As we study Acts 15, we see that the moral high ground becomes the servant low ground, and the challenge for us is how to adopt this servant spirit in all we do.

The theological argument of salvation by grace through faith alone (summarised in Eph 2:8-9) was decisively settled at the Council of Jerusalem, yet Gentiles were asked to agree to a compromise which prevented them from causing needless offence to Jews by abstaining from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. (Acts 15:29)

They could have argued it was up to the Jew to ‘get over themselves’ (in modern parlance) and simply let go of the issues. The dietary laws no longer had to be obeyed. Circumcision no longer had to be practised. ‘Get over it!’

But acting in love – the new moral high ground, so to speak – meant considering the needs of others and not using their freedom to indulge the flesh. (Gal 5:13-14, Phil 2:3-11) There is always a paradox at the heart of the Christian message, always a potential stumbling-block to our rational way of thinking.

It was hard for Jews to let go of centuries of rule-keeping to enter into the new covenant made by Jesus. It was hard for Gentiles to learn to embrace a faith built on centuries of revelation and tradition. Both sides had to compromise, and the principle behind the compromise, strangely enough, was not ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, but servant love.

Jesus repeatedly taught that ‘whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant’ (Matt 20:26, Mark 10:43), demonstrating this visually by taking the basin and towel and washing His disciples’ feet, even though He was their Lord and Teacher. (John 13:1-17) If we stand arrogantly proud of our theological stance, we risk missing the point entirely. The early church navigated the storms of disagreement and dispute not through division and disunity but by mutual respect and servant love. Can we do the same?

Our thanks to DW Painter for their efficient decoration of the church worship room and foyer. It’s looking a lot cleaner and brighter now – got to start thinking about where to put the chairs now, so that we can be socially distant!

Getting things back to normal:

We may feel weary and on the point of giving up, but God wants us to keep on keeping on at all times. Troubles will always be present, but Jesus reminded His disciples that He has overcome the world. (John 16:33)

To keep on keeping on, we have to:

1. Keep trusting. It’s so important to remind ourselves of who God is and what He has done. ‘Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God; You, who have done great things. Who, O God, is like You?’ (Ps 71:19)

2. Keep hoping. ‘You will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth You will again bring me up. You will increase my honour and comfort me once again.’ (Ps 71:20-21)

3. Keep worshipping. We choose to worship, no matter what the circumstgances. Praise and worship, singing and playing music all help to focus our attention on God. (Ps 71:22)

4. Keep loving. Love is how we show we are God’s followers. (John 13:34-35)

5. Keep forgiving. Forgiveness is not an optional extra, nor is it a one-off! (Matt 18:21-35)

6. Keep giving. God loves a cheerful giver and generosity is always the response He looks for. (Mark 12:41-44)

7. Keep going! Perseverance must finish its work so we can be mature and complete. (James 1:3-4)

We are grateful to DW Painter for decorating the worship room and foyer while we cannot use the building for our usual services. Here are some photos after their first day of decorating.

Garry spoke from Eph 4:1-3 last night, talking about unity, working together and harmony. God wants us to be united, but when we think about the church, we realise we’re not building a brick building (where all the bricks are identifcal); we are more like hewn stones. We are all different, not uniform at all, and yet we are being built together by a master builder.

Unity involves us:

1. being completely humble, not being interested in our self-importance but understanding how God sees us and how He sees others. Humility is the first step towards unity.

2. Unity also involves gentleness, a non-imperious attitude where we don’t lord it over anyone, where we again see people as God sees them, not ‘ranking’ them according to their social worth, physical strength or mental ability.

3. It also involves patience (‘the capacity for restraint in the face of obnoxious acts or attitudes’, putting up with, being long-suffering.)

4. It involves bearing with each other, even though it causes personal difficulty.

5. It involves making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. We need to be diligent and zealous in this; the word conveys the idea of hard graft or labour!

Unity isn’t the same as unanimity, but it does involve harmony. In musical harmony, different notes are played, but the overall sound is richer and more textured than if we simply played or sang in unison. This is what happens when people who are so very different work together: we produce a sound that is richer and reaches more people. We truly are better together!

Garry told a story last night as part of our ‘Little Big Church’ and like all good stories, it started with…

So, once upon a time there was a single thread of cotton. The thread was very small – so small people could easily miss it. So small people took ages trying to thread a needle with it. So small the best way to see it was with a magnifying glass!

The cotton thread didn’t feel very important or useful or strong.

The little thread wound up on a reel, left on a shelf, where there were some others like this little thread.

The thread still didn’t feel very important or useful or strong, even when one day someone came with boxes and took all the cotton reels off the shelves and took them away.

Someone opened the box and the reel was taken out. They put it on a machine and started to thread it along and did the same with many other reels. The thread was wrapped and pulled and twisted and pulled some more!

It seemed to go on for a very long time and then there were lots of threads altogether in a huge group and people called the group of threads a rope. The rope was rolled up and taken to the docks and put on a large ship, with one end fastened down and the other end fastened to the land.

The thread felt more important: it had a job to do, to hold the ship. The thread felt more useful because it had a job to do. But it still didn’t feel very strong.

After a while, the ship began to move and the rope began to stretch out. The only thing holding the ship was the rope. The thread didn’t feel very big – and this was a very big ship. But the thread wasn’t on its own; there were lots of other threads in the rope. And even though none of the threads felt strong on their own, together they held the ship. Together, they stopped the ship drifting away. Together, they were strong.

Like the threads, if we work together, we can do things we can never do on our own. But we are different to these threads, because we are not all the same. We are all different, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together. Instead, when we work together, we work in harmony. In music, when notes are played together which go well together, the result is called harmony and it sounds good! When we work together, our differences don’t matter, because we produce a work that is better and stronger than we could produce on our own!