The world around us seems to be growing more selfish and corrupt. The values that spring from a general acknowledgment that we are the special creation of a personal God are gathering dust on the shelf of history. Parents are concerned about the influences of social media and the impact of gender issues. Drugs and alcohol, homelessness, violence and rape seem more prevalent.

Furthermore, divisions within governments in the Western world are constantly before us. ‘Are Western democracies becoming ungovernable?’ we might ask. Where do we look for hope?

Consider what Paul the Apostle writes in Titus 2:11: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.

Grace is a word found consistently in the New Testament. It speaks of a compassion or mercy shown towards someone who is undeserving. Graceechoes the idea of agape love.

The verb appeared tells us that we wouldn’t know anything about God’s love or grace unless He himself had revealed it. And, Paul tells us, God’s grace is supremely revealed in his personal involvement in our rescue. The birth of Jesus, his life, his death and resurrection reveal God’s grace.

All this is consistent with Dr. Luke’s record of the angel’s announcement to the shepherds, “Behold, I bring you good news of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).

In Luke 19:10 we read Jesus’ summary of the purpose of his ministry: “For the Son of Man come to seek and to save the lost”. And in Luke 24:26ff the resurrected Jesus says to his disciples: “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

The Getty Music ‘Compassion Hymn’ expresses God’s grace and mercy: There is an everlasting kindness You lavished on us when the Radiance of heaven came to rescue the lost; You called the sheep without a shepherd to leave their distress for Your streams of forgiveness and the shade of Your rest…

Godly Living. Paul continues in Titus 2:11-12: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright and godly…

Paul wants us to understand that God’s grace is not mere pie in the sky when you die. God’s grace motivates, educates and delights in changing us for the better. Grace is almost personified. It becomes the teacher that trains and nurtures us. Or, put another way, grace teaches us to live as God’s people.

Three words identify the changes that God delights to see in us: sober, upright, godly.

Sober speaks to us personally: we are to live lives of integrity and self-discipline. Upright speaks of our relations with others: we are to live selflessly and honestly, serving others by taking an interest in them, showing compassion and practical care where there is genuine need. Godlyspeaks of our relationship with God: we are to live for God in loyalty and with joy.

Imagine what the world would be like if God’s people everywhere began to live out these qualities. No, it would not be boring. As studies consistently show, society benefits when people respond to God’s grace and live in its light.

In the Age of Enlightenment reason and will were reckoned to be keys to human behaviour. In today’s post- post-modern world feelings have become the driver. But I am sure you have noticed what Paul is saying here: God’s grace becomes the motivating force for our behaviour. When we experience God’s compassion and mercy in our lives we will be drawn to delight in doing the good that God desires. His grace coaxes the qualities of new life in Christ into flower. Yes, it will be a lifetime process, but God’s love will draw us.

The words of the angel speak through the ages: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord”. My prayer is that you and your loved ones will know afresh the joy and the new life in God this Christmas!

Despite the significant developments of science and technology, we are made aware daily of the inability of men and woman to live at peace with one another. At every level of society, there is narcissism and greed, hatred and corruption haunting the human experience. Alienation is a word that rightly describes our plight.

It is not insignificant that in his Letter to the Colossians Paul the Apostle expresses the human dilemma this way: And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds… (1:21). Estranged or alienated speaks not just of our outward behaviour, but of what we are like deep within – until the grace of God changes us. In our natural state the desires of our hearts are at odds with a genuine love for God and consequently our lifestyle is flawed.

When we think about it, God could have written humanity off as a fiasco. He could have decided to start afresh. But that would have been an admission of defeat on God’s part. It would have meant that in some measure God couldn’t allow evil because he knew he couldn’t defeat it.

No, the Bible tells us that from the beginning of time, God was determined to beat it. God determined on an infinitely more costly strategy than one of simply writing us off. He wouldn’t abandon an evil and ungrateful humanity that rejected him. He would reach across the divide and rescue it from the consequences of its own folly. He would step in personally and address the penalty his righteous character required. In a word he would do everything needed to reconcile the world to himself. Importantly, he would destroy the hostility without destroying the enemy. He would make peace.

Paul tells us, in very beautiful words, what this meant: … through him(Jesus Christ) God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (1:20).

Suppose someone very close to you, a wife or husband, or another family member, profoundly hurts you. They trample over your feelings: they repay all your kindness and genuine interest in them with hatred. But a day comes when they are in some kind of deep trouble. If you don’t step in to help them they’re going to perish. What do you do? You could tell them to go to hell.

But supposing when you consult your feelings, you find within your heart a love for them, a love that wants to see them restored to your family circle. You know you need to find within yourself the resources to absorb the pain and righteous anger that boils up within you at the very sight of them, so that you can stretch out your hand and help them.

I find this to be a picture that helps me understand what Paul is saying here, when he says that God was reconciling us to himself through the blood of the cross. Because Jesus and God are one, we see that through the cross of Christ God found the perfect way through which he can absorb within himself the pain and the anger, that are rightly within him, when he looks at people like us who have rejected him.

On the cross of Christ we find the passionate collision of pain and fury, of love and mercy.

And the outcome of this costly sacrifice? … So as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him… (Colossians 1:22b).

Christ’s death on the cross laid the foundation and provided the means for God’s forgiveness. But we await a final day when we will be truly holy, without blemish, and free from accusation. And this, as Paul continues, will only happen provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard,… (1:23).

What’s more God plans to use that reconciled human race to populate a reconciled universe. For the reconciliation Jesus has achieved goes far beyond men and women. It will embrace the whole of the cosmos. One day he is going to make a new heaven and a new earth where truth and goodness will reign.

And who will be there, as Lord of that reconciled world?  Jesus. Jesus, risen from the dead. Jesus glorified in heaven. The name Jesus will reverberate with joy throughout the universe.

No one who understands these things can ever say that any other name is equal to the name of Jesus. He alone has provided for the rescue of humankind from its narcissism and rebelliousness against God. No one else has scars on their hands. No one else has conquered the grave. No one else has provided the means of a perfect, everlasting peace.

The question is whether you and I will acknowledge Jesus’ supremacy, willingly recognizing him, and turning to him as the one true Lord of heaven and earth. And in turning to him as the Lord, will you acknowledge that he alone is sufficient to present you before God, holy, without blemish, and freed from all accusation on the day of the Advent of the Christ?

‘It is commonplace for contemporary scientists and philosophers to give lip service to the principle that science decides only the how questions and leaves the why questions to religion’ (italics mine), writes Phillip Johnson (The Right Questions, p.68).

However, he continues, ‘the epistemic authority of science is so overwhelming and the standing of theology so precarious that “outside of science” effectively means “outside of reality”, and the premise that science is taken to entail the conclusion that the world has no purpose is effectively a non-existent purpose; how could we know of the purpose if science cannot discover it?’

Johnson rightly adds, ‘The concept of ultimate purpose is probably inseparable from the concept of divine revelation… The right question is not whether God exists but whether God has revealed the nature of the ultimate purpose of the world’ (pp.68f).

To begin to provide some answers to this question as well as some keys to opening up the ‘right questions’ with people in the wider community, let me touch on two New Testament statements.

In John 1:1-2 we read: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

And in his Letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul writes: For he (Jesus Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation;…(Colossians 1:15)

The Apostles St. John and St. Paul are telling us that Jesus is the projection into our world of the God who exists beyond space and time. Furthermore, we come to understand that out of his very nature, God the Father lovesand gives life. Throughout eternity he has given life to a Son – a Son whom he loves and delights in.

This is what the orthodox creeds mean when they speak of the eternal nature of the Son of God. And Article II of the Thirty-Nine Articles states: The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father,…

The fountain analogy. A helpful way to understand this is to think of a fountain. In the same way that the essential nature of a fountain is to pour out water, so God the Father is eternally flowing with life and love, eternally begetting his Son. Indeed, the prophet Jeremiah (2:13) tells us that the Lord says of himself that he is the ‘spring of living water’.

God the Father and God the Son are distinct persons, but they are inseparable from one another. They always love one another, and they always work together – in perfect harmony. Indeed, God the Father is always pouring the fullness of his own nature into His Son.

The source of life. Furthermore, in John 1:3 we read: All things came into being through him (the Word), and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

And in Colossians 1:16 Paul writes: For in him (Jesus Christ) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.

We need to catch the flow of both John’s and Paul’s words: Throughout eternity God the Father’s nature gives life and love which we see in his one and only eternal Son who came amongst us as one of us. Furthermore, the Father hands over to His Son the task of creating others and loving others. God doesn’t need to do this to make up something lacking in his nature. This is who he is and what he does. He loves and he gives life.

Meaning. Drawing these threads together we come to understand that Jesus Christ, the eternally begotten Son of God, is the eternal image and radiance of God. We are created in the image of God and designed to conform to the image of God’s eternal Son – in our love for God and our love for one another. Our existence is part of ‘the continuation of that outgoing movement of God’s love’ (Michael Reeves, p. 43). Here we begin to find the answer to meaning and purpose.

Is all this fiction? Consider the observation of Dr. john Lennox, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Oxford, UK: “To the majority of those who have reflected deeply and written about the origin and nature of the universe, it has seemed that it points beyond itself to a source which is non-physical and of great intelligence and power.”

For in him (Jesus Christ) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him (Colossians 1:16).

In his insightful and challenging book, The Right Questions (2002), Phillip Johnson (who died last month) wrote that at the heart of the cultural changes today is the sharp divergence between two very different world views: the Christian view that states (as in John 1:1-4): “In the beginning was the Word…”; and scientific materialism which says, “In the beginning were the particles” (p.136). (Before his retirement Phillip Johnson had been Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley for over three decades.)

In an earlier chapter in his book, he had observed that “In the beginning was the Word” is dismissed as a ‘non-cognitive utterance of religion’ and therefore one that cannot be evaluated in terms of ‘true or false’ (p.63). On the other hand he also draws attention to an unquestioned assumption that stands behind scientific naturalism, namely that ‘the laws and the particles existed, and that these two things plus chance had to do all the creating’ (p.64).

In this context Johnson points out that everyone needs to ask ‘the right questions’ – especially with respect to the assumptions that stand behind scientific materialism. For example, he draws attention to President Clinton’s announcement in June 2000 with the breakthrough in understanding the human genome: “Today, we are learning the language in which God created life, we are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift” (p.37). And Francis Collins, the scientific director of the government’s Human Genome Project, said: “It is humbling for me and awe-inspiring to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our instruction book, previously known only to God” (p.38).

Johnson comments that both statements ‘seem to say that the genome research actually supports the view that a supernatural mind designed the instructions that guide the immensely complex biochemical processes of life’. He also notes the negative implications, namely that ‘Clinton and Collins seemed to be repudiating the central claim of evolutionary naturalism, which is that exclusively natural causes like chance and physical law produced all the features of life…’ (p.38).

Yet he also notes that most leading biologists reject the notion of God and God’s involvement.

But can the clear statements of John 1:1-2 be easily dismissed as a crutch for those who need such a foundation for life? In the beginning was the Word, we read, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God… And in John 1:14 we learn, And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

In his Prologue John speaks of the pre-existence of the Word of God. From all eternity the Word has been enthroned in the magnificence of the glory of heaven. But John also speaks of the incarnation of the Word: he is a Person who took up residence with us. And John tells us that the Word incarnate was full of grace and truth. We have seen his glory, he testifies. John was either spinning a falsehood or witnessing to a truth that is beyond human invention.

Indeed, The Gospel of John together with the other three Gospels reveal a transcendent figure. The esteemed ancient historian Dr Edwin Judge once commented: ‘An ancient historian has no problem seeing the phenomenon of Jesus as an historical one. … The writings that sprang up about Jesus also reveal to us a movement of thought and an experience of life so unusual that something much more substantial than the imagination is needed to explain it’.

Furthermore, Paul the Apostle in Colossians 1:5b speaks of the Gospel as the word of the truth. He could have left out any reference to the words the truth, but he doesn’t. He wants to stress that the Christian message is true. Paul’s words reflect not only the words of the Gospel of John but also those of Luke who states that he had verified his account of Jesus Christ with eyewitnesses (Luke 1:1-2). Strange as it may seem the Bible accounts of Jesus are verifiable and true.

Over the years the Christian church has been criticised for taking a western religion to other cultures. But what we often forget is that Christianity is not a western faith. Its origins are in the Middle-East. But more significant is the point that Paul is making in 1:6-7: the Christian gospel is for all the world.

All this brings us back to the question of knowledge. When we ask the right questions we discern that there are some essential assumptions that undergird scientific or philosophical naturalism – assumptions that cannot be tested and which require a step of faith. On the other hand, the step of faith in the statement that there is a creator God, is not a blind step. Its essence is grounded in a verifiable historical figure – Jesus.

This is the Jesus Christ to whom the Colossian believers had responded. It is the good news that he brings that we need to embrace ourselves and introduce to others around us today. 

Throughout this week, ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ will echo across the landfrom New York to San Francisco. The principle of ‘Thanksgiving’ has its origins in a non-sectarian expression of ‘thanks’ to a loving, merciful and generous God.

While Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations are usually related to a special moment in the American story – as when Presidents Washington, Adams, and Lincoln made their Proclamations – the principle of a day of Thanksgiving continues. For example, in 1789 the first President, George Washington commended that a Day of Thanksgiving be held on Thursday, November 26 of that year.

Washington’s 1789 Proclamation stated: Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:

When we think about it, Thanksgiving is a very Judaeo-Christian theme, for we find it both in the ‘Law, the Prophets and the Writings’ (Old Testament) and in the New Testament.

The theme of Thanksgiving permeates the Book of Psalms, often setting this in the context of God’s goodness in creation, and his mercy towards his people even when they fell away from their whole-hearted commitment to him.

For example in the opening lines of Psalm 103 we read: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits— who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s (Ps. 103:1-5).

What is interesting here is that King David, the song-writer, is not talking to God as he usually does in his songs or psalms. He is talking to himself – to his soul. In fact he continues the conversation with himself through the first five verses.

He is telling himself things he knew he needed to hear. He knew himself well enough to realize that he could slide into being a thankless man of God. And so it is that as he considers afresh who God is and what he has done for him, he reflects on God’s goodness. He identifies God’s many blessings, lest in times of disappointment or backsliding he forget the source of his prosperity and success and take God’s grace for granted.

It’s an exhortation we all need to hear. We ought to treat God with great honor, for He is good to us in a thousand different ways. He is never over-indulgent. He disciplines us when we need it, and, for our good he doesn’t give us everything we want when we want it. Yet his kindness is vast – often giving us unexpected good things.

The sad reality is that most of us simply forget to thank God for all his goodness. We take it all for granted. Like nine of the ten lepers Jesus once healed, we don’t even offer one word of thanks.

So important is thanksgiving to God that Paul the Apostle urges us to pray with a deep sense of gratitude in our hearts: Do not be anxious about anything, he writes, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God… (Philippians 4:5-6).

The context in which we find these words of Paul is his exhortation that we rejoice in the Lord (Jesus) always (Philippians 4:4). Glorying in Christ Jesus and all that he has done for us in rescuing us and bringing us into a vital relationship with God, is central. God wants us to so value Jesus Christ that we long for the smile of his approval in all we do.

This is the context of Paul’s command: ‘Have no anxiety about anything …’ His words are a timeless and universal remedy for anxiety. Prayer and Thanksgiving together commit us into the hands of the God who is Lord and who is committed to bringing good for us out of every situation no matter what it is.

‘Thanksgiving’ by its very nature does not have its origin within us. As Karl Barth put it: Grace evokes gratitude like the voice of an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning.

May your Thanksgiving first be directed to the God from whom all true blessings flow!