Living Adverts, Part 2
25th April 2009
Last week, I asked you to think about the prayer:
Lord, make me a better advert for your kingdom
This week I want to start to look at that prayer in more detail.
We become better adverts for God through growing the fruit of the Spirit, and learning to walk with Him:
Galatians 5v22-25
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
When we're full of these attributes, we will shine for Jesus more than we do now. But we are also called to repent of bad attitudes, and we need to name them in order to repent of them.
Over the next three weeks, I'd like to look at the first three aspects of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy and peace. And I've identified the opposites of these positive character attributes.
We start this week by looking at joy:
JOY
Joy is a great advert for God's kingdom. The pure joy that comes from knowing that we are God's children is unlike anything else. A Christian can be joyful at the same time that he is sick or unemployed or even being persecuted. Christian joy is due to our relationship with God and so is not dependant on circumstances.
I mentioned the opposite of joy last week. It's grumpiness. You can't be joyful and grumpy at the same time. And you can't bring joy into somebody else's life while your complaining. Consider:
Philippians 2v14-16
Do everything without complaining or arguing,
so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved
generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe
as you hold out the word of life...
I've encountered many churches where you'd think that scripture had never been read. And I know many Christians who seem never to have even tried to obey it. Sadly, this seems especially true of the more experienced believers (all right, older believers). There are, of course, many wonderful exceptions to this. I number among my friends Christians in their seventies who never complain, and Christians in their seventies who often complain. I honestly believe that those in the latter group have no idea how much damage they do, what a poor advert for the kingdom of God they've become.
As your granny probably taught you, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all". That's still good advice. If you want to complain, ask yourself if you expect the complaint to build the other person up. If not, re-phrase it until it does. This is such basic stuff, but many Christians don't do it. The result: discouraged Christians and a poor advertisement.
Lord, forgive me for being grumpy and help me to be positive
Colossians 4v6
Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer
everyone.
And we can't worship God while being grumpy. But when the church worships with joy in our hearts and on our faces, it speaks powerfully of the goodness and love of God.
Choose joy! Choose both to receive joy and to give joy. Draw near to God and let him fill you with joy, and then let that joy out, without complaining or arguing (even when you're right) so that you can be the best possible advert for Jesus Christ and his kingdom.
Next week: love.