of his ministry:

i. “I am different from the devil. The devil wants to offer you something but in reality he is only interested in stealing something that you are entitled to have; or to destroy something you already have. The difference between the devil and me is that I have come to give you a shot at life: overflowing life.” John 10:10

It comes back to “one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.” And when you’re a beggar and there is enough bread for everyone it is not as important to figure out why you are a beggar, or whether I am a better or worse beggar than you. If there’s bread, lets get some.

4. God wants your marriage to achieve a God ordained potential
This is so much the case when it comes to marriage. If we are to represent something that is worthwhile when it comes to marriage it must have to do with the happiness and wholesomeness that belongs to something that is designed to work. By “work” I mean it has to do with who I am as a husband, and who you are as my wife and who we are as a married couple. There are always three elements that make up the foundation of a marriage. The husband, the wife and the marriage relationship. They are like three separate and sacred buckets. No marriage will work if all three aren’t being filled by the journey of the marriage. What works is what fills the husband bucket, the wife bucket and the relationship bucket. When there are children they become extra buckets and a marriage that works must create an environment that sees each of those buckets being filled as well. Whenever the filling of one bucket takes priority over the others it is a sign that the marriage is not working.

5. We need to start with the view that marriage is something God invented.
If I for one minute begin the process of wanting to support, strengthen and build my marriage and the marriages of other people, I don’t want to start with how I feel or how you feel. We need to start with something sovereign and something eternal. We have to start with God’s intention and God’s wisdom. If we do it that way, we will end up with something that is life giving. This is who God is not religious and why God never invented religion. As usual, the devil invented religion as a very well masked counterfeit of what flows from a relationship with God by faith. What I find when I pursue God’s wisdom through the Word is that it kills things that cause death and that I discover things that create life: e.g. forgiveness is an amazing idea. It is totally weird. Forgiveness has nothing to do with justice (illust. “An Unconventional War”). But forgiveness is powerfully life giving to everyone involved.

6. Things that sometimes don’t seem to make sense at first
That’s why if we are to begin with what God says about marriage we are going to find ourselves coming up against things that don’t seem to make sense at first. Like the idea of forgiveness. When you first look at it, it seems foolish. When you look at the message of the cross it looks foolish. When you experience its power it seems astounding. God’s ways are higher than our ways. That’s why we will only ever receive from God by faith. We receive because we are willing to trust God when something that he says seems at first to be foolish or hard or impossible.

7. An impossible arrangement between two imperfect people
I am assuming that Dr. Arch Hart is right when he says that “Marriage is an impossible arrangement between two imperfect people.” The call for all people who are marriage and those who are contemplating marriage is to be willing to embrace what is impossible, not just to achieve the possible. It is to take on board the idea that for a marriage to work it must involve something supernatural in my, in my husband or wife and in our relationship. If all we can draw on is what we of ourselves can produce we will only ever have a shadow of the reality that was conceived in the heart of God when he thought of the idea.

8. Supnatural redemptive plan
I must also assume that when Arch Hart uses the word “impossible arrangement” I could replace those words with “supernatural redemptive plan.” If “impossible” refers to what God wants to do with my marriage and your marriage, then he only ever wants to do redemptive things and what he does is by definition supernatural. We must not look at marriage problems as difficulties. We must look at them as impossibilities. If it is a difficulty the assumption is that with a bit of human wisdom we can make it better. That is probably true. But what is even more critical is that we see problems in a marriage as warning lights on our dashboards telling us that we are in need of divine redemptive intervention. Marriage is a supreme example of redemptive purpose. God doesn’t want you to be married just because he wants you to be happy. He wants you to be marriage because he wants you to be whole and complete. The happiness comes as a by product of completeness.

8. Four phrases that are full of life
I want to take four phrases from the words of Jesus in his most definitive statement on marriage to pinpoint what I think belongs to the core of the Creator’s intention when it comes to marriage. I want to suggest that each of these refers to something that is humanly impossible and therefore needs the transformation invasion of the Spirit of God. You won’t achieve this by effort, only by being willing to let God work on you as an individual and pour grace from heaven into your life. If marriage is God’s idea, then we have to let the inventor speak about what he has in mind. We must be willing to listen to that wisdom regardless of how difficult it may seem or how initially foolish it may seem. When we come as children into the presence of our Father’s Word, we will see the kingdom of God coming.



DIVINE SECRET NUMBER ONE
DISCOVERING WHAT IS REDEMPTIVE OPPORTUNITY

A PURPOSE BUILT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A PURPOSE BUILT MAN AND A PURPOSE BUILT WOMAN

Haven’t you read what it says: in the Creator made them male and female, and for this reason….

Genesis 1:27 and 2:23 are exciting verses. It has been re-written a thousand times a thousand almost every day since this day.

GENESIS 1
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.


GENESIS 2

20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.


If we put that information together in summary form we come up with the following:

1. God created both male and female in hi s image.
He didn’t create male in his image and female in the image of man. The later revelation that the female was created out of the male has nothing to do with the idea that somehow woman is some kind of derived image of man. They are unique. God made a male and he made a female and his image was vested in each of them. The fact that males and females are mysteriously different carries the glory of this. The attempt of impoverished women to ascribe the difference in the sexes to cultural conditioning has failed at every point. Unfortunately this discovery had to come at a huge cost to society in terms of the social consequences to women, men and children (it wasn’t the fault of the women it was initiated by males who couldn’t tell the difference between responsibility and power. God gave men a responsibility and they took it to mean power and control. They took submission to mean subjugation and the world experienced centuries of some of the most horrific oppression known to the earth. The feminist movement and its ongoing impact is the judgment of God on the failure of men. That judgment comes in terms of “whatever we sow we shall also reap.”

2. This complementary image of God that we find in males and females needs to be played out on the sacred stage of a marriage.
The measure of this image must never be sublimated. A woman must not be required to become less of a woman because she is married. It must be the goal of every husband to discover and nurture the image of God in his wife and it must likewise be the commitment of a wife to honour and nurture the image of God in her husband. Very often the existence of these very difference expressions of the glory of God don’t seem complementary. They seem competitive. They often seem to challenge each other and the one often seems to make the other feel insecure or inferior. This must not be. We must be the protector of the glory of God in one another. That’s why I hate hearing husbands bagging their wives and wives bagging their husbands. When you simply bag someone because they operate differently to you, you are criticizing something very special that God has created. When you limit the potential of your husband or wife because of your insecurity or because you feel the need to manipulate or control you are cutting off the power of God to bring his redemptive purpose to their lives, your marriage and your family. You need rather to take up the responsibility to discover what God has created in your husband or wife and need to take responsibility to honour what you discover and see that it is fully developed.

3. The idea of complementary purpose takes another dimension when we look at the descriptions from Genesis Chapter 2.

Genesis 2
18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” 19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh

4. Etymology won’t give us much help
A lot has been made of this from the etymology. Because we are pressed by current political correctness, we are pressured to turn away from anything that would seem to make these words imply hierarchy or order of merit. The truth is that they were never intended to imply that anyway. We must also avoid reading what is here through the eyes of sinful men who hit women over the head with them for centuries. If I were to take a punt at being as objective as I could I would have to say that the picture painted by these words shows someone who is designed to live in the closest possible proximity to the man and whose presence provides something that isn’t there if she isn’t there. A man is not designed to be alone. He can exist alone, but the basic design is not to operate alone. A woman is similarly designed. She is not designed to operate independent of the man either. She can operate independently but she is not designed for independent operation. If they come into the closest circle of relationship they do best what they were designed to do. No rank is necessarily implied at this point (that does get referred to in Chapter 3 following the invasion of sin). The fact that the woman is designed to be a helping presence simply refers to the complementary nature of the design.

Not a lot to do with universal roles and functions It needs to be pointed out that this complementary purpose has nothing to do with certain tasks. We may read tasks into the differences God created when he created male and female, but those are not some short list of tasks so that the men automatically sit talking forever in the gate of the city and while the women do most of the work. In a marriage, tasks have to do with ability and anointing and the discovery of those belongs to the marriage, not to one or another of the individuals. It is not for the husband to pontificate about and it is not for the wife to coerce. They are to discover each other and commit to serving the marriage on the basis of gifts freely given in a spirit of agreement.


Discovery leading to agreed deployment The idea of intelligent design in terms of marriage comes to this. Unless you are a person who for one of the given reasons (see verses Matthew 19:11,12) will not be married, you need to understand that God wants there to be someone who you will be joined to and where that joining will be the supernatural fitting of God’s creative power. He will make someone complementary and redemptive. They will be different. They may challenge your egotistical and self centredness. There may be all kinds of things you need to do in order to discover how they are different from you and why. That whole process of discovery and deployment is the happy task of God’s loving purpose in marriage.

Differences are God ordained But to see differences as God ordained is paramount to the meaning. To see them as testimony to the fact that there has been a mistake will only send you and them on a path that will avoid their redemption rather than serving it. I must read difference as redemptive opportunity. I must read it as the wisdom of the creator. When we assume that some difference or something about our husband or wife is testimony to either a divine or a human mistake is to begin to call good evil and evil good.

CHANON was a masochist ??! Consider the redemptive process that enables a person with little or no finger independence to become a new person…….Chanon devised a set of exercises which could liberate the potential in a person’s fingers to operate independently from one another. Swinging an axe requires very little if any finger independence. “The Flight of the Bumblebee” requires a lot of finger independence. The difference can be found in doing copies amounts of Chanon expercises.

The same is true with marriage. What Chanon does through the commitment and hard work of a faithful piano student, God does by his divine power through the faith and commitment of a husband or wife who finds that they have a severe lack of “finger independence” and when they want to play the “Moonlight Sonata” of marriage they find that they are unable. They find it hard, if not impossible. Only through prayer, Holy Spirit power and God invading their heart will they become an agent of God’s redemptive purpose in whatever challenges them in their marriage.

When you can see these challenges as God’s ordained opportunities for redemptive purpose through marriage you begin to see the mystery of God weaving its way through ordinary human circumstances to accomplish something that is wonderful.

MARRIAGE IS MAKING REDEMPTIVE OPPORTUNITIES OUT OF DIFFERENCES AND CHALLENGES. THE BASIS FOR THESE OPPORTUNITIES COME FROM THE FACT THAT GOD HAS CREATED A HUSBAND FOR A WIFE AND A WIFE FOR A HUSBAND. MARRIAGE IS THE REDEMPTIVE TOOL FOR GOD’S SUPERNATURAL INTERVENTION TO BE REALIZED AND HIS PURPOSES TO BE ESTABLISHED WHERE EVERYONE IN THE MARRIAGE WINS…….




DIVINE SECRET NUMER TWO
DISCOVERING WHAT IS UNIQUE AND ORIGINAL

A man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife

In the older language the words were “leave” and “cleave.”


1. Here are the references to places where this word is used in the New Testament:


Mt 19:5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ?
Lk 10:11 ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’
Lk 15:15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.
Ac 5:13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.
Ac 8:29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

Ac 10:28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.
Ro 12:9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
1Co 6:16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.



2. The Greek word comes is translated from the Hebrew word used in Genesis. Here are some of the occasions where the same word is used in the Old Testament:


Ge 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Ge 34:3 His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her.
Dt 10:20 Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name.
Dt 28:21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.
Dt 28:60 He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
Ru 1:14 At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.
2Ki 3:3 Nevertheless he clung to the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit; he did not turn away from them.
2Ki 5:27 Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever.” Then Gehazi went from Elisha’s presence and he was leprous, as white as snow.
1Ch 10:2 The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua.
Job 29:10 the voices of the nobles were hushed,
and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.

Job 38:38 when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?

Ps 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.
Ps 44:25 We are brought down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
I am reduced to skin and bones.



3. Can We Overtake the T-Model Henry?
How many times do we have to make all the mistakes of past and reap the harvest of those mistakes before we realize that Henry Ford needs to be overtaken: “The thing we learn from history is that we never learn anything from history.” Among those mistakes is this one. It is a mistake to think that we can capture the glory of success by copying it, in the same way that it is a mistake to think that we can avoid the pain of the past by forgetting it. The reality is that we must be encouraged by past success and warned by past failure but we must also assume that every situation carries its own unique responsibility.

How many fathers and mothers have tried to live beyond their own sense of failure by pushing their children to succeed.

How many children have missed their unique calling in life by trying to please the same parents.

How long will it take for us to understand that success can never be inherited.
Why can’t we believe that failure doesn’t need to be inevitably repeated.

The only way we will avoid these unfortunate realities is to do it deliberately. They are default positions far less than they are intentional positions. The myriad of new things that happen around the world are the heralds of hope.

4. Take the time and make the effort to discover your marriage
It is true with marriage. One of the divinely ordained principles of marriage is that there is no marriage like your marriage. That is not a given. It is a discovery you have to make. If you don’t work to discover just how your marriage is unique and different you will have a marriage that is the product of something you have seen or the modeling or the anti-modeling of one or other of the your parents. It also goes for the home you build. The home your marriage produces should be the same journey of discovery. So often people’s households are forged to protect their weaknesses and flaw from being exposed.

5. Street angel and house devil
That’s why we have the term, “street angel and house devil.” A person (usually the man) is all peaches and cream to his fellow employees and to his neighbours, but within the confines of the marriage he is mean and harsh and angry etc. The fact that he displays these baser characteristics at home is precisely why marriage is the redemptive laboratory. If he is angry with his wife he should go to God and say….. “I have a character flaw that needs to be changed. Thank you that it has become apparent so that I can become I whole person. Thank you that I won’t have to abuse everyone else for the rest of my life. Thank you that I have this environment of covenant commitment that enables me to seek these changes where there is unconditional support.”

Think what happens when these things become apparent and the damage of them begins to take effect but we try to hide in within the folds of the very relationship that was designed to give us hope of change. Think what happens when the other person in the marriage fails to see the potential for change and gets on a blame and shame mode instead of a redemptive purpose mode.

6. The Importance of Leaving:
Uniqueness is the result of redemptive process Think of what happens when we fail to recognize that our uniqueness as a couple is on the other side of this redemptive process. We are meant to LEAVE the anger we inherited from our father or our mother. We are meant to leave the manipulation and control of our father or our mother. We are meant to LEAVE the woundings and disappointments created by the flaws of our father and mother’s love. Marriage spells NEW DAY. This is not the same tribe. Our parents may like it to be like that. This has so little to do with actually making a geographical shift from some rooms and a yard that constitute our father’s and our mother’s house. We are to leave our parents TRIBAL CULTURE. We are to leave our parent’s co-dependence. We are to leave our parents weaknesses. Goodness knows, we have enough of our own to deal with. Why not use the break that comes when a man and woman stand in the presence of God to be joined together to break the bondages that come from the former household and determine with our spouse to cling to the unique future that God has ordained only for the two of us and the children born of our commitment.


7. The importance of Clinging:
Uniqueness happens when we come together to defeat every enemy that comes from outside or inside the circle The second definitive word that is associated with this secret is the word, “be united.” If you were to read the verses in the Old and New Testaments that give examples of its use you will see phrases like, “even the dust that sticks to our feet…” (Luke 10). There are many other word pictures. One of them is “joined to a prostitute” (1 Corinthians 6) This is intentional. This is strong and deliberate.

i. Uniqueness is discovered by clinging Here is the principle. The uniqueness will not be discovered by reading a book. It will not be discovered even if you go to the very best course. What will liberate your potential to fulfill the unique destiny that God has for you will be found in a single determination: to take on whatever comes by clinging to my wife or husband.

ii. No matter what it feels like We have to cling no matter what. We have to stick to them. The marriage service spells this out in the phrases that give example to the covenant that love creates: for better for worse, for richer for poorer in sickness and in health.” This secret assumes that there will be times when you won’t feel like doing that. There will be times when you will feel that your marriage partner is your enemy and sticking to them would seem like sleeping with the enemy. There will be times when something deep and important should have been shared in the ‘close encounters of the marriage kind.’ There will be times when someone else will seem more appropriate to uncover your heart. There will be times when that may be a man for a woman or a woman for a man. They will seem so comparatively understanding, so gentle, so kind, so wise. But they are all lies. The word of God says: Cling to your wife, your husband. Whatever else may be foreshadowed, make sure you determine to work it out in each others arms. Do all of your fighting at close range: in a deliberate clinch.

iii. Whatever the soft options and tantalizing alternatives In whatever way you may be tempted to do otherwise, if you make it your primary determination to do as much as you can to take the side with your wife or husband….stand as close as you can….be as loyal as you can….determine not to sacrifice that position no matter what pressure comes on you from your friends, parents or potential lovers, you will discover the grace of God and the grace that operates in that place will determine whether or not you are going to become unique and special as a married couple.

iv. Its choice not chance It isn’t a matter of chance. Its not just that some people are lucky and are compatible. It must never be left to one person to do all the accommodating of the other. Love may cover sins, but it must never cover redemptive purpose. When it does it ceases to be love. It becomes adverse sentimentality.