Judi and I have been doing a bit of re-decorating over the past few months – and I’m not referring to the diet we’ve been on! On a couple of occasions I have been to the Hardware shop and asked them to mix up a special colour for me. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched this being done. In case you’ve never had that fascinating opportunity let me describe it for you! First you show them what colour you want. Then they take the 5 litre can of pure white paint and put it on an apparatus that looks like a miniature roundabout. Then, following a formula, they add tiny drops of colour. Now what you’ve got is 5 litres of white paint with a couple of blobs of colour floating on the top. Next they put the can into a tumbling machine which whirrs it this way and that. A couple of minutes later they open the can and hey presto you’ve got your 5 litres of coloured paint.
So why am I telling you this? Well strangely enough it was the image that came to mind as I was going through the readings for today. The one phrase that seemed to leap out at me was from Philippians, verse 27; ‘Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.’ So you might ask what has that got to do with mixing paint? Well let me tell you the strange way my brain works!
One of the most difficult things I believe we have to come to terms with as Christians is the fact that we are not wholly evil. Of course we know that we do wrong, we are not perfect, therefore logic tells us therefore that we are evil. But if we look around, and even look at ourselves, there are very few people that we would call wholly evil. It would almost be easier if we were. If we were completely evil then we’d know exactly how we are likely to think; how we are likely to behave and most all how much we needed God’s grace and forgiveness. The trouble is most of us, by any human standard, are far from completely evil. In fact, to be honest, we’re all pretty good. We’re a lot like that can of paint before it gets put into the whirring machine. Most of us is white with just a few blobs of something not quite right floating round. We might tell the odd lie; swear in a moment of anger; occasionally take advantage of someone in a weaker position to ourselves; squeeze a questionable rand out of the tax man; harbour the odd lustful thought as we eye some scantily-clad bather on the TV or on the beach… of course the list is endless. But in themselves there is very little that we would we would put into the category of radically evil. Now put us into the machine of life and whirr us around. Those tiny blobs of assorted things that we do wrong begin to split up and mix together permeating the whole of our life. We are no longer pure white but, on the other hand we’re certainly not black. But the fact is that those little things that we do wrong literally colour our lives.
So what has that got to do with our verse, ‘conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ’? Well quite simply what colour do you think is representative of the gospel of Christ? What colour should our lives be if we are to conduct ourselves worthy of that gospel? There’s no need to brace yourselves for an harangue on the need to be perfect. We all recognize that that will never be possible in this life. But what this is, is a call to recognize the role that our behaviour plays in representing Christ to the world.
And here again I want us to appreciate right up front that it is the subtle things in our behaviour that make all the difference. Few of us run around constantly losing our temper, lying and cheating, or swearing and blaspheming. But just as a few tiny blobs of colour can change 5 litres of white paint, so a few aspects of our behaviour, and our character, can change the way people look at us.
Of course there are many aspects of our behaviour that we could highlight. But I want us to look at just a couple which are prompted by our readings this morning.
Let’s start with our Exodus story that we heard this morning of the Israelites building a golden calf to worship.
OK. Own up. How many of you have a secret golden calf at home!?! Of course you don’t. But how many of you have a secret golden putter? A secret golden photo scrapbook? A secret golden television?
You see it wasn’t the reality of the golden calf idol that was wrong. After all it was just a piece of sculpture. The wrong lay in the fact that the children of Israel made it more important in their lives than God. They chose to worship it, rather than God who had rescued them from Egypt.
Again I come back to the subtlety of our behaviour. There is absolutely nothing wrong with golf, with scrapbooking, with watching television or with any of the hundred and one other things we may do in our lives. But there is everything wrong with making them more important in our lives than God. And it’s the subtle things that betray us. Let me give you an example. God laid down the commandment that we should keep the Sabbath holy. One of the intrinsic aspects of keeping that commandment is that we take time out to worship Him. In other words take time to come to church. Yet sometimes those golden items in our lives get in the way – after all Sunday morning is perfect for golf!
By the way did you hear about the rabbi who was a fanatical golfer. One Sabbath he woke up early and looked out of the window – the sun was shining and there was no wind. He was so tempted. “But how can I play golf on the Sabbath? What if one of my congregation sees me?”
He looked at his watch – it was still very early. If he left straight away he could get in 9 holes and still make it to schul. So off he went.
Meanwhile one of the angels in heaven happened to be looking down on the golf course and saw the Rabbi about to tee off on one of the short holes. The angel rushed to see God and said ‘Do You know that there’s a rabbi playing golf today, on the Sabbath. I hope You are going to punish him severely.”
“Certainly.” Said God.
They both looked down and at that moment the rabbi hit a wonderful 6 iron and it sailed straight into the hole. A hole-in-one. Every golfer’s dream.
“But I thought you were going to punish him?” said the angel.
“I did,” said God, “Who can he tell?”
The first commandment says ‘you shall have no other gods before Me.’
If our behaviour suggests that, occasionally, even from time to time, we relegate God in our lives and put our own interests first then our lives are not worthy of the gospel of Christ. And others will see that – you can bet your lives on it!
Of course not all of us will agree about what exactly is appropriate for a Sunday. And the very fact that this 4th commandment is the only one that is not emphasized or reinforced in the New Testament does to some extent imply that the rigid strictures laid down in the Jewish law do not have the same force today. However there is one thing that I believe is unchanged, and unchangeable, and that is that the Sabbath is holy and set apart. It is the day on which God expects us to give back just a portion of the greatest gift He has given us – time. And to make our lives worthy of the gospel we need to be regular in our worship.
For the last few minutes let’s turn to our reading in Matthew and see what we can learn here. This is always a very difficult passage because in human terms it is very easy to interpret this parable as the height of unfairness. There will be few of us who will not empathise with the labourers who worked all day and still only got the same as the guys who worked the last hour. In fact if the trade unions had been around they would have had those labourers out on the streets with placards in no time flat.
But the underlying lesson here is that they all got what they were promised. The labourers who started out at the crack of dawn had an expectation and that expectation was met. It was only when they began to look around and compare themselves with the others that the trouble started and the complaints became bitter. Don’t we fall into the same trap. We so often compare ourselves and our situation with others.
We look back and compare what life was like ‘in the old days.’
Or we look at the so-called Yuppies who come along and appear to have money to burn. Or others who seem not to have a care in the world and shirk all responsibility.
Whatever or whoever it is, we so easily fall into the trap of comparing. And it’s only a very small step from comparing to complaining. I don’t have to give you examples of complaining – you hear them all day every day. But is this a chorus we should be joining in as Christians if we are to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ? I don’t believe so.
Is there any one of us here this morning who cannot testify to the truth of the promise in Philippians 4: v 19 –‘And God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” And let me quickly emphasise that the word is ‘needs’ not ‘wants’. I want a Ferrari but I certainly don’t need one. I need a meal and a roof over my head and the fact is that I eat well – or at least I did before the diet! – and I have a very nice roof over my head. The fact that there are those who eat better than I do or live in a more luxurious house than I do should be irrelevant. God has more than met my expectation – what is there for me to complain about?
If we join in this same chorus of complaint that echoes around us incessantly then we are as good as saying that God has not lived up to our expectations in supplying all our needs. And that is simply not true. Of course there are areas of legitimate complaint – I would be a fool to deny that. But let’s be sure that we are not denying the power or the grace of God before we step onto the slippery slope of complaint. And when we do let us always remember that we are children of God. We are representatives of His love and His grace. Let us choose our words wisely and deliver them circumspectly. Again it is the subtlety of our behaviour that confirms or denies to others the truth of our faith.
“Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” That was Paul’s call to the Philippian church. And it’s a call we all need to heed as well. It’s one thing to talk about our faith, it’s quite another to live consistently with it, by it and for it. We can only do that in the power of the Holy Spirit. The decision each one of us has to make this morning is whether we want to live worthy of the gospel. Once that decision is made the Holy Spirit will give us the strength and the continuing will to live up to that decision.
May God confirm His presence and His grace in all our lives.
Amen
