A.  This choir is composed of Gentiles as well as Jewish people.  Notice in verse 9, “that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.”  And in  verse 8, in order that the Gentiles might glorify God, Jesus Christ became a servant to the “circumcision” the Jewish people, to fulfill the promises made to the fathers.  God made solemn promises to the Jewish nation.  And what did those promises include?  From the beginning, God chose the Jewish nation to reach the Gentile world so that the entire earth would one day sing praise for His MERCY.  Do you see that in verse 9?  God made a covenant with Abraham that began back in Genesis 12.  And that covenant stated, “in you will all the families of the earth be blessed” (12:3).  Some people get the impression from the OT that God’s truth and mercy are limited to Jewish people.  But from the beginning, God’s plan included everyone.  God intends the announcement of His mercy to reach everyone.   That is the original purpose of the covenant with Israel – to glorify God by blessing the most distant of people.  And the “most distant of people” are you and me – Gentiles.  Aren’t you glad you were included in His plan?  What this says is that Gentiles are to be featured in the future choir that sings from the heavenly hymnbook.

            B.  This choir is singing enormous praise hymns to the glory of God.  Paul quotes from all three of the divisions of the Hebrew Bible (the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings), emphasizing the goal that God has featured throughout the Bible – Gentiles are going to sing in harmony with Jewish people.  He uses six different Greek terms to describe what the choir is going to do – glorify, confess, sing, rejoice, praise, laud, and hope.  I bracketed the six words in the passage above.

            It starts with “glorify” in verse 9, which means to “magnify” Someone, make Someone large in peoples’ minds.  The word “confess” in verse 9, means to agree with God that what He has done is spectacular.  The word “sing” means to “twang the strings of an instrument in order to sing.  This is very similar to what Bear does when he strums a chord and says, “let’s sing.”  The word “rejoice” in verse 10 asks for happy music.  It’s the command to “be glad,” to “make merry” in song.  The word “praise” in verse 11 is the word “to sing praises in honor of God.”  “Laud Him” in verse 11 is the word “approve” in praise.  They are singing to the Lord, “right on, absolutely perfect, it couldn’t be done any better.”  Then verse 12 has the word “hope,” which is the word to “wait with excitement,” to “wait in anticipation, eagerly, with confidence.”

            The final quotation in verse 12 comes from Isaiah 11 which gives to Messiah the humblest of titles – the root of Jesse.  Have you ever noticed any major competitions in roots?  Why would Messiah be called a “root?”  Because of His lowly beginnings.  Because He didn’t come to please Himself, which is the theme of this passage; He didn’t come to make a name for Himself.  He came to rescue Gentiles!  Which is why you and I have hope.

            The picture is of a huge assembly of people, those who could never get along on earth apart from the Grace of God, singing in harmony, excitedly, in stereo, their blessing, and praise, and adoration and approval of all that God has done.  Have you ever been part of that kind of music?  Have you ever been in a choir where everyone is singing excitedly, loudly, straining their all in praise to God?  That’s what it’s going to be like in eternity.

            Imagine being a part of that awesome choir.  If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you may very well be in that choir.  You can’t sing?  There will be no problem there because we are all going to be changed – which I conclude is going to include improved voices!

            In verse 13, Paul culminates his picture by giving a benediction, Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  What is he saying?  He prays that they might live now singing the same enthusiastic, musical, hopeful, joyful, full-of-faith melody that they are going to sing in eternity.  Practice your singing now.  Get your choir robe pressed!  The musical day is coming quickly.

            I think that a lot of the happy experiences we have on earth are given to us as a foretaste of eternity.  Do you enjoy music?  I sure do.  And I think that what we have what is only a taste of the kind of music that God turns out.  This past Wednesday, as I was looking for a selection to play for you today, I was listening to the London Symphony playing the Messiah, a Shalom Jerusalem CD and other worship CDs and found that they made me very emotional.  They brought back thoughts of Jonathan being in heaven listening to heavenly music for 9 months now, thoughts of how absolutely beautiful and powerful music can be.  And I realized – that’s just a foretaste.  Heaven is going to be a musical place.  And the music there is going to be a mega-order above anything we have yet heard.

II.  God prepares His choir by teaching us to live in unity (5-7).  Singing in harmony is somehow connected to living in unity.  God prepares us for the future by teaching us to love one another down here.  Thus His goal is to develop in us a unity so tight that it approximates the unity among the members of the Trinity. Jesus prayed, "that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You” (John 17:21). How is He going to develop that kind of unity?

            5 Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

            Paul asks for the gift of “like-mindedness.”  Notice that it is like-mindedness “according to Christ Jesus.”  It’s His kind of like-mindedness.   This like-mindedness enables us to “glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” with “one mind and one mouth.”   Let me ask and answer 3 questions here:

            (1) How important is this like-mindedness?  Can we glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ without being of one mind and mouth?  I don’t think so.  We don’t glorify God when the unity is missing, no matter how well we sing.  You can have the most talented individuals on the earth, but your worship stinks when their minds and mouths are not one in Christ.  God is not glorified by our beauty; God is not glorified by our talent, no matter how great the world may think our talent.  God is only glorified when we humble ourselves and learn to welcome disagreeable people into our lives so we can help them grow.

            What does worship sound like when it is not in harmony?  What does music sound like when the same piece is played in different keys?  It’s awful!  You don’t want to listen to it.  It doesn’t matter how expensive the instruments are, or how wonderful the musicians are.  It stinks!  And you can’t fix it with a microphone, or by playing louder or softer.  The simple fact is that music out of tune is INTOLERABLE.  We can’t and won’t listen to that kind of music.

            Transfer that attitude to God listening to the music of our worship.  Like-mindedness is the essence of worship.  You sing praises to God when you have something against your Christian brother, and you are kidding yourself.  Matthew 5 says that when you bring your offering to God and remember that things are not right between you and your brother, forget the offering until you fix the problems with your brother.  "Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 "leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”  “First be reconciled” and then come and offer your gift.  Why?  Because apart from the reconciliation, the gift stinks.

            (2) What kind of unity does God desire?  We are not talking about organizational unity here – with denominations getting together or different religions of the world achieving a quasi “unity” based on a watered down picture of God.  Jesus Christ is the One who started (or increased) the “problem” among religions when He said, “I am the way the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me.”  That was a dogmatic statement.  How can we have unity “in Jesus Christ” with religions that don’t believe that Jesus is the only way?  You can’t.  They may talk about “God” but it is not the same God.

            This kind of unity is INTERPERSONAL – between you and your neighbor; between you and the person weaker than you; between you and the person different from you, that you criticize, or that criticizes you.  That’s where God’s unity grows – between one and one. 

            (3) What kind of unity have we experienced?   The command in verse 7 is to, “receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.”  This is exactly the identical command as we started with in 14:1, “welcome one another into your life.”  DO UNTO OTHERS AS GOD HAS DONE TO YOU.  Imitate the Grace given to you in salvation. 

            How did Christ “receive” us?  Did He sit in His chair and wait until we came knocking on the door?  No, He is the shepherd that went searching for the one lost sheep.  He is the shepherd who came to earth to give His life for His sheep.  He is the One who came knocking on the door of our hearts.  So the fact that He “received” us doesn’t mean that He said, “oh, alright, if you insist, I will take you in.”  He is the One who came to seek and to save that which was lost.  And when He found one that was lost, He said, “let’s have a celebration!”  It’s THAT attitude that we are to imitate!

            It was done to us, it was done for us; now do it for someone else!  There are many ways to give glory to God.  Not the least of them is to go out and find someone and make them a friend.  Martin Luther said, “How strange is the glory of God, for God is glorified when believers of differing persuasions accept one another and when the strong bear the burdens of the weak! (Lectures on Romans, p. 411) (Edwards, 339-340).

            What is it like when believers imitate their Savior?  Are there any examples in nature of unity?  Any examples of changes that come because things can be brought into harmony?  Yes, there is a device that can weld a detached retina to the back of the eyeball in a thousandth of a second, can cut out individual cancer cells, shut off tiny blood vessels in the eye that would blind you if they kept bleeding.  It can cut through hard metal, drill minute holes (0.001" in diameter), weld metals that can't be welded by conventional methods.  It can read the numbers on your package of chicken at the check out counter, it can carry thousands of radio, TV, and telephone messages simultaneously.  Why this unique ability?  It’s light that is unified.  A laser beam is “simply” light with all the waves of the same wavelength, and they are all parallel.

            What’s the difference between a light bulb and a laser?  They are totally different.  Once you unify light you open a world of new possibilities.  The same is true in the church.  Once the Grace of God unifies us, we can with one mouth and mind glorify God.

            Is there a brother or sister in Christ that you don’t get along with?  Think about what you can do to humble yourself and bridge the gap.  Think of what you can do to seek them out – for the Glory of the Choir Master!

III.  Our CONTRIBUTION to God’s plan is to live for others (1-4).  We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.

            How does God develop unity among us?  By teaching us to live “not to please ourselves.”  What does it mean, “not to please ourselves?”  The answer is in the words, “bear,” “please” and “edification.”  Its living in a new way, apart from the huge “I” that normally fills our bodies.

            It’s living to give, living to develop others.  Even in the normal, physical world, this is what life is all about.  We are raising kids, we are strengthening the weak, we meet the needs of Katrina and Rita victims, we focus on growing, developing, bearing burdens, helping. 

            Making money?  That can become such a distraction.  How many fathers have wasted their lives making money while their children grew up fatherless?  Making a name for yourself?  Why, when you can help others develop?

            Paul said “let all things be done for edification.”  The word “edify” means to strengthen, encourage, help grow.  We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak.  The word, “strong” means literally “those who are able,” meaning those with power, who can go their own way, do their own thing, even dominate others.  In direct contrast is the word, “weak” which means “those who are unable.” In other words, we are to find someone who doesn’t possess the strength that we posses and help them in their weakness by bearing their failings. 

            He is not talking about tolerating their weaknesses; he is not talking about accepting their strange ways, sort of with hands on hips.  He is talking about taking them and bearing them as if they are your own weaknesses!  Why?  That is exactly what Jesus Christ did for you; “He took up our infirmities and carried (same word, bore) our diseases’ (Isa. 53:4).

            This is not the kind of message you hear in our consumer society.  The highest good in our society is usually to please yourself and to “do it your way.”  Here God is calling us to people who don’t please us, who don’t offer us any incentives, who don’t enhance our reputations, and He says, “you bear their problems.”  That means in some sense that you become like them.  “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich’ (II Cor. 8:9) (ideas from Edwards, 340-1).

            3 For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me."   We don’t do this because ethics says that this is a proper course of behavior.  We do it because this is the way it has been done to us.  We imitate the One who saved us, because we so appreciate the results of what He did. 

            And what did He do?  Verse 3 the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me (Psalm 69:9).  Here’s the length to which Jesus went not to please himself.  In his association with sinners Jesus became the most despised of human beings, and this was necessary even as the Messiah.  The contribution each of us makes simply follows what Christ did – leaving our glory, leaving our comfort zone, for others.  Even for a short term can be beneficial.  Christ’s missionary venture, in one way was a “short” term one – He came to earth for 33 years – short term for an eternal one.  Scott Brock and Claudia McAllister and others did that this summer.  Dan and Ginny are doing that.  That is standard operating procedure for those who have met the One who did not please Himself.

            Are you living in light of choir rehearsal?  That you are going to join a bunch of perhaps the weirdest and strangest of people who have all been rescued from sin by the blood of Christ, to sing in a way that you have never been able to sing before?  Does the hope of that choir date motivate you to spend more time with those you are going to sing with in heaven?  Even those who seem strange or have strange ideas?

            The bottom line is that SOMETHING MUST DIE in our hearts.  Either the grip that our self-centeredness has on us, or the example that Christ set of bearing our burdens at the expense of Himself.

10/09/05, BBC am