Climbers No.10 Unity

Let's open our Bibles at Psalm 133, which sets the theme of our service this morning, which also obviously incorporates an act of remembrance. It could be a service in which there's a little more disturbance than normal. We could have some competition from outside.

To the degree that we can, we'll synchronize, but that's not too easy as I can't see through that wall very well, only the lower window part. So when it gets to 11 o'clock, we'll be bringing the service to the point of remembrance and taking the traditional hymn later on, O God, our help in ages past. Psalm 133, let's enjoy reading this together.

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity. It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his ropes. It is as if the Jew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion, for there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.

Father, we pray that we might be a people who know your presence today, that as we've come in the name of our Lord Jesus, he may be with us, and we ask for a special anointing, not only on the proclamation of your word, but when we come around the table. The hallowing of memories too, when we pause and remember those who paid the supreme price to preserve freedoms in Europe during this last century. So make this a meaningful service.

Bless our boys and girls too, may they be able to enter into the spirit of it and be with those who help them as they go to their classes later on. For Jesus' sake, Amen. Let's stand and sing, we'll take it a little quickly.

God help me make a source of victory now. With this I'm marching on and for our lives. I am from every nation and from all over the earth.

And from the cross I'll raise you, my God, my King, my Lord. From the deep and deep abysses, I'll raise my Holy Ghost. And to my home, she praises, may every nation hear.

I'll sing a song of wonder, which she has not heard yet. I sing to her in silent tribulation. She wakes the night, she wakes the day.

I found it very difficult when I was asked to talk to boys and girls this morning about this special day. So I thought, well, first of all, what do we mean by special day? What days are special for you? What days are special? Birthdays, yep, that's one I've got on my list, good. Yes? Sundays, woo, that's one I haven't got on my list.

Very good. Saturdays, I bet you go and play golf with your dad or something, do you? Yeah, uh-huh. The parades, yes, they're special.

Yeah? Puppets, puppet days, yeah, there's one of those next week, that's a special day, yes. Yes? What's a special day? Christmas, that's the first one I've got, oh no, it's the second one I've got on my list, lovely, yes. And today's special, that's right.

Well, I've got holidays, Christmas, birthdays, weddings. Sorry? We've got some sledges, you're waiting for the first snow days, aren't you, that's right, yeah. We've got two, you've got a brother obviously, that's right, yeah.

New Year, Good Friday, would you like to come up here? How old are you? Three. Three? Anybody here who's four? Would you like to come out then? This is really messing my talk up, but never mind. You four, come and stand by me.

Anybody who's nine, would you like to come out and stand here? Oh, and you've got a nice camouflage uniform on, that's really soldier-like, that's really something, yeah. Well, at the end of my list of days, I've got Remembrance Day, which is today. I was in a shop yesterday, just before eleven o'clock, and suddenly an announcement came over, the loudspeakers in that shop, and said at eleven o'clock we will be sounding the fire alarm so that people who wish to do so can keep the two minute silence.

I thought that was rather nice, that they were doing that in the shop so that people could just stand quietly and remember what this day is about, this special day. Well, most special days are happy days, aren't they? Remember all those days you mentioned, weddings and Christmas and birthdays and holidays, and so on, they're happy days. Good Friday's not such a happy day, in some ways, and yet in other ways I guess it is.

But Remembrance Day, that's today, is sad and happy together. But I find it difficult, because I'm so old, to try to talk to you boys and girls about what Remembrance Day means, when it was so long ago. So what I thought I would do, I would try hard to remember what it was like when I was a boy.

I remember the first Remembrance Day, after what was called World War II, when the whole world had been fighting each other. It was terrible. But I remember that first Remembrance Day.

My dad, he got hold of my hand like this, and he took me up to the centre of Birmingham, a great big city, where thousands and thousands of peoples all got together in the Civic Centre to remember what had happened. And they wanted to thank God for the end of the war, and to remember the many men and women who had died in the fighting. The war started when I was only four, and it finished when I was nine.

So there's a big gap of what we now call happy childhood, between those two ages. That day, I remembered, as I stood next to my dad, I had a lot of things that had happened in those five years. I remember going to a great big railway station at the beginning of the war, and it was full of trains, old-fashioned steam trains.

And they were making such a noise, and all the platforms were full of soldiers dressed like this, and some in khaki, tin helmets on their backs, some with guns over their shoulders. And my mum took me down there, and I think, as far as I can remember, I was the only little boy on all that platform. And then she took me to where my dad was standing in one of the carriages, waiting to go up to the wall.

And she picked me up like this, for me to kiss Dad goodbye. And I gave Dad a kiss, and the train moved out, and I cried all the way back to my home, because I didn't want my dad to go to the war, to go to the fighting, and maybe to be killed. I was only four, but I understood what that meant, and I didn't want that.

I remembered another day. Don't you two start fighting now, eh? I remembered another day when I went off to school, in the middle of the war, still went to school, and after a few minutes I came back home and I said, Mum, I can't go to school today. She said, Why not? I said, I can't find the street to go down to get to school.

She said, Of course you can. I said, No, I can't. She said, Well, I'll come with you.

And she took me by the hand and we walked down the road, turned right, came to a big open space, which normally I had to cross over. There was a policeman in the middle directing all the traffic from all these different roads around this big circle. There was no policeman.

And the other side of that big open space, I had to go down the street. He wasn't there anymore. You see, in the night, when we'd all been in a big shelter underground, enemy planes had come over and they'd bombed.

They weren't trying to get those houses. They were trying to get all the factories that were around where I lived and the railway station because in those factories we were making guns and bullets and shells. And in the railway lines, we were putting those on the railway and sending them off to our soldiers fighting.

They'd been trying to bomb those places, but instead they'd hit all these houses. There weren't any streets anymore, just one flat pile of rubbish. It had all been broken down.

And of course, a lot of people were hurt and killed there. But on that first remembrance day after the war, I felt really happy. You see, my dad was there.

He'd come back and he took me to that centre of Birmingham and he held my hand and I stood proudly next to him. Can you stand to attention? Do you know how to stand to attention? Straight like this, holding my dad's hand. And I felt so glad.

See, remembrance day was happy because peace had come. There was no more fighting. And dad stood there, soldier that he was, and I felt so brave next to him because my dad was big and brave and strong.

He was a soldier and he was a champion boxer in the army. Oh, I felt really pleased with my dad. And then I thought, I love you, dad, and I looked up and my big, strong dad was crying.

See, he was remembering a lot of other daddies that hadn't come back from the war. And he was thinking about their children that couldn't stand anymore next to their dad. And he was very, very sad.

Those men had died so that we could be free and not captives of the enemy. I hope we never have another war like that. In fact, I don't like war at all.

I hope we never have another war. But all these wars come from one big war. That's the war between God and the devil.

The war between good and bad. Once every year now we have this special day and we have these poppies to remind us of those men who died so that we could be free. And every day now, every Sunday is a special day now because we remember the one man who died and read, just like those poppies, this reminds us of Jesus who shed his blood for us.

And the white reminds us, the white of the bread reminds us of his purity and how good and kind he was and how he died. Gave his body so that our bodies would not have to bear all the punishment for the wrong things we'd done because when we don't belong to Jesus we fight for the enemy. And so every Sunday we have this special service, the bread and the wine, to remind us of Jesus who died to save us all.

Not like some men died to save their own wives and family and their own country. But Jesus died to save us all so that we can be free from the enemy and free forever and ever. Thank you so much.

So in Psalm 133 we have a declaration. The God is pleased when his people find themselves in unity. The reason of course being that there is, as the apostle Paul makes plain in the Ephesian epistle, one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Now possibly this psalm was written, this example of a song for pilgrims, a song for climbers, was written as the inscription suggests. Right at the beginning of the psalm, though the inscriptions themselves do not claim any degree of inspiration by David, I think the evidence is affirmative that it was probably the king who authored this particular psalm. Maybe he did it on the occasion when he was anointed himself as king of Israel.

You remember that it was David who had been remarkably used by God to secure Jebus as Jerusalem was previously known for the Israelites and to make it what it is to this very day by God's preserving grace, the holy city, the headquarters of Judaism. It's perhaps not too easy for us to comprehend to the degree of attachment that the Old Testament Hebrews had and modern Jews have to Jerusalem. If I forget Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning.

If I forget Jerusalem, well, that perhaps would be an even greater disaster than a mother forgetting her children. And as David thinks about Jerusalem, about Zion and the people of God, so he underlines that when Jerusalem was captured, when it became the center of the Jewish faith, it was as a magnet that commanded the attention and the devotion of all the Hebrew people. It was just like having iron filings on a paper spread eagled around.

Then you put the magnet underneath and the iron filings jump into a pattern. So powerful was the influence of the concept of the holy city amongst the Jewish community. Now David is concerned as he reflects upon the establishment of Jerusalem that that same esprit de corps, that same oneness, that same unity, which was prevalent in those days may be recaptured and maintained throughout the whole of the future of the Jewish people.

And you will know that alas, David's hope was not to be fulfilled. Indeed, one of the things that is rife in the Old Testament, and you find some indication of this also in the New Testament, is the frailty of relationships. Here is Noah and he has problems with his sons.

Here is Jacob and there is difficulty in the family circle. As you make your way through the Old Testament and into the New Testament, you discover that always at threat is the relationship between father and sons, between brother and brother, between tribes and tribes. And David is here pleading that that unity that was known when Jerusalem was founded might be recovered and retained throughout the whole of Jewish history.

Today you had this last week a sorry example of the fact that David's advice, this pronouncement that he makes in this first verse, alas, has not been followed by the Jews. There has been split within Israel. You've got the right-wing orthodox religious Jews and you've got the secular Jews and the net result of the hostility was the terrible assassination of the Israeli prime minister.

Well, here is David ideally speaking of what he would like to see. This is a glorious affirmation. It is good, it is pleasant for brothers to live together in unity.

And that's followed by a couple of illustrations. David, like our Lord Jesus, anticipating the preaching style of the Savior, uses metaphor. When David tells us about God, he says God is like a shepherd.

When David tells us about Jonathan and Jonathan's love to him, he says it was surpassing even the love of a woman. Well, this unity, David, of which you speak, what is it like? He will tell you. It is like oil on the head.

It is like dew on the mountaintop. And he has in mind the anointing of Aaron, the brother of Moses, to the priestly ministry of the Hebrews yesteryear. He has in mind the fact that when Mount Hermon, very much to the north of Jewish territory, when it is snow-capped and when the sun gets up, the very effect of the sunshine on the snow influences the whole climate of that area.

Now, you can follow that analogy yourself quite easily. Why is it that sometimes Cornwall has balmy weather, warmer weather in the winter? And the answer is because of the stream that comes across from the Gulf. Why is it that sometimes in the north of Scotland it is so cold? And the reason is that we are affected by the weather in Siberia.

Well, David has this sort of metaphor in mind, this snow-kissed Hermon. When the sun rises and as a result there is a heavy dew, then the whole of Palestine is blessed. Hermon is higher than Zion.

As Hermon is blessed, so Zion is blessed. So when the northern Jews are blessed, the southern Jews are influenced. So in the church of Jesus Christ, when one person is blessed, that should mean that the rest of the church fellowship benefit likewise.

You see, the unity for which David speaks is not uniformity. He says how good it is for brothers to live together in unity. But there is a difference between united and being uniform.

If you looked at the remembrance service on television yesterday, you would have seen some of the military. You would have seen some of the old soldiers with their resplendent red uniforms. If you go to Buckingham Palace, you will see the Household Guard.

And they all look alike. The black busbys and again the scarlet uniform. And that word uniform gives us the concept of uniformity.

But this is not what David is speaking of. He is speaking about a unity that is not contrived. He is not launching a movement for religious clones.

When you come to Jesus, you do not dismiss your personality. Your personality is refined. When a man marries a woman, when the woman marries the man, she does not sacrifice her personality.

Rather, the two are welded together by God's grace, at least ideally, and they contribute one towards the other. Now, when the Apostle Paul picks up the theme of David's here in unity, as he speaks to the Corinthians, he talks about the church as a body. And he says, well, what does the body have? It has eyes, it has ears.

Can the whole body be an eye? Well, that would be an absurdity. Just one big eye facing you this morning in the pulpit. I mean, it is bad enough what you have to cope with in any case.

But what is the body? Well, it is made up of disparate parts. And each part makes a contribution. There is unity in the body, though there is not uniformity in terms of each part of the body.

Each one has its own distinctive function. Well, says David, when Israel is at its best, brothers live together in unity. That is both good and it is also pleasant.

It is good for one another. It is pleasant before the Lord. He says it has the same beneficial effects nationally as these two illustrations to which I have referred.

When Aaron was ordained to the ministry, there was no miserliness in terms of the oil that was placed upon his head and dropped down to his beard and then to the outer canopy of his garment and then dropped down to his feet. The whole of his body was anointed. There was a surplus of ointment.

When our Lord Jesus was prepared with that remarkable tender act of an unknown woman as she breaks her flask of alabaster ointment and anoints him, the anointing oil is on the head if you read the gospel account carefully and it goes from Jesus' body down to his feet. A copious anointing. His whole body benefiting from it.

Now don't you see, my friend, when we are functioning together, when by God's grace we are ministering in the area where God has talented us, when with generosity we apply ourselves to the ministry that God has given us, we benefit not ourselves alone. We benefit everybody. One faith, one Lord, one doctrine, one God and Father of us all and it's all working for that objective.

I had a letter from my good friend J. John in the tab mail this week. He was telling me how he, I believe it was him, certainly he told me that this was an accurate incident so it was either him or one of his colleagues was scheduled to meet a somewhat unsophisticated African bishop. First time that he'd been into England.

First time that he'd negotiated Heathrow and the customs area. Didn't know what the customs signs were. He had no idea what the green meant as opposed to the red so he elected to go to the red.

And the customs officer says what have you come to declare? And he says I have come to declare the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Well, I mean this is wonderful, isn't it? You see, this is the unity and yet not the uniformity. I mean how many clergy will have gone through the red channel? Honest men that they be.

What have you got to declare? Well, this man says he deals in fundamentals. In his simplicity, he underlines the fact that there is a one message that he proclaims that is to be proclaimed in the United Kingdom. Of course, that is the same here.

You see, we're all proclaiming the message. We're all wanting to enhance it but we do it in different ways because God is giving us different gifts. Not everyone an eye, not everyone a leg, not everyone a mouth.

There are these giftings which the Lord has given us and when they're operating together, says the Apostle Paul and he uses a very wonderful word in Ephesians when he makes it plain. He said when they're operating together, one ligament supplies the next ligament. Now, I don't think that physiologically he could sustain that but occasionally your metaphor can run a little bit riot.

It can go beyond what is actually literally possible but there is a sense, isn't there, within the body that one member does benefit another. I mean, generally speaking, that the blood nourishes the whole body but there is a sense in which the eyes affect the feet. After all, they help the feet in the direction but the eyes alone cannot move.

They need the feet to minister to them so that the body compacted together can operate as the intelligent mind so directs it. Well, says David, this is the same here. Israel at its best, it's like that copious pouring out of ointment on the head of Aaron.

Israel at its best is like Hermon when she catches the snow and the sun comes and as a result, the whole of Palestine is blessed. Even Mount Zion is graced by the functions of Hermon. So you see how David makes his point very plain.

There is an affirmation, how good it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. There is an illustration of his pronouncement in these two stories or these two metaphors which he uses. And then he concludes the whole thing.

His final consideration is this. This is why it is so important. There.

There what? Well, there the Lord. There the Lord does what? Well, there the Lord bestows his blessing. Where? There.

What? The blessing. Who? The Lord. You see how David's logic here, assuming that it is David, as I believe, as I mentioned, was the author of this psalm.

You see the logic behind it. There is going to be blessing. Where is it, David? Well, the blessing is going to be in Jerusalem.

Why Jerusalem, David? Well, that's where God has designated his presence to be felt. And therefore the Jews are to come to Jerusalem regularly. But you take that concept from the Old Testament and you put it into the New Testament.

And there is a sense, as we've demonstrated to you from the New Testament, in which we're all members of Zion. There's a sense on a Sunday that we come to Zion. For Zion is no longer a geographical location.

It is a spiritual disposition. And we come together as members of Zion. For what reason? Well, because we want to know the presence of God.

And our beloved Lord says, Where two or three are gathered together in his name. There he is. Where? Well, in Zion.

Where two or three are gathered together. Who? The Lord. The Lord making his presence known.

For what reason? Well, so that he can bestow the blessing. You see, blessings are not passed on to other people to bestow. The only one who can distribute blessing is our Lord Jesus Christ at the spiritual level.

I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. No one else could say that. There's no other person to whom you can have recourse for this sort of thing.

There is only one name designated by God under heaven whereby men and women can be saved. Whose name is it? It's the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. There, when people are gathered together in unity, the Lord bestows his blessing.

And what does that blessing mean? Well, we've touched on it. Life forevermore. Not just life through your uncertain earthly pilgrimage.

Life beyond the grave. Life in God's eternity. And now the Hebrew community were to be a distinctive nation.

They were to herald this message of God throughout the world. And one of the reasons at the human level why they failed is because of the disunity that there was. The kingdom broke within decades after David had died, split into two.

You know the story of the Jews? Scattered, brought together again, scattered, brought together again. And here we have them in Israel at the moment, at least a representative company. Are they Christian? No.

The majority of Jews are atheists, actually. And there is this disunity amongst them. I don't select them as an example over against any other race.

We find it in the British Isles. Look at the disunity that there is in our own country. One person fighting against another person.

You listen to one politician. I speak with respect. I think by and large there are decent men and women doing their task as best they can.

You listen to one bunch of arguments. It's countered by another bunch of arguments. And you wonder, where is the truth? Where are we going? And one of the things that this nation needs more than anything else is to recover unity.

The concept of being together. This was one of the things about the wars. God forbid that we should have another war, the Third World War.

But nonetheless, those of you who have recall of the earlier wars know this, that there was a solidarity then that there is not now. Now David is speaking about this solidarity. He wants it for Israel.

Our Lord Jesus wants it for the church, that you may be one. As I am in a one-ship with the Father, so there may be a unity of purpose between you and me. The church is never more strong than when she's one.

But this one is not a cosmetic unity. It's not a papering over the cracks. It's a unity of doctrine.

It's a unity of purpose. It's a unity that's epitomized by that African bishop who said, I have come to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, but against that there can be no compromise.

And in the advance of that gospel, it needs a whole army of people. Some pushing pens. Some writing radio scripts.

Some on the front lines. Some backing up in prayer. Some making money and directing the money into the cause of God.

It needs the church to be functioning as a whole. It needs God's people loving one another, forgiving one another, helping one another along, realizing that at best we're all a bunch of failures. But by God's grace, he takes the weak things and makes them strong.

He takes the despised things and he gives them a wisdom. And when the church is inflamed by that Pentecostal power that the Lord Jesus dispenses as he returns to heaven, then she becomes the church that she needs to be. Then the Lord bestows the blessing.

When? When there's unity. And when there is unity, not only is God blessed and the church strengthened, but when there is unity, the world feels the impact of the church. May it be the case in our day and generation.

Amen. The Lord be with you. As we pray, O God, grant us unity.

For you and I to join our hearts in praise. Of Jesus will be lifted high above the earth. Then the world will know that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Let us be one voice that glorifies your name. Let us be one voice declaring that you reign. Let us be one voice in love and harmony.

As we pray, O God, grant us unity. Let us be one voice that glorifies your name. Let us be one voice declaring that you reign.

Let us be one. As we pray, O Lord, grant us harmony. Father, as we hear the haunting trumpet, the bugle sound, we're mindful of the needs of our world today, all that we might have learned our lessons, all that there might not have been a Gulf War, let alone dozens of others since the last World War.

Preserve this nation. Restore us back to the basic foundations. Be with our Queen and her consort, her Prime Minister and his government.

Lord, remember this nation. In your mercy, forgive. And with fresh optimism, send us forward into tomorrow to be your people.

Bring us back to the ancient paths. And this we ask for the Savior's sake. Amen.