God is good
30 June , 2011
God is good – all the time! In all his dealings with us there is an unqualified commitment to our well being. He is for us unreservedly. He freely gives us all things. He desires our success more than we can imagine. He has truly forgotten our sins, and unleashed all the blessings of heaven upon us. There can be no more foundational truth for us to believe than this. If God is not good, then there is no gospel, no good news. Just think about it: who would want to be reconciled to a God who is malicious, devious, vengeful or wilful?! But God is good, his mercies are never ending.
In practice we struggle to live in this belief. The daily run of disappointments, opposition and hardship which we experience cause us to qualify to the goodness of God. God is good, but… We submit stoically to the batterings and bruisings as in some sense the dealings of God in our life. “God has sent the suffering to teach me things.” In so doing we slander God and believe the lies of the devil. We attribute to God a brutality of discipline that we would be appalled to apply to our own children. If what we call the goodness of God doesn’t look good then maybe it isn’t the goodness of God!? Maybe God is concerned with enjoying us as a father enjoys his children, more than panel-beating our lives for us.
It is time for the confession that God is good to become our daily warfare. It is time for us to believe to experience the goodness of God as good. It is time to entrust ourselves fully to the father who delights to bless us and who honours us with the position of sons.
To hear more on this, why not listen or download the sermon below?
Blessings
Richard
God is good, All the time! by Richard Lawton, 26 June , 2011
Prodigal father!
13 April , 2011
The prodigal father let the prodigal son go! How amazing is that? With half the family’s cash stuffed in his back pocket the young guy can’t wait to be out of the house. I’m sure the father had serious misgivings. This was not going to end well! Was he an irresponsible father? Should he not have laid down the law? But he didn’t, and yes it did end badly for the young guy. At least the story had a very bad patch for him. In the end, though, it did all come right.
Our heavenly Father has a destiny prepared for us way beyond “what eye has seen or ear heard”, and yet strangely gives us the freedom to reject it. The second tree in the garden provides a way out if man should be foolish enough to want turn his back on the heavenly relationship. (That story ended badly as well, but also came right in the end.) Love desires only good things for the beloved. But true love also guards the freedom of the beloved.
In our desiring good things for those we love, it is hugely tempting at times to want to control them (“for their own good”), yet true love is able to release. Unconditional love is really the only kind of love there is. Conditional love is manipulation. I believe in non-coercive church. I want so much for people in Hillside. But I need you to want it! I believe in non-coercive family. I believe in non-coercive marriage. I believe in non-coercive business…
And all this is possible because Jesus loved us non-coercively and bought us a peace which passes understanding. My peace does not depend on whether the people I know and love do the things I think they ought to. My peace depends only on him.
Have an awesome week honouring the freedom of others.
Richard
Sowing and waiting
15 March , 2011
So Angus is going to visit us! I have never been a farmer, not had the desire to be a farmer. Perhaps that is why I am slow to grasp the significance of the many agricultural metaphors and stories in the bible – it is an unfamiliar world to me.
If 1st century Judea had been an industrialized society, would Jesus have told manufacturing parables? Well possibly yes, in fact probably yes. Yet there is a fundamental fit between agricultural processes and the gospel. This fit really isn’t there for industrial processes. Agriculture is seriously intentional. If you don’t sow, you don’t reap. What you sow determines what you reap. The gospel does not work unless someone does the sowing. We will not see gospel fruit in our own lives unless we sow. We will not see gospel fruit in our community unless we sow. And the harvest depends on the quality of the seed sown. Good seed = good fruit. Poor seed = poor fruit. But then comes the “all by itself”. Somehow this seed sown germinates, sprouts, grows and bears fruit, all by itself. Cars do not make themselves, memory chips do not grow by themselves, movies do not appear from nowhere.
The miracle of the agricultural process is precisely that we cannot make fruit – we have to let it make itself. And this wonderful miracle requires patience. In my desire for the good fruit promised, I often end up trying to manufacture it, and burn myself out! The stupendous technological advances of the last few hundred years have not come close to being able to manufacture an apple. God does it so much better. So I am learning to sow and wait, sow and wait….
Richards new Blog
20 March , 2010
I’m sitting on the verandah as the mist rolls in, having my first go at a blog! What an awesome tool to keep in touch not just with happenings, but thoughts and ideas too. I am quite an ideas person as you will have realized, so this blog is likely to be thin on news and fatter on thoughts!
I have just finished the first draft of a sermon for Easter Sunday, part of our series on Encountering Jesus (how did this series get to be called “Close Encounters” for heavens sake? You have to know that not everything that happens in Hillside comes from my desk!) Anyway I am increasingly gripped with our commitment to place the gospel at the centre of all we do, as we have tried to do in this series. But the only way we can in integrity be gospel-centred is if, as we have claimed, the gospel is the answer to every human need. (If there is a human need that is not addressed by the gospel, then we had better preach something else!) That key statement is so easy to say and such hard work to apply. In fact I think it is the greatest theological challenge to every preacher to explain just how Jesus is the answer to the needs of the hearer. In the face of hugely diverse relational, emotional, economic stresses we constrain ourselves not to give 10 tips on how to do it better, or a motivational pep talk, but a good solid reason why the work of Jesus on the cross makes all the difference, indeed is our salvation. (Especially since many hearers would probably prefer a pep talk, or some tips!) The gospel is good news, not good advice. A HUGE challenge, but what a privilege to engage in it.
