Good Advice for a New Year

A yardstick by which you can check each day, each week, each month. And my suggestion is that you do that, you take this particular verse and let's have it, the beginnings of the overhead just shot up there. Let's take this particular verse because it is good advice, good advice for you and for me down these next 365 days.

I take my car fairly frequently to Cedar Garage and it's amazing what they can do with just initial tests. I mean the dipstick, they can check the oil, well I guess I could do that for myself if I wasn't so lazy. You take the cap off the radiator, you can check the amount of water and then there's many electrical as well as mechanical tests which John Kennard and his band of merry men can apply to your car and tell you what conditions it's in or shake his head and say if I was your mate I would dump it.

This text, it's like that, it becomes if you like the oil test if you want of your spirituality. Lacking in zeal, serving the Lord, maintaining spiritual fervor. Jonathan Edwards used to check himself against various categories, various strictures of Scripture day by day during his life in America.

Well I'm suggesting that we do that with this particular text. It's set in the context of church life. Here's the Apostle Paul writing to a group of people at Rome and he tells them a lot of things that they ought to be involved in, aspects of their activity but it seems as though when he gets to this 11th verse he gives this summary statement and as this verse was meaningful to them so many centuries back it should be meaningful to us.

John Wesley was reckoned to be an enthusiast. The word enthusiast was a sort of pejorative term, a term of criticism in his century and Wesley's enthusiasm was for his religion. His mother couldn't understand.

His mother, Susanna, she was a clergyman's wife and they lived in the little village of Epworth where his father was the director and it all been very comfortable and very conservative, very respectable but then John Wesley had such a remarkable experience of the grace of God that he started to do some things that were astonishing, absolutely extraordinary. He'd speak in the open air and that just was not recognized in those days. He would actually make the subject matter of his Sunday address part and parcel of the conversation on a Monday and a Tuesday and a Wednesday and Susanna just couldn't understand it.

Why had John become so enthusiastic? Now it seems to me that what John Wesley had caught hold of was what the Apostle Paul is mentioning here in our verse. There is an enthusiasm, there is an excitement that should be part of our Christian walk. It should be our experience.

When I was a lad back home in Sheffield with my brother after the war years and there wasn't an awful amount of money around for food. It's amazing what my mother could do with stuff that we called dumplings and that really was quite a treat. You could smell the dumplings at about 50 yards outside the house and there was a modicum of meat, lashings and lashings of gravy but what made the dumplings so appetizing was a little bottle of sauce that we call, and you can get it still today, relish.

You put your relish on the dumplings. I can see it, smell it now and you baptize the lot with even more gravy and then you tucked in and the name of the sauce was actually descriptive of the experience that you had as these baptized dumplings slipped down your throat. Relish, relish.

Do you relish your Christian faith? Do you relish it? Because that's what the Apostle Paul, it seems to me, is here saying. So let's put our finger on this text and let's tap it to use the instruction given to us by Brother Bob Brown the other day at our early morning communion. Tap the text and it invariably opens into three parts.

It's incredible. What should be shunned? Never be lacking in zeal. What should be fostered? Well, keep your spiritual fervor.

How should this be shown? By serving the Lord. What should be shunned? And as you approach this year in your Christian department, what should be shunned? What is the opposite of zeal? Not easy. I mean, the opposite of tidy is untidy.

The opposite of skillful is unskillful. But what is the opposite of zeal or zealous? Well, it seems to me that you've got to dip into the dictionary because you can't get an antonym from the actual word zeal itself. And the dictionary will give you tardiness.

If you're not too sure what that means, try slovenly or being slothful. That's really the meaning in the original. Don't be slothful.

Don't be like the sluggard in your service for the Lord. The sluggard, well, he's a fellow that you read of in the book of Proverbs. He's almost a semi-comical figure.

You know, he doesn't like to get up in the morning. Maybe I should be preaching this address tonight. The writer of Proverbs says that he's actually hinged to his bed like a door is hinged to the upright.

If you check the word slovenly or the word sluggard in that book, you find this man who believes that life owes him a living, but he doesn't want to exert too much energy in order to get the wherewithal to sustain life. So, the writer says, how long will thou sleep, O sluggard? Listen to this. This is choice.

As vinegar to the teeth, so is the sluggard to those who sent him. In other words, he doesn't exactly contribute much to your friendship if he happens to be an associate of yours. The sluggard, I go on, the sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold, but in the autumn he will beg.

So, you've got this figure, this character who's so lazy. When the apostle Paul gives out what has become for us this morning by our choice, the motto text, he says, don't be like that. Don't be slothful in business.

The character that emerges actually splits into further, into another two subdivisions. He fails to attend to the business without. Now, you think of our Lord Jesus.

I mean, he's anything but what the apostle Paul is getting out with this opening negative comment. Never be lacking in zeal. Jesus was not lacking in zeal.

He wasn't a slovenly sort of individual. Here he is, and you find him in Luke's gospel, the second chapter, right at the end. And his parents, Joseph, his guardian, Mary, his literal mother, they've taken him to Jerusalem, and they've gone back to Nazareth, and Jesus is still there.

You remember? They're some miles away from Jerusalem, and they discover that Jesus isn't amongst them. So, they go back quickly to Jerusalem, and they meet the young Jesus, and he's talking to the leaders of Judaism. And when his parents remonstrate with him, he says, don't you know I must be about my father's business? You see, he commits himself to that which is without, the business of his father.

And that's what a person who is not a slovenly always does, commits himself. The character, however, that emerges in Proverbs is a man who fails to attend to the business without, and therefore, secondly, he fails to maximize the potential within. I've got a picture on my desk in my office which brings tears to my eyes.

It's of a little lass who fell into the fire in Eastern Europe. She's a girl who was brought up in Romania. She can't be more than 18 months old, and she has no hands.

Her hands were burnt off in the fire. You can only see one eye. The other eye was burnt away.

The face doesn't really look human, but I'm told that she is a very lovable, and strangely enough, considering the horrendous injuries that were inflicted on her as a result of this burning, she's a very happy lass. Now, she doesn't have the potential to be a piano player because she has no fingers. There are many things that she cannot do in the life, however long it will be, that is ahead of her, and therefore, you couldn't blame her because there is a limit imposed by her accident on her, but not you, not me.

We have a potential to be maximized. You know the word bankrupt? It applies not only to someone who's lost their money. It can apply to your spirituality.

England is littered with bankrupt churches, empty churches. It's littered with a bankrupt Christianity, which is just a mild copy and barely that of what it should really be, and when the Apostle Paul in this verse says, don't be lacking in zeal, he's packing into that negative all the things that Christianity should not be, all the things that he, the Apostle Paul, rebelled against. He wants this church in Rome to be dedicated to the cause of Christ.

God wants us at the tab to be like that. Shun being slothful. Shun being lazy.

Maximize the potential within in order that you can attend to the business without it. What should be shunned? Let's move on. What should be fostered? Never be lacking in zeal.

There's the negative, but he moves as is often Paul's preaching style from the negative to the positive. Keep your spiritual fervor and then serving the Lord. Keep your spiritual fervor.

This actually is the use of the word zeal in its positive sense. What does zeal mean? Commitment, eagerness, enthusiasm, love, loyalty. You know, in the days of our Lord Jesus, there were politically zealous people.

People who were so committed to a particular political philosophy that it dominated their lives. And Jesus seemed to acknowledge, perhaps not the philosophy, but the enthusiasm of individuals by calling one of them to be his disciple, Simon, who was a zealot. And the very zealousness that Simon has as a politician.

Jesus wants transferring into a religious category. I sometimes wish that the enthusiasm of people who are committed to football clubs in our country was reflected by people who go to church. Now, let me say that there are a lot of people in that latter category who do have that enthusiasm, an even greater one, but oh, that it was more widespread.

The Apostle Paul, he was an enthusiast before he became a Christian. You remember how when he's writing to the early churches, he talks about himself as being a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was a member of a religious society, a Pharisee.

He came from a very good family background. He could trace his lineage back to the tribe of Benjamin. But when he's writing to the Galatians, he tells us about the zealousness that he had in his previous years, and he didn't lose that zealousness when he became a Christian, did he? Think back to what you were committed to before you became a Christian, and ask if that commitment has been sustained, though rechanneled, now that you belong to Jesus Christ.

You've made him your Lord and your Savior. I love General Booth and the story of General Booth and Salvation Army. I think if I'd been around in his day in London, I would have been a double-minded man.

I mean by that, I would have been attracted to Charles Spurgeon for his preaching, and I'd have been attracted to General Booth for the pomp and circumstance of the Salvation Army. I mean, this guy, he goes to the east end of London, he sees all the drunks and so on and so forth. He realizes that his ministry is not the same as Spurgeon, so he does something completely different.

He gets some trumpets, he gets some tambourines, he gets a new rig out for himself and for his converts, and he establishes the Salvation Army. And General Booth becomes one of the illustrious figures of the Victorian world, and he likes his pot of tea. He always has the kettle on the stove, and he says of his religion, I want my religion like my tea, hot, hot.

And this very word in the original, translated here, keep your spiritual fervor, is actually keep the pot boiling. Always be at that temperature where you could mash, as we would say in the north of England, make, as you say down here in the south, the tea. Only we're not talking about tea, we're talking about spirituality.

God likes things hot. He really does. You go to Revelation, there you find that interesting verse in the third chapter about a church being assessed by God.

And he says, the problem with that church is, it's at neither extreme. He can just about tolerate coldness. He seems to be very ecstatic about being at boiling point, but to be tepid, because you are neither hot nor cold, I'll spit you out of my mouth.

Very strong language for John daringly to use and to put into the mouth of God. There are two types of zeal, my friend. There is a zeal that condemns, and there is a zeal that consumes.

The Apostle Paul knew both zeals in his life. In his early life, the zeal that condemned. He was zealous at the stoning of Stephen, wasn't he? I mean, he does say when he's giving his testimony in Acts 22 and 3 and Galatians 1 14, that in the area when he was committed to Judaism, there was no Jew that out-Jewed him.

I mean, he went from house to house, didn't he? The early church, you know the story, the Acts of the Apostles, those second, third, fourth chapters, those great glorious men and women, so brave, so courageous. They embraced the way of Jesus. They turned away from orthodox Judaism, and they risked their lives.

And here's Paul, and he wants to keep Judaism firmly and soundly based on what he believes Moses has taught. He wants to keep it pure. So, what does he do with zealousness? He goes from house to house, and he carries off the men, folk.

And he's there as Stephen, that tremendous orator, that evangelist come deacon of the first century. He's there as Stephen, whose influence many to the cause of Christ is done to death. I was zealous, but it's a zeal that condemned him, a zeal that he came to wish that he'd never involved himself in.

There's a zeal that condemns. There's also a zeal that consumes. Do you remember when our Lord Jesus goes into the temple? John's Gospel chapter 2 and verse 17 will tell you of this.

He is so annoyed by what goes on there. After all, a temple, the temple, it was his father's house. It was a place where people should come together for worship.

But instead of doing that, they turned it into a first century stock exchange. So, Jesus is violated. His spirit just recoils at this sort of blasphemy, and he cleanses the temple.

This is not your meek and mild Jesus. He doesn't exist. This is a man with a passion.

Passion for God has consumed me. Again, allow me, if I may, to go to the original. It means it has eaten me up.

I am so concerned. The zeal that I have for God is the overriding thing. It gobbles me.

It eats at me. It eats me away. When you go to the second Corinthians in chapter 7, you find the Apostle Paul there engaging in a little bit of biography as he remembers the Ephesians, as he remembers the Corinthians and how they used to serve the Lord.

Second Corinthians, did I say first? Second to their early days of service and their dedication, and the way that they had such a concern for Paul and for his well-being, just as an individual, a real love for their pastor. And he says, you became, this is verse 9, you became sorrowful as God intended, and so we were not harmed in any way. You were not harmed in any way by us.

Godly sorrow, sorrow for your sins, sorrow for your past letting Christ down at various stages as you entered into the Christian way of life and found that there were times when you were compromising. When that was brought to your attention, you were so full of remorse. Godly sorrow brings repentance.

It led to salvation. It leaves no regrets. See what this sorrow has produced in you, what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done at every point you proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.

And you've got the idea of this church so concerned for the glory of God that they were getting rid of all that in any way offended Him. What zeal for holiness, what zeal for a consistent way of life. Are you consumed by that sort of zeal? Have you so channeled the zealousness that you had for other things before you became a Christian that that zeal is now applied to your way of life as a Christian? You've dismissed the zeal that condemns.

You've left yourself open to the zeal that consumes. There is a zeal test. You say, what is a zeal test? Well, let me suggest to you that you've got it there in the 48th song in our supplement.

Let's have that on the overhead for a moment. God be in my head and in my understanding. God be in mine eyes and in my looking.

God be in my mouth and in my speaking. That's zeal, isn't it? Zeal in my head, dedication. Zeal in my understanding, wanting to be what God wants me to be in the realm of my mind and comprehension, my eyes, my mouth, my heart, my end.

That's the zeal test. Let's sing it. God be in my head and in my understanding.

God be in mine eyes and in my looking. God be in my mouth and in my speaking. God be in my heart and in my thinking.

God be at my end and at my departing. How did you rate in the zeal test? There's a lovely story that was in the press this last week. If you want an illustration of zeal from a sort of gynecological point of view, you watch a baby when it's been born.

It's cradled by its mother and he or she comes for a drink. I mean, forget the idea of being polite. There are burps and goodness knows what in terms of musical accompaniment that come from his stomach or from her stomach, but the child is committed to getting as much nourishment as possible.

I don't know if the cameras can get this picture on the screen, but here is a little baby whose name is Alicia Collier. No ordinary baby. She's actually born with two teeth.

Can you imagine how mother was rejoicing when she took this little lass to herself? Actually, she's opted for bottle feeding. But the fact of the matter is that that little baby represents, at least by way of illustration, what the Apostle Paul is speaking of when he makes reference to zeal. He wants something with teeth in.

He wants someone who has a desire, who won't let go unless he or she is satisfied. There is a sense in which to be greedy is to be spiritually mature. That's why Wesley was glad to embrace the term enthusiast.

What should be shunned? Well, a failure to attend to the business without, a failure to maximize potential within. What should be fostered? The zeal that consumes. What should be applied? The zeal test.

But what does this zeal do? Let me conclude by showing you. How is this zeal shown? And the Apostle will tell you right at the end of his verse. Serving the Lord.

Serving the Lord. I remember when O.M. bought Dulos. I was in India at the time and on the telex the news came through that the MV Franker had been bought from an Italian shipping company and now was part of the ministry of operation and mobilization.

What do you call the MV Franker? I'm hoping to be on Dulos in just about three weeks time in South India. Why was Dulos called Dulos? Because this word dulioi, which is the verb that gives you the noun Dulos, actually demonstrates the practical, the throughput of the man or the woman who is zealous for God. Zealous for God is not singing fortissimo in an evangelical service.

It's not bashing the drums. It's not playing your guitar. It may be part and parcel of that but it transfers through into the practice Monday through to Saturday.

What you're doing. Where you're at. What you're striving for.

How you handle your bank balance. What you do with your relationships. All this has to be part of being the servant of God.

Being a duloi. And this is what the apostle makes so very clear you see. This evangelicalism of the first century, it was theologically accurate.

That's right. It was emotionally satisfying. But those two factors in and of themselves were not sufficient.

Paul, what is the text for us today? All right says Paul, run with this 11th verse but don't forget the last bit because without the last bit the first two are a charade. Never be lacking in zeal. Keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord.

Serving whom? Serving God. Serving God. You know, let's go back just for a moment to General Booth and the kettle that's boiling.

In fact, let's shift from Booth. Let's go to that phenomenon which gave birth to the locomotive engine. How was it that we had those locomotives, those remarkable engines that ran as a result of coal and the fire and the steam? I always regret the fact that the railways went electric, don't you? I mean really they're insipid these things.

I'd love to be down at Sheffield Midland Station. I watched those trains come in as a boy, one after another, one after another. It was all the same but it was always exciting.

And I loved it when the driver let off steam and I wanted to punch my finger in the hole so that the steam could go up and the whistle would sound. But you see the steam was just dissipated. It was an excess of energy.

And there are folk like this, it strikes me, in evangelicalism who dissipate their energy in a service and it stops there. But that's a waste. You dissipate your service.

In fact, you don't dissipate it, you direct it into the service of the Lord, serving God. Mary says to Gabriel, be it unto me as you have said, I am your servant. You serve God.

Wherever the Spirit of Jesus is, there he says are his servants. How should it be shown by serving God and by ministering to others? Because that is how you serve God. Inasmuch as you did it unto one of those, the least of my brethren, you did it unto me.

So where are you, my friends? I wish this was a full church but the problem of the weather has stopped that dream from being a reality. So I'll have to be raising this again during this oncoming year. Where are you in your service for God? Here.

Not just within the church, in your neighborhood, in your school. Wherever it is that you're spending Monday through to Saturday, you're serving the Lord. The handling of finance, the handling of time.

Did you just let off steam? That's not what the apostle has here in mind. He wants all these energies, this zeal to be channeled into the service of the Lord. That's why you see in the earlier part of this chapter, he gives you the action pack of Christian service from the sixth verse through to the ninth.

We've got different gifts, so what do we do? Well, having got those gifts, we use them. Your gift is prophesying, get on with it, prophesy. Your gift is serving, serve.

Your gift is teaching, teach. Your gift is encouraging, encourage. Your gift is contributing to the needs of others, then give generously.

If it's leadership, govern diligently. You see, here is the apostle Paul, if you like giving you a spiritual kick in the pants and saying, well, don't just believe these things, actually do them. It's the action pack.

And then that's followed after verse 11 by the summary statement, which I believe that the apostle Paul is making of our Lord's teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, because he continues from the 11th verse to pick up on certain things which Jesus said in that remarkable address that he gave so many hundreds of years ago. So I come full circle. Good advice for New Year, never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor.

Certain things to be shunned, certain things to be fostered, and certain things as a result that we should do. Well, check yourself out on the zeal test, day by day, week by week, a month by month. And if we do, I predict this church will be in a better spiritual condition 12 years hence than it is now.

Let's pray. When we've prayed, we'll stand with musical accompaniment, and we will sing, God be in my head. This is 48 in the supplement.

Father, we thank you for your grace to us. We praise you for the potential of this year. Lord, we've got the picture of that little baby, astonishing mum, because it's got a couple of teeth.

And all the requirements are there for taking in food, and greedily so. Lord, give us teeth. Give us even a greater capacity for spiritual nourishment than our bodies, than our souls can take in, if that was possible.

Help us to be zealous, rightfully zealous, and help us to serve others, and serve you as we apply that zeal practically. Deliver us from being cerebral and academic. Help us to be practical, and always loving, and kind, for Jesus' sake.

Amen. Let's stand for verse 4, number 48, coming on the overheads again. Let's stand.

So Lord, when 365 days have run their course, and we finally apply the zeal test for the last time in this year, assuming you're going to give us 12 months, may we pass with honours. Help us to take this good advice into a new year. And bless these dear people, for Jesus' sake.

Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you for a book that's always up to date, always relevant, stands the test of time.

We ask that we may be able to unlock the secrets of your word, and find that though they applied to the people who read them in the first instance of them being issued, a particular statement here also has a special meaning. The logos of God's word becoming the rhema, a particular message for a group of people at a point in time, in a distinct situation. So Lord, help us to respond to your word, for Jesus' sake.

Amen.