Some time ago, I disputed the charges on a utility bill I had received. Because the issue was not resolved immediately, I had to make a number of phone calls, and each of those phone calls went to the same level of support staff. None of the support staff I talked to had the capability to address my claims. As I dealt with them, I came to realize that they were reading from a manual, and because what I was asking was not in the manual, they were not able to give the information that I needed nor could they make corrections to the charges. It became evident that as they referred the problem to another level of support staff, they did not communicate my concerns appropriately, and I continued to receive inadequate answers to my questions.

The longer I spoke to the support staff, the more I became convinced that their competency was based on their ability to read a manual. Sadly, they did not have the level of competency I needed to deal with my dispute of the charges. They had stock answers, but those stock answers were not based on real experience. I do not fault them for their lack of competency, but, rather, the fault lies with the ones who had trained them. To become truly competent, they would have had to have a deeper understanding of the billing process, and it was clear that they did not. In other words, experience would have helped their competency. Understanding a manual gets one only so far.

Competency is important in many areas of life, and that also includes our faith. A colleague, one who works with a Muslim community in a large Canadian citizen, is often asked to speak at a church. When asked to do so, he requests that he bring along a Muslim imam (equivalent of pastor in Islam). On the appointed day, the imam arrives and apologizes and says that the pastor is running late but that he would like to engage those in attendance in conversation because he has some questions about Christianity. With permission given, he begins to ask those in attendance what they believe and why. His questions do not require answers that demand a deep understanding of theology, but they do require a basic understanding of Christianity. It becomes quickly apparent that many Christian believers do not really know how to give answers to his questions. They prove to be somewhat incompetent. My colleague is concerned that many Christians are not fully aware of what the manual (the Bible) teaches.

About half an hour into the presentation, the imam begins to remove his Muslim garb, and it becomes evident that it is not an imam who is speaking to them but the pastor himself. In taking the role of a Muslim cleric, he is able to reveal to those gathered that they do need to know what they believe if they are going to talk about their faith with unbelievers, especially those who have questions. He emphasizes how we not only need to be ready to give an answer to those who question us on the hope that we have, but we also need to know what the answers are. In other words, we do need to exhibit more than a competency we gain from a child’s Bible story book. This pastor is convinced that most people have heard the answers at one time or another but that was during the catechism class they took as a teenager or heard in a second service in which the Heidelberg Catechism was being preached. What concerns him is that many have not used those answers in everyday life. In other words, the book learning that we once had has faded into obscurity because we have not made it part of our experience, at least not intentionally so.

In a way, those learning situations, while important, are rather like learning the vocabulary of a second language. We can learn the vocabulary and even the grammar of another language but until we put it into practice, we won’t ever be fluent. In the same way, unless we speak of the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, we might have learned the words, the facts, but we won’t have the answers. Competency comes with experience, real life experience. It comes from more than just learning how to read and quote a manual. If we are going to be competent Christians, then, we need to be living and speaking our faith. We must apply the gospel in every situation, thus making what we learned from a manual a part of our experience. We will then become competent.

But, thankfully, we are not alone. When I was a student at Reformed Bible College (now Kuyper College), one of the required courses was an evangelism course. We had to learn a method of presenting the gospel, and then we were required to partner with an evangelism committee from a church which was involved in door-to-door calling. It wasn’t a great experience for me, and I dreaded those Tuesday evenings. But one day, my partner and I were invited into the house, and my partner asked that I give the presentation of the gospel. I fumbled around, looking for the words and trying to remember the Bible verses. When I came to the part where I asked him if he wanted to accept Jesus as his Lord and Saviour, he said, “Yes, I do.” I was quite astounded, sure that he didn’t really understand what I was asking, so miserable had been my presentation of the gospel. But he was adamant: he understood, and he wanted to put his trust in Jesus, and he wanted to follow his Lord. After trying to convince him otherwise (I actually tried to dissuade him!), we prayed together, and he gave his life to Jesus.

Clearly the Holy Spirit was present that day. Thankfully he was, for I certainly did not do a competent job in talking about Jesus had done. But the Spirit was competent where I was not.

The present of the Holy Spirit ensures that even when we are weak (or maybe especially when we are weak) he is strong, and he can accomplish what we cannot do. This story I just told reminds me of how weak I am. This does not excuse us, of course, of learning and growing in our competency. To give answer to the hope that we have, we need to speak the language, and to speak the language, we have to actually live it. But we can be confident that even if we do not speak the language of the gospel clearly or proficiently, the Spirit can take what we say and make it good. For that we can be thankful. I’m guessing, however, that the Holy Spirit, though fully able to use incompetent people, would prefer that we make ourselves competent. It works a little better that way.

Recently, I believe it was in the evening service, we sang the song, Crown Him with Many Crowns. In the fourth verse of that hymn, we find these words:

A few years ago in another church, after we sang these words as a doxology, a member of the congregation approached me and said, “I sang those words, but I had no idea what I was singing.” I understood why, for there are words in that verse that we rarely, if ever, use day to day.

I didn’t know exactly what they meant, but our daughter looked them up and explained them. A “potentate” is someone who is very powerful. We get our word, “potent,” from the same Latin root word. “Sublime” is a word that we might have heard. I recall hearing it in a commercial once, perhaps to describe some sort of dessert. It tasted sublime, which means that it was absolutely wonderful. They used the word “sublime,” but they did not say “ineffably sublime.” That’s the word that gives me the most trouble, for I have never heard “ineffably” used except for in this song. Maybe back in 1851, when the song was written, Matthew Bridge, the author of the words, made a trip to the local library to find words in the thesaurus that would help him write the song. Or, more likely, they used the word, “ineffably,” more often then than we do now.

“Ineffably” means something like “in a way that causes so much emotion that we cannot put into words what we are feeling.” That phrase doesn’t fit very well into the metre of the song, so the author had to say “ineffably.” Maybe there have been times when we were so full of emotion that we could barely speak. I could say, “My feelings were ineffable when my daughter was born, and I first held her in my arms.” I didn’t have the words to express how I felt. Or, as a friend told me when he met the woman who was to become his wife, he found her so beautiful that he was beyond tongue tied. Sometimes we find ourselves unable to express our emotions because what we are experiencing is beyond description. When Matthew Bridge contemplated who Jesus is and what he has done, his emotions ran so deep that they were beyond description.

As I worked through the definition of these words, I began to see that the words, “ineffably sublime,” connect two very different ideas. The verse I quoted above speaks of Jesus being the Lord of years, meaning that there never was and never will be a time when he is not sovereign over all. He is the “potentate of time,” meaning that he has always and always will be more powerful than any other power or authority who has existed or will exist. He is the creator of the rolling spheres, not only earth but also of the planets and the stars. The incredible number of spheres located in what we call outer space is beyond our comprehension, and they were created through the one we know as Jesus. When we contemplate who Jesus is, we certainly should be in awe, for he rules over all that he has made.

But what follows the words, “ineffably sublime,” is what is truly amazing. The verse continues: All hail Redeemer hail, for you have died for me. If we had never heard the teachings of the Bible before and if we were told that the one through whom all things were created and who rules over the entirety of all that is came to this earth and died on the cross so that we could be saved, we would wonder at that. Can it really be true that God the Son, who has always existed, became the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and he did it through his death? This is what is ineffably sublime, according to the author of this song.

If we do not find this outstandingly amazing, and if this does not make us tongue-tied and if we do not feel any emotion because of what happened 2000 years ago, then we have either become so accustomed to the gospel that it has become almost humdrum, or we don’t really understand who Jesus is and what he has done. But if we do understand, and if we have taken time to contemplate what Jesus has done for us, then we can say with Matthew Bridge that our praise shall never, never fail through all eternity. When we realize for the first time or when we contemplate again the import of what God the Son did by taking on human nature and become Jesus, the Saviour, we cannot help but turn to praise, and that praise will never, never fail for we will live for all eternity.

When I was a young adult, I attended a Bible study there, and most of us there had grown up in the church. I forget what it was that we were talking about, but I do remember that the discussion had deteriorated into a rather heated theological debate about some important aspect of biblical truth. Almost all of us had grown up in the church, but one guy had recently become a Christian. After the debate had continued for some time, he, with tears in his eyes and a broken voice said to us in words something like this, “You’ve grown up knowing these truths, and they have become commonplace to you, and you argue and talk about them as if they are just points to be debated. You don’t know how wonderful the gift of God’s grace that you have experience all your life is. And you have forgotten how wonderfully amazing it is that God sent his Son to this world to die for our sins.” He couldn’t express his emotions as he contemplated what Jesus had done, but they were truly ineffable, for what Jesus did is absolutely sublime. We who had grown up knowing and trusting in Jesus were rebuked that evening, and rightly so. Sadly, when he was overcome by emotion, he left the room, and someone commented that he was over-reacting. Reflecting on this years later, I don’t think he was. He was trying to express how indescribable God’s grace is, and he wanted us to have the same emotions as well.

Jesus, the Potentate of time, Creator of the rolling spheres died for me. He is truly ineffably sublime. Our praise may never, ever fail for all eternity.

About 15 years ago I attended a wedding which was held in a large cathedral-like sanctuary. It was a new building, only a few years old, but it had been modelled after a Roman Catholic Church building in Croatia, with some modern features added. All the surfaces in the building were hard – drywalled walls and ceiling, marble floor, wooden pews. The ceilings were high, and the pews did not nearly cover the entire floor, leaving lots of exposed hard surfaces.

During the wedding, the couple had chosen to sing a couple of praise songs, led, rather surprisingly, by a nun playing an electronic piano. She was a good accompanist, and even though more than half of the people in attendance were familiar with the praise songs, the singing was abysmal. The problem was that praise songs have a rather upbeat tempo, but you can’t sing fast songs in an echoey building. It doesn’t work. The words and notes got all mixed up together.

In our sanctuary, there is little or no reverberation time. If someone claps their hands in the empty sanctuary of Nobleford CRC, the reverberation time is less than one second. (I tried it.) When the sanctuary is full of people, I suspect that there will be very little reverberation time at all. In that Croatian church, however, the reverberation time was 4-5 seconds. That means that if you clap, you will still hear it echoing after 4 seconds, even when the sanctuary was full of people. A praise song, which can have many as two or three syllables in one second, will fill the sanctuary with as many as 7 or 8 different notes. Singing quickly in a cathedral results in a terrible cacophony of noise that doesn’t sound beautiful in any way.

As we well know, in Europe they started building big stone churches well over a millennium ago. We don’t know must about the church music before then, for we have no recordings, but we can be sure that it didn’t take long for musicians and composers to develop music that sounded beautiful in the cathedral. The notes would have had to be long, and the singing slow. A few years ago, Helen and I joined a group of people singing in a stone church in Jerusalem which had a reverberation of time of almost 10 seconds. We sang slowly, and it was beautiful. When the song ended, we could hear the last notes dying away, and because of the nature of the song, those notes blended together into beautiful harmony. Doing the same thing in our sanctuary would not have the same effect.

As these huge churches were being built across Europe, they were also looking for instruments that could fill the space. Twelve hundred years ago, the Muslims of Asia and North Africa were the most educated people in the world (while the majority of Europeans were unable to read or write), and they were preserving machines and ideas from the past. Although it is unlikely they had invented the organ, they had preserved it, and Christians in Europe found it to be the perfect instrument for their every increasingly large sanctuaries. The organ was the most complex machine in the world at that time, and it was very expensive, and it became a competition among churches to see who could afford not only the biggest building but the most beautiful organ. The church with the nicest and most expensive organ was the winner of the prestige competition. True, they passed off their big buildings and expensive instruments as a sign of dedication to the Lord, but we can be sure that that was not their only or even first motivation.

It is not hard to understand how many today will say that truly reverent music must be sung slowly and accompanied by the organ. But slow organ music is not so much a function of reverence as it is a function of necessity and prestige.

And, thus, we have what have been called the “worship wars.” People who mistakenly believe that reverent church music must be sung slowly to the organ criticize those who long for more upbeat music led by guitar and piano, while those who prefer the faster songs complain about how boring the old music is. So, people get to arguing and bickering and complaining and sometimes churches even are divided over music preference.

Because that is all it is. It’s just preference, our preference. The question we have to ask is this: does it really matter what we prefer? I would prefer not to go to an opera because I prefer other kinds of music, and why waste money on a ticket to listen to music I don’t understand and have never grown to like? I know that many people in this area prefer country music, and they will pay big money to go to Calgary to listen to the latest and greatest country music artist. They want to be in that audience.

But let’s remember that in church, we aren’t the audience. God is. And he is the only person in the audience. So, what kind of music does God prefer? I don’t know, but I suspect that he was a little disappointed when people bragged about how big their buildings were and how expensive their organs were as they talked with the people from the neighbouring village who didn’t have quite as much to brag about. I also suspect that God is not entirely happy when he sees a group of people with all the latest instruments doing a “gig” at the front of the sanctuary while most of those gathered simply look on as they are entertained. I imagine that neither of those are high on God’s “preferred worship music” list.

What does God prefer? I suspect he prefers lyrics that are honest, biblical, true, and meaningful. I suspect that God doesn’t have a strong preference about how the music sounds, but I do suspect that he does like to hear voices raised, no matter what the style of music, as people honour him and praise him for all that he has done for us. In other words, I suspect that God prefers music that is true and that is truly sung from the heart. And he doesn’t much like it when we turn up our noses at a song and refuse to participate because we don’t “prefer” it.

I have a brother who is quite tone deaf. It’s a very unpleasant experience to sit beside him in church and even more to sit in front of him. He knows that he is tone deaf, but years ago he made the decision that he would sing anyway, and he does in full voice. It sounds horrible to us, but I suspect that to God it is some of the sweetest music he hears on a Sunday because my brother sings truthfully from the heart. I suspect God is happier with that than some of the on-key mumbling we might offer. God is happy with what he hears from my brother, I am sure, but I have wished in the past that my brother could at least get one note right. But that is my preference, not God’s. Reverent music is not slow organ-led music but, rather, reverent must be true and sung truthfully, if it is sung slowly in a large cathedral, quickly with electric guitars or off-key by someone who loves the Lord.

This past week a few words by author Georges Bernanos caught my attention. A Christian himself, Bernanos, who was writing from the perspective of an unbeliever, wrote this: “Unbelievers are extremely interested in you [Christians]. There are few of us who at some point in our lives have not made a tentative approach in your direction, were it only to insult you. After all, put yourselves in our place. Were there but one chance, even the smallest chance, the faintest chance, of you being right, death would come as a devastating surprise to us. So we’re bound to watch you closely and try to fathom you.” This is a rather surprising and somewhat refreshing perspective.

Usually we are encourage to gauge our feelings and attitudes toward those who don’t believe, and it is right that we do so. We are called to love them and express that love by bringing them word of God’s grace. We are encouraged to show interest in those who don’t believe, but we struggle with that, often times, feeling guilty that we have not done enough to bring the gospel to those who are around us. We castigate ourselves for not having done enough “to win souls for Christ,” to use a Baptist expression.

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges to our work of evangelism is that we have come to believe that unbelievers don’t care to hear the gospel. Who would be interested in what we have to say anyway? We are told repeatedly that the gospel is no longer relevant for today’s world, and we might wonder if it is true. Who wants to listen to something that doesn’t matter? Further, as Reformed Christians, we are firmly convinced that the Holy Spirit must first work in the hearts of unbelievers before they would believe, and we make the excuse, perhaps, that we don’t always know where the Spirit is at work, if he is indeed at work in this part of the world. Perhaps we convince ourselves that no one really wants to hear the message we have for them because the Holy Spirit doesn’t seem to be preparing receptive hearts.

Bernanos wants us to look at things from a different perspective. How do unbelievers see us? Again, we often chastise ourselves by saying that unbelievers see our problems, our divisions, our sins, and they draw the conclusion that they we are all hypocrites. That sentiment is out there, without a doubt, but unbelievers must really wonder why we do what we do? What motivates the faithful, each and every Sunday, some of them twice, to attend a worship service? Why do they do that? And they must wonder when we face illness and death and struggle with confidence and peace how it can be that we can be so assured in the face of difficulty. Many of them do not have much reason to hope. As Bernanos says, many unbelievers must have moments when they wonder about what happens after death, and they must have that twinge of fear that perhaps they are wrong in their belief, and if they are wrong, what awaits them is an eternity of despair.

It may well be a fact that there is more interest in what gives us hope and peace than what we might believe. Unbelievers may not be as hardened as we imagine. In fact, they may be more receptive to the gospel than we might have led ourselves to believe. We won’t know, of course, until we engage in conversations with those around us who do not believe. It is only then that we can discover if unbelievers are interested in what compels us to do what we do.

Over the years I have had opportunity to engage unbelievers in conversations, and, surprisingly, those conversations are usually started by them. Perhaps it’s because they discovered I am a pastor or because I mentioned church on Sunday, or perhaps it is something else that I said or did. I don’t recall how the conversations started, but, usually, there is a genuine interest in what we believe. True, sometimes people want to point out the faults of the church and have questions about the fact that we see so divided. I’ve only had one person ridicule Christianity, but I got to know him fairly well, and he tends to the kind of person to repeat what he has heard others say. Except in rare cases, I have discovered that there is a genuine interest in what being a Christian is all about, even if that interest is coloured with skepticism or disdain. But interest is interest, and we should make the most of every opportunity to talk about what God has done in Christ.

I must confess that talking about my faith with unbelievers is not always the easiest thing for me. I must also admit that the more I do it, the more natural it becomes. In other words, practice helps, something that I am discovering far too late in life.

I find the view of Bernanos fascinating, for I had never thought of things in that way. Perhaps we might find talking about our faith with others to be a lot easier if we understand that they are interested, even if it is only out of curiosity. As Reformed Christians, we don’t know where the Holy Spirit is working, but instead of assuming that he is not (an excuse to remain silent), we should assume that he is working in the hearts of unbelievers, and they might be genuinely searching instead of being merely curious. As Peter says, we should always be prepared to answer those who wonder why we have so much hope. I don’t doubt that unbelievers are interested in what makes a Christian tick. Sometimes that interest is rooted in disdain, but interest is interest, and we may have more opportunities to talk about what Jesus has done than we have traditionally believed.

Can we always trust what we see? I watched a clip of a video on the Internet the other day in which a woman was being held hostage by a man with a gun, and two police officers were standing with their guns drawn, trying to get him to let the woman go. As the scene unfolded, a soldier came upon the situation from behind and managed to sneak up on the man with the gun and subdue him. It appeared that he was a hero. He was not. A film crew was filming a scene for a movie, and what appeared to be a real hostage situation was actually a group of actors doing what they do best. What the soldier saw needed explanation. What we see can be deceiving.

Pictures, what we see, often need interpretation. A picture is worth a thousand words, we often hear said, and that is true. It’s far easier to draw a picture of a house plan than it is to try to describe it to the builder. Of course, if one has never seen a blueprint, they will not know what they are looking at without explanation. Pictures, while they convey a story, most often need to have an explanation so that we can understand that story.

The sacraments are a good example of this. If someone who did not speak English and who had no exposure to Christianity came to our church on a Communion Sunday and watched what was happening, what would they think? They would not think for a moment that a meal was being served, for the quantity of food and drink that is distributed would scarcely sustain a mouse let along a human being. They might conclude that communion is some kind of ritual, but they would not, from mere observation, conclude that what was being remembered and celebrated was a crucifixion that took place 2000 years ago, and they would never guess that that crucifixion served to save us from our sins. There is no meaning to communion without explanation, but with explanation, with words, the ritual takes on a deep meaning.

In Scripture, what people could observe came with explanation. Without that explanation, there would be no understanding. Thus, those who do not hold to the teachings of Scripture but who find historical record of things that Scripture tells us about, try to come up with explanations of what they see. Archaeology may tell of the destruction of Jericho but instead of seeing this to be truly an act of God (unlike earthquakes today which are the result of the movement of tectonic plates and not at all an act of God per the insurance company) – instead of seeing the destruction of Jerich to be God’s work, they find some other explanation, one that best fits what they see but which is incorrect. Likewise, David’s victory over Goliath cannot be explained by saying that this young lad was adept with a slingshot but, rather, that God enabled David to bring victory to the Israelites. If we are going to understand something that we observe, we need an explanation.

Of course, the explanation needs to be correct. The devil tempted Eve to eat of the tree, saying that if she did, her eyes would be opened. She took a new look at the tree and saw that the fruit was good for food and pleasing to the eye. The devil reinterpreted a picture for her, and his interpretation led her to draw a false conclusion as to the value of the tree. Sadly, by being misled by false words, she began a process which drew her husband into disobedience as well, and that disobedience extended to the rest of humankind. Had Eve listened to her trustworthy God, she would not have sinned, and we would have been in a very different place today.

The lesson to be learned here is that we cannot trust what we see. We need an explanation, but we need to be careful to have the right interpretation. This is where God’s Word becomes exceedingly valuable, in fact, indispensable. We would not understand the world around us if it weren’t for the explanation that God provides.

Yet, increasingly, we are being led to believe that what we see is of great value and we should draw conclusions by that which appears before us. We are told that what appears to be good must be good. We might see two people appearing to be very happy, perhaps because they are in a relationship together. Everything appears to be good because it looks good. Yet, as we well know from Eve’s experience, what appears to be good might not be good. We need to evaluate that relationship in the light of God’s Word. A couple happily having dinner together at a fine restaurant could well be a boss, a married man, who is having an affair with his secretary. What appears to be wonderful might actually be wrong when an explanation is given, especially if it brought into the light of God’s Word. Appearances can be deceiving and often are.

It is often said that there are two means by which God reveals himself, creation and his Word. Creation appears before us as a wonderful picture, but we can misinterpret what we see. Many people look at creation and see no evidence of God at all. That sometimes comes as a surprise to a Christian unless we admit that what we see can be misleading. We need the word of explanation that God created all things, and if we view a sunset or a waterfall from that perspective, it is only then that we understand how creation reveals God to us.

We should always be wary, therefore, of what we see. Something may look wonderful, but if we receive the proper interpretation, we will discover that it is not so beautiful after all. The key word in the previous sentence, of course, is “proper.” We always need to return to God’s Word for a proper explanation, interpretation or evaluation of what we see. We can also have improper interpretations, and those make the situation worse than if there is no interpretation at all.

Let’s be wary, then, that we do not draw conclusions about what is right or wrong by what we see. Pictures and images can often be misleading unless we are told what they mean. God’s Word is the final authority for explanation, and all other explanations must conform to that. If something does not conform to divine explanation, chances are we have misunderstood what we have seen and are being deceived. This is why it is important that we know God’s Word so that we can properly understand the world around us.

To Winston Churchill is attributed this saying: “We shape the building, and the building shapes us.” Practically speaking, we know this to be true. Even something as simple as the (mis)placement of an electrical outlet may determine where we put our TV, and the location of the TV will almost certainly affect the dynamics of the household. Or, when a farmer makes the feed alleys too narrow in his new barn, he may find himself doing more work by hand than he anticipated. Or, since we have stopped building houses with front porches and instead fenced in our backyards, we no longer interact with our neighbours as we did in past decades. Neighbourhoods rarely exist anymore, at least not in more recent housing developments. When we shape a building, the building will shape us. It is important, then, that we design buildings that will shape our lives so that we learn to live in ways that reflect our values and our needs.

Recently I read a chapter in a book which outlined a development in western thinking that has led many to believe that the gods (and God) are designed and built by human beings. There is some truth to that, certainly with respect to the gods of the nations in biblical times. The people of long ago sensed that there was a divine power/person who they could not see or hear but who yet somehow involved himself in earthly life, and they tried to imagine what that god would be like. They created a variety of images that they believed represented the god or gods. They shaped the gods, but, in turn, the gods shaped them. In the western world, about 200 years ago, a number of influential thinkers proposed that the same was true of Christians in relationship to the Lord. These thinkers said that we, like the pagans, created a god who we claimed to be the one true God. Further, they said that the Bible is nothing more than our projection of what we think this God should be like. So, like the nations of the Old Testament, the truth we hold so dear is something that we created ourselves and, according to them, we are living under an illusion if we commit ourselves to serving God.

What these “deep” thinkers proposed was that we envision a world where there is no God (or gods). Instead of being constricted by the commands of this powerful God, because there is no God, they said that we should feel free to live as we please. They said that Christians (and all who believe in divine beings) created their God because they wanted a sense of security and hope, but with it they also created a God who restricted their lives. Among these thinkers of the 19th century there were those who wanted to throw off the fetters (God’s rules) that bound them so that they could live freely. Living without stricture, they believed, was the highest human good, and the concept of God got in the way of that kind of life. Only those who live freely, they said, can be truly happy.

What they were doing was shaping a building, the world, in which there is no God, but that building began to shape them and those who came after them. By eliminating God from their lives, they were able to live freely, but they began to discover that freedom to do whatever they wanted led to unintended consequences. On of the last of that kind of “thinker” was a man named Frederich Nietzsche who declared that God was dead. He began to live as he pleased, and as a result of having multiple sexual partners, contracted a disease which led to his insanity and early death. The building shaped him in ways that he did not suspect, much as the building where there is no God is shaping our world today, and most of what results is not as expected or desired.

But where those thinkers right in saying that we created God? I do not doubt that the gods of the nations of the Bible were created by the people. Those gods were often no more complex than the blocks of stone meant to represent them. But when we consider the God of the Bible, we find someone who is far more complex, more intricate, more profound than any human being could conceive. If it is true that we created the God depicted in the Bible, we are far more intelligent than we seem, for we would then have created a God who is beyond our understanding. As Isaiah 40:13 says, “Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counsellor?” The God of the Bible is far more complex and more profound and more infinite than any God a human being could create. That and that alone convinces me that the thinkers of the 19th century were wrong when they said that God is our creation. He cannot be, for we are not capable of such depth. We did not shape a God that we wanted, but God revealed himself to us.

We shape the building, and the building shapes us. But if we do not shape the building, the building still shapes us. And that is the way it is with God. Even though we did not create him (for we couldn’t), as long as recognize him, honour him, trust him, and serve him, or, in other words, acknowledge his presence in our lives and world, he will shape us. The shape of our lives is determined by the fact that we live in God’s creation and in his presence. Those who have tried to shape a world without God are learning that such a building is not good for humanity. And, as we can see from history, any time we try to shape the building (our world) without God, it refashions us in ways which are not beneficial. It is only in God’s building, in God’s world, that we can be shaped in a way that causes us to thrive and live. We may not have shaped God, but he does shape us.

The story of Gideon is part of nearly every Sunday School curriculum. Who doesn’t love the story of how Gideon’s big army became a small group of 300 men who, by God’s power, overcame Israel’s enemies, the Midianites? It’s a story that sparks our imagination.

Less known is the part of the story where Gideon chops down the altar that was dedicated to Baal and builds an altar to the Lord. This was a neighbourhood altar, and he was afraid of his neighbours’ negative reaction, so instead of making the destruction of Baal’s altar a public spectacle, he and a few of his men did the job at night. When morning came, Baal’s altar was gone and the remnants of Gideon’s sacrifice to the Lord remained on the new altar.

When the people woke up in the morning, they were rather upset that their centre of worship had been torn down and a new one was standing in its place. They did a little investigating and discovered quite quickly that it was Gideon who had destroyed their community altar, and they demanded that Gideon’s father, Joash, hand him over so that they could punish him. Joash refused, saying instead that if they really believed that Baal was the most powerful god, then Baal could defend himself. This made quite a bit of sense, and the townspeople left Gideon alone. They also gave him a nickname, Jerub-Baal, which means “let Baal contend.” If anything happened to Gideon, they could say that Baal had punished Gideon for his sacrilegious act. We know the rest of the story: Gideon, aka Jerub-Baal, went on to defeat Israel’s enemies because the Lord was on his side, and he died an old man. Baal never did anything to Gideon, proving to his worshippers that he was a very weak god, not truly worthy of the worship or even the attention of anyone.

In sharp contrast the Lord could take care of himself. Or could he? We are told that the Midianites had overrun the land of Israel, forcing the Israelites to become refugees from their own homes to live in caves and makeshift shelters. They cried out to the Lord for help, and God raised up Gideon to provide that help. Gideon did accuse God of not keeping his promise to protect his people from their enemies, but he was not justified in so saying. God had sent a prophet to tell the people that the reason they were suffering was because they had abandoned him, and because they had abandoned him, he had no obligation to protect them. Nevertheless, he would provide a leader (called a judge in Judges) to lead them to victory over their enemies.

But can the Lord take care of himself, or does he need people to help him out? Gideon wasn’t sure. It sounded like the Lord needed the help of people to rid the land of the Midianites, and Gideon wanted to confirm that the Lord was asking for his help. Three times over he asked for a sign to confirm that the Lord truly had called him to fight the Midianites, and three times the Lord provided a sign, first by consuming a meal Gideon had offered with fire and second and third by first making a fleece wet and then keeping it dry as it lay on the ground through the night. Gideon was not a man of great faith, and he wanted to be sure that he could take God at his word. God accommodated him by giving him his signs.

And, to prove that he (God, not Gideon) was going to contend with the Midianites, he had Gideon reduce his army from 32,000 men to a mere 300. Against impossible odds, the Israelites defeated the Midianites so thoroughly that they never bothered the Israelites again. (Recall that the Midianites had been the first army to attack Israel after they were freed from Egypt, and they continued to find ways to destroy God’s people.) The Midianites had disrespected the Lord, and the Lord dealt with them. God’s action stands in striking contrast to Baal’s inaction, proving that the Lord truly is God.

The Lord can take care of himself, and he does. In fact, it is quite clear that he doesn’t need us to fight his battles. The odds were so stacked against Gideon and his 300 men that it is foolish to think that they had any real part in winning the battle. Without a doubt, the battle belonged to the Lord.

Although the Old Testament there are many other examples of how God contended for himself, often by using his people, but nearly always in situations where his people could never have been victorious had he not been doing the actual work. This is most certainly true in Jesus Christ who should not have been victorious but yet was. As a man he would have been defeated, but as God he won the victory over the most powerful of enemies, one who has overrun the world, the devil himself. God defended himself and provided salvation for his people.

Since Jesus ascended into heaven left behind his church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to do his work of building his kingdom. Another way of saying, “building the kingdom,” would be to say, “showing God to be victorious.” In the past (and perhaps also in the present), the church has attempted to defend God’s honour by taking up sword and spear. We need only look to the ill-conceived crusades of 1000 years ago as an example in which Europeans attempted to free Jerusalem from the “infidels” and defend God’s honour. The crusades were an unmitigated disaster and remain a blight on Christianity and, by extension, on Jesus himself. Perhaps Christian leaders were calling the church to fight in the same way as was done in the Old Testament. It is always dangerous, however, to take Old Testament examples of Israel and use them as instruction for how we ought to act today.

How does the church respond to this world being overrun by evil and sin? It lets God contend with those who disrespect him and even seek to overthrow him by tearing down his altars through the marginalization and persecution of the gospel. That doesn’t mean we don’t have a task, but our task is not to defend God. Perhaps the song, “Lead On, O King Eternal,” which has seemingly military overtones captures well our role: “For now with swords’ loud clashing or roll of stirring drums, but with deeds of love and mercy, the heavenly Kingdom comes.” We don’t have to defend God, for God will defend himself, quite capably, in fact. It seems impossible that by being kind and simply caring for people we will win any victories. And it is impossible. But, of course, it is not up to us to win victories. We are simply called to be faithful to the calling Jesus has placed on our lives and trust that he will contend for himself. And he will. And he does. By his grace.

The English word, “martyr,” comes directly from the Greek word, and when it is found in the Greek, it usually is translated as “witness.” In secular usage Greek speaking people in biblical times would refer to someone who gave evidence in a court room as a martyr. Someone who witnessed the signature of a legal document would be named a martyr. A martyr was normally a person, but sometimes a written historical account could also be called a martyr. A martyr was anyone or anything who witnessed something and could give testimony to others about the authenticity of what they had observed. A martyr was one who knew the truth and testified to that truth. It is appropriate, then, that the Greek word, “martyr,” is translated to the English as “witness.”

While Greek speaking people still use the word, “martyr,” to refer to a witness to the authenticity of an event, the word in English has taken on a very specific meaning. Martyrs are those who have suffered death because they refuse to renounce their faith. Thus, in the common English usage of the word, all Christian martyrs are dead because they remained faithful to Jesus Christ even when they knew they would die for their faithfulness.

From time to time, I have read the stories of martyrs, and I wonder what I would do in a similar situation. If it were demanded of me that I renounce Jesus or be killed, how would I respond? I would hope that I would respond by being faithfully stalwart to the end, and that is certainly a goal I would set for myself, but I don’t know if I would be able to reach that goal. We can read many stories of those who died for their faith, but there are also many stories of how now long-forgotten people who renounced Jesus in the face of persecution and did not remain faithful. I would not want to be among them, but I can’t make any guarantees that I would not. Perhaps like many of you, I have reflected on how I would respond if it became dangerous to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps there is a way that we can practice becoming a martyr, should that need arise. We reserve the term, “martyr,” for those who have given their life because they would not renounce Jesus, but we can also use the broader sense of the word to think about someone witnessing to the authenticity of Jesus even while they are alive. In the broader sense of the word, a martyr is not only one who dies for Jesus; a martyr can also be one who lives for Jesus. And this, perhaps, is the way we can practice for becoming someone who dies for Jesus.

I suspect that if we would go back into history and examine the lives of those who died for their faith, we would discover that those great heroes of the faith also lived faithfully for Jesus. In other words, they practiced for their martyrdom by being faithful to Jesus when not confronted with their own deaths. It would be harder to study the lives of those who did renounce Jesus in the face of persecution, for their stories are not often told, but I would suspect that we would discover that they denied Jesus when facing death because they were also not faithful to Jesus when living their lives. So, if I really want to know if I would die for Jesus, I must ask myself how willing I am to live for Jesus. Living faithfully for Jesus would make dying for Jesus more likely.

There is another facet to this whole discussion that we must not forget. Often, we make martyrs (those who died for Jesus) into heroes, elevating them above the rest of us. Without a doubt their stories need to be told, but I suspect that most martyrs would not see themselves as heroes. I had lunch with a man once who nearly died for his faith. Living in a place where being a Christian was allowed but witnessing for Jesus was not, this man had been speaking to others about God’s grace in Jesus Christ. For his witness, he was arrested and after a short trial, was sentenced to death by having his head chopped off with a sword. On the fateful day, he was taken into the courtyard, and the executioner made himself ready. In the minutes before he was executed, he asked to pray, and he prayed for those who were going to take his life. What happened next, this man does not fully understand, but his execution was delayed, and he was released from prison a few days later. As he told the story, the rest of us were amazed, but he did not see himself as a hero. He was only being faithful, for that was all that was being asked of him.

When he gave his testimony and told his story, what became clear was that he not only was willing to die for Jesus, but he was also eager to live for Jesus. I met this man in seminary, and I know that after his studies he returned to his country, but what happened after that, I do not know. I suspect that he continued to witness to those around him of God’s grace in Jesus, and he may have faced the executioner’s sword once again. I do not know, but this I do know: for him Jesus was the one who should receive the glory. In his mind, Jesus was the hero, for it was Jesus who had brought salvation to this world by giving his life for us.

I do wonder if I would be a martyr, giving my life for Jesus, or if I would be ranked among the cowards. I also know that my chances of being a martyr increase, not as I fortify myself and make myself strong but as I humbly submit to Jesus Christ and live for him. In living for him, I also can practice for the event of dying for him, if that should come. I imagine that if we live for the Lord, we won’t find dying for him such a bit stretch. Living as a martyr (witness) should make it possible for one to die as a martyr. If, however, if we don’t live for him, dying for him might well be beyond us should that need ever arise. So, like you, I need to continue to practice for martyrdom, for, while it may never happen, I need to be prepared for it. The only way to prepare is to live humbly and obediently for the Lord Jesus Christ, witnessing to his death for us in our lives so that we can witness to his grace in our deaths.