John H Armstrong

A Canadian Leader Who Models Christian Grace in Leadership

A Canadian Christian friend recently introduced me to the head of state in his province by sharing an email link. I thus learned about a remarkable politician named Brad Wall. Wall was elected Premier of Saskatchewan in the November 2007 provincial election. 

Since that election, the Wall's leadership of the government can point to a remarkable list of achievements, including;  

- Three balanced budgets; 
- The largest tax cuts in the history of Saskatchewan; 
- Cutting the province's debt by almost 40 per cent; 
- Record infrastructure spending to improve roads, schools and senior's facilities all across Saskatchewan and providing more affordable housing for those with lower incomes.

Prior to his career in politics, Premier Wall was active in his local business community and was involved in service work spanning local events, economic development and health care recruitment.

One of his earliest forays into politics was in the late 1980's as a founding member and western co-chair of the Alliance for the Future of Young Canadians. This was an organization dedicated to promoting free trade.

Brad Wall was born and raised in Swift Current, which is in Saskatchewan's south-west.  He still lives there with his wife, Tami as well as their three children: Megan, Colter and Faith.  And because of them, he tries to get home most nights, even though it's a two hour drive from Saskatchewan's capital-Regina.  He also enjoys coaching minor football in his hometown.

Here is the premier's Christmas greetings to his people. This is an amazing balance of faith and leadership in a time when we are learning how to live in the public sector where Christendom no longer dominates the culture. God bless Premier Wall.  

 

“I Have Never Found Anyone in Israel with Such Faith” Part Two

Yesterday I showed how God coming into this world made this the “visited planet,” to quote one of my favorite lines from the late J. B. Phillips. Today I want to explain further what this means for true faith.

I begin by making a statement that I have come to understand over the last decade. Until I understood the incarnation as I now do I would have said what the evangelical Protestant church needs the most is a bigger view of God. I would now disagree with myself and say what we need even more, to the surprise of many who read these words perhaps, is a much bigger view of humankind. We have a radically deficient anthropology because we have a radically deficient view of both creation and incarnation.

So when Jesus says of the Centurion that he had never found such faith as that which he expressed in all of Israel it was more than an exaggerated statement for effect. He was saying that religion can never produce such great faith. Only faith in the person of Jesus – his wisdom, grace and love – can ever amount to anything in the realm of spiritual reality.

Think about this: to become a Christian requires that you begin with faith. You may not even know where or how you began but you must have faith in this person. As the years go by real faith grows, flowers and matures. People ask for proof of faith and I answer, with Jesus I believe, look at how faith in this man changes lives! How can you write off this life-changing faith as mere imagination?

But Phillips suggests that it is here that real trouble often lies. “The uncomfortable fact is that there is no proof without commitment.” You cannot know God and experience the fellowship of Jesus unless and until you commit yourself to that way of living which Jesus taught and lived himself. You cannot remain a cozy and uncommitted believer and be a Christ-follower. If you want to know God, and experience his kingdom, then you have to enter into your own life in Christ experience by believing on him. The story we read yesterday in Matthew underscores this very point.

When you read these words you cannot help but believe that Jesus was surprised by the faith of this Roman centurion.  Here is how the story puts it:

⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”

Let me try to explain this story simply. This Roman soldier took it quite as a matter of course that since he knew how to give orders and expected others to obey them so Jesus had all authority and could command unseen forces and answers would be forthcoming. It was, on his part, a simple deduction. In a way, this is what faith is – a simple deduction based on divine logic. This logic is rooted in the incarnation.

I cannot help but think that such faith is largely absent today. It is a simple, direct confidence in the power of Jesus. But this is exactly what we see on the pages of the Synoptic Gospels again and again.

Before you assume that it was easy for people who saw Jesus to have such faith think again. The multitudes did not believe on him. Yet some did and this account reminds us of what “great faith” this man had in Jesus.

But this is not all. In the epistles we see how this same faith transformed early Christian believers who trusted Jesus and were baptized in the triune name. God transformed people. It is safe to say that this kind of faith – a faith which reaches out to God in Jesus and depends on him – is essential for those who would be real followers of Jesus. Hebrews says that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Phillips notes that this is not so much a threat as a plain statement of fact. We do not really begin to live the Christian life until we exercise this faculty which God has planted in the human heart. The New Testament calls this “faith.”

Do we have the courage and determination to believe like the centurion and simply, directly reach out to Jesus and believe on the one whom God sent into the world to save the world? This is great faith. Everything else doesn’t matter, at least in comparison with this. We can, and we do, disagree about a great deal but we cannot disagree about this and remotely think of ourselves as followers of Jesus. This is not a Protestant thing or a Catholic thing. This is not a conservative thing or a liberal thing. This is simple reality. Do you believe on the Son of God?

“I Have Never Found Anyone in Israel with Such Faith” Part One

In Matthew 8 we have an astonishing account of true faith. I have heard many theological definitions of faith given over the years but none comes close to this story. (Have you ever noticed that Jesus did not give definitions of faith but stories that reveal what true faith looks like in a person’s actions?) This is such an account.

⁵ When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

⁷ Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. ¹¹ I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. ¹² But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

¹³ Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

So many people think true faith is believing something and that’s that. But there is so much more. True faith is rooted in the incarnation. It means believing that God himself came to this planet and revealed to us the very nature and heart of God. God lived in human history and God, in the human person of Jesus of Nazareth, lived and died. God expressed himself in Jesus. Jesus is the right name for a truly human person. Once you’ve come to the place where you truly believe that Jesus is God – God revealed as much as is possible in human flesh – you then know that you don’t have all the answers but you have a remarkable amount of light to live by. Your conception of God is revolutionized and this changes your life from one stage of faith to another. Why? You see him as the God who so loved the world that he became Man for us and our salvation.

Jesus, who was God in human flesh, then defines your attitude toward humankind. For Jesus, who was God of God, was unashamedly man, the Son of Man. Jesus shows us that the love of God can never be separated from the love of human beings. In fact, in the parable of the Last Judgment we find the Son of Man insisting that the way we treated people will be the way we treated Him. If this doesn’t amaze you then you’ve read too much theology for your own good. Even the people in the story are amazed, even horrified, by the pronouncement.

But it all stands to reason. If God became man then the value of man increased exponentially. By coming to this planet God lifted homo sapiens to the highest and most exalted place. He gave us a future beyond anything we can imagine. The heart of true Christian faith lies right here: if your neighbor is your enemy then you must love him precisely because God’s coming into this world makes it possible for him to become your brother, a “son of God” along with you. Once you believe that Jesus was God who came into this world then you find yourself becoming sure that this world really does matter. It is not garbage being made ready for a dump! It is, as J. B. Phillips so powerfully called it, “the visited planet.”

Tomorrow: True Faith, Part Two