Things that are otherwise good or neutral that we chase after and desire – that the Lord has been keeping us from for our own good – that he eventually gives to us. In the end, he may give them to us so that we realise the Lord was keeping us from the things for our good, not to ruin our fun. He isn’t saying the thing is bad, but that it perhaps is not good for us. 

I am convinced that there are times God gives us exactly what we want, not because it is a good thing for us, but because he is giving us over to that thing as a judgement. There can be times we ask, push and go after things that God would keep us from. The thing may be an otherwise neutral thing that God, in his goodness, is keeping us from. It may be an ostensibly good thing that simply wouldn’t be good for us. It may be a bad thing, that would be bad for anyone, but we have decided it looks particularly good. Sometimes God gives us the desires of our heart so that we can see just how unappealing it is.
The Lord did this specifically to his people in Israel:
But my people did not listen to my voice;Israel did not obey me.So I gave them over to their stubborn heartsto follow their own plans. – Psalm 81:11-12
But he appears to do this in the New Covenant too:
because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. – Romans 1:28
You can read the rest of Romans 1 to see how God might give people over to different things. The very going after of these things, and then getting them, is itself a judgement upon them. That seems to be what Paul is referring to when he says they ‘received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.’ The very things that they do, they very natural consequences of their choices, constitute a judgement of their own.
Of course, Psalm 81 and Romans 1 are both concerned with those going after sinful behaviours. They are, frankly, the sort of outward sinful behaviours that most Christians rightly understand to be a problem. Few of us who claim to love Jesus will be literally bowing down to Baals nor engaging in some of the more base aspects of Romans 1.
Where we are more likely to hit upon problems is less in the going after specific sinful behaviours – though I don’t pretend that we are immune from that – but rather that we will be driven by sinful desires and motives towards ostensibly good or neutral things for bad reasons. The Lord, in his goodness, may keep us from those things – knowing that they wouldn’t be good or helpful to us –
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Not having his excellence spill out of us in the form of verbiage may not be a sign that we have an affection problem. It may just be evidence of a particular personality. It may be evidence of other perfectly innocent and ordinary things too. We shouldn’t be too quick to assume a lack of affection for Jesus. But I think it is fair to say, if we find that we never have anything to say, might it be because we don’t actually have a living relationship with him and we simply don’t recognise his excellency? 

One of the great tasks of being a Christian is to go into the world an proclaim the excellencies of the one who called us. I do think we so often get taken up with the idea of evangelism as presenting a basic message about what Jesus did on the cross to the detriment of seeing it as a more fulsome task of proclaiming the excellencies of him who called us, in which the cross is not the whole story but a **ahem** crucial aspect. We are not called to just tell people the basic message of how they can get right with God, but to proclaim his excellence to them. A key part of what makes Jesus so excellent is the cross – we are missing something absolutely vital if we don’t mention it – but to proclaim his excellence suggests doing something more than imparting basic facts.
That is what I think often goes missing. It’s not particular key facts about mankind, the problem of sin and the particular solution in Christ. It’s more that we can convey all those things factually and yet do very little to proclaim Christ’s excellence. Not only is there much more to the excellence of Jesus than just what he did on the cross that we often don’t mention – though I can’t stress enough, what he did on the cross is a pretty major bit of excellence in its own right – but there is perhaps a tone and feel to what we say that may or may not convey excellence too. There is a difference between simply saying things Jesus has done that are good and so enthusing about Jesus that he is seen to be excellent. And proclaiming his excellencies suggests we find him so excellent that it just spills out of us. We are not merely into the imparting of basic facts about Jesus, but overflowing with the greatness of him that our evident love for him is seen, felt and heard.
The usual example we might give is the way people talk about whatever they are excited about. When somebody is excited about something – a holiday, a wedding, their hobby, whatever – it just spills out of them. They don’t necessarily rabbit on about it endlessly, they might have a bit more sense that not everyone is quite as excited as they are about it, but it definitely comes out. You will hear about it at least a bit and there is a palpable sense when they are speaking that this is not just some information they are imparting neutrally, facts to be heard and weighed, but a thing they are desperately excited about. Even if you’re not into yourself and don’t get the appeal, you can tell they just love it.
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Churches cannot have it both ways. They cannot simultaneously wash their hands of all responsibility, piling it onto their pastor and/or elders, whilst at the same time having strong and vociferous views about whatever they do.

One of the many terrific things I have discovered since being a pastor is that everything one does is probably wrong. Nothing quite brings it to the fore more than something-must-be-done syndrome. SMBD is usually the refrain you hear when somebody has identified and issue, and it may well be a real and live issue, but doesn’t want to do anything about it themselves. What SMBD typically means is the pastor should be called in to do the something that nobody else wants to do.
A fair question at this point might be, why exactly don’t you want to do anything? The answer is usually pretty obvious. Either the conversation required is a particularly awkward, and therefore unpleasant one, and nobody wants to have that sort of conversation. Otherwise, though someone might be willing to have that awkward conversation—for the sake of the gospel, no doubt—they suspect that everyone else, who see the issue but are unwilling to address it themselves, will have lots of opinions on the particular solution one lands upon. Whilst someone might be willing to have the immediate conversation, awkward as it may be, they are not prepared to face the inevitable pile on that will ensue afterwards as the world and their wife determine whatever you did about it was definitely the wrong thing to do.
For this reason, almost nobody—despite what your church covenant might say and people affirmed they were committed to doing when they become members of your church—puts their hand up to do anything. So, the assumption goes, the lot must fall to the elders, and usually the pastor for the stated reason that he has time though often the unstated reason that he’s the one that gets paid to put up with this nonsense.
So, the pastor goes and has the awkward conversation about whatever it might be and what ensues is totally predictable. I have variously been told that I was being heavy-handed by going and having a conversation with someone and, at the same time, slack and uncaring by having not had a conversation sooner. I have been told before that church discipline needs to happen but nobody, including the person saying it, is willing to vote to enact anything. I have been told that SMBD countless times but whatever something you happen to land on, it is definitely wrong and when you lay out all the possible options (even clearly wrong ones), none of the actual, possible options in front of us—ranging from doing nothing at all about serious sin right the way through to removal from membership and everything in between—all are deemed inappropriate whilst remaining adamant something must be done.
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We should think through tertiary and secondary matters and think carefully about what the scriptures say and how our approach to them will impact our churches. We may not write people out of the corpus if they land differently to us, but where we land may have implications that matter far more than we tend to think.

If you have been around the church any length of time, you will have probably come across people talking about primary and secondary issues. Primary issues are those essential gospel matters over which we cannot simply agree to disagree. Secondary matters were thought to be those matters that we can disagree over without writing each other out of the kingdom as a result. For many, primary meant important and secondary meant, effectively, unimportant.
Seeing some of the problems with that, theological triage advocates have seen something closer to a three tiered system of parsing issues. First order issues are those primary gospel matters the like of which, if they are denied, makes a person an unbeliever. Second order issues are those that don’t mean a person isn’t a believer but would make it hard for two people to sit comfortably together in the same church. Disagreements at the secondary level might not stop you doing gospel work together but might stop you belonging in membership to the same church. Third order issues are those matters that you might comfortably disagree on without thinking anyone outside the kingdom nor suggesting they couldn’t be part of your church.
These approaches to thinking about how to understand points of disagreement in the church is really important. We do need to know whether this particular disagreement is one that means a person is showing they don’t belong to Jesus at all or whether they just disagree with your particular perspective that is not a core part of belonging to a local church, let alone to the kingdom. If we are going to have any ability to live in community with people we will inevitably disagree with from time to time, and knowing we have to interact with believers from beyond the four walls of our own local church here and there, we do have to think carefully about how to judge these issues. But recognising that, we shouldn’t fall into the opposing ditch of suggesting secondary or even tertiary essentially mean unimportant.
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It may seem obvious, but you are not the saviour of the church; Jesus is. That truth should set you free. The church does not depend on you, but on Jesus. The church does not depend on your ministry, but on Jesus. The work does not stand or fall on you, but on Jesus. Be freed by that. You can only do what you can do and you only must do what Jesus has actually said you must do, not what tradition, culture or people’s general expectations (or, indeed, your own unrealistic expectations) say you must.

April 1 marked ten years of my being pastor at Oldham Bethel Church. Let’s quickly get over the fact that, yes, I started on April Fool’s Day. You can decide for yourself whether the bigger joke was played on me or by me. But ten years feels like the shortest long amount of time worth looking back and seeing what’s what. I don’t think ten years is all that long in the grand scheme of things. But it is the shortest long time that feels like a reasonable amount of time to have been in the same place, doing the same thing and that one might have learnt one or two things worth knowing over that period. So, I thought I might just share some of the things I have learnt. Some are bigger than others, some more or less significant, but they are things I know now and either didn’t know before or didn’t fully appreciate (and maybe I still don’t). But in no particular order, here are some things:
People Leave and This Is Normal
One thing that few people prepare you for before you begin your pastorate is that people will leave your church. I don’t know a single pastor that hasn’t had people leave their church. People leave for a variety of reasons, many perfectly legitimate, some perhaps less so. But even the best pastor in the world will have people leave on them both for legitimate and perfectly understandable reasons but also for less legitimate reasons and will have had fingers pointed in their direction as the fundamental reason why. People leaving is normal and is something we simply have to accept as a fact of ministry.
People Leaving Is Always Sad
The other thing about people leaving is it is always sad. If they are leaving for legitimate reasons, you will find it sad that good people, friends whom you love, are moving on. It isn’t necessarily hurtful when it happens, but it is sad nonetheless, even when it is for legitimate reasons and with every blessing from the church. Others leaving badly will make you sad because they cause so much pain, either to you personally or to the church at large. It is always sad when people leave and there is rarely much you can do to insulate yourself from it.
The Church Is Its People Who Are Its Best Resource
Indeed, the church is its people which means its people are its best resource. That doesn’t mean they are a resource to be exploited. Simply to say, the church is at its best when its resources are all working towards gospel ends. When each part of the body is freed up to serve in the particular ways in which God has gifted them to serve the church will be at its strongest.
Don’t Overestimate What You Can Do in a Year; Don’t Underestimate What You Can Do in Five
Somebody said this to me when I first started in the role and I think it has been seen to be true. There are lots of things we may want to do. Lots of things we might feel are worthwhile. But change will often happen in increments and change will often come when new folks show up and get stuck in too. It takes time to instil cultural change and it takes time to either win people to whatever needs to happen or to sift those who will not be won and feel they would be better served elsewhere. These things all take time. There is a limit to what might be achieved in a year, but over five years the change in a church can be enormous in a number of ways.
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We need to get less cross about pagans thinking like pagans, and bemoan the fact that we are a minority group in a pagan land these days, and instead make effort to simply love and befriend a lost world in need of a Jesus they know precious little about. Being grumpy that the world isn’t thinking about Jesus at Easter, and doesn’t understand the significance of Easter for us or them, won’t bring anyone into the kingdom.

It should come as no surprise to anybody to hear that the world, generally, do not think like believers. But as unsurprising as that news should be, it doesn’t stop believers bemoaning the fact that the world doesn’t think like believers. Nor does it stop churches consistently answering apologetic questions that nobody is actually asking and/or getting irritated when the world doesn’t accept all the evidence we provide to answer a series of perceived challenges they never asked nor find particularly compelling when we do.
This is worth thinking about now as we head into Easter. Many will be holding Maundy Thursday services. Many more will hold Good Friday services. More still will hold Easter Sunday services. Across all these services, a good number of us will be thinking about making them evangelistic. Let’s use Easter as an evangelistic opportunity, let’s invite people to our services and let’s address some potential apologetic questions in our sermons.
But if we manage to get anyone into our services at all, we spend our time answering questions nobody is really asking. We focus on things like the swoon theory or the mass hallucination theory and spend our time explaining how these things are deeply unlikely and point out nobody in the academy has defended these things for well over 100 years now. But we often seem to miss that most people have never heard the swoon theory, or any other theory. Nor are they particularly interested in it. Many are quite happy to accept those theories are deeply unpersuasive. They just can’t see the relevance of them on any level. We end up answering questions nobody is really asking.
More likely, I suspect most of us will find not that many people come into our Easter services at all. Yes, yes, I know – you no doubt no somebody who was saved at an Easter service once. Read this, this and this then get back to me. But for the most part, most people aren’t really thinking about Jesus at Easter. Nor do they really care. Even if they get an invite to our Easter service, they’re not really sure why they should bother going or what it’s got to do with them. For most, Easter is nothing more than a commercially driven long weekend and an excuse to eat some chocolate eggs.
Many Christians seem annoyed by that. People should pay attention to Easter being about Jesus. They should be more interested. Well, whether that’s true or not, they aren’t and nobody is going to start thinking about Jesus, his gospel or enter the kingdom because some Christians got annoyed that they aren’t paying attention to a church calendar they have lived their lives perfectly happily up to now ignoring. We might make them think a bit about Jesus by getting grumpy about them not thinking about Jesus, but it isn’t likely to do anything positive nor move anyone one iota closer to genuine belief in Christ.
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If we recognise that every bit of scripture is both describing and prescribing something, the question is this “descriptive” or “prescriptive”? becomes unhelpful and not a little limiting. If we always answer both, we are forced to ask how do we tell which is which? It can be more helpful to reframe our original question into two, and add a third question between them, to get to the heart of the passage. The more accurate and helpful set of questions are: (1) what is this describing? (2) why is this here? and, (3) what, therefore, is this prescribing? Let me explain.

Here is a phrase-cum-question you often hear knocking about in discussions about the biblical text: is it descriptive or prescriptive? What they mean to ask by that is something like this: is this passage simply describing a thing that happened and isn’t binding on us or is it showing us something that we ought to copy and emulate? Is it merely describing an event (descriptive) or is it giving us some instruction (prescriptive)?
You are most likely to hear this descriptive/prescriptive chat when it comes to the book of Acts. But there’s plenty of Old Testament and gospel examples of the same kind of discussion. Sometimes, though people will use different words to say effectively the same thing, this question is behind any comment anyone ever makes along the lines, ‘that was just cultural’. In other words, it’s just describing the culture of the day and its practices, not binding us into doing exactly as they were doing.
Now, before I go on, it bears saying this is a legitimate question to ask. Not everything, in exactly the form it is described in the Bible, is binding on us. Just go and read the book of Judges, for example. Particularly any of the latter half. Almost nobody reckons just about any part of what is described there – in the form it happened – is stuff for us to emulate and copy today. Most of us are pretty clear it is describing what happened, not prescribing a pattern for us to follow.
Similarly, some stuff in the Bible is evidently binding on us and everybody reckons they are clear and obvious commands to follow. Turn to Matthew 5:21 or Romans 13:9 or James 2:11. It’s hard to argue that these things are merely descriptions of events that took place, not least because they aren’t describing any particular events! Nobody to my knowledge argues anything other than these are binding commands of Jesus. They are not describing any happenings, they are prescribing how we must behave as believers.
So far, so obvious, right? But what do we do with narrative passages of scripture? Most narratives don’t have any obvious binding commands in them directed at us. Whether stuff in Judges and Kings or New Testament narrative like Acts. Most of these narrative are describing events and don’t have commands from God directed to us the reader.
The problem with saying they’re prescriptive is they’re often full of mad stuff that really doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Jesus would have us do. Which of us, for example, reads 2 Samuel 11 and thinks that is just what Jesus wants his followers to do? So, we may say, these things are obviously just descriptive. But the problem here is that they are in the Bible and 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us pretty clearly all scripture is God-breathed and given to us for a reason, specifically so that we might be learn from it and be trained in righteousness. If the danger of saying narratives are prescriptive is that we might be led to prescribe all kinds of mad things, the danger of saying they’re descriptive is we think they prescribe (and therefore say) nothing at all!
But the story of the Levite cutting up his concubine and sending her body parts all over Israel is in our Bible for a reason, isn’t it? It might well not be prescribed – it isn’t something we are to emulate – but the purpose of the story surely exists to tell us something about God, his character, his people and how they ought to respond to him.
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We all have our levels of discomfort we seem willing to bear and our levels of discomfort, what we even find uncomfortable, differs from person to person and all of us, at some level, will allow that lure of an easy life to overtake. When Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow him, this is precisely what I think he is calling us to put to death. For the sake of the gospel, we must die to our comfort. Those of us who won’t will end up killing the church.

I have long been convinced that one of the biggest enemies of the gospel is our own personal comfort. There are simply some lines that we seemingly are unwilling to cross. Some of our lines may differ, there are levels to which we are willing to tolerate some discomfort but even our discomfort is largely within the bounds of what we are comfortable being uncomfortable with (if that makes sense?) But if we are serious about the cause of the gospel, we are going to have to get a bit uncomfortable.
I am reminded of the missionaries who told me that there seems to be some sort of common belief that they must just be people who love snakes in their beds or civil unrest. It’s alright for them – they probably love the adventure – but it’s not really for me. Whilst I’m sure there are some who relish the adventure, I am sure many more are less enamoured with dangerous animals and less than sanitary conditions and are, instead, motivated by the belief that somebody needs to take the gospel where nobody is willing to go. They chose to be uncomfortable for the sake of Christ.
It is very similar to the kind of noise those of us in deprived communities often hear. It’s alright for people like you, but it isn’t for me. I’m never quite sure what they mean by that in my case. Not least, most who insist it’s alright for people like me because I’m more like the people here than they are usually also want to tell me how middle class my upbringing was and I definitely am. You can’t really have that both ways. But even if they have some other reason – and I know unquestionably middle class people who have gone to deprived places who have heard similar things – the line remains largely the same: that would be a level of discomfort too far for me. But, of course, because we know it isn’t the “spiritual” thing to say, we dress up our discomfort by insisting that the people who do go must just love living next door to drug addicts on council estates or serving in areas where racial tension runs high.
But of course, we have the same problem the closer to home we get too. Forget being asked to move anywhere, we hear these comments from people being asked to share the gospel in the nicer areas they have decided to live in. Churches with evangelists, or any people committed to evangelism, will often point to such people and say ‘it’s alright for you.’ I have been in middle class churches where any evangelistic endeavour or people of a more evangelistic bent are just viewed as loving being gauche, weirdos who must just love awkward conversations about Jesus or people who have no concern about whether they keep their jobs or not. It’s alright for them, but it’s not for me. It’s all a level of discomfort too far.
Then there are the lads who perhaps are a bit worried about evangelism but they’re at least willing to sit and talk with members of the church and help them grow. But meeting up for half an hour, in a lunch break, that’s a bit of a pain. Easier just to not do that. Then there are evenings out, but that’s all a hassle too. There is a level of discomfort even here that stop us from bothering engaging in discipleship and giving up almost any of our time for the sake of building the kingdom.
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Hypocrisy is telling other people how to live when you are unwilling to do the same things. This was what the Pharisees were doing. Hypocrisy is telling people that we are all sinners in the same boat, who all need to repent of many different things, but then making out that we have no need to repent and everyone else does. Hypocrisy is claiming we love Jesus, claiming he has changed our lives, all while living in such as way that there is zero evidence of it in practice. It is saying one thing and doing another, demanding others live in ways we are unwilling to live ourselves.

We were continuing in our sermon series in Matthew yesterday. This week, we reached Jesus’ comments about hypocrisy and the woes he pronounced against the Pharisees. You can listen to the whole message here if you are so inclined (the sermon comes at the front end of the service).
During the course of one point, I went off-piste. I was moved to suddenly go off my notes on a short detour. I can’t remember exactly what prompted it. You can probably find the section if you watch the sermon back. But I was particularly moved to speak into the very worst thing we can do to somebody. Unusually, I got a bit upset about it to be honest. Not least because it happens time and again and is a matter on which I think many UK churches need to repent and to whom the Lord will have some very stern things to say.
One of Jesus’ big concerns in Matthew 23 is that the Pharisees are leading people to Hell. Jesus says expressly that this is what they do, where they are going themselves and where those who follow them will end up too. Earlier in the gospel, Jesus has some very hard words concerning millstones around people’s necks if they cause any of his little ones to stumble. The ‘little ones’ isn’t just about children, but more broadly Jesus’ people. Stumbling in scripture does not usually mean a sinful (but repentant) lapse, but rather tends to mean falling away altogether. Jesus is saying anyone who leads people away from the kingdom – as the Pharisees teaching does – would be better off never having been born!
My sidebar (albeit a relevant one) centred on this. One of the purposes of the passage we were looking at is to help us avoid hypocrisy. To look at ourselves and ask if we really belong to the kingdom unlike the Pharisees who were hypocrites and didn’t. One of the applications drawn was the need for church discipline. As church members it is our duty to warn people if they appear to be living hypocritically and we should welcome others pointing out where we are living hypocritically so that we can repent and not remain hypocrites who find ourselves outside of the kingdom on the last day.
But so often church discipline is dismissed as ‘unkind’ or ‘unloving’. Who are you to tell me that my life does not match my profession of faith? Isn’t that the real essence of hypocrisy: telling other people how to live?
Well, in short, no it isn’t.
Hypocrisy is telling other people how to live when you are unwilling to do the same things. This was what the Pharisees were doing. Hypocrisy is telling people that we are all sinners in the same boat, who all need to repent of many different things, but then making out that we have no need to repent and everyone else does. Hypocrisy is claiming we love Jesus, claiming he has changed our lives, all while living in such as way that there is zero evidence of it in practice. It is saying one thing and doing another, demanding others live in ways we are unwilling to live ourselves.
Assuming we are not saying we are better than anybody else – we are sinners too – but this is a kingdom-disqualifying matter of sin that warrants repentance is not hypocrisy. It is not pointing at ourselves and saying how great we are, it is actively calling people back to Jesus. And (I would hope) is done out of a genuine concern for the state of a person’s soul rather than any desire to make ourselves out to be superior to them.
But I think churches very often do not want to engage in meaningful church discipline of this sort. And, I’ll be frank, I get it. Who wants to have awkward conversations with people about their lifestyle choices, their unrepentant behaviour and evident sin in their lives? It is difficult and unpleasant, not just for the person hearing it, but for the person having to bring it up. The only people who relish those sorts of conversations are psychopaths! Most of us, if we are honest, want a quiet life and are only too conscious talking to people about their sin and calling them to repent of specific matters is absolutely not the way to get it.
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Let’s not turn faith into a work but glory in the grace of God. Let us delight in the fact that it is all grounded in him, his sovereign choice, his willingness to submit to death on our behalf so that we – with no grounds for boasting in us as a result – might be saved. Making faith a work robs God of glory that should rightly and only belong to him.

It is straightforwardly true, according to scripture, that we have been saved by grace. Faith is the product of God’s grace towards us. Faith is the only mechanism God could use to save us by grace because it is the only means that doesn’t require any outward activity whatsoever. It seems obvious enough that faith cannot be a work.
Yet, that is precisely what some of us want to make it. We want to believe that we welled up within ourselves the ability to put our own faith, of our own volition, in Christ. The moment we believe this, we have made our faith a work. Let’s just look at Ephesians 2:1-10 to see how it is so.
you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient.[a] 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us,[b] 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6 He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.
Paul is at pains to point out our deadness in trespasses and sins. As has often been pointed out, dead people don’t will anything. They don’t do anything and they don’t believe anything. They are dead. Paul, in the first three verses, impresses upon us our deadness that was evidenced by disobedience. However, v4 marks a turning point. He notes that God takes the initiative and makes us alive with Christ ‘even though we were dead in trespasses.’ Our deadness meant God had to take the initiative. It is this, Paul says in v5, means ‘you are saved by grace’.
Paul picks up this idea again in v8.
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