A
Message from our
Vice Chairman
I
always thank God for you ...
Will the church survive? The secular establishment’s plan for us is that we will quietly fade away. It is a pity that many of the messages that come down from the hierarchy of the church are equally negative. They paint a gloomy picture of the church’s future, posit its likely disappearance by the year 2030, and wonder how decline is to be managed. Undoubtedly, large parts of the Church in Wales are going to disappear in the near future, but this is change, not terminal decline: much will have to die if there is to be new life. In these circumstances, we need to learn again the kind of confidence in the church that we find in St Paul’s letters to first century churches.
Paul almost invariably begins his
letters with praise and thanksgiving to God for the church to which he writes -
Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians
(the only exception are the Galatians, in need of a stern talking to!).
‘I always thank God for
you ...’
Why? Because he sees each church as a
miracle, an astonishing, wonderful work of God; and praises God that in the
narrow, enclosed world of materialism that human beings make for themselves,
there are places, little communities of believers, in which eyes are raised to
the limitless grace and power of God, lives are changed, and people seek to live
according to God’s ways.
But he always goes on to remind them
of how immense a resource is this grace and power that Christians have in
Christ, and to urge them to live by God’s purposes, to live out God’s will
and plan for them (e.g. Ephesians 1:15-19):
this is who you are (thanks be to
God), now be it, do it, live it.
Each letter is different because each church is different: but the basic
strategy is always to get people to understand who they are in Christ, and
persuade them to enter in to the fullness of all God has done for them.
Paul’s paean of praise that opens
the letter to the Ephesians (1:3-14) springs from a sense of what it means to be
in Christ, and the blessings that flow from him, lavish and unstinting, to raise
us above the level of the commonplace, and imbue our lives with divine purpose;
for these are blessings ‘in the
heavenly realms’.
Christians are
·
chosen by God before time began to be holy & blameless
in his sight;
·
adopted as children of God;
·
redeemed: our sins, which separated us from God, forgiven
·
given insight into God’s all-embracing purposes;
·
made the people of God, a privilege now shared by both Jews
and Gentiles;
·
marked with the Holy Spirit, the seal guaranteeing that at
the end of time, when Jesus comes in his Kingdom, we will receive our
inheritance with the saints;
·
called to live to the praise of God’s glorious grace; so
that praise itself becomes the fulfilment of the Christian’s destiny in
Christ.
Blessing past, present, & future,
flowing from eternity. Could we
learn to regard ourselves in this way? If
we could, there would then be no need for us to think of the church as a
decaying institution that urgently needs to be propped up. After all, these first century Christians to whom Paul
writes were beleaguered minorities - but were growing into a world church!
A confident church could ignore leaders who compromise with worldly ideas
in the hope that the world might take some notice.
Instead of clinging to the past, or contenting ourselves with the
religious consumerism that seeks only nice spiritual experiences, we would hear
the call to commitment, discipleship, witness: seeking to stand and grow and
mature in Christ, to glorify God.
Paul’s letters remind us that if we
are ‘in Christ’ by
faith, we can live with confidence, because God has great plans and purposes for
us. Our churches are not meant to be little clubs for religious
people, for our satisfaction, sustained by our efforts; but a refuge for
sinners, part of God’s unfolding, eternal plan of salvation in our time.
Here, our preordained destiny ‘to
be holy and blameless in his sight’ and to live
‘to his praise and glory’, is a real possibility;
we can live lives that are worthy of the Gospel, and the church can
be a sign of the Kingdom. Until
the Lord comes again there will be future generations long after we have gone,
discovering God’s grace and power through his church.
God will always have his church on earth until his purposes are
accomplished: the question for us is whether it will be our church.
Paul says: ‘Praise
be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the
heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and
blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons
through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise
of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in [Jesus], the One he loves
Peter
Bement