THE APPRENTICE
CHARACTER
DR. JIM DIXON
GALATIANS 5:22-24
SEPTEMBER 24, 2006
Most of you are wearing a ring this morning. Some of you have more than one ring. On my left hand I have my wedding ring that Barb gave me. Barb bought this in Jerusalem. It has three Hebrew words inscribed on it. “Abba” which means, “father,” “Ben” which means, “son, and “Rhua” which means, “Spirit.” It is a Trinitarian ring. On my right hand I have another ring that Barb gave me for my 60th birthday this year and it has a cross, and the cross is set within an oval. It is kind of like a signet ring. If I were to take this ring and put it against an ink pad, I would then be able to stamp it on pieces of paper and it would reproduce the image on the face of the ring. It would reproduce the cross and the oval that surrounds it. If I were to take this ring and I were to push it into wax, it would create an impress which would show the cross and the oval. In the Bible, the Greek word for signet ring is the Greek word, “character.” Of course we get our English word from this Greek word. The word character literally means, “impress,” “image,” or signet. We are told in the Book of Hebrews, the first chapter, the third verse that Jesus is the “image of God, that He bears the very stamp, impress, character of His nature.” So we are told in the Bible that Jesus has the character of the Father, and that the father’s character has been imprinted or impressed upon Him and that He bears the image of His Father. We are also told in the Bible that we who are disciples of Jesus Christ, we who are apprentices of His, that we are to have the character of Christ and we are to allow Him to put His impress upon us and that we are to bear His image and share His character. And so this morning we come to this great subject, the subject of character. Of course as Christians, we are seeking to grow in our likeness of Christ. I have two teachings this morning and the first is fairly brief.
The first teaching is this: As Christians we already have the character of Christ. This is an amazing teaching, but it is what the Bible tells us, that as Christians we already bear His impress. We already bear His image. As Christians we already have His character.
I want us to begin by taking a look at Pentecost, 50 days after the death of Christ. One hundred and twenty disciples, one hundred and twenty apprentices, one hundred and twenty followers of Christ were gathered in the city of Jerusalem in the Upper Room. As they were gathered, the Holy Spirit descended. 50 days after His death, it was Pentecost and the Holy Spirit descended from heaven like a dove and came upon that room. The Holy Spirit came within each of the one hundred and twenty followers of Christ and began to tabernacle with them. The Holy Spirit began to dwell within them and from that day forth they were temples. From that day forth all one hundred and twenty of them had the Spirit of Christ dwelling inside of them.
The Bible tells us that from that day forth, as the Gospel has gone forth whenever anyone responds to the Gospel, receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, when someone becomes a disciple of Jesus Christ, in that moment they are regenerated, born anew just like the one hundred and twenty in the Upper Room were regenerated and the Holy Spirit comes. At the moment of regeneration, the Holy Spirit comes and tabernacles within the Christian. Each and every one of you who belong to Jesus Christ have the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, dwelling in you. I have the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, dwelling in me. It tells us in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, that we are now a new creation. We who belong to Christ are a new creation. In Ephesians, chapter 4 and Colossians, chapter 3, the Bible tells us we have been given a new nature and it is the nature of Christ that has been given by the Spirit of Christ who has come to reside in us. So each of us who belong to Jesus Christ have this new nature. The character of Christ has already been given to us and perhaps some of you have asked this question at some time in your life, the same question I have asked, and that is, “Why, then, am I such a jerk?” If I have the character of Christ, if I bear His impress, if I have His image, if His Spirit has come to tabernacle within me, if I am regenerated, why then am I so often a jerk?
Of course the Bible tells us what the explanation is. The Bible tells us that in addition to the new nature, we still have the old nature. Sometimes in the Bible we are told that the old nature has been crucified with Christ, the old nature, the sin nature, the flesh, the sarx, the fallen nature. Sometimes we are told it has been crucified with Christ because Christ died for our sin but other times in the Bible, the Bible describes great struggle between the new nature and the old nature which are at war within us. So this new nature is at war with our flesh, with our sarx, with our fallenness. It is at war with the old nature. We really need to make a decision as Christians whether we are going to nurture the new nature or whether we’re going to nurture the old nature.
I want to tell you a little story. About 32 years ago Barb and I bought our first home in Aurora, Colorado. It was a little home, about 700 or 800 square feet. It was a Wood Brothers home in an area of Aurora called Meadowood. We referred to it as Meadow Ghetto. We did not have a back yard because we could not afford one, just a bunch of dirt back there, but we had put in a cement slab with a basketball hoop because I love to shoot hoops. I put a fence in around the back yard. We had two dogs. The fence went all the way to the ground so the dogs could not get out. These two dogs were mutts. They were not purebreds. We named them Shiloh and Gretel. I do not know why. I was not really involved in the naming. I do not know why it was not Hansel and Gretel.
Gretel looked kind of like a werewolf. She really did. She had fangs and the whole deal, but she had a really kind heart. One day Barb and I decided we were heading out on a trip. We were going to take a little vacation. We were going to be gone about 4 days. We had never had dogs before, but we thought it should not be a problem. We will leave four days’ worth of food out on the patio, leave it out on the basketball court. The yard was fenced in. There was an area where they could get shelter. There was plenty of water and plenty of food. We thought they would be just great.
We left for four days, and we came back, and we were stunned. They were both alive I want you to know, but we came back, and Gretel had become just huge. She had eaten all the food, four days’ worth, and Shiloh was just emaciated, just kind of like skin and bone. She had clearly not eaten anything. Obviously the two dogs were the same size when we left but the whole situation had changed, and Gretel had taken all the food. And she had become dominant.
There is an image here. I think with regard to the old and new natures, you have to decide what you are going to feed. You have to decide what you are going to nurture. If you nurture the old nature, I promise you that old nature will become dominant even though you are a disciple of Christ, even though you are a Christian. If you nurture and feed the old nature, the fallen nature, the sarx, the flesh—if that is what you feed, it will grow and it will become dominant but if you feed the new nature which bears the impress of Christ and has come within you by the Spirit of Christ—if you feed that new nature, it will begin to grow and it will begin to be dominant. So as you spend time in the Word and you feed that new nature and as you spend time in prayer and you feed that new nature, and as you spend time in Bible Study and Christian fellowship and in Christian service, all these things feed the new nature so that it might grow and be dominant.
I think what is helpful for us as followers of Christ is if we can visualize the character of Christ. This morning I want us to visualize the character of Christ so we can nurture it in our life. I want us to visualize the character of Christ by taking a look at what the Bible calls the Fruits of the Spirit. This is our second and final teaching this morning and it is this – that the character of Christ, the new nature, is manifested in the Fruits of the Spirit. So we are looking at the Fruits of the Spirit. The Bible tells us there are nine, so we are going to look at each of them very briefly.
The first Fruit of the Spirit is love. The Fruit of the Spirit, it tells us in Galatians 5:22, is love. The Greek word is “agape.”
Some of you traveled with us to Egypt a few years ago. We took over a hundred people to Israel and then to Egypt. We flew into Cairo where it was 110 degrees, and we went to the region of Giza by the Nile, and we saw the Great Pyramid and surrounding pyramids and we saw the Giant Sphinx. Of course we know what the Great Pyramid was for. We know what all the pyramids were for. They were giant burial chambers for the pharaohs. What archeologists and Egyptologists have debated through the years is what was the purpose of the Giant Sphinx? What was that there for, this massive structure, part human, part animal? For what was it there? Today most scholars believe the Giant Sphinx was built to ward off demonic spirits, that it was erected and placed there on the Plain of Giza to ward off evil spirits. Of course if you travel down to Karnak across from the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Karnak which many of us saw, you might remember as you approached the Temple of Karnak you saw rows of sphinxes and they were all meant to ward off demons and evil spirits and to guard the temple.
You might think, “Well, how primitive. As Christians we know better.” But if you go and you look at Christian Europe and you look at Medieval Christian Europe, you see all the cathedrals and what do you see on those cathedrals? Gargoyles. What are those gargoyles? Well, they are really like sphinxes. They were put there to ward off evil spirits, demons and the devil so that the devil could not come against the Church of Jesus Christ.
Of course today Christians generally do not do this. As you drove into the parking lot this morning, you did not see any gargoyles on the outside of our church. You can look over at our new chapel and even though it looks European, there are no gargoyles on that chapel, but we do believe in spiritual warfare. We do believe that there is a great struggle in the spiritual realm between the forces of light and darkness and we do believe that Satan attacks the Church of Jesus Christ. We believe that Satan has many purposes. Certainly, Satan wants to deceive the Church of Jesus Christ doctrinally, theologically, even morally of course, but Satan I believe most of all is seeking to take away our love. That is the great purpose of the devil. Jesus said the devil is filled with hate and has always been filled with hate, so he is seeking to take away our love.
Jesus said, “By this, all will know you are My disciples… By this, all will know you are My apprentices if you love, if you love one another.” So the devil comes, and he seeks to take away our love. I hope you understand the nature of the love of Christ when you look at the character of Christ and you see love.
Jesus told, in Luke, Chapter 10, the story of the Good Samaritan. He told the story that we might understand love. A question was put to Him, “Which is the greatest of the commandments?” and Jesus said, “Love. You shall love the Lord your God; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Then another question came: “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers with the story of the Good Samaritan. You know that story, how a Jewish man fell among thieves as he journeyed on the Jericho Road, and they beat him up and they left him half dead by the side of the road. A priest and a Levite came by, and they had no love. They kept going but then a Samaritan came, and you know how the Samaritans were the enemies of the Jews and there was a lot of racism in New Testament times. They hated each other, the Jews and the Samaritans, but the Samaritan, Jesus said, when he saw the wounded Jewish man was moved with compassion.
Now Jesus at that point could have used the Greek word “sumpathos,” which means, “sympathy or compassion,” and it would have been adequate to say that the Samaritan was feeling what the Jewish man must have been feeling. He felt the “Jewish man’s pain, sumpathos, but Jesus used a stronger word. Jesus used the word “splanchnos” so that the Samaritan saw the wounded man and Jesus used this deeper word for compassion and love. It literally means, “bowels.” Sometimes it is used splanchnos which literally means, “good bowels” but of course they are speaking metaphorically. The Greeks viewed the whole region of the stomach as the seat of the emotions and what Jesus was saying is that this guy was so moved that he was moved to action. That is really a deeper compassion. It does not just feel what the other person feels but it is moved to act. It is moved to compassion. So Jesus used the word splanchnos. Then you come to the end of the story when Jesus puts the question, “Who proved to be neighbor to the man who fell among thieves? The answer came, “The one who had mercy.”
Here is the deepest word for loving compassion, “eleos.” Eleos is the Greek word which means, “to love and to act with compassion even towards those who have wounded you, even towards those who are your enemy.” Of course as we have seen in this parable, the Jews and Samaritans were enemies and so the only appropriate word to use for the compassion of the Samaritan was eleos. It means, “to be feeling what another person feels,” “to move to help them,” “to do it even if they’ve hurt you or even if they’re your enemy.” This is love as Jesus would have us to understand it. This is the depths of love, that we learn to feel what other people feel, that we act on those feelings to help them, and we do this even if they are our enemies. This is love. This is the love we are to learn. This is the impress of Christ. This is the nature of His character for He came to die for those who were cursing Him. He came to die for those who were in rebellion against Him and that is love. “God so loved the world … ” and He’s teaching us this love. It is His character.
The second Fruit of the Spirit is joy. The Fruit of the Spirit is love and joy, not enough joy in the Church of Jesus Christ, not enough joy in our lives. I think sometimes we just focus on the wrong thing.
My father went to UCLA and my brothers and I as we grew up were UCLA fans and we are still UCLA fans. I root for the Bruins and the blue and the gold. I of course have come to root for the Colorado Buffaloes, and I also root for the Denver Broncos, so it is really the “three B’s:” the Bruins, the Buffs, and the Broncos. So in football season I want to check them all out. I want to see how they do. I want to know how the Bruins do, how the Buffs do, how the Broncos do. Of course yesterday the Bruins were ahead by sixteen points, and they lost to Washington. The Buffs were ahead by thirteen points, and they lost to Georgia in a heartbreaker. You know the Broncos play tonight…
If my joy is tied to football, I am in trouble. Of course sometimes it is for a brief time. Of course, what a mistake. If your joy is tied to sports and the sports world, maybe you this morning watched the end of the Ryder Cup and of course the United States lost. If that is the source of your joy, boy you are in trouble because sports is a fickle deal and so you do not want to tie your joy to that. Joy comes from Christ. It is based on Christ. It is based on His redemption on the cross and what He did there. It is based on what He will do at the Eschaton when He comes again. It is based on His forgiveness. That should give us joy. Why don’t we have more joy?
I remember years ago a cop pulled me over down in Cherry Creek and he wrote me up two tickets because I had been speeding and I went through a red light. As he is writing out the tickets, he asked me what I do. I told him I was a pastor and then I just saw this smile gradually come across his face. He took the tickets, and he just tore them up. He said, “You know if you’re a pastor, you’ve got enough trouble.” Do you know what I felt in that moment? I felt joy! Joy is what I felt. In fact I think he felt it too. He felt joy because joy is forgiveness and you realize if you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, if you are His apprentice, His Spirit has come to dwell within you and of course your sins are forgiven you—past, present, future. Your sin is forgiven. If anyone should have joy, it is a Christian. We should have joy.
I love the story of Malcolm Muggeridge. Malcolm Muggeridge was a controversial theologian. For many years of his life, Malcolm Muggeridge was an agnostic. Muggeridge died in 1990 but in 1962 when Malcolm Muggeridge was 59 years old, he was sent by the Manchester Guardian because Muggeridge was a British journalist. He was sent by the Manchester Guardian to Moscow in the former Soviet Union. He was to go to the Kremlin, and he was to write an article on religion, and he was to interview the leaders of the Communist Party. Muggeridge was happy to do this. At this time, Muggeridge was himself an agnostic and he pretty much agreed with the followers of Marx and Lenin and Stalin, and he believed religion was the opiate of the masses. So Muggeridge did this article on religion. He had extra time and so he stayed over for the weekend.
On Sunday Malcolm Muggeridge was walking around the streets of Moscow. As he walked down the streets of Moscow, he heard music coming out of one of the great cathedrals and he realized it was Easter Sunday morning. Muggeridge went into the cathedral just out of curiosity, and he could not believe the joy. He could not believe the joy as Christians were singing. He sat down and he listened to the music and then he heard the message, and it was inspirational. At the end of the service the pastor shouted, “He is Risen!” and the whole congregation rose and shouted, “He is Risen indeed!” and Malcolm Muggeridge said he knew in that moment that Marx was wrong, Lenin was wrong, Stalin was wrong, Engels was wrong. They were all wrong. He knew because of the joy he just experienced. Christ was the answer, and he gave his life to Jesus.
It is an amazing story. There’s not enough joy in the church. It says in Acts, chapter 1, “In the early church they gathered every day to celebrate and the fellowship and to break bread together and they did this with great joy and the Lord added to their number daily, those who were being saved.” Joy is contagious. So the Fruit of the Spirit is joy. If you want to know the character to Christ it is love, it is joy and then thirdly it is peace. We do not have much time for this because of course our time is short. The Greek word for peace is “eirene.” It means, “relational harmony.” The Hebrew word for peace is “Shalom,” which refers to “inward wholeness,” so there are a lot of dimensions to peace but if we have the character of Christ, we produce harmonious relationships with people, and if we have the character of Christ, we have inward wholeness. I think because we are all wounded at the core in our fallenness, we are constantly in this quest for relational harmony and inward wholeness. We are going to look at relational harmony next week as we look at what it means to grow in our relationships. But know that the character of Christ has inward wholeness, and it is manifested in relational harmony and in a spirit of forgiveness and this is the character we seek.
The fourth Fruit of the Spirit is patience. The Greek word is “makrothumia.” Makrothumia literally means, “long-suffering.” If we have the character of Christ—love, joy, peace, patience—and patience means you are willing to suffer long with someone, willing to suffer long with a situation. This is the character of Christ. He is willing to suffer along with us. He is long-suffering towards us.
I remember some years ago when the airport used to be at Stapleton. Barb and I went out there and we were going to take a flight and we were in a long line to get our boarding passes. It seemed like the line was taking forever. The time was drawing short, and we were feeling pressured. I got up to the front of the line and the gal told me there had been a computer mistake, we did not have our seat assignments and we were going to have to sit in separate parts of the plane. It was a long flight and this kind of irritated me. Then I found out there had been some changes and this non-stop flight had a couple of stops and it was going to take a lot more time. I really kind of became angry. I started to say something when I felt someone touch my shoulder. This little voice, this lady said, “Please don’t get angry. You’re my pastor.”
It has to do with being patient. It has to do with being long-suffering. I think we all struggle in this area. I love the story about the gal who was driving her car and she came up to a red light. While she was there, just as the light turned green, somehow, she killed the engine, and she could not get the car re-started. She knew people were behind her. She was frustrated trying to re-start the car. The guy behind her was just laying on the horn. Finally she got out of her car and went back to him. She said, “Hey. I am so sorry. I cannot seem to get my car re-started. Why don’t we change roles, and you go and try to start my car and I’ll stay here and lay on your horn.”
I do think… Isn’t it a tough area of life being long-suffering and patient? But this is the character of Christ, and it wants to be nurtured in us. This is the character of Christ that has come into us and longs to be nurtured in us and fed by us as we would seek to grow in His character.
The fifth fruit is kindness; The Greek word is “chrestos.” What an incredibly important Fruit of the Spirit this is. The character of Christ is kind. I do not know how many of you have traveled to Lake Arthur, New Mexico and seen the Shrine of the Holy Tortilla. My guess is there is few of you who have done that but incredibly, today 15,000 people have traveled to Lake Arthur, New Mexico to see the Shrine of the Holy Tortilla. What is it? Well, it is a tortilla. It is a tortilla that a woman named Maria Rubio made. She was cooking this tortilla in her kitchen in her skillet and somehow the face of Christ began to appear, just kind of bubble up in the tortilla to where it looked just like Christ. Of course the tortilla has been framed and 15,000 people have come to see it. I do not know what to say about something like that. Maybe that is just theologically a little too deep for me, but I know this. I know that normally Christ does not choose to manifest Himself in tortillas. What Christ normally chooses to do is to manifest Himself in people. Christ chooses to manifest Himself in people and He wants to manifest Himself to the world through His disciples, through His apprentices. He wants to manifest Himself through you and through me. He does this supremely when we are kind. I have come to understand this, that Christ is most manifested, most evident, most seen in us when we model kindness. This is what Christ is trying to teach us and do in us in terms of our character.
I want to tell you a little story about our daughter Heather. Twenty years ago our daughter Heather was ten. Our son Drew was seven. At that time we lived in a place called Arapahoe Ridge which was on Arapahoe Road not too far from University. There was a park across the street. Heather and Drew had gone over there to play. Some homes backed up to the park. Somehow, I do not know what was happening or what Heather and Drew were doing, but this elderly woman became very angry and started shouting at Heather. She started shouting at Heather and Heather was just shocked. Heather started to cry and came running back to the house and she said, “That woman is so mean.” I did not know this elderly woman. I had heard some neighbors had said, “Perhaps she’s an alcoholic.” I do not know if that was true, but I told Heather… Heather said, “She is SO mean.” I said to Heather, “I think she’s really hurting inside. I think she may be a very lonely woman.” I could see Heather’s face change. I could see Heather’s countenance change like there was understanding. Then I could see she was thinking.
She went into the kitchen, and she began to bake cookies. Heather was only ten at the time and probably not a master chef, but she went in there to bake cookies. She did a whole sheet full of cookies. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, “I’m making cookies for that woman.” She put the cookies in a little basket, and she wrote on a little note, “Jesus Loves You,” and she went over to this woman. Drew went with her. As they went over to the neighbor’s house. They gave the cookies to this woman. Heather said that when the woman read the note, saw the cookies, saw Heather and Drew, she began to cry. She began to say again and again, “God bless you! God bless you! God bless you! God bless you!”
Is not that just a little kind of microcosm showing what we as Christians should do. I mean acts of kindness that people might see Christ in us. We should wake up every morning, shouldn’t we, and think, “At work, at home, in my neighborhood, what can I do? What can I do that would be an act of kindness, that someone might see Jesus in me?” This is His character. This is the character of Christ. This is His impress. This is the side we are to nurture and grow in, kindness.
The sixth Fruit of the Holy Spirit is goodness. I think goodness 1s a concept oftentimes misunderstood. In the year 1786, a man named William Brody was arrested in Edinburgh, Scotland. The people of Edinburgh were enraged. William Brody was accused of robbery and theft. The people of Edinburgh said, “No way!” They said, “William Brody is a deacon at the local church and he’s a pillar of the church. He is known to be a good father and to be a good husband. He is a good man. He’s Deacon Brody.” As the authorities examined the life of William Brody more deeply, they discovered that he had been committing robberies all over Scotland and all over England and that he had two other stealth families that he had kept hidden and that he had been living an immoral life and that Deacon Brody was more like Demon Brody. About a hundred years later, in fact exactly a hundred years later in 1886, that’s when Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his classic, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. He based it all on the life of William Brody.
Stevenson was a Christian and he recognized that in every human being there is a little bit of Dr. Jekyll and a little bit of Mr. Hyde. He understood that. I think we all understand that. We know that humanity is created in the Imago Dei, in the image of God, but we also know that in each of us there is light and darkness. But understand as Christians, as His apprentices, as His disciples, we have this new nature. We have His impress. We have His character. So goodness should be more manifested in us. It should.
“Agathosune” is the Greek word for goodness. It has a variety of meanings. Sometimes agathosune simply means, “that which is beneficial in its effect.” So if you are good, you are beneficial to others. Certainly, we should seek this, to be beneficial to those around us, but agathosune can also mean, “excellence.” If you are good in the full scope of the meaning of agathosune, then you must seek excellence. It is part of the character of Christ, to seek excellence. Did you know that? I mean Valor High School is going to be across the street. I am privileged to share on their Board. Valor seeks excellence. There has been some people kind of accuse us of elitism and it is not true. I know the Board at Valor. They really love people and really are working hard to establish a large scholarship fund so there can be socioeconomic diversity in the school, and we can have all kinds of kids there. Yes, the school does seek excellence. The school seeks excellence academically, excellence in athletics and excellence in spiritual formation. All of us as Christians should seek excellence. It is part of the character of Christ but most of all this word agathosune simply means “moral,” “to do what is right.” If you are good, then you want to do what is right. If you want the character of Christ, you always want to do right. That is His character. If we are growing in goodness, then more and more we are doing what is right. Goodness.
Faithfulness is the seventh Fruit of the Spirit. I know our time is short. I think Christ is seeking a people who would be faithful unto death. That above all else, we would be faithful. He is not insisting that we be successful, but He is insisting that we be faithful.
Many of you have heard of Salmon Chase. Salmon Chase is portrayed on American currency. If you happen to have a $10,000 bill on you, it is his picture on the front. Most of you therefore have probably never seen his picture. Salmon Chase was born in 1809. In 1849 at the age of forty-one he became a United States Senator. Then when he was 56 years old, he became the Governor of the State of Ohio. At age 61, Abraham Lincoln appointed him Secretary of the Treasury. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln appointed him Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. It was in that role that Salmon Chase led the trial of Jefferson Davis, who had been the President of the Confederacy, and also led the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.
I think today most historians look back in time and they view Salmon Chase as perhaps the greatest Secretary of the Treasury. He kept the nation solvent during the Civil War. It was Salmon Chase, a Christian, who had spent most of his life fighting the institution of slavery. It was Salmon Chase who first put the motto on our currency, “In God We Trust.” He was the man who did that. Of course that did not become our official motto until 1956 but it was Salmon Chase who first put that motto on our currency. It is a great motto, “In God We Trust.” It is just part of the character of God, to be trustworthy, and so we sing his praises, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness, Oh God My Father” because God is faithful. This is His character and yet His character through the Spirit of Christ has come within us and we now are to be faithful. We are to exhibit trustfulness. We are to be trustworthy. I wonder how trustworthy we are and how faithful are we? It is a precious quality of God’s character, and it is a Fruit of the Spirit.
Gentleness is the eighth Fruit of the Spirit. The Greek word is “prautes.” We really do not have time to discuss it, but it has two meanings. It can mean, “submission to God meekness.” It can also mean, “humility before people.” This is the character of Christ, to be submissive to His Father, to be humbled before people and this is the character, He wants us to manifest.