Serving God Together
One of the wonderful privileges we have when we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and personal saviour is that we are drawn into a loving and life-giving relationship with Him and the other members of the Trinity, and with on one another. Have you ever thought of God as being hospitable? But that’s just what He is when He invites us be comfortable and at home with Himself and those that love him – at home and comfortable in the community of faith. But more than that he allows us to participate in His Ministry in the world (have you realised that you and I really don’t have a Ministry – it’s just His gifting within us and His spirit graciously working through us)! That’s why it feels good to be with other Christians whether they are in our church or not – there is a sense of being at home and being with family – we share the same Heavenly Father and acknowledge His son as our “elder brother” and have the same basic values and aspirations in life! I had that sense immediately this week when I bumped into an old boyhood friend at the funeral of Jenny Bartle a former elder in a church. He was the funeral director and faithfully serving God in the Church of Christ at Happy Valley, and although I hadn’t seen him in over 40 years there was an immediate sense of affinity, a sense of family, and we liaised comfortably together to conduct the funeral service. But it was really the presence of the Holy Spirit working with us and between us that produced the final result where the funeral service was concerned. Jesus said that where two or three are gathered together in my name there I am in their midst (Matthew 18:20), and I sensed His presence and peace in that service-we were teaming with the Holy Spirit on the father’s “business”.
There is a delightful story of a little girl who was learning to play the piano, and whose musical skills were still very limited. One day she was playing some notes on the keyboard while staying with her family in a hotel in Norway. There was little to appreciate in her playing, and several guests found her “plink…plonk…plink… plonk” intensely annoying. After a while, a man came and sat beside the girl, and started to play alongside her. The result was astounding – wonderful music from the two of them, the little girl playing as before, the man supplying all the other notes. The man was a girl’s father, the 19th-century Russian composer Alexander Borodin. So when we speak of participating in the Ministry of Christ, we are talking about an engagement between God and ourselves, which may be likened to what happened between Borodin and his daughter in the hotel in Norway.
In the same way that the great composer welcomed the playing of his little girl, embracing it and transforming it into something beautiful, so Christ receives all that we offer God, in thanksgiving, in worship and in service, and converts it in himself and presents it as something perfect and wholly acceptable to his Father, who is our Father. Jesus said…
Jn 15:4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Jn 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Jn 15:6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
(Today’s New International Version. 995. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 2001, 2005.)
I believe the key to a fruitful and fulfilling life as Jesus disciple is our relationship with him plus our relationship one another; may God grant us all the humility to recognize and value our need to be part of His spiritual family-the community of faith – of which he is an integral part.
God bless, Lew