Author: rwfoster

What is the sound of God singing? In fact, does God sing? Well according to the Bible, yes, he does! Even though I have tried to I can’t imagine what that sound is like. There are some clues as to how and why he does, however.

The prophet Zephaniah announced a series of judgements on Israel, Judah and even the Gentile people for turning their back on God and being wilfully disobedient. But as he got to end of this damning indictment he declared there would come a time when things would be different. God would preserve and protect all of those who called on His name. Furthermore, the King of Israel, the Lord would be in their midst. Things might be tough, the circumstances of life could get difficult, there might be temptation to give up but, he says ‘Fear not, don’t let your arms droop and grow weak!’

Life gets difficult. Sometimes the stress of living gets too much. Financial problems, ill health, broken relationships, difficulties at work, falling profits and rising debt and the rest threaten to overwhelm us. We are drowning, or so it seems; or at least life is just so hard. Maybe our arms grow tired and our hands become weak – giving up seems an attractive option. But then God calls out ‘I am with you’! He is in the midst of this, with us. He is not shouting from the side lines, giving advice, making suggestions. He is right there in it with us. He is Immanuel – God is with Us! Whatever your circumstance, your difficulty, your mess, God is in it with you.

That’s good news, but it doesn’t end there. This God is the one who is not only able but who will save, he will deliver. The message of Zephaniah is that God will deliver those who call on Him because he knows them, has chosen them and has declared them to be righteous. He is not swayed by the opinions of others, he doesn’t listen to the descriptions that are used about you, even if they are your own. ‘I’m too weak, too poor; I’ve failed so many times, I’m tired, my problems are too big I just can’t do it!’ Of course, there are many who will agree with those views and be happy to add to them ‘call yourself a Christian, I saw what you did, failed again didn’t you, what makes you think you can handle this problem? You’ll never change, you’re a product of your environment, you’ll always be insecure and unloved…’ You are who God says you are! Chosen, loved, significant, a winner, secure, righteous, delivered, set free! Why? Because he says so.

So, what has all this got to do with singing? It is in that context that God says That he is in your midst and he is rejoicing with gladness. The Hebrew words used in the passage (Zeph. 3:17) are translated differently by some but essentially they mean: He looks happy, he is displaying all the characteristics of joy and festivity, just as if he is at a festival or banquet. He is excited.

He does more, he quietens you, he gives you rest. He doesn’t raise problems of the past, he doesn’t debate your failures he is there as a Mighty God who will save you, he dispels your fears and quietens your soul. It is His love that does this, the same love that the apostle Paul says we can never be separated from and through which we are made more than conquerors.

Then he exults over you with loud singing! Some translators use the word rejoice rather than exult, but the root of the word means to go round in circles, to get excited, to dance. Not only will God sing, he will dance. Let your imagination run, what does this look like, sound like? God is in the midst of your life, with you, and he is dancing and singing. Why? Because the battle is won, he has delivered you. This is the sound of victory, he is celebrating.

Joy is the highest mood of worship. So much so that the people of Israel were threatened with a curse because ‘they did not serve the Lord with joyfulness and gladness of heart’ (Deut. 28:47). Paul tells us that the kingdom of God is righteous, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit and we are reminded that the joy of the Lord is our strength. When the walls of Jerusalem were dedicated, ‘the joy of the Lord was heard from a long way off’ (Neh. 12:43). Yet as Nietzsche famously wrote ‘I might believe in the Redeemer if his followers looked more redeemed’. What is it like to look redeemed? Surely God, himself, gives us a clue. He sings, he dances, he laughs. He is excited and enthusiastic, he doesn’t care about the opinions of others, he gives full expression to his joy. What about you, what about me? Do I look redeemed? When we meet and worship is it with gladness and joy or as C.S. Lewis once remarked about the church do we suffer from a terrible sense of good taste. Do we give full expression to our joy, or are we more concerned about our image, the opinions of others, our heritage? Some might say, but that’s alright for some but I’m an introvert (me too!), that’s just not me, I can’t express myself like that. Yes, but wait a minute, weren’t you created in the image of God? Aren’t we supposed to reflect his character in worship? Think about it, draw your own conclusion.

The Lord, your God, is in the midst of you, He is singing over you with joy, because the victory is won, and you are delivered. The least you can do is join in.

There is a parallel between the times of the prophet Jeremiah and our own days. The people of his day were living in exile, because of their collective disobedience they were taken to Babylon where they were to remain until God re-established them in the city and land of their inheritance. In the meantime they were to live in the place where God had sent them in anticipation of a future when they would live under the rule and authority of the King of Kings. While we have not been taken into a physical exile, as the people of Israel were, we are living under the authority of an alien ruler whose desires are contrary to the plans of God, and we do live in anticipation of the time when Jesus will return and establish his reign.

The times we live in lie between Christ’s ascension into heaven and his return in glory, in the meantime our world is under the rule and authority of Satan, the one who stands in absolute opposition to God and his purposes for humankind. These times are appointed by God and will end when he decides they should. While there are things that we can and should be doing which God requires before the return of his Son, we cannot bring forward the day, it is an appointed time and part of God’s eternal purpose. When the disciples questioned Jesus about his return in Acts 1, he answered that it was not for them to know when and how this would happen but in the meantime there was work for them to do. That work was to be witnesses to the things they had seen and heard, to be heralds of the good news by the power of the Holy Spirit that would indwell them.

We live in anticipation of the return of Jesus Christ; we are living as aliens in a land under the authority of a ruler whose plans, purposes, values and intentions are in direct opposition to our king. This isn’t our land; we are strangers here. It is inevitable then that there will be a clash between our values and those that belong to this world. One of the challenges this poses for us is how to succeed in the world of work, family and community while having different purposes and motivations from those we live amongst. Is it possible to survive, let alone succeed, in the business world without conforming to the standards and expectations of those around us? Paul’s answer to this dilemma was to instruct his readers to be transformed by the renewing of their minds; he went on to say that this was the most reasonable form of worship they could offer (Romans 12:1-3) The solution to successful Christian living in the midst of alien land is not to enforce a set of rules and regulations but to do those things that will serve to renew our minds. Once our minds have been renewed then there will be no problem in deciding between the various choices we are faced with. Rather than try to live under a set of prohibitions, most of which we will occasionally fail to keep, we should focus on filling our hearts and minds with those things that will serve to bring our lives into harmony with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Too often Christians put themselves under a tremendous burden of guilt by following self-imposed disciplines, assuming that this is what it means to live a righteous life. God puts the emphasis on the positive rather than the negative, instead of concentrating on what you shouldn’t do focus on those things that will renew your mind. Fill your thoughts with the word of God, communicate regularly with Him in prayer, seek out the fellowship of others whose desire is to grow in Christ, and commit yourself to doing his will in your home, community and place of work. In this way your mind will be renewed and the details of life will look after themselves. Jesus said that we should seek first his kingdom, then, everything else would be provided out of his grace.

The recent debate about redefining marriage have convinced of me of two things. Firstly, personal insult and vitriol will probably not change my mind and, secondly being called names by people who neither know me or have bothered to engage with me will not diminish my sense of self-worth.

When I am insulted because I dare to express an alternative view it is more likely that my opinions will be strengthened rather than changed. I would like to think that I can participate in reasoned debate and be open to change, but when attacked that possibility is significantly reduced. I recall being advised by a prominent person some years ago ‘do not attack me for the position I hold, because I will feel duty bound to defend myself’.

Inevitably there will be times in life and work when our opinions are not shared by others, descending to invective and insult, or even the subtle put down such as ‘the wise opinion would be…’ isn’t likely to be conducive to either good relationships or effective outcomes. We need to find a better way. Engage, dialogue, listen and accept the possibility of an alternative and most importantly treat the other person with dignity and respect – even when they disagree with you!

Insult is usually intended to diminish the worth of the other person. If you can’t win the argument, attack the person. My own sense of self-worth or personal significance is not located in the opinion of others and rather than being diminished I am emboldened when, rather than having a reasoned discussion someone would rather hurl insults.

My sense of worth, my significance as well as my security and knowledge that I am unconditionally loved and accepted is based on my faith.  I know that I am made in God’s image, that he has a plan and purpose for my life and my eternal destiny is secure. No invective or abuse will change that knowledge. I don’t have the answers to every moral question, neither do I believe that I am always right, but I know who I have believed in, and I am convinced that he able to keep and protect me for eternity.

Arise and shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you! This ringing call to action was given to the people of Israel to rebuild the city. (Is 60:1) It was time to get up – and shine.

For too long the people had become used to living among the ruins, now was the time to get up and focus on what could be rather than what was or even had been. Too often we become used to living among the ruins. They may be our own personal ruins or the broader aspects of society or state that affect us all.

Are there ruins that you are content to live amongst? Perhaps the ruins of broken relationships; career or business failure; lost opportunities academically or on the sporting field; or as the result of some other set of events or circumstances. Maybe you have just got used to the rubble of the past and have become content to sit amongst it. Sometimes you will push it aside or arrange it into neat little heaps, but still it remains. It is time to get up from the ruins because the glory of the Lord has come upon you. God has a plan and purpose for you, but first you have to get up and look around. Once you do get up, you can look around, form a plan and start to clean up the mess. I was recently impacted by vision of government and church leaders in Jakarta with brooms in their hands. They were cleaning away the rubbish in preparation to establish a city built for God’s glory. What a powerful picture. Isaiah 62:10 calls the people to clear the way, remove the rubbish for the new city. In the same manner, God calls us to clear the way for him to come and establish a city which will welcome him.

For many of us though, we have to start much closer to home. Are there ruins in our own lives that need to be removed? Have we hung on the disappointments and failures of past so that we have become content to live among them? Then it is time to get up and clear away the mess. Start by establishing a perimeter of faith around your home. Look around, are their ruins there? Is your present reality determined by the events of the past? Clear them away, change your thinking, establish a new set of behaviours.

Once you are satisfied that the rubble is cleared from your own backyard, then move to your neighbourhood, then your community, to your city and your nation and beyond. Take back what the enemy has stolen and disfigured one step at a time. When the rubble is cleared away you can start to build something new. But to do that you need a plan. How will know how to build unless you have a plan to follow? Have a vision for yourself, your family, your neighbourhood and your city and commit to implementing it. Every time you build, raise a standard. Declare who you are, become a signal to those around so that they know where to come in their time of need.

As your standard rises high above the places you build, people will gather to you – your sons and your daughters will come to you (Isaiah 60:4). This is God’s promise; don’t be content to live among the ruins:

Get up

Clean up the mess

Build something new

Raise a flag

And People will come to you!

Recently I attended the funeral of an elderly man that I did not know particularly well. During the service, family members and the officiating minister made the usual references and paid tribute to the man’s life and the contribution he made to his family and wider society.

I have conducted a lot of funerals and in most of them opportunity is given to some to reflect on the life and times of the deceased. Of course that may not always be possible, I have officiated at the funerals of very young babies, as well as those who have lived a rich and full life. I am always affected emotionally on these occasions, always. I do not grieve for the one who has died, but for the loss felt by those that remain, in some cases that loss is palpable. I recall one particular funeral, of a man in his thirty’s that took his own life. He was associated with the biker community and all that they are connected with. As I looked out at the mourners, tough looking men and their partners, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. Their eyes were vacant behind the sorrow, they did not comprehend this death and had no way to deal with it. That affected me.

Often in teaching or mentoring others I will ask them to produce a timeline indicating times of significance in their life. At the end of the line I will ask them to draw a tombstone. On that tombstone I ask them to write their epitaph, or the things they would like others to write about them when they are gone. For those who find this insensitive or too challenging I may ask them to imagine that they are at a party and are the first to leave. If they were able to sneak back and listen in, what would they expect to hear people say about them? What sort of impression did they leave, how would they be remembered?

My father in law was a funeral director for nearly thirty years, he always vowed he would not have a funeral because he found the hypocrisy of them too much to take. His frequent comment was that if people had something good to say, they should do it when the deceased is alive and not try to find something after they die. When he died, and I conducted his funeral, hundreds attended and many good (and true) things were said.

In all of the funerals I have conducted, and often in the time leading to the final parting, I have yet to hear someone say they regretted not spending more time in the office or at work. None of them said they wished they kept their house cleaner, or their car better maintained. No one has told me that they were disappointed at the state of their investments. My father in law was fond of saying that in his nearly thirty years as a funeral director he never saw a trailer on the back of a hearse.

At one funeral I conducted the deceased had expressed the wish that the final song should be one by the Crypt Kickers Five, called the Monster Mash. He wanted them to remember him with a smile. At another the casket was brought on the back of a prime mover accompanied by a couple of motorcycle riders. These were memories the deceased wanted left that said something about them. Others leave different recollections: Charles Spurgeon once wrote of John Bunyan ‘prick him anywhere and he bleeds Bible’. I remember conversations with an elderly friend of my father in law, whatever the topic, within a sentence of two he would be talking about Jesus.

What would you write as your epitaph, what would I? How would we like to be spoken of when we leave that party? Would our ears burn, or would we be humbled? How about some of these: ‘apparently had a really good sense of humour, but I never hear him laugh at home’ or ‘She was really keen on sport, but never watched me play’, ‘a great family man, but was always at work’, ‘don’t really know what she believed about God’, ‘Has a real talent for pointing out what is wrong in others’, ‘really good at starting projects, but…’ and so on. Obviously none of us would want or expect these things to be said about us – but I have been to too many funerals where participants were searching to find those glowing tributes that they wanted for those to whom they were saying their last good byes.

If we want good things said about us when we leave, then we need to arrange our lives so that it becomes possible.  We need to live intentionally, determine what values we want to instil in others, what sort of legacy we would like to leave and let these things inform the choices we make about how to live.

As I reflect on this I realise I have a lot of work to do, a lot of reframing of my own priorities, and a lot of ground to make up. What would I like written of me? A tough question. Perhaps that ‘his life made a difference to others’, will that be said? That will be left to others but it will really depend on what I do with the life and time that God has given me to live right now.

The hero of ‘Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul’ (the book by Douglas Adams), Dirk Gently espouses the practice of Zen navigation when trying to find his way to a particular location. According to Gently this practice requires that if you become lost or unsure of your way you should follow someone that looks like they know where they are going and follow them. You may not get to your original destination, but you may discover some interesting things along the journey.

I have used this method when trying to navigate labyrinthine road networks or find a way home after a popular event, sometime successfully, and sometimes not. The consequences of those actions may have resulted in some time loss or disappointment but rarely more than that. However, the same technique when applied to navigating through the more complex issues of life can have more significant consequences.

Yet, it seems that for many of us we are quite content to do that. In our search for meaning and truth we will often attach ourselves to some prominent and perhaps well-meaning individual who seem to have the answers and follow them. This is no more obvious than in the pursuit of religious truth and knowledge.

The recent panoply of celebrity religious leaders who have fallen into difficulty should serve as a precautionary notice, but if we know anything from history, we will probably take little notice. In recent times prominent leaders have fallen over for reasons ranging from tax fraud, misappropriation of funds, inappropriate contact with minors, verbal and emotional abuse of those under their care and questionable doctrine to name a few. What we can learn is that to blindly follow any religious leader (even those who profess the same faith that we do) is fraught with danger. All men and women are prone to disappoint and none can claim infallibility. Sadly, though, it seems that we would much rather take the road followed by many than make sure that it is the right road.

Following a leader who is convinced they know where they are going may be interesting, even exciting but it may also lead us to the wrong destination. History is littered with examples of sincere people who have blindly followed populist leaders in every arena of life, only to have their dreams and sometimes their lives destroyed.

Jesus offered an antidote to this malaise. He confidently declared that he was the way and the truth, and if you wanted to find your way to your father in heaven, your only option was to follow him. To aid us in this task he provided us with a road map for life that we call the bible. But just like in more recent times, not all of us are that good at reading maps so he also provided a navigational aid, which he called the Spirit of Truth. This Spirit was sent to those that received him on the day of Pentecost and for the years after that those new believers met together to discuss the journey ahead and to agree on the best way to take, with the benefit of this Spirit of Truth.

In more customary language we understand this to mean that a relationship with Jesus himself is the only way to discover truth and it as those who share this relationship meet together that the Holy Spirit discloses truth to them. Each of us has the privilege and responsibility to discover the pathway though the journey of life before us. We will not find it by simply following some enthusiastic, gifted and prominent leader but though a relationship with the author of life and in community with those that we share the road with. Christians are a privileged people, they have been told the way, in the bible, received the gift of the Holy Spirit and communion of others who share the same faith. These things working together will provide all the guidance we need to chart our way through the uncertain journey that lies before us.

When REM recorded the song of this title, singer Michael Stippe claimed it was not about religion, but drew from an expression meaning that a person had come to the end of their rope, they were at the brink, it was all too much. The lyrics speak of alternately being hemmed in a corner, and then exposed to the spotlight, but unable to keep up. It is easy to see meaning where maybe none was intended, and after all it may just be a great song.

What is true though, is that as a nation (perhaps nations) we are losing or have lost our religion. In this country, Australia, the first official census was conducted in 1911 at that time 1 in 250 people claimed to have ’no religion’, by the 2011 census that had changed to 1 in 5. No doubt there can be a range of reasons offered to explain this trend, but what is clear that it is not a specifically Christian religion that is being spoken of, but any religion.

What implications does this have for us as individuals, and more broadly as a society? In the first place the apostle Paul perhaps sums it up best when he writes to the young church in Corinth: ‘If we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied’, indeed if this is all there is all there is then as the writer of Ecclesiastes suggests, we might as well just eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die. Religion offers hope and order to an often disordered world. To be convinced that there is someone bigger than ourselves who ultimately controls and makes sense of our existence, gives hope. It permits us to understand the tragedy and distress we see in the light of a bigger plan. One that has at its core, welfare and hope for the believer, in this world and more certainly the next. If there is no God, then we are left to use the somewhat limited resources available to us to find peace, where there is no peace.

As a society our rule of law is based on Judaeo Christian principles. They include ideas of justice and fairness, the equality of all and basic human rights. They provide a context in which our own sense of morality is developed. The morality that is seen as ‘right’ in our culture may be different from those in other places, and what has often distinguished them is their foundation. Once that foundation is removed, or damaged, the very basis for decisions about right and wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, reasonable of unreasonable, fair or unfair are removed. If the foundation is removed, what is it replaced with?

It is apparent that the turn away from religion has been accompanied with the rise of self as the final arbiter in decisions of right conduct or morality. I have the right to determine what is permissible for me, I do not need to appeal to a higher authority, if indeed there is one. There are no moral absolutes, everything is contextual. If the current rules don’t permit my choices, then just change the rules.

Current debates about the redefinition of marriage, euthanasia, sexual identity, identity fluidity, gender choice, pre and after birth and so on, all have to do with the rise of self in forming moral choices that determine the shape of society. If, as the statistics suggest, we live in a post religious nation, then we better find a better foundation to build on than unfettered personal choice. But as for me and my house – we will serve the Lord, and if that puts me at odds with social media, the politically correct and various element of ‘progressive’ journalists and their acolytes, so be it.

It’s time for a counter revolution, a reinstatement of values that are based in belief in one who gives hope, offers a future and guarantees peace.