I’m continuing on with the theme today of how we respond to the Hui that was held here a couple of weeks back. The point that I talked on last week was that ‘love was the pursuit of relationships’. There’s an interesting question that we can address attached to this point and that’s to ask ‘when did relationships become fractured to the point that they need to pursued?’
Well this goes back a fair way apparently the children have been learning a line that will remind us all of when it all came unstuck, kids line: In the beginning God created everything and it was good, then we chose to disobey God and slowly everything went bad.
So it all goes back, our understanding of how to do relationships and to engage in love proper all came unstuck well before living memory, well before our time here on earth. Since then humanity has had to work at relationships, we have had to pursue them in a way that at times can require some real effort. If a relationship is worth having it’s worth a bit of effort to keep it going. Married couples does being married at times require the effort to listen to one another? People who have friends, when you communicate do you know what one another are doing?
Let’s have a bit of a look at a passage of scripture that might give us a bit of a pointer at a time in history when relationships got muddled: Genesis 1:1-9,
At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words. 2 As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.
3 They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.) 4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”
5 But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. 6 “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! 7 Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”
8 In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world.
The interesting thing with this passage is that we can look at it and say to ourselves as I did when I first read it, what was wrong with these people having a bit of ambition, about wanting a bit of fame? The answer is that this was their whole drive for doing what they did. At the Fall of Man, Adam and Eve had already distanced themselves from God, later Adam and Eve’s boy Cain had killed their boy Abel, They were moved with pride and ambition, preferring their own glory to God’s honour, to a relationship with God. They had come to a place of self-seeking; they no longer worshipped or honoured God.
Oversight of a situation is a remarkable thing; we get to look back in retrospect. Between Adam and Noah and the biblical account of the great flood there had been ten generations, it is thought 1100 years, the children’s line said things slowly went bad, it appears however that things quickly went bad. After the flood the pattern of behaviour that led to the flood appears to be becoming an issue for mankind again, that self-seeking sin indulgent culture was ripe again. With Noah’s great grandson Nimrod who it appears was responsible for the building of the Tower of Babel on his land behaving as he was, maybe that’s why being called a Nimrod is not a good thing. . Actually it appears with all of the people behaving out of pride and ambition…these people preferred their own glory to the glory of God. So we see that within four generations of the flood, mankind, our lot were up to their old tricks, putting themselves first and putting God on the back burner, dreadful people eh!
So the Lord came down to see the city. He had a discussion over the matter and decided to confuse their language. Notice the plurality of the discussion in verse seven, “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” We have a doctrine that says; We believe that there are three persons in the God head the Father, Son and Holy Spirit undivided in essence and coequal in power and glory. So the people were scattered all over the earth and their language was confused, from there the Lord scattered them all over the earth.
All interesting turn of events; the building of the city stopped.
The Hui we had highlighted issues around perceptions that had developed, that illuminated misunderstanding, I wonder what confused our communication over the past years.
Today I want to talk about engaging in language that is key to our ongoing mission, to the advancement of the kingdom of God here in the city of Dunedin and in The Salvation Army as a body across the city. There’s a question that arises, ‘how do we go forward engaging in such a way that we gain an understanding and not get confused about our part in God’s mission?’
I have an answer to this question, that has a bit to do with not acting out of pride or selfish ambition, out of putting God first and not doing anything outside of his directed mission for us. It all starts with leaving behind the language of confusion and engaging in the language of the kingdom.
So what is the language of the kingdom?
There’s a passage written by Paul that has a heap to do with communication, in fact Real Love. It’s found in 1 Corinthians 13. You may have read this passage last week after the service.
Now there are a few verses here that relate to communication:
Verse one: this addresses the speaking in the tongues of men and of angels, now you would think that speaking in tongues is certainly a language of the kingdom:
Verse two: addresses the gift of prophecy, now to bring a prophetic word, to engage people through being God’s voice to mankind, to bring warnings or understandings of the future now that must be a language of the kingdom.
Paul sums these verses up by stating that if he has these things and my reading of his letters and the Acts of the apostles leads me to understand he did, but has no love he is “only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol, that if he has no love he is nothing.”
What is love? Last week I said it is the pursuit of relationship. Paul sums love up by saying read this with me in verse four. “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth, it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Is there anyone here who would decline a relationship that had all those qualities? Is there anyone who would turn that kind of love away?
This is the love that God has shown us through Jesus. This is the love we turn away when we don’t practise it with one another. Do you love this this way, Do we all of us love one another this way?
Love keeps no record of wrongs; it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love is the language of the kingdom if we are to pursue kingdom relationships this is how we are to love.
Matter of interest ,Professor Meribian conducted a study that showed in communicating,; the face conveys 55% of information, the voice 38% and words just 7%. I remember a saying about actions speaking louder than words.
A few chapters on from here and Paul comes out with another couple of verses on love; “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.” (1 Corinthians 16:13-16) Paul saw that the church at the time was encountering as it does today wrong teaching, where a firm faith was not a key to the relationships that were occurring in the church, where the people were not courageous, or strong, where people were slipping back into old ways.
In a later letter to a young in the faith Christian, Paul warns Timothy about these people when he says this: You should know this, Timothy that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that! (2 Timothy 3:1-5, NLT). Well there’s an example of what is not love, what is not the language of the kingdom as we would be speaking it, kingdom language is none of the above. But how easy is it for us to act in these ways, to act this way with one another, out of selfishness to not act out of or speak out of love. When it happened at the tower of Babel, God confused their languages; did you notice what else occurred?
Verse eight of that passage from Genesis eleven says this “So the Lord scattered them from there all over the earth, [wait for it] and they stopped building the city.”
Kingdom growth stops where there is self-seeking, kingdom grow stops where Christians engage in worldly things rather than the things of and the language of the kingdom and people who were once part get scattered.
Paul say’s this in 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21: “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Do you see the actions of love in these things, we have been given a ministry of reconciliation, are we all reconciled with one another, we are to be ambassadors of reconciliation. Do we count someone’s sins against them or are we engaging in kingdom language, as though God were making his appeal through us?
If we are not reconciled to one another we are not reconciled to God, for the city to grow in Christ, for our mission to make inroads we are to be committed to the message of reconciliation, that message of love. Jesus, he who was without sin, became sin for us, ( refer 2 Corinthians 5:16-21) he took our place so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Do you realise the immensity, the hugeness of the price that was paid for our freedom, freedom given so that we can speak of this love, so that we can live this love, this language of the kingdom of God?
Paul tells the Corinthians this: “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and though us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” (2 Corinthians 9:11.) What if we look at the context of this passage Paul is talking about being rich in is righteousness. He is discussing how as people engage in kingdom living, engage in the language of the kingdom, that love as described in 1 Corinthians 13 a harvest of righteousness will occur. What is righteousness? It’s simple it’s being right with God. Being right with God is not where the people were at Babel. Their city stopped growing their language was confused and they were scattered.
We live in a city where many, many people are not right with God. When we are living, practising the language of the kingdom, they will come to know Christ, they will be saved.
There’s a pattern emerging: when we are right with God as individual as community great things happen as we act as God’s ambassadors; awesome kingdom growing, life changing, community enhancing, kids not going hungry, people supporting one another, peaceful times, people knowing their place in eternity because the Holy Spirit is residing with them, others being added to our number daily.
Do we want this or to remain confused?
Who would join with me in speaking the language of the kingdom? Who would join me in speaking God’s love?
