All right, today is our final day in the Gospel-Shaped Family series.
My voice is a little bit croaky as well, so please bear with me as I speak.
Right.
He's got us a chance to take a seat.
So far in the series, we looked at relationships
and how we're actually created for relationship.
We're created by an eternally relational God, Father, Son and Spirit, yet one God.
And we're created for relationship with each other,
a relationship that is expressed toward God as worship
and toward each other as fellowship.
We've then looked at some of the different dimensions that relationships can take
in terms of between us and our church families,
so husbands, wives, parents and children, and singles,
in terms of how that works in our relationships within the church family.
And today we're bringing it all back together again,
looking at Gospel-Shaped Family.
And as we do that, there's a bit of a surprise to it in a sense.
And I hope you appreciate that that surprise is there for a very good reason,
and actually it helps us to pursue the relationship that God intended for us to pursue
and not just our own.
Now, earlier this winter, I like buying stuff online.
It's cheaper, right?
Earlier this winter, I ordered a jumper online.
It was actually supposed to be a dark red hoodie, a zip hoodie.
You know what those are, yeah?
A dark red zip hoodie was what I ordered.
And this is what I got.
Okay.
That picture, if you have a look on the screen,
that picture is a picture of Frankenstein's monster,
nothing like what I ordered.
This is not a large.
It is not the same colour I ordered.
It has no hood, no zip,
no bearing or similarity to the thing that I ordered.
And this is the first time I've worn it.
It's still got the tags on.
If you want it, it's yours after the service.
But the really interesting thing about this is,
this issue of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
You see, Frankenstein was a scientist who decided that what he would do was,
through a process of chemistry and alchemy is how it's described,
it's kind of vague in the book.
But this issue of, this thing of alchemy is actually where you,
so I'm not dissing scientists, that's Dave's job.
What I'm saying is that this person, Frankenstein, as a scientist,
was actually trying to purify or perfect humanity.
So in a lab, he assembled a person with the goal of actually making the perfect person.
The result was a monster that even he as its creator could not love.
The result was a monster who could only respond to how he was treated
and paid back in even more, greater extent.
So when his creator rejected him,
he responded with incredible anger and revenge, vengefulness.
One of the really interesting things about the Enlightenment movement
is this tendency in us to want to actually create our version of humanity,
a version of humanity that we actually think is better
than any other version of humanity, including God's.
But what I want to suggest to you is this.
The version of humanity that you create
is always destined to be the monster.
The version of humanity that God creates
is beautiful, it's pure, it's inspiring.
It's the only one really that we can set up
and that we can set up as the thing to pursue.
What are we, according to God?
We are beloved children.
Whatever we think of ourselves, good or bad.
Good or bad, we are God's beloved children.
Beloved is an old word.
It means dearly loved or much loved.
We are God's family.
Now there's three key points in Ephesians
where Paul applies this family imagery
in chapter 1, chapter 3 and chapter 5.
And we'll look at those as we go through.
But each time he applies it,
he's not talking about our families
or families as we like to think of it.
The families that we construct.
He is talking about God's family.
In his mind, this is the first family.
This is the perfect family, the main family.
Our families, as we express them, are derivative.
They depend on God for meaning, significance and shape.
And we see this in terms of how it unfolds.
We see the Father, the Father loving.
The Father loved us, we see in the book of Ephesians.
He loved us by sending the Son.
His beloved Son.
Not the one that he could spare.
We all have kids in our families that like that, don't we?
Not the one that he could spare.
But the one that it tore his heart out to send.
Our Father is the giver of good things.
He delights in calling us his own precious children.
In Ephesians 1, we discover that he set his heart on us to love us
before he even created us.
Our Father is also where the concept of fatherhood comes from.
And in chapter 3, in verse 14 and the following,
he is the Father from whom all fatherhood everywhere is named.
And whatever good you've experienced in your earthly father,
that's a reflection, just a reflection, a power reflection too,
of your heavenly father.
Now some of us, I'll acknowledge this now,
some of us will experience little or no good from our earthly father.
But consider this.
The fact that those experiences hurt so much points to something that's wrong,
something gone wrong,
which means that there is something right, a right expression,
something way better in fact,
and that better is our heavenly father.
Now I can look at my own father's attempts to raise me,
and you can probably judge from my behaviour how he did,
but I can look at my father's story and I can tell you now,
it is one of success and failure.
There are many things that I look to my father and I'm just so grateful for.
And there are a number of things that I'm not grateful at all for.
Now I know I'm not just having a shot at my dad,
because I can actually see that same pattern in myself as I parent my kids.
There are many things that I just praise God that he's actually shone through me,
despite me in a sense, in terms of how I've tried to parent my kids.
But there are a number of things that if I could have a do-over on,
I would love to have that opportunity.
I'm supposed to be that safe space for my children,
the nurturing person in the family,
the protective person in the family.
But the reality,
the only person that can be that for my family is my heavenly father.
He is that safe space.
He is the one who knows us better than we know ourselves.
He is the one who has held back nothing in his love for us.
He is that one from whom before time began,
has been longing to draw us to himself.
That's our heavenly father.
So father,
and our son,
the son,
God the son,
God the father has been loving and desiring to draw us to himself.
God the son came to us in an act of love,
saved us,
rescued us.
Jesus loved us by sacrificing himself to rescue us.
We see that in verse two.
It's not just a generic version of love that Paul puts out there.
Oh,
just be,
you know,
just love each other.
Try and,
you know,
nurture and harness that,
that mushy feeling.
he actually talks about love as self-sacrifice.
This is the ultimate act of love.
It's an extreme image too.
I mean,
when you become a sacrifice and you think about the way that they actually approach sacrifice,
it wasn't just in a,
like a hypothetical or a theoretical or a,
a cognitive sense.
It was actually in a very practical sense.
The sacrifices,
well,
let's just say,
if you became a sacrifice,
it wasn't something you walked away from.
Well,
this kind of love,
this sacrificial kind of love is a humbling love.
Jesus laid aside everything that he was to become the thing that he created.
He had rights.
He had power.
And he let them go for our sake,
just laid them aside for our sake.
And we didn't even deserve it.
We were the sinners,
the rebels,
suspicious of God's goodness.
Our hearts were darkened.
And Jesus became our rescuer,
our redeemer.
Now,
we didn't dodge a bullet,
and it was the executioner's bullet.
We didn't dodge a bullet when we became Christians.
Jesus stepped in the way of the bullet for us.
Jesus' rescue was costly.
It hurt.
But its goal was our rescue,
and that's something that God delights in.
Our redemption was an act of love,
grace,
will,
God's pleasure,
his desire to forgive us.
And it was all of these things,
because it accomplished our adoption as his children.
And that is something that God eternally delights in.
So the Father,
the Son,
and the Spirit,
as the Father loves,
and as the Son loves by saving us,
the Spirit loves us,
it embraces us by connecting us
to God,
the Father,
Son,
and Spirit.
Can I ask you,
which person of the Trinity do you actually relate to most?
If you were to think about it,
who do you pray to?
Who do you think about most?
Do you relate your faith in God to most?
Who do you think about when you think about God?
Well,
whoever it is,
we need to remember this truth.
The Spirit is the one who connects us to God.
He's the one who joins us to God.
In Ephesians 1,
verses 13 and 14,
we read that the Spirit is the deposit
guaranteeing our inheritance.
Now,
a deposit is the first payment.
Not just a,
you know,
a token amount.
It's the first payment.
So what we're receiving is the first part
of what we will get in full
when Jesus returns.
We're getting that first payment
in the Spirit.
He is God with us.
He provides a security
in our relationship to God.
In fact,
it's a pretty one-sided relationship
in that sense.
And I'm sure you know
what one-sided relationships are.
The nature of how we relate to each other.
I can remember the first year of marriage,
which I thought,
you know,
everyone tells you
the first year of marriage is so hard
and I thought it was great.
I thought it was wonderful.
I was having a chat with some friends
about how wonderful
the first year of marriage was
and they were newly,
we'd been married for about 10 years
and they were newlyweds.
They'd just completed
their first year of marriage
and yeah,
and you know,
my mate's going,
yeah,
it was great.
The first year of marriage was great.
And I can see looking at his wife thinking,
wow,
she doesn't look like it was quite so great.
But before,
but before we got to that,
I actually saw the look
on my own wife's face
and discover,
well,
okay,
she has a different view to me.
I'm there saying,
wow,
you know,
first year of marriage was great
and Joe said,
it wasn't for me.
That's one-sided.
Things were great for me
because I was taking
and she was doing all the giving.
We know what it's like
to be in a one-sided relationship
and that's just in an earthly sense.
In the sense that we're talking about here
where God actually has to rescue us
from ourselves
at the cost
of his beloved son,
we're talking about
an infinitely one-sided relationship.
Perhaps during the series
you've been drawn to
thinking through
your relationships
in terms of how one-sided they are.
Perhaps you've been thinking,
wow,
you know,
as husbands have been listening to us
talk about wives
and wives have been listening to us
talk about husbands
and each of you have been thinking,
wow,
he's not delivering
or she's not delivering
or kids and parents,
you know,
our parents aren't delivering.
Think about this.
The relationship
that you have with God
as his beloved child
is entirely one-sided.
In Ephesians 3,
verses 14 to 19,
we discover there
that the spirit
actually provides
the strength we need
to know God.
That's really interesting.
The spirit provides
the power behind
our faith.
He provides us
with the ability
to understand,
to maintain our faith.
He provides
real experience
of God's love,
we discover in those verses.
Now,
in Galatians 4,
6,
which we preached on Galatians
earlier this year,
and Romans 8, 15,
we discover that the spirit
actually teaches
our spirits
to cry,
Abba,
Father.
This is the work
of the Holy Spirit
in us.
He is connecting us
to God relationally,
deeply.
And in Ephesians 5,
18 to 21,
in this passage
we've just had read out,
Paul urges us
to get drunk
on the spirit.
That's what he's saying.
Do not get drunk
on wine,
but be filled
with the spirit.
The spirit
turns our hearts
from wanting
more in life
to overflowing
with thanksgiving
to our heavenly
Father for all
that we have
in Christ.
the spirit
teaches us
what it actually means
to submit
to one another.
Apart from the spirit
that would just be
not just a scary thing
but just
totally unnecessary
thing in life.
The spirit
connects us
to God personally,
relationally,
cognitively,
and emotionally.
Our triune God,
three persons,
Father,
Son,
and Spirit,
yet one God.
And his family
is the family
that Paul sees
as a source
of all other family.
His family
is the one
that we've been
invited into
for the rest
of eternity.
What you are,
beloved children
of God.
What you become
is imitators
of God.
When we enter
his family,
we become
his children.
This is our identity.
God is our protector.
He's our provider.
He's the one
who actually
raises us
and transforms us.
And as he loves us
without condition
or restraint,
we need to understand
the basis of that.
He loves us
without condition
or restraint
because he sees us
as having
the righteousness
of Christ.
And children,
even adoptive children,
take on the characteristics
of the fathers
that raise them.
Now,
when I was working
as a physio,
I had a patient
recovering from
a broken leg.
Now,
he came in one day.
I told my small group
this last week.
But he came in one day
and this particular day
he was bringing
his son in with him.
He didn't have someone
to look after him.
He was a three or four
year old kid.
And so they walked
into the waiting room
and he hobbled in
with his crutches
as he usually did.
and his son,
his three or four
year old son,
walked alongside him
and imitated
the limp
of his father.
This little three
year old,
three, four year old kid
limping into the
waiting room as well.
Now,
I asked him,
is your child alright?
Has your child been
injured or something?
And he said,
oh no, no, no.
He just likes to copy me.
That's the nature
of parenthood,
isn't it?
That there's this
bond between
a parent
and a child.
There's a very
strong bond
between the father
and the son.
That bond
is such that
we want to
imitate our father.
We just want
to be like him.
Children
imitate
their father.
Our fathers
have a powerful
influence in their
household,
and you can look up
the research for that
later if you like.
We're just discovering
more and more
the truth
of the pattern
that God set up
for us.
Our earthly
experience of this
can be inspiring,
as I've said,
or it can be painful.
But our experience
of God
as our father
is always
inspiring.
We don't obey
because we have to.
And please
don't get me wrong here.
I'm not questioning
the authority of God
and his right
to command us
to do whatever
he chooses.
but what I'm
saying is this.
We have a father
who has that
authority
and yet goes
after our hearts.
I'm saying that
we have a father
who loves us
perfectly,
a father who
delights in giving
us good things.
And Jesus even
describes this
in Luke 11.11.
Which of your fathers,
if your son asks
for a fish,
will give him a snake
instead?
Or if he asks
for an egg,
will give him a scorpion?
If you then,
though you are evil,
here's a nice way
of speaking to a crowd
and keeping their
attention, isn't it?
If you then,
although you are evil,
know how to give
good gifts to your
children,
how much more
will your father
in heaven give
the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him?
We have a father
who loves us perfectly,
who delights in
giving us good things,
a father who is
undeniably good,
a father who has
captured our hearts,
who is worthy
of our praise,
who is someone
we delight in imitating
like little children do.
This is more
than obedience.
I mean,
and I mean by that,
it's more than
obedience in the sense
of an expression
of the will,
simply an expression
of the will.
This obedience
goes deeper.
Even that difference
is best summed up
in the word grace.
I think about
how I parent,
and this perhaps
is one of the areas
that I'm kind of
concerned about
and in a sense
trying to redress,
but have I modelled
grace as a father?
I taught my kids
to obey,
yes.
I taught my kids
obedience in terms
of appealing
to their wills.
But did I actually
teach them inadvertently
that that was the
foundation of my
relationship with them,
my regard for them?
See, if I express
a desire to promote
obedience in my child
and obedience
without grace,
my feelings for my child
will waver
based on how they perform.
But if my approach
to raising my children
is obedience with grace
as my Heavenly Father
relates to me,
my feelings for my children
will remain unchanged.
children imitate their
father from admiration
or wonder.
As his precious children,
we are called to do the same.
Children imitate the father.
Paul also calls us
in chapter 5
to walk,
and he describes walking
in two different ways.
He's imitating the father.
He's like,
he uses action words
for these things.
He says to walk in love
and to walk in light.
Imitating the father
is something that
shapes what we do.
We become children
who love
like God loved us.
And verse 2,
as I've said,
Paul gives us
a model for loving
to set us on the right track
so we don't go astray
even in that.
And the example
is Jesus' sacrifice.
When you become
a sacrifice,
when you become a,
when he became a sacrifice,
he didn't walk away
from that.
When you become a sacrifice,
it's the same deal.
This kind of love
expressed in sacrifice
is a humbling love.
When it's expressed
in relationship,
it's a humiliating love.
I think we've sanitized
humility.
I'll explain this to you.
In our minds,
we've kind of
categorized humility
as the opposite
to pride
or arrogance.
And that,
you know,
in Australian culture,
that's something
that we're kind of
born into anyway.
But it's more than that.
You see,
it is that.
But being humble
in practice,
exercising humility,
is actually
opening yourself up
to the experience
of humiliation.
humiliation.
Think about that
relationally.
I can value humility
as a virtue,
but I can only
live humility
if I'm prepared for
and accept
humiliation
as an outcome.
Now,
I come from
a family background
where one of the ways
that we love each other,
so to speak,
is by put-down humour.
Do you know what that means?
Where you basically
chip each other
all the time.
You don't have that.
No,
none of you do that.
No?
Okay,
it's just my family then.
That's fine,
I'm happy to own that.
But one of the things
I found was that
when I married Jo,
she does not come
from that kind of background.
She's British
through and through.
I'm kind of British
by birth,
you know,
made in England,
assembled in Australia.
But she's actually
British.
And over in England,
you put yourself down,
but not other people.
That's just not kind.
So here she was
married to someone like me
who had actually
perfected the art
of put-down humour.
It was costly
for Jo
to continue
to love me
through that
when what she was hearing
was the opposite.
It was costly
for her
to continue
to love me.
It was humiliating.
Friends,
love is costly.
Sometimes it hurts
deeply
to love another person.
But remember this,
the kind of love
that Jesus modelled
is a love
that actually has its goal
outside of self.
In the lifting up
of another,
each other,
ultimately
in worship
of our God.
That's
the noble thing
that we were created for.
When you think
about walking
as a beloved
child of God,
think about that
as your calling.
The other thing
that Paul does
right in the middle
of chapter 5
is he basically says
wake up
is the other thing
that he uses.
So he talks about
being children
imitating their father
walking
and he talks
about waking up.
Imitating God
involves,
it also involves
not just
how we live
but how we think,
even getting behind
what we do
to why we do
what we do.
Paul says
wake up.
Don't let anyone
deceive you.
Examine things
in the light.
Pull things
into the light
and examine them
closely.
Look carefully
how you walk,
he says in this passage.
be wise.
Understand
the Lord's will.
All of these things
addressing
how we think,
what we believe,
what we value,
all of these
things
requiring us
to put those things
under scrutiny.
Question ourselves.
Think through
why we're doing
what we do.
not just
conforming the will
by force
to a particular
pattern.
I can tell you
you do that,
it doesn't last.
And you hate yourself
for it when you fail.
God's asking
for more than that
from us.
He's calling
after our hearts.
And friends,
that takes effort,
that takes mental effort
to actually do that,
to actually examine
our hearts
and really
put them
under the microscope.
Walk.
Wake up.
And the final thing
that Paul finishes
with is worship.
There are a number
of ways
that being
in God's family
changes us.
The final thing
that he wants
to say to us
though is this.
He wants to bring us
back, I guess,
to what David
talked about
in our very first
talk on the series,
Gospel-shaped
relationships,
when he described
how we were
actually created
for worship.
We are creatures
who were created
to worship.
When we don't
worship God,
we will find
other things
to worship.
Mostly ourselves,
though on the
bulletin front
you'll see,
sometimes it's
our families,
our marriage partners,
our parents,
our children.
Sometimes it's
just stuff
and that's
really sad.
when we do
that,
when we
practice
idolatry,
Paul again
in this passage
links idolatry
to covetousness,
wanting it
more than we
have.
Or in terms
of covetousness
you could even
say wanting
what is not
ours to have
in God's
providence.
all the time
we're doing
that,
all the time
that we're
looking for
more in
life than
there is,
all that
time,
we are
missing all
that we
have in
Christ.
Paul says
in verse 17,
and I paraphrase
here,
don't get
drunk on
wine,
get drunk
on the
Holy Spirit.
Yes,
your pastor
said get
drunk,
but listen
to the
second part
of the
get drunk
on the
Holy Spirit.
And when
we do,
he will
transform us.
A community
of people
who invite
the Holy Spirit
to fill them
will be
characterized
by the
things that
Paul lists
in this
passage.
Joyful,
exuberant,
God-shaped
conversation.
In fact,
not just
conversation,
but we sing
to each
other,
we turn
into a
musical.
For some
of you,
that may
be a
nightmare,
but that's
actually a
beautiful
thing.
Yes,
it really
is a
nightmare
for some
of
things.
But that's
what we
become.
And you
know what
a musical
is like?
A musical
is one
of those
things that
just evokes
the emotion
all the way
through.
You come
through it
wrung out,
exhausted,
emotionally.
Imagine if
that was
us,
a musical
devoted to
singing praise
to our
God to
each other,
constantly
lifting each
other up,
inspiring
each other,
constantly
creating and
encouraging
in each
other,
all for
God,
delight in
Him.
We also
have a
community
characterized
by
thankfulness
to God,
always,
in
everything,
says Paul.
Thankfulness
rather than
setting our
hearts on
getting more
out of
life than
God has
actually given
us.
More from
our lives
than in
God and
His commands
and His
good pleasure
have actually
destined for
us in the
path that we
walk as
His beloved
children.
And the
final thing
Paul says
that the
Holy Spirit
does in
us is the
Holy Spirit
actually promotes
submission to
each other.
Friends,
if we're
struggling with
that concept of
submitting to
one another,
putting others
first,
seeking their
good,
sometimes at
the cost to
ourselves,
if we're
struggling with
that concept,
where do we
go but to
God to ask
for more
from the
Holy Spirit,
to ask Him
to fill us
more.
If you're a
Christian,
you have the
Spirit in you.
He is the
deposit guaranteeing
your inheritance.
But the
interesting thing
Paul says
here is you
can also
actually engage
with the Holy
Spirit relationally
so that He
fills you with
all the things
He's desiring
to produce in
you.
Was it G.K.
Chesterton
that described?
No, no,
sorry, it
wasn't that.
It wasn't him.
I can't remember
the guy's name,
the guy who
first translated
the Bible into
English.
William Tyndale,
was it?
William Tyndale.
who describes
a Christian
community as
like a summer
garden, a
garden where
the sun is
always shining
and fruit is
always being
produced.
The Christian
community is
like a summer
garden, which
the Spirit is
delighting in and
desiring to
produce fruit in
us.
So I need to
finish there.
I think I may
have gone too
long, but let
me just say
this.
The thing that
we try and
create for
ourselves,
is destined
only to
become a
monster.
But the
family that
God has
called us
to be, that
he's rescued
us to be a
part of, that
he's given
us a spirit to
guarantee us
and is building
in us even
now, that
family is
beautiful,
compelling,
nothing better.
God, let me
pray.
Let me pray and
as I pray, the
musicians will
come up.
Father God, we
thank you for
inviting us into
your family.
Thank you for
the thought you've
put into that
that actually
just goes back
before even the
beginning of
time.
It's hard to
even imagine
that.
The love that
you've invested
in us, the
sacrifice you
were willing to
make for us
and the
delight you
have in us
even and
despite what
we know about
ourselves.
Lord, we
thank you for
that.
Thank you for
making that
possible through
Jesus Christ
and for
awakening the
reality of it
in our lives
through your
spirit and we
pray that you
would continue
to do that.
Lord, I pray
that we would
be a community
that delights in
being drunk on
your Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The next
song is
By Faith.
The lyrics to
the song comes
from Hebrews
11, if you'd
like to read
through that.
But it's right
through the old
text and it's
been By Faith.
The author says
and it's By Faith
in the pen for
the verse stands
to it.
So let's
stand.