Zp1 v2 Ev-ry-thing. Such is our being, a stick of rock of sin. Shot through, riddled with, wicked thoroughly and throughout. So justice demands obliviation. No mere patchup, whitewash or blackout, but a startover. Let's start over? But we have already. He who finished a good work in you Jn19v30, will he not also begin all things a new in you (~Ph1v6 ~Rv21v5). We, new souls, in a new birth, singing new songs of new mercies, this morning, every morning. .. v6 'Yet swear by Milcom' (it even sounds like a corporation) What does it mean to swear by? Do you? He swears by his iphone, she swears by that lipstick, we swear by our substitute saviours. I like to think of my idols as supplementary saviours, as backup options, silly. Substituting the truth for a lie, I necessarily take Jesus off the pitch. .. Zippy goes on. v12 Calling me away from trying to have a foot on both boats, calling me away from the lukewarm water of complacency that I fall into. Dithering and double-minded, we are, in the Hebrew 'dregs' in the bottom of the wine barrel coagulating. Oh Phil, don't be thick, don't be stiff, you are a new soul, renewed to be unslothful in doing good. Of acting out last night's Acts 20, Paul's uncomplacent hyperactivity and marathon preaching (with tears) springs from a conviction anathema to v12. Ac20v21 Teaching repentance towards God – who *will* do 'ill'; and teaching faith in our Lord Jesus Christ – who *will* do good. .. v13 Architecture again. If my life is for rent, and I don't learn to buy, then nothing I have is truly mine. Architectural woes are here painted as the fruit of a rent-a-faith complacency. Make up your mind, Phil. Is God good? All the time? Then go all in, feet first, sell you v18 silver and gold, in your Mt13v44 joy, so that you can say Ac3v6.
Zp2 In the gnb v1 says 'come to your senses.' Come to your senses! Like golden sky breaking unexpectedly into your vision, like a sea-shore's salt-sprayed gust of wind, like walkinginto Brixton village, like beholding space from the train window after a fraught claustrophobic dash to the station. Come. To. Your. Senses. And remember there is a God and there is sin that is real and there is grace that overcomes it. Feel your body and being shift & reconfigure & reprioritise, given over to the releasement God gives, that which you could never make happen yourself. Breathe deeply and openyou eyes again, hear the noise around you & the taste of your coffee and the weight of your body through your feet to the floor. Wake up, oh Eph5v14 sleeper! Come to your senses, feel death & feel the beauty of all you love anew, look again at culture & logic & other people and know Christ at the centre speaking your name. Do not blow about like v2 chaff, do not live in sleep, thoughtless, prayerless ways. wake up, for the joy of being awake with Jesus...Life and death are given to us as landscapes to live in. The land of v9 salt pits & nettles the antithesis of the land of milk and honey. When we wander from God we wander to a landsape of v9 ruin that leads to death, v13-14 deserting God for the desert. Our hearts understand this language of landscape, so Dt30v19 choose life, choose the lush and sweeping landscape not the barren prickly place – a question of heart attititude before Jesus, not of circumstance. And. v3 be humble. Be humble in the way you love your city. v15 how do you love London (or Afghanistan)? Proudly, as part of the secure story you can tell about yourself? Or as God's London, the one not your own, but as a gift for others? Let us be led humbly.
Zp2 v10 'their lot is return for their pride' v14 even the owl and the hedgehog shall lodge in her capitals' v10 'because they taunted and boasted' v9 'the remnant of my people' v9 'the survivors' Mutual (assured) destruction. What will happen? v11 'he will famish all the gods of the earth' v3 'Seek the Lord … perhaps you will be hidden' Perhaps? Perhaps. Ps23 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me' v6 'meadows for shepherds' Ps23 'you rod and your staff, they comfort me' v6 'meadows for shepherds' Ps23 'The Lord is my shepherd.'
Zp3 [1] No Other. 2v15 “I am and there is no Other.” v2 No voices, no correction, no word from the outside, v4 no accountability, no true prophecy, no law, no holiness, v5 no shame, no Hell below us, above us only sky and Schaefferian synthesis. This the sin of solipsism and the solipsism of all sin: the claim, exacerbated by urbanism, that I am and there is no Other. v5 But in here dark streets shineth – God is amongst out urban struggles, labouring, loving, morning by morning to break in. .. [2] v3 Wolves. Ac20v29 To combat wolves, Paul tells us to Ac20v31 (1) be Alert (O sleeper) and (2) Remember to (3) Night and Day, (4) Admonish, (5) Everyone, (6) with Tears. So compassionate admonition is contrasted with the wolfishness of a repentanceless gospel of cheap grace. Sin always costs. You were bought at a price. If we claim (even by omission) that life is other than constant repentance, we deceive ourselves, we deceive others, we ruin engagements, we devastate cities. At risk of stating the obvious, preaching repentance is hard, and on atleast two counts: prophets suffer and die, nay, they get persecuted and killed for their words as Ac20v13; but secondly, their words may also appear as part of the problem: v7 all the more eager corruption. Such is the aroma of death to the dead, such is the sun that melts the ice and hardens the clay, such is preaching repentance, even (especially) to ourselves, such is v12 humility. We are Planet Earth's bloodied lions, if we skip repentance in our explanation, so my fears for Eisenstein. .. [3] Quiet. 1v7 Be silent, 3v8 Wait, v17 Quiet you with his love. In the quiet of this morning, God, teach me your pure speech v9, give me tongues to sing with the Brazilians with one rejoicing accord. Jesus paid it all, to buy our Blameless & Belovedness.
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