Sermon Notes on Daniel 3

Nebuchadnezzar turned his kingdom of Babylon into the world superpower of the day gobbling up much of what is known today as the Middle East. His foreign policy was familiarly multiculturalist - to take the brightest and best of the nations he conquered, retrain them and put them into service in his empire. As a result, Babylon became the centre of the world at that time. If you wanted to see the latest technology, art and architecture, hear the best music or taste the best food, the place to go was Babylon.

The book of Daniel is (amongst other things) the story of Daniel and his friends: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who were four Jewish boys taken (albeit by force) under the wing of the Babylonian empire.

Read Daniel 3.

Rulers often have a god-like status and Nebuchadnezzar, even after acknowledging the power of Daniel's God who interpreted his dream (see Daniel 2), sets up an enormous idol as a testimony to the supremacy of his reign / Babylonian power / Babylon's god(s). He clearly believes that his empire is the "meaning of history" as he issues a decree that officials from all the nations of his realm, be brought to Babylon to admire all that has been achieved, pledge allegiance to the king and ultimately bow the knee in worship of Babylon's god/idol. (Note, Daniel himself is curiously absent from this story and we are not sure why. Off on international business? Already got a "get-out-of-jail-free" card from chapter 2? Who knows?)

With such shock and awe tactics at play, our heroes Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had to have very clear wits and strong convictions about loving God and about the purpose of human history so as not to be carried along with the herd, bowing to the gold statue. Nebuchadnezzar had set up his idol for the people, but in their hearts, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (like Moses in Heb.11:24-26) looked by faith to the greater reality - to the God who would establish his eternal Son as the object of worship for all people, (Phil. 2:9-11) through a promise made to their forefather Abraham (See Gen. 22:18, see also Dan. 7:13-14 and Rev. 5:9-10).

Unsurprisingly, they are soon denounced for their treachery, by others from their own (envy-driven?) ranks and find themselves in front of the king. Nebuchadnezzar is clearly enraged by what he sees as high treason; he has spared their lives, brought them to Babylon, educated them and given them status and a salary in the greatest empire in the world. How could they be so ungrateful now and disobey the king's command? It is true that Nebuchadnezzar had given them everything - on an earthly level, but when he demands the allegiance of their souls, he commits a spiritually fatal overreach.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are not ungrateful, rude, defensive or arrogant, but neither are they apologetic to the king for what they have done. They simply point out that forsaking their God to worship an inanimate lump of gold is something they can't and won't do and in so doing remind Nebuchadnezzar of his place in the order of the universe, that he like them, is only a man - he might kill their body, but he cannot take their soul (Matt.10:28). Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego display utter confidence, that however limited and fallible their own perspectives, they will obey and entrust themselves to God who has shown them a better way and will deliver them from the king's hand either by a miracle or by martyrdom.

Nebuchadnezzar is so enraged by this challenge to his authority that he orders the furnace (a symbol of his unrighteous fury) to be made white hot, so hot in fact, that his own men die delivering Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to the flames. But wait, in the midst of these flames, what does this "son of the gods" (a title of Nebuchadnezzar) see? The true Son of God, coming to strengthen, comfort and deliver his servants from the unjust anger of Nebuchadnezzar.

In fact, the presence of Christ with them in the fire is so sweet, that Nebuchadnezzar has to call Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego out of the furnace. They are in no hurry to leave!!! He then gives praise to their God and promotes them immediately. But notice what Nebuchadnezzar doesn't do - he doesn't dismantle his golden statue, nor does he personally convert, he just gives Jews special status. He likes having godly people about to benefit him and his empire, but he doesn't humble himself before the Living God.

So what do we learn?

1. Whilst this scenario may have taken Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego by surprise, it didn't take God by surprise. He loves his people and is organising history so as to test and refine their hearts. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego proved faithful, God was honoured by their faithfulness and they are raised to new heights of glory in the Babylonian empire and new heights of spiritual authority and maturity as a result of their obedience. (Matt. 25:21)
2. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego managed to withstand the anger of the king because they loved God and knew God's purposes for human history. They saw faithfulness to God as more worthwhile than the accumulation of temporary riches (Luke 12:15). In the time of trial, could the same be said of us? (Matt. 6:21)
3. We are to honour our families (Eph. 6:2) and those in authority over us (Rom.13:7), but there will be times in our lives when our friends / family / partners / spouses / bosses / government overstep their boundaries and expect an allegiance from us that they have no right to require. In those moments, a clear head and a pure heart that come from knowing and experiencing the goodness of God are needed to keep us from giving in to their illegitimate demands. Yes we must give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but we must also first give to God, what belongs to God - Matt. 22:21. 
4. If people betrayed Jesus up to death, we should not be surprised if those who we thought were our friends end up forsaking us (Luke 21:16-19).
5. Should we go through a fiery trial because we choose faithfulness to Christ over whatever else, then he promises to be with us so closely in it (1 Pet. 4:14)  that we will be content to live long in the trial and to bring good out of it (James 1:2-4). 

Finally, if we find ourselves in a place where we have been faithless, we can take heart from the testimony of Peter, who due to fear, denied knowing Jesus three times, (see Luke 22). Yet he was graciously restored by Jesus after the resurrection (see John 21). Whilst the memory of that denial was no doubt painful for Peter to the day of his death, it didn't disqualify him from the purposes of God. If by fear we have been faithless, we should not lock ourselves up in pride, but humble ourselves and seek his restoration in our lives.

Questions for reflection

1. Is there a person or institution in your life expecting a level of allegiance from you that they have no right to? In the light Daniel 3 how would you respond to them?
2. Do you expect a level of allegiance from someone else that you have no right to?
3. Sometimes we can "start well" in a trial, but as time goes on we look to things other than God to get us through or get us out. Are you / Have you been in a situation like this? What do you need to do?
4. How can you build yourself up in the knowledge and love of God (Jude 20-21) so that when these conflicts of allegiance come across your path you can not only stand your ground, but flourish in the trial?
5. Have you been unfaithful? What do you need to do? How does Peter's story in Luke 22 and John 21 give you hope?

Sermon Notes: Who is the Holy Spirit? What does He do?

Today sees us beginning a new sermon series revisiting the person and work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian and the gathered church. We feel that in the busy-ness of making RFC work, we have lost something of this and we want to return to and strengthen it as it is one of our founding values being part of Newfrontiers. To be clear, we want to pursue God, not the merely supernatural, for not everything that is supernatural is of God. And we want this not just for our meetings, but for our everyday lives - no dividing walls.

Here are seven foundational things we want to tell you / remind ourselves about the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The list is by no means exhaustive for that would take ages.

1. The Holy Spirit is God - Genesis 1-2, 2 Corinthians 3:18, John 14:23

The Holy Spirit is not an it. The Bible introduces us to the Living God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit - three distinct persons, all fully, eternally and equally God in their nature. The foundational picture that God has given us in creation to help us begin to get our heads around this is the first created human family in Genesis - a father, mother and children. Each person is distinct and unique, yet all are equally and fully human. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of the Father and the Son (John 15:26, Gal. 4:6), he eternally proceeds from them both in a similar way that you and I and our brothers and sisters all proceeded from our fathers and mothers. He is the life, love and infinite creative diversity of God who flows eternally between the Father and the Son and from the Father and the Son out into creation.

2. He loves to glorify the Father and the Son - Matthew 5:16, John 16:14

All the members of the Trinity are self-forgetful because they find their joy in the other. They aren't interested in getting attention for themselves. The Father loves to glorify the Son: "Look at Him, isn't he wonderful?!" The Son loves to honour the Father: "He is worthy of all glory!" The Father and Son have sent us the Holy Spirit to be our constant and eternal companion. Like a best man, joyfully and unobtrusively organising the logistics of the wedding day on behalf of the Bride and Groom, the Spirit longs to shine the spotlight on Jesus and His Father and help us to glorify the Son and honour the Father as we go about our lives in the world. Abraham's chief servant, Eliezer (see Gen. 15:2) exemplifies this gospel truth about the Spirit wonderfully in Genesis 24.

3. He brings new life to the dead - John 5:25, 1 Corinthians 6:11

The Bible shows us that not only are we unable to save ourselves, but moreover, that we don't want to be saved. The Holy Spirit is the one who awakens a person to the reality of their need before God, that we are guilty in our rebellion and high treason, clothing ourselves not in the glory of righteousness as image bearers of God, but in shame that comes from that rebellion and thus ironically becoming naked and held captive by the Devil. As the gospel is spoken over a person, the Holy Spirit enables us them to hear and receive the words, he cleanses us from all this guilt and shame and takes us from the captivity of the Devil and places us into the family of God.

4. He testifies to us and in us of our adoption and betrothal - Galatians 4:6, 2 Corinthians 11:2, Revelation 22:17

When we find ourselves forgetting, doubting, faltering, or indeed when we are speaking / singing out truth, it is the Holy Spirit, who in those moments speaks to our spirits in a way that is greater than the sum of any words and reminds us that we are truly God's child and that as part of the church, we are truly Christ's bride. Fasting is a great way of preparing our hearts for these kinds of moments, but God can bring them any time through people, creation and circumstance, but he especially reminds us of this when the Bible is read or in the gathered church.

5. He empowers us for the obedience that flows from faith in Christ - 1 Peter 1:2, John 14:15, 1 Corinthians 14:5

Paul introduces his letter to the Romans by saying that God set him apart for calling the Gentiles into the obedience that is by faith. Christians are not expected to remain as they are on the day they got converted but to grow in maturity. That maturity comes the same way they got converted, by hearing, believing and obeying (aligning with) the truth. The hearing, believing and obeying that began their spiritual life is the same process that continues to sustain and flourish it. Hearing, believing and obeying is like taking, chewing and swallowing food. Food is only any good to us if it is eaten. God's truth is only any value to us if we will take it into ourselves and act on it. The goal of all this is that we become more like Jesus, or to put it another way, to take on the family likeness by bearing the fruit of the Spirit in our hearts. It is also by the Spirit that we exercise the gifts of the Spirit which are both “natural and supernatural” (more on this in the coming weeks), engage in spiritual warfare and transform the world, taking down everything that sets itself up in opposition to God. And it is by the Spirit that we not only obey once, but persevere, in that obedience to the very end growing continually in the likeness and work of God. When we disobey God, we grieve the Holy Spirit, who is standing / sitting / lying with us in the same room.

6. He is the great stage manager of history - 2 Peter 1:21, Matthew 10:29-31, John 14:23, Revelation 21:3

Like a stage manager working under the authority of the director to ensure the show happens the way it should, not only is the Spirit at work in the lives of individual believers, he is at work orchestrating all human history according to the Father’s will so that all people might see the excellence of Jesus the Son. We see this in clearly in the Bible where he gives prophecy and then fulfils it, but his influence on history didn’t stop when the Bible was completed. He is also moving human history towards its great conclusion – that God is preparing the earth to be a home where he can live with his people forever. In Genesis 1 we see the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters partnering with the Son, under the Father's instruction, bringing light into darkness, life out of death, order out of chaos and beautiful, multi-coloured diversity out of boring singularity. As a climax to it all, God plants a garden where he can be at home with human beings. Human history is the story of God moving house, from temporary dwellings with Israel to a final home with all his people who, through the life and death of Christ, have been gathered from every people group in the world - from Garden to Tabernacle to Temple in the Old Testament through to human hearts and eventually the whole creation in the New Testament. God isn't setting up home in our hearts to prepare us for "going to Heaven," God is preparing our hearts and the whole creation through both the mundane and the miraculous, to be a place where he can live with us - forever.

7. He is preparing the world for metamorphosis - Romans 8:21, 2 Peter 3:12, Revelation 22:17

That moving house will happen when Jesus returns. At that point, all those who have refused to love and obey the truth will be driven from the earth into outer darkness, The church, both dead and alive will, by the Spirit, rise to meet Jesus in the air like a bride watching and waiting for the bridegroom, and running down the drive to meet him when he comes, and she will take him into his new home - the earth, which having been refined and renewed, will have become a fitting home for God to live in with his people, and the prayer that they have prayed ever since Jesus commanded will have finally been answered for it will truly be"on the Earth as it is in Heaven."

Are you ready for this? If not, what do you need to hear, believe and obey?

Rowan Williams' Excellent 5mins on Prayer

Probably the best 5mins I have ever heard out of the former Archbishop of Canterbury. Filmed by my cousin, and posted on his website here.

Life for the Body: A Communion Exhortation

Communion - the communal act of sharing bread and wine in the gathered church, is often cast as a memorial act. We remember Christ's death, a past event. His body broken (the bread) and his life poured out in death (the wine).

But, when Jesus instituted this New Testament bread and wine ritual, (Lk. 22:19-20), he was catching up so much more of the Bible story, than we often appreciate. It's fundamental to remember Christ's death in the bread and wine, but there is much more going on. For Jesus didn't stay dead, as the angel said (Mk. 16:6, Lk. 24:6), he rose again. And that resurrected Lord of the Universe, comes to his church today, that he might fill her with strength and joy.

One of the pictures that the Bible uses to describe the relationship between Christ and his Church is that of Head and Body. Christ is the head, and we, the church, are his body (Eph.4:15, 5:23, Col. 1:18, 2:19). This image has many applications, but for our purpose here, it's significant because all life which the body receives comes through the head.

The energy the body needs from food in order to function properly, comes to it through the head from the mouth. The air the body needs to fuel all the processes that go on in the body, comes to it through the head from the nose. The information the body needs to act rightly comes to it through the head from the eyes and ears whether that be "Body get out of the way of that oncoming bus!" or "Body, serve this person in a way that Jesus would."

Christ is our head, he is our man in Heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father, and all that he, the head, receives now from his Father, he gives to his body - the church, through the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33).

Christ is our daily bread, (John 6:35) he is our sustenance, our strength for the road of life. But he is also our "wine", our joy giver, our celebration and our glory - bringing us into the joy of his Father (John 17:13).

So, the risen Lord Jesus, bids us to come to the communion table and as we remember in the bread, his body broken, somehow, mysteriously, Christ comes to be bread for us now and nourish us for the road of life. And as we remember his lifeblood poured out, again, somehow, mysteriously, Christ comes to us to fill us with his love, joy and life.

And all so that we, his body, might enjoy (worship) him and sacrificially serve his world until he comes again.

The Myth of Leviticus Difficulty

Far from being a lot of new rules for the Israelites to figure out, Leviticus takes things that God’s people are already doing and translates them into a new expression. When you read Genesis and Exodus, you can clearly see that people already have understanding about how to do much of this stuff already. For example:

• They make sacrifices – Genesis 4
• They have a sexual ethics code- Genesis 38
• They understand what it means to be in the world but not of it in their economic actions– Genesis 23
• They know which animals are clean and which are unclean - Genesis 7

So Leviticus is about taking things to the next level making them more beautiful and glorious.

Moreover, we appear to have assumed that Leviticus is a hard book, with loads of rules, 617 to be precise. But when you stack those 617 against the 307 you need to know, just to pass your driving test, suddenly, everything is set in perspective. And that 307 doesn’t include all the unspoken etiquettes of what you need to do in certain situations after you pass your test. And that’s just for driving a car!! Did you check your tyre tread before you last drove?

We have rules for governing how we run our houses or borrow money to buy them, rules about how to bring up our children, rules about how we interact at work, rules about how we go on holiday, never mind all the rules about crimes like robbing a bank, but when was the last time you found yourself saying “Too many rules – how am I going to get on with my life?”

When was the last time you thought: “I’m so grateful there’s a law against sexual relations with animals because I’m really feeling tempted that way...” Chances are. if you have never thought about that, then most of the Israelites who were given this law didn’t either.

Yes, the world of Leviticus is different, but it's probably no more different than visiting another culture, e.g. China. Yes, it's different, but it's also still very much the same. So think of Leviticus, not as a dry rule book, but as a tourist guide to another people who are different, but at root, just like you and me.

11 Reasons Why Leviticus Overwhelms Us

There is probably no book of the Bible more ignored than Leviticus. It feels so alien.

But its alien nature is probably as much due to our unquestioned assumptions as any essential difficulty. Have a look at the 11 underlined reasons below, some of them are at best half-baked truths, others are plain crazy. How many of them have you unwittingly swallowed over the years?

1. Simplicity = purity. There are a lot of seemingly irrelevant picky details in Leviticus.
2. Here, God seems angry with the people and not like the nice Jesus we know, God isn’t angry with us anymore, so I don’t need to engage with this stuff.
3. “Progressism” (C. S. Lewis called it “Chronological snobbery”) Like racism but with progress. Technological progress (iPhone 6 is better than iPhone 3 etc.) leaves us feeling that newer is better and that people who lived in the past were stupid because they hadn’t worked out how to make the Internet and they kept slaves. So because Leviticus takes place in the past, it is inferior and therefore has little important to tell us.
4. When we open the Bible, we want God to say something relevant to our life today. We long for a rapid emotional connection. Easy when reading the Psalms, difficult when reading Leviticus, so we ignore Leviticus.
5. We have a strange relationship to animals. Blood sacrifice is alien to us. We love to eat them, but we can’t bear slaughtering them.
6. We are automatically suspicious of rituals, institutions and especially organized religion.
7. We believe the only way to be authentic is in expressing our individuality and in being “original,” not in repeating rituals. (This is the essence of the consumer economy.)
8. We think about our salvation primarily in individual terms, not in terms of a community.
9. We think that God’s grace is to be experienced primarily as an inward / psychological reality, rather than an outward / community reality. One expression of this is that “modern” churches will more often climax their meetings with prayer ministry time, rather than communion.
10. We assume that the trajectory of human history is from the physical to the spiritual, that we will shed all our physical forms. (This is a version of Gnostic thought, which at root is heretical.)
11. Faith is first and foremost a private matter.

A Letter from the People of the Cross to ISIS