Thursday 8 August
Laura Bell is from Christian Fellowship Church in South Belfast which was planted six years ago. She has completed a Masters degree in Kingdom Theology and is passionate about seeing young leaders empowered and equipped to lead across all sectors of society.
It is wonderful to be with you again. It is truly special to join with brothers and sisters from across this island and beyond to worship Jesus. Tonight we are going to be looking at the topic of Extraordinary Power.
2 Corinthians 4:7 (NRSV) “..this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”– His power is not of this world and it is given to those who give their undivided allegiance to the king of kings. Christlike power is the power of love. There is nothing more attractive than communities and individuals that are embodying the gospel of Jesus in the power of the Spirit. Their lives have a quality of love in kindness, hospitality, gentleness and humility. This spiritual power is both the greatest power that we can have but it is also the most costly power because it means dying to self and inviting the Spirit to produce the character of Christ in us for the sake of the world.
Our main passage is from Galatians 5:16, 19-25 (NLT)
Challenging words from the Apostle Paul and a choice given to us about who or what has Lordship of our life. The fruit of the Spirit is the character of Christ.
Romans 5:5 (NIV) God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. When we choose to surrender our lives to Christ, God’s love flows into our hearts. We become a prism. God’s love is like the single beam of light that comes to us and flows directly into our hearts and then it disperses out through our lives in different colours of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, etc. The world needs the church to embody this power right now.
Tonight we are looking at “gentleness” – to be meek or gentle in spirit. It means to completely submit our lives to God’s leadership. Human power under human control is like a weapon in the hands of a child. God’s power is power turned outward in service. In a time, when we have witnessed so much abuse of power, desires of the flesh and selfish ambitions; when we are seeing such anger and hostility, our world needs a church that embodies gentleness.
Some of us have written off gentleness as weak or womanly. But it is not weak! Prautēs in the Greek is translated “meek,” or “gentle of Spirit” and it means to “exercise God’s strength under His control . . . demonstrating power without harshness.” Although the Greek word is wide ranging only two people in the Bible are explicitly described by this word – Moses and Jesus. Surely Jesus’ followers should be gentle too?
Isaiah 40: 10 -11 – tucked right in the middle of this description of God’s power are these words in verse 11… He tends is people like flock. The same passage that expresses the magnitude of His power also shows the majesty of His gentleness. Gentleness is the use of power in the right way. Even though I may have the capacity to be harsh, to put someone in their place, to crush them, I treat them with sensitivity and care, recognising that all human beings are frail. It is a power that comes from trusting God for the outcome rather than trying to manipulate things in accordance with what I want.
It takes God’s power to be gentle.
We all have power, if we all understand it is the ability to exercise help or hurt in any circumstances. Even my youngest daughter who absolutely love babies, has power. I need to remind her to be gentle with the baby.
We need to be able to recognise our power in the areas of our lives and come into a posture of asking the Spirit to cultivate gentleness in us so that our power will not be directed by our own selfish ambitions. The world would say you won’t get far with gentleness. We live in a system and culture that is dominated by ambition, hostility and cancel culture. Politics is anything but gentle. Even theology can be harsh.
When I played hockey… we use to say win, attack and destroy! Our world has a worldview that would deem gentleness to be weak but to be gentle is to recognise that God’s ways are higher than the thoughts of this world.
Gentleness is to accept God’s worldview. To submit to Him and to be formed by Christ and His spirit rather than be deformed by the world.
My husband’s friends drove tractors to school. They didn’t say “hello, how are you”… they said, “’bout you.” We are formed by our environment, our culture and the world that we live in. Paul in Galatians 5 tells us what it means to be formed by the things of this world. Hatred, jealously, dissension, etc.
Gentleness is named as a contrast of and an antidote to these selfish behaviours. Gentleness leverages power not for selfish gain but for the sake of others. Jesus was gentle but forceful. He cared for the vulnerable.
The question is not how powerful are we but how we are using our power.
Too often we can be easily offended and retaliate when we are attacked. Or we use our power for our own selfish reasons. Paul is saying you do not have to be subject to the things of human nature.
You are not culture shaped, you are cross shaped.
There is a better way and it has been demonstrated to us in the person of Jesus. Choose who will be Lord. In the four gospels, there is only one place in which Christ shares with us the words of His very heart,
“Come to me all you who are weary… for I am gentle and humble in heart.” Matthew 11:28 – 30.
Jesus is not strict and demanding. Let Jesus set the terms, He is gentle and humble in heart. Let us stop trying to make Jesus in our image and listen to what He tells us about who He is. The heart is not about emotion it is the centre of being. When Jesus reveals what defines His life, He says He is gentle.
We see throughout the New Testament the contrast between Jesus and the religious leaders:
- They marginalised but Jesus offered mercy
- They crushed but He offered compassion
- They judged, He offered justice.
- Jesus is humble not harsh. He is the most understanding person in the universe.
- His posture is not a pointed finger but open arms.
Matthew 12:18-20 (NIV) – speaking of Jesus Matthew says He will not crush or condemn, dismiss or degrade. The bruised reed and the smouldering wick demonstrate our vulnerability. He deals with everyone gently until their true need is revealed and they are open to Him for help.
When He encounters people who have failed, He is gentle. The teachers of the law wanted retaliation not restoration with the woman caught in adultery. Jesus reminded them to be mindful of their own sin. They all left one by one leaving Jesus alone with the woman. In John 8:11 He tells her, “I do not condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Jesus is not passive about sin. He takes it seriously but to those who take His yoke, to those who are repentant, His heart of gentleness is to make restoration possible.
The Restoration Business
The church is called into the restoration business. There is no greater example than the way He restores Peter in John 21 after Peter’s appalling denial. Peter must have thought that his days as a disciple were over. How could he ever face Jesus again? How could he face the other disciples?
That day on the beach, Jesus sat and made them bread and fish. After breakfast, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” The three questions recall the three denials. Peter replies in anguished repentance, “Jesus, I love you” He needed to know that he was loved and forgiven. Peter the failure became Peter the forgiven through an encounter with the extraordinary gentleness of Jesus.
Some of us here tonight need a heart to heart with Jesus. You’ve written yourself off. You are burdened. You are crushed with a heavy load and Jesus is inviting you. Come to me. You don’t need to sort your life out and then come to Jesus. Your burden is the reason you need to come.
What Jesus says, he does. His ministry has incredible impact to heal and restore because of His gentleness.
What does it mean for us to cultivate a life with that same extraordinary power of gentleness?
We treat others gentleness.
To be gentle is to recognise the frailty and vulnerability of those around us. All of us have power to crush.
Every Christmas all four of us in our house decorate the tree and then I decorate it again after the kids have gone to bed. Every year, we say to the kids, “be gentle, these ornaments are fragile.” But every year they break one. WE are all more fragile than we think.
In Galatians 6 Paul reminds us, Brothers and sisters when someone sins, restore them gently. The Spirit is not one of rejection but restoration. It does not mean that we don’t preach holiness. To be gentle means we are safe people to be around. Why were the worst sinners always around Jesus? They ran from the religious leaders but they ran to Jesus.
Are we safe to confide in? This is not to be passive and say, “there, there” but to walk people towards repentance and restoration. We need to choose to love people despite their failures and to walk alongside them in their journey to restoration in Christ.
“Where I see an enemy to be defeated, he sees a wound that needs to be healed. That’s a deep difference.”
Stanley Hauerwas
We respond gently in order to direct without damaging and to help without hurting. The Spirit invites us to cultivate gentleness by being gentle towards others but also by being gentle towards ourselves.
We are gentle with ourselves
For many of us, we feel like we are running up a descending escalator. Perhaps we feel we don’t match up. Grace for you but I carry a burden of guilt. Many of us have standards for ourselves that no one can meet. Expectations that Christ has not put on . We can be so harsh and condemning with ourselves.
“One of the most shocking contradictions of Christian living is how they can view themselves…they would never judge any other of God’s children with the savage self-condemnation with which they crush themselves. And it is only through experiencing the relentless, tender love of Jesus that we first learn to be gentle with ourselves.”
Brendan Manning
I am my own worst critic and often feel I can never be good enough. We need to apply His gospel towards our own lives. To come to Him and allow Him to minister to our hearts. For parents, you may feel like you fail as a mother or a father. The invitation is to feel His gentleness. Some of you are struggling with some pattern of addiction. The invitation is to come to Jesus.
Some of you had a plan for your life. Maybe life hasn’t turned out the way you thought it would. It is often easier to offer gentleness to others than it is to apply it to others. You can only give what you have received. Think of your failures. Think of your inconsistency. In all these things, our Jesus has been gentle towards you. He holds out an invitation to come to Him. Those who are weary from the striving to be someone you are not, burdened by the expectations that He never put on you. You will find rest for your souls when you come to Him.
And when we receive from the deep well of His gentleness, then we can give it away. Relying on will power will not cut it. True transformation works from the inside out.
We need His power
It is like gentling. Wild horses have to be gentled before they can be tamed and trained. We do this b surrendering our will to His power, inviting Him to tame the wildness in our sinful attitudes and inviting Him to transform us into His gentle likeness.
We need a life of prayer.
The fruit of the spirit grows in abiding prayer. This fruit is the product of a life rooted and abiding in Christ. Fruit can only grow from the vine that gives it life. Gentleness can only come from a living relationship with a gentle God.
Why does Paul put such a strong emphasis on gentleness being evident in the church of Jesus Christ?
Our extraordinary Saviour saves us in the most extraordinary display of gentleness – the world sees it as weakness. He entrusted Himself into the hands of His Father.
We want to use our own power to get our own way. The way of the Spirit is to surrender to His power. To trust ourselves into the hands of our Father. The hands of our Father God hold incomparably power. They flung the stars into space but they are also hands that gather up His lambs and carry them close to His heart.
I came to faith through reading the gospel of Luke that contained the stories of Jesus’ life. As I reflected on what compelled me to my knees to surrender my life to the Saviour, it wasn’t His miracles although they were extraordinary, it was the way He touched the lives of ordinary people. He brought restoration and healing. He crossed over boundaries with His radical love. He included people and call them His beloved. The most powerful hands that ever walked the earth, touched people with gentleness.
And tonight the Lord Jesus is here and He is in the business of restoring and revealing His love so that we can be in the restoration business too: a church called to exemplify the extraordinary power of gentleness.