Sunday 17 November 2013

A River of Gold (Nov '13)

(Dave Jones)

I've been thinking around our GOLD values recently. Hats off to Colin, they are a stroke of genius. GOLD describes the way we as a church think about the character and nature of God. 

G – Good   He only ever does thoroughly goooooood things. He only ever acts in ways which are wonderful, beautiful, creative, restorative; cleansing and healing. 


O – Open   Our Father is not controlling. He has given humanity complete freedom to do whatever we want - throughout every layer of creation. He has chosen to be open handed with His dealings with us, primarily because of… 


L – Love   Love is the very core of God’s nature. It’s impossible to force someone to love you and for it to be real. God is Open and will not control us, but instead treats us as who we are – free people, free to love Him back if we want to. God’s love was demonstrated and pushed to the absolute limits for you on the cross when Jesus cried ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ God is love (1 John 4:8). 

D - Dynamic (Dunamis) power   This describes the way He still operates and the means by which He is fixing all the brokenness in this world. Jesus’ mandate in Luke 4 was to ‘Preach the gospel to the poor…proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ He did just this – demonstrating miraculously that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. and then commissioned and empowered the church to do the same, and the Kingdom is still at hand for us today. 

So what does all this have to do with us? Here’s the hit. CHRIST IN YOU!!! (Gal 2:20) When you became a Christian you became a brand new creation. (2 Cor 5:17). Your Spirit was mystically joined with Christ’s Spirit (1 Cor 6:17), and, like it or not, there’s no going back. 

This does however have implications on how we see the GOLD values. They now become descriptors and guideline for our nature, our behavior, and our dealings with the world, not just God’s. 

That means we too are to stand for everything GOOD in this world – honesty, integrity, kindness, fun, laughter, creativity, health, care, gentleness, peacefulness…We’re to be OPEN handed with our dealings with one another. Like God, we must not control people, all we can do is control the way we are with people and the options we are able to offer them. But the reality is, control happens sometimes without even noticing - through manipulating our social subtleties and expectations – it’s always good to keep a check on this. 

LOVE is the way in which we should act, and is the filter through which we are to make our day to day, and larger ethical, decisions. I have a simple mental process: I go through 1 Cor 13 and ask myself ‘Is this the way of patience? The humble way? The posture of kindness towards this person? The road of forgiveness..? and so on. DYNAMIC POWER – yep, you’ve guessed it, is the way we are to be. We must mentally fight until we are in right alignment with God on this one. For me this is a daily thing. We must not settle until we really believe that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Dynamic power is not just about miracles though, it’s about seeing the world Hope-full-y. Knowing that the God who created the universe is with you, and loves (and likes) you, which changes the game completely. It now means there is always a way through, a solution, so you can keep your hope alive – in your family, business, school or wherever God has placed you. 

To conclude, GOLD isn’t just about what God’s like, it’s a call to us, to a radical way of thinking and living.