Restoration man...

I'm sat watching a TV show of a family of four whose parents are describing having their first sexual encounter at 13 and their first child at 15… there is a man who has been stabbed in the head with a bread knife and is screaming and shouting with a high degree    of tension… it seems that some gang violence had spilled out of a local nightclub onto the street, leading to the brandishing of the knife… an older lady   of 79 sits describing how she had had three children before she was 25 and remembered the judgemental attitudes of her contemporaries, regarding her life choices when she wasn't even married.

The older lady went on to describe a set of horrible circumstances that led to her having to give up her then four children for adoption so that they could be safe, before having the courage to leave her violent husband behind in search of a better life. The man who was stabbed, was actually trying to be the hero, but had not anticipated that the villain would be ‘tooled-up’ looking for such an incident as the one he walked into that night. The young father spoke of how becoming a dad at 13 made him focus on his responsibility to his child, as a means of ensuring that he stayed out of trouble. The older lady, now reunited with one of her children, has enjoyed the restoration of the bond that is formed between a mother and her child that no amount of conflict can suffocate.

It made me start to think about the bond that God has with humanity. In Genesis 1:26, we read about the story of how God created mankind as the pinnacle of his creation…
“Let us make human beings in our image to be like us… So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
(New Living Translation).


The first aspect to notice, is the nature of the audience that God is addressing. The author of the Genesis story is believed to be Moses and he is particular in using the phrase ‘Let us…’ suggesting a plural context; who is God talking to when he suggested to the others of his desire to create a world teeming with life? We know that at the point of creation, the Holy Spirit who is mentioned in verse 2, was ‘hovering over the surface of the waters’ and was therefore present at creation along with Jesus.

We know that Jesus was present at creation because of what John wrote in his Gospel… ‘In the beginning the word already existed, the word was with God, and the word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought life to everyone. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.’ (John 1:1-5, NLT)

In this paragraph about the origin of creation, John is expressing the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As confusing as this scripture might seem, it is beautifully written and I never tire of it. The key for me is verse 4: The word, Jesus, gave ‘life’ to everything. The reference to the phrase, ‘the word’ in the text, is actually a reference to Jesus who, in relationship with the father, and through the work of the Holy Spirit, breathed life into human beings… Men and Women are created equally at the point of creation to live in relationship, echoing that of the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The second important point for me is: ‘the word bringing light to everyone’ (v4)… having the light of God alive in us, reveals where the darkness is. We know that the reference to darkness is the evil in the world; but the darkness can never extinguish the light (v5). This is the Gospel right here. Jesus has the authority to give life; those that follow him will be filled with light. Therefore the darkness of our hearts can be extinguished because Jesus, in his purity, can forgive us of the sin within us as he is the only one worthy enough to do so. His light could not be extinguished and he has buried our sins in the grave where he laid, before rising victoriously from death. Death was the punishment for our sin; sin expresses itself in our rebellion against God’s will for our lives, for which we are deserving of death.

However, death could not hold Jesus. Our sin, which was buried with him in the grave on that Good Friday before Passover, is also put to death in us when we accept his grace offered freely. Jesus became the one true lamb who is able to take away the sin of the world due to his shed blood and his glorious resurrection to new life. God’s wrath would ‘pass - over’ all people who choose to follow him because of the sacrifice that Jesus has made.

We can be reborn into a new life, full of his light… this is what is so beautiful about the Gospel story. God’s gift of life has nothing to do with what we do or how we act but everything to do with Jesus. He was part of the creation story and knew of his fate when he created men and women equally, declaring that what he had created was ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31). God knew that humanity would become corrupted by sin and a sacrifice would have to be made, even at the point of creation. Yet in full knowledge of what was needed and what was necessary for redemption, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were minded to create us in fellowship, knowing that one of them would have to lose their life in order to save the very people that they had created – AMAZING.

So I can only conclude that the man who was stabbed trying to be a hero, the woman who sacrificed her children to save them and ultimately, save herself, and the young dad whose focus was his single minded devotion to his children, all reveal the character of God. Humanity reveals in all manner of ways, how the creator instills in each one of us, the light of the world. Unfortunately, the light that was breathed into humanity at the moment of creation became corrupted by sin as soon as it had been birthed. In the Genesis account of creation, we find woven within it, a darker story line of malevolence, hostility, enmity and deception.

The evil one, the devil or Satan, is the angel who thought he was equal to God whom by nature, rebelled against his sovereignty. We read in Revelation 12:7-12 that a great battle took place, where the authority of God was challenged by Satan. Cast out of heaven, the devil referred to in the text as a serpent, becomes the principle character for rebellion in God’s creation. So we find in Genesis 3:1-19 that humanity is corrupted by the impact of the devil and the resulting sin that mankind displayed in God’s creation. This leads to the first record of an animal sacrifice found in the bible because of the corruption that sin had already caused through Adam and Eve’s actions.

We are all familiar with Adam and Eve covering their nakedness with a leaf but in reality they are described as hiding among the trees. How often though, when you read this story of the fall of man into a sinful life, have you noticed that God uses the skin of an animal to create clothing to cover their modesty? As much as that this is the first animal sacrificed for atonement of man’s sin, it is also the first synonym we find for the death of Jesus. He becomes the sacrificial lamb as an atonement for the sins of all of humanity; the lamb who takes away the sin of the whole world (John 1:29). Revealed here within three chapters of the first book in the Bible, is God’s vision for humanity; that he will draw all peoples on earth back to himself through the sacrifice of his son.

We can read through the Bible then, that God sacrifices part of his creation in order to redeem us. Nothing that happens to us is a mistake, although we might walk the wrong pathway for a time in our lives.  As with all of the mistakes we might make in our lives due to the choices we take, the cause can always be traced back to the deception of the serpent in the Garden of Eden who accuses God of not being clear with his instructions, thereby implying that God is not sovereign. He manipulated Adam and Eve’s innocence to cause them to commit sin, just as he does with us today… sin corrupts absolutely. Creation has become cursed and as a consequence, men and women were to be at enmity with each other or set against each other. Genesis 3 is where we learn of the fate of the serpent for his rebellion against God’s will but we can also find within God’s curse, another glimpse into his solution for the problem of sin:

Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

(Genesis 3:14-16, NIV)

The woman’s offspring would indeed crush the head of the devil… Jesus who was fully man and fully God, whose purity and innocence was the only way that the curse of sin could be broken, offered himself freely to rescue humanity from the poisonous deceit that has corrupted it for millennia. The devil may have felt that he had won when Jesus was crucified but God was still working through his plan for humanity. And so we find that the head of the enemy was crushed by Jesus’ resurrection to new life, even if for a time, we still have to endure attacks from the enemy just as Jesus did: ‘… you will strike his heel’ (v16). Jesus endured the punishment that our own sins deserved and his death on the cross must have appeared to the devil as being the end of God’s plan of salvation.

And yet Jesus rose from the dead in victory, much to the devil’s anger. Satan knows that the battle has been lost and that he can only bruise the heel of those whom Jesus has rescued. The church, who is the symbolic representation of Christ’s body, will have to endure attacks from the enemy until Jesus returns at the end of time, but his defeat is certain. We must all be on our guard against the sin in our lives that we have not surrendered to Jesus at the cross... If we don’t, we remain vulnerable to the same deception that robbed Adam and Eve of their paradise. Only when we are truly free from the shame of sin, through the sanctification of Jesus’ death and resurrection, will we be free to do the will of God. Only then will we be able to endure the enemy biting at our heel because we through Jesus, we can be assured that the devil has nothing on us; the enemy has been defeated, death has been overcome.    

We see glimmers of hope for the kingdom of God breaking into this world, in every act of kindness, every act of charity and every offer of love extended to those lost and hurting here on earth. Jesus taught us to pray ‘your kingdom come, your will be done.’ Christians are encouraged to pray daily; that we are not led into temptation but that we are delivered from evil. This world in which we live, is the battle ground between good and evil. The two cannot be reconciled without love. Jesus showed us that ‘there is no greater love than to lays one’s life down for one’s friend.’ (John 15:13, NLT)

So how should we act? What can we do to bring this conflict to an end? We can minister to the poor, we can offer them our coat, we can provide food and shelter, and we can make disciples. There is no higher calling than to reveal the Gospel story to people who have not heard it. This isn't a story of fire and brimstone, damnation and hell fire, but one of love and adoration. How often has the church found itself to be at the opposite of what Paul preached about balancing our love against our actions? Without love, we have nothing:

      If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal… (1 Corinthians 13:1)

Does the church still speak the language of the world it was meant to serve? How can we subtly draw alongside our families, friends and colleagues so that they might sense the fragrance of Jesus in our lives? What better way is there to preach the Gospel than in the way that we live? My friend Nev was buried this week and I had the honour of attending the funeral and spending time with his family. One clear tribute to his life was the consistency of the testimony given of it by others. Tribute after tribute spoke of Nev’s ability to share your joy as though it was his own and the way in which a visit to his home to sample Hilda’s hospitality, seemed to exude a ray of sunlight into any conversation. But more obvious than the man himself was what was revealed in the lives of his children and grandchildren. As I observed the day and watched his two children mingle with the guests, the warmth of their generosity reflected Nev.

Nev’s wife Hilda came and sat with my wife and I for a moment. As we watched what went on around us I commented to her, ‘Look Hilda, Nev lives on in your children… just watch them’. As we sat there watching I said, ‘Look at how John and Suzanne are interacting with everyone… you can see Nev in their mannerisms and in their gentleness; that is what you and Nev have passed on to them. He lives on in their lives and that of the grandchildren.’ We looked at each other and hugged, pressing our foreheads against each other in some kind of thankful acknowledgement of a life lived well. How much more then, will our Father in heaven, honour our lives through our faith in his son?

God promises us more than we can ever hope for or imagine… but do you believe that for yourself? I can tell you, it is hard; life is hard. I watch my wife every day, battle with her own mind. The anxiety that consumes her every waking moment and even her dreams as she sleeps, is far greater than she can bear. My heart breaks for her struggle… trying to keep it all together. We pray for deliverance from the hand of the evil one; we pray against the chemical imbalance in her mind caused after the onset of post-natal depression 13 years ago; we read scripture, pulling out every reference we can find of hope; plans to prosper us and not forsake us, yet we have not found the key to unlock the strait-jacket of desperation that envelopes us and the ensuing depression that looms over our home.

At times I feel like I am losing the woman I love to this invisible enemy that is robbing us of everything that is good and wholesome from our marriage. There seems to be a chasm between us at times that only God through his mercy towards us can bridge. And yet I know deep down that there will be an end to this, even if it may appear hidden for a time. Never has the book of Job in the Old Testament been as relevant to us both as it is today. Job lost absolutely everything; children; wife; wealth; material possessions; health… We read that God allowed the devil access to Job because he was proud of Job’s faith towards him and he was boasting about Job to the devil. We read in the discourse between God and the devil, that the devil wanted to test Job’s resolve while God wanted to show the devil, that his desire to offer protection to humanity, is worthy of his governance. God knew in advance that Job acting out his faith, would endure any kind of test as proof.

This is a really fascinating insight into God’s grace towards us and his confidence in our understanding of what it means to trust him through faith. In the end, the devil is defeated because his efforts were frustrated by Job’s faithfulness. This is the same scene we see all over again in the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion in Jerusalem. The devil must have been particularly pleased to influence one of Jesus’ own disciples to betray him, as he did to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. How frustrated must he have been when God’s plan of salvation was revealed; a plan that the Apostle Paul described as being a mystery even to those in heaven who saw all things…

The cross is the place where our faith is birthed. We position our sin at the foot of the cross because only Jesus can truly release us from it. Jesus is the ultimate ‘self-help’ programme, for he has the authority to forgive sin and remove the condemnation we might feel because of it, thorough the power of the Holy Spirit alive in us. God recognises us as heirs in the kingdom because we are clothed in the righteousness that Jesus’ death commands. But the story does not end there… in the resurrection of Jesus bodily to new life, we are also assured access to this same ‘new-life’ that Jesus won for us on the cross through the forgiveness of sin that he grants us. We were destined for death; now our inheritance is eternal.

God is faithful to us, so in return, we must be faithfully obedient to his will for our lives. This means that we need to stop doing the things that cause us to sin and replace it with actions that lead to us to a better place. How is it possible for us to turn away from the things that repeatedly harm us, when we consider that we have lived a life that has ingrained these behaviours deep within our psychology? Breaking a habit is a painful experience akin to mourning for a loss in our lives. In the immediacy of the bereavement, we can see no hope that what we have lost, can ever be restored. All that is left for us to do, is to return to Jesus. Read his words and know with certainty in our heart, that we are promised an eternal life, where one day there will be no more despair, no more hopelessness, only pure joy.

If we can capture the pure joy of knowing God through what he has done, we will have strength enough to endure. We will find comfort in our worship and in our celebration of the transformation that has gone on in our hearts and our minds, by the renewal of the Holy Spirit. He knows what we need before we ask and understands our weakness and comforts us in our struggle. He is a gracious God who caters for all of our needs because he is Sovereign. When we allow the king to enter our hearts, we are offered the protection of heavenly grace by the most majestic, benevolent Father, who defends those who are his own.

‘Such love has no fear, because perfect love cast’s out all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first.’

(1 John 4:18-19, NLT)

For now, I can only hold my wife in my arms and let her know that I love her, understanding that our Father in heaven also holds us both close to himself, loves us dearly, and weeps with us. We know this to be true because this is what Jesus did. He wept for his friend Lazarus who was dead before raising him from the dead; he had compassion on those who had faith enough to believe that salvation was not achieved through anything that they could do, but through the mercy of God. Believe me when I say, God is merciful. Sodom and Gomorrah was so corrupted by sin that it was deserving of destruction, yet we know through the conversation between Abraham and Yahweh that if one righteous person lived in that evil town, then the whole town would have been saved because of that righteous person.

We can be assured that whatever we have gone through and whatever lies before us, that nothing can separate us from the love of God. So we reflect on the words of the Apostle Paul, to help up put into perspective, the trouble that we are going through in the light of the truth…

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”)

No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:31-39, NLT)

So our charge is to stop worrying about tomorrow, as it will sort itself out as a natural progression of what we have done today. Everything is in God’s hands no matter what obstacles are put in our way. Like the example of Job, as long as we have faith enough to believe, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us… so go on, put your faith, your hopes and your dreams into his hands, so that all will go well with you as you trust in the living God who is alive in your heart. Step out in faith… go and do the Lord’s work wherever you are and whatever you do; he will always honour what you share in love… be brave because faith is spelt RISK (John Wimber)... and remember that Jesus is the restoration man

“…for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or with little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:11-13, NLT)