God's values ~ Our values
As we mentioned last week - and as it says in your newsletters - we are beginning a new sermon series this week entitled 'God's values - Our values.' And we're going to be looking at (surprisingly!) God's values and our values! Or, more specifically, we're going to look at those things that are important to God and then we are going to see how they are carried out in those things that are important to us.
I hope that it will demonstrate that those things we have listed as our values aren't just random features that we plucked out of the air, but that they are grounded in the heart of God. They are important to us because they are important to God.
The reason for this series - God-centred Church
The reason that we are looking at this topic is that we don't wanna be the kind of church that just meanders along filling up the diary with meetings and events but never actually getting anyway. And we don't wanna be the kind of church that comes up with 1001 great ideas and is widely respected in its community but actually misses out on God's idea for that church and that community.
We want to be a God-centred church. We want to do what God wants us to do. Now, I can't think of a single church that wouldn't say the same thing, but I believe that in our day and age we need to make that explicit. It's no good saying it's an unspoken assumption. The will and glory of God should not stay unspoken. The trouble with assumptions is that no one pays much attention to them.
Suppose you ask someone - say, the president of a company - "Apart from God, who's the most important person in your life?" And suppose he says, "Probably my vice president." You might say, "What about your wife?" And he says, "O . . . I just assume that. Sure, that goes without saying.”
Some people might think that it was his incredible affection and respect for his wife that kept her from coming to mind. But most of us, especially his wife, I think, would assume the opposite: she didn't come to mind because she's not of paramount importance in his mind. She goes without saying because she goes without significance.
And you can be certain that she does not like it. She does not say, "I feel so loved and so honoured because my husband never thinks to mention me among his top priorities. I am like the air he breathes - he never gives me a thought." If I understand women at all, I would say that that's not how she would react! What she would say is: "If I don't come to your mind to talk about, then I am not important to you. And if you think that I am honoured by being taken for granted, then you are wrong, because I'm not."
It is possible to take important things for granted-like oxygen. But nothing is honoured by being taken for granted. It is no tribute to the importance of anything in our hearts when we say, "Oh, we assume that." To be assumed is to be taken for granted, and as John Piper says, 'God is a very important person and he does not like being taken for granted.'
So it's not enough for us to say that we are a God-centred church and we want to do what God wants us to do. We need to be demonstrating that and repeatedly reminding ourselves why we do what we do. If our highest aim is to glorify God, we need to remember that God is not glorified by being taken for granted.
Yet, if we want a God-centred church, full of God-centred Christians, we need God-centred preaching. The character of the preaching from the Pulpit will determine the quality of the people in the Pews. So we are going to spend a number of weeks preaching about themes that are precious to God - things that are on his heart, his values, his desires and dreams for His people.
At that point, we might quite reasonably ask, why should we seek to be a God-centred church? Is it really such a high priority? Does it actually need to be as explicit as I'm saying that we intend to make it? And we need to ask those questions honestly, because the answers that we come up with will come back to haunt us again and again. So we're preaching this series because we want to be a God-centred church, but why should we want to be a God-centred church? I can think of 3 reasons.
Because of who He is!
The very first reason is the most important, I would say. We desire to be a God-centred church because of who He is. When you have seen a vision of God in all His glory, when you have beheld his awesome majesty, his pristine holiness, his brilliant and blinding beauty, his unmatched power, his unchangeable faithfulness, his overwhelming love and his utterly and astonishingly amazing grace how can you do anything but worship?!
Let me read to you a passage of scripture that tries to capture a little of who God is. I'll just give you some background to this first. God once created a couple called Adam and Eve, you'll have heard of them! He gave them the incredible privilege and awesome responsibility of filling the earth with the goodness of God. I don't know if you've ever understood Creation like that, but we're told, aren't we, that Adam and Eve were created in the image of God - they were like a reflection of the character and ways of God. So, naturally, God looked at them and said, "that is very good." And he then commands them, this very good reflection of a very good God to fill the earth, to be fruitful and multiply. He wants them to take what they are and fill the earth with this demonstration of God's goodness.
But you know the story, they decided that they wanted to do things their own way and eventually were cast out of God's presence. But God hadn't finished with this purpose that He had. And he called a man, a gypsy-traveller named Abram. Let's turn to Genesis 12 (I'm not at the point of the description of God yet, but this is all important background). This is what the LORD says to Abram, who was later re-named Abraham:
"Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
And you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And whoever curses you I will curse;
And all peoples on earth
Will be blessed through you."
Do you see that God is really giving to Abram exactly the same command that He gave to Adam and Eve? Now this one man is going to be the father of a great nation and they are going to bless the entire earth.
So Abraham gives birth to Isaac, who gives birth to Jacob, who is re-named "Israel." Israel has 12 sons and these become the heads of the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel. (Are you following it, so far?) Well what happens next (to fast-forward a little!) is that one of these sons, Joseph, ends up as the Prime-Minister of Egypt (it's a long story but well worth reading, in Gen. 37 onwards). And all of the family eventually go out to live with Joseph in Egypt. However, over time an unfriendly Pharaoh comes to the throne and takes a disliking to the Israelites who are growing at an alarming rate in his land. So the Israelites are taken into slavery to serve the Egyptian people and to keep them under control.
That's where the book of Exodus begins; let's turn to it. [Read Exodus 1:8-14.] And the people of Israel are kept in this miserable existence as slaves for hundreds of years. And I wonder what happened - that's a long time - I wonder what happened to that dream, that vision that God had given first to Adam and Eve and then to Abraham, to fill the whole earth and bless it. Did they give up on it, did they lose hope? Did they maybe forget about it? Or did they somehow manage to keep that ember glowing, to somehow keep the hope alive that some day they would be freed and enabled to be and do all that God had called them to? I don't know.
What I do know is that God then raised up a deliverer for the Jewish people in the unlikely shape of the stuttering, doubting, hot-headed Moses. Well, again you know the story so I won't go into to it any depth, but Moses eventually leads the people out of Egypt and they are on the road to freedom when they come up against the Red Sea - and they must have felt sick. (You know the feeling when something you have longed looks like it's just around the corner, but then it's snatched away?) But Moses lifts up his staff and stretches out his hand and the Sea parts before their very eyes and they walk across on dry land (can you imagine that?!).
And just as they are getting to the other side, the Egyptians begin to pursue them across the Sea but the Lord causes the water to fall back down and it crushes and destroys the Egyptian army. And that takes us up to Exodus 15, which is the passage I want us to look at. And I set the background in that way because we need to appreciate that this is not just about a miracle on the water and it's not just about the destruction of the enemy and it's not just about deliverance from hundreds of years of slavery. It is about those things, but there is also much more going on. This is about the faithfulness of God. This is about the people seeing first-hand that God is able to keep his promises, that he is the Creator God in whose image we were made, that He is the trustworthy God who promised to an old man and his wife that they would have children more numerous than the sand on the shore, that He is the Deliverer God who redeems his people from captivity. That he is, in a word, God.
Listen to Exodus 15: 1-18. Catch a sense of the joy of the people. Listen; this is your God…
{Read Exodus 15:1-18}
The primary reason that we want to be a God-centred people is because of who He is. You have to devote your life to something; it's inevitable. When you have seen and known a God like that, who else could possibly take his place?
Because of who We are
But we also want to be a God-centred people because of who we are. Let's turn to 1 Peter 2:9-10. These words were originally written about Israel in Deut. 7:6. {Read Passage}
So, you start with Adam and Eve as the people who were going to declare and demonstrate the goodness of God, then we move onto Abraham who will be the father of the nation of Israel. And for centuries that nation had the responsibility of being a light to the world. God didn't call Israel so that they could then sit smugly and enjoy their choseness. He chose them that they might be a light to the nations. Listen to these words from Isaiah:
I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
(Isaiah 42:6-7)
That is why the LORD called Israel - that was their whole reason for existence - that they might be a light for the Gentiles, that they might draw all people into the grace of God.
Once you see this truth, you'll spot it all over the OT. Psalm 96:3 says:
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvellous works among all the peoples!
That is a command to the Jewish people, a glimpse of their job description and a glimpse of the heart of God. In response, David declares in Psalm 108:3:
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples,
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
And in Psalm 67:1-2 they pray a prayer that any missionary would delight to utter:
May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine upon us, [Why?]
that you ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.
Church, this needs to be our prayer at all times. May God bless us greatly - yet not that we can sit here smugly saying "God blesses us," but that we may show his grace to all people; that all nations will see the love of God at work in us. Not that people will look at us and say, "Aren't they great," but that they will see God's grace at work amongst us and say, "Wow, isn't God great?!"
This was the very purpose of God's calling of Israel. Not to put his stamp of approval on one particular people, but that through them he may place his stamp of grace upon all peoples. And this transfers over into our calling as Christians. 1 Peter 2:9 sounds like it could come straight out of the OT:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, [Why?] that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
The very reason we were called, the very reason why we are in church, the very reason there is a church, is that we might declare God's praises, that we might shine his light to those in the darkness. It says, it says 'He called you out of darkness so that you could praise Him for doing precisely that!'
Church is God-centred by it's very nature, that's the whole point! See how it describes us - a people belonging to God. Now, this is why it's completely voluntary whether or not you join the Church. That is why the early Baptists fought so hard for religious freedom for all peoples. That is why you will never, ever see me trying to pressurise or manipulate someone into becoming a Christian - because it's not an insignificant thing that we do. It's not just picking up our ticket to heaven and then business as usual. Becoming a Christian, joining the Church, is about joining the people who belong to God.
Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians by saying, 'you are not your own - you were bought at a price.' We cannot remind ourselves of that enough. We are not our own. When you became a Christian, you handed over the keys, you fell down upon your knees and you said, "Not my will, but your will be done." You made that incredible statement - and if you never did then you never became a Christian - you said, “Jesus is Lord.” And we spend the rest of our lives unpacking what that really means and what the full implications of it really are.
In short, it simply means, Jesus calls the shots. So, what is Church, but a body of people confessing allegiance to Jesus Christ as Lord? Therefore, Church is the place where what He says goes! That's why we want to be a God-centred people. Because this thing of ours is not about what I want, or what the Church council want, or what the Baptist Union want, or Churches Together in Daventry - and it's not about what you want. This thing of ours that we call Church - and our very lives - are all about Him. That sounds extreme, and it is.
Because of what He's done
The final reason we want to be a God-centred people is because of what he's done. And this has really been covered in great detail already. He created the heavens and the earth. He redeemed us from slavery and oppression. He has called out of darkness, he has made us into a people - we're not just individuals who are saved, we are part of a community that has been saved - he's chosen us, he's given us a mission in this world, he's called us - each of us - to be priests, to serve him and introduce others to His grace and show then His glory.
You know I roll off that list, but each one of them really deserves a sermon of it's own - and a number of them will be addressed in the coming weeks. Let's just go back to this one about salvation. In the same way that we can just read Exodus 15 and go, "Hmm… that's nice" without really appreciating what it meant to those who had just been freed from hundreds of years of slavery, it's easy for us to talk about salvation without fully grasping the significance of what we're saying. So let me just read one passage that you will have heard umpteen times. But this time try to hear it as if you're hearing it for the first time, as if you have just tasted that freedom from captivity. [Read Eph. 2:1-10].
We are a God-centred church because of what He's done.
What does God want?
So, if we want to be a God-centred church, the first step is simply asking the question, "What does God want from us? What does it mean to be God's people in Daventry?" Let's turn to the 10 Commandments; Exodus 20.
When the LORD had delivered the people from captivity in Egypt, he called them together and gave them a number of laws. These laws are summarised for us in the 10 Commandments. And though we have a different relationship to the law, as Christians, the 10 Commandments still act as a valuable window into the character of God. They still show us the things that are important to God, his values and his heart.
The very first thing to notice is how the LORD introduces the commandments. He does not say, 'if you want to get to heaven, do this…' What he does is precisely what we have done. He reminds them about who He is and what He's done. Notice that God starts by saying, 'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.' And then, after having established that, He says, 'Number 1 - You shall have no other gods before me.'
And easy trap for us Christians to fall into is thinking that in the OT they were saved by works, but we are saved by grace. So, they had to keep the 10 Commandments and the 600 other laws and we just believe in Jesus. Phew - aren't we lucky?! But that's not the case at all. God doesn't suddenly become gracious when you turn over the last page of the OT and get to Matthew. God didn't become gracious when Jesus came. God has always been gracious - that is who God is. And that's precisely the point He's making here. The very foundation for the work that the people are going to do is that God has graciously rescued them.
See how God starts by saying, "I am the one who delivered you"? He didn't say, back in Egypt, "If you want to be saved, do these things." No. He saves them and then he says, 'now if you want to act as if you're my people, act like this.' It's the same pattern we saw in Ephesians 2, isn't it? We are saved by grace, through nothing but faith - so that, we can do good works. We are saved for good works, not through good works. And that has always been the case.
Okay? So the first thing to notice is that the giving of the 10 Commandments was not a way to salvation. They were saved because God saved them. Full stop. The 10 Commandments were something they did after they were saved.
The second thing to notice is particularly relevant to us. Do you see how the commandments divide up. We start with the first four which are directly applied to our relationship with God - who and how we worship. Then there are the next six that apply to our relationship with others. And that is a vital balance for us to keep.
In John 14:15, Jesus said, 'If you love me, you will obey what I command.' And then in John 15:17 he tells us, 'This is my command: Love each other.' "If you love me, you will love one another." Not, you should, or you must, but you will.
Just think of the parable of the Sheep and the Goats. 'Whatever you did to the least of my brothers here, you did to me.' So when Jesus appears to Saul on the road to Damascus, he doesn't say, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting the church," but, "why do you persecute me?" Our relationship with God is measured and affected and enacted through our relationships with one another. When Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment he responds by speaking of the need to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. He says that this is the 'first and greatest commandment.' He then says that the second is like it - love your neighbour as yourself. The two cannot be separated and together they sum up all that God requires of us.
But later on, in Romans 13:8 & Gal 5:14, Paul writes that the entire law is fulfilled and summed up in one command - love your neighbour as yourself. Now, that should strike us as a little bit strange. After all, if the first and greatest commandment is to love God, then if we have to reduce the law to one command should it not be that one?! No. No, because it is far too easy for us to deceive ourselves into thinking that we are loving God, but it's not so easy to kid ourselves that we are loving our neighbour.
So God says to His people - 'if you want to live like you are a people belonging to God, treat me like this and treat your brothers and sisters like this. The two cannot be separated.' That should really be quite obvious. Don't tell me that you love and respect me if you are going to go round town spreading rumours about my wife. Don't say that you love me if you treat my children horribly.
So in this series, we are going to try and honour this connection between loving God and loving others. We are going to spend one week preaching on one particular commandment - say 'You shall have no other gods before me' - and then the following week we will look at how we are trying to follow this value of God's by placing a high priority on worship. We are hoping to see that our three values, when you unpack them a little, are really just a way of expressing what God has expressed of his heart to us.
I'm excited about this series. We are gonna cove a lot of ground. We are gonna look carefully at our foundation and assumptions, but we're not gonna leave them unspoken. We are going to bring before God and one another our passionate hunger to be a God-centred people. May He be glorified.