Before he died, we celebrated Dad’s 80th birthday.
It should’ve been a happy occasion. Dad had a brother and a sister both married (with families of their own); four grown-up children; and 11 grandchildren.
It should’ve been a happy occasion – except:
– His grown-up children wanted to have the birthday celebration early. Maybe meet together for breakfast – so that the rest of the day wouldn’t be wasted, but could be spent with our own families.
– But Dad’s brother and sister didn’t want it to be that early as they couldn’t face battling the early morning traffic. Nor did they want it too late – because they didn’t want to be battling the traffic later in the day. Maybe a quiet lunch, sit round and talk: that sort of thing.
– Too quiet for the grandchildren ! Their idea of a party was… to party. They wanted noise, music. And there was no point asking them to come to breakfast. It was their day off – they weren’t even getting out of bed much before midday.
So, in the end, each one did what they wanted:
– Dad’s adult children met him for breakfast – and had a quick breakfast, then got away so that we could enjoy the rest of the day.
– His siblings met over lunch, and had a quiet chat.
– Then Dad had to have a lie down, so that he would still be awake when the grandchildren rocked up to party after tea.
In the end, we all got what we wanted.
All… except Dad, whose birthday we were celebrating.
It was an incredibly sad day.
Or, at least, it would’ve been if that was the way it had happened.
Thankfully, it didn’t.
A PARABLE
Thankfully, siblings, children and grandchildren all had more grace than just to think selfishly about what they wanted.
We all remembered that, after all, it was Dad’s birthday.
And the best gift that we could give him, the best gift that, in fact, he wanted: was just for us all to be there, with him, to help him celebrate the day.
Not, with him individually, one by one.
But with him all together, to recognise together, the unique contribution he had made to our lives all together.
After all, the day was not about us.
It was about him.
And, because we did come together to honour him, rather than just please ourselves, we all enjoyed it a thousand times more than if we had simply selfishly focused on what we wanted that day.
Because selfishness is never enjoyable !
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER FATHER
Let me tell you about another Father, and His special day !
“I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” (Ephesians 3:14)
“I bow my knees…”: I worship Him
But, not just I: “The whole family in heaven and earth” join together in worshipping Him.
Who is this “whole family”?
Is it talking about everyone who is alive? Is it saying here that all creatures, great and small, owe their existence to God, the Father of all?
That may be true; but it is not what is meant here.
Back in chapter 2, Paul is telling us how all believers, Jew and Gentile, are now incorporated into the one body in Christ Jesus.
“[Christ] Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation… that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity… Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (2:14-22)
This gets Paul really excited; he just wants to worship God: “For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles…” (3:1)
Then he stops…
He wants to worship; but he first wants to tell us more on this matter as to why he so much wants to worship:
“He made known to me the mystery… which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel” (3:3-6)
“This is wonderful,” exclaims Paul: “Jew and Gentile, together in the body of Christ.”
In fact, more than wonderful: for, by this “the manifold wisdom of God is made known by the church” (v.10) to the whole heavenly host!
Eventually in v.14, he gets back to worshipping God for this great “mystery” (note how, “For this reason…” in v.1 is taken up again in v.14).
The great wisdom of God is to be seen in the unity of the church (see also the following chapter, vv.1-3).
In particular, God is glorified when God’s people, from all different backgrounds, join together, to worship Him, and to honour Him.
Conrad Mbewe recently posted:
One of the greatest fights waged by the apostles was to ensure that Jews and Gentiles worshipped together in the same church despite being different in many ways. They weren’t willing to yield to the pressure of two divergent religious cultures that had become set in concrete. There was only one gospel, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:5–6). Therefore, there was to be only one church—the Christian church.
THE GREAT EVANGELICAL SCANDAL
On God’s day, on His special day, we are called together to “bow the knee to the Father from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”
We are called to join together to honour our heavenly Father; to worship God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We are called together, to worship Him together !
Only, what happens in many churches today?
Last year, on holidays, we worshipped at a church on the NSW mid north coast.
– First there was a worship service that “follows a more traditional format, mainly aimed at meeting the needs of the more senior members of our community.” At this service there were few if any younger people. Two of “the more senior members” made their views known to us that they would not join in worship with others at any other service.
– Afterwards (but early enough so that families can enjoy the rest of the day) was a family service: “friendly, welcoming and engaging with contemporary music”. Few, if any, of this demographic had attended the earlier worship.
– In the evening was (what was referred to as) “messy church”. We weren’t even game to ask what that was, but understood it was “a relaxed but vibrant afternoon celebration” mainly for teenagers and young adults and those who don’t like getting up too early; but who are able to celebrate the Father (or is it just Jesus?) in a way more to their liking: lots of noise, and lots of music.
In the end, everyone gets what they want.
Everyone, selfishly, gets what they want.
Everyone is “happy”.
Everyone – except God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, whose day it is.
All the Father wants, is to have His whole family join together to celebrate Him on His special day.
WORSHIP and WITNESS
Back in the sixties when I was growing up, the Ecumenical Movement was in its heyday. This was a movement, sponsored mainly by “liberals”, i.e. by leaders in the churches who didn’t believe the Bible – who were trying to get all churches join together, if possible in the same denomination.
They quoted Jesus’ prayer over and over again, in John ch 17: “I pray for these, that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”
“How can the world take us seriously,” they would ask, “if we are not one, if we are not all together in the same denomination? It is a scandal,” they said. “Where is the church’s witness if we are not united?”
The Evangelicals’ answer to this was to meet together at Christian Conventions. I would sometimes attend the Katoomba Christian Convention: there, across the front of the auditorium, hung that huge banner: “All One in Christ Jesus.”
That was the Evangelicals’ answer to the charge of “scandal” by the liberals who wanted to bring us all into one denomination (a denomination that would be united, by the way, more by what they didn’t believe than by what they did).
Nonetheless, we acknowledge that divisions between Bible-believing Christians is a problem that must be continually addressed.
But, today there is a new scandal. It is a far worse scandal.
It is the scandal, particularly of evangelical churches.
And that is the scandal:
– Not of denominations being divided from one another. That is a relatively minor problem, and can be (at least partly) addressed when like-minded churches join together for combined meetings, activities, outreach etc.
– But it is the scandal of those in the same church – in the same local church – being divided from each other so that they do not even join together to “bow [their] knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”
That is the real scandal facing many evangelical churches today: where everyone is selfishly concerned only for what he, or she, wants to do in worship.
Some think they make up for this by being very zealous in witnessing.
What they fail to recognise is that, if in their worship they are divided from one another – they have no witness. Their witness is destroyed !
Jesus said: “I pray for these, that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”
The world “believes” that Jesus is sent by the Father when they witness that those in the local church are “all one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You.”
Again, Conrad Mbewe:
Let the world wage its cultural and ethnic fights. It has no common ground. However, let them see something totally different when they come into the Christian church. Let them find a gospel that has broken down all our barriers, a gospel that causes believers to work lovingly toward mutual edification rather than to create yet another war zone in the guise of acknowledging our ethnicity [or, age differences], which may or may not have been previously suppressed.
This is where the witness of the local church begins.
Where this is not so, where the members of a local church cannot submerge their own selfish wants to join together to “bow [their] knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” there that church has no witness – at least, no credible witness.
They’ve missed the point: the Lord’s day, our gathering together to worship, is not about you or me.
It is all about: Him!