Trying to be nice..errr good is not as easy as it seems, because when it comes down to it, it nearly always comes out of what I want or feel comfortable with and therefore has to be done in my own energy and inner strength (such as it is) that’s because the most controlling part of your life lies below the surface of your consciousness. Keeping my life clean – even decent – can be a real challenge because all the dirt is out of sight. And then Jesus comes along and says something like; “Unless you’re able to better than pharisees and legal experts at being good, you’re never gonna see things run God’s way from the inside!” (Bristow Paraphrase of Mt 5.20)- and when it comes to looking and doing right he says; “sure you can look great, but you’re just putrid rotting rubbish on the inside” (BP Mt. 23.27) OUCH! How do you that? How can you come up with behaviour that is better than the greatest rule makers and keepers of all time?
Part of our trouble is the wily and persistent opposition to that way of life that comes from our greatest enemy – our inner life; not from any outside human, institutional or spiritual opposition…we’re our own worst enemy!

What can you do? In accepting Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross for you is nailing a whole way  of life to that Cross and condemning it to death. In that way you are making yourself available  for a whole new way of living that originated in and dominated by the Holy Spirit of God –
wild and free of all that limits and demeans human existence.

Being good from the inside out Jesus, puzzlingly, points the way when He says: “what you are inside will be ultimately revealed in how you behave, you can only produce actions that match your inner state” (BP Mt 12.33-35) Using the image of fruit trees was very suggestive to Paul when explaining the action of the Holy Spirit on those in whom He lives, so Paul calls that outward quality of life the fruit of the Holy Spirit. For Paul and for us a truly moral and ethically generous life las its source in the inner dwelling action of the Holy Spirit – arising in those welcoming the Spirit’s control ahead of all competing influences; they prefer surrender to the rule of God in their lives working at the very core of their being. We could say that the list that comprises the fruit of the Spirit, is like a measurable goal, except that you can’t make them happen to any lasting effect on your own – it’s about being nice. This list measures the depth of your relationship with and availability to the indwelling of God by His ever-present Spirit. How else could we possibly consistently demonstrate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and even self-control. We should be praying for these things to be the compelling evidence of the Holy Spirit’s life and power at work within us, as motivation for being more freely released in His working in our lives; then we’ll see the overwhelming of influences and behaviour patterns that embarrass and stress us defeated, overwhelmed. It also encourages us to be very generous in our attitude toward the lives and gifts of others.
SO??? How do you get there? It’s all in a terrible word for our place and time. Surrender! This beautiful and affecting life doesn’t happen by the power of your will or by your stern obedience to a set of clearly written directives, because it is not a life that originates in any one human or community of humans, it is a life that arises as you and I surrender ourselves to the life and work of the Holy Spirit (and therefore of Jesus and the Father) in our lives; achieved in quietness and prayer; in the giving of that kind of praise where our hearts are as open as our mouths; in service that is driven by a longing to do what we see our Saviour and Lord doing; in witness that cannot be silenced because the work of God in our lives is the best thing that has ever happened and could ever happen to us. It shows in a genuine, desperate hunger to be a part of what God is doing right here and now, in seeking Him and His righteousness we finds the most astonishingly complete life, and the transformation of not only what we do but how we do it.

What we find around us is an astonishing variety of differing communities; variously we call them clubs, schools, universities, choirs, teams, orchestras, families; even churches. Some make it hard to belong, creating barriers of knowledge, achievement, wealth, belief, even of blood relatedness. The thing is we want to belong, to be accepted on some ground or other – we’ll even go through silly rituals and agree to abusive regulations or initiations in order to find a secure place in this community or that – and then there are the fees, the demands for perfect attendance or the requirement for us to conform to this standard or that tradition. The tragedy is that in the past the church has copied, even instituted some of these prerequisites, conditions for entry, these membership standards. But in the hands of the Wild Goose we are made free, affirmed and loved just as we are – what kind of community does that create?
Community Created by God -liberated by His Son – breathing the Spirit of the Living God.
In the forming of the first church ever [Acts 2] we see the Spirit alighting upon each individually, in the context of the gathered and worshipping community of Jesus-followers – unleashing a God-filled and motivated corporate expression of His living Presence. They are on show before the whole community: learning, sharing, worshipping, praying, serving, witnessing, loving, transforming and being transformed. They drew attention to themselves for all the right reasons.   Recently this description of the church has become the model for newer churches.
Some years later, Paul gives a creative theological explanation for the unique shape of the community we call church: in his letter to the Corinthians [1 Corinthians 12] he calls it a body, the Body of Christ, emphasising connectedness, interdependence, mutual acceptance and respect – especially for a diversity of callings and giftings. There is a humbling sense that we need each other and are somehow incomplete as a believer if some parts of the body are missing or disenabled. We are each unbreakably linked to and involved with each other – each according to their own peculiar cluster of Spirit-imbued gifts and God-given personalities, passions and backgrounds.
Paul then goes on [13.4-7] to describe the character of that connectedness and interdependence; it is the astonishing self-giving love of God-alive, Spirit-given, in each of us. What we see in this passage are characteristics we see in Jesus and that enable us to find and live out our place in this organic institution, this body of Christ. The Holy Spirit was and is poured out to renew people and form them into a community of God’s extravagant love. Receiving the Holy Spirit’s life, receiving all others as valued, established and loved sacrificially by Jesus, the Lord of the church.
whatcha need to do In welcoming the work of the Spirit in your life, encourage, trust and even depend upon His visible and invisible presence in those to whom your are organically linked by the love and grace of God. We need to commit to being part of the Spirit-designed and Spirit-filled organism of God’s people; to rely on Him for life, direction and energy – to give all we have and are to that life and to invite and welcome many more into it.  The more who come the greater the variety, the more compelling the beauty and charm of what God is making in us and through us.
We also need to learn to trust our fellow-travellers to support, encourage and instruct, even challenge us in the pursuit of the life to which God has called us in Jesus.

Hometown advantage When and where the crowd knows and believes in a   team, and raucously cheers them on, they have an advantage over the  opposition…worth a few points in close competitions…it’s as though an attitude, a spirit of confidence gets into the team.
Spontaneous (?) Outburst [Acts 2.1-12] Waiting, expectant, faith-filled, prayerful is how the Lord found those gathered in the Upper Room; and this led to the promised release of the Holy Spirit in and among them. The release was signified by signs which included a Spirit-driven, multi-lingual outburst of praise (all about the wonderful things God has done!) This both amazed and transformed their hearers, adding many to those who followed Jesus and ever after cheerfully sang His praises.
This has become an observed and predictable effect of the release of the Spirit in revivals, awakenings and renewals throughout history; new songs are written in new styles to be sung in new contexts. (new wineskins?) A new enthusiasm for giving praise and singing, a profound sense of worship and of love for God and His people is characteristic of these times.
True Worship [John 4.19-26] Place, time and form (tradition) of worship are all transcended by the Spirit of worship that comes from an intimate relationship with God as the Father of our Lord, Jesus; the form must always be in a state of renewal and reformation according to what God is doing in the relationship. True worship, God-pleasing worship, is that which comes from knowing the truth (about God and about self) and more especially from the indwelling Spirit of God at work in and among us as both individuals and as a body, a community.
Presence and Power in Symphony When we take the promise the promise of God’s positive, powerful response to us in Matthew 18.19-20 and that of His transforming presence among those who lift up heartfelt praise. In Psalm 22.3 we can see the importance of presenting God with the unified praise of His gathered people. In Matthew the word “agree” comes from the Greek “sumphoneo” from which we get the word symphony which also carries, in Greek, a sense of music or sound offered in both unison and harmony with a sense of unity and agreement. This setting also brings an encouragement and enlightenment that unites and empowers the people of God in Christ in a way nothing else can. [Colossians 3.16]
So let’s unleash the new song that’s already in us and make a powerful and transforming symphony of our gatherings to bring light and salvation to all who gather with us; igniting passions, generating hope for healing and restoration, witnessing to the astonishing salvation that is ours in Christ.

You Gotta Breathe [Genesis 1] We know new life has begun securely when the baby draws breath for herself – and keeps breathing. It’s a breath that is the gift of God to all creatures, to all of creation. The Word spoken, breathed over Creation.
You Gotta Move [Ezekiel 37] What looks dead and unpromising, hopelessly injured and lifeless is revived, energised, enfleshed, brought back to life. Note that there must be flesh and muscle, strength and movement. It may take time; like recovering from serious surgery or a disabling injury.
You Gotta Belong [Acts 2] In the wonder and mystery of that first Christian Pentecost, the Spirit gave life to a whole new community; emphasising that the Wild Goose Chase is a communal activity, not a solo enterprise – life in the Spirit is best demonstrated in a diverse, complex, fascinating community of God’s love and redeemed people. The advantages are both internal and external – encouragement and strength (think of migrating geese flying in formation); and the diversity is a testimony to an unearthly source and Presence.
You Gotta Work [Acts 2] This perpetual, never-ending wonder is energising; meant to engage us in the work of the Kingdom of God – each of us has a unique and essential role that involves in working with the Lord in growing and tending His vineyard. Any body, whether a human or an animal body, needs to work to stay flexible, strong, healthy – and the mind needs continual exercise for that body to mature and stay the distance. In our case the work is that for which we both directed and enabled by the life-giving, empowering Spirit of God.
God all the way there can be no talk or activity pointing to the Spirit without understanding that this is God, both Father and Son at work in, among and through us, revealing Himself. inviting people into relationship.
God starts all that takes place
God inspires and motivates every activity
God empowers all that we do under His direction
God is the unseen influence that makes it grow
God is the One for who monitors and moderates all He sets us doing

Learn to breathe again…with God. It involves trust and commitment; it will change your life for ever and for good. It will revive your life and fill it in ways you might never have anticipated. You begin with the first breath.

you can hear the message as spoken by going to www.fhpc.church.org.nz (after 5 July)

And yet this weekend we did see needs and possibilities for service in some amazing settings. The continuing work in Tibet, about which we can only pray it would seem, and trust the indigenous Tibetans and their Chinese neighbours to take up the cause; the ongoing struggle to recapture life for women socially disabled by fistulas in Ethiopia; and the tremendously varied work that reaches into many cultures and ethnicities with the life-changing grace of God in Christ. All this under a new kind of missions organisation that focus on what we can do to change the world around these people using what already lies to hand in the environment in which the work takes place. E.g. the La Mai coffee project in Northern Thailand and the cataract operations in Uganda.

And yet on our very doorsteps people are being persecuted by a very different kind of oppressor who ruins their lives and threatens in the end to drag them off to a miserable eternity. People without hope who can’t survive without extreme medications, who are imprisoned and enslaved to banks that in truth own their houses, their cars, and even their kids’ educations – banks from whom they need permission to go away for a holiday. People addicted to alcohol, drugs, lifestyle patterns, social pressures – freedom? democracy? liberty? Not in this life.

How are we going to reach them, let alone touch the need that drives them mad? What do we already have that is ours, from God, to give for their hope of liberation. In short what is our mission, our excuse for being a church right here, right now?

The Big Idea: There are no insiders or outsiders in the body of Christ. we the hospitable church are called to break down the barriers that   obstruct the way to the Cross for the weak, poor, disabled foreign in our neighbourhoods          
Different! You could see it from the first – they were not like us; you could feel the tension as we weighed each other’s differences; what mattered; what didn’t! Our mob was brash, noisy, nervously cheerful – they were watchful, tentative, tired, insecure…and there were external manifestations that heightened the difference; clothes, jewellery, type of slang, music emanating from vehicles and cabins. Funny how all of that faded into insignificance as we began to worship and study, play and relax, together. Gradually difference became fun, interesting or unimportant now.
Plundered by peace. [Ephesians 2] A part of the mission of Jesus in dying and rising as He did, was to remove the firmly established barrier between God and us, and out of that emerges the threat to the barriers that have long established themselves between individual people and the groups they form. In Paul’s case, he’s pointing to the barrier that existed between Jews and Gentiles that persisted with Jewish believers and gentile followers of Jesus – a sense of religious and cultural entitlement on the one hand, and of spiritual revolution on the other, helped to maintain one the very barriers Jesus himself attacked during his ministry.
 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought
near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has
made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall”
Unexpectedly, astonishingly Jesus has plundered the walls of our prejudice and judgement in apparent weakness and an event that is hotly contested even in the church…and yet this is how he has brought to end the hostility, the multiple hostilities, the we as sinful, rebellious followers persist with even when we know the truth, and have seen his heart. (For example in John 17).
An earlier verse suggests what it is that enables our rebellion to continue;
now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been
brought near by the blood of Christ.
We are way too deferential. We stand at a distance as though Jesus didn’t really mean we should relate closely with him and yet that is precisely his aim. And that’s the astonishing power in which he, in us by the ever-present Spirit, brings down the walls that keep us at arm’s length. Just as we are no longer aliens in his household, we are no longer aliens to each other no matter apparently different we are – there are no more barriers. They only arise as we impose a super-structure that is discordant with what Christ has begun in amazing grace, whether it be because of custom, or of theological traditions (conservative or liberal), or even politics, it is discordant. As Paul puts it:
In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
So what? In the new missional environment in which we find ourselves there is no relevance to the old categories of insider and outsider. In our environment a newcomer arrived last week, a member has been here a month, those involved in serving have often been here only a year or so. If we have Christ in common we already belong to each other, we already have a place in this household. So we are bound to treat each other that way; traditional celtic, and even asian reserve is no longer appropriate. In Christ whatever I see in you that disquiets me is against a foreground of the wonder of Christ’s life-transforming grace, and in that you are made lovable (as is any human being but even more so with fellow-travellers in Christ.)
In, for, and through Christ, let’s start living as the household he called us to be.