presuming upon grace

Ephesians 1:3-14 (in the original language these verses are one, run on sentence).
WHO IS GOD to you? We recently asked this question on our streets the replies reveal that everyone has an opinion about God (most have a couple of ideas of God, at least).
A Sweet Ol Grandpa in the Sky - with lots of opinions but basically harmless; slipping you a 'twenty' now and then and winking at the things you do wrong.
Or the Angry Father in the Living Room - you never know when He might explode in a rage of judgement so you better tip toe around Him and try not to peeve Him off!
Or the Great Pinata in Heaven - just keep trying the whacking sticks of good works, being nice to old people, loving puppy dogs and going to confessions; Eventually you'll the hit the jackpot; God will notice all your good things and pour out His 'candy'!
Or God is everything - it is in the trees and the air, the earth and the water, it is the good spark that lies in the center of us all!
WHERE DID YOU learn your opinion(s) of God? More and more I hear, "Well God, to me, is..."
The problem with OUR opinion is it is OUR opinion. Do we really ever stop and search for God's opinion of who He is? In Ephesians 1:3-14- God is the main subject of almost every verb. Here is God telling you about Himself:
"Before the foundations of the world I choose...You were my idea...I have made THE way for you to be called my child...even when I knew who you would be and what you would do....I reached out to adopt you... to give you a purpose that would fill up your soul, bring peace to your life and a deep richness of My grace...all this I am doing as a part of My will for you and for the primary purpose of showing My glory through you"
This beautiful 'free verse' sentence of blessing to God and about God tells You that really in everything that was and is GOD is PRIMARY -the reason, the intentional, personal, all powerful God. I don't stand over Him to shape Him anyway that might fit. He offers hope and life to me from out of His grace. What will I do with that?
Grace is getting favor that I didn't ask for, don't deserve and often didn't even know I needed.
These verses tell us that God opens the treasury of heaven and calls us to enjoy the spiritual richness of relationship with Him. He does all this by sending His son, Jesus to eliminate the barriers that make us incapable to reach God on our own. Barriers of SELF that the Bible calls SIN. God says- KNOW ME...sends His Son Jesus to be known by us...JESUS IS CENTRAL ...for there is no other name, god, opinion of spiritual life where by you can come to God. God comes to you through the life, death, Resurrection, and exaltation of His Son. When you reach out in faith humbly accepting you enter into His grace and all that you will be, In Christ.
It is when you begin to see this that you realize the awesome greatness of the Person and Love of God; It is then that you experience deep forgiveness and the resources of grace poured out in your life. This is The Gospel that changes everything for us.
To reject what God says about Himself and how you can KNOW Him- and live out of a 'this is what God is to me...'; is a great presumption on the true Grace of the Revealed God.
To presume that I am primary, my opinion is central and I live my life anyway I want to...is to presume yourself god.
Our 'favorite' excuses why we refuse to take a hard look at living life with God as Primary, Christ as Central, and reflecting the raw transforming power of the Gospel:

“But I can’t do it…
You don’t know what a struggle it is in my relationships...
You don’t know what it is like at my school...
You don’t know the hurt, and horror stories of my past...
You don’t know what I have done in my past...
You don’t know the struggle that I have to fit in, to make my life a success...

You don't have to go over board with the 'god stuff'. I'm spiritual when I need to be, but I also have a real life where I need to make money and secure my future...
You don’t know the addictions I have struggled with secretly or openly for years, or decades. There is no getting away from my addictive personality.
(And my all time favorite) I can’t do it…I can’t live out a spiritual life that engages the world around me because you don’t know how hard I have worked to live an exemplary life, of piety, and separation from all things that have a stench of sinful brokenness and the look of helpless spiritual floundering. I am called to live a separated life of holiness and piety; a life surrounded by those who look, act, smell, and have demonstrated the high morals that I do! – SELF PITY, SELF ABASING, SELF SUFFICIENT, SELF PRESERVATION, all various expressions of SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS- MORALISM!! SAULINE PHARISASIM! All a presumption on the grace of God. May God meet with us in the depths of His Word, to make us broken and blind until we know the fullness of repentance and the awakening of living out a Spirit filled life in the midst of a desperately seeking postmodern world!

Life Between the [Brackets]

PAXnorth has begun a series in EPHESIANS: REALITY CHECK
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus; Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Eph. 1:1,2

Canada 21st Century REAL LIFE
Influential- Globe and Mail stated in 2006 that there were some 500,000 intentional legal immigrants on a waiting list to enter the country (300,000 annually will be granted permission to enter).
Wealthy- Almost 3 billion people in our world today are eke out a life on less then $2 a day; 5% of the worlds population consume 80% of the worlds resources. In 2006, according to Stats Canada, the average Canadian household spent over 200 dollars annually on lotto tickets; while the average Canadian household giving to ALL charities was on average $250; the median total income of Canadian families (this is before taxes) in 2006 was $60,600. That means that the average Canadian home gives approx. 2.4% of their income towards charitable causes; Studies show that at the height of the Great Depression in North America the average household giving was 3.3% of income. Apparently having a greater capacity for wealth doesn’t lead us to greater generosity.
Celebrity/Entertainment Driven- In what other culture is a movie star, sports star, rock star’s opinion on any given issue (from parenting to politics to global warming) able to make front page news or sway votes or start billion dollar trends? We are celebrity obsessed!
Diverse Ideologies/ Philosophies – Postmodern dictum is a splintering of beliefs within one’s own life. The morals/values that might work for one moment might not work for another. The ethic that is believed by the high ideals of religions might be fine for the religious moments but there are moments when you just have to do what YOU feel is right. You are the authority over God or what ever gods there might be.
Sexually Inundated World View- If you take all of the annual salaries of all of the North American professional sports teams (CFL, NFL, MBL, NBA, etc) add them all together, they still would not total the amount of money spent in North America on pornography in one year. As a nation we hold a cultic pre-occupation with sexual images and messages.

EPHESUS 1st Century REAL WORLD
Influential – major ‘hub’ trade center (both by land and marine). It was called “the Jewel City of Asia Minor”. One of the first great metropolis of it’s time.
Wealthy- There was a treasury in the great Temple of Diana, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, in Ephesus. The temple was furnished by the finest marble quarries of its day, the greatest artisans of the day were responsible for the ornate carvings in the temple as well as on its one hundred and twenty-seven graceful columns, each column was a gift from a king. Here there has been discovered currency from all over the known ancient world. Mark Antony once demanded a 9 year back tax from the great city which was completely paid in only two years.
Celebrity/Entertainment Driven- It was the site of pagan Roman games and a great theatre, which was the largest in the world, capable of containing 50,000 spectators. It was, like all ancient theatres, open to the sky. Here were exhibited the fights of wild beasts and of men with beasts. Also Ephesus hosted festivities here as part of month long celebration of the fertility goddess Diana.
Diverse Ideologies/ Philosophies – One of the great philosophers and mathematicians of the city was a man named Alexander, his philosophy was so influential that they nicknamed him the Light. Yet his teachings were to look inside your self to connect with the light spark inside, to self realizations- all of which could be interpreted to make us all better people. A well known poet of the day, who was born in Ephesus was Hipponax, the Bitter. One of his popular ideologies is expressed in his writings, “There are two happy days in a man’s life: the one when he gets his wife, and the other when he buries her.” A famous painter who lived here was Parrharius, who believed that his paintings were inspired by the spirit world and used this as an opportunity to exploit others, live a conceited and indulgent life. The school of Tyrannus was also a place of higher learning in the city. Where all philosophies and arguments of philosophies were discussed, disciples of various philosophies were created, a sense of political correctness, and a climate of equal validity was given to all and every ideology.
Sexually Inundated Worldview- A place where part of their devotion and acts of worship was to engage in sexual activities with temple prostitutes/ or any others who came to the temple for an super natural experience of worship with the spirits, humans and goddesses of nature, and fertility- in month long orgies of perversion- all in the name of seeking experience. Ephesus was a culture that was bombarded with the worship of sexual figures, to the point of occultist devotion; A devotion that was lived out in the giving of their resources, their complete energy, their time and effort focused on self- gratification to the point of worship.

A culture that is continually bombarding its citizens with new ideas, philosophies and ‘entertainment’; violence, sexual images, twisted values about relationships and self indulgence! Get’s ticked off at the mention that there is a WAY (read Acts 19)! And that this Way changes the patterns of behavior, priorities, morals, spending habits, life styles of those who have entered into Him! REAL LIFE IN A REAL WORLD!

What’s the point of all this INFORMATION?! Despair? Hate? Pity? Wish for the ‘good ol days? Gather in our holy huddles and think of heaven while we close our eyes to a needy world? Grab your bull horns meet me down town on Saturday night so we can scream how righteous ‘we’ are and how unrighteous ‘they’ are?

“to the saints who are IN EPHESUS…and…IN CHRIST.”
This is the point of this amazing book- you have everything you need in Christ Jesus to live out a courageously attractive grace and a recklessly sure peace within YOUR world.
In my Greek New Testament Ephesus is in [brackets]. It is suspected that this book was circulated to all the churches in Asia Minor, then the city's name was inserted in the brackets.

Real Life IN CHRIST .....IN [insert name of your community]!

"Whoever gives a casserole in My name..."

On December 30, 2007 we hosted a community pre-New Year’s supper.

I watched as our volunteers arrived… 30 plus from two great churches. Both very different then each other. Fall River Baptist- a great established church who chose to set their own church Christmas supper aside in order to invest and serve at ours; Deep Water Church another church plant in Halifax’s Southend, who are striving to be missional. Both came to invest time, energy, resources and of course casseroles and desserts for us to host a community supper.
The idea was to put on a fun, relaxed, supper and party for many who live streetlevel in our northend community. Create a space for us to have conversations and for the community to get comfortable with what PAXnorth ‘looks like’ in our worship space- the Marquee Club. In order to do this we needed for our core team to be free from programming, planning and serving so they could just relax and interact with those who came.

Fall River Baptist and Deep Water Church were outstanding in cleaning up glass, setting up, serving, leading kids programs, security, bringing more food than we all could possibly eat, interacting with the community, and just doing anything that needed to be done!

SO what’s the results?
Here’s the beginnings of results from PAXnorth conversations (names have been removed to protect the innocent, mostly)

Yep, Sunday was so much fun! Are there plans in the works to do that kind of thing periodically? Hope so, we'd definitely be willing to help in any way with it!
The people we spoke with were really happy about the potluck; the amount, variety, and especially it being after Christmas when you don't see that kind of thing often, made a great impression on them. Three street level friends I talked with had nice Christmases with their families. Could pray that jobs come along for them that use their skills; they seem like talented, able people.
It was cool how easily they shared their stories; the atmosphere, people, location, etc, were great - you could see God was there!! Great job!

Great Supper!
I talked to a guy who was so full, it hurt, and so thankful. He said he knows he really needs to keep his life straight and the people from PAXnorth really help. He said he wants to keep coming to the church.

Fun Supper:
I don’t know what if any impact I had on two guys and a girl who spoke very little English but they seemed to really be enjoying the evening. We spoke about the church (PaxNorth) and I invited them to come and they said they would. I'm sorry I don't know their names as a matter of fact I saw one of them at Brunswick Mission this morning and he saw the Dr who comes apparently every Wed. morning.

Loved the atmosphere of supper @the Marquee!
I was amazed by how long many of the people just wanted to hang around after everything was over. As I looked around I could see lots of people from PAXnorth and the other churches in little groups of people from our community, laughing, talking, and enjoying being here.


Can’t wait to read about the conversations others had at the supper.
My conversations were mostly just listening to people talk about their kids and family. I offered to pray for people and everyone seemed genuinely grateful for that offer.


I sat with a lady who thought that if she had to call me 'DJ' that it was only right that I referred to her as 'EG' for the evening:)

This lady considers herself an atheist and came only to the dinner because she thought it was just something the Marquee was hosting and had no idea it was with a "church group". She was quite happy with the food however and seemed to be making a point to tune out any "religious talk" that happened throughout the evening. She shared with me her travels to over 20 different countries where she either worked or studied. She has 8 children to several different men, and is a proud grandmother even though she seems to have no real relationship with any of her children these days. She lives somewhere near the Marquee Club and told me she was "probably born somewhere in or near Halifax but not sure". She was full of stories about her life and the adventures she's had although none really seemed to connect. She seemed to come alive as she realized I was truly listening and enjoying what she had to say. God directed our conversation and she asked a few questions giving me brief opportunities to share with her a bit about Paxnorth and about His heart for the city. She was listening while trying hard to appear disinterested.
As she was walking away she came back for a few seconds to share a few pieces of advice about raising children. I can still see her huge smile as she said "Nice to meet you... and Thank you". As I have thought about 'EG' and prayed for her these past few days God has impressed on my heart how deep His love for her and how He longs for her to know Him. I know He has revealed Himself to her. I know it was no 'mistake' that she came to a dinner by a 'religious group'. I pray that she sees Him clearly and that He brings her back to His family whether it be ours at Paxnorth or another.
On a funny note she is apparently a rapper and composed and performed a rap about me over dinner. It was quite long and I wish I had it in writing to give you all a good laugh! What a great evening!

CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT GOD WILL DO WITH OUR FEEBLE EFFORTS!
Big thanks to everyone who particapated that night!
We have some video of the night that we will post on Facebook in the next week or so!
Face book search Brad Somers

Blog-olutions

My new year blog-olution is to update our PAXblog weekly.
Thanks for everyone who keeps encouraging me to do so.

So weekly you can read about unique happenings and/or spiritual developments in and around PAXnorth!
ENJOY!
Cheers and Happy New Year!
Bradley Somers
Lead
PAXnorth Church