Be Still And Know

1 Corinthians 11:1 "You should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ." When King Charles 3rd was declared our monarch on September 10th he promised to follow the example of his mother. I am interested how often people have spoken of the example that Queen Elizabeth set, and of its influence upon their lives. And the truth is, of course, that our lives all have an influence on other people. Whether we are aware of it or not, people are watching the way in which we live and speak. They notice particularly the way in which we respond to challenges and difficulties. When we think of the Queen we are not thinking of someone who was perfect, but we remember the way in which she conducted herself in good times and bad, in times of celebration and moments of profound sadness. The apostle Paul encouraged the Corinthians to follow his example and he did so not because he was perfect but because he was modelling his own life upon Jesus Christ. Before anything else he wanted people to follow Christ, and he hoped that peop

Mark 10:43-45 “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Queen Elizabeth has often been described as the Servant Queen who served the Servant King.  Here in Mark’s gospel we hear Jesus take us to the heart of his teaching about service. He was basically turning the disciples’ thinking upside down – as he so often did. James and John had come to him looking for the best seats in the new Kingdom, and they were in for a shock. Not only did Jesus tell them that he wasn’t in a position to give them such seats, but he explained that they needed to be aiming for the lowest seats. They needed to learn what it was to be a slave to everyone else. And Jesus concluded by explaining that even he, the Son of Man, came not to be served but to serve and give his life to set other people free. On her 21st birthday on April 2

John 15:5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” The tributes that have been generously paid to Queen Elizabeth often make reference to her calmness and constancy. Through the many changes and challenges of life she maintained a remarkable equilibrium. We saw her as she faced national tragedy, but also much family heartache and this continued right up to the end of her life. I have no doubt that she would have attributed this attitude to life, to her Christian faith. She was able to remain strong and peaceful through thick and thin because her life was firmly connected to the Lord, the source of life. He was her vine, and she was one of the branches. She knew that she had to remain in him, because apart from him she could do nothing. For this reason, she maintained a steady rhythm of worship throughout her life. She knew that she couldn’t go it alone. There are many reasons why it is good to reflect on J

John 14:27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid." When Jesus spoke these words to his disciples they were just about to enter an incredibly traumatic few days. They had spent the last couple of years with Jesus and now suddenly and violently it was going to come to an end. The disciples were well aware of the power and brutality of the Roman occupying forces, and on many occasions, they would have seen criminals hanging from crosses by the side of the road. But they clearly hadn’t worked out that Jesus, their master, their Lord, their friend was soon going to be hung from one of those crosses. As Jesus prepared them for the trauma to come, he gave them the incredible gift of peace. Peace was a gift from him personally and so it was something that the world could never take away. As we pass through these days of sadness following the death of Queen Elizabeth, I believe the Lord offers us afresh his gift of p

John 14:4-6  Jesus said: “You know the way to where I am going.”  “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” As Jesus prepared his disciples for his death, he assured them that although he was going away from them there were perfect plans for the future. There would be plenty of room in his Father’s home. Jesus confidently assured the disciples that they knew where he was going but Thomas, with characteristic candour said that he no idea where he was going, so how could they know the way. Jesus replied with the famous statement: “I am the way, the truth and the life.”  Christian faith is all about Jesus. It’s all about following a person, not just a set of beliefs. Queen Elizabeth was always clear about her personal faith in Christ, and year by year her Christmas broadcasts were an opportunity for her to share the way in which that faith insp

John 14:1-3   “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.” Jesus spoke these words of comfort to his disciples just before his Crucifixion. The disciples seem to have had very little idea of what was going on and certainly hadn’t understood that Jesus was going to leave them so soon. But Jesus knew that they would need reassurance as they passed through turbulent and challenging days. In short, he said there is nothing to worry about because God had made perfect plans for the future.  As we mourn the passing of Queen Elizabeth it is wonderful that we are able to do so with the sure knowledge that she knew that her life was secure in God’s hands. She was happy to be extremely public and clear about her personal devotion to Christ, and her desire to l

This is Be still and Know on this very sad day. Let’s hear from the Bible together. Isaiah 6:1 "It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple." The death of King Uzziah after 52 years as King of Judah was a decisive moment in Isaiah’s life. Suddenly everything changed. For all of us the death of Queen Elizabeth is a defining moment. For the past seventy years she has faithfully served our nation and whether or not we would claim to be royalists we would surely all acknowledge that she has lived a remarkable life and been a great blessing. She has graciously and wisely fulfilled her duties and offered to the nation a wonderful example of Christian leadership. I am sure we will always remember exactly where we were when we heard the news of her death. Life won’t be quite the same again. We can’t know exactly how Isaiah felt when he heard the news of Uzziah’s death, but we do know that he went to the Temple and there he met

Proverbs 27:4 'Anger is cruel, and wrath is like a flood, but jealousy is even more dangerous.' The Bible introduces us to lots of jealous people. Most famous among them are Joseph’s brothers. They were so consumed with jealousy that they even planned to kill their brother. Throughout history, jealousy has destroyed many lives and the writer of Proverbs was fully aware of its terrible power. But jealousy starts slowly and quietly. It begins when we look at someone else and see that they have got something we haven’t. The more we reflect on it, the more we realise that there is no reason why they should have more than us. It isn’t fair, we reason. But, unchecked, those thoughts flower into feelings of jealousy and rage. When I’ve spoken with people in prison, they often trace their crime back to thoughts which started quietly and innocently enough but were allowed to grow into violent actions. If we’re honest we will, from time to time, have little twinges of envy. So the question is: how do we prevent tho

Proverbs 27:1 'Don’t brag about tomorrow, since you don’t know what the day will bring.' Life is so completely unpredictable that the encouragement to live for today has to be sound advice. We don’t know what today will contain let alone tomorrow! So bragging about what is going to happen tomorrow has to be completely foolish. In his letter, James describes a cocky businessman who has decided that he is going to go to certain town and stay there for a year and make a fat profit. James pops the balloon of his self-confidence by pointing out that: “life is like the morning fog – it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.’ Otherwise, you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil” (James 4:14-15). None of this is to say that planning for the future is wrong. Planning is wise and helpful, but it always needs to be done with humility because our life is in God’s hands and not our own. Years ag

Proverbs 26:20 'Fire goes out without wood, and quarrels disappear when gossip stops.' I wonder what the writer of Proverbs would have made of social media! His words couldn’t be more relevant to today’s world, in which gossip can be communicated faster than lightning. Words have always had the power to destroy and many of the Proverbs focus on the danger of them being used carelessly. The trouble with words is that we all use so many of them; it is the easiest thing in the world for them to cause hurt, pain and division. Proverbs 17:27 reads: “A truly wise person uses few words.” I’m really grateful for that observation but, if I’m honest, I’m not sure what to do with it. I spend my days writing, mentoring, pastoring, preaching and teaching people. Words are fundamental to the way in which we communicate and although I could possibly use fewer words sometimes, I still need to use a large number of them! The writer of the Proverbs is concerned that we use our words to build up and not to destroy. Building

Proverbs 26:17 'Interfering in someone else’s argument is as foolish as yanking a dog’s ears.' For nearly 16 years, we enjoyed the company of Zephyr, a beautiful yellow Labrador. When he joined us as a little puppy our three children were all at home and, for those years, he became every inch a member of the family. He was extraordinarily patient with us all. If we accidentally knocked into him, he always took it in his stride. He had a wonderful temperament but every now and again we were reminded that he was immensely strong and shouldn’t be messed with. You should have seen him fighting with a hedgehog for example! Wonderful and gracious as Zephyr was, he was a dog, and if someone were to yank him unkindly by the ears, I think he could have done them a great deal of damage. I certainly wouldn’t have dared to do any such thing myself. This might sound like rather mundane and obvious advice but, as ever, the writer of the Proverbs knew that all wisdom was of crucial importance. Interfering in other peopl

Jeremiah 29:4,5,7 This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce... And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.” To cut a long story short, God’s people refused to listen to Jeremiah. They continued in their sinful ways and, in 597 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded Jerusalem and took more than 3,000 people into exile. This was total humiliation for the self-confident, godless people of Jerusalem. To be transported to a foreign country, over 1,000 miles from home, was a horrific form of punishment. But Jeremiah wanted the people of Israel to know that God still had good plans for them. In his letter, Jeremiah told the people to accept their new home. They needed to settle down and bring up their families there. And as they did so, they

Jeremiah 18:1-4 The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.” So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. I am sorry to inform you that my own attempts at pottery were a miserable failure. When I saw my teacher doing it, it all looked so simple. He simply threw the clay onto the revolving wheel and within moments he was shaping a beautiful pot. What could possibly go wrong? But as soon as I had a go, the clay seemed to acquire a mind of its own. I never did manage to get the hang of it. On a number of occasions, whilst I was sitting at the wheel with my hideous misshapen pot, he would put his hands round my hands and, incredibly, a wonderful pot would emerge. How did he do it? I never found out! The sight of a potter sitting at his wheel would have been a familiar one in Jeremiah’s day. Go

Jeremiah 17:21-23 'This is what the Lord says: Listen to my warning! Stop carrying on your trade at Jerusalem’s gates on the Sabbath day. Do not do your work on the Sabbath, but make it a holy day. I gave this command to your ancestors, but they did not listen or obey. They stubbornly refused to pay attention or accept my discipline.' We were reflecting yesterday on the importance of maintaining good spiritual rhythms. Today’s passage reminds us of the most important of them all – the Sabbath. One day in seven set apart for God; this was the order of things that God observed in creation. For six days he laboured and then, on the seventh, the all-powerful God rested. From that time onwards the pattern of a weekly day of rest was established, and God pointed out through Jeremiah that the people’s failure to observe the Sabbath was at the heart of their problem. It was a clear sign that they were only concerned with their own interests and had no time for God. The early Church soon moved their special day

Jeremiah 17:7-8 'Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.' We’ve all got a choice. We can rely on human beings or on God. Jeremiah is typically robust in his language on this subject and says that those who rely on mere humans are cursed. He compares them to stunted shrubs in the desert with no hope for the future (Jeremiah 17:6). They stand in marked contrast to those who root their life in God; those people are in a completely different place. They can look to the future with confidence knowing that they can withstand the hottest summer. They can be sure that whatever happens they will keep producing fruit. Of course, we all want to think that we are like trees planted along a riverbank. Who wouldn’t? We all want to believe that

Jeremiah 14:14 The Lord said, “These prophets are telling lies in my name. I did not send them or tell them to speak. I did not give them any messages. They prophesy of visions and revelations they have never seen or heard. They speak foolishness made up in their own lying hearts.” Jeremiah had some very harsh things to say. He needed everyone to know that if they didn’t change their ways, they would receive God’s judgement. This was not what people wanted to hear. The Israelites wanted prophets who would tell them that everything was fine and they had nothing to worry about. They wanted to listen to prophets who told them that because they had the temple of the Lord, nothing could possibly go wrong. Jeremiah continually battled with these false prophets whose comforting words were simply wrong. The truth is that it is very easy, at any time, for someone to make a statement prefaced by the words: “thus saith the Lord”. But the question is, did those words truly come from God? This has always been a challe

Jeremiah 13:16 'Give glory to the Lord your God before it is too late. Acknowledge him before he brings darkness upon you, causing you to stumble and fall on the darkening mountains. For then, when you look for light, you will find only terrible darkness and gloom.' It may just be me, but I suspect that we are all good at putting things off. It may be filling in our tax returns, making it right with an aggrieved neighbour or buying Christmas presents, but I would guess that there are some things that we love to delay. We tell ourselves that have other, far more important things to do but, eventually, we can no longer delay. Jeremiah was desperately concerned that the people of Israel were putting off the most important thing of all – following the Lord. They were happy with the way things were and had no intention of changing. And the sad truth is that they never did change. Eventually, judgement fell upon them in the form of an invasion from the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. The apostle Paul had exact

Jeremiah 10:12-13 'The Lord made the earth by his power, and he preserves it by his wisdom. With his own understanding he stretched out the heavens. When he speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain. He causes the clouds to rise over the earth. He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from his storehouses.' The fact that God created the world is the foundation of the Bible’s understanding of who he is. The opening chapters of Genesis tell us how God did this, and then the rest of the Bible points back to this fundamental fact. Here in Jeremiah, the prophet laughs at the uselessness of the idols that the people were worshipping. He draws attention to the fact that, unlike the God of Israel, the idols have never created anything. They are a complete waste of time. We need to make sure that our thinking about God is continually shaped by the fact that he is our creator. Creation should be the springboard for our daily worship. The vast scale of what God created should surely make us

This is what the Lord says: “Do not act like the other nations, who try to read their future in the stars. Do not be afraid of their predictions, even though other nations are terrified by them.” If you have ever had a look at a horoscope you will probably have concluded that it is all a lot of nonsense. They may have told you that today is a good day to make friends, avoid puddles or plan your holidays. However, horoscopes are nothing new. For more than 4,000 years, people have taken astrology very seriously. They have developed sophisticated ways of reading the stars in order to guide their lives. In the time of Jeremiah, the Babylonians were particularly committed to this way of predicting the future. But the prophet was clear that this was not the way to seek guidance. His confidence was in his God, and he refused to be swayed by astrology, however much others were influenced by it. We are, of course, all immensely interested in the future. Inevitably we wonder what is going to happen, but I seriously dou

Jeremiah 9:23-24 The Lord says, “Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful boast in their power, or the rich boast in their riches. But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone; that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord.” I wonder what you boast about? What are the things that give you most pride and pleasure? For many people it’s their family, for others it’s their education, their achievements, their influence or their wealth. Almost certainly, the answer to the question will be found in the things that you are keenest to talk about when you have a chance! You just can’t wait for the opportunity to talk about those things that mean so much to you. In these verses, God was not saying that wisdom, power and riches were bad. There is much that can be very good about all three, but they should never take pride of place in our lives. All three of them are of passing significance, but the Lord is different; our knowledge of him is something with enduring importance.