Character to Serve

everyone. Great to be in church with you today. You have already blessed me with your singing.

It was phenomenal to be at the front this morning and to hear you sing those songs with a great deal

of gusto and obviously with a great deal of connection in terms of what we're seeking to do

as a church. So thank you for that, for serving me and serving each other in that way. Hopefully

you've got to serve an outline in front of you. It's got some Bible passages in front of it.

If you haven't got that, you can also get on the St. Paul's app or stick your hand up and someone

will get one to you. The great English theologian and pastor John Stott captured the urgent need

for unity in diversity for the local church in his commentary on the book of Ephesians,

which I've been reading in process of preparing these messages through Ephesians.

He wrote,

It is simply impossible with any shred of Christian integrity to go on proclaiming that Jesus,

by his cross, has abolished the old divisions and created a single new humanity of love,

while at the same time we are contradicting our message by tolerating social, racial,

or other barriers within the church fellowship. We need to get the failures of the church on our

conscience to feel the offense to Christ, to weep over the credibility gap between the church's talk

and the church's walk, to repent of our readiness to excuse and even condone our failures,

and to determine to do something about it. I wonder if anything is more urgent today for the honor of Christ

and for the spread of the gospel than that the church should be and should be seen to be

what by God's purpose and Christ's achievement it already is. A single new humanity,

a model of human community, a family of reconciled brothers and sisters who love their father

and love each other, the evident dwelling place of God by his spirit. Only then will the world believe

in Christ as peacemaker. Only then will God receive the glory due his name. I just read that and just want

to applaud it. Absolutely, fundamentally true and something that we are deliberately working towards

as a church here at St. Paul's. In the next few weeks, we're looking at Ephesians 4, 1 to 16.

To discover the means that God uses to maintain the unity of such a diverse bunch of people.

If you've just joined us today, we are in our annual vision series. We're in Ephesians because this

letter is about the church, it's about who the church is. And we're also looking at the year ahead

and aligning ourselves to what God has in store for us next as we plan to move forward in our life

together in this setting. So first of all, as we looked at last week on your service outline,

gospel-centered unity is who God has made us to be. Over the last two weeks, we've seen that God,

the creator, the God of the Bible, the creator of all things, has overwhelmed us by his grace and his mercy

by giving us every spiritual blessing in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is, God has held no blessing back

from us at all. He has lavished his grace on us in Jesus. We have been redeemed, we've been adopted,

we've been given eternal life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We've seen again and

again the heart of the Christian message which separates Christianity from every other religion in the world

and it's the gospel. It's on the back of your service sheet and it is about everything that God has

achieved for you without a single bit of effort on your behalf. And the effect of the gospel is it so

breaks us down that it also breaks down the barriers of hostility that we have built up between us and

God and us and other people. The pride that causes humanity to reject God and to live independent of

him has been dealt with as the son of God himself humbled himself, became one of us, takes God's judgment

for our sin upon himself. And because of his work of humility on our behalf, we have been liberated from

selfishness and the ego to live, to praise and to serve. We've been set free to be who God has called us

to be, who God made us to be in the first place. And the gospel also breaks down the deep divisions

within humanity. In the gospel, Jesus has broken down the walls of hostility and he's building up a new

eternal and united family of love and peace. It's called the church in Ephesians chapter 3.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

People with centuries of hatred have now been united in Jesus because they're making Jesus the main

thing. They can do it because they've been given a much more significant identity in Jesus. In Jesus, we receive

the praise and the affirmation of the praiseworthy. No higher praise can you get than the praise of the

praiseworthy. This changes your life. Our new identity as God's much loved children means it changes us from the

inside out because it fills us up on the inside, gives us everything that we want for in life.

And because of the amazing theological realities of chapters 1 through to 3, Paul urges the Ephesians in

chapter 4 at the very beginning and us to live a life worthy of the calling that you have received.

He's calling us to be who we've been saved to be. The word worthy in verse 1 is translated from the word

axios in the original New Testament language. This is the word from which we get our English word

axiom, which means to be of equal weight. Paul is saying we should live lives equal to the great blessings

described in chapters 1 to 3. How are we to live lives worthy of having every spiritual blessing in the

gospel of the gospel of the Lord Jesus? Well, the remainder of Ephesians unpacks that for us as we go

through. But the immediate charge in chapter 4 verses 1 to 16 is to live lives worthy of our calling by

living in unity as God's new family. See in verse 3, make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit

through the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit just as you were called to one hope when you were

called. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Now, Paul has already been emphasizing our unity in this letter. In chapter 2, he uses the language of household

household to describe it, which is the image of family. It's family language in the New Testament.

He also uses the image of a building to stress our unity, our togetherness, our oneness. We're cemented

together like blocks. Now, he takes us a step further and uses the image of the body to emphasize

our unity. We are one body. And it's an image of intimate connection.

There are very few certainties in life. I mean, people say death and taxes are a certainty.

There's another certainty that I generally operate with day by day, was when I went to bed last night,

I didn't have the expectation that when I woke up in the morning, my hand wasn't going to be there.

I just assumed when I went to bed at night, my hand was going to be there in the morning

that it hadn't just decided,

I'm off to get my nails done.

And it just left the body. It just doesn't do that.

Intimately connected. Your body is not sewn together. It's not stapled together. It grows together.

And that's what happens when you have new life in Christ. It's an image of intimate connection.

And he uses the same image in other parts of the New Testament, like 1 Corinthians.

Notice Paul calls us here to keep the unity that we have.

He's saying that the unity that we have together isn't something that we can attain.

It's not something that we gain.

We only keep it.

We are called into unity.

And Paul alludes to this when he says,

You were called to one hope when you were called.

What he's saying is that our experience of new life in Jesus

is what creates the unity that we have to keep.

There is only one hope for humanity.

There's one hope and the only hope is salvation in Jesus.

New life in him.

Acts 4 says there is no other name by which people can be saved than the name of Jesus.

But our unity is also grounded in the nature of God himself.

This is about who God is in and of his essence.

Our God who made us in his image is himself unified.

Three persons of the Godhead but operating as one in total perfect unity.

The very nature of their operation is mutual love relationships.

Each member of the Godhead exists for the other members of the Godhead serving the other.

Technical term is perichoresis.

Which means mutual indwelling.

Mutual love sacrifice and service for the other.

The Holy Trinity is mentioned here.

Spirit verse 4.

Lord verse 5.

God the Father verse 6.

Each of the seven great unities mentioned in verses 4 to 6

is connected to one of the persons of the Trinity.

After all is said and done, in all of our diversity, in all of our difference,

we have the same Father being rescued by the same Son and indwelled by the same Spirit.

We are his family.

We are his temple.

We are his body.

Our unity is eternal.

It is unbreakable because we have been united with the eternal and the unbreakable.

And even though our unity is a gift,

verse 3 calls us to be diligent in working every effort to keep it.

Make every effort means to spare no effort.

It is a matter for urgent, diligent and continuous activity.

Unity is not something that gets worked out through committees and task force.

Chapter 4 reveals two means that God works in us

so that we keep the unity that we have been given.

The rest of the New Testament,

I want to use the rest of the New Testament to back up some of this

over the next couple of weeks.

Those two things are spiritual fruit and spiritual gifts.

As members of God's family,

he's in the process of changing who we are and what we do

so that it more reflects his family values.

So over the next three weeks,

I want to talk about being a community that serves,

serves God, serves each other, serves the world.

And it's essential, however, that I begin where God begins.

The fruit of the Spirit.

Not the gifts.

We want to talk about gifts.

We want to talk about my talents, my abilities,

what I can bring to the table.

God doesn't start there.

He starts with your character.

He starts with who you are.

Galatians 5, it's on your service sheet.

Galatians 5 is a list of the fruit.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness,

faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Notice the word fruit is singular in its original language,

which means there is one fruit,

one fruit that has seven components to it.

Every Christian should have the fruit of the Spirit

as they're outlined in Galatians 5 verses 22 to 23.

Galatians 5:22–23

Every single one of the components.

Some of us are naturally default to being more patient than others,

but not necessarily courageous.

Every Christian must be balanced in all the fruit.

There's one fruit with seven different components.

You're meant to be growing in all of them, collectively.

But no Christian, apart from Jesus,

if you want to call him a Christian,

has all the gifts of the Spirit.

We must all have all fruit,

but we don't all have all gifts.

Spiritual fruit is something we are,

but a spiritual gift is something we do.

That's why fruit has supremacy over gifts in the New Testament.

And it's why we need to talk about it first.

But that's not what our culture wants to do.

Our culture values gifts, talents, abilities,

as unfortunately the church often does.

We often get blamed by gifts and talents and abilities.

It is perilous to honor gifts over godly character,

or for gifts to be mistaken for godly character.

The Bible indicates it's possible to...

So hear this.

Very important.

The Bible indicates it is possible to touch lives through gifts,

while your own spiritual growth is in a downward spiral.

In fact, there have been unregenerated people,

like Judas Iscariot and those mentioned in Matthew 7,

Matthew 7:22

verses 22 and 23,

who come into the church,

and whose natural talents God used

to convert and to build up,

but who later showed that they were never really Christian,

according to 1 John 2, verse 19.

1 John 2:19

1 Corinthians 13.

I've got that in front of you as well.

We see a clear example of the need

for Christian character over Christian giftedness.

Church of Corinth.

We've just spent a bit of time in Corinthians,

but the Church of Corinth in 1 Corinthians

was a growing congregation,

blessed with abundant gifts in tongues,

verse 1,

prophecy, verse 2,

teaching generosity and social concern,

in verse 3,

and yet the chapter also reveals

all the ways in which this Corinthian church

was ungodly.

They were impatient and proud,

verse 4,

envious, critical, rude, jealous,

self-absorbed, egotistical,

and Paul went on to so far as to say

that it was possible

to have all of these gifts

in a dynamic church

and yet, in his words,

to be nothing.

Most Bible commentators agree

that Paul is saying

it is possible

to do miracles

by the power of God

and have revelations

and not even to be a Christian.

To have no character at all.

No inward work of the Spirit at all.

In other words,

it's possible for you

to do ministry

through the power of God

without any grace in your heart

or without knowing,

as verse 8 says,

his true love that never fails.

That's why Jesus said,

by their fruit,

you will know his disciples

rather than by their gifts.

By their fruit,

you will know his disciples.

Love, joy, peace,

humility cannot grow and flourish

when our hearts are far from God.

But teaching,

evangelism,

counselling,

leading,

can.

So friends,

the danger is

that we look to our ministry activity

as evidence

that God is with us

or as a way to earn God's favour.

If, however,

we are remembering the gospel,

if we're rejoicing

in having received

every spiritual blessing in Jesus,

then our ministry

will be a sacrifice

of thanksgiving.

And the result

will be acts done in love,

humility,

patience and tenderness.

If our hearts

are not solely centred

in the saving work of Jesus

and if we're not speaking

the gospel

into our hearts regularly,

we will,

by default,

seek to control God,

to attract his favour

with,

and I'll use the language

of 1 Corinthians 13,

attract his favour

with our clanging symbols

of service,

noted by the telltale signs

of impatience,

irritability,

pride,

hurt feelings,

generosity,

jealousy,

sorry,

not generosity,

lack of generosity,

jealousy,

and boasting.

We will identify

with our ministry

and we will make

our ministry

an extension

of ourselves.

We will be driven,

scared,

we'll either be

too timid

or too brash,

and the end result

will be disunity

and fracturing

of the family.

We will shut down

anyone

who attempts

to interfere

with my ministry.

We will shut down

anyone who tries

to take a little bit

away from me.

Our character

is of supreme

importance.

Scottish minister

Robert Murray

Mishane

was a remarkably

gifted man,

remarkably gifted

man,

especially

as a preacher

of God's word.

There's hardly

anyone,

apart from

probably John Knox,

who's had

as much

of an impact

on the Church

of Scotland

historically

than Robert

Murray Mishane,

and he was

dead by the time

he was 31.

Remarkably gifted.

He's quoted

as saying,

the greatest

need of my

people

is my

personal

holiness.

holiness.

That is

his character

in Christ.

Before

his death

in 1841,

Mishane

preached

his last

sermon

on Isaiah

Isaiah 60:1

chapter 60

verse 1.

Arise,

Shane,

for thy

light is

come,

and the

glory of

the Lord

is risen

upon thee.

He preached

the sermon,

went home

to bed

with a

fever,

he was

feeling

unwell,

and he

died a

week later.

After

his death,

a letter

was found

in his

bedroom

beside his

bed.

Part of

it,

that letter

which read

this,

I hope

you will

pardon a

stranger

for addressing

to you in

such few

lines.

I heard

you preach

last Sunday

evening,

and it

pleased God

to bless

that sermon

to my

soul.

It was

not so

much what

you said

as your

manner of

speaking that

struck me.

I saw

in you a

beauty of

holiness

that I

never saw

before.

You also

said something

in your

prayer that

struck me

very much.

It was

this.

thou

knowest

that we

love thee.

Oh,

sir,

what would

I give

that I

could say

to my

blessed

saviour,

thou

knowest

that I

love thee.

His

character

shone

even more

than his

remarkable

gifting.

He

unity.

The unity

which Paul

urges upon

us

is

maintained

as we

get

reshaped

into the

character

of the

Lord

Jesus

Christ.

Before he

gets to

any gifts,

he says

this in

verse 2,

be

completely

humble

and gentle,

being patient,

bearing one

other in

love.

The key

here is

humility.

Humility

will lead

to gentleness

and patience

and forbearing

with each

other in

love.

In the

ancient

Greco-Roman

world,

when Paul

first wrote

this letter,

humility

was despised.

It was

what was

regarded as

a slave-like

quality.

What was

admired

was the

mega-souled

man or

the great-souled

man,

the self-made

man

who was

complete,

self-sufficient.

That's what

was admired

as much as

power and

influence is

admired today.

pride is

the opposite

of humility.

Pride not

only appears

to be the

earliest of

sin, but

it's also

the core

of all

sin.

Maybe

that's why

God hates

the sin of

pride so

much.

Proverbs

Proverbs 8:13

8 verse

13 quotes

God as

saying,

to fear

the Lord

is to

hate evil.

I hate

pride and

arrogance.

Of course

he hates

all sin,

but pride

seems to

be particularly

offensive to

him.

Why does

God hate

pride so

much?

It's because

pride is

when sinful

human beings

aspire to

the status

and the

position of

God and

refuse to

acknowledge

dependence upon

God.

Pride is the

essence of

sin, it's the

foundation of

it.

Pride takes

many forms

but it all

has it all

directed towards

one end.

self

glorification,

the

self

made

person.

Pride is

so dangerous

for a

church.

Pride works

to undermine

the unity

of a

church.

It elevates

individual,

it elevates

groups,

cultural

groups above

others.

Pride brings

down leaders.

Spiritual

pride sets

us up against

the world

as well.

and the

truth which

radiates from

verse 2 is

that Christian

unity doesn't

begin with

external

structures but

it begins

with attitudes

of the heart.

Humility and

mildness and

patience and

loving tolerance

of one another.

power.

And a

character of

humility means

that we will

hold any

gifting that

we have

received as

simply that.

It's a

gift.

It's a

gift.

Any ability

that we have,

any talent that

we have,

anything that

we have,

any name that

we have for

ourselves,

it is a

gift.

gift.

They are

gifts from

God for

his glory and

for the good

of others.

Our gifting

will not be

about serving

our ego,

our need for

approval,

or the

building up

of positions

of power and

influence.

Pride and

self-promoting

arrogance

sow seeds

of disunity

but a

humble,

gentle person

is like a

cool breeze

on a hot

day.

They're a

delight.

Charles Simeon,

the great

preacher of

King's College

and Holy

Trinity

Cambridge,

was one

humble man

who over

a long

course of

time,

God

beat him

into

humility.

He was

highly

influential

very

successful

in

ministry.

However,

in

1801,

Simeon's

health

broke

down.

Sorry,

1808,

his health

broke

down and

he had to

spend about

eight months

recuperating on

the Isle of

White.

His assistant

stepped into

the gap to

preach as

many as

five times on

a Sunday in

Holy Trinity

and another

church in

stable foot.

The assistant

surprised

himself and

as it

turns out,

the

congregations

as well,

by developing

a preaching

ability almost

equal and

some would

say better

than Simeon's.

someone reported

to Simeon

while he's

on the

Isle of

White,

recuperating

from,

oh,

by the

way,

no need

to rush

back,

your assistant's

doing a

fantastic

job.

Totally

free from

any suggestion

of pride or

professional

jealousy,

Simeon

greatly

rejoiced.

He quoted

this scripture,

Peter,

he must

increase,

but I

must

decrease.

And he

told a

friend,

ah,

now I

see why

I have

been laid

aside with

this illness

for this

time and

I bless

God for

it.

Some of

you may

still be

seething,

still holding

on to

issues

because

you've

been laid

aside by

somebody.

So how

did Simeon

get to the

position where

he had

grown in

humility to

the point

where he

was rejoicing

in the

gifting of

others in

such a way

that even

that gifting

was surpassing

his own?

After Simeon

had been a

Christian for

40 years,

he wrote

this.

Simeon

spent 40

years of

applying the

good news

of the

gospel to

his life

in such

a way

that it

humbled

him.

He never

let go of

the fact

that everything

was a gift.

Never let

go of the

fact that he

was sinful.

He's quoted

as saying,

I spend

my days

mining,

mining the

depths of

my sinfulness

and at the

same time

clutching to

the grace of

God in

Jesus Christ.

The deeper

I go in

understanding

my sin,

the greater

I see his

glory and

grace to

me.

He labored,

labored to

know the

God in

the Bible

and also

to know

his true

vileness

at the

same time.

And this

clicked him

close to

God through

the many,

many difficult

seasons of

life and

ministry that

he faced.

But that's

not all.

He didn't

labor by

himself.

As I said

last week,

we cannot

know an

individual by

ourselves.

We cannot

even know

ourselves by

ourselves.

One of the

remarkable things

about Simeon

was that he

could take a

rebuke and

he grew from

it.

I could go

on and on

and on

about it.

But back

in 2009,

I wrote a

core value

for us to

address this

issue.

If there is

one thing

that I'd

love us

at St.

Paul's to

be known

for, it

would be

this,

humble

authenticity.

I'll read

it to you.

We seek

our words

and actions

to be what

we believe

and teach

from God's

word.

We desire

for our

lives,

ministries,

and church

policies to

give explicit

evidence that

we treasure

Jesus Christ

above everything

else.

We will

pursue loving

honesty in

all our

communication.

We will

seek to

serve others

and consider

them more

important than

ourselves.

In

disagreements,

we'll assume

the best of

others and

ask clarifying

questions before

making judgments.

When we have

offended another,

we will be

quick to confess

error and

sin.

We will

pursue

reconciliation

and we

will work

towards

change.

We will

not tolerate

contention.

We value

unity in

Christ and

so we

work together

as one

team to

fulfill our

mission.

We are

committed to

being rigorously

honest,

financially

accountable,

and above

approach in

all of our

dealings.

I could go

on and

on and

unpack that

for you,

but I've

got a gift

instead.

I wrote

this in

2010,

humble

authenticity,

over a

series of

posts for

a church

bulletin that

we had at

the time.

I wanted

to unpack

what it

might look

for us to

shape our

corporate life

together.

It's not the

final word on

humility.

What is the

final word on

humility?

And it would

be somewhat

ironic if I

actually wrote

the final word

on humility.

But I gave

a go at it

anyway.

I was

thoroughly

convinced then,

I am even

more thoroughly

convinced now,

if it's

possibly more

thoroughly

convinced,

that there is

no effective

service,

there is no

effective mission

without the

cultivation of

humility in

the heart and

the weakening

of pride in

our life.

It is the

very foundation

before we move

on to any

talk about

giftings.

character

comes

first.

May we

all,

like the

Lord Jesus,

descend into

greatness,

laid aside,

his glory

became one

of us,

and now

been ascended

to the

highest heights

that every

name will

bow to

him and

confess him.

The last

word on

this goes

to God

himself.

This is

for all

of us

who think

that through

our good

works we

can earn

God's

attention,

his gaze.

The last

word goes

to God

himself,

Isaiah 66

Isaiah 66:2

verse 2.

This is the

one I

esteem.

This is

what draws

my attention.

This is

the one I

notice.

He who is

humble and

contrite in

spirit and

trembles at

my word.