Suppose your church really became concerned about its lack of impact on the world around it, and suppose it vowed to do something beginning with the question ‘How do we see ourselves as a church? What are we here for?’ And suppose you have vision enough to see that if you only exist to keep things going, or to be a nice cosy family together:you are not the church of Jesus. Suppose you have the vision that it is His church, not ours, and Jesus wants His church to exist for others, and to turn unbelievers into His fully committed followers.
Well, if that vision exists among enough of the people in your church, then it can begin to live by the values of the New Testament which involve such clear issues as these:
God cares about all people – so they do matters to us? True or false?
People who are lost to God need to be sought and found. True or false?
Our Sunday services must cater for the unbelievers who come and not to suit the believers already there. True or false?
Our love for people must override our traditions. True? – but does it?
All our services must be people-friendly – not embarrassing, pressurising, or quietly manipulating anyone.
Everything done has to be the very best work we can manage presented by the highest standards. True, or false?
In short, if Jesus wants his church to seek and save, and build up the lost into fine Christian disciples,do we want that enough to accept the values which lead to it?
Listen to how Paul’s vision fixed his values: I Corinthians 9: 19-20, 22-23
“Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible.To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.
To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings”

A Prayer:
Lord, save your church from seeking to save itself, but rather let it lose itself, and ;thus find itself saved.

Now read II Kings Chapter 7 (and ponder v.9).

Christians in the modern Western world seem to have this idea firmly fixed in their minds. We all seem to think that the pagan world around us is hardened against belief – beyond the reach of the gospel. ‘Once upon a time’, we say, ‘people responded, but these days the majority are too sceptical, too hard boiled even to entertain the belief in a God who cares about them, who loves them. They just don’t want to know’. So we write off the unchurched masses as unreachable.
Now that is a tragic misdiagnosis. They are cynical about religious structures, yet there are, in our Western indifferent world, millions of people who are crying out for a living faith, and they seek it everywhere from anyone and anything – Eastern gurus, lucky charms, the stars and horoscopes, in self hypnosis, and in extremist cults which claim infallibility, and offer assurance, a cause to fight for and a sense of belonging. The world is hungry for God. There are millions of minds shut to what they think is Christianity – but yearning to be opened up and filled with joy and peace and meaning. Never sit at home and criticise Jehovah’s Witnesses who, reviled as they are, go from door to door with their pre-programmed sales pitch and win converts – unless you are prepared to show a matching zeal. This same zeal is seen in many others,like Mormon missionaries and in Muslim activists.But remember, zeal can be wrong!

The unchurched pagan Western world is hungry for God, but not for dead religion.Yet wherever it sees genuine enthusiasm, faces lit with joyful purpose, a true sense of the supernatural, wherever it observes an uncringing humility, an open accepting welcoming community – and hears truly great good news- then it is fascinated and attracted, and begs for the secret of the joy to be revealed.The pagan world is reachable and teachable, and hungry for reality.This is an early description of church:
“All the believers were together and had everything in common.Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people.And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 2: 44-47

A Prayer:
Open our eyes, Lord, to the needs of the people around us.
Open our ears, Lord, to your words of life.
Open our hearts, Lord, to your love for them and us, that we become your growing, glowing family.

Now read Ephesians 5: 1-21.

The Christian life is a matter of faith from start to finish, but if it doesn’t make any difference to the way you live, then it’s merely an ornament, an unnecessary bit of baggage to carry: a mere belief. Living faith shows. It acts. It lives out its life day by day. In it is food … air … light ……

Jesus had so much to teach the world. So much to do for the world. So much to provide, and for all time. And what did he do? He called a handful of the most unlikely men and set off with them into the villages and towns of an off-centre province in the Roman Empire to meet people where they were. That would be regarded by our modern business management methods as crazy. He had no infra-structure, no hierarchy, nor organisation, no official launching, no advance publicity. It was ‘Let’s go and do it!’ and they did: or rather, he did.
What did he actually do? He lived the rule of God right there among the people. The sick he healed:the possessed he freed the enslaved he delivered: the religiously self-satisfied he rebuked:the hungry he fed, and everywhere he proclaimed by deed and by parable that it is God who rules, not the devil, and that no man need stay the way he is. The power to change was there, and was free. In God’s rule, there is a future for everyone willing to have a change of heart.There is hope for all who trust Jesus enough to let him rule them, and nothing is impossible. With Christ nothing impossible.

Have Christians, and churches in the West, lost that simple living faith which gets up and does the Jesus things? Have we lost the sense of daring mission? At the beginning of Mark’s gospel it records:
“When John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news”. As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him.” Mark 1: 14-18

A Prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, who came declaring war on the realms of darkness and evil, and who called ordinary, ungifted people to go with you into battle, call us again to go with you into the real world, and there, dare to do the deeds of your kingdom.

Now read Luke 11: 14-32.

I apologise for having indulged in reminiscences of my early days as a Christian, and if you can stand one bit more, then let me say that for me the Christian faith became a truly living thing not when I became aware that I’d been a secret and dead believer for over two years, but when I actually stood up to be counted as a Christian. That was resurrection!
It was in India. I found myself in a military transit camp, in the City of Madras, waiting for some ship to take me to where my unit had sailed, much further east. On the first night I wandered into town and bumped into an open air meeting in the centre of that crowded city. I was horrified to see it consisted of a few Christians, holding an open air preaching service. I turned to hurry away (”religious maniacs” I muttered). My conscience rang like a telephone. “God here! Go if you must, but this time go alone.” I could not. I was rooted. People came – people went. I found myself eventually on the front row. A stranger came and said “Hello brother – are you a Christian?” I stuttered, and stammered “Well – er – yes”. I mean I was no Hindu -I was British, after all. He stopped the meeting and declared “Our brother here is a Christian, and he is now going to tell us all how he found the Lord”. Thud!
Suddenly I was doing the one thing I dreaded: coming out publicly for Jesus Christ. It may not have done anything for that huge crowd, but it did a miracle in me.I had believed in my heart, and now – at last- I had confessed with my lips that Jesus is Lord, and my whole world changed. That day was my first real step into Christian ministry.A hundred miracles followed, but the main deed was done. I was alive in Christ.
“The word is near you: it is in your mouth and in your heart.” That is the word of faith we are proclaiming. That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
“For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” Romans 10: 8-10

Don’t be a secret agent. Blow your cover today.

Now read Joshua Chapter 24.

I’m in the middle of a public confession, and I’m not proud of it. I’d been in the army for over two years or more, trying to be a secret Christian, and it did not work- it never does. I hadn’t the guts to blow my cover. I was in India by this time, and in a camp where there was nothing to do, so I went to a group led by an army chaplain.The subject was ‘Psychology’, and the vicar was a psychology scholar – I was so ignorant, I thought you spelled it with an ’s’! He was talking about dreams. “I don’t dream” I said, for I was expected to say something. “Everyone dreams” he said “you forget them. Come and tell me tomorrow the dream you have tonight”!

That night I wakened up in a cold sweat from a nightmare in which my little niece Janet was lying in the bath at home, stone dead, under two feet of cool, still water. I was shouting for help, but no one came. It was so real I wanted to phone England to get a warning to them. The padre asked me a hundred questions, including ‘Do you love this little girl?’. “Yes of course, she’s the only child I had ever seen grow up through babyhood to toddler stage.” He started going on about my tender self being identified with the child … and so on. No bells rang.
Then after a while he suddenly said “Hey, aren’t you a Baptist?”.
“Well yes” I stammered. I was not proud of my bad secret witness.
“How old is Janet?” “Two” I said.
“When were you baptised?” he asked. “Over two years ago” I stammered.
“That’s it” he said. “You were buried with Christ in baptism over two years ago, but you never rose with him. It’s been a dead secret …”. All the bells were ringing inside me now.
He said more, but my mind was exploding with truth.That’s where my soul was, where I had been; dead under the water and He was calling me back from the dead.

Listen to Paul again speaking of Christian baptism.Colossians 2:20 and 3:1a
“Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules? Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above”

A Prayer:
Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you call us from living death into living life as newly born people.

Now read Colossians Chapter 2:6 to 3:4, and don’t ignore your dreams!

Can you stand another bit of public confession? I was baptised as a teenager and in a very short space of time. Only days afterwards I found myself in the British Army, called up, and dumped in the middle of a sweating, heaving, cursing mass of humanity whose favourite curse words were the names of the Lord, in whose name I had been baptised. I was told to ‘be a witness’ and put my Bible at my bedside, kneel, and to be seen praying. Well, I didn’t have a bed, let alone a bedside table.Everything you didn’t nail down vanished -sometimes even if you did, the nails went as well.

Confession? I hadn’t got the courage. I was terrified of the mockery.I wanted to be one of the lads. It was all I had. I didn’t know enough, nor believe enough even to consider to try to be a witnessing Christian.Thus the sheer steam-rolling power of the environment and of peer pressure led me to try and be a secret Christian.Of course I didn’t know then that either your faith kills your secret, or your secret kills your faith.I let go of Him. But He never let go of me. He had me by the ear (it’s the only part of myself I ever gave Him) and for over two years he shut doors I lusted to go through.He kept me when I wanted to be lost. I tried my hardest to escape the Jesus I’d said I’d follow.

Well, it all changed. I was given the opportunity of standing up to be counted as one of Christ’s men, and he forced me to my feet in public to speak for Him: and nothing was ever the same again. All the lights came on – God’s programme took over, and plans over which I had no control unfolded with great speed. It was amazing then, and it is still.

Well, I’ve missed out the most staggering preparation for this sequence of events.It was a dream. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. For now, listen to this promise from a prayer of Paul for his beloved Philippians:
“I thank my God every time I remember you.In all my prayers for all of you,I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.” Philippians 1:3-6

A Prayer:
Today we thank you God that you do not give up on us, even when we try to give up on you.Thank you for your great faithfulness even to your unfaithful people.

Now read Jonah Chapters 1 and 2.

A Roman Catholic scholar was asked ‘Have you been baptised in the Holy Spirit?’ “Yes” he said. “When?” he was asked, and his answer revealed a defence of his church’s teaching and a profound insight for any Christian of any church. “I was baptised in the Holy Spirit when I was baptised in water.” By this he mant when he was christened as a baby.That was the orthodox doctrine. “But”, he went on “it has taken me all these years to appropriate what God gave me then”.
I repeat it: “it has taken me all these years to appropriate what God gave me then”.

This is not for me a satisfying explanation of the different initiation ceremonies or the various churches, but it does remind me that when God acts on us, and in us, we do not always immediately accept all he has to bestow upon us. Yes, part of this is growing up, for there are some clothes one can’t wear until one is big enough, but also part of the issue is how our lack of faith limits the things God wants to do in us and with us. Like Peter Pan, we don’t want to grow up. We take the first instalment to be the entire package.

Please excuse a personal confession. I was baptised as a believer in my teens. I understood so little at that time that years later, when God had got to me in a million different ways, I had the opportunity of tackling the minister who baptised me. I accused him “You never told me about baptism in the Holy Spirit, nor about spiritual gifts. Neither you nor the church laid hands on me in prayer … surely you baptised me too soon.” He simply said “If I had not baptised you then, you never would have been”. Now I’d never thought of that. So for me baptism wasn’t meant to be the climax of a living faith, but the first step of a new beginning into God’s country. I was so slow to appropriate what God had already provided. It took me years and years, and I am still working on it.
“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Romans 6: 3-4

A Prayer:
Today, I thank you God that even when I don’t understand my commitment to you, you understand your commitment to me, even when it takes me my entire lifetime.

Now read Acts 8: 26-40.

Some experiences are too deep for words. In fact words can become an obstacle, a cage of the soul. See a mother feeding her new born child. The baby is too young to understand words,but vast deep communication is taking place. Love is flowing, not just milk, and filling the baby.The baby is fulfilling a hunger only a mother can feel. The mother fulfilling a hunger only a baby can feel. Sounds made by both of them are unintelligible – cooing and smiling and baby talking, but they are in deep communication. In fact, some of us believe that to deny this to a young babe is to cause a deep sense of insecurity which nothing in later life can alleviate. Babies two weeks old know that they are loved, or if they are not loved.Don’t ask how they know, they know, and if denied love, insecurity symptoms begin to develop.Bonding is deeper than words.

We have all seen an audience rapt in concentration and ecstasy as an orchestra plays inspired music. Sir Lawrence Olivier once said that he sits under such music weeping like a child, for he could make no other response to such beauty.I can see a group of the world’s greatest jazz musicians playing together,not for money, they are not even performing, they are simply lost in what they were expressing together, ‘Gone’ as they say.

There are a thousand other instances of this, and you could add your own experience, and all of them would be escapes from the cage of words.These most explosive words of Jesus which we often skip over as we read, are about things deeper than words. Jesus said:
“Out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks”. Luke 6:45

So the eternal law is simply that we communicate what we are full of.Ponder it today. We all communicate what our hearts are full of.Perhaps that’s all we ever communicate.

A Prayer:
Forgive, O Lord, the mindless chatter which we call conversation, the verbal diarrhoea we often call communication, and the senseless ramblings we often call entertainment; and in your mercy fill our hearts with the love and compassion of Christ whose words are life and glory.

Now read Ezekiel Chapter 1.

“I understand that Christians teach about baptism in the Holy Spirit” said the man “But what about the gift of speaking in tongues – what is it? What does it do?”
You will understand that different Christians do give different answers to such questions. I can only give you mine.
I believe that true Christian conversion does transform us, including the way we talk. Jesus said we all speak what our hearts and minds are full of (Luke 6:45). Our tongues get converted when our hearts, our minds, our wills and our wallets become surrendered to God: but I believe that there is a confusion between speaking in tongues in public as a supernatural sign primarily to focus the attention of unbelievers and a more private and intimate communion with God in prayer.The public gift is much rarer than many suppose, and it always demands interpretation into language that all can understand. This is called ‘glossolalia’ in the Greek New Testament, but there is another kind of ‘tongues’ which I interpret as ‘prayer language’, and does not require interpretation, for it is heart to heart communion with God, and can be too deep for words.Thus tongues in public speaking, and in private prayer, are two different things, and I do not believe that the New Testament teaches that every single Christian must have either, or both, of these experiences in order to be truly Christian. What it does teach is that real Christians do communicate, both with God and with people. God gives them a new tongue to tell of his mighty deeds and his nature, and also to talk to him in prayer and to listen.Thus the gift of tongues is indeed the sign that God has got hold of your life, for now you communicate to people in speech, and to God in prayer.There’s much more on this subject, but for now let’s hear Paul in Romans 8:26-27
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance the God’s will”

O Holy Spirit,take my prayers and translate them into the language of heaven
take my relationships and translate them into the language of love.

Now read again I Corinthians Chapter 14.

Many Christians believe that once you are surrendered to Christ you are led not only to be immersed or baptised in water, but also to be immersed or baptised in the Holy Spirit. We are told there is only one baptism in water. We are told that there is only one baptism in the Spirit, but there are many re-fillings, or re-immersions: or, as Jesus taught in that wondrous acted parable at the Last Supper, when he washed his followers’ feet and Peter protested, …’When you have taken a bath, you are clean all over, but even then a few steps outside and your feet get travel-stained’. In the world of open sandals or bare feet, and sandy pathways, feet need to be washed constantly.

Christian conversion, according to the scriptures, is not intended to be divided into our man-made stages or phases, which later generations of church traditions have made it.
Some teach, for example, Stage 1: you respond to the gospel, repent and believe in Christ.
Then, when you’re ready, Stage 2: you are baptised in water as a sign that you’ve been converted.
This baptises you into the church, the body of Christ, which often becomes Stage 3.
Then later on you reach Stage 4, and receive a further, or second blessing – Baptism in the Holy Spirit – which equips you and floods you with joy.
Many teach that Stage 5, the sign of this having happened, is that you automatically ’speak in tongues’, i.e. a language you have not learned.

For now, let’s look at the biblical teaching, that conversion to Christ is a personal miracle which consists of certain basic elements. All the issues we debate are involved in the one miracle of conversion. Like an engine firing on all four cylinders:
We repent of our sin – U-Turn – we turn to God.
We put our trust in Christ – Faith – we trust our lives to Him.
We declare it publicly in baptism in water into the church – we tell the world whom we serve.
We receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the church lays hands on us and prays.
We take the gifts God has for us.
We can follow Paul’s cylinder checklist. It is at the start of Acts Chapter 19:
“At Ephesus, he found some disciples and asked them “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”.They answered “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit”. So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”. “John’s baptism”, they replied. Paul said “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus”.On hearing this they were baptised into the name of the Lord Jesus.When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.” Acts 19: 1-6
Now, they were firing on all cylinders. How about you?

A Prayer:
I am ready Lord, both to give myself and receive yourself in the mystery of commitment.

Now read again Acts 2: 36-47.