The Centre Dural Podcast

BANTER - The Extravagance of Worship

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Murray and Mitch chat about all four gospel accounts of Jesus being anointed with perfume and whether or not they are the same event and the repeated archetype of wise women in the gospels. They also dive a little deeper into the historical figures of Emperor Constantine and Martin Luther, exploring the important roles they both played in Church History.
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 

The Extravagance of Worship - Murray Lambert

Mark 14:1-11
Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. “But not during the festival,” they said, “or the people may riot.”
While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.
“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.
_________
 
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 general, 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.
Why this waste of perfume? It's pretty good point, really, isn't it? Why this waste of perfume that could have been sold for a year's wages? I think he passed his desk. I sort of estimated, depending on how you want to calculate the average income of an Australian salary between 85 to $100,000 worth of perfume just poured lavishly on Jesus's head.
It's not a bad point. Why this waste of perfume? I mean, couldn't Mary, who John's gospel tells us this is Mary. Jesus, sorry, Lazarus and Sister couldn't marry. Have, you know, taken a quick trip up to Aldi and gotten some coconut oil to use or at no. Maybe ducked off to the local chemist and saying which of David Beckham's perfumes was on sale and use that?
Couldn't she have even maybe just like pulled out half the perfume? Like, why such an extravagant act of worship? It seems wasteful. It seems unnecessarily over the top. This is what the people who again John's Gospel tells us of the disciples themselves, saying why this waste of perfume? But Jesus actually corrects them and tells them it's a beautiful thing.
In verses 6 to 7 he says, leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me, the poor you always have with you. You can help them any time you want, but you're not always have me. Which seems like a bit of an uncharacteristically harsh thing for Jesus to say there, but he's actually referencing Deuteronomy 1511 that this idea the poor will always be with you, thereby continue to actually give to them, is what he's saying there.
But ultimately, he doesn't rebuke this woman. And what's really interesting, even more so, is if we look at chapters 14 and 15 of Mark, biblical historians actually understand these two chapters as a manuscript, a record that was actually circulating around before Mark collated his gospel, that the early church took these stories of Jesus's anointing of the First Communion, the Last Supper that he takes, and then his subsequent betrayal by Judas, an arrest as a first document that informed their worship.
And I find it really striking, then, that this document that was going around before Mark's gospel of this story starts and opens with this act of abundant, extravagant worship, extravagant worship. I want to call today's sermon the Extravagance of Worship, which might be a little bit jarring for some of us because extreme evidence is a bit of a loaded word.
And I think the reality is I want to explore a little bit today how maybe as Baptists in particular, we are a little bit more averse to the idea of extravagant worship than the Old Testament Christians were, than Jesus was. And even the early church going all the way up into the second century, third century, going all up until even today.
Other denominations extravagantly worshiping in beautiful ways that we kind of struggle with. Why is that? Because I want to explore, first and foremost, God's heart for worship this morning and the Old Testament first and foremost shows us that God loves beauty, and he actually loves extravagance. When it comes to worship. God loves beauty. We see this all the way back in Exodus.
The first person in the Bible who is described as having been filled with the Holy Spirit is an artist. Bezalel and his friend, the Holy, who helped build the Tabernacle, helped make the ornate decorations. It says in this 31 125 then the Lord said to Moses, see, I have chosen Bezalel, son of Uri, the son of her, of the tribe of Judah.
And I have filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, with knowledge, and with all kinds of skills to make artistic designs for working gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts. We're not talking about some little arts and crafts installation made from Paddle Pop sticks and PVA glue.
We're talking about gold. We're talking about precious cut gems. We're talking about the finest wood. While they're wandering through the wilderness for 40 years, God chooses to prioritize this beauty and extravagance in the midst of the wilderness as a way to worship God, as a way of creating a space for people to come into, to experience God's presence.
If God doesn't love, beauty and extravagance is a way of worship. He's got a funny way of showing it. We see continued on when the following chapters four chapters all the way 36 to 39, in intricate detail, tell us all about the inner workings of the Tabernacle, about the tabernacle itself, which was ornately woven with patterns and beautiful fibers and fabrics, about the lampstands which were made of gold, about the incense altar.
I mean, God's not just trying to ask these people to curate a space of visual beauty, the space of aromatic beauty, of smell that's beautiful and extravagant as well. There is something here that we're seeing that God's heart of worship is one of extravagance and beauty. Even in the midst of wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, God loves beauty and he loves extravagance.
And we see that sort of the pinnacle of this in Solomon's temple in one king, 6 to 7. It took seven years to build. The whole inside was covered in gold and conservative modern equivalent estimates pitch it at half $1 billion to build. This is seen as something good in the Bible. This is something that is God's desire, an extravagant, beautiful act of worship.
Because ultimately this space was supposed to represent God's character, so that when people saw it and experienced it, they were getting an insight into the fact that God is extravagant. Beauty. And this gives an insight into how we are to worship him. So when we then jump forward to the New Testament and see this extravagant act of worship in this moment with Jesus, we suddenly understand that it's perfectly in line with the heart of worship.
Throughout the entire Bible so far, we see that Mary's doing some profound things in this moment. As Jesus says in the passage, she is prophetically preparing him for his impending burial as he's crucified and then set in a tomb. This was a Jewish custom that people who were dead would be ornately anointed with perfume. But she's actually also anointing the new temple Jesus's body.
Michael spoke about this morning about the church in Israel being the Messiah's body. This is what she's doing. She's recognizing that Jesus's own body, which is going to be an extravagant sacrifice soon, is to be worshiped in such a same way. And the reality is that the early church understood this. I'm going to take you on a breakneck speed through church history, both to save you falling asleep, but also to maybe pick out the mountaintops along the way.
And a really, really important moment in church history is the year 312. It's the year that the Roman Emperor Constantine converted, somewhat miraculously and suddenly, to this weird little Jewish set called Christianity, and suddenly the entire Roman Empire became one which was first and foremost recognized as Christian. There was still religious freedom to worship in different ways. People weren't actually persecuted for having different religious beliefs in the way that Christians had previously up until that point in the Roman Empire.
But Constantine suddenly says, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of the universe. And hence, if I'm going to look at the history of God working through the Bible, I want to build something beautiful for God. So he builds Saint Peter's Basilica, a profound architectural monument which became a place of meeting for Christians and pilgrimage for Christians for hundreds and hundreds of years up until about the 16th century.
The 1500s at which you understandably 1200 years, Saint Peter's Basilica started to become a little bit dilapidated, to the point where it was past any hope of renewal and renovation. So the Catholic Church decided to build a new Saint Peter's Basilica. And this is actually a really important moment in church history in the 1500s, in which suddenly the Catholic Church are concerned that they don't have enough money, that they want to build this extravagant, beautiful declaration of worship, new Saint Peter's Basilica for the glory of God.
And then they make it pretty unwise decision, I would say, and I probably would say as Protestants, we would agree as well to raise money through the selling of indulgences. So Pope Leo the 10th, he sends monks out to the furthest reaches of the Christian empire to start selling indulgences. What were indulgences? Ultimately, you would pay the church to alleviate some time or penalty that you would experience in purgatory, right?
This was the idea. It wasn't necessarily theologically sound. And it probably wasn't a very right thing to do. But ultimately, this is what that informs, and this is really important for us. If you've fallen asleep, wake up. At this point, the Protestant Baptists, what happens is Martin Luther, a German monk, thinks that this is a barn, thinks that this is not the heart of God.
And he writes what we know is the 95 faces a critique of the selling of indulgences to raise money for the rebuilding of the building, I should say, of the new Saint Peter's Basilica. And he nails these 95 theses, these 95 points of critique about this act to the door of the church in Wittenberg, which is kind of like the corkboard at your local Choco chicken shop back in the 1500s.
Right? It wasn't as dramatic of an act of nailing it to the door of the church as we might think. It was sort of the community noticeboard where everyone would walk in that and see it. But ultimately, this is the pinnacle moment in which the Catholic Church, Catholic, quite literally meaning the one United Holy Universal Church, suddenly isn't Catholic anymore in that sense, because there is a split.
For the first time ever in church history, there's a thing called a denomination, something that is separate from the Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation. And it's really, really important for us to understand when we, as Protestant Baptists are viewing our theology of extravagant worship where we come from, what our foundations are, what might inform some of our prejudices and presuppositions around worship and extravagant worship.
One of the faces is the 86 theses that Martin Luther wrote, for example, is why does the Pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the Basilica of Saint Peter with the money of poor believers, rather than his own money? Again, a fair critique. Why is the Catholic Church putting burdensome fees on people who can't really afford it, to build something that is extravagant and over-the-top?
It's a fair critique, but I think ultimately what we find a lot of times I've said this before in culture, we find the culture is a pendulum, right? And when it swings too far, one way, it is prone to swing too far back the other way. And what happened was the Protestant movement for all of its great things.
I say, could be fairly critiqued on losing the theology of the extravagance and beauty of worship. There was a lot of great things to come out of the Reformation, but I think we lost something. I think we may be through the baby, out with the bathwater a bit, and as we jump forward again, another some 300 years in history to Baptists and Australian Baptists, we have two.
Well, we have quite a few Baptist distinctions, but there's two that I really want to focus on which really inform our theology around extravagant worship. One, we believe in autonomous local churches, and we believe in the separation of church and state. What does that mean? Well, first and foremost, this really influenced the way in which we built buildings as Baptists, because we were autonomous in local churches, which meant, unlike the Catholics and the Anglicans.
For instance, in the 1800s, when Australians started building churches, they, the Baptists, weren't getting subsidies and handouts from the larger denomination. They were raising money independently by themselves. This is a Baptist, distinctive that each church is autonomously run and thereby any building projects. For instance, are independently fundraised for. Secondly, independence of church and state, while Catholic and Anglican churches, for instance, were getting subsidies.
Also from the government to build their buildings, Baptists also wanted to stay away from that. They didn't want to be, I suppose, entwined with a government and who could later maybe influence them because we'd been given a generous handout at some point to build a building. Right. So what that ends up meaning is that while Catholic and Anglican churches look like this.
Baptist churches can tend to look like this.
Tell me that that's not going to inform our theology of extravagance and worship right? It's in our DNA. And so that's what I just kind of wanted to take a very long run up to say that we need to recognize what the foundations are, that we build our own theology on. And when it comes to extravagant worship, I think we can agree that we might have some biases, that maybe our pendulum has swung a bit too far the other way, and we can end up finding ourselves being in a very similar mindset as Jesus's disciples.
On this evening, before the Passover meal, where we say, why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages, and the money given to the poor. But I think we can focus a lot of the time on sins of commission. So bad things, negative things, ungodly things that we do, and we sometimes forget that.
There's another side to that coin, which is sins of omission. Times that we missed the mark, which is literally one of the original words for sin. An archer who's trying to hit the bullseye. It misses the mark. I think we can miss the mark a little bit when it comes to understanding how extravagant and abundant and beautiful our worship can be in all senses.
Because the Word of God, Jesus himself rebukes this frugal, stingy, minimalist mindset. Again he says to his disciples, leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me, the poor you will always have with you, and you can help them anytime you want, but you will not always have me. She did what she could.
She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, whenever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her. See, just as Mary in this moment dramatically cracks open, this alabaster jar of precious perfume and lavishly pours it over Christ's head, so too is Jesus.
Very soon going to commit the most extravagant act of worship that anyone could ever imagine. Because just as Mary broke that jar and lavishly poured out that perfume, so to Christ, when he brings his disciples in for the Last Supper, only a few verses later takes the bread, and when he is given thanks, he breaks it and gives it to the disciples, telling them, this is my body which is going to be broken for you.
And then he takes a cup, and when he gives thanks, he gives it to them, and they drink it. And he says, this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. A more precious libation offering than all the perfume in the world. The blood of God poured out extravagantly for us.
Maybe that there was some wisdom in the early church using this image of an alabaster jar, broken open and abundantly poured out as the opening frame to inform their worship. So I want to ask you all this morning what's in your alabaster jar? What is the precious thing that you might still be unwilling to pour out to Christ?
I don't know how many of you may be continuing on with the Lent Challenge series. This week was giving up screens. I realized that I might be holding screens in my alabaster jar. It's very hard to give up time on my side watching TV, even listening to podcasts and music. It doesn't have to be a year's worth of wages or precious perfume that we are being called to pour out this morning, but we may, in our own humanly flawed hearts, be elevating certain things to a point far beyond a year's worth of wages.
Mary's alabaster jar was most likely a family heirloom. It was so precious and expensive that it was probably something that had been handed down from generation to generation is the thing that you're holding in your alabaster jar this morning. Something that has been ancestral, an ancestral anchor that generations of your family have been holding on to. The generations of your church, your denomination, have been holding onto that this morning.
Jesus wants to challenge you to abundantly pour out onto him.
Because Mark's gospel reveals to us that when we break ourselves and give everything over to Christ, that it is in Jesus's own words, a beautiful thing. So I want to do something a bit weird, something a bit different. You can ask everyone to close their eyes for a second, and I want you to imagine that you were in that room some 2000 years ago with Jesus and his disciples eating a meal around a table, and he was standing there next to Jesus.
You're standing above him. You look down at his head, and in your hands is a jar, an alabaster jar of the thing that you hold most precious in the world, a thing that would be costly and scandalous and extravagant to let go of.
I want to ask you right now, I think you know what's going to happen. How do you feel about the thought of cracking open that jar right now? What emotions are going through you as you consider what it might be like to crack open that jar and extravagantly pour out whatever it is onto Jesus?
Maybe you want to take a second to ask the Holy Spirit to just take those feelings of resistance away, to take those feelings of fear away.
In your own time, I want you to imagine you cracking open that jar and pouring every last drop of what's inside onto the head of the Messiah. Onto the head of Jesus. Onto the head of the church. Onto the Son of God. Because no matter how priceless it may seem, it does not hold a candle to the blinding glory of God.
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 center. Gerald. 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.

BANTER - Jesus raises Lazarus

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Mitch & Murray chat about the way John uses Lazarus' resurrection as a narrative bridge in his gospel, the way we are to respond to Jesus' anger towards death, and how Mary and Martha's responses represent the polarities of a Kingdom of God which is both "Here" yet "Not yet"
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 

Jesus raises Lazarus - Mitch Levingston

John 11:1-45
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”
Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”
After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
________
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 Center podcast. We're a church based in general, 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.
Good morning again, everyone. I know it was a long passage, but in those words I am the resurrection and the life. What an amazing declaration I am the resurrection and the life. The part of this lent series. In preparing for Easter, we. We started off with the 40 days of Jesus in the wilderness.
Last week, my, brought us a word from Mark eight way. Jesus tells us to pick up our cross and follow after him. So the purpose of reflecting upon the resurrection of Lazarus is this reminder that in in the journey of the wilderness, there is an end. Hope. Fasting, it said, will eventually lead to fasting and our case mourning leads to resurrection.
What I love about this passage is the vulnerability and the rawness of Jesus. Let's be honest, in our culture, we don't particularly appreciate vulnerability and rawness. Doesn't just say Jesus was crying, shed a few tears. Jesus is weeping. Jesus weeping very loudly and probably in the posture of a middle eastern man. This is confronting for us. I sat through so many Christian funerals.
There's very few tears. There's a lot of very few. Yeah, there's the acts of mourning and crying and grieving. But here we encounter our Lord weeping for his friends. It's confronting in that sense, because here we don't encounter this sort of stoic Jesus that doesn't feel emotion, who we encounter a man, the God man that feels emotions and rawness.
Also, the other thing I love about this is account is that some mysterious there is a mystery I think gives us a bit of a window into how God operates. There's a mystery there that the assumption would be that I guess what? When and Mary and Martha send a messenger to Jesus about the situation and Lazarus that he would act, he would do something instead of moving the action, he waits a, single day's journey.
He deliberately waits for two days, that's all. Okay. And and we know the answer. When I answer that, the Jesus declaration to his disciples that this sickness will not end in death. No, it's for God's glory. So that the that God's Son may be glorified through it. Okay. That's the that's the answer. That's the good kind of. If you're at Bible college and you had this question to answer an exam, that would be the answer.
But it's to pay this duty is there's still mystery. That's what I love about this. We're given a window into how God operates. Sometimes there is instantaneous action. Sometimes we're left waiting and waiting and wondering. So who knows how God's glory will be revealed in this situation? That's because I like to. I like to leave us all with a bit of biblical knowledge before we walk away on a Sunday.
So spend a couple of minutes just exploring is the context of the passage and how. I guess it just shapes John's gospel. So John 11 comes off the John ten, funnily enough, and in John ten, Jesus has nearly been killed by stoning. All right. So now Jesus has gone off into the wilderness as a way, I guess, to protect himself.
And and John 11 is actually in John's gospel. This is what's cool, that John's gospel, it's the catalyst that leads to Jesus death. So I guess you could say John, John, chapters 1 to 10 of the public ministry of Jesus. These are the works that he's doing. John 11 is the bridge to take away, like it goes from the point of public ministry to his Passion Week to his death.
And so it's really quite significant. And John's the only gospel author to give us this that's also I find interesting, too, is that after Lazarus is raised from the dead, and Lazarus is meant to be a bit of a foreshadowing of what will happen to Jesus because of they tried to Lazarus as well. They try to kill him.
So Lazarus operates as like a miniature like parable, you could say, for what would happen to Jesus. And I guess by extension to us. Also, the other cool thing about, the resurrection of Lazarus at that this is the seventh sign in John's gospel, John's and mine. I will chat more about this a better, so I won't go into too much detail.
So John has seven signs, but Jesus says seven I am statements. And there's this theme of new creation of light and darkness. And so this resurrection of Lazarus is the seventh sign in John. And as you should know by now, number seven in the Bible means what? Perfection. Completion. So, so really deliberate choice. Really cool play that that John is shaping for us.
That was said before this passage leaves us with mystery as mysterious and perhaps to our perspective, a little callous, that Jesus would hear this knowledge about Lazarus and just sort of go, okay, this sickness might lead to death. But as it says here, you know, so God's glory, no, it's for God's glory so that the son may be glorified through it.
I just let his friend die. It could seem a bit callous for us, but because I am very much a spiritual influence on my spiritual journey, this week, look to my spiritual ancestors for some help and understanding this and the church. Father John Kristofferson and I have a quote here on the screen. This is from his homily.
This is from his teachings, from the gospel of John. I found this a really helpful little quote. I hopefully you can find it helpful to. Kristofferson says many men, when they see any of those who are pleasing to God, suffering anything terrible, as for instance, having fall into sickness or poverty, and the other and in any other a like are offended not knowing that those that those are especially dear to God, it belongs to endure these things.
Since Lazarus was also one of the friends of Christ and was sick. Okay, it's a little clunky because of the translation, but essentially Kristofferson is arguing that those that follow Jesus can kind of think, oh yeah, but we're protected. We should be protected from life's problems. And Kristofferson is by saying, hey, man, look, look at Lazarus. This was a dear friend of Jesus.
He still got sick and he still died. It's a powerful reminder of that, just because a Jesus is come, because Jesus conquered sin and death, there's still evil and pain and suffering.
What was Jesus doing in those two days? I don't know, I wonder that whenever he was praying, maybe he was preparing himself. And this this is something that may be right, may not be right. But in John's Gospel, there's a theme of light and darkness. And so when, when Jesus is preparing to go back to Bethany, but going to Bethany, that's only one mile from Jerusalem, I remember that whole light darkness theme.
Jesus says here it should be here on the screen. It says here. But Rabbi, this is from verse five. But, Rabbi, they said a short while ago the Jews there tried to stun you, and yet you are going back. Jesus answered, they're not 12 hours of daylight. Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world's light it is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.
Then location that which I was reading about, which some commentators argue, is that the idea here is that Jesus is saying is like, hey, right now it's still the hour of light. I'm not going to die right now. They've tried to kill me, but I'm still walking in the light. It's in the darkness that you stumble. It's in the darkness.
That's what Jesus equates with his death. It's in that that. That the hour of darkness is when he dies. So right now, he's still going to be protected. But Jesus is waiting, waiting for that moment to to set off those chain of events when darkness will come. I guess it's part of God being God and us being humans.
We do not understand. It's all part of this mystery that two days, that two days are waiting time of God, of Jesus knowing what he's doing but us left waiting, waiting to see when God will. I love it here that Thomas Thomas gets a bad rap. And look, I sometimes feel like I'm a bit of a doubting Thomas, so I guess I kind of, you know, I emphasize the Thomas, but I love what Thomas says here, is that with your Jesus determination to go, Thomas says this I want to come, let us go, that we may die with him.
I'm trusting that they were prepared to die, that I prepared to give up everything. Yet when that hour darkness came along, all of them fled. Let's just say, interesting aside, I think when Jesus gets back to Bethany, both the sisters ask pretty much the same question. They asked the if only question that if only question of oh, hello.
Oh, Marcus. Hello, buddy. Come down. You got a question of if only. And so when Jesus gets here, Ma says, you know, if only, Lord, that you had been here, my I, my brother would not have died. And Mary asked that same question. I'm sure that we've been tempted. Haven't we been tempted in that? If only God, you had done this, or maybe it's for ourselves.
If only I hadn't have made this decision. If only I hadn't have said this. If I only hadn't done that. And then let's just ask, why is this a human? This to it, that mystery. If only God, if only the sisters here, in terrible pain. This is what this is just a normal resurrection that Jesus is about to do.
Jesus response to Martha is, your brother will rise again. Now, Martha, as a good Jew, knew that. So passages like Daniel 1212 that the righteous being in the resurrected like the stars, or as I 65 and 66, which spoke about this idea of a new heaven, the new earth. There was this concept in Jesus. I mean, yeah, eventually all of us will be resurrected.
And Martha is familiar with this. Just. Yes. Look, I know this. That doesn't take away the pain I'm feeling now. This is where this this is the catalyst for this profound statement. I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
Do you believe this love, Martha? Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world and resurrections resuscitation. What do you want to call him and not new? This isn't the first time it's happened in the Bible. The prophet Elijah Rice people, Jesus himself raised, Jairus daughter and the widow's son in the town of nine.
So resurrections. This isn't the first one to happen in Scripture, but this is the first one to be linked with Jesus divinity. See, Jesus just doesn't offer life. He's just like, okay, I'm going to bring Lazarus from the dead. I'm going to resuscitate him. Temporal, temporal. He is love. If Jesus is resurrection and life, this is profound because who is the one that gives human life?
God. God is the one who breathes life into Adam. God, someone who breathes into us, our spirit. He's the one that can take it away. Now Jesus is saying the statement that he is the one to do that. He is the resurrection. He is the source of life. And if you get a John commentary, you will find lots and lots of ink spilled over unpacking the complexity of this.
What this meaning of the sentence of his price now, I think, is giving us this profound statement. Jumping ahead when Jesus then encounters Mary at the tomb when count it just such a human Jesus. This is from verse 33. We read when Jesus saw her weeping, that's Mary and the Jews who had come along with her, also weeping.
He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Where have you laid him? He asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied. And there's the Sunday school. And so I learned Sunday School, the shortest Bible verse in Scripture. Jesus wept.
Now this will be definitely a branch of conversation. We'll actually look at the Greek and some of the meaning of this. But just to keep it simple for this morning, that that word that says there on the screen about, about Jesus being deeply moved in spirit and troubled, a legitimate way of translating it. And the same Greek word is used in other places in the gospel to mean anger, to mean fury.
Also can be used. It was used in classical Greek to describe like a horse snorting, like a I can. I want you to picture this picture. Jesus, there. He's not just like, when I think a deeply moved, just maybe he's just spirits, a bit troubled. There's this visceral action. He's angry, he's angry, and it's like he's snorting, snorting and crying with the weeping.
This has led to some debate. Well, why would Jesus be angry? This is why more modern translations have used that. That that phrase about being deeply troubled. Yeah, it's probably easy. Understand? Why would he be angry? Is he angry at the tears of Mary in the fellow Jews? Is he anger them? I should know, come on, man, I'm.
I'm Jesus. He shouldn't be upset. But the anger like perhaps a saint. Deeper. But Jesus is the resurrection and life. The opposite of life is death. Death isn't part of God's purposes. Death is caused by sin, a death I call our perspective. We choose, let's say, death. A bit of a friend possible a death. It's an enemy. In fact, in one Corinthians 1526, Apostle tells us, the last enemy to be destroyed is death, not the last friend.
Not the last comfort, but the last enemy. So at the tomb last year. So we have picture this Jesus here is weeping and angry because that tomb represents the enemy, the enemy that has destroyed his father's good creation. It's the enemy that he has come to destroy. Even though he dies, what he's about to do in raising Lazarus from the dead, as still makes him weep and still makes him angry, gives us just.
It's that profound moment where I am the resurrection and the life had Jesus weeping just such a wonderful, just blending of how Jesus is by God and human in this one moment.
I mean, Jesus does call out Lazarus from the dead. Martha gives him a little warning, and that warning is, comes from verse nine. Take away the stone. He said, but, Lord Martha said, this, Martha, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor, for it has been for days. And also a reason for this to in Jewish culture it was believed that a soul had left the body and gone.
Now to share after three days. Fact, there's some Jewish writings which would tell people to go, hey, go check the tomb after three days, just to make sure that that person is actually dead. He might not be. So by waiting for days. Jesus has in that culture well and truly race. Lazarus guy is dead. And it's just so simple.
It's a lovely simplicity about how he resurrects Lazarus. Jesus takes the posture of prayer, looks up to heaven. Father, I thank you that you've heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I say this for the benefit of the people standing here that they may believe you sent me. That's probably what he was doing for those last two days.
He's praying. Praying for this moment. When he said this, Jesus called a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face, said earlier that John, setting up the resurrection of Lazarus to point us to Jesus own resurrection. But Lazarus still needs hope to take off his grave clothes.
Jesus will come out of the tomb and like like clothes will be left. The. But if it's pointing to that hope of Jesus, but also for us. That one day each and every one of us, if we believe in Jesus, Jesus will stand outside our tomb and call out, Mitch, Peter Murray, insert your name. Come out. That is the Christian hope.
In this series, I've been wanting to leave you with just tools, to draw the toolbox to help in your Christian walk. I think the first toolboxes is actually probably need to learn how to whip. It was Hippolytus of Rome who said of Jesus, hey, what need was there to wait for him? He, he, he was soon about to rise, but Jesus wept to give us an example of sympathy and kindliness towards our fellow human beings, Jesus wept that he might, by deed rather than would teach us to weep with those that wait.
Simple and profound. So profound teaching Jesus gave us a model to weep with those who weep. I'm guilty of this. I think many Protestant evangelicals are guilty of this, that when people are suffering, we try to give them those cliches. Look, we're trying to be nice. Oh, God's will is a mystery. God has a greater plan. God has a greater purpose in this.
Yes, sure, I know that. I know, I know a stack of things. I've been to Bible college, but perhaps in the moment when suffering is happening, I don't need to be reminded of that. That's just a simple act of weeping is all that we need and try to give pithy answers. Don't try to. And I give comforting words.
Just weep. Be silent. That's the model Jesus gave us. Second thing, too is it actually for his part, and tiding with Easter and Lent? The whole point is is Easter series is to prepare us for Easter, to prepare us for eternity, and often wonders, okay, once you've been resurrected from the dead, death would have no fear anymore, wouldn't it?
Imagine Lazarus, that the Jewish authorities are trying to kill him. It's like, okay, I, I know what death is like. I've been there. I don't know what it's like to overcome that because my God has rescued me. And so if you are doing the challenges and following the excellent at at night, there's actually an app. And if you're not doing the the lent challenges, you can still do this.
You can still find the Apple or Google it online. But there is an excellent exercise which is called am I Ready to Die today? And the basis of the question is that am I ready to join God in heaven and part of the exercise that actually ask, so if you knew you were going to die in the next 24 hours, what would you do?
What would you say? What would you pray for? And I think it's a big question. I we knew that we were definitely going to die tomorrow. We'd probably live our lives very differently, wouldn't worry about small things, be more focused on more spiritual matters. And so the next question essentially is that, well, okay, if that's how you'd live your life, if knowing if you had 24 hours left to live, why aren't you doing that each and every day?
It's a great question. It's a wonderful question. That's my challenge for us, is that Jesus is the resurrection and life. It's a question that he asked of Martha is, do you believe this? Ask that to you to do you believe this? Do you believe that there is life in Jesus, and that with him that you will never die, that you will be raised to life again?
Because one day Jesus will stand in front of all our teams. We're being cremated. We're being buried where that might be. And he will call out, Mitch, come out! And that's a profound hope. That's a profound hope in the midst of a world full of pain and suffering, in the midst of a world where we have a God that does deal with mystery, that we fully don't comprehend how this moment is leading to greater glory.
Perhaps that simple act, believing that Jesus is the resurrection and life. And if you haven't done that, I encourage you today come up to the prayer corner to receive prayer. Pray for to receive Jesus as the one who is the resurrection and life. Let me pray over us friends.
Lord, you said those words. Father, I thank you. You have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. And Lord, we thank you. That wasn't just the words of your son that you hear. That's the words of those who put their faith in Jesus Christ. You also hear. And, Lord, today each of us sit in this room in very different spaces, some of us in a very, very good place, some of us in a place of great difficulty.
I thank you that in coming to John 11 we see in you the tensions of mystery, tensions of what we would call I answered prayer of trying to figure out how this is leading to a greater glory. But we also say in this Jesus who weeps, who weeps alongside us, and Lord, wherever we are today, pray that ultimately each and every one of us believe in you.
Believe that you are the resurrection and the life. And I pray that each and every one of us here will experience the taste of life that you will bring when your kingdom comes in its fullness. So I ask this now in the precious name of Jesus, Amen. 
Thank you 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 center. Gerald. 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.

The Way of the Cross - Murray Lambert

Mark 8:27-38
Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”
Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
 
....
 
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=11f44dcd078e4707
Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
 
....
 
TRANSCRIPT
 
Hey, welcome to the Center podcast. We're a church based in general, 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.
Morning, church. How are we doing today? Well, the way of the cross. I don't know about you guys.
That's a pretty brutal passage. There's quite a few things that are pretty striking. Challenging. It's not. Maybe the first passage I would point someone towards if I was telling them about Christianity. You want to become a Christian? Pretty much. You've just got to completely give up all of your own ambitions, desires, hopes, dreams. You've got to, you know, take up a cross and follow Jesus.
It's a bit of a hard sell, isn't it? And it's really interesting because the author, Mark, makes a really interesting detail in his gospel. When he tells his story, it says that Jesus spoke plainly. Say, Mark's aware that up until this point, Jesus, a lot of the time has been speaking in parables, in metaphors, in symbols. That isn't really a metaphor for his disciples who is standing there.
It's not going to be a metaphor in one week's time when their rabbi, their teacher, who they've been following for the past three years, is brutally humiliated and tortured on a cross. It's not going to be a metaphor or a symbol. It's going to be a very real thing that they're facing. And I can't help but think that there's a challenge for us here that if we're really going to take this teaching on face value, there's some uncomfortable realities that we need to sort of wrestle with.
Because the reality is, if we were to sell Christianity, if we were to evangelize the good news purely based on Mark eight, it would kind of end up looking somewhat like this. Let's check it out.
I'm associate pastor teacher and we are so excited that you are here today about this revolutionary lifestyle brand from the same time you go eat the Ten Commandments in the highly beloved Old Testament series, introducing Christianity. Let me ask you, if you would like to fulfill the power and control measure comes to you. The thought you might like to be humiliated, ostracized, and physically harmed, even to the youth group, you might like to join the ranks of people who previously been sex attacks, fruits and old demons.
It's well so the lonely parts of your heart, soul, mind and strength. All this could be yours by joining Christianity, all you need is simply deny yourself completely. Take up an ancient torture device which is exclusively being safe for criminals and those who police the government through a middle eastern and whose fingers and clean hands you would say, we look forward to seeing you in church.
This Christianity. It's a way of life and sometimes it.
All right. Who's in? I gotta be honest. That's not how I was sold Christianity when I was 14 years old. I was kind of given more of a Romans ten nine account for all who proclaim that Jesus is God, and that God rose him from the dead will be saved like, great. I can get behind that. That's it.
That's a slightly harder, terms and conditions to sign up for, isn't it? And it's sort of makes us beg the question more like, was I duped? Was I deceived Will? No, I wasn't, because I think that much like Peter and the disciples, I didn't understand the full extent of what it meant to recognize Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
And we see that Jesus actually, when he calls Peter and his brother Andrew and their two friends, James and John as fishermen in Mark 116 to 20 it says, As Jesus was going along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, who's later Peter. So the guy who Jesus rebukes and says, get behind me.
Satan saw them casting a net into the sea for the fishermen. And Jesus said to them, follow me, and I will have you become fishers of people. Immediately they left their nets and followed him, and going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, who were also in the boat mending the nets, and immediately he called them.
And they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and went away to follow them. Nothing really about denying yourself. I mean, maybe they, you know, left their job and their friends, and I mean James and John, I guess, left the family business, but it sort of suggests that they had some hired hands, and maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.
I mean, at this point, things are pretty exciting. In the following chapters. Jesus is healing people from physical disease and illness. He's casting demons out of people. He's on a lake where he's a wild storm, and by the very command of his words, he stops the waves in the wind and the disciples go, who is this? Who commands even nature?
It's pretty exciting. They're starting to go, I think that we've, you know, kind of hitched our wagon to the right horse and then suddenly we get to the passage that we're looking at today, Mark eight. And things take a bit of a dramatic turn. I take a bit of a dramatic turn. If we look at the structure of Mark's gospel in the next slide, we see that this moment is a lynchpin, a hinge, a turning point in Mark's entire gospel.
The first seven chapters are all about Jesus showing his authority as the Messiah through amazing teaching that is beyond anybody has ever heard before. And through undeniable acts of power, miracles, wonders, signs. And then suddenly, Mark slows his entire gospel right down the first half of Mark's gospel, he uses this word you use this immediately, all the time.
Immediately. Jesus did this immediately he did that. He did this, he did that. He did this. He did that. The first seven chapters are almost three years of Jesus's ministry. And then it slows right down the chapter right? Peter recognizes Jesus. You are the Messiah. Jesus starts telling them about what that expectation of a messiah actually means. And the back half of the gospel of Mark is the final wake of Jesus's life.
Mark is trying to say, let's just slow down for a second. There's something really important going on here, and ultimately you can kind of imagine it, can't you? You can kind of imagine it that, you know, Jesus goes, well, you know, you guys have been following me around for three years now. You've been my apprentices. First of all, let's let's do a bit of a, you know, public canvasing.
What about the people saying that I'm like and they go, well, some people say John the Baptist, some people say Elijah, some people say one of the other prophets. And he goes like, hey, well, who do you say I am? And you can imagine at this point, you know, these, these 12 Jewish men who've been, who've been brought up with this expectation of this Jewish king who would come and liberate Israel from slavery, from oppression, a kind of thinking, I think he's the Messiah.
And Peter kind of steps up and goes, you the Messiah. And Jesus says, yes. And you can kind of imagine the disciples are kind of slapping each other as I told you, it's through this desire. It's happening. It's really going to happen. And then Jesus immediately says, but what do you understand the Messiah to be? What do we understand when we're saying that Jesus is our Lord and Savior?
Let's check out this second and last video just about the expectation of the Messiah.
Gospel of Mark of the book in the Bible about the life of Jesus and the earliest reliable tradition tells us that it was written by a guy named John Mark. And now Mark didn't just grab a bunch of random stories about Jesus and throw them together.
He's designed this book to address really specific questions about whether or not Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. So let's stop right there, because that's a term a lot of people like me are very familiar with. Yeah. So the Messiah was a royal figure, sometimes called the Son of God. That Israel was expecting to come and set up a kingdom here on earth.
And around the time of Jesus, Israel was occupied by Rome. And so many Jews were hoping that the Messiah would come and overthrow the Romans and rule as king. But Jesus didn't overthrow the Romans. In fact, he was killed by them. And that brings us to the very issues Mark is trying to get at in this book. So in the first half he focuses on who Jesus is.
Is he really the Messiah? And then in the second half, he's addressing how Jesus became the messianic king. And then right here in the middle of the book is this pivotal story that brings the two halves together. And Jesus answers both of these questions. Okay, so let's talk about the first half of the book, who Jesus is. So Mark makes his beliefs about Jesus very clear from the first line of the book, the beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.
One of the next stories is Jesus getting baptized and God's voice announces from heaven, this is my son. So what could be more clear? It's presenting Jesus as the Messiah. Yes, but as you're reading through this first half of Mark, you'll notice something really interesting start to happen. Jesus is going about healing all these different people, and he's constantly telling them to keep quiet about it.
And this happens so many times in Mark's account. It's very.
I am the Son of God. But then something new happens because Jesus starts explaining to them how he's going to become the messianic Kingdom, and it is not what they expected. He says he's going to suffer and die and rule by becoming a servant. Or in his words, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to become a servant and to give his life as a ransom.
Peter is startled by this and rebukes Jesus, because there's no way he's going to let Jesus die, and Jesus responds, get behind me! See? Which is really intense. It really is. But it highlights how important it is for Jesus that his disciples come to understand who he really is. And so here now, in this pivotal section, Jesus tries three different times to have this conversation with them, and every time they respond in confusion and even fear.
So throughout the next section, chapters eight, nine, and ten, Jesus reveals to them three times, not just on the Messiah, but this is what it's going to look like. And they're confused. They're not getting it. They're afraid they may be in denial. And he says, okay, well, it seems like you don't get it. So instead of letting me tell you, let me show you what it means to be a suffering Messiah.
It's not an easy teaching to deny yourself, to take up your cross and follow Jesus. And I think that as we look at these three points, we could probably agree that in a culture of excess and instant gratification, there's probably a lot of opportunities to deny our selves. But taking up a cross is really a little bit foreign.
Like Mark, who writes this gospel, the you know, best understanding of who Mark was was he was actually Simon paid his own disciple who had been sitting under his teaching for years and years and years, hearing all of these stories recounted firsthand from Simon Peter's experiences with Jesus. And then suddenly Simon Peter is crucified by the Roman Empire.
And Marcus, we we better start getting some of these oral traditions, these stories which have only been told verbally down. And he's trying to kind of reassure in part the church at that point. Hey, guys. Yeah. Like Simon Peter just got crucified. But don't forget this. This isn't new. This is exactly what happened to Jesus. And this is what Jesus is actually calling us all into.
So for the disciples, some of them who were also crucified along with Jesus after the fact for following his way of life. And so a lot of the early church that this was first written to, like taking up your cross, was still not a metaphor, an analogy, but I understand that maybe when we compare our point in history right now to the last 1700 years of the West, being a Christian nation, that moving into a post Christendom world might feel at times like we're being persecuted and martyred.
But we're not really. When you think about what the original audience were experiencing, like a real situation where they're facing real death and real public humiliation and isolation and alienation, I'm not saying that it's not the I'm not saying it's the easiest thing every single day to be a Christian. But taking up our cross is going to be in Sydney a lot more metaphorical.
So how do we take this teaching and apply it to our lives now? Well, I think John Mark comma gives a really interesting paradigm in his book, Practicing the Way. And he has this beautiful quote. If you remember one thing from this morning, remember this following Jesus, he writes, is an act of subtraction, not of addition. Following Jesus is an act of subtraction, not of addition.
He argues that in our highly overscheduled, busy world.
The most radical thing we can do is to actually subtract from our lives so that we can follow Jesus more faithfully. And he offers this really helpful paradigm. He actually breaks spiritual practices into four different quadrants. And he sort of measures this by whether a spiritual practice is done solo alone or is it done in community, and likewise whether it's done as an act of abstinence, of subtracting, or whether it's done as an act of engagement, of adding, of taking something on, dare we say, taking on our cross.
So that compared to the first raters of Mark, it's not really taking up that cross. But that's the current context we find ourselves in now. There's a whole lot more obviously to denying yourself and taking up your cross, and I'm sure that there's probably people in countries in the world that are persecuted right now that would be probably pretty offended by the suggestion that taking on a spiritual practice is picking up your cross.
But I think reality is the context in which we find ourselves. This is an applicable application. So I just want to preface that when I say that. But if you're thinking about spiritual practices and if you're anything like me, then I would suggest that the first place that you go to is a lone solo. Because we're in individualistic community, we think first and foremost I and in taking something on, in adding something to our plight, we're probably going to lean first and foremost to those areas of a lone engagement.
And those sort of disciplines might be things such as prayer and Bible reading. Any spiritual practices that you're doing by yourself that are adding extra things to your schedule. These are these things which are really helpful and important, but they're only a quarter of the pie. And we miss out on a lot of other really helpful and important stuff.
If we're only ever thinking about solo engagement alone engagement in our spiritual practice. So once we've kind of thought, okay, cool, what things can I add to myself? My spiritual practice personally, that prayer I Bible readings. We're probably then going to go, well, maybe, maybe I'll step into the world of community. Right? So what things could I add to my plate as a spiritual practice in community?
So this would be attending church. This would be joining a small group. This would be partaking in the Lord's Supper. Even you might join a ministry team. You might do an act of justice as a team, as a group of Christians in the community. And again, this is really vital. And that's an important part of the graph. All of these quadrants are equally important.
But what John Mark Comber argues, and what I would kind of agree with, is that there's an uneven influence and weighting on this side of the equation, and when we miss out the other half of the graph, we miss out on a huge amount of wonderful spiritual formation. But on top of that, you might find you might be thinking to yourself, well, I'm in a space right now where I'm pretty good with my personal Bible reading, my daily plan.
Haven't missed a day. You should see my streak on YouVersion. It's out. I'm not saying May. I'm saying you might be saying this. Mine's not very good. You might be saying, hey, like, my prayer is really good at the minute. You might be saying, hey, like, I attend church, you know, let's say 50 weeks of the year.
You know, I'm in a small group, I'm in a ministry team. I'm on a bunch of rosters. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick. But why am I feeling so exhausted? And maybe it's because we've picked up our cross, but we're still carrying around a bunch of baggage. At the same time, we've done acts of addition without any acts of subtraction.
So probably the first place that's going to be most natural for us to go is solo or alone abstinence. So this looks like acts of, for instance, silence and solitude, fasting, simple living. These are some of the elements, the virtues, the spiritual disciplines that we're exploring through this lent series. And it's these spiritual practices which are actually going to free us up, not just for things below the line in our engagement, but also it's the things that when they're able to enjoy in the space of abstinence and community.
Because when we finally start to think, what does it look like to deny ourselves, to partake in abstinence, we actually start to free ourselves up a little bit. And suddenly this cross that we're carrying, these things that we're doing, aren't as heavy. And finally, we are able to, in that final quadrant of abstinence in community, enjoy things like Sabbath, real rest, enjoy things like being able to be generous and live in a full, giving and receiving community.
And this reality is that we're not able to experience true rest until we have denied some of the activities and events in our calendar that we really want to do, and ruthlessly eliminated them and said, no, actually, I'm going to prioritize rest over, going to the kite festival or whatever it might be. This is a radical way of life.
It seems easy, but there's actually maybe nothing harder to in a society that's always asking if you can be free for that extra second in your day to say no, I'm going to, as John Mark says, ruthlessly eliminate. Hurry. Because it's only when we actually have some extra capacity that we're going to be able to partake in generosity and Sabbath.
It's only when we deny those desires to go to that event, to do that activity, that we're actually going to have space to rest. It's only when we choose not to spend our time, energy and money on those things that maybe we want, that we're able to be generous with those resources for others. If you want to start journeying in this and partaking, this is actually a really fantastic challenge that Mitch has written up for us this week, moving into week two of our lent Challenge.
Because every single week is a new challenge. So don't feel because you didn't sign up to week one that you can't join us for week two. It's actually designed so you could sign up for week six and just do week six. I'd encourage you to sign up for every week, but if you want to sign up this week, coming for week to go ahead, you can get online, click on Church Lent Challenge, get amongst it, because we're going to be focusing on how we can deny ourselves of some things so that we can enjoy better sleep, physical rest.
Because I don't know about you, I'm just gonna speak for myself. I am definitely a lot more Christlike when I've had a good night's sleep. Yeah, sleep. You know, supposedly historians say that we used to have ten hours sleep a night, and then Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. And overnight it went down to eight. Overnight, the light bulb robbed us of two hours sleep.
Most of us are probably sleeping less than we should, or a lot of us would be. So now I ourselves take up that cross, follow Jesus. But the final point following Jesus is really, really important because as I said in the passage desk on Friday, I think that we make a grievous mistake when we think that the cross is the destination.
The cross isn't the destination. The cross is a vital pitstop to get to the resurrection. And this is written into the very fabric of nature. Scripture says that just as a seed must first die in the ground before it sprouts forth into new life and becomes a tree which can bear fruit. So we too must die to ourselves before we can inherit a new resurrection life.
It's written into the very fabric of God's creation, this need for us to die to ourselves. The cross is important, pitstop, but ultimately the destination is resurrection. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, what one of these practices do I want to engage in? I'd really suggest for you to spend some time this week in some real serious just prayer meditation, and consider how can may following Jesus be a radical act of subtraction and not addition this week.
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 center. Gerald. 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.

BANTER - The Way of the Cross

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Mark's account of Jesus' ministry is one of a Suffering Servant. How do we engage with that in a culture where Christians are far from persecuted? 
The boys chat about Markan Sandwiches, the Jewish expectation of Elijah's return, an how 1st century Jewish readers were able to reconcile that Jesus would rise "on the third day", when being crucified on Friday and risen on the Sunday would be "on the second day" in our English grammar. 
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 

Jesus is Tempted - Mitch Levingston

Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’ ”
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ ”
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you    to guard you carefully;they will lift you up in their hands,    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
...
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=11f44dcd078e4707
Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
 
TRANSCRIPT
 
All righty. So this morning, we start the first of our, lent series, looking at passages to help us prepare for Easter. And what better passage to look at than Jesus 40 days of being tempted by Satan in the wilderness.
This is the benchmark. This is the reason why the church set aside the 40 days before Easter. Because this is what our Lord and Savior did. He went into the wilderness, wrestled with Satan, and came out a victorious. That's why monks went out into the desert for periods of prayer and fasting. We also simulate what our Lord did to overcome the palace of darkness and evil.
And so this morning, we kind of kind of do two things. We're going to spend a bit of time looking at some of the cool cultural context. Why I think it's cool. The cool kind of cultural context that Luke was tapping into the Old Testament images, how it fits in with his narrative, but also to just give you some practical tools.
I'm going to draw from the toolbox of church history so you can walk away with some head knowledge, but more importantly, some practical knowledge of what to do when you face temptation. Could we just have the Bible? Could the next slide, please? There it is. Perfect. Now, if you read the Gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke side by side, you notice that Matthew has Jesus being baptized, by John the Baptist.
And then Jesus immediately goes into the wilderness. Now, if you read Luke's account, which we did this morning just before we just before Jesus, this Luke describes Jesus in the wilderness. Luke gives us his genealogy. Now, he loves reading genealogies in the Bible. Look, I see one hand, a fellow Bible nerd. Yeah. Let's face it, Bible genealogies aren't the most interesting things out there.
So why would Luke do this? Why would Luke, Jesus baptize? The spirit comes down on him like a dove. And then we get this quite long and let's face it, quite boring genealogy. But if you look at it closely, and this is what I think is really cool. So see it says he Jesus, when he began his ministry was about 30 years of age, being the son as it was suppose, of Joseph, the son of healing.
It goes on and goes on and on and on and on all the way back. Now let's read who that last son is. Let's read that together. The son of Adam, the Son of God. Okay. Luke's making an important theological message here is that, remember, Adam? Adam was the first man to be created with that parents. God formed him from the dust of the ground and brave new life into him is similar.
Like Jesus, it's like the first Adam. This is the, I guess, the mystery of Jesus being God and man. But Jesus doesn't have an earthly father says speak. He has his heavenly father, just like the first Son of God, Adam. Now what did that first Son of God Adam do? Was he obedient or disobedient? Disobedient? Okay, so that's a problem.
Now Jesus is going to do what Adam failed to do. He needs to go and wrestle with Satan. Now, there's a reason why Jesus goes into the wilderness. The wilderness is the place where the Israelites failed. Yes. Now, before the Israelites went into the wilderness, what was a really important moment that happened with Pharaoh's army and a big body of water?
What happened? Yeah, passing through the Red sea. And the Apostle Paul describes that as a bit of a start to the word be baptism. Okay, so if the Apostle Paul could recognize that what the Israelites did when they passed through the Red sea was like a baptism, now Jesus has done like Jesus has been baptized as the Son of God.
The Israelites were also kind of called the Son of God. They were recognizes, God said to Moses, the Israelites, my firstborn son, like the nation itself, was the first born son, and they were baptized by crossing the Red sea, went into the wilderness, and spent 40 years there. Because the judgment now Jesus has been baptized. He has gone into the wilderness not for 40 years, but for 40 days.
Luke is making this account to make you realize that Jesus is the embodiment of Israel herself. Israel failed. Jesus does not fail. And the other cool thing too, is there's lots of little cool things here is that Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness. Moses spent 40 days on a mountain getting the law of God. In fact, Moses would say that when the Israelites failed after the sin of the, golden calf, Moses says in Deuteronomy 925, for 40 days and 40 nights I lay down before the Lord because he intended to destroy you.
I pray to the Lord that you would not destroy these people. Now, we don't really know what Jesus was doing in these 40 days, but we can probably assume that he was praying to his father on behalf of Israel's salvation. That's kind of the cool things there, that's all. Like the the background that Luke is building up for us.
And there's a there's actually a deliberate movement here in how Satan tempts Jesus makes the next slide up, I should say Psalm 106. Here we go. Psalm 106 and the temptation of Jesus. Now, Psalm 106 is a psalm that's written to remember the history of Israel. Sad to remember just the highs and the lows. And the psalmist goes through three temptations that the Israelites faced.
I might write them up there, but you can say that the first one is food that they gave in to their cravings. The second one is false worship, and the last one is a testing by God. So you see here, it's all really, really deliberate. Now this stuff here is by accident. The fact that Satan tempts Jesus was pretty much the same three things meant to show that.
Well, okay, is Jesus gonna succeed or isn't he not? Jesus is not like the Israelites who failed. Jesus is so much greater. And in fact, all the responses that Jesus gives to Satan comes from the book of Deuteronomy. And so from Deuteronomy. If you look and it says in Scripture, Deuteronomy, do you want six? Verse eight is the passages that Moses wrote to the people when they're on the cusp of entering the Promised Land?
And so even just picking those passages to refute Satan, like Moses spoke the words of Deuteronomy six, chapter 6 to 8 as a way to say hey to next generation. Don't be like that generation who spent 40 years in the wilderness and who went into the promised land. You guys need to listen and be obedient, okay? That's all the fun.
Got a cool Old Testament facts, all the allusions here. Let's look at some of the temptations. And the first temptation we're told is that Satan tells Jesus to turn stones to bread. Now, bread is interesting. Bread is actually a steaming hot pot of Jesus ministry. Jesus fed 5000 people. He fed 4000 people. He gave us the Lord's Supper by bread.
Breading on itself is not evil. There's nothing wrong with bread but bread used in the wrong context, as in here is disobedience. I think that's important for life. It's helpful to remember is that Satan may tempt us with things that, on the surface may not seem to be wrong, like, well, you know, if you're hungry here, turn these stones to bread.
God doesn't want you to be hungry. He want you to suffer. And I think this is one of the important things when we do look at temptation. It's not all temptation isn't just evil. You can just, you know, commit this wrong thing or do this good thing. Perhaps we attempted to go down a path that looks good because we have to remember Satan presents.
So as an angel of light, I think that's really helpful for us to remember. But also what is cool here is that from from up a church, from a biblical point of view, is food equals self control. Yeah. The very first commandment that God ever gave to people, it was about food. It was about self-control. Hey, you can eat all the fruit from the garden.
You want to just donate that one fruit from that one tree. I think that's why fasting is such an important spiritual discipline, because actually tapping into the first commandment that God gave, hey, if you want to be a wise person, control what you ate. That's why Jesus response is, yeah, it says it is written, man shall not live on bread alone.
It's our Amanda. Yeah, sure, we need food to live. God create food for us to survive. But that's not all that we need. We need God's word. That's so important. That's why Jesus, he can respond that way. Hey, bread is good for me at a later date. Not right now. The bread I need is the bread that comes from God's Word.
And the second temptation we see which will be up on the screen is, The devil leads Jesus to a very high place and shows him all the kingdoms of the world. And he says, I will give you all their authority and splendor. Sorry. I'll give you all their authority and splendor. It has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.
If you worship me, it will be yours. Football declaration. How on earth could Satan say that he could do it? How could he say that he has all these kingdoms? Isn't isn't the world. God's isn't the earth. God doesn't isn't God the creator and sustainer of everything? Well, the answer to is both yes and yes. What I mean by that when Adam and Eve were created, they were told to rule over the plants and the animals.
Now, in Genesis chapter three, let's let's just, you know, we know it's Satan. But what's the description of the creature in the garden? What is it? Is, snake serpent. And what are Adam and Eve supposed to do? They meant to rule over the plants and the animals. And so by Adam listening to Satan instead of, you know, ruling over him, he has no sense given authority of the earth to the serpent.
In fact, Scripture will talk about this, in a few places in, some New Testament letters, such as two Corinthians chapter 4 or 1 John 519 or Ephesians two, we're told that Satan is the ruler of this world, but the prince, the power of the air. So in this weird sense, it's like, well, Satan has sort of mean he's usurped the authority of the human.
He say, well, I can give you this. Jesus, if you don't go to the cross, I can give you all the authority that you want with ease and comfort. And Jesus response responses is written worship the Lord your God and serve him only. The third and final temptation, Satan, takes Jesus up to the temple, and there he he as a standing on the highest for a temple.
He says, if you are the Son of God, he said, throw yourself down from here. For he's written, he will command his angels concerning you to guide you carefully. They will lift you up in their hands that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Now Satan here is quoting from Psalm 91 and Psalm 91. Verse four says, he will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.
And his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. So some money one promises that that God will be a shield and a comfort. And you know he's in. Satan expands upon that, commanding his angels to concern you, to guard you. You know, like your foot won't strike against a star. Psalm 91 is a psalm of promise, of protection.
And again, this is a bit like the first temptation using something good, using scripture. But miss applying it. And so the assumption here is Satan is like, well, if you've been baptized by the spirit, if you're designated as God's son, he's not going to let something bad happen to you. So by throwing yourself off, God is going to rescue you.
But Jesus hasn't come just to be a trick pony. It's just display acts of power for the sake of displaying acts of power. Instead, he he says, do not put the Lord your God to the test. That's what the Israelites did at a place called Nasser. They waged and complained about. God wasn't doing enough for them. And so it was saying, it's like, well, you don't put God to the test.
He's going to be the judgment simply by throwing himself off the temple. So Satan wanted Jesus to do to reenact that moment at Massah, where these are lots put God to the test. Okay. So that's sort of that's kind of the more biblical side of things, looking at the Old Testament. Now let's go practical. Okay. How can I how can we take this passage and apply it?
Well, I've actually got a book here. It's a book called by a rigorous of Pontus. It's called Talking Back. And if I, Greece was a fourth century Egyptian monk. And when he was in the wilderness, he wrote this book talking back as a manual for other monks who was struggling with temptation. And if I just recognize that there was sort of eight things that the devil can tempt you with, and those eight areas are gluttony, lust, greed, sadness, anger, apathy.
What's something he called vainglory or vanity and pride? And if you ever heard the seven Deadly Sins, we heard of that maybe. Yeah. This is kind of where that list came from. If I guess. Right, this and what he recognized was that this is where demons can be really clever is I can help put a put an idea into your mind to say something just, you know, passes through you maybe for a second and you can act on that.
And the book is quite intense. It's a it's a huge manual. But I thought that's today we'll just go through some of those, so we can have them on the screen. The first one is gluttony. And so against the thoughts that suggests to me the loss of bread, oil and other things that we need is was a passages is came from one Kings 17 for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, the jar flour will not be used up, and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day Lord sends rain on the land.
An example is lost against the thoughts establishing our heart, which the Lord sees as having been committed, and he uses he. One Corinthians ten eight. We must indulge in fortification, as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day. And it goes on and so forth. And so while you probably don't have to buy the book and read it, each of the eight sins has about, no joke, about 100 sort of points of different thoughts can be overwhelming.
You can see here what he's doing. He's helping Christians to fight temptation. And the reason why the book is called Talking Back is because he looked at what Jesus did in the wilderness. And when Satan tempted Jesus, Jesus didn't sit there in silence. What does he do? He talks back. Now, I have never had a demonic voice say something to me out loud.
I don't know, maybe I have, but I personally have it, but certainly had thoughts run through my brain. Hey, we've probably all had that. Yeah, we've had some sort of thought come up within us, some sort of temptation. Some make like a seed within us. And once it's sort of in our mind, we have a choice, a choice to act on that thought or to resist it.
And why? This is what if I argued the best way to overcome that is by talking back, actually saying it out loud, just like Jesus did. And so this is where the value of actually memorizing scripture comes into play, of having a few key scriptures that you've got in your toolbox and being able to talk out loud and breaking that thought where it is.
And as we come into, this season of lent, lent is a great opportunity to actually step into the wilderness. Whether you recognize or not we are in a spiritual battle. There's a battle between the the forces of God and the forces of evil. And that's what the early monks recognized is that but going into the wilderness, I wasn't doing it just to escape the world that she went in to battle.
If you ever have a chance to read Athanasius, biography of Saint Anthony, that thing is wild. Saint Anthony, like he was battling demons left, right and center. It seems so bizarre for us here in 21st century Sydney, because it's just not something that we encounter. This is a spiritual text. We get a lot more subtle, a lot more subdued, a lot more hidden, but the real and present nonetheless.
We're being literally seeing like a demonic apparition, like Saint Anthony dude, or has this little voice that passes through your mind for half a second. It's still real. It's what excites me about lent is that it's a chance for us to kind of go into the wilderness. Now, I doubt any of us are going to go move to the Judean wilderness for 40 days, you know, fasting and praying, but we can all journey into a metaphorical wilderness, part of that's just giving up some of our luxuries, giving up some time to pray.
And it's hard. It's really hard because to fast and to pray and to give up things, we begin to realize just how much baggage and dependency we have. And if you have signed up for the challenge, part of it is, is, need to write out your why. Why are you doing this? And the basis of that comes from John 321 where Jesus says, hey, if you step into the light, no deeds of darkness are hidden.
That's part we actually have to step out under the blazing sun of the wilderness and make ourselves vulnerable to God. And how will silence? It should be golden. But it isn't. Because when we sit in silence and give up all the noise and distractions around us, we do have to confront ourselves. We have to confront our weaknesses, our temptations, our vices, and our habits.
I have to confess that before doing these lent challenges, it'd be pretty hypocritical May if I didn't do them myself. So I spent the months beforehand doing these. Have to admit, I found the social media one the non screen time one for me the hardest. I remember the first night because normally what I like to do is if I'm washing up or swimming in the house, I listen to a podcast, listen to music.
It's quite normal and it sounds ridiculous to say. It's actually almost felt my body like doing this. Like, I can't handle this. I can't just wash up and not have something going on. I have to be listening to a podcast. I've been listening to an audiobook, and it was actually in the silence. I found myself going, Lord, just get me through this.
All I want to do is just like, look at my phone. It seems crazy to say that that's how dependent I've become. Look at my phone. I mean, I'm listening to some lecture, some audiobook or just music thing. Even that he's. These are good things. But in confronting that source have made me depend upon God so much more.
That's what I love about doing this. Just a season of giving up something in order to rely on God more fully. Author Becky Aldridge. She writes, desert time is vital to a mature relationship with God. If we are committed men and women of faith, then God is going to bring us to the desert at some point to look deeply at ourselves and see all of us the way God sees us.
This means we will have to confront the dark spots of our lives and the things we do our best to hide from God and from the rest of the world. Jesus was no different. He was led by the spirit in the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. Jesus faced Satan. Then the devil left him and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
That's from Matthew's version. We faced Satan, our own temptations in our desert time, just as Jesus did. And just as Jesus was not alone in the desert battle, we are not alone either. That's important. Friends part this season. If you do feel called to sign for these lent challenges, don't do it online. Have an anchor. There's a reason why I'm asking to sign up so I can have a list of people.
Pray and pray for you because we're not doing this online. We do this with the strength of the Holy Spirit. This we have the angels and I don't know how they minister to us. I don't know if they give us bread like they did with Jesus, but they're they're supporting us. We have our brothers and sisters around us moving forward together in this spiritual journey.
I'd be remiss of me to say that, well, just this lent challenge, you know, your problems will be sorted. Well, it's not that simple. Unfortunately. And there will be things in us so have to wrestle with and struggle with, and perhaps they won't be dealt with until our Lord returns. But as I finish, I finish with just two more quotes on on comes from Eugene Peterson.
Eugene Peterson says one aspect of the world I have been able to identify as harmful to Christians is the assumption that anything worthwhile can be acquired at once. We assume that something can be done at all. It can be done quickly and efficiently. This isn't just a tick, a box and your life will be perfect. This is a journey, a pathway.
This is just part of that pathway to becoming more like Jesus. And for Shane and his kind of view on fasting, and he says there are only two philosophies of life. One is first, the feast, then the headache, the other is the fast and then the feast. The third joys purchased by sacrifice. Always sweetest and most enduring. Let me pray for us friends.
Now. Yeah, Lord and father, I just pray, Lord, that you be our source of strength, a source of love and our source of comfort. Oh Lord, we don't know what we're going to face. We know what's going to happen today, tomorrow. Who knows what troubles and temptations and sorrows we may face. But I do pray, Lord, that you watch over our paths, that you do be our shield in those times of temptation, that, Lord, that you guard us from the thoughts of the evil ones.
Help us to talk back, as Jesus did, against the lies of the evil one. And Lord, I pray, as Jesus told us in those words, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

BANTER - Jesus is Tempted

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Luke's account of Jesus in the Wilderness is notably different in structure to Mark and Matthew's accounts. What's Luke trying to do differently in his gospel? And in fact, how are any of the gospel authors retelling this story if no one was there to witness it except Jesus and Satan?
The boys also chat about how they're travelling so far with the Lent challenge, the historical origins of Lent, why God calls humans into wild spaces for spiritual growth, and their own personal strategies for facing temptation in the day to day.
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 

BANTER - Be Ready

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Mitch & Murray chat about the vision of Heaven and Hell, the origins around the Catholic theology of purgatory, and how our eschatology informs not just our future but our present.
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 

Be Ready - Mitch Levingston

Luke 12:35-48
“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
Peter asked, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?”
The Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
“The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
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 to Make 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=11f44dcd078e4707
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
 
TRANSCRIPT
That passage seems familiar. We looked at its cousin. You could say that's how theme verse of the year came from. Matthew 2445. There's one thing that I have learned in teaching is that repetition is important, and repetition is also important for our Lord, Mark said. It's a scary passages, quite confronting and challenging, and I'm going to teach us a very, very big word.
I'm sorry about that. There shouldn't be a word used outside of Bible college, but we'll say it together. Eschatology. Let's say it together. Eschatology is anyone reckon they know what eschatology is that end times? Yes, eschatology. So eschatology is end time stuff. And we're going to use this word eschatology because it includes our Lord's return heaven hell judgment.
Why? The reason I'm teaching you this word, eschatology, is because your eschatology will shape how you serve our Lord. Your eschatology will shape how we serve our Lord. If you a bit like that foolish chevron thing, master is not coming, don't have to worry too much. You don't really believe heaven or hell judgment, all that stuff. If you don't really believe in eschatology, it's going to shape how you live your life.
He. And now. That's why that big fancy word eschatology is so important. Because to be a prepared, faithful servant, you need to have very, very good eschatology. Now, what I love about this parable, Jesus is he begins off at verse 35 that says, be dressed and ready for service and keep your lamps burning. Now when I first started at the center, let me get here.
We we have two uniforms here. Okay? One of them is our very fancy office shirt that, you know, the office staff meant to wear. One of them is our sports shorts. Shirts. Now, when I first started. And in flight of the world would close on Mondays, I for a long time would often be wearing this office shirt on a Monday.
And guess who often got a knock at his office door on Monday about 1230. Say, hey Mitch, can you come help with pick up? Yeah. And so for a while there I would be packing up inflatables, dressed in this shirt wasn't the most conducive to packing up in flight of world wasn't really dressed and ready for service. So you know what happened after that happened?
A few times. Start wearing this one more and more. And in fact, sometimes you might even see me just in the sports shirt and the shorts to be ready and dressed for service, because I know that probably inevitably, at some point on a Monday, there's going to be a knock him off to say, hey, Mitch, leaving enough people for pack up, can you help us being dressed and prepared?
It's very, very important. Now, in today's passage, we use the NIV, which says be dressed and ready for service. Now in some Old English translations, it has. Here, let your loins be girded about and your lights burning. What do you think? Have your loins girded? Means I don't want to have a guess what that means? Pardon? So I was a now I.
I was a joke. Oh, so I had an answer. They went. Actually, no. It's pretty weird expression. Hey, let your loins be girded. Or if you have the new King James, let your waist be good and your lamps burning well, to gird their loins is an old expression of how you manage your robe. And then the next slide we have here.
So you going to imagine that most Middle-Eastern people wool robes like this. And so when you were getting ready to either act in war or do some sort of action, having a long robe around you, it's not very conducive for getting activities done. So how are you going to your loins? You can just fall out there on the screen.
You tuck it up tight, round you, and there you're ready. You have girded your loins. You are dressed and ready for service. Now, what is really cool, and I like to teach you guys cool little facts that, you know, off the church things I would say. You can say, well, I learned about the word eschatology. Now here's another cool little fact that we can learn this morning is that when Luke uses be dressed or ready for service or good, your loins, this isn't just some random little throwing that Jesus has used.
It's like Jesus is referring to one of the most significant moments in Israelite history where the people, too, were called to gird their loins, and it was the Passover. And since the Exodus 1211. So I've got the older English translation just to kind of keep the same girding loins, and thus shall ye eat it. That's the Passover with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste.
It is the Lord's Passover. And there's a more modern translation just to help out. This is how you eat it, with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. Girding your loins is a common expression used in the Old Testament to be ready for service.
But Luke here, in structuring his gospel, you can just throw it in randomly. He's actually designed the sentence structure to be identical to how the Greek version of Exodus 1211 was translated. So for the original readers, their minds immediately pick up on that. Jesus here is referring to Passover. He's alluding to that event where Israelites had to be ready, had to be ready with the.
The last one had to be ready for this moment, this moment of crisis. Another crisis was that if you hadn't prepared the Passover, you had that blood poured over the doorposts. That angel of death was going to come and take your first born son. This was a significant moment of preparation. So Jesus here deliberately alluding to the key moment in Israel's history.
Here he's pointing to a future key moment that's going to impact all of us. Like I said before, who eschatology is going to shape how you live your life. So being dressed and ready for service is so important because who knows, it could be the middle of the night when the master comes home. Jewish wedding face. They went on for days.
Who knows when the master might return. This is why you needed to be ready. Because he did not know the day or hour of return. Not just chatting about being prepared for the master's, rather in return. That's all pretty standard stuff. But here this is really interesting. So when I talk about this, I'm going to pause and we'll come back to it later.
Now if we could just pull up verse 37. Thanks, man. So you read along and Jesus says he from verse 37 says, it will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Okay, that's pretty standard. This is the amazing part. Truly, I tell you, he will dress himself to serve. He will have them recline at the table and he will come and wait on them.
Do you understand the significance of those words we're talking here? Master and slave relationships, who not only serves, who, servants serve masters, not masters, serving servants or slaves. This is remarkable. It's a remarkable passage of Scripture which is kind of just chucked in there in the middle. Now read it again, because truly, until he will dress himself to serve, they will have them recline at the table.
He will come and wait on them. No master ever, ever does this except one master, our Lord Jesus Christ. And perhaps we can think of a time, a time where Jesus does good, his loins and serves others. Can you think of that time? When he washes the disciples feet? So in a sense, yeah, we are serving a master who is our Lord, who expects a lot of us, but he also wants to give us a generous, abundant reward.
For the fact is that it's not just any old feast. We get to recline. That means this is a banquet. You only recliner banquets, and he gets your client the very best of the best of banquets. While Jesus serves us. That's amazing. It's amazing passage of Scripture. And then by coming here in Luke 12, it's point two when Jesus actually tells he's disciples directly in Luke chapter 22, verse 27, for it says, who is greater, the one who is at the table, or the one who serves is not the one at the table, but I am among you as one who serves.
Now I feel like I've been talking for a while. I actually want to give a moment for you to pause and reflect and speak to God, a particularly to as we come to the image of the faith in the night. This is, artwork here by artist. I called James B Jenkins, and he does modern retellings of parables.
So I invite you now as I just read the words of Jesus here, just to pause for a moment and see how God is speaking to you in this image, as Jesus said. But understand this if the owner of the house had known what hour the faith was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.
So, friends, I invite you. Look at this image. Notice the shapes, the colors, the lighting, perhaps some of the details, both the foreground and the background. Is there a part that you're drawn towards?
As you sense that drawing, why do you think God drew your attention to this particular part?
Is there a part of it that conveys to your life today?
And as you reflect upon this image. There's something here that God, he feel God calling you to do. There's something in your life that needs to change. I give you a moment to reflect and pause on that.
I look at this image. It speaks so much into our modern world, doesn't it love how the artist is drawn? The moment that he he's robbed as a storm, a storm, a stormy night. We just get comfortable watching TV, and it's easy to grow complacent, Caesar. Grow complacent when it feels like our Lord isn't returning. And Peter, as in typical Peter fashion, he asked this question Lord, are you telling this parable to us or to everyone?
Jesus gives not a to us or to everyone answer. It's kind of a cryptic answer. It is to us. It's to disciples. Jesus answers answer to Peter's. Who then is the faithful and wise manager whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? How? We will spend a bit more time in banter, unpacking.
That's sort of the four different servants. There's a lot of interpretation in, I guess, church history around this. So that's a little plug there. If you haven't signed up to Mansa, if you want to listen in to kind of hear about what people think about these four different servants. But just to summarize, there's four types of servants and perhaps you can see yourself within one of them.
The first one is easy, the faithful and why servant. This servant is rewarded with authority over his master's possessions, not the second. So this is the wicked one. The one who eats and drinks and gets drunk and then thinks that actually I'm like the master and does what only a master is allowed to do is beat the fellow servants.
This one's scary. This guy's cut in tune and signed a place with the unbelievers. Now I got a couple other servants. Servant three I guess he called a neglectful servant. He's the one who, I know I should be doing this, and he gets beaten. Maybe not as badly beaten as the wicked servant servant number two. They have the final servant, the one who he so indeed neglects his responsibilities, but wasn't aware of what's expected of him, and so doesn't get as harsh of, beating stuff is.
It's scary, it's confronting. But in many ways, Jesus is using language that was very familiar to his audience. And this week I spent a lot of time studying some ancient documents, and I came across one. Okay, go on the next slide. Thanks. Which is called the Law of Light beneath from And she's not here. I'm going to I'm going to butcher this Italian.
Vitale in Italy and the law of Lavinia or the leks. Lim Liping Itani. I should say, it it we details how in the city of Liberia, how, undertakers were meant to act and how, a master could actually employ someone to dish out punishment to a unfaithful servant. And so it says, if someone privately wants to inflict punishment on a male or female servant, and the punishment must be inflicted or hollow must be inflicted in some way, what a time to come out when I'm talking about how slaves are getting beaten.
Must have inflicted in a way that has been asked for. So if he asks for the yoke and the cross, the contractor must provide the beams, the fetters, the whips for the flogging and the floggings, and each person asking for a inflicting punishment must pay for sister Sally's, which a brief Google touched, but a brief Google search told me is a one sister sister release is $0.50, so for $2 you could pay for your servant to be beaten by a professional beater.
Yeah. Why don't you go down to Mama? This was the world that Jesus lived in. This is the reality is that slaves were just a property of masters at the whim of the whips or whoever their master was. Good or evil. So Jesus, tapping into this language that his audience was very familiar with a wicked servant would be cut up, would be punished.
That was part and parcel of what happened. And the idea was at that time that if you inflict public punishment upon a servant, what do you think it's going to do? The other servants? It's going to be an example. The example I was, hey, don't misbehave. Make sure you do what the master says or something terrible is going to happen.
That's what Jesus is tapping into. He's tapping into his language. But remember two before you feel frightened and terrified and afraid and kind, I can feel this. So the duty to just be prepared for Jesus because you don't want to get whipped. Remember verse 37, friends, verse 37 changes everything. I read it there. It will be good for those servants whose master finds him there watching when he comes.
Truly I tell you, he would dress himself to serve well, have them recline at the table, and will come and wait on them. Yes, we serve Jesus, the most powerful Lord in the universe. He did not come to serve you, not come to peace of, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. As we finish today, I came across a quote from a New Testament scholar lady called Jennifer Lacy in an article called Slaves and Slavery in the Mercy and Parables.
So well, this is passage from Luke, but you get the idea here. I think it's just such a wonderful quote that we're just going to finish with this to reflect upon it says, the readers of Matthew recognize the disciplined flesh of parabolic slaves as an antique type, a model to avoid. Curiously, however, Matthew features another tortured body as a body, as a model to emulate the battered and crucified body of Jesus.
Jesus himself calls his followers to be willing to endure the sufferings of the cross in a peculiar way. The corporal punishment of disobedient slaves and the missing parables foreshadows the broken body of Jesus, ridiculed, beaten, and executed.
Let's pray now. Lord, keep us alert. We pray as we await the return of your son. So when he comes and knocks, he might find. Find us watchful in prayer and joyful in his praise. We pray now that Lord, that we address this service. We pray, Lord, that we are ready for your return. We pray that our eschatology is shaped by the reality of your return, and we don't grow complacent.
We don't think that you never coming back and just do what we want. I pray, Lord, that we addressed and ready, ready for your arrival and a joyful arrival when you come. There's that promises that you would dress yourself and serve us just as he served us. By giving up your body upon the cross for us. So I pray Jesus, you help us in this season of the life where there's so much distractions, distractions, so many seeing so many things that can keep us from being prepared.
So many people, Lord, that just seek to honor you. I pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

BANTER - The Rich Fool

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
The boys talk about the history of charity in the Old and New Testament, how Christianity was responsible for the first international aid project in recorded history, and the dangers of our faith relying too heavily of experience.
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 

The Rich Fool - Murray Lambert

Luke 12: 13-21
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward 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 
 
TRANSCRIPT
 
Morning, church. How are we doing this morning? So, have you ever read a Bible passage and just kind of sat there and been honest with yourself?
And so I kind of disagree. I kind of disagree because I'm going to say something be crazy here, but I'm kind of on the rich, full side. Just putting it out there. I mean, like, what did the rich Phil actually do? He, like, was just an honest wheat farmer. Right? Just working his, you know, day in, day out, year in, year out.
He was blessed with an abundant crop. And then he saved as like. Isn't saving a good thing? I mean, this guy works year in, year out through years of drought is a flood. Years of plague. You know, he didn't it say at any point come across this bumper crop unfairly or or unethically? It doesn't say that he mistreated his workers.
I mean, I mean, I'm kind of on this guy's side. I mean, he's just a hard working farmer. He's had a hard life. You know, he finally is blessed with this thing, and he's just shows some business ingenuity. Really. He's not what he does. He just invests in the future. I mean, you know, just puts a bit aside for his kids, for maybe his wife.
Maybe he finally takes her on that cruise that's been looking at us all these years. Now you really got to critique a farmer. The person who puts wheat bakes and bread on your table every morning. Like, shame on you. It's. I'm struggling to shame this poor, hard working farmer. I'm on the rich side personally. Doesn't this sound sort of justifiable to us?
Doesn't this sound pretty normal? Just a hardworking farmer who worked really hard was blessed with a bumper crop and said, I know what I'll do. I'll knock down the old barns a bit to new ones. Pop it in, you beauty. And then God says, tonight, you going to die. Tonight you're going to die. And all of your money is going to go to your wife and kids.
I mean, isn't that sort of the Australian dream? Like nose down, work hard, get a little nest egg, put a little in super, save a bit for your kids when you die. What do you do wrong? Well, a bit confused, but somehow I don't think the the original listeners of this would have been confused because see, what's really interesting is they were operating from a very different culture around what it meant to be rich amount, what it meant to be generous around what it meant to give charity to those who were poor and in need.
I think of Proverbs, for instance, Proverbs 1125 to 26. One person gives freely, yet gains even more. Another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. And here's the kicker. People curse the one who holds grain, but they pray God's blessing on the one who is willing. So why is Joseph all the way back in Genesis, if you remember, lauded as righteous for hoarding a bunch of grain in Egypt and yet this poor fella is dragged over hot coals for just filling up two barns.
I mean, I'm pretty sure that the grain that Joseph was hoarding in Egypt was a bit more than two barns. How is one righteous and another is foolish? Maybe it has something to do about the intention behind why Joseph was stockpiling grain. He was stockpiling it so that he could help out others who are in need. He was being discerning with God.
He was seeking God's voice very clearly through dreams that Pharaoh was being given. And then he was carefully administering grain to those in need. But you might be saying, well, hold on, doesn't the rich fool quote Ecclesiastes in Luke 1217 to 19 he says, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life, eat, drink, and be merry.
Isn't that Ecclesiastes 815 I hear you all saying, eat, drink, and be merry. You know what I'm realizing? I'm realizing that some of the enemy's greatest lies are misquoted. Scripture. Some of the enemy's greatest lies. A misquoted scripture, completely misquoted or completed, slightly out of context because ultimately this rich fool uses my and I ten times in three verses in Luke 1217 to 19, which to us in a sort of very individualistic, self centric culture you like.
Yeah, fair. But for Jesus's first listeners, they would have been going, you selfish fool, you are so self-absorbed. My my my I, I because their natural thought was for the other. It's a very different worldview. I won't call a sermon prepared to be generous. Prepared to be generous. Why, when God had been so generous to the rich full, had he decided to stockpile his weight?
And as we're continuing this series, I think it's really important to recognize that the obvious and simplistic answer to this passage is don't be greedy. Be more generous. Right. Thanks, guys. I'll see you next week. So that is an oversimplification of this, and I think it's really unhelpful. And it's not actually the point that Jesus is making completely because you say, I think in our modern culture, we focus a lot on individual sin, which is a real thing and something that we need to be mindful of and considerate of.
But we don't think much about corporate sin, about the sin of the society in which we are, in a society which is inherently capitalistic and greedy and excess in their consumption. And so it's really hard to come to this parable and understand it in our modern terms, because we're sort of caught on this wheel of excessive consumption. It's something that, two scholars, Brickman and Campbell, noted all the way back in the 70s.
They called it the demonic treadmill. And on this next slide, you'll say it was this phenomenon that they experience all the way back in the 70s. It's not brand new that the more people attained, the more material wealth that people accumulated. Happy at. No, not the happy life became. The more they decide, more wealth and the more wealth accumulate, the more they desire, and the more they accumulate, the more they desire, and the faster the wheels spun, the faster they run and the faster they run, the faster the wheel spins.
All the while, increased happiness is forever unattainable. That they saw no increase in happiness. In these people who continue to accumulate more and more things. The hydronic treadmill. This idea that the more you accumulate, the fallacy that people are running on this treadmill for is that they'll be happier, that they'll have increased happiness. When Brickman Campbell just felt it really plateaued from their studies.
The hedonic treadmill asks the question how much is enough? And depressingly, answers when it comes to the human heart. It's never enough. It's never enough. Ecclesiastes five 1011 actually addresses this issue, although it tells us to eat, drink and be merry. Enjoy our time on this lot, on this world, while we've got it. It also says whoever loves money never has enough.
Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. I love this as goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them? The more that we eat, the more our stomach stretches and the more our stomach stretches, the more food we need.
So how do we get off this treadmill? How do we get off the hedonic treadmill? Because I think that it's too simple to just say, just stop being greedy and be more generous. If you went to a doctor and said, doc, I am insatiable, I am starving. No matter how much I eat, I cannot eat enough food. I eat and I eat and I eat and I'm still hungry.
Be a pretty rubbish doctor. If you said I've seen this before. I know what you need to do. Stop being hungry. That'd be pretty unhelpful, right? Because just like chicken pox. Although we say the symptom on the surface of little red spots and itchy skin, the virus is deep underneath in the skin. And this is actually what Jesus is doing in this passage that comes after in the parable, he presents the symptom grade in the passage.
Afterwards, he actually starts to explain the underlying illness. So he says the symptom is great, but it's not the illness itself. And we know that these two passages are connected because the first word in the next passage is a really important one, that if you ever say it in Scripture, especially in the New Testament, that even in the old, you should really pay attention.
Therefore, Jesus set up the situation of the rich fool and then he says therefore, oh, okay, Jesus. So you've presented a problem, and now maybe you're going to present some kind of solution. What's the solution? I hear he'll ask. Let's read it. Luke 12 2226 he says, therefore, straight after the parable of the rich fool, he says, do not worry about your life, what you eat or about your body, what you will wear for life is more than food and the body more than clothes.
Consider the ravens. They do not so or reap. They have no storeroom or barn. Interesting choice to include storing Melbourne at that point. Maybe referring to the parable he's just told, yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds who have you by worrying. Can add a single hour to your life. Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
Who, by worrying about their lives, could add a single hour? In fact, probably not that radical of a statement. I would say that filling your life with stress and anxiety is probably going to save hours of your life, not add hours to your life. It's probably an unhelpful thing if you want to live a long life, to be constantly stressed and anxious.
So he says, therefore, do not worry, do not worry. He explores the underlying illness of greed as anxiety, anxiety, specifically financial anxiety. So all we need to do, guys, is overcome financial anxiety. Great. I'll see you next week. No worries. That's easier said than done, isn't it? That's easier said than done. Just overcome any anxiety you feel about your financial needs, about your material possessions.
Just don't worry about it. It'll be fine. Because the reality is, when we are swimming in a sea of anxiety, we are going to desperately cling on to anything, whether it's a mortgage being paid off or a shopping trolley full of toilet paper. That's what we saw during Covid. That's what it taught us, right? That amidst the panic and justified anxiety of Covid, a real situation in which our lives were actually in an increased danger, people grabbed on to toilet paper like it was a lifeboat in the middle of a water.
Like, what were they doing? I mean, I personally remember getting down to the last few toilet rolls and being, oh, starting to get the sweats. I'm worrying, what are we going to do? How are we going to get through Covid without toilet paper? We might have to buy a bidet. I mean, it takes a whole new expression to take a trip to the throne.
If we go back to sitting on a big throne of toilet paper in your house. And then what happened was, ultimately, people started to realize that all of this treasure that they'd been hoarding throughout Covid was suddenly worthless because as the anxiety of Covid started to dissipate, people realized this treasure that they'd been stockpiling. They couldn't even sell back to the shops.
This rich fool who hoarded $10,000 worth of toilet paper and sanitizer during Covid. I mean, I can't even get my head around how much toilet paper and hand sanitizer that might be. Even at increased Covid rates. Literally, the shopping center wouldn't buy it back from him, and he was stuck with a treasure trove of toilet paper and hand sanitizer and really post anxiety that it was all worthless.
This is our human condition and Jesus knows this full well and that's what he's speaking into. So he gives us an answer. He says, do not worry. And I love this verse. Luke 1232 he continues, do not be afraid, little flock, for your father has been pleased to give you his kingdom. He's saying, guys, God has already given you the kingdom of heaven.
What more do you need? You are already princes and princesses in the kingdom of heaven. You have inherited an eternal kingdom, an eternal treasure. He says, don't be afraid, little flock. He calls us his little flock, which makes him our big shepherd. He's going to provide for us. Who's going to care for us? He's going to generously is above and beyond what we need.
This is what King David writes in Psalm 23. I'm sure most of you know it. The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil for you.
With me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely your goodness and your love will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. C once we truly understand that we worship a God of abundance who anoints our head with oil and fills our cup up so much that it overflows.
It's not until we really tap into the truth of that, that we can be radically generous in the way that Jesus is calling us to be. What do I mean by that love that he calls us his little flock and tells us to not worry, and tells us how he's given us the kingdom of heaven? He says, sell your possessions and give to the poor.
Provide purses for yourself that will not wear out a treasure in heaven that will never fail. When no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also sell your possessions and give to the poor. Not a Bible verse I see a lot of people getting tattooed on their back. Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
Not most people's favorite memory. Verse. I don't know if any of you have is your password on your online banking? It's usually not one that we talk about a lot. But this is what Jesus is calling us into as the God who came down from heaven onto earth and gave up his very life for us. He's calling us to enter a posture where we're willing to sacrifice pleasure and comfort, and maybe even sometimes a sense of security so that we can support those who are in need, support those who are in greater need than us.
And this is radical, like, it's pretty radical. I mean, who's ever considered selling their TV so they could give more money to charity? Who's ever considered selling the extra cash so they like it's pretty radical to sell your possessions. The things I already have and give to the poor. But you know what's really interesting? It probably would have been less radical for the people who originally heard it, because first century Jews who would have been part of Jesus's listeners, the, you know, entire culture that Jesus came out of being a Jew himself every year that gave 10% to the Levitical priests in the temple, they'd give another 10% towards the festival feasts.
So the the poor and the widows and the orphans could enjoy and partake in this festival together. All of these big seven Jewish festivals throughout the year, and then every third year, another 10% towards the poor and the widows and the orphans. If you include the sort of year of jubilee every seventh year where they wouldn't tithe, it evens out to about 20% a year, 20%.
Now, the New Testament doesn't specify any percentage for us to give, and I think that's for good reason. I think that's wise. But what I'm saying is, does this knowledge change your perception about the generosity of God? Does this information change your perception about maybe how generous God wants us to be? Because as I said in two Corinthians nine seven, Paul is talking about giving money to charity doesn't give a percentage.
He says, each of you should give what you've decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. Church generosity was one of the first signs of the early church. Once the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost, the church sold their possessions and shared what they had with one another. Now, this is radical, this is countercultural, and this is very difficult.
And what I don't want us to do today is to walk away and go, well, I'm never going to be able to do that. I mean, have you seen how tight my friend on this is? All I can barely afford to give what I'm already giving. I can't get any more. Like, how am I supposed to be more generous?
How am I supposed to give 20? I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is maybe take an opportunity this week to just look at your finances again, to look at your assets again, and not like the rich fool making a decision by your own wisdom. But like Joseph, seeking God's wisdom, say, how do I want to manage my finances this year so I can prepare to be more generous?
Because God loves a cheerful giver? Let us pray. God, I just want to thank you that you have given us everything we need, that you've given us the Kingdom of heaven and that Jesus you call us your little flock. So, Lord, I just want to pray first and foremost for the people in this room who are experiencing genuine anxiety over their finances right now.
God, I pray that in the same way that you bless that rich fool with a bumper crop for no striving or earning of his own, that you would bless people in this congregation who are genuinely financially struggling with a bumper God. I pray that that would be through the provision of your Holy Spirit, through the generosity of those around them, and through the generosity of our church.
When people are in need. Because God, that's what you call us to be. You call us to be generous to those who are in need. In Jesus. We recognize that you gave up the ultimate offering of your entire life for us on a cross. And God, I just pray that we can continue to tap into that. As Holy Spirit.
You work in our hearts to continue to challenge us in how we can not just be more generous, but more cheerful. When we do give God, we give this time to you. We are clay in your hands. Form us into your likeness. And I pray that as we continue to move into this year, that we would even more so be known as a church who are generous, who are radically generous above and beyond.
Because, Jesus, you were radically generous to us first Jesus name, Amen.