You might expect Paul to say that the only thing that counts is faith, but that is not what the apostle Paul says. Galatians Chapter 5 and verse 6, he says the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Why does he say that? Because faith that doesn’t express itself through love is not the real deal. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick and Colin, before we get to the main topic of today’s message, can we go back to that phrase faith expressing itself through love, what do you mean by that? Well, first, it’s a Bible phrase that comes from Galatians in chapter five and verse six and we’re trying to get to the core in the series of what faith really is. How do you know real faith from just you know saying that you believe a bunch of things that don’t make any difference to your life? And one of the ways in which you know, is that real faith gives evidence of itself in love. In other words, if there’s not love, there ain’t faith. And that’s what Paul’s getting at here, that love is one of the evidences of a genuine faith. And where there is not love, there is no reason to think that faith is genuine. It may be a profession of belief, but it’s not bringing Christ into a person’s life. If Christ’s in a person’s life, there’s going to be love. And that’s one of the reasons you know that he’s there. And one of the ways we see love demonstrated is through service. Jesus said he didn’t come to be served, but to serve. And that’s at the heart of today’s message. It’s all about serving. Yeah, that’s right. He showed them the full extent of his love, and that takes us right into the passion and all that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. So it’s easy to talk about faith. What we want to get to is the reality of what and what I am to seek to pursue and to go after in my life, if I want to be like Jesus Christ. So if you can join us in the First Book of Timothy, chapter 3, as we begin the message Serving with the Love of Christ. Here’s Colin. When we’re continuing our series entitled The Anatomy of Faith, in which we are learning that faith is the bond of a living union between the believer and Jesus Christ, in which a man or a woman comes to trust Christ, to love Christ, and to serve Christ. We are remembering that we are not saved by the strength of out trust or the depth of our love or the consistency of our service, we are saved by Christ. But Christ is ours and we are His through the bond of faith. And therefore we are learning to pray this prayer, Lord, increase my faith, and then together we are praying Lord increase our faith and in this series, we are learning how that can happen for us. We began last time in Romans chapter 10 and verse 17 where God says to us there by the Holy Spirit, faith comes through hearing. So we’re praying, Lord increase my faith, Lord increase our faith. How’s that going to happen, and the Scripture says to us, faith comes through hearing. So Jesus says be very careful as to how you hear the Word of God, because God creates faith and he sustains faith by His Word, and so as we think about this image of the anatomy of faith, we begin by seeing that faith has ears. Ears hearing the Word of Christ. Today we’re going to move forward with the anatomy and think of how faith has hands, hands serving with the love of Christ, and I’d like us to turn please to 1 Timothy in chapter 3 in verse 15. There are several Scriptures here today, but this one is the first. We’re taking a second step in learning how to grow in faith. Really praying, Lord increase my faith, Lord increase our faith. Here’s how it happens. Those who have served well – I’m sorry it’s verse 13 – those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus. Verse 13, those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus. I want to draw your attention to the second part of the verse, so let’s put it together this way. Those who have served well gain something. And what do they gain? They gain great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus. So in this scripture Paul is putting together two things, faith and serving. And he is saying they are way that those who serve well gain great assurance in their faith. There is a confidence, there is a growth, there is an assurance, there is a joy in regard to faith that comes to those who serve well. They gain it, that’s what he says. Now, I want us to explore together today from the Bible the connection between faith and serving. Why is it that serving well brings great assurance in your faith in Christ Jesus? And if we are really praying, Lord, increase my faith, then this will be an important part of God’s answer to our prayer. He says to us, well now, those who serve well gain great assurance in their faith. So this is showing us the path in which faith advances and grows. So why does serving well give great assurance in our faith? That’s the question. I want to take four steps to answer that question. Here’s the first. The Scripture makes it clear that a faith that does not serve is completely useless. A faith that does not serve is completely useless. Now, no passage of Scripture puts this more clearly than James in chapter 2, which has been read to us. We are going to come to that in a moment. But I want to show you that this is not only the emphasis of James as if he was somehow unique in saying this. It is, of course, the unanimous testimony of the entire New Testament, and so let’s begin with the apostle Paul. Galatians chapter 5 and verse 6, Paul says, In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Faith expressing itself through love. Now, it was through the apostle Paul that the Holy Spirit gave us the great statements in the New Testament about justification by faith. And you will know that these statements come especially in the letter of Romans, and also of Galatians. So right here in Galatians, you might expect Paul to say that the only thing that counts is faith. But that is not what the apostle Paul says. Galatians 5 and verse 6, he says the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Why does he say that? Because faith that doesn’t express itself through love is not the real deal. He is saying as is said in James chapter 2. You get the same thing in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 2. You know this well. Paul says, if I have faith that can move mountains, but I don’t have love, I am nothing. In other words, a faith that does not express itself in love has no value, it is completely useless, it amounts to nothing. That is his word. Love is the evidence of being united to Jesus Christ by faith. If Christ is in us, then love is in us. That is why moving from Paul to the Apostle John, John puts it this way. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him. Now, please turn to James in chapter 2. James expresses the same truth as Paul and John when he says in verse 14,’What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but he has no deeds?’ So, try to picture this man with me. He claims to have faith. He says he’s a Christian. He talks about believing in Christ but James says he has no deeds. No deeds. In other words, there isn’t anything distinctively Christlike his behavior. There is nothing that makes him obviously different from other men in the world except what he says. His faith is only in words. It is a claim. It is something that he says. Now, James is telling us that a faith like that is completely useless, of no value at all. He’s saying the same thing as Paul when he says, if I have faith but not love, I am nothing. And James gives us an illustration. He says, let me tell you how useless this faith that is just words but is not deeds really is. Suppose there’s a man who is hungry, or suppose there’s a man who is cold, and if someone just goes up to him and says, hey, be fed or be warm. What use is that? It’s obviously completely useless. Now, James says a faith that is just a claim and has no deeds that flow from it is as useless as saying to a hungry man, be fed, or saying to a man who is cold, be warm. And he’s saying a faith like that will not save you. It is completely useless, because verse 19, it leaves you in precisely the same position as the devil himself. Because the devil knows that Jesus is the Son of God. The devil believes and knows that Jesus died on the cross. He was there at the time. The devil knows that Jesus rose from the dead to his horror, and he shudders because of it. What the devil does not do is he does not trust Christ. He does not love Christ. He does not serve Christ. So if your faith is only words, if it’s only a claim to say I’m a Christian, but it is not evidenced in loving Christ and serving Christ and trusting Christ, you are in the same position as the completely hopeless. That is the argument of James and chapter two. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and we are going to pause the message there for a moment. The message is called Serving with the Love of Christ. In a moment if you will stay with us we will be hearing about an aspect of sin which may be quite a surprise. And if you miss any of our messages or if want to go back and listen again, don’t forget you can always do that by coming online. Come to our website openthebible.org.uk, There you can hear any of the messages that have already gone out on air. You can also hear Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching as a podcast and those are the same as our broadcast messages but available on your regular podcasting site. There is a link to our website openthebible.org.uk or go to your favourite podcast site and search for Open The Bible UK. Back to the message now we are in the first book of Timothy chapter 3 here’s Colin. Now let me try to give you a picture that will help us I hope here. For those of us who are artistically gifted and inclined, which is definitely not me, I was never any use at drawing, but some of you are great at it. If I was to ask you to draw a picture that represents sin, I wonder what you would draw? Now of course you have a lot of options. You could draw a target and an arrow falling short of it. Because sin is falling short of the glory of God. You could draw a clenched fist because sin is rebellion because sin is rebellion against God. But I want to suggest to you another picture that you could draw that gets to the heart of what sin does in the human condition. And Augustine, the great Christian teacher, developed this showing how it is in the scriptures sin has this effect on us. You could draw the picture of a man or a woman bent over so that her they are looking words to themselves. Let me explain that picture to you. When Adam and Eve were created by God and wonderfully placed in the garden of Eden they walked upright and were able face to face to have fellowship with almighty God. He made himself visible so that they walked with him in the garden in the cool of the day. They looked to God but you remember that Satan came into the garden and he said to the man and the woman, you can be as God. You don’t need to be looking to God, He said to tell you what is good and what is evil. You don’t need to be a worshipper of God. You don’t need to be trusting Him, and loving Him and serving Him. You can be your own God. You can trust yourself. You can love yourself. You can serve yourself. And in their disobedience in the garden that is exactly what happened, so the human condition has moved from being one that is upright in which we look into the face of God, loving and trusting and serving Him to a condition in which we are bent over on ourselves. Loving ourselves. Trusting ourselves. Serving ourselves. Living on my impulse. Doing what I think. Doing my thing. That is what sin does to us. That is why James is describing this man who says he has faith, but when there is someone who is hungry and someone who is cold over here, this man doesn’t want to get involved. He says, oh well be fed and keep yourself warm. Why does he say that? He doesn’t want to get involved. Why? He is bent in on himself. He is consumed with his own life, his own problems, his own deal. James says, can a faith like that save a man? No, the spirit of Christ is not in this man. For whatever he says about himself, he is not a Christian. He is still in his sins. He is bent over on himself. He does not care about his brother. So James is challenging, as the whole New Testament challenges, the easy-believism that is rampant in the church today, by which many people have come to think that they are Christians when they really are not, and this has happened through an emaciated gospel that offers Christ as Savior but not Lord, invites people to receive him by faith without returning to him in repentance in order to be saved from hell, without being saved from sin. And James says a faith like that is completely useless. It can’t bring any change in a person’s life. It’s merely a belief, and what use is that when even the devil knows these things to be true. So, that’s the first thing for us to establish. We got to be clear about what faith is. And it goes to the heart of our whole series. A faith that does not serve, a faith that does not have deeds, a faith that does not is absolutely completely and utterly useless. Now, that’s the first step. Here’s the second. Jesus Christ came into the world, not to be served but to serve. And our Lord states this beautifully in Mark chapter 10 in verse 45. The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.’ The Lord Jesus Christ did not come into the world to be served. He did not come in order to get other people to do things for Him. You said, I’ve come into the world so that I can do something for you that you cannot do for yourself, I’ve come to minister for you. And service was not something that Jesus added to His life. Service was His life. He says to the Father, my food is to do Your will. That is what I am. That’s what I’m about. That is my life. Jesus Christ was not bent in on Himself. He looks up into the face of the Father, and He says, my food is to do Your will. And so you read in the gospels how He spent His days, how he poured out His life, giving Himself to the disciples, giving Himself to the crowds. How when He was confronted with human need, he was not bent in on Himself so that He just said something trite and walked away. He moved towards it. He ministered to those who were sorrowing in bereavement. He served children. Think of this when the disciples said the children should go away because other things were more important. Jesus said, no, let the children come to me, and can you picture this in your mind, the Lord Jesus Christ, connecting with these children, loving these children, ministering to these children, teaching these children as an army of you here in this congregation do week in and week out. See, that’s a reflection of Jesus. Think of how the Lord Jesus Christ in the extremity of His own suffering is still caring for His mother, providing for her to be cared for, appointing John to the task. Think of how wherever He goes, He proclaims good news and He brings hope, and He speaks the word of life, and this Jesus says, I come among you as one who serves. It’s who I am. That’s what I’m about. That’s my life, not something added to me. It’s the very nature of the way that I live. It is my life. I did not come to be served. I’m not sitting back saying what are people going to do for me? I am stepping forward and I spend my life serving and giving my life as a ransom for many. So this is the wonderful truth about the Lord Jesus Christ. He came into the world not for Himself but for us. He lived His life. He died His death. He rose again not for Himself but for us. He ascended into heaven not for Himself, but for us. And when He comes again in power and glory He will not be coming for Himself but for us. So we’ve put two steps together. Why is it that serving well gives us great confidence in our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, step 1, a faith that does not serve is completely useless. Don’t be deceived about this, it is just useless. Second, Jesus Christ came not to be served but to serve. Now, here’s the third step and the most important one. Faith that unites us to Christ will show itself in serving. Let me say this, if it were really true that faith is a bond of living union with Jesus Christ in which, like the vine and the branches, His life is in us, if it’s really true that Christ is in me, if faith unites me to the Christ who serves and His life is in me, the way that I will see evidence of that life is by my serving. That is, of course, precisely why it is the case that faith that does not serve is completely useless because it is evidently not a living bond with the Christ who does serve. It’s just words. But a living faith that bonds me to Jesus Christ who came into the world to serve is going to manifest itself, it’s going to give evidence of itself in serving. So, think of that picture of sin one more time, and think of what it is that Jesus Christ does for us when we come to living faith in sin. What is sin? It is to be bent in on myself. It’s to be going through life consumed with my own problems, my own needs. There’s this man. He’s bent in on himself and he’s consumed with how people have let him down, and how he’s going to make his mark in the world, and when he’s going to get the break that he thinks he deserves, and so forth. Sin has us bent in on ourselves. But when Jesus Christ who is not bent in on himself comes into a human life, what is the effect of the Spirit of Christ coming into human life? It straightens us up. It gets us away from loving self, and trusting self, and serving self, and brings us to the position of looking up with faith into the face of Almighty God and saying, I love you. I serve you. I trust you. You’ve delivered me and saved me from being my own God, and now that my eyes are open to live upright in relation to you, I see a world of need around me. And because the Spirit of the one who serves is in me, I have a new desire to move in that direction. You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, and we’ll have to pause the message right there. We’ll be back with the message, Serving with the Love of Christ, next time on Open the Bible. So I hope you’ll join us for that. Serving with the Love of Christ is a message that’s part of a larger series, The Anatomy of Faith. And if you ever miss one of the series, don’t forget you can always come online and hear any of our messages, which have already gone out on air. Our website is at Openthebible.org.uk and you can listen to any of the messages there. You can also find the messages as podcasts, which, of course, you can access at any time. And you’ll find those on your regular podcasting site, or by following the link on the website. Just search for Openthebible.org.uk and subscribe to receive regular updates. On our website and available as a podcast, you’ll also find Open the Bible Daily and that’s a series of short 2 to 3 minute reflections based on Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching and read by Su McLeish. There’s a new one of those every day and people find that’s a great way to start the day. Open the Bible is entirely supported by the generous gifts of our listeners and if that’s something you’ve been considering to do, then we have an offer for you this month. If you are able to begin supporting Open the Bible with a new donation of £5 per month or more we’d love to thank you by sending you a new devotional by Pastor Colin Smith, called Green Pastures Still Waters. Like today’s message it’s based on Psalm 23. Colin, this devotional comes from a sermon series that you preached a while back and as you prepared for the series, what was the main thing you took away from it? Oh, that single word, encouragement. I mean, I can’t think of any better place to go when a person feels down or jaded or just generally exhausted. If you need encouragement, Psalm 23 is the place to go and God has been using the Psalm to encourage His people for 3000 years and I reckon that’s probably the reason why this is one of the best known and best loved chapters in all of the Bible. I mean, to know that in Christ, you have a shepherd and that in the shepherd you have everything that you need, that is the greatest joy and that will renew your strength. So I’m absolutely delighted that we’re able to make this available as a devotional. You can read it over 31 days and it will renew your strength. It will refresh your soul. Psalm 23, one of the best known, one of the best loved chapters in the Bible. We’d love to send you a copy of Green Pastures, Still Waters, if you’re able to begin supporting the work of Open the Bible this month in the amount of five pounds per month or more. Full details on our website. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll join us again next time. If you are a Christian, you have the Spirit of Christ living in you. But what does that mean? Find out next time on Open the Bible.