Thread by @SandmanGrant

Day 3 of #gafaus22 Conference began with a chilly run in foggy Canberra with @rscchin, @beachsidepastor and @MStead11 - @SydAnglicans and @AFES in happy gospel friendship!

And yes, that was frost settling on my arms as we ran!

This morning @KanishkaRaffel is opening up Philippians 3. This section through to the “rejoice in the Lord” refrain again in 4:4 is about safeguarding their joy in the Lord!

We don’t just contend for the gospel. We want to be able to keep rejoicing in it! As we come under the external pressures and internal tensions, there is a battle for joy.

Kanishka’s headline: the way to safeguard put joy is to make of ourselves and more of Jesus.

1. Beware of the joy stealers, vv2-4, who insist putting on confidence in the flesh. There are two ways of relating to God in competition, but only one produced real fellowship with God. Religious works and status are no basis for relating to God!

2. Reject counterfeit joy, vv4-7! Standing on your religious pedigree, your party affiliation, your moral performance, your sincere zeal are all counterfeit bases for confidence before God. God is not in our debt!

Pride is a temptation to every believer in every time & place. So don’t put your confidence in ‘my’ college, my denomination, my bishop … especially if you’re from Sydney - Archbishop @KanishkaRaffel #gafaus22

3. Jesus is not the icing on the cake. He is the whole cake, the whole meal. There is “surpassing greatness” in knowing Jesus Christ as Lord (v8). If you value your own reputation and achievements more than knowing Christ, your joy is at risk.

There is a deep union with Christ that comes through faith, bringing God’s righteousness to us (v9). We transfer our confidence from ourselves onto faithful Jesus and what he’s done for us. God gives us the same ‘tick of approval’ that he’s given his Son. Rejoice!

4. The assured pursuit of joy…

Four grounds of assurance.
1. We press on since Christ has already made us his own, v12.
2. We press on since God calls us heavenwards, v14, irresistibly (1:6).
3. There is what is already revealed, vv15-16.
4. There is a citizenship in heaven (and future transformation) v20!

Many things could be said about those who “live as enemies of the cross”, but notice that Paul weeps for them and the danger they are in, v18

And singing…

“Come rejoice now, O my soul,
For His love is my reward;
Fear is gone and hope is sure:
Christ is mine forevermore.”

We’ve sung some great hymns. But so many agree @CityAlight are such a great gift to the churches.

And again we sang…

“Who else could rescue me from my failing?
Who else would offer His only Son?
Who else invites me to call Him Father?
Only a Holy God,
Only my Holy God.”

One of the great joys at conferences like #gafaus22 are personal conversations. Just talked to the son of a vicar only converted aged 19 at uni, after a talk on Ephesians 6. First thing he did was ring his mum & dad & thank them for praying for him 19 years! Now a vicar himself.

Another joy is seeing old friends. Here l, my old youth pastor @andy_stevo got 4 of the old @GongCathedral kids who now study or work in Canberra for breakfast together. So encouraging. Press on with Jesus!

@threadreaderapp unroll please.

And now to Ashley Null’s second talk - on diversity - following yesterday’s on unity. The reading was 1 Corinthians 12.

The is a divinely given difference in works to do, seen illustrated in the parable of the talents with different outcomes. Comparison is often a thief of joy, all the way back to Cain with Abel. There are different works in different places.

So what is Paul doing in 2 Corinthians 8 in commending the generous example of the impoverished Macedonians? You could - uncharitably - read it as competition by comparison. But there’s no intention to shame. For he previously used the Corinthians as an example, 9:1-2!

Christians and Christian churches have different strengths and weaknesses but God works them all to his good purposes.

We need feet and eyes. We can see what God can do in the life of other believers. We constantly need God and mutually need each other.

Now we move to unity and diversity in reformation Anglicanism… The gospel is spoken to many cultures. Translation is implied by the incarnation. So we read the Bible in our own native tongues.

That was the genius of Martin Luther’s German Bible (whose 500th anniversary we celebrate next month!), especially because his translation sounded German.

But translation is to keep the message but change the package. But the temptation for many Anglicans has been to keep the packaging and change the message.

Cranmer’s Anglican emphasis is on the things necessary for salvation, that we find in Scripture, accompanied by cultivation of the right desire for God, in our liturgies (not the “stinking puddles” of men’s traditions decided by our imaginations).

But Cranmer understood the packaging could and should change for the audience. He was comfortable with something closer to what we call the normative principle rather than the regulative principle of Scripture.

The essentials of faith and morals had to be founded on Scripture; nothing added and nothing contradicting it. The practices of worship could vary with nothing contradicting Scripture. Different churches could develop different liturgies.

In his dispute with John Knox over whether one could kneel for the Lord’s Supper, he noted there were many postures in which one could eat…

Cranmer approached Scripture not as a book of rules but as a promise-book of life. His thoughts were codified in Article 34 of the Thirty-Nine - “Of the Traditions of the Church”…

It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, and utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word…

Whosoever through his private judgement, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked […]

…Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying.”

(We’ve moved to Richard Hooker now. But as Null wryly observes that Hooker’s wordy writing in English sounds like it’s Latin, I might pass over tweeting this section!)

Suffice to say; if it’s not clearly taught in Scripture then it’s not necessary for salvation. But otherwise traditions can change in different generations.

We can encourage diversity in rites and ceremonies. But we cannot accept diversity in doctrine or morals that are clear in Scripture.

Null quotes W.B.Yeats

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…

“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity…

Full poem in link:
poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/th…

And for full transparency, see how the secular media is reporting #gafaus22 and judge for yourself as you read my tweets as well… smh.com.au/national/angli…

For the record, as one of the @SydAnglicans, I’ve met people at #gafaus22 from Dioceses of Newcastle, Armidale, Grafton, Brisbane, Central and Northern QLD, Northern Territory, NWA, Perth, Willochra, Bendigo, Melbourne, Tasmania, Canberra-Goulburn, and I’ve not met them all yet!

And I've now also seen people from the Dioceses of Bathurst and Adelaide. (And New Zealand and PNG etc.)

Bp Jay Behan recommends “Faith in a Time of Crisis” by Vaughan Roberts and Peter Jensen as being so helpful to them in recent challenges for Anglican Christians in New Zealand… @matthiasmedia #gafcon matthiasmedia.com.au/products/faith…

Just $12 at the moment… matthiasmedia.com.au/products/faith…

Tonight hearing from @ArchbishopFoley with a global view of #Gafcon, bringing greetings from the Gafcon Primates Council and from the ACNA in Canada, USA and Mexico.

Covid, coups, famine and economic hardship impacts ministries around the world. But there is much courageous ministry leadership continuing via Gafcon leaders around the world.

Please pray for Archbishop Miguel Uchoa from Brazil and Archbishop Ben Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria with their health challenges.

Archbishop Foley says that when he announced his decision to leave ECUSA (now TEC) he began to weep and found it hard to stop for about ten days. I can understand. Many have wept over related issues, myself included.

Six families put their homes up as security to build the new church facilities in the new Anglican church he planted under emergency oversight of the Anglican Church of Bolivia. Uganda, Rwanda also helped this way.

Many clergy were deposed, many lost their pension plans, churches lost their facilities, mostly pursued by law suits with millions spent from TEC to take their property. But ACNA have 1000 churches and have full communion with many Anglicans around the world.

Neo-pagan Anglicanism is attempting to replace classical Anglicanism around the world. He cites Jude 4, “ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a licence for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” It is a virus that destroys the soul.

TEC was saying the Bible *contains* the Word of God, not *is* the word of God; Jesus is *a* way to God and *a* Son of God; the masculine pronoun really oughtn’t be used of God. One of Foley’s friend’s priest changed to Lord’s Prayer to address “our Mother in heaven”. She left.

God is beyond gender, but he has revealed his ‘preferred pronouns’. Jesus addressed God as his Father, again and again.

By contrast there are too many examples of neo-pagan activity in TEC cited by the Archbishop to list here.

E.g. He points to Pride Evensong services; Muslim preachers in UK churches; Buddhist and Hindu services in TEC churches.

But these are symptoms: the root problem is the departure from the Scriptures.

As a reform movement, Gafcon wants to see the Bible restored as the authoritative Word of God; to remind us that sexual ethics is a salvation issue; to show that walking together with false teachers is ungodly.

Together with the Global South Fellowship, Gafcon wants to address the doctrinal and ecclesial deficit around the Anglican communion where the historic faith of the church has been abandoned.

He provides evidence that Canterbury and the ACC have repeatedly proved incapable of disciplining the inroads of unbiblical practices and beliefs.

He says it is loving to point out sin. We must repent of our own sins. We must pray, including for those who oppose us. We must speak up. We must be people of integrity. (So constantly back to our own repentance.)

In response, Archbishop @KanishkaRaffel underlines his experience that repentance - beginning with our own repentance - has been the most constant note he has heard in all his involvements with #gafcon for which he is grateful.

Canon Daniel Willis, Operations Manager for Gafcon Global, says the church is growing where the gospel is preached. Simple.

And he says Gafcon IV in Kigali is going to be a wonderful multi-national Christian experience.

GAFCON is in Europe, United States, Canada, Mexico, South Sudan, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Congo, Rwanda, Chile, Brazil & elsewhere in South America, Myanmar, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, Tanzania, Ghana, & coming in Sudan & Pakistan…

And here Dr Claire Smith, a member of @SydneyCathedral, explains with her usual clarity the reasons behind the work of GAFCON, especially in Australia… au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/southe…