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.
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.
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,
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 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.
That is
his character
in Christ.
Before
his death
in 1841,
Mishane
preached
his last
sermon
on Isaiah
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
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.
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
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
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.