Mike HIll is a retired Bishop from the diocese of Bristol and gave us a talk at this morning’s Christian Mens Breakfast in Frome. You can see his blog here.
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It’s great to be here with you, and I want to talk to you a little bit about something that the old preachers called assurance. And that is something that, to the secular mind, sounds extremely arrogant.
Assurance,, the doctrine of assurances that you know deep in your heart that you are saved. And generally the old preachers of the Church, evangelical preachers of the Church, based that on 1 John, chapter five, verse 13, where the apostle John says,
These things are risen, that you may know that you have eternal life
not that you may vaguely hope or you know as the hour of death approaches, you kind of lie there with your fingers crossed, but that you may know. For John Wesley, this was a critical doctrine. In fact, Wesley spent a lot of his time arguing with Wakefield over the doctrine of assurance and also about holiness but I think it’s quite an important thing. I would go as far as Wesley. Wesley thought that to have assurance was the only authenticating love of genuine faith.
And it struck me today that there’s a very good question in our culture. And the question is, Who can we trust? Who can you trust?
We’re told that the statistics around people who believe in the police force have been diminishing month on month, people don’t trust if you’re a politician, forgive me, but people don’t trust politicians any more. I think their trusting is as low as it’s ever been. And then it struck me. I reminded of that phrase attributed to UK Chesterton. Like a lot of phrases, I don’t think GK Chesterton actually ever said this, but it’s a good quote. And he said,
when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they’ll believe in anything.
Yeah, very good. And it struck me alongside that there are a lot of people who have these very strange beliefs, and I’m not a big fan of social media, but I am aware that there are people who are influencers on social media. These people have 10s of 1000s of followers, and some of them who, as far as one can best tell them have not had a day’s training in health are health influences. They are telling you how to live healthily.
At this moment someone’s mobile went off. Without missing a beat, Mike told a story about these types of thing.
I was confirming a woman once in a church in Bristol, and her phone went off and she had it stuffed down in front of her dress. So she shoves her hand down her dress. She goes, hello, I can’t speak now. I’m in church. She put the phone back down her dress, I cannot speculate exactly where. She said to me, sorry, man, It’s my son.
Nothing I learned in college prepared me for that moment.
So that’s an aside. What I was talking about is how easy it is for people to believe in things which actually have very little intellectual capacity. Some years ago, I was checking in on a flight at Terminal five, and the lady on the checkout
She: have you got the credit card that you paid for this flight with?
Me: No.
She: Oh, that could be a problem.
Me: I don’t understand that.
She: it’s a random security check.
Me: I don’t have the card. My PA gives my car back in the office, and she looks after all my fares
She: well, you have to go queue in customer service.
I looked at this long line of musical looking people all queuing at customer service, stood there for an hour, go to the front, and I talked to the guy and explained what had happened.
He: Oh, you could be in trouble.
Me: What do you mean?
He: Well, you might have to start again with a ticket.
Me: seriously?, Well, how can you do this? Nobody’s ever told me that I have to have the credit card with me
He: Did you tick a box that said, ‘I accept the terms’.
Me: I said, you mean that 12 page?
He: Yes, that’s the one
Me: I said, How many people actually read all 12 pages? We just check the box and very few people read it. And so I said to him, do you read it?
And suddenly his face cracked into a smile. He goes, gets on his keyboard, and out comes the boarding pass.
And I thought to myself, why would I have any faith in trusting British Airways? I don’t read that stuff, and I doubt anybody buys a plane ticket does, but meanwhile, if you forget everything else, don’t forget the credit card that you bought the ticket when you go to the airport, just in case you’re subject to a random check.
So it strikes me that that we, quite willingly, in some ways, give our trust to people in situations which actually may not really be worthy of our trust. I’m told that 75% of Harold Shipman’s patients, two thirds of them, I am told, when questioned said ‘I had faith in my doctor’, right?
We are willing to trust anything and anybody, and then you get the whole conspiracy theory stuff. A friend of mine’s son is married to an American woman called candy Zoex (sp?). Candy believes that Macron’s wife is a man and she writes regularly about it. I am not in a position to judge whether she’s right or helping. But it does seem far-fetched.
Never before in my ministry have I come up against so many people in the street who approach me and say, Mike, what’s going on? So what they mean is, ‘what’s going on in the world?’ Wherever you look, there’s trouble, even in our own country. They’ll say, even in our own country, people are confused, are uncertain. ‘I don’t know what the future is going to look like’. The latest new item is that three Russian mid 31 jets flew into Estonian airspace yesterday and were chased off by a contingent of the Italian pilots who work for the United Nations.
I want to just read to you a few verses from Scripture. And it seems to me that they speak very much into our culture. Yet you know this story, and I’m sure most of you know very well.
Jesus said, everyone who hears these words of mine puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain came down, the streams rose and the wind blew and beat against the house as it did not fall, because it had its foundation on rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down in the streams. Winds blew and beat against that house and it fell.
I don’t think I’m the only person who thinks that we’re living in a time when our culture in the West is built on sand, and a liberal Jewish atheist called Jonathan Haidt, wrote a book called The Righteous Mind. In that book, he reverses the theory, although he’s not a believer in any sense of the word, he rehearses the theory that one of the things that’s gone wrong with our society is we have lost our connection with the cultural roots that formed our society. What it meant by that is that Western society was largely created by what he calls the Judeo-Christian culture. And in my lifetime, politicians were able to talk about things like common morality, public morality.
What they meant by that we were all agreed there were certain moral norms that we didn’t defend. It did mean that people didn’t defend against them, but when they did offend against them, they did try and defend him, they accepted they’d done wrong. Hyde also says in his book that we’ve lost a very important currency for civilized living. He said that the death of the Judeo-Christian culture has got the possibility of deep, genuine forgiveness. I mean, this is really important stuff. I mean, it’s almost made more important by the fact that it’s written by a liberal, Jew atheist.
Very recently, Keir Starmer found himself obfuscating when he was asked, ‘Is this to a Christian country?’ And the way I agree, because Starmer is a self-confessed atheist. But I think the answer to that question is actually quite complicated, and I’m quite sure of like most politicians who didn’t want to get dragged into anything where he might have to say something (laughter)
John Rothberg said that said this, a profound thing. He said that transformation is the essence of hope. I say that, again, transformation is the essence of hope. See, I think that somehow our culture has lost any faith that things are going to change. And I disagree with that conclusion, and I disagree with it because I am a believer in God reveal to us in the person of Jesus Christ and my faith is motivated by the Holy Spirit.
Transformation is the essence of hope.
I have some sympathy with our politicians because I think our problems have become so complex now that’s really difficult to know what you can do. The current government, which less than 20% of the electorate voted for, has a huge majority in the House of Lords (Commons? -Ed.), but can’t get things through because party unity doesn’t seem to exist any more. Our problems, in a way, are far more serious than that.
I think the influence of social media is very pernicious, and in a recent book, it called The Anxious Society, and it also written by Jonathan Haidt. He’s got all the data that shows you the risk we are putting our children through where we allow their developed brains to be exposed to social media at too early an age. Some of you are parents, most of you grandparents. Nobody knows where it’s going, and so listen, I think there needs to be a real reappraisal. If you’re a believer in here this morning, I want to say to you, the important thing is, step it up.
Step it up.
Christianity is not a spectator sport. My call to Christians is that we’ve got to step it up. I am not suggesting that you’re half committed lightweights, but I am suggesting, on the basis of 1000s of interviews of clergy over the decades of my ministry, that a lot of them feel like they’re marching with a half-committed army, and no general on the planet would welcome that possibility. So I never doubted that clergy transformation is the essence of hope.
In a recent survey 1/3 of the people in a recent survey believed that transformation is possible. That means that two thirds think we’re now just a victim of the circumstances in which we live in the West. And I want to encourage you to believe that faith in Christ will make a difference. You know, if you turn to the world of psychology, you will discover that there are certain schools of fashionable psychology that is really very sceptical about the possibility of real change.
There is a school of psychology that says that human beings are emotionally hardwired by the time they’re five years old. There’s another school of educational psychologist, and they will tell you that they can test children at the age of 18 months and accurately predict their academic outcomes at the age of 21 so if that’s true that we’re hardwired by the time we’re five years old. I mean, I’m pretty sure my wife thinks I am hardwired at the age of five years old. There’s another point, if transformation is the essence of hope, that doesn’t hold that much hope for us. If it’s true, that educational psychologists can give you some test, random tests, at the age of 18 months old, and predict your academic outcomes at the age of 21 it doesn’t offer much hope.
And if I believe that god, I would be truly hopeless. I would probably move to a cave in Scotland or something with that. I don’t believe that. And the reason I don’t believe that is I know that Jesus Christ took a sinful wretch and moron like me and turn my life around. And there’s absolutely nothing exceptional about me. Exceptional nothing. I am Joe Ordinary, and it’s frustrating a lot of my life. You know, John S… knows this. I wanted to be a professional footballer, and I was told at the age of 17 well, you might get a contract with a fourth division side, as it was. What 17 years old who wants to play for a fourth division so it’s not me.
So I went to play in Rugby League in two years. I nearly killed myself on the rugby league pitch. And then I came to a more sedate sport, which only John said, I’m going to manage this and coquet, and he has good times today.
Returning to the theme, if we believe this stuff, we will be without hope. And if you’re a person whose faith is wavering, or indeed you might be, and you’re a person with no faith, I would say the only way out of these complicated issues….the politicians are not going to solve it, right? I’m not making a political point. I don’t think any politicians are going to solve it.
So the big deal is, if it’s true, and this is a very big statement, our only way out in this mess is through faith in God, through Jesus Christ, then we need to take it seriously. And there is some evidence to suggest that a group in our society that feels extremely marginalized and that is white working-class young men and they are suddenly starting to take it very seriously.
But when you look at the data, there are a couple of things you need to bear in mind. One is, it’s very regional. The phenomenon of young men coming back into churches is largely a city based phenomenon. And the second thing is, a lot of these young men are going to the Roman Catholic Church. It seems that the ‘easy believe’ is kind of, ‘let’s accommodate our cultural approach’. The Church of England isn’t quite the flavor of the month, but with these young men
And one thing in the background, the house of Bishops used to be bitter and resentful about this during my time, they used to try and make some cautious noises about some of the moral changes in our culture, and we get absolutely ????? . The broadsheets are doing it. Roman Catholics got away with it, week by week, The bishops are asking ‘where have we gone wrong? Rather
than where the Roman Catholics go?
So there is some evidence that more people are starting to take the claims of Christ a little more seriously. And I would say to you, I think we in the church today need to take the claims of Christ a little more seriously.
And in the end, I don’t think there’s a man in that house this morning who would not think, well, I don’t really care about the way the world is going. I can’t believe anyone would think that. But the issue is not what you think. It’s what are you prepared to do? And I come back to that passage Jesus says,
He who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who builds his house on rock.
Our culture, I think indisputably, was formed on that Judeo Christian culture. It was broadly the Bible teaching that was translated into our legal system, into our common law, and the way the law was interpreted. It’s not like that anymore. I mean, you’ve got people writing wild articles in the serious journals, writing about the bias of judges. We are in a very serious mess when people doubt the honesty of your judiciary. So things about this story I think really should be meaningful to our culture. The first thing is, and if my wife were here, she’d be laughing about me talking about anything to do, to do it yourself, and our house is a testimony to the damage. This much I know about the building process is foundations are important, really important. And you know, the good thing about the foundations is early on in the building stage. They disappear. The only time you see foundations again is if they’ve done the pinning at some days to date, Victorian church builders, please note. It’s only when adverse weather conditions apply t that you discover how firm your foundations are. What is true in the building, friends is true for your life.
You have no idea, no idea how far the foundation of your life is until something adverse happens. 2006 on October the first, my wife and I were traveling along the M4, and I had just spoken to 250 Asians in Slough and at the end of it, the vicar said, do an ‘altar call’ and they will like it. I did an altar call. 120 Asian people came forward to give their lives to Christ.
And then we had this amazing lunch. You can cook curry but these people can cook serious, delicious. Driving back at 70 miles an hour, I fell asleep at the wheel of my car, and we hit a tree, and my wife was seriously injured. We went to the John Radcliffe hospital (Oxford) that night where the air ambulance had taken us, and my own five children and five children, 16 grandchildren, we pray for.
And so four of my five children came. My son was in Germany doing a gig, and he was in the music business. It is in the music business. And my four daughters and I stood in the relatives room, and we prayed together for three hours for Angela. Four o’clock in the morning, we gave up. And at the end of that time, we had no idea what would happen to my wife, hanging on to life by a thread, but this much we did know that whatever happens, we will have the strength through God to hold together and together.
I think that’s one of the best feelings in my life, at the most critical time in my life. So, friends, foundations are really important. They, as I said, and you only know how strong these foundations are when they are tested. Secondly, as I previously said, our culture is formed on this Jueo Christian culture. Hear these words of mine and put them into practice.
He’s like a wise man who brought his house on rock,
I think, to build your life on the Word of God, despite the fact that quite a lot of it, especially in Paul’s teaching, is very counter cultural, Is the best thing to happen.
I have tried my best to put the words of Christ central to the way I behave. I’m ashamed to say that I have not always been true to it, but I’m not trying to defend myself when I’ve not been true.
I found one of the most important things as a parent and as a friend is to deal in the currency of forgiveness. People said about my dad that the softest, the softest part of him was his teeth. He’s a tough guy. Joint services middleweight boxing champion, real toughie, and we never really got on. I was badly behaved, and he knew it. Let’s just say that his idea of punishment would these days would involve social services. He was a very hard guy and my dad hated Christians, and in particular, hated Christians who’d been impacted by the renewal movement, which was my mum.
And so I don’t know why he did this, but he would occasionally drag her on to church with her on a Sunday and come back and Sunday lunch would be a long litany of what appalling place the church was when a point. Just stuck up with all this kind of person
However at the age of 72 he was converted to Christ in a miraculous way, actually in a renewal meeting, something called the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International, well, the clue lies in the name. It’s full on. And I had two meetings before, and then we walked out within 60 seconds. And I know this isn’t a biblical phrase, but third time lucky he gave his life to Christ, and was completely changed. He spent the last 10 years of his life teaching the titans of British commerce the Bible.
Transformation Is the essence of hope.
You want to see a different world, I think you need to review the claim Jesus Christ, the flesh. Friends. If you have any concern, any care, for the way the world is I plead with you, I’ll get on my knees, but it’ll take me a while to get up these days and get on my knees (joke) and plead with you, please consider these things seriously.
And the trouble is that there are no shortcuts. Discipleship is challenging you,
really challenging you I discovered that all my life that I still should have an L plate on the back of my suit, these things were written, said, John, that you may know that you have eternal life and eternal life.
if you don’t get the gospel, that will sound like frightful arrogance to you, because it sounds like you’re making a claim about what a virtuous person you are, and God will possibly ignore you, except that the claim to follow Christ is based not upon your effort, not on your intellect, but on the grace of God, God’s love, showing that people like me who never deserved it. There’s still a counting thing there which tells me that, you know, people come up to me and say, Mike you look really well, ????? Friends, the grace of God is God’s love to show to us, even though we don’t deserve it as soon as somebody Mike, whose name is, who comes from northwest of America, I was driving past the church south of, I think it was south of Seattle, actually, and they had a sign on the door saying, Only sinners welcome. I thought that’s my kind of church.
And tomorrow we’re going to be thinking about welcoming the church from an amazing passage in Ephesians, chapter four. I’d love to see you there. The most important thing is the claim for assurance is not based on your ambiguity or anything like that. It’s not on what you do for God. It’s what God on the cross of Calvary has done for you. St. Paul wrote whilst we were still sinners. Christ died for us. Let me ask you something about to shout out the answer, but how long are we going to wait before you became perfect?
Transformation is the essence of hope.
And I think the only hope, the only sensible hope for our world, is for us to return to faith in God as revealed in Jesus Christ. And I may be preaching to the choir, and if I am, I love you, choir. But here’s the point, even the choir need to raise the volume. They need to understand nuance. I am a great believer. You know, there’s some people who are gifted as evangelists but we’re all called to be witnesses,
Acts, chapter one, verse eight, and you will be my witnesses. Jesus said to us, but to the ends of the earth. Why would God place that kind of responsibility on people like me? But indeed, his place is on you.
I in the hour of death I can’t imagine quite how I would feel. I mean, my worst fear is I’ll be unconscious, you know, tubes sticking out of every orifice in my body in some in clinical hospital , I might still be conscious.
Yeah, go back to my dad.My dad was lying in bed, and you see him in a hospital in Middlebridge in Cheshire, and they just washed His lovely white hair brushed back, and the covers were up to there on him. And I said, how are you doing? He said, well, I can’t stop crying. I said, I’ve never seen you cry in my life. He said, it’s such a wonderful thing to know that I’m going to heaven, and the reason I’m crying is I never really thought I deserved it and it made me cry.
And then he said just hours before we died. Can I pray with you and you pray with me. I said, cheerio, and it was a good Cheerio. And I went back home. He died a few hours later. The currency of forgiveness is so powerful, I thought I would never forgive my dad, but at the moment he was converted, he wrote me a 12 page lesson, begging for my forgiveness. And here’s the thing, I never thought I could forgive my dad until he asked me to. And then we spent the last 12 years doing the stuff that we should have done between the ages of probably five and 13, you know, when I was a kid. So we went to football together, and together, we would question whether the referee’s parents were married.
But friends, this is really serious stuff. Really serious. And yet, any sense that the world needs to change, it’s even more serious. It’s not just agreeing with theory, it’s asking the question, What am I prepared to do? Here’s my advice, put some real faith in the rock that doesn’t go. Jesus Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth and all the beings (?) who care for you and for your life and for the world, which uses an agent in creation, and he still loves, and he loves us in the name of our wonderful God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The people who agree, say together, Amen.
PS Myself my wife and my family start each day by saying ‘thank you’. I think it is not only theologically sound but also psychologically sound to do that. And I thank God every day that I’ve taken a breath and then I remind myself that the breath I’ve just taken is going to be one less breath on planet earth.
Nice long read.
Thanks Brian.
Trust what makes sense.
Judge Judy – “if it doesn’t make sense, it probably isn’t true”.
Seek for sense – understanding – LIGHT.
Apostle Judas. “Look to the heavens for the “brightest” star, follow that star and it will lead you to your destiny”.
Whatever makes most sense to any soul will determine their destiny.
Let’s question and discus the best that we are gifted to do!
Love and regards from Plymouth