The Centre Dural Podcast

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
The boys share about the Jewish understanding of the Spirit, the three major schools of interpretations for Revelation, and strategies to explore the prophetic in our own spiritual walks
To find out more about The Centre visit; www.thecentredural.org.au/church/ We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at; www.youtube.com/@centredural 

Acts 2:14-21
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
“‘In the last days, God says,    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.Your sons and daughters will prophesy,    your young men will see visions,    your old men will dream dreams.Even on my servants, both men and women,    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,    and they will prophesy.I will show wonders in the heavens above    and signs on the earth below,    blood and fire and billows of smoke.The sun will be turned to darkness    and the moon to blood    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.And everyone who calls    on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
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To find out more about The Centre visit;www.thecentredural.org.au/church/We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at;www.youtube.com/@centredural 
Welcome to The Centre! We're a Church in Dural, Sydney who want toMake Jesus The Centre of our lives, community, and world.
Join us for a time of worship, community and teaching. Remember to stay in contact with the church, especially if you or anyone you know is in need.
Get Connected: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/new/ 
Prayer Requests: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/prayer/
Tithing Information: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/giving/
Follow "BANTER"; the podcast where we unpack each week's sermon with the pastoral team: Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6ReaCaCb6U7r4EjdJQdajy?si=11f44dcd078e4707Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Mitch & Murray chat about the relationships of doves, water, and the Holy Spirit from Genesis to Revelation. They identify some of the poetic chiasmus (a symmetrical literary structure which points us towards the centre of the narrative) found in the Noah story and explore some ancient understandings and interpretations of the Spirit of God.
To find out more about The Centre visit; www.thecentredural.org.au/church/ We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at; www.youtube.com/@centredural 

1 Peter 3:18-22
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
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To find out more about The Centre visit;www.thecentredural.org.au/church/We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at;www.youtube.com/@centredural 
Welcome to The Centre! We're a Church in Dural, Sydney who want toMake Jesus The Centre of our lives, community, and world.
Join us for a time of worship, community and teaching. Remember to stay in contact with the church, especially if you or anyone you know is in need.
Get Connected: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/new/ 
Prayer Requests: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/prayer/
Tithing Information: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/giving/
Follow "BANTER"; the podcast where we unpack each week's sermon with the pastoral team: Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6ReaCaCb6U7r4EjdJQdajy?si=11f44dcd078e4707Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
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TRANSCRIPT
 
Hey, welcome to The Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.
so this morning's message was born out of being incredibly bored, waiting for Rachel's operation at Hornsby Hospital.
So this is what happens when you're sitting in the cafe of the the. Yeah, hospital cafeteria is I start to go on searches and today and the topic that I want to search on was the connection between Noah's flood and Jesus baptism and the Holy Spirit and just for a bit of just for fun, how that connects him with the book of Revelation.
Now, I've heard whispers. I know that people here want me to do a series on the book of revelation, and I haven't felt that calling yet. But today. Today you'll get a little sampler, of what I guess I'm teaching on revelation. Now, if that all sounds very confusing, I have a little diagram on the screen about what we're going to be looking at, and so you can just read that there to kind of get your head around everything.
But hopefully I do my job properly and teach this in a way that's clear to you. So it's not super overwhelming. So you can see how Noah's flood and the the spirit hovering over the waters and how the dove that Noah released, how that connects in with the baptism of Jesus in cleansing us, how it connects in with the book of revelation, in the theme of Noah's flood and God overcoming evil to bring about good and a new creation, and then landing the sermon on one Peter, and those words that that Peter gave, which are exhortation to the church.
Now one of the things we have Noah's flood is that it shares with a lot of other ancient cultures. The story of this idea of a global catastrophic flood, it's really quite profound that if you look at Babylonian literature, in some Chinese literature, kind of literature, we see that this idea of a catastrophic global flood is just universal across human history.
It's been passed down, I guess, from the sons of Noah. But if you compare, the Genesis flood compared to, say, the Babylonian, story in the Babylonian story, the reason for the flood wasn't because of the sinfulness of humanity. It's also because humans were too loud and the gods just want to shut them up. So they send this flood to wipe them out.
But here in the Genesis creation narrative, the flood at its core is because of sin. Sin has defiled God's holy, holy world, and he needs to eradicate that to bring about new creation. There is this diagram here on the screen. It's probably really, really helpful to understand. Now we have to remember the Bible is not a modern scientific textbook.
The ancients saw the world very, very differently, if you see on that diagram there. So on the on the second day of creation talks about God separating the waters. You might remember that you got the parting of the waters for the water in the sky and in the sea. And so the ancients had this view like in that diagram there of a dime.
And so if you got chaotic waters, God has separated those waters. And kind of in this space here there is live. How you can translate that word is the waters above the firmament, windows of heaven and the waters below. And so what's happening in the flood of Noah is that God is taking away the barrier separating chaos, as it says in Genesis 711, in the 600 years of Noah's life, on the 17th day of the second month, on that day, all the springs of the great day, so you can see it there, the waters below and the flood gates of heavens were open that firmament.
So basically how the ancients understood as God accredit this, this dome. And now he's taken away the protection upon that and chaos comes in. This is what it causes. The catastrophic nature of the flood. And so now the world is back in its pre creation, full. And we know that the devastation of flood, we think back to tarry a few weeks ago.
Now you saw the footage on the news. We see the destruction of landslides. We know that floods are not something that good. And if we just look at our world, we actually say that the world is held on by a fine tooth comb. I think it's what I love about how the ancients saw the world was that God had just separated the waters from the waters as a space.
That's this tiny little space that can so easily fall apart, even though we don't see the world as it. So when I say it's not scientifically accurate, I think it's a helpful reminder. The world is held on by this fine tooth comb. Essentially, it's just God's grace as we know the end of the story with the sign of the rainbow.
It's not because humans are righteous or are. It's because of God's grace and mercy that the world can continue on. Now, one of the interesting parallels between Noah's flood and creation is the use of the word ruach. Does anyone remember? We learned the word ruach back in our first session together with Ezekiel. So anyone remember what Ruach means?
So I want to be brave and call out what it means spirit. And what else can it mean? What's another word? Wind. Yeah. So spirit and wind. Now we have to remember in English we make, the trans like us make an interpretive decision because the word is just. We walk though the Spirit of God hovering over the waters.
That's just ruach. The wind that blows over the waters on the flood narrative. That's also rock. That's right there on the screen there. And so what we're supposed to do is we're supposed to read the flood narrative. I think, wow, it's really because of God's grace and mercy that we are able to be here today, that that creation continue news on, but also meant to be reminded of the creation narrative.
Just as God separated the waters from the waters to create life, he can take that away and bring the world back to its pre creation form. So now with the flood over, essentially re separating the waters from the waters, life can continue and life is this precious, precious gift and sort of tying in there is the idea of the walk, the spirit just as the spirit was there at creation.
The spirit is there at Noah's flood. And then obviously from Genesis chapter eight, from 22, we're told that Noah builds an altar to the Lord, takes the clay, animals sacrifice him. The Lord smells the pleasing aroma. Which which is a fun little fact is that Noah is Newark means comfort, the pleasing aroma is tying off that riffing of Noah's name.
Noah brings comfort to the curse ground. He brings that comfort by his obedience in building an ark and by offering the sacrifice. And then as we wait on there, never again will I curse the ground, because the humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood, and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.
As long as the earth endures seed time and harvest cold and hate, and summer and winter, day and night will never cease. That's of the 10,000 faith summary of Noah's Flood. I said before that the spirit is intersecting in that. Just highlighting. Back to that creation narrative of the waters of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters.
Now, this is where we kind of get a little bit deeper into the idea of God's Spirit and Jesus. In Genesis chapter six, verse four. So we know about the the sinfulness of humans, but in Genesis six four, and I would advise you to listen, to bear to better. And I would go into this a lot deeper than I am now.
But notice what it says in Genesis six. Is that God's kind of describing, well, you know, this thing, the state of humanity, we're told here, my spirit will not contend with humans forever. Can we guess what word that is? Haber Rock? Yeah. My spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal. There's a bit of debate about this there that I will be 120, and so I won't go into that now.
But the purpose of out this morning, part of the flood narrative is the sinfulness of humanity. And part of that curse, God saying, My spirit, my rock, my breath will not be with people forever. Now, as part of this preparing for Pentecost, maybe we should call it prepared for Pentecost. Now, Pentecost is over has been to kind of teach us that in order to have life, we need the spirit.
Just like in Ezekiel's valley of dry bones, it's the spirit who blows into these dead bones to give life. So now here's part of the curse of of Noah's flood is God's removing his spirits from people because of their wickedness. And I've got there just another psalm just to remind us of that when it says when you hide your face, they are terrified.
When you take away their breath, they die and return to dust. When you send your spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the ground. So if you kind of lost track of where I'm going with this, the idea is that God takes the world back to its pre creation form. Just as the spirit was hovering over the waters.
So the rock is hovering over the face of the waters and Noah's flood. Part of the reason for the flood is sinfulness. And part of the curse of that is God removing his spirit from people. That makes sense. I say some thumbs up, say some not. Okay, we'll continue now, after all that, when we're in a, you know, a biblical storm, we get to Jesus.
When we get to Jesus baptism, we have a stack of different images that are going on. But there's there's one thing that every single gospel author does is recounts the moment that when Jesus coming out of the waters that should be up there on the screen, what are we told at the moment? When Jesus was baptized, he went out of the water.
At that moment, heaven was open and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him in Mark, just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove. Again in Luke heaven was open. Then the Holy Spirit descended on him bodily in a body, in bodily form, like a dove.
And then in John I saw the spirit come down from heaven as the dove, and remain on him. We kind of get the pen. And I've said this before, when, when a biblical author wants to repeat something, and when something so important he repeats it. And so the fact that all four gospels recount that at the moment of Jesus baptism, the spirit comes down like, dove.
Yeah. I've just spent a whole lot of time talking about Noah's flood. There's a really important animal in that flood. Can anyone think of what that animal is? The dove. Okay, you see where I'm getting with this? So a lot of scholars here have noticed that, the moment of Jesus baptism, it's meant to allude us back to Noah's flood.
That's. Oh, wait, read all that out there. But it's actually. And this will be another been to conversation. So if you now listen to this interests you, I recommend it because there's some cool stuff about The Raven and the dove. But just to say briefly, the dove comes back with an olive branch. Now, this is also quite fascinating is that olive branches produce olive oil, and olive oil is often used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
But there's some cool little facts there. And if you think Mitch is kind of making this stuff up, where are you getting this from? This has been the interpretation of the early church. This is really the days of Jesus. And I have a great quote up here from Cyril of Jerusalem, who is probably my favorite early church father.
And he says he some say that just as salvation came in the time of Noah by the wood and the water, and there was the beginning of a new creation. And as the dove came back to Noah in the evening with an olive branch, so they say, the Holy Spirit came down on the true Noah. The author of the new creation.
When the spiritual dove came down on him in his baptism, to show that who that he he it is who, by the wood of the cross confers salvation on believers, and who towards the evening by his death gave the world the grace of salvation, summarized that early church sure, Noah's Ark and the wood being what they call a typology, a type.
So make that represented something deeper. The ark represented the cross of what Jesus would accomplish, just as the dove came out with new life with the branch. So Jesus, by being baptized and having the spirit come upon him like a dove, gives us new creation. There are all just these wonderful images coming together. This is what just excites me so much.
And this is why it's very dangerous to be left alone in a hospital cafeteria, bored out of my brains, because this is where we head down. But it's probably okay. It's some Old Testament stuff. Let's just reread our passage from one Peter again, just to remind us. So Peter here is writing to Christians, probably Gentile Christians, who are being persecuted.
And so here he is, is just reminding him of the importance of baptism and what that means for Jesus and, for that, for their lives, as followers of Jesus. So he says, if the cross also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God, he was put to death in the body, but made alive in the spirit.
After being made alive, he went down and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits. And if you want to learn about me, more about that. Listen to banter to those who were disobedient long ago, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built in only a few people ate and all was saved, through water.
And this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also, not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clean conscience towards God. It says he, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, was gone into heaven. And as a God's right hand with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him. What Peter does is he's taking a really common Jewish understanding was that Noah's life and Noah's flood is the model for the faithful, righteous believer waiting for God's judgment on the wicked and to come through that.
But we know in the book of Genesis, but there's other writings that the Book of Enoch and other Jewish writings which describe Noah as preaching for for that time, as he was building up preaching to a generation that wouldn't listen to him. And so the Jews saw themselves as like, we need to be like Noah, remain faithful, just keep on persevering.
They might not be writing about that. We may not see the judgment that that God has promised, but we need to just keep on building the ark, so to speak. Remain faithful. And Peter's tapping into that imagery, encouraging Christians, hey, be like Noah. Remember that that flood, that now is the reminder of baptism, that baptism that you went in the water that you've just identified yourself with Jesus.
Jesus is alive by the spirit. Jesus who now gives the spirit to you. That's what you need to do. Be like Noah, keep on persevering. And there is one book in Scripture which really draws upon this. Can you guess what's his book of revelation here? We got we got here finally. And so this comes from an author called Richard Balcombe.
If you're interested. His book is called The Theology of the Book of Revelation. And so here in revelation chapter 11, which is there on the screen, this is this is the song of the 24 elders. Now, revelation 11 is a really simple passage which no one has ever thought about. There's been no conflict about it. It's really simple.
We're introduced to the idea of two witnesses who preach and shoot fire from their mouths, and after preaching and proclaiming they killed and off the three and a half days they resurrected, there's this big earthquake in the city of Jerusalem. And then after that, we're told that the seventh trumpet is blown. Now, in revelation, we've got seven seals, seven trumpets, seven balls, the seventh one of each of those.
Something climactic happens. And so here with the, seventh trumpet blowing, blowing in revelation 11, we're told that 25 to say the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and His Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever. And they bow down. They begin to praise God, and then his praise with these words which are up here on the screen, which says, we give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the one who is, who was because you've taken your great power and have begun to reign.
The nations were angry and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead and for rewarding your servants, the prophets, and your people who Revere your name, both great and small, and for destroying those who destroy the earth. Now on this earth, that just seems like, I guess, any kind of normal hymn of praise given to God.
This is one of the great things about living in the 21st century, but access to the best scholarship in the world. And Richard Balcombe, he is not going to say that ending process and for destroying those who destroy the earth. In his commentary, he's like, oh, hang on, that destroying, destroying, going to destroy both them. And yeah, yeah, that reminds us a lot of Genesis chapter six.
And so while Greek and Hebrew, obviously very different languages in in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, that's so that, that, that construction, that sentence I'm surely going to destroy. But, oh, can I go back? So. Oh, thanks. Okay. Yep. And for destroying those who destroy the Earth. The construction of that is really similar in the Greek version of Genesis.
And so remember how that whole Noah's flood is a type of Christians to to persevere, to be like Noah, to be like, no, don't give up. Don't give up. Just keep persevering just like Noah, because judgment will come and God will save and deliver you from that. That's what's happening here. John is echoing the flood judgment as a pattern for final judgment for us, actually.
Okay, go to the next slide. I didn't realize there it is, just right there. I didn't realize I had it there. There's a wonderful pattern there. John's echoing the flood judgment. He's reminding Christians who are suffering, who are being persecuted. God is going to destroy the destroyers. God is going to wipe away these enemies. You need to persevere.
So. So in Genesis six, God destroys the earth because of humanity's wickedness. His spirit won't contend with people. Now, through Christ, God's Spirit will contend with people forever. So in in the covenant with Noah, we the sign of the rainbow. In the Hebrew language, there's no word for rainbow. Like we have an English. It's just an ashes by.
And so if you have a short a bow, you know, you shoot the up like that. And so if you imagine the rainbow so like that and an arrow sticking to it, it's like God's placed almost like a self curse upon himself. The the imaginary, the imaginary arrow from the bow is pointing up to heaven in that promise to never destroy the world again.
There is grace, there is mercy, and that's revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ. And going back to creation, Noah's flood. The sea represented evil. It's no accident that in revelation 13 or which is ripping off Daniel chapter seven, the sea is the place where the beast comes from. The sea is the place of evil, chaos, the sea is the source of the beast, the dragon, the harlot, or all these horrible, terrible evils in the world.
God promised he'd never destroy the world again. You know what revelation 21 one says, when there's a new heavens on us, something is missing. And what's that, friends? Now see? Exactly. That's the point. Is that the seas full of able, the seas full of chaos. God's going to remove that, friends, be like Noah. And I'll quote Balcomb. Just from some of his commentary here.
He says the judgment of the old creation and the inauguration of the new is not so much a second flood as the final removal of the threat of another flood, a new creation. God makes his creation eternally secure from any threat of destructive evil. In this way, revelation portrays God as faithful to know, covenant, and indeed surpassing. In in his faithfulness to his creation, first by destroying the destroyers of the earth.
Finally, by taking creation beyond the threat of evil, then I'll be sitting there completely bamboozling God. I have no idea what you've just been talking about, Mitch. I've got now a summary there on the screen. There you go. I can have a grade of that. And just to process that. So going right back to creation, the Spirit of God, the rock hovers over the waters with the flood we have.
The spirit is withdrawn from people. The Ruach blows over the waters. Judgment through the water. The dove returns an olive leaf, symbolizing new life. We get with Jesus. The spirit descends on Jesus like a dove, and Jesus is in the Jordan River. Alluding back to the flood narrative in revelation 1118, God promises to destroy the destroyers of the earth.
Just meant to remind us, That's what he did in Genesis chapter six. He's going to do it again and then finish up in revelation 21 one. The sea is no more, no more chaos, no more evil, and no more destruction. Let's give you some tools to walk away with that this week. This comes from an article I found really helpful by Katie Massa, a New Testament scholar.
It's called In the Days of Noah. She uses some fancy German words, the Euronext and the index, which just means the beginning and end of the flood tradition. In one Peter three and four. And so as I've kind of been trying to hop on of it, is that Peter is riffing off those Jewish ideas of Noah's flood and being persevering in the midst of an evil generation.
And so Peter here in that that narrative about describing, about the baptism of Noah and the flood and all that link together, he is equating Noah's context and adapting it for the believers in Peter's context. I have another table there, up there. And so, just as Noah was declared righteous in a corrupt age, Christ is also righteous and we Christians are righteous because of him.
The flood was morally corrupt and Peter's, I guess, society, the Gentile world was morally corrupt. Noah preached the ungodly. We believers must bear witness to the gospel gently and respectfully. And there was that time before the flood. There's a we know there's a bit of debate about that, but the point is that there was a market here where God told him to build.
He was the moment was flood similar to Jesus. We know that Jesus is resurrected and there will be a moment where evil will be eradicated.
And I just have another table on here is that and this is verse from one Peter really just hammers home. I guess that whole Noah theme about being righteous in the midst of wickedness. One Peter chapter two, verse 12, we're told, keep your conduct amongst the Gentiles honorable. So when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God.
On the day of visitation. I won't go on to rating on that. You can just look at that on the screen so that like comparing Noah example and now example. And so friends, I guess the toolbox for us today is patience. Patience. Are you embodying Noah as wonderful as it is to go through that? And I got my God fired up, sitting there researching all this stuff and teaching you all to you, ultimately walking away from this is patience.
Patience in the promises of God. Really easy to say, really hard to do. Patience in the midst of an uncertain world. Patience to keep on trusting God. Patience to to be like Noah. And so I guess if you're struggling today to follow the Lord, to keep on being patient, to trust in him, look to the example of Noah.
Read over Genesis, read over one Peter, look at Jesus baptism and remind yourself of all of these images. That's so. That's what the New Testament authors saw, is that the Old Testament was given to us to help be an example for us in our day and age. And as one wonderful practice that, saying nations used to do was imagine if Scripture where you would read a passage, close your eyes, and just enter into that story.
A third who I toolbox for the day learn patience. But Jesus said and done and embody Noah. Become like a Noah. If you're struggling to do, read Genesis 628. Imagine yourself on the ark. Imagine yourself living in a wicked society. The rabbis taught that Noah's generation was the wicked, his generation to ever exist. Then reflect upon Jesus what he's done, what by pouring the spirit out upon us.
We now have life. We have wholeness. A God is going to destroy evil friends, do you have faithful obedience? Even when the skies look clear? I hope that was a blessing to you today. I'm going to pray over us now and invite the band back. While we do that. So let's pray together now. Our father, we thank you for the wonderful tapestry of your word, how to speak so richly and powerfully in so many ways.
And looking at the flood narrative of Noah. Lord, look how it points to creation, to Jesus, to your eradicating evil. Pray today, Lord, specially in the world that we're in, where there is so much chaos and carnage and just feels like evil is winning. To be reminded, Lord, to be like Noah. They were just in those days of waiting for the flood to come.
We thank you that ultimately we are safe, that we have our own ark which is through Jesus Christ, that gives us life, that gives us wholeness, that gives us hope. I pray today that we haven't just filled our heads, Lord, but filled our hearts and understanding your word better. And to live as your hands and feet, and to be beacons of hope in a world that needs hope.
I pray this now in the name of Jesus, Amen.
Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at The Centre. But in the meantime, praying for God's hand over you as you continue to step into everything Jesus has in store for your life.
Be blessed.

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Mitch & Murray trace the theme of mountains through the Bible.They reflect on what mountains reveal about God's nature, and His desires and relationship with us.
To find out more about The Centre visit; www.thecentredural.org.au/church/ We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at; www.youtube.com/@centredural 

To find out more about The Centre visit;www.thecentredural.org.au/church/We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at;www.youtube.com/@centredural 
Welcome to The Centre! We're a Church in Dural, Sydney who want toMake Jesus The Centre of our lives, community, and world.
Join us for a time of worship, community and teaching. Remember to stay in contact with the church, especially if you or anyone you know is in need.
Get Connected: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/new/ 
Prayer Requests: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/prayer/
Tithing Information: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/giving/
Follow "BANTER"; the podcast where we unpack each week's sermon with the pastoral team: Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6ReaCaCb6U7r4EjdJQdajy?si=11f44dcd078e4707Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
 
TRANSCRIPT
 
Hey, welcome to The Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.
Happy birthday, church. Happy birthday. Yeah. Oh, you didn't know? Yeah. Happy birthday. That's Pentecost Sunday for you. The day that the church was born. It's actually a very special Pentecost Sunday. If you didn't know. Because obviously it's not just the birthday for us here at the center. It's not just the birthday for us, you know, as a denomination of Baptists, as the church.
It's not just even a birthday for the Catholic Church, just but also, I don't know if you knew this for, you know, once every 4 to 5 years, Pentecost aligns in both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church observe a different calendar to us when they're figuring out East. In Pentecost. So this today that it's Pentecost Sunday and it's the church's birthday is something every denomination can agree on.
Who would have thought what the Easter miracle? We can all agree on something. So happy birthday, happy Pentecost Sunday! I'm praying today that the spirit would fall on us once more, like it did on the day of Pentecost. That the spirit of fire would ignite our faith, and that we would go out into the world to bring the kingdom of God as in heaven.
So as we're looking at Pentecost today, we're kind of going through a theme of mountains, which might seem like a bit of a weird choice. Why are we looking at mountains on Pentecost Sunday? Well, Pentecost, the day that the spirit fell on the first disciples and the apostles was actually on the same day of Shevat, which was a Jewish festival that was celebrated every year, and the day of Shreveport celebrated and remembered the day that Moses went up to Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments from God.
It happened on the same day. It was sort of a you Shabbat, sort of a second moment of sign. I wonder when we see this, when we look at, as Kim was talking about earlier, reading from acts two, the fire, the wind, all of these things are suggest we're taking back to this moment on Mount Sinai. And there are mountains all the way through Scripture.
It's actually quite a really rich theme that is woven throughout Scripture. So what I'm actually going to do is I'm going to tag team with Bible Project, and we're going quick watch a quick video to understand a bit more how mountains work in Scripture and how we should understand them. In ancient imagination, the mountain was where the sky touched down on the land, a place where God's wisdom and power and very presence could be found.
The Bible begins with God placing humanity on that kind of mountain, appointing them to oversee the land and fill it with God's blessing. To remain on the mountain. They must trust in God's wisdom, but humanity chooses their own wisdom instead. So they are driven from the mountain. And instead of God's abundance, they fill the land with violence. But God promises to restore his blessing to all nations through the offspring of one infertile couple.
He invites Abraham up to the mountain to give him this blessing. But first, Abraham must give up his promised son. The only way back up the mountain is to lose what we call life, and receive back the true life that God offers. Abraham's family grows, and God invites all of them up onto the mountain, but from below the mountain is frightening.
Only Moses goes up to learn God's wisdom, so God's mountain presence comes down instead to live in Israel's camp. Now the mountain travels with them and they're invited to live by God's wisdom wherever they go. When King David establishes a city on a tall hill, Israel's prophets imagine that this could truly become the mountain with a king who would rule in God's wisdom and restore the blessing to all the nations.
But once again, Israel spirals into violence and is driven from their home. And so God comes down instead, Jesus enters the world as one of us, teaching his followers how to live by God's wisdom, sharing the abundance of God's mountain with Israel and with the nations. And when Jesus faces his own choice, he trust God, his father, with his very life and through his surrender, the risen Jesus becomes the place where heaven and earth meet.
He is enthroned on the heavenly mountain, offering life and wisdom and power. And he invites his people to ascend, to choose God's wisdom, so that through them God's blessing can flow out to all the land.
So the mountain in the ancient Hebrew imagination was this place where heaven touched down on earth. And it's not that hard to imagine if you were living in a time where there's no Google Maps, there's no helicopters, there's no drones, there's no space X sending things up into the orbits. Well, the mountain is the highest point that you can get.
It's the closest place that you can get to heaven. This is the Hebrew imagination that God lived in the heavens, in the sky above. We might now imagine that as the ends of the universe, the ends of the universe, for them is the sky above. And climbing this mountain is a moment in which we can ascend into God's presence.
Now, this can be a bit hard to get our head around, because our tallest mountain in Australia's Mount Kosciuszko, which I did a bit of research this week. Turns out that there are over a thousand of the mountains in the world that are taller than Mount Kosciuszko, we don't even make the top thousand. It's not that impressive of a mountain.
We're pretty flat as a country, but I kind of found that quite surprising because I climbed Mount Kosciuszko when I was about 16 and he's pretty high up. I was at a school camp, and they took us up to mount because he also with this guide, Troy, he took classes up every single week. Not a bad way to get make a living taking a bunch of 16 year olds up Mount Kosciuszko every week.
So the night before, he told us what we needed to wear and what we needed to pack, and told us to take about 2 to 3 hours. And he got us all on the bus the morning off and drove us to the bottom of the mountain into Thredbo Ski village, which in spring is beautiful. This cafes and souvenir shops and a guy playing guitar on the side, you know.
And then we finally kind of whined on through to the bottom of the chairlift, and we get taken on up to the start of the walk, and Troy says, okay, guys, you can kind of just, you know, go at your own pace if you want. We'll meet up at the top at this time, but, you know, take your time, feel free to stop for a second and enjoy the view.
So I just I was off, I put my music in. I was just walking by myself, lone wolfing it up this mountain. And it was just glorious. The springtime is wildflowers along the path and the little banks of this giant mountain where the snow had melted crystal clear ponds. The sun's beaming. I finally get up the top and it just felt like I was on top of the world.
And from all sides I could just see the horizon. And I was just reminded how tiny I am and how expansive and grand and awesome our country is. And the world is God's creation. This is the sort of experience that we want to be tapping into when we think about mountain top moments, because the first mountain in the Bible is actually the Garden of Eden, which you might be thinking.
I don't remember a mountain being mentioned in Genesis one or Genesis two. Don't. I'm not remembering a mountain. Yeah, you'd be right. It doesn't explicitly say that there was a mountain, but the prophet Ezekiel, when he's writing to one of the other nations, is talking about the origin, and he says, you were in Eden, the garden of God.
I placed you, you were on the holy mountain of God. Zacchaeus says that Eden was placed on a mountain on the top of a mountain. And then in Genesis 210, we actually get a little hint. It says a river watering the garden flowed from Eden. From there it was separated into four headwaters, the four being so this number of universality, the four winds, the four corners of the earth that this river flows to.
And as we know, water takes the path of least resistance. So if you've got a point of water and it is flowing in four directions, it manages to fathom that the water is coming from the highest point flowing down. And this is how we're to understand this Edenic Paradise, that God begins his story with humanity. This is the vision to be living on top of the mountain where the river flows out from.
And then obviously, we get to Exodus, a kind of more well known mountain moment at Mount Sinai, when Moses sees the burning bush and God says something really interesting to Moses, says something really, really interesting to Moses in Exodus 312 he says, I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you.
He says, when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. And you'll notice I usually take the footnotes out of these little verses. When I put them up for a sermon. But there's a really important little footnote there in your NIV, and probably in many other Bibles, which tells you that this you right here is second person, so still you, but plural.
So if we were Texan, we'd say y'all will worship on this mountain, all of you. Now, unfortunately, the Hebrews didn't have the the language of y'all, so they used second person plural. But the idea is it's not just Moses is going to be worshiping on top of Mount Sinai. The vision is that y'all, all of us, will be worshiping on top of the mountain.
It will be the sign that God has delivered them, which is a bit confusing because I don't. I don't remember all of Israel worshiping on top of Mount Sinai. I don't remember that. I mean, like, this isn't a stand alone moment in Exodus 19 526. Again, God says to Israel, now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession.
Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy. Now I don't remember all of Israel being a kingdom, a priest. I remember the Levites being priest, but what happened? Why weren't they all a nation of priests? Why weren't they all worshiping Yahweh up at the top of the mountain? Well, in Exodus 2018 to 21, we kind of see what happens.
One of the many downfalls of Israel, when the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance. And they said to Moses, speak to us yourself, and we'll listen. But do not have God speak to us. We'll die. Moses said to the people, do not be afraid.
God has come to test you. So the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning. The people remained at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. See, the people remained at a distance. They said, yeah. Look, you could go up the mountain, Moses, you enjoy the thunder and the lightning in the fire and the smoke.
Have fun being burnt, electrocuted, flesh probably asphyxiated to death. We're going to chill on down here. Give God out this time. We say, what's up? You can come back down and just tell us what he said. I guess we'll see you in 40 days and 40 nights by and let Moses go up by himself against the vision that God had for them.
The crowd stayed behind because they were scared to go up. They they didn't understand who God was. They weren't in an intimate relationship with God themselves. They only seen the plagues of Egypt, which were terrifying. It's like, oh, why don't I get close to that guy? I don't know what he's going to do to me because Moses had always been the mediator and goes on to say, guys, I want to be in relationship with all of you.
And they go, no, we just leave it to Moses. But you need to go up the mountain. Y'all need to go up the mountain. If you're relying on a pastor or a worship leader, or a small group leader or some guy on YouTube to be taking you up the mountain, or instead to be going up the mountain and bringing down a revelation for you.
You're living in the Old covenant. You're living in the Old Testament. You're living at the base of the mountain. Why would you want to rely on lukewarm Uber delivery revelation, when you can go up straight to the source of life itself and dine with the divine King on the top of the mountain? This is what we're invited into.
Not to get leftovers down the bottom, but to get the best up the top with God. And we don't just do this for our benefit. It's not just so we can be well fed and live on the mountain forever and sort of close the doors, shut the windows and just enjoy what's going on there. Now. It's actually so we can go back down so we can go back down and share that blessing with others.
When Abraham goes up the mountain to receive his revelation, God says, look at the stars in the sky. I'm going to give you more sons than you can count stars in the sky, and they're going to be a blessing to just you know, all nations. The river in Genesis flows down the mountain out to the four corners of the earth.
Because in acts one, when Jesus takes his disciples up the Mount of Olives X18, that's what we were just looking at with our main mission. Mount this passage, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
And they don't stay on the Mount of Olives continues in acts 112. They go down. The apostles return to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day walk from the city. See, when Moses went up on the mountain, he did it so he could bring the law back down. When Elijah went up on the same Mount Sinai many, many years later, he then went back down to appoint prophets and kings.
And when the disciples go up the mountain with Jesus, they don't do it to stay there. They do it to come back down, to share the Holy Spirit with all nations. Y'all need to come down the mountain. Going up is great because they need to be coming down because we're not blessed to be blessed. We're blessed to be a blessing to others.
This is the image that we're given.
This is what we see at Pentecost in Acts 212 12 it says, when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a vial and wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. And they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues, as the spirit enabled them. Now they were staying in Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one had their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked, aren't all these who is speaking Galileans?
And how is it that each of us here's them in our own native language? Now this is the part that I didn't give to cam because I love him, but I'm going to try it. Parthians, Metis and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene. Visitors of Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs.
We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, what does this mean?
I find it so striking that in that list of nations is Egypt.
The nation that held Moses and the Israelites back from the Mount Sinai moment. And yet here they are, even the people who were a stumbling block to God's people, receiving this blessing, receiving this new covenant, receiving this new spirit that God is bringing on all people indiscriminately.
That for this to happen, you'll need to keep ascending the mountain. It can't just be a one time mystical experience that you had 30 years ago, and then you just riding on the coattails of that. Because when I got married, we went on honeymoon down to has the and I said, babe, we've got to go to Matt because he also, trust me, it's going to be great.
She said, okay, cool. Sounds great. Is there anything we need to plan or organize for it? Sorry, babe. We just follow the signs. It's the tallest mountain we'll get there. That's the one. Let's go. What's the worry? We drive to Matt because he also National Park. Turns out there was a fee to get in. Didn't realize that.
I guess Troy had covered that before. So we pay the fee and we get in. We're just following the signs. We drive and we drive. Drive and we drive. And these guys, this is the right direction. I'm going, babe, there aren't two Mount Kosciuszko's, we're following the signs, okay. It's going to be okay. And we get to the car park and him gets out and puts the backpack on, and she's looking around.
She goes, where's the chairlift? I thought you said there's a checklist. I'd completely forgotten about Thredbo Village. Yeah. You know, babe, it must just be over that reach. This is my wife of two days. Must just be over the ridge. It wasn't over. That reached the chairlift was actually on the other side of the mountain. The side of the mountain that only takes 2 to 3 hours to go up.
I'd taken my dearly beloved to Charlotte's past a leisurely 10 to 11 hour hike up to Matt. Because, yes, I mean, we did have keys to pick up for Airbnb that night, but that's all right. You know we are. We pushed through. In my defense, I was rusty. I had to climb that mountain in ten years. How was I expecting to lead someone else up the mountain?
I was not expecting to do that. That Troy guy, he did it every week. I'm expecting to lead my wife up the mountain. I've only climbed once. Ten years ago. We need to keep ascending the mountain. So I said in the past, this desk, we can act as Sherpas. Sherpas master a mountain. They know its ins and outs intimately so that they can act as guides for people who are going up for the first time.
They know the path to the slippery. They know the path of the state. They know which places to camp there, the God that brings people up to the mountaintop experience. This is the consistency that we say that flows on in acts two. It says they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Everyone was filled with awe. The many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people and the Lord added to their number daily.
Those had been saved. They weren't just meeting every Sunday. They weren't just hanging out for Pentecost Sunday. They were meeting as part of a regular rhythm, as part of a community of believers that took their mission to be disciples to all the earth very seriously. Every day they continued to meet. Because if you aren't ascending the mountain regularly, going up and down, up and down, and showing others how to do the same, you've kind of missed the point.
Like you've kind of missed the point. That's the point of Christianity is for the river to run down the mountain, not for us to just sit at the top and lap up the water. It's for us to spread, to share, to show others how to ascend. Might call up the band. That's the three ideas today, y'all. Me included me to go up the mountain.
We all need to come back down the mountain. Going up, experiencing God coming back down, sharing God with others, taking them back up. Rinse and repeat. So what are your spiritual rhythms like? What are your daily spiritual rhythms like? What are your weekly spiritual rhythms like? Are you intentionally coming to and from the mountain? Or are you maybe just sitting comfortably with a hot chalky at the bottom of mountain base?
Are you maybe just hiding up the top, just soaking in the blessing of God and stockpiling it for yourself? A city on a hill cannot be hidden. You do not put a lamp under a bulb. This is something to be shared. So I'm going to just invite us. So now, if you're able and willing to stand up. And I want you to as high as you feel comfortable, lift your arms up in the air as you receive God's empowering spirit.
As you receive God's empowering spirit, just keep those hands up. This day of Pentecost, just like those many years ago when the spirit fell. Holy spirit, we pray that it would fall on us once more. Right now. And as you stand there with arms raised on your mountaintop, stop thinking who's somebody in my life who I need to bring this down to.
And once you've got somebody, I want you to bring those arms down and outward. In an action, an expression. These mountaintop moments aren't just for us to be stored by ourselves. They are to be shared with others. And God, we thank you that you are placing each and every person's heart ablaze with somebody in their lives. God, we thank you for the relationships, for the networks, for the communities that you have placed us in.
And Holy Spirit, we pray that today would not just be some set apart mountaintop experience, but God. It would be the start of something new, would be the start of a rhythm, a start of intentionality where we are inspired and filled and set alight by your spirit, and then take that fire down the mountain to be shared with others.
God, we pray for those people in our hearts right now. Lord, let us be a community who grow in number daily. Let us not stagnate. Let us not sit comfortably. Let us be willing to get our hands dirty, let out, get our feet down on the mountain, and then down on the floor with the people. Our Lord. Because Jesus, you didn't stay up in heaven.
You brought that mountain down. You brought it down to us. Jesus. You brought it down to us so we could taste and see your goodness. We want to share that with others. The Holy Spirit send us the light once more. Send us out now. In Jesus name, Amen.
Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at The Centre. But in the meantime, praying for God's hand over you as you continue to step into everything Jesus has in store for your life.
Be blessed.

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TRANSCRIPT
 
 
Hey, welcome to The Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.
Oh, hello again, everyone. Well, week three of our preparing for Pentecost series and the last two weeks, we've kind of looked at the the image of the Holy Spirit being water. Sure. And breath. We looked at Ezekiel's prophecy to the valley of the Dry Bones. Last week we looked at Jesus conversation with Nicodemus about being born of water and the spirit being born from above.
Tonight we actually looking at, as the display shows, the Holy Spirit as fire. And what are we going to do this morning? The plan is we are to look at three moments in the Old Testament and look at the burning bush. God's presence coming down on Mount Sinai and the God's presence coming down upon the tabernacle and see how they fit into Pentecost.
And then we'll land the sermon with some tools to walk away from. So that's the plan for today. I'm very excited about this because when I get into some really nitty gritty, biblical stuff, but hopefully to be able to walk away with something practical that you can use throughout your weeks. But before we begin, we open up with a prayer.
And this is a 1100 year old prayer that the church has had. And in English, it's called prayer to the Holy Spirit. So let's begin with this one. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit, and they shall be created. And you will renew the face of the earth.
Lord, by the light of the Holy Spirit. You have taught the hearts of your faithful in the same spirit. Help us to relish what is right and always rejoice in your consolation. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Now we're going to do a bit of a George Lucas. If anyone knows Star Wars George Lucas gave, you know, the later movies first, then gave the prequels.
So we're going to actually do a bit of scripture reading now. But before we get to the burning bush, we got to look at the lighter passages first and then look at the burning bush. Does that make sense? We're going to do that. We're happy with that. And so the reason for that is hopefully you'll pick up on some themes because most of us know the burning Bush story.
Yes, yes, we're pretty familiar with it. And so hopefully in reading through God coming down on Mount Sinai and his presence coming on the tabernacle, you start to go, oh, there's some themes there that remind me of the burning bush. So let's start with God's presence coming down on Mount Sinai. And that should be there on the screen, hopefully from act 19.
There we go. Now see him on the morning of the third day. There was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone! The camp trembled, and Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire.
The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Moses spoke, and the voice of God answered him. The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai, and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up, and the Lord said to him, go down and warn the people, so that they do not force their way through to say, the Lord, and many of them perish.
Even the priests who approach the Lord must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out against them. So because I don't like it's not a mystery novel, I'll just spell out in black and white famous fire. That's pretty obvious by in fact, even that word lightning. And it literally means fire. So clear there's fire and only Moses is allowed up the mountain cloud a little bit, like when Moses appears and, God appears to Moses from the burning bush.
Holy ground. Take off shoes. This is holy ground. Only Moses there. Okay, so that's sort of the the hints there. And the second one is with the tabernacle of the God's presence coming down the tabernacle, some extra support, it says, then the cloud cover, the tent of meeting. That's another way to describe the tabernacle. And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
So now here's you say this scene here. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had set on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out. But the cloud did not lift. They did not say until the day it lifted.
So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night. Inside of all the Israelites, during all their travels. Okay, hopefully. So we got the themes that we're building up here. Idea of fire. The idea of God's presence is so holy that people are restricted. What's interesting about X is not even Moses can go in at that moment.
So I think that's some helpful kind of things to have in the back of our mind now and then let's we know we know Pentecost. Pentecost is that moment when the spirit comes, the wind blows. And what rests above the heads of the disciples. What is that? Yeah. Fire! Guys, this is really deliberate language that Luke is drawing upon in the book of acts to make us remember these moments, these powerful, powerful moments.
Now, let's be honest. Who here is frightened of storms, Stand outside a massive electrical storm. Oh, man. Maybe I'm the only one that scared. But remember that storm back in January? The kids were frightened. They couldn't sleep. That wasn't even that big of a storm. God's power and glory is so much more greater than just a little storm.
But yet Pentecost changes. It's only the glory that was there in Exodus is now in us. And what's really cool is that this idea of Pentecost, it not only riffs off the Old Testament, but there was some Jewish expectations. Now, there was a first century Jewish, writer by the name of Thilo note that should be on the screen.
And so this is really, you see almost it's like Pentecost steals what Thilo is writing about, even though follow right before Pentecost. So here's what he said. This is firelight describing God's presence coming down on the Mount, and a voice sounded forth out of the midst of the fire which had flowed from heaven, a most marvelous and awful voice, the flame being endowed with articulate speech and a language familiar to the hearers.
Doesn't that sound really, really familiar? Like Pentecost, which expressed its words with such clearness and distinctiveness that the people seemed rather to be seeing, then hearing it? What is he saying? Do you not understand? It is that fill us that at that moment when God came down on Mount Sinai, it was like there was fire coming out that fire.
And other Jewish authors would say, Torah, God's words. It's like a fire. It's like a flame. And not only that, it came out in language that everyone could understand. This is what Luke is drawing upon. These are these images of Pentecost, that God's presence that was so terrifying, that was so frightening. Now rest upon us. The flame of Torah is now within our hearts.
And as we know from Pentecost, everyone could understand each other's languages. And here's a fun little fact that you can take to your next dinner party. There were. Do you know how many disciples there were at Pentecost? Anyone had the number? There was 100 and oh, come on Murray. Yeah. No, 120, 120 disciples were there at Pentecost. Guess how many words there are?
From, when Moses is up on the mountain scribbling down the Ten Commandments, how many words in Hebrew? 120. There you go. There's a fun little fact there. So there's a little cool little facts that you can keep in your head to make you understand just how rich and deep Scripture is, right? After all that. Now let's get to the burning bush.
This classic passage of Scripture says here now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father in law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up some other thought.
I will go over and see this strange sight. Why the bush does not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush. Moses, Moses and Moses said, here I am. Do not come any closer. God said, take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
They said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. At this Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers. I am concerned about their suffering, so I've come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
I will skip all those nations. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, God, I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. But most said, the God who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?
And God said, I will be with you. This will be the sign that it is I who has sent you. When you've brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. Most had the God. Suppose that the Israelites, God, the Israelites, and say to them, the God of your father says, send me to you.
And they ask, what is his name? Then what shall I tell them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. I said to Moses, say the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.
This is my name forever. The name you shall call me from generation to generation. A classic passage of Scripture setting up Yahweh's rescue plan for the Israelites. And hopefully now you're starting to see the connections. You say that that the fire that's there in the bush, the fact that Moses needs to take off his sandals, the fact to that God actually says, well, I'm going to be present with the people.
That's the whole point of him delivering us so they can go back to this mountain and worship him. All of these themes are being set up, starting there at the burning bush. As Scripture progresses, you see that God's plan God. God is a holy God, a consuming fire. The book of Hebrews tells us, but a God who wants to be present with his people, friends.
That's what Pentecost points us to. That moment where the Holy God, the Holy Spirit, now rests within us. That's why you need to have the Old Testament to fully appreciate the new, to fully appreciate what it means to be a new covenant. Believe this to be past Pentecost. People. That same spirit that purified that tree, that purified the tabernacle, that's the spirit that resides within us.
It's a remarkable, remarkable privilege that perhaps we thought a bit like, oh, yeah, cool. We kind of know it up here. But how is that transforming our lives? Are we living as people where we're allowing God's Spirit to burn within us, to purify, to set others free? Now, I wouldn't be doing my job, as I love to do, without giving us some more interesting facts.
And so the first one here is the Hebrew term for bush, which should be there on the screen there. It's what's called a homonym. So the word in Hebrew for Bush is senior. And it sounds awfully similar to Mount Sinai. And that's no accident there, because God himself said that the Mount, Mount Horeb, this is where it gets to be confusing Mount Horeb and that Sinai, actually the same Mount.
So where Moses is standing, it's holy ground. Holy ground represents God's presence. And to be in God's presence means that we have to worship. The other really interesting thing is about this sort of Sarnath Sinai kind of link is geography. I have a map now on the screen and he probably can't say it, but right down the bottom, sort of right.
Can you see the word that starts Midian round there on Mount Sinai median all the way down there? Now, you don't have to be a biblical geography expert to see what kind of Mount Sinai is all the way at the bottom here, down towards the Arabia, at the top of the map, there. Can you guess where that place is?
What's that there at the top of the map? I'm gonna call that someone. Be brave. It's the land of what? Israel. Yeah. Okay, so if Yahweh in the flaming bush and at Mount Sinai is appearing down here in Midian, is that the same place as the Promised Land? Yes or no? No. That's really, really important. Because saying that.
Yeah. Okay. Cool. God. God has set aside this land. God has set aside a temple. But ultimately, there are really important moments when God reveals himself not in a holy temple, not in a holy city, not in a holy land, but in the wilderness. That's the other thing that I've been trying to point with these three passages the Tabernacle.
The Israelites spent a lot of time wandering. You can see it there on the map. Wilderness of Egypt, just wandering around. God's presence is still with them in that tabernacle. Friends, God's presence is with us now when not in the sacred space. This is a sports hall, I can tell you throughout the week there are punch ups are happened in this room.
There are kids playing sports. There's all sorts of things that happen in this place, good and bad. This is not a sacred building, but at this moment, because we're gathered as living stones at the Holy Temple, because God's Spirit is here, this place becomes holy ground. Our bodies become holy ground.
Upon that conversation we have with Yahweh and Moses, Moses makes up lots of excuses and wise excuses as well. What am I going to say to them? And God says it in English. It says, Lord, he reveals what we call the covenant name. And he says, well, if they don't believe, you say, I am has sent you. And so what we say it is Yahweh.
That's probably the best guess. And she might have someone on this wall about a while ago about Yahweh being like breath. And so I should be up there on the screen if you're interested in how the the Hebrew looks, that's kind of the best guess of how we pronounce it Yahweh. And it means something like, I am who I am, I am who I will be.
And the idea behind the meaning of Yahweh is about God being unchangeable. It is unchangeable characteristics, hence his holiness, hence his justice and righteousness. But there's an Old Testament scholar at that guy called Martin Buber. He argues that as part of Yahweh, his divine name being revealed, but it's also about his presence, not simply just about God. God is unchangeable, as this abstract concept.
It's meant to be this relational term by revealing his name is Yahweh. I am who I am. So it's about his unchangeable nature. It's about relationship. It's about presence and you might have missed it or picked up upon it, but one of the points of the rescuing the Israelites from Egypt is that he can bring his people out, to worship them, to rescue them, to be in relationship with them.
This is what God wants for us to be in relationship. It's built into his name himself. For God to be our God and for we to be his people. And one of the things to help with the with the Tabernacle in particular. And there should be a picture there. It's probably not the best picture, but he can say in the tabernacle, I guess, to the temple by extension, later on that was furnished with a few things.
But the point of the Tabernacle was it was meant to be this. This reminder to the Israelites wherever they went, they were carrying Mount Sinai wherever they went, like God's presence was going with them as part of the furniture, you sort of got a table with the lives. They got an altar in there. You got what's called the Ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies behind that curtain there.
But you see the lamp, the menorah. Now, it's quite interesting with the menorah. It's shaped like a what? Tree, a bush. And look at the top of it, he might said, but it's meant to be a candle. And what do you put on top of candles? You put fire light. So within that you within the tabernacle itself, there's the golden menorah, a reminder, the burning bush, a constant reminder of God's holiness, of God's presence, of God's desire to be with his people.
And there's another really important tree for us to remember as a sign of God's presence, of wanting to be with his people. It's the cross. I mean, all the, English translations I described Jesus being hung or crucified upon a tree. That language is really deliberate because meant to remind us is that throughout Scripture there are these moments on countering God with trees and bushes, you know, tree of knowledge of good and evil, tree of life, that the, the, the bush that Moses God appears to Moses and within the tabernacle itself and the temple, the menorah, the reminder of that for us.
Remember the tree in which Jesus hung upon which from his side flowed the water and the blood now water and blood on fire. Images. But the water is particularly meant to symbolize the spirit coming out, flowing, and purifying us in so many ways. The fact that the spirit came down on fire upon the disciples because of that tree that Jesus Christ hung upon.
So just how did it was up there a moment ago? This is just, I guess, a bit of a summary case. You completely bamboozled. You got. I have no idea what you're talking about, Mitch. That was all just gobbledygook to me. You have no saying. So here's just a little summary. Exodus three burning bush location is a bush in the wilderness.
Their response is to remove the sandals fire. It's the fire that does not consume the bush. Therefore, Exodus 19, we're at the mountain, which is the same mountain from Exodus three. We've got trembling all in distance. Now it's a fire. Thunder, smoke. God dispense visibly. Exodus 40. We got the I like that language mobile tent in the wilderness.
And there is not the call to worship, to be obedient, to offer sacrifices. Now you got the fire in the cloud that rests upon it. And for us, the most important part. Acts two At Pentecost. God's presence is now on each and every believer that that moment disciples are filled. This proclamation, Peter gets up, gets up and preaches to everyone.
People respond as tongues, as of fire. Rest on the disciples. That's the summary of how the Old Testament, through particular the book access, points us to Pentecost.
Now let's kind of bring it back to our time and space into our daily lives. If we care, if we, God's Spirit rests upon us, if our bodies are living temples of the Holy Spirit, there's no longer this sort of sacred or, sacred space. That means holy ground can be wherever we go or be. Our commute to work here it be.
Doing something is mundane is doing the dishes, mopping the floor, hanging up, washing herbs, waiting around in a hospital room. Or are we just going for a walk in the park with your kids? You can bring holy ground wherever you go because the spirit, same spirit, appeared to Moses at Sinai, and that the tabernacle is now within us.
That's amazing that Moses had to remove his sandals. We didn't have to do that. We'd have to do that at all. But we are called to transform lifestyle. And the Apostle Paul, he mentions this idea of us being the temple of the Holy Spirit in a few places. Now, up there on the screen from twice in one Corinthians, then once from Second Corinthians.
The idea is that we are the temple. And so Paul typically talks about this in the from one Corinthians three, this idea of like sexual purity. But I think it as eyes with purity across all things. If if we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we don't own our souls. There is this requirement for us to live lives that reflect the calling that God has done for us.
That's one of the things that you can take out for this week. Remember that the spaces that you are in can become holy because God's presence is within you. But if you would like to do something perhaps a little different, here's a couple of tools that you can take away. As long as process that we don't ever really do in prayer.
But I invite you. If you feel cold this week, get a candle, light it up. Now you not worshiping that can do not worshiping that fire, but use it as a reminder. Oh yeah, the Holy Spirit came down this fire. Fire the burning bush fire at Sinai fire. The tabernacle. Be reminded of that fire, of that light, of that purity, and use that as something to spur on your prayer.
Now, the toolbox I invite you to is to find a. I use the word sacred space in inverted commas. Find a space where you can pray, and there is something very powerful doing is remove your shoes and spend time praying and reading the word that clearly all of us have our shoes on here. There are many cultures that will and other religions that take off their shoes.
This idea of their shoes carry dirt and uncleanliness. And by doing that, you're entering a space of holiness and doing that. That's a powerful act. You can do it as a parable. This by taking off the shoes. I am symbolically saying, Lord, I take away my silver. I give to you my sin, my evil, all the uncleanliness about me.
I step into you as one of your children to be your vessel. Sort of a challenge for you this week and some tools to help you in your spiritual walk. Now I'm going to invite Rachel in the band back. And while they're coming up, I close with, traditional, garlic Christian prayer. I have a little Irish in my background, so I love anything that's around the Celts and Gaelic garlic Christianity.
And this is a prayer in everyday life. First monk that you could just pray when you're just doing the everyday tasks around LA. So let's pray this prayer now together. This morning, as I kindle the fire on my head, I pray that the flame of God's love may burn in my heart, in the hearts of all I meet today.
I pray that no envy or malice, no hatred or fear may smother the flame. I pray that indifference and apathy, contempt and pride may not pour like cold water on the fire. Instead, may the spark of God's love light the love in my heart that it may burn brightly through the day. And may I warm those who are lonely, whose hearts are cold and lifeless, that they may know the comfort of God's love.
Amen.
Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at The Centre. But in the meantime, praying for God's hand over you as you continue to step into everything Jesus has in store for your life.
Be blessed.

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Mitch & Murray trace the theme of fire through the Bible.They reflect on the various roles fire plays in different biblical stories and speak on what it means to protect the fire of God within us.To find out more about The Centre visit; www.thecentredural.org.au/church/ We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at; www.youtube.com/@centredural 

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
The lads unpack the 4 prevailing interpretations of "Water" & "Spirit" in John 3 and reflect on the strengths that each has to offer to both our personal walks and the way our church functions. To find out more about The Centre visit; www.thecentredural.org.au/church/ We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at; www.youtube.com/@centredural 

John 3:1-8
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
 
______
 
To find out more about The Centre visit;www.thecentredural.org.au/church/We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at;www.youtube.com/@centredural 
Welcome to The Centre! We're a Church in Dural, Sydney who want toMake Jesus The Centre of our lives, community, and world.
Join us for a time of worship, community and teaching. Remember to stay in contact with the church, especially if you or anyone you know is in need.
Get Connected: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/new/ 
Prayer Requests: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/prayer/
Tithing Information: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/giving/
Follow "BANTER"; the podcast where we unpack each week's sermon with the pastoral team: Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6ReaCaCb6U7r4EjdJQdajy?si=11f44dcd078e4707Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
 
 

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Mitch & Murray explore the overarching structure of the book of Ezekiel, the origins of Pentecost and how to best understand the biblical genre of apocalyptic literature
To find out more about The Centre visit; www.thecentredural.org.au/church/ We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at; www.youtube.com/@centredural 

Ezekiel 37:1-14
The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
To find out more about The Centre visit;www.thecentredural.org.au/church/We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at;www.youtube.com/@centredural 
Welcome to The Centre! We're a Church in Dural, Sydney who want toMake Jesus The Centre of our lives, community, and world.
Join us for a time of worship, community and teaching. Remember to stay in contact with the church, especially if you or anyone you know is in need.
Get Connected: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/new/ 
Prayer Requests: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/prayer/
Tithing Information: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/giving/
Follow "BANTER"; the podcast where we unpack each week's sermon with the pastoral team: Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6ReaCaCb6U7r4EjdJQdajy?si=11f44dcd078e4707Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
 
TRANSCRIPT
 
Hey, welcome to The Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.
Let's jump to today's passage in the book of Ezekiel. Anyone actually read is the kill. Hey! Some hands. It's a pretty wild book. It's crazy book. I'll just give a little summary of it before we jump into this passage.
So, Ezekiel is a prophet, funnily enough, a prophet and priest who is living in Babylon. About. The book starts about five years after, the first group of exiles is sent into Babylon. So people like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Bendigo, we kind of know those names. Ezekiel's sent off with them. And so, five years after living in Babylon, Ezekiel sees his vision of God's throne chariot coming into Babylon and proclaiming a message of judgment that the Babylonians were going to destroy Jerusalem.
And so as the exile, which means God, may God strengthen, Zeke is told to have a hard head because he's going to give a hard message. And so that's what Zeke processes these weird, bizarre messages about God's judgment. And so that's what a lot of the book is about, is actually quite depressing to read. And so now we sort of in the back half of the book is where things turn around.
And so by the point of Ezekiel 37, the Jerusalem's been destroyed. The exiles well and truly entrenched. And so naturally, the people of God are wondering, well, who, we Yahweh, it seems, has abandoned us. We have sinned. We've lost everything. All hope is gone. And this is where Ezekiel 37 comes in. And we'll look at this a little bit later.
But there's some parallels here between Ezekiel 37 and the Genesis creation narrative. And so you kind of got to have that kind of background in your mind is reading through this just as God bought life out of nothing, out of the oceans of chaos, so God can bring life in exile. Now, now, before we do this, I think we might have a moment of reflection.
Let's have some self honesty here. How many of us have had times in our life where we feel dead? We just feel like dry bones. There's no life. There's no hope. I think at some point, at least, we've probably felt that. I felt I can't go any more. I cannot do this. I just there's just no more hope within me.
And that's what I love about this passage, is that a bone is a bone. Now, I'm no doctor, but I did study anatomy when I did my exercise science degree. And there's 206 bones in the human body. We need bones to move around. But if I'm just a pile of bones, that's no good. That's about worst case of worst case.
As you can get in life as they kill here by walking through this valley of dead bones. Which, if I remember how I mentioned before, secular was a priest. Priests aren't allowed to touch dead things. He sent into this unclean valley to walk among supposed to be touching these dead things. And the valley here is meant to symbolize this is an army that's fallen.
An army that is so cursed. I don't even buried in the ancient world to to leave people out unburied. It's a sign of a curse. So here, in the mind of the Jewish people, you've got this unclean death valley with people who are unburied. This is about the worst of the worst of the worst. You can be. And I love this question.
As they kill is walking through this valley God us for short question, but profound son of man, can these bones live? Son of man, can these bones live? Friends, today I ask you in your situation, can these bones live? Because we do forget this tonight. May I forget it? I think there's no hope. There's no way we going to get out of this.
This is just doom and gloom. How can God pull through? How God does he think it was no accident that this was the passage God kind of put on my heart to start off with, with kind of hearing what John was sharing with Kairos. Imagine those men in prison. They would feel like that now. The stories he was sharing of men who literally probably feel like bones dead.
There is no hope and God brings life. He's breath illuminates. Son of man, can these bones live? Answer is yes, but Ezekiel being as they kill, he says, sovereign Lord, you alone know I think, well, I don't want to say yes. I don't want to say no. God. You, You alone? No. Rather than rebuking Ezekiel telling, hey, you should know what I can do, he tells him something very strange and bizarre.
Prophesy to these bones and say them dry bones. Hear the word of the Lord. Then you went to Sunday school. You know that song? Then bind them bones. If I had that song in my head all week. But. But. Friends. If you are feeling like a dead dry bone with no hope, remember that question. Son of man, can these bones live?
The bones that, actually told. We give you an interpretation of what they represent. You know, the bones, the people who are feeling that their hope is lost, that they're completely and utterly cut off. See, one of the things you might have noticed was, Lou was reading that there's often a lot of talk about, you know, I'm going to bring you back to the land.
You know, you going to come out of the Grays and bring you back. I'm going to settle you back into Atlanta. Kind of comes up a few times. And there's a reason for that because in in the biblical worldview, land equals life. And the reason why land equals life is because in the Promised Land is where Yahweh's presence is, because in the Promised Land is where the temple is.
And so this kind of idea of bringing you back into land is saying, I'm going to bring you back into my presence, may give you your home back. I'm going to restore you, bring you back to the position that you had lost. And if we kind of skip forward to the end of the Bible revelation, what's the what's the city that comes down from heaven?
What's it called? The new what? The New Jerusalem? And we all know Jerusalem is the epicenters capital of the Holy Land. This is God's intention is for us to come out of the Christ, go back into the land, to be in his presence, sin, hopelessness, and exile, and not the final word. The final word is God's breath bringing in new life to us.
I mentioned earlier that there are, some parallels between, as we go up 37 and the creation narrative and so actually we just pop up there on the screen. And a lot of scholars have noticed here that the Hebrew is really, really similar. In fact, the idea of heaven is like here. And God going through a walk through this valley alludes back to that moment in Genesis three, where God's walking through the garden, and that time is God's walking through Paradise.
It's to bring a message of judgment and death. And now, this time, there's an irony that we begin in a valley of death, but this time it's leading out into the land of hope. And just as you can see that in Genesis two seven, human is formed from the dust of the earth, the same way the bones are there, lying exposed and dry out to the elements and just that beautiful image in Genesis of God forming Adam and going.
Breathing life into his nostrils. So we see the breath entering the slain, the four winds of the earth coming together to bring life and hope. And actually, what's really cool here, because I like to teach you guys, you know, the fact that you can come home to a dinner and say, hey, guess what I learned at church on Sunday?
I learned a new word, and the word we gonna learn today is ruach, that's all. So that together ruach. You might have heard that one before. You go do that at the end. We'll do that. I'll see you. I just but just how I see it. Because, you know, I'm not, Israeli, but ruach means spirit, breath and wind.
And you will have noticed that there's a whole bunch of different words that sometimes breath or sometimes wind in the Bible. In Hebrew, there's only one word, ruach. That's it. So when God breathes, when there's a wind, when it's his spirit, it's all the same word. We just differentiate the English. So he sort of know what the author is trying to say.
And we get this picture of all the creation coming together and God's Spirit to restore these people, to make them whole. And they're raised up. God told it then that when all the, you know, the bones come together, a tendons, a skin, and you know, the skins appearing on them, and there's still no breath in them, and the the breath comes in them, they come to life.
This vast army. Well, and let's me. One is like, why an army? It's just a really quite an interesting sort of image. And that's sort of reflecting what. Well, what's the purpose of an army? It's to fight. It's purpose is to defend. And so and, I was reading through a number of commentaries and this idea is the Army hit not so much wanting to fight and kill, but armies have a purpose here.
And so by raising up this army, it's saying, you exiles. You now have a purpose. You have meaning. You have hope. I guess in a similar way, just as John was sharing those men in Kairos, they have not got a purpose. Then I've got meaning, then I've got hope. They are part of. And again, this was a Sunday school song that I learned back in the day.
I am part of the Lord's Army, if you remember that song. Yes. I remember singing that at kids church. I won't sing that because your drums will start to bleed. But we're holding to this idea of an army again. Jumping forward to revelation. We see the language of army of of God raising up people with people for, purpose.
They started here with a valley of bones with no hope to spirit coming in, raising up an army to a great people with, purpose, people with hope, people with meaning.
As we kind of reflect on now. So the New Testament and the time of Pentecost, few people have died. A few scholars have noted this, that in many ways is Nickeil 37. Sort of. It powerfully foreshadows acts chapter two, because we've got, the, the, the valley of Dry Binds. You've got disciples who are waiting, who possibly still might be a bit fearful.
As Ezekiel speaks, the spirit blows wind. So as the apostle spake, the spirit blows in and transforms the crowd. Well, as echo prophesied, that led to the birth of an army. The church is birthed on that day. And so some people notice, I think you'll say some wonderfully foreshadows this moment at Pentecost. But and, I guess to the the biggest one is if you read John chapter 20, verse 22in a piece, disciples, he literally breathes on them and says, hey, here, receive the Holy Spirit.
But there's just two passages I want to look at from the Apostle Paul, which hopefully will bring a sense of encouragement to you if you are feeling a dead dry bone. Romans chapter eight, verse 11. Here's some very, very underrated passages of Scripture which, how many should spend a lot more time reflecting on? All right. This very slowly says you understand the gravity of what Paul is saying.
And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you. Easy read that really fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of get that when you stop and pause. Oh my goodness, that is so deeply profound.
Okay, that same spirit that Ezekiel prophesied any and I know it, he breathed life onto those dead dry bones. It is that same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is now in me, is now in you. That's amazing. That is just absolutely mind boggling. And if we truly believe that, imagine the difference would be in our lives and the lives of our community.
Imagine that we woke up every morning, said the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. Hey, is living within me. He's gonna rise up my mortal body. He's gonna give life to me. That's the spirit that God wants to share with those around us, those who feel dead and have no life. That spirit wants to breathe when those around us.
One of those passages that I think you get to spend hours and hours reflecting upon because of how powerful it is. And the second passage comes from second Corinthians chapter five, verse 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. That's always what Paul was alluding to. They whole my creation is talking about. It's like he's talking about what the spirit has done through Jesus Christ.
The old has gone, the new is here. Powerful, powerful things. Especially as we, preparing for Pentecost, preparing for God's Spirit to transform us, to transform our families, to bring new life into us.
As we finish this morning, close with a prayer from Saint Augustine. A prayer to the Holy Spirit. It says, breathe in me. A Holy Spirit. That my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me a Holy Spirit, that my work, too may be holy. Draw my heart a Holy Spirit that I love only what is holy. Strengthen me, a Holy Spirit to defend all that is holy God, me, then I, Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy man.
Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at The Centre. But in the meantime, praying for God's hand over you as you continue to step into everything Jesus has in store for your life.
Be blessed.