The Centre Dural Podcast

Pentecost Sunday - Murray Lambert

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

Holy Spirit as Fire - Mitch Levingston

To find out more about The Centre visit;www.thecentredural.org.au/church/We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at;www.youtube.com/@centredural 
Welcome to The Centre! We're a Church in Dural, Sydney who want toMake Jesus The Centre of our lives, community, and world.
Join us for a time of worship, community and teaching. Remember to stay in contact with the church, especially if you or anyone you know is in need.
Get Connected: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/new/ 
Prayer Requests: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/prayer/
Tithing Information: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/giving/
Follow "BANTER"; the podcast where we unpack each week's sermon with the pastoral team: Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6ReaCaCb6U7r4EjdJQdajy?si=11f44dcd078e4707Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
 
TRANSCRIPT
 
 
Hey, welcome to The Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.
Oh, hello again, everyone. Well, week three of our preparing for Pentecost series and the last two weeks, we've kind of looked at the the image of the Holy Spirit being water. Sure. And breath. We looked at Ezekiel's prophecy to the valley of the Dry Bones. Last week we looked at Jesus conversation with Nicodemus about being born of water and the spirit being born from above.
Tonight we actually looking at, as the display shows, the Holy Spirit as fire. And what are we going to do this morning? The plan is we are to look at three moments in the Old Testament and look at the burning bush. God's presence coming down on Mount Sinai and the God's presence coming down upon the tabernacle and see how they fit into Pentecost.
And then we'll land the sermon with some tools to walk away from. So that's the plan for today. I'm very excited about this because when I get into some really nitty gritty, biblical stuff, but hopefully to be able to walk away with something practical that you can use throughout your weeks. But before we begin, we open up with a prayer.
And this is a 1100 year old prayer that the church has had. And in English, it's called prayer to the Holy Spirit. So let's begin with this one. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit, and they shall be created. And you will renew the face of the earth.
Lord, by the light of the Holy Spirit. You have taught the hearts of your faithful in the same spirit. Help us to relish what is right and always rejoice in your consolation. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Now we're going to do a bit of a George Lucas. If anyone knows Star Wars George Lucas gave, you know, the later movies first, then gave the prequels.
So we're going to actually do a bit of scripture reading now. But before we get to the burning bush, we got to look at the lighter passages first and then look at the burning bush. Does that make sense? We're going to do that. We're happy with that. And so the reason for that is hopefully you'll pick up on some themes because most of us know the burning Bush story.
Yes, yes, we're pretty familiar with it. And so hopefully in reading through God coming down on Mount Sinai and his presence coming on the tabernacle, you start to go, oh, there's some themes there that remind me of the burning bush. So let's start with God's presence coming down on Mount Sinai. And that should be there on the screen, hopefully from act 19.
There we go. Now see him on the morning of the third day. There was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone! The camp trembled, and Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire.
The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Moses spoke, and the voice of God answered him. The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai, and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up, and the Lord said to him, go down and warn the people, so that they do not force their way through to say, the Lord, and many of them perish.
Even the priests who approach the Lord must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out against them. So because I don't like it's not a mystery novel, I'll just spell out in black and white famous fire. That's pretty obvious by in fact, even that word lightning. And it literally means fire. So clear there's fire and only Moses is allowed up the mountain cloud a little bit, like when Moses appears and, God appears to Moses from the burning bush.
Holy ground. Take off shoes. This is holy ground. Only Moses there. Okay, so that's sort of the the hints there. And the second one is with the tabernacle of the God's presence coming down the tabernacle, some extra support, it says, then the cloud cover, the tent of meeting. That's another way to describe the tabernacle. And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
So now here's you say this scene here. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had set on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out. But the cloud did not lift. They did not say until the day it lifted.
So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night. Inside of all the Israelites, during all their travels. Okay, hopefully. So we got the themes that we're building up here. Idea of fire. The idea of God's presence is so holy that people are restricted. What's interesting about X is not even Moses can go in at that moment.
So I think that's some helpful kind of things to have in the back of our mind now and then let's we know we know Pentecost. Pentecost is that moment when the spirit comes, the wind blows. And what rests above the heads of the disciples. What is that? Yeah. Fire! Guys, this is really deliberate language that Luke is drawing upon in the book of acts to make us remember these moments, these powerful, powerful moments.
Now, let's be honest. Who here is frightened of storms, Stand outside a massive electrical storm. Oh, man. Maybe I'm the only one that scared. But remember that storm back in January? The kids were frightened. They couldn't sleep. That wasn't even that big of a storm. God's power and glory is so much more greater than just a little storm.
But yet Pentecost changes. It's only the glory that was there in Exodus is now in us. And what's really cool is that this idea of Pentecost, it not only riffs off the Old Testament, but there was some Jewish expectations. Now, there was a first century Jewish, writer by the name of Thilo note that should be on the screen.
And so this is really, you see almost it's like Pentecost steals what Thilo is writing about, even though follow right before Pentecost. So here's what he said. This is firelight describing God's presence coming down on the Mount, and a voice sounded forth out of the midst of the fire which had flowed from heaven, a most marvelous and awful voice, the flame being endowed with articulate speech and a language familiar to the hearers.
Doesn't that sound really, really familiar? Like Pentecost, which expressed its words with such clearness and distinctiveness that the people seemed rather to be seeing, then hearing it? What is he saying? Do you not understand? It is that fill us that at that moment when God came down on Mount Sinai, it was like there was fire coming out that fire.
And other Jewish authors would say, Torah, God's words. It's like a fire. It's like a flame. And not only that, it came out in language that everyone could understand. This is what Luke is drawing upon. These are these images of Pentecost, that God's presence that was so terrifying, that was so frightening. Now rest upon us. The flame of Torah is now within our hearts.
And as we know from Pentecost, everyone could understand each other's languages. And here's a fun little fact that you can take to your next dinner party. There were. Do you know how many disciples there were at Pentecost? Anyone had the number? There was 100 and oh, come on Murray. Yeah. No, 120, 120 disciples were there at Pentecost. Guess how many words there are?
From, when Moses is up on the mountain scribbling down the Ten Commandments, how many words in Hebrew? 120. There you go. There's a fun little fact there. So there's a little cool little facts that you can keep in your head to make you understand just how rich and deep Scripture is, right? After all that. Now let's get to the burning bush.
This classic passage of Scripture says here now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father in law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up some other thought.
I will go over and see this strange sight. Why the bush does not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush. Moses, Moses and Moses said, here I am. Do not come any closer. God said, take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
They said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. At this Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers. I am concerned about their suffering, so I've come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
I will skip all those nations. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, God, I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. But most said, the God who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?
And God said, I will be with you. This will be the sign that it is I who has sent you. When you've brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. Most had the God. Suppose that the Israelites, God, the Israelites, and say to them, the God of your father says, send me to you.
And they ask, what is his name? Then what shall I tell them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. I said to Moses, say the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.
This is my name forever. The name you shall call me from generation to generation. A classic passage of Scripture setting up Yahweh's rescue plan for the Israelites. And hopefully now you're starting to see the connections. You say that that the fire that's there in the bush, the fact that Moses needs to take off his sandals, the fact to that God actually says, well, I'm going to be present with the people.
That's the whole point of him delivering us so they can go back to this mountain and worship him. All of these themes are being set up, starting there at the burning bush. As Scripture progresses, you see that God's plan God. God is a holy God, a consuming fire. The book of Hebrews tells us, but a God who wants to be present with his people, friends.
That's what Pentecost points us to. That moment where the Holy God, the Holy Spirit, now rests within us. That's why you need to have the Old Testament to fully appreciate the new, to fully appreciate what it means to be a new covenant. Believe this to be past Pentecost. People. That same spirit that purified that tree, that purified the tabernacle, that's the spirit that resides within us.
It's a remarkable, remarkable privilege that perhaps we thought a bit like, oh, yeah, cool. We kind of know it up here. But how is that transforming our lives? Are we living as people where we're allowing God's Spirit to burn within us, to purify, to set others free? Now, I wouldn't be doing my job, as I love to do, without giving us some more interesting facts.
And so the first one here is the Hebrew term for bush, which should be there on the screen there. It's what's called a homonym. So the word in Hebrew for Bush is senior. And it sounds awfully similar to Mount Sinai. And that's no accident there, because God himself said that the Mount, Mount Horeb, this is where it gets to be confusing Mount Horeb and that Sinai, actually the same Mount.
So where Moses is standing, it's holy ground. Holy ground represents God's presence. And to be in God's presence means that we have to worship. The other really interesting thing is about this sort of Sarnath Sinai kind of link is geography. I have a map now on the screen and he probably can't say it, but right down the bottom, sort of right.
Can you see the word that starts Midian round there on Mount Sinai median all the way down there? Now, you don't have to be a biblical geography expert to see what kind of Mount Sinai is all the way at the bottom here, down towards the Arabia, at the top of the map, there. Can you guess where that place is?
What's that there at the top of the map? I'm gonna call that someone. Be brave. It's the land of what? Israel. Yeah. Okay, so if Yahweh in the flaming bush and at Mount Sinai is appearing down here in Midian, is that the same place as the Promised Land? Yes or no? No. That's really, really important. Because saying that.
Yeah. Okay. Cool. God. God has set aside this land. God has set aside a temple. But ultimately, there are really important moments when God reveals himself not in a holy temple, not in a holy city, not in a holy land, but in the wilderness. That's the other thing that I've been trying to point with these three passages the Tabernacle.
The Israelites spent a lot of time wandering. You can see it there on the map. Wilderness of Egypt, just wandering around. God's presence is still with them in that tabernacle. Friends, God's presence is with us now when not in the sacred space. This is a sports hall, I can tell you throughout the week there are punch ups are happened in this room.
There are kids playing sports. There's all sorts of things that happen in this place, good and bad. This is not a sacred building, but at this moment, because we're gathered as living stones at the Holy Temple, because God's Spirit is here, this place becomes holy ground. Our bodies become holy ground.
Upon that conversation we have with Yahweh and Moses, Moses makes up lots of excuses and wise excuses as well. What am I going to say to them? And God says it in English. It says, Lord, he reveals what we call the covenant name. And he says, well, if they don't believe, you say, I am has sent you. And so what we say it is Yahweh.
That's probably the best guess. And she might have someone on this wall about a while ago about Yahweh being like breath. And so I should be up there on the screen if you're interested in how the the Hebrew looks, that's kind of the best guess of how we pronounce it Yahweh. And it means something like, I am who I am, I am who I will be.
And the idea behind the meaning of Yahweh is about God being unchangeable. It is unchangeable characteristics, hence his holiness, hence his justice and righteousness. But there's an Old Testament scholar at that guy called Martin Buber. He argues that as part of Yahweh, his divine name being revealed, but it's also about his presence, not simply just about God. God is unchangeable, as this abstract concept.
It's meant to be this relational term by revealing his name is Yahweh. I am who I am. So it's about his unchangeable nature. It's about relationship. It's about presence and you might have missed it or picked up upon it, but one of the points of the rescuing the Israelites from Egypt is that he can bring his people out, to worship them, to rescue them, to be in relationship with them.
This is what God wants for us to be in relationship. It's built into his name himself. For God to be our God and for we to be his people. And one of the things to help with the with the Tabernacle in particular. And there should be a picture there. It's probably not the best picture, but he can say in the tabernacle, I guess, to the temple by extension, later on that was furnished with a few things.
But the point of the Tabernacle was it was meant to be this. This reminder to the Israelites wherever they went, they were carrying Mount Sinai wherever they went, like God's presence was going with them as part of the furniture, you sort of got a table with the lives. They got an altar in there. You got what's called the Ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies behind that curtain there.
But you see the lamp, the menorah. Now, it's quite interesting with the menorah. It's shaped like a what? Tree, a bush. And look at the top of it, he might said, but it's meant to be a candle. And what do you put on top of candles? You put fire light. So within that you within the tabernacle itself, there's the golden menorah, a reminder, the burning bush, a constant reminder of God's holiness, of God's presence, of God's desire to be with his people.
And there's another really important tree for us to remember as a sign of God's presence, of wanting to be with his people. It's the cross. I mean, all the, English translations I described Jesus being hung or crucified upon a tree. That language is really deliberate because meant to remind us is that throughout Scripture there are these moments on countering God with trees and bushes, you know, tree of knowledge of good and evil, tree of life, that the, the, the bush that Moses God appears to Moses and within the tabernacle itself and the temple, the menorah, the reminder of that for us.
Remember the tree in which Jesus hung upon which from his side flowed the water and the blood now water and blood on fire. Images. But the water is particularly meant to symbolize the spirit coming out, flowing, and purifying us in so many ways. The fact that the spirit came down on fire upon the disciples because of that tree that Jesus Christ hung upon.
So just how did it was up there a moment ago? This is just, I guess, a bit of a summary case. You completely bamboozled. You got. I have no idea what you're talking about, Mitch. That was all just gobbledygook to me. You have no saying. So here's just a little summary. Exodus three burning bush location is a bush in the wilderness.
Their response is to remove the sandals fire. It's the fire that does not consume the bush. Therefore, Exodus 19, we're at the mountain, which is the same mountain from Exodus three. We've got trembling all in distance. Now it's a fire. Thunder, smoke. God dispense visibly. Exodus 40. We got the I like that language mobile tent in the wilderness.
And there is not the call to worship, to be obedient, to offer sacrifices. Now you got the fire in the cloud that rests upon it. And for us, the most important part. Acts two At Pentecost. God's presence is now on each and every believer that that moment disciples are filled. This proclamation, Peter gets up, gets up and preaches to everyone.
People respond as tongues, as of fire. Rest on the disciples. That's the summary of how the Old Testament, through particular the book access, points us to Pentecost.
Now let's kind of bring it back to our time and space into our daily lives. If we care, if we, God's Spirit rests upon us, if our bodies are living temples of the Holy Spirit, there's no longer this sort of sacred or, sacred space. That means holy ground can be wherever we go or be. Our commute to work here it be.
Doing something is mundane is doing the dishes, mopping the floor, hanging up, washing herbs, waiting around in a hospital room. Or are we just going for a walk in the park with your kids? You can bring holy ground wherever you go because the spirit, same spirit, appeared to Moses at Sinai, and that the tabernacle is now within us.
That's amazing that Moses had to remove his sandals. We didn't have to do that. We'd have to do that at all. But we are called to transform lifestyle. And the Apostle Paul, he mentions this idea of us being the temple of the Holy Spirit in a few places. Now, up there on the screen from twice in one Corinthians, then once from Second Corinthians.
The idea is that we are the temple. And so Paul typically talks about this in the from one Corinthians three, this idea of like sexual purity. But I think it as eyes with purity across all things. If if we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we don't own our souls. There is this requirement for us to live lives that reflect the calling that God has done for us.
That's one of the things that you can take out for this week. Remember that the spaces that you are in can become holy because God's presence is within you. But if you would like to do something perhaps a little different, here's a couple of tools that you can take away. As long as process that we don't ever really do in prayer.
But I invite you. If you feel cold this week, get a candle, light it up. Now you not worshiping that can do not worshiping that fire, but use it as a reminder. Oh yeah, the Holy Spirit came down this fire. Fire the burning bush fire at Sinai fire. The tabernacle. Be reminded of that fire, of that light, of that purity, and use that as something to spur on your prayer.
Now, the toolbox I invite you to is to find a. I use the word sacred space in inverted commas. Find a space where you can pray, and there is something very powerful doing is remove your shoes and spend time praying and reading the word that clearly all of us have our shoes on here. There are many cultures that will and other religions that take off their shoes.
This idea of their shoes carry dirt and uncleanliness. And by doing that, you're entering a space of holiness and doing that. That's a powerful act. You can do it as a parable. This by taking off the shoes. I am symbolically saying, Lord, I take away my silver. I give to you my sin, my evil, all the uncleanliness about me.
I step into you as one of your children to be your vessel. Sort of a challenge for you this week and some tools to help you in your spiritual walk. Now I'm going to invite Rachel in the band back. And while they're coming up, I close with, traditional, garlic Christian prayer. I have a little Irish in my background, so I love anything that's around the Celts and Gaelic garlic Christianity.
And this is a prayer in everyday life. First monk that you could just pray when you're just doing the everyday tasks around LA. So let's pray this prayer now together. This morning, as I kindle the fire on my head, I pray that the flame of God's love may burn in my heart, in the hearts of all I meet today.
I pray that no envy or malice, no hatred or fear may smother the flame. I pray that indifference and apathy, contempt and pride may not pour like cold water on the fire. Instead, may the spark of God's love light the love in my heart that it may burn brightly through the day. And may I warm those who are lonely, whose hearts are cold and lifeless, that they may know the comfort of God's love.
Amen.
Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at The Centre. But in the meantime, praying for God's hand over you as you continue to step into everything Jesus has in store for your life.
Be blessed.

BANTER - Holy Spirit as Fire

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

BANTER - Water & Spirit

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

Water & Spirit - Mitch Levingston

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

BANTER - Preparing for Pentecost

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

Preparing for Pentecost - Mitch Levingston

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

Mother Day - Sue Webb

To find out more about The Centre visit;www.thecentredural.org.au/church/We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at;www.youtube.com/@centredural 
Welcome to The Centre! We're a Church in Dural, Sydney who want toMake Jesus The Centre of our lives, community, and world.
Join us for a time of worship, community and teaching. Remember to stay in contact with the church, especially if you or anyone you know is in need.
Get Connected: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/new/ 
Prayer Requests: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/prayer/
Tithing Information: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/giving/
Follow "BANTER"; the podcast where we unpack each week's sermon with the pastoral team: Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6ReaCaCb6U7r4EjdJQdajy?si=11f44dcd078e4707Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
 
TRANSCRIPT
 
Hey, welcome to The Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.
I'd like to start by saying Happy Mother's Day to all the mums. I hope you have a lovely time and gets a chance to spend time with your family today.
And just have a special day knowing that you are cherished and that you are loved. It's a privilege to speak today, and I'm going to speak about the love of mother. I'm going to speak about God and and response. So being Mothers Day, we're going to start with some qualities of a mum. So when I started thinking about these, some of the things that came to my mind were sacrificial, kind, helpful, warm, encourager, safe, gentle, nurturing, feeder, non-judgmental.
Someone who's got your back, protector and helper. And there's a whole lot more things I could come up with and words to describe in them, but they're the first things that really came to mind. And the very first one which really stood out to me is sacrificial. And I think the role of a mother, being a mum is a very sacrificial role is that by sacrificing your body in your sleep, then your desires, your time, you schedule a whole lot of things, your heart.
And one thing I wasn't prepared for was as your children get older and they fly the nest, that there's a whole grieving process to grieve. Your babies, your little ones, the moments, the times that are gone and to grieve that time of having them living at home with you. So I wonder what your experience all day that can't wait for everyone else that is me.
I wonder what your experience as a mum has been. I wonder if you can relate to the list of words that I have read out, or yours is quite different. Or maybe you have other words that you would like to add to that list. Was your mother loving and nurturing? We all need this special love and nurture as a mum, and that is why God created us the way he did.
We are born vulnerable. We need a very special love, protection and nurture to survive and grow. I remember my father, though always spoke very highly of his mum, and I trust that many of us here today have had that very special experience of a warm and loving mum, just as he did. My mum is very warm, loving, encouraging and sacrificial.
She also likes to have a lot of fun and life. Growing up was not to be taken too seriously for me. Growing up, I knew that I was deeply loved, not because of anything that I did, just because I am me and I am hers.
Growing up, I was very close to my mum also, and even as a teenager I described her as one of my best friends. So I think it's a little bit unusual for that teenage years. Yes, my mum and I are very similar in a lot of ways. One thing about my mum is that when you walk into her house, you smell the aroma of freshly baked cakes or biscuits or dessert or dinner cooking.
The house always smells of something yummy. She likes to cook and she likes to feed her guests. It's a little bit tricky as a daughter trying to get some family recipes from mum, as she often just cooks by sight. She's always in a bit of this bit of that until it looks like this. So it's very hard to get actual measurements from her to be able to have a recipe that I can cook, and if she does have a recipe she doesn't measure and she often substitutes things anyway, so even a recipe can be unhelpful.
But yes, always lovely to walk into her house and smell that beautiful smell. I'm very grateful for my mum and her loving heart she has for my siblings and myself and for other people around her. And I think it's so good to be grateful to God and to express our gratefulness, especially on a day like today for our mums or our mother like figures that we have in our life.
A mum may not be the only one to love like this. Sometimes we are fortunate to experience this kind of love from a grandmother, a sister or some other relative or close friend. I'm wondering if you've ever experienced this kind of loving kindness from a complete stranger, or or even somebody that you may consider an enemy? How awesome would this world be if that was common experience?
I know apart from family I have some very special friends. They are very kind to me, and it was particularly important when cam and I moved our family from Melbourne to Sydney. We knew that we would need some special friends that would help fill the gaps of not having our family close by, and in God's goodness. He has provided a number of very special friends here in Sydney that are like family to us.
We each only have one mum and the experience of her. It shapes us and it stays with us for life. We may not all have experienced the loving, nurturing mother. However, we do all crave this love, acceptance, nurture and care that is received not from our mum. We need to receive it from someone else needs to come from somewhere else in life.
However, we cannot choose and we cannot make others treat us with this kind of love that we all need and desire. However, every single one of us can choose to love others and treat others in this way. We can choose to be that kind, caring, nurturing, encouraging person in someone else's life and the way we treat others can stay with them for life.
Is it your desire to treat others with this special sacrificial love? Is it something you naturally usually do, or does it depend on what made you join? How you've been treated yourself? Does it affect your kindness? If you've been treated poorly or unfairly, or even deliberately mistreated by another? In one way, it's quite simple to act in love towards another, but in other ways it's not always easy.
We can, like, make loving others more of a priority and a natural instinct in this fast paced, hectic world. Can we do that? Especially when we're not feeling it, or when we have 100 things to do? Maybe life is too busy to really take the time to care for others. You may be in a season at the moment when you don't have the space or time to create, to do more of that than you are currently doing, but you may.
And if you do, this is definitely something to consider. Do you have other obstacles that are holding you back, or getting in the way of loving others more completely? We may have the desire, but what can we do to increase this practical love of others? One way is learning from others around us. We can. It can be a good way to improve our love in action for others.
We can look at people around us who have these qualities and learn from them. I would like to call myself a bit of a people watcher. I like to watch people. I find it fascinating, but I also like to learn from others. When I see things in people's life that I would like to have in my life, or that I could follow or copy to improve myself, I watch carefully.
Sometimes I ask questions so that I may improve myself and be better.
We can spend time with people who are loving so that we can learn from them and become more like them. We naturally become more like the people that we surround ourselves with. So choosing our friends and the people that we hang out with carefully. So will you. Encouraged and inspired to become better is another way we can do this.
Prayer is another way we can ask God to show us how to be more loving towards others. We can pray that God will help us and show us areas in our own life where we may be lacking. If you are really game, you could ask your spouse, your parent, brother or sister or close friend for input on areas where you may be lacking.
I'm sure they would love the opportunity to help you grow. I have to admit, I'm not overly keen on doing this myself. I don't think I'd like the response. However, in saying that, I'm also aware of how gentle and kindly God shows me my weaknesses. I would much rather ask God and have him show me the areas that I need to improve, than ask somebody else.
Have you experienced the gentleness of God as he touches the areas in your life that are not what they should be? I certainly have another really handy way to see your own weakness is to take notice of what you find really annoying in other people. This kind of acts like a mirror. The things that we find the most irritating in others are often traits that we have in ourselves, but unaware of them.
I had a little giggle to myself last weekend. Cam and I were walking with our suitcases behind us to the airport terminal. I was completely unaware of a man behind me zigzagging back and forth across the path as he was trying to walk past me. But he was not able to because obviously I didn't leave him enough room.
I know I find it really irritating if I'm trying to get somewhere, and someone has positioned themselves in such a way that I cannot pass if I'm in a hurry. I cannot pass people that are dawdling or taking up most of the pass path, and are unaware of people around them. I find it annoying, which is exactly what I was doing.
Maybe not dawdling, but going slower than this man was wanting to go. Fortunately, cam was with me and he had noticed this man and he gently pulled me aside so the man could pass. Another great way is to read the Bible. God's word is very powerful. Isaiah 5510 tells us, as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return without watching the earth and making it bad, and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater.
So is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Let me just repeat some of that. So is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me. Empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
God's word is powerful. It will accomplish God's desire and his purpose. So reading God's Word, memorizing scripture, immersing ourselves in the Scripture will change our lives. We need the Bible. We need God's Word. And reading and memorizing scriptures is a great way to influence and transform our lives, so that we may be the active, physical hands of God to one another.
As Christians, we are God's children, and therefore, the more time we spend with God, the more time, the more so we will reflect his character. God's word transforms us. I remember years ago, this one time when cam and I were having a disagreement. I had gotten to the point where my emotions were getting the better of me, and I just wanted to let loose and let him have it.
But can anyone relate to that anyway? But I also didn't want to say something hurtful or something that I would regret once my emotions had settled. I can picture standing in the hallway of the house we lived in at the time, and I don't remember what the discussion was about, but I remember feeling really angry, and I remember that I wanted to stop this anger before I exploded, and I decided to speak scriptures in my head to myself.
And the first scripture I ever learned was the only scripture that came to mind. And it wasn't even relevant to this, to the discussion we were having. But it was painful. It was from John 316 For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
And I just kept repeating this to myself over and over. And with each time that I said it, the anger subsided, and then it completely went away. God's word has power in it. When we read it, memorize it, repeat it. It changes us. It requires us. It renews us. God's word is powerful. It will accomplish God's desire and purpose.
God's desire and purpose for his believers, for us as His church is to love one another. God's word instructs us and gives us wisdom. And here are some scriptures that gives us instruction and how we are to treat others. And there are plenty more. I've just grabbed a few. In first Corinthians chapter 16. It tells us to do everything in love.
First Corinthians chapter 13. We all very should be very familiar with this tells us that love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and perseveres. Ephesians four, chapter two instructs us to be completely humble and gentle, to be patient and bearing with one another in love. In first, Peter tells us to be sympathetic towards each other, and Ephesians tells us to be kind and compassionate and forgiving each other. And Titus chapter three instructs us to slander no one to be peaceable and considerate, and always be gentle towards everyone.
Are you feeling inspired by these scriptures? Maybe this seems all too hard and you don't even want to try this easy or not to. It takes more than human power to be this kind of loving person. And fortunately, we don't have to do it on our own or in our own power. As a believer, we are children of God.
We have the Holy Spirit living within us. The Holy Spirit is the one who leads us and guides us and teaches us. He is the one that prompts us to do things that God would have us to. And second Timothy 127 God tells us the spirit gives us power, love, and self-discipline. Have you experienced this power of love and self-discipline from the Holy Spirit's leading?
In my disagreement that I spoke of earlier, it was the Holy Spirit that prompted me to speak scriptures to myself. And as I've been preparing this, I've been thinking that I need to search out and look for the Holy Spirit's leading more in my life. I need to ask for the Spirit's help more often than I have been.
By not seeking the spirit and his leading. We could all be missing out on the good things that God has for us in this life. Would you like to hear the Spirit's prompting more in your life? I started by talking about the love of the mother, and it's very important that we experience this love. Yet there is a far greater love than the love of a mother.
And this love is the love of our father. God, and the love he has for each of us. God loves us, and our response to him is to love him and to love others. God created us for love. The Bible tells us that God is love. And John four nine says, this is how God showed his love amongst us.
He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin. Friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
This is how we know that we love in him. This is how we know that we live in Him and He in us. He has given us His Spirit. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us, so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment.
In this world, we are like Jesus, so we need to be obeying God's Word so we can be like Jesus to other people around us. God instructs us to love others. It is something we do out of obedience. To make this possible, God fills us with the power of the Holy Spirit so we can learn from him and be more like him.
Galatians 522 tells us, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. When the spirit has freedom in your life and mind, he brings these attributes with him. He transforms those he dwells in to be the same. The Holy Spirit is our encourager, our teacher. He leads us and helps us to be the people God calls us to be, to be humble and loving.
Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Faithfulness. Goodness. Self-control. Sounds like the perfect mother, doesn't it? Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a perfect mother. But God is perfect. He is our perfect heavenly father. God is more loving, kind, compassionate than any earthly mother could be. God is our heavenly parent and perfect parent. He knows more about us than our mother ever could.
He knows what is good for us better than our mom ever could. God knows what we need and when we need it. And God can fulfill all of our needs. He loves us and desires to be in a loving relationship with us. He calls us to be his own. He adopts us into his family by bringing us to himself through Jesus.
This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure. It gives God great pleasure to adopt you as his child. You are wanted. You are cherished and you are loved by God. Who wouldn't want this kind of relationship with God to be called a child of God? Just wondering, when was the last time you remember running into God's loving arms?
When was the last time you confessed your love to God or hang out with him? Spend time with your heavenly father. Have you experienced God's gentleness? Have you found rest in him? Do you run to him for a warm embrace or protection when needed? Ask him for all that you need. We don't always have our mom around when we need her.
However, we do all have God around. He never sleeps. He's never on a call or too busy for us. We are his children and he has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is our deposit of what is to come. And the Holy Spirit teaches us and helps us. Sometimes when I'm out alone and feeling vulnerable or in a dangerous situation, I ask God for help.
I imagine he's next to me, and I take his hand in mine and I walk alongside him. He's my protection. He's got my back. And if you were to see me, you would see my hand empty but just clinging. It wouldn't look like I'm actually holding on to anything but spiritually. I'm holding on to God. I am his child.
He has the attributes of a father, which is often mentioned in the Bible. However, God has the attributes of a mother as Genesis 126 says, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness. And in verse 27. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female. What attributes of a mother do we see in God the Father?
God is all powerful. He is to be feared. But God is also loving and warm and kind, and he is an ever present help for his children. The same words are used to describe a mother to begin with can also be used to describe God. The Trinity. God is warm, loving. He protects. He is gentle. He provides food for all of our needs.
He is non-judgment to his kind. He is nurturing. Jesus is the sacrificial son. He's got your back. He prays to the father on your behalf. The Holy Spirit is your helper, your encourager, and your teacher. We belong to a kind of church where God is obeyed. And when we actively love one another and strive to live in unity.
Wrap your hand if you would like our church to be even more like that. And yes, you can put your hand up if you would like me to be more like that. Come on, everyone, hands up! We have some very loving people here at church and as a whole congregation. I'm sure we have room for improvement. Well, I know we do, because I'm part of this community, and I know there are times when I can do better.
So let's pray together for God to enable us to love each other as he loves, and to fill us with the Holy Spirit, and to lead and help us into doing this.
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.

How Can We Know God? - Murray Lambert

To find out more about The Centre visit;www.thecentredural.org.au/church/We meet at 10am every Sunday in person and online at;www.youtube.com/@centredural 
Welcome to The Centre! We're a Church in Dural, Sydney who want toMake Jesus The Centre of our lives, community, and world.
Join us for a time of worship, community and teaching. Remember to stay in contact with the church, especially if you or anyone you know is in need.
Get Connected: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/new/ 
Prayer Requests: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/prayer/
Tithing Information: https://www.thecentredural.org.au/church/giving/
Follow "BANTER"; the podcast where we unpack each week's sermon with the pastoral team: Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6ReaCaCb6U7r4EjdJQdajy?si=11f44dcd078e4707Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-centre-dural-podcast/id1035454799
 
TRANSCRIPT
 
 
Hey, welcome to the Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.
we if you receive the church news email on Friday again, do something a little bit different.
We're going to kind of open the floor up a little bit in a couple of minutes. But this is kind of an opportunity to once again just express our Baptist values as a priesthood of all believers that we don't believe that the past is here, myself or Mitchell, Brian Luther, have special fairy dust on us that makes us any more spiritual and any more capable to communicate with God than anyone else.
Here we are, priesthood of believers. As one Peter four says. So what we're going to do today is express that value and share together about ways in which God has revealed himself to us throughout our journeys. But the big question that we're kind of exploring this morning is, how can we know God? Which might seem like a bit of a stupid question, because there's some probably very obvious answers.
You might be thinking off the top of our heads, but I think we don't spend enough time reflecting on God's transcendence. What does transcendence mean? It means that God is, although relational and personal, is the greatest example of that is through Jesus Christ, who took on flesh to be known by us. Although he is personal and intimately relational with us, God is transcendent.
He's completely beyond our frame of reference. He's made of different stuff to us, and even me saying that he's made, he's not made because he is the creator and we are the created. And it starts to become quite difficult to get our heads around how to really understand God fully. It's sort of like the Brazilian pineapple farmer who went on holidays to Antarctica, and when he got there, he met a blind man who lived in Antarctica his whole life.
And the blind man goes to the Brazilian pineapple farmer. So what do you do for a job? He goes, well, I grow pineapples. And the blind man goes, I don't know what that is. And the Brazilian guy is, well, it's a type of fruit. And the guy who's lived in and talk to you his whole life goes, I don't know what a fruit is and is like, hey, well, you see that baby penguin over there?
And the blind man says, no, I don't say it. He goes, well, you know what a baby penguin is? It's about that size is okay. A pineapple is about the size of a baby penguin, and it's soft and it's fuzzy. He's like, well, no, it's not soft and fuzzy. It's about the size of a baby penguin. But all over it.
And these little spikes, sort of like the baby penguin's beak all over it is like, hey, great. And the blind man talks to says, so we eat baby penguins. Do you eat pineapples? And he goes, yeah, actually we do. We do is what do they taste like? Yes. Oh, well, I guess this sweet. He goes, oh sweet.
Like baby penguin mate. He goes, okay, I guess so. And he goes, okay, I think I've got a pineapple is a type of baby penguin. And he goes, no, I think you've completely missed the point. It's really hard. The second we step too far outside our frame of reference to understand something, and it gets really, really tricky. So this is where a very, very smart man who lived some 700 years ago called Thomas Aquinas, started to reflect on how can we best know God and what he sort of came to a conclusion on, and what many theologians after him agreed is ultimately, any time we're thinking about God, it's as an analogy.
It's comparing it to something from our frame of reference, which ultimately God isn't. But he's like that thing. And this is the kind of quote from summary of theology that I put in the pastor's, newsletter on Friday. Now, God is not something existing, but he's rather super existence. He's beyond existence. Therefore God is not intelligible, but above all, intellect.
How do we understand this guy? Well, the only way that we can understand a being that is beyond our existence who is super existence is through analogy. So I put in the pastor's newsletter. What of these three metaphors and analogies is probably a better thing to say. Best reveals God to you in your life. If you had to think is there an element of creation that maybe you've been at in nature at some point in your walk in your faith relationship with God, and you've found a piece of the creator's creation reflecting his truth to you.
Is there maybe a biblical name or title or metaphor for God in scripture that you have really resonated with and has been quite formative for you and your understanding of God, or the sort of greatest revelation of God, Christ? Is there a moment in the gospel that for you, your heart just really latches onto? It's a powerful representation and illuminates of who God is.
So I want to you to turn to the people next to you for a couple of seconds and just share about of those three areas, which one has been most powerful to you? It doesn't have to be the it's the only one, but just pick one of those three and share with someone next to you. So I'll give you a couple minutes.
when we're going to do is actually create some opportunity to explore each of these, in, in process. And the first one that sort of Thomas Aquinas writes about in his own writings is that creation reveals God. And I think it's really important, just quickly, to understand where he's coming from.
He was writing in a time in which the world was moving to a platonic worldview. What does that mean? Well, previously, the philosopher Aristotle had sort of said that, you know, creation material is a revelation of the divine maker. He wasn't Christian and he wasn't even Jewish, but he definitely believed in something bigger than what we experience in Plato.
One of his students sort of twisted that a bit and started to say, well, no, actually there is a good spiritual and there is a bad, evil, dirty material. And what Aquinas was trying to do impart in his work was point people back to the goodness of creation, that although it's fallen and it's an imperfect metaphor for a perfect creator, that there is real meat to be taken from that.
So we say in passages such as Romans 120, this isn't an extra biblical idea. Paul writes, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Yeah. In a different way. Job. In the book of job chapter 12, he, breaks out into a sort of verse and says, but ask the animals and they will teach you all the birds in the sky, and they will tell you will speak to the earth, and it will teach you well.
Let the fish in the sea inform you which of all of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this. In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. We see here job reflecting that creation echoes its creator. So for anyone who kind of really connected with that first point, the creation reveals God going to open up the mic.
Who wants to maybe come up? I'm and quickly pray for us and then we can get into it. Father God, we thank you that Your Holy Spirit dwells in each of us who call Jesus their Lord and Savior. We thank you that we come here this morning with a wealth of experience and knowledge. But ultimately, God, your good and perfect wisdom and Lord, I just really want to pray again for a spirit of boldness and confidence this morning as people come up and declare the way that you've revealed yourself powerfully in their lives, Jesus name, Amen.
Who wants to be the brave first person?
There's two things that I look at and and it reflects God to me. One is, there's something I read the other day about this. There's hundreds of thousands of species of plants and animals, or even millions that we've not even identified yet on this earth. And you look at the complexity of life, every piece of life, every plant has been designed.
It didn't just happen. And that tells me something about the incredible depths of God. The other thing is this tiny little thing that we're aware of, and it's called the universe. And you look at our planet, you look at the stars, our solar system, and it goes for how many billions of light years away, like the extent of it just blows my mind.
And if you try and look at the infinite list of God to me, the universe reflects that.
Thanks, Brandon. Always scared to be the first one out. Let's give a round of applause, guys. Let's encourage him. That's awesome. Love it. The expansive, almost limitless oneness that creation shows us, yet reveals the limitlessness of God and how he's so much bigger than we can wrap our heads around. See anyone else have any thoughts around how creation reveals God to them?
I think mine's quite simple, but I think just reflecting on maybe some of the hardest and, yeah, hardest times in my life, I feel like creation has been, just a beautiful thing to I always think of the idea of be still and know that I'm God. And on some of the hottest days of my life, I've seen not only a rainbow, but a double rainbow.
Either I've seen or other people have sent photos to me. And I just love that. Yeah. Beautiful imagery. And I think it's just that idea of be still, know that I'm God, your world feels like it's in chaos, but I am God. So that's how he's revealed himself to me.
Thanks, bears. And thanks, dude. Yeah. The rainbow definitely all the way back in Genesis. And. Sorry, Brant, do you want me to pass it down to you coming up? Yeah. Great. Yeah. The double rainbow all the way. Well, the single rainbow all the way back in the Noah story. God's promise and covenant. Just last week, scientists, photographed an electron which has never been seen before.
It's the most beautiful looking thing I've ever seen. It's, Of course it's microscopic. It's nano scorpion. It's, it's very small. But there are particles within that electron which are even smaller. Now, that's in contrast to the universe. So it's it's got to be a God thing. There's no doubt about it.
I just love getting out back and and driving the car and looking at the horizon and seeing this long road. And then the recognition that when you get up the top of that hill and looking further beyond, there is another expanse. And that God is over all that. And this is all part of God's domain. And we can never get to the end of, of God's creation.
And there's there's space all around. And in terms of that metaphor, familiar of where God is, it's a picture of, the space that God wants to, to build around. I mean, so many passages in Scripture say, and he brought me in to a spacious place. He brought me into a place where I could grow. And before I became a Christian, I used to think my life was going to be very closeted if I followed God.
Following God for me as a non-Christian was I was going to live life in a straitjacket and I wasn't going to be free to explore who God made me to be. And yet I discovered completely the opposite that God has brought me into a spacious place, a place to grow, a place to flourish, a place to see beyond what was most apparent, and to recognize whatever that journey might be.
That God was still there in the expanse of wherever he might take me.
Thanks, Brian, I love that. Yeah, all the way from the inner intricacies of an electron to the outer ends of the universe, you know, God can reveal his great infinite power and also his, you know, into into relational deep, even in the smallest detail power. So obviously the flaws of this style of analogy, and this is what some of Aquinas later writers spoke about, was that if creation is by itself going to be our spiritual revelation, then that can somewhat lead to a universalist or pluralist approach where, why don't like me?
Jesus and I don't need the Bible and I don't need the Holy Spirit. I'm just going to look at a rainbow and that's going to speak to me without any other, scriptural or biblical reference. So this is a really helpful analogy. Cool tool to a point, but there's some other really helpful things. And actually, Aquinas himself recognized that this was a bit limited and also came up with a second sort of great analogy that he found in Scripture, which was names revealing God.
So that can be actual titles such as Yahweh, Rapha, the Lord Who Heals Yahweh Shalom, the God of Peace. I really love this one. Just like a little bit of my research for this El Shaddai, the all sufficient one. There's a lot of theories from scholars that Shaddai comes from the Hebrew root word shabd, which is a woman's breast, and the idea that it's a mother who gives all life and sustenance to their children abundantly, that they provide everything that they need to their children, which is pretty cool.
The other sort of idea is similar. Saidu maybe, which is again the peak of a mountain which all the way back in Genesis, we get the river of life running from this peak of the mountain, which waters all the plants, which gives all life and sustains all things. Sort of this idea of the peak, the highest point of the mountain being the place where earth and heaven touch most profoundly so either or some pretty beautiful imagery around El Shaddai, the all sufficient one.
And then obviously as well, Scripture loves to use medicine in the Psalms, but throughout. So in Psalm 18 two, the psalmist writes, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I will trust my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. So just in that single verse, you've got some seven different metaphors for God, which are all individual, really quite powerful.
So the next one would be a question what name or metaphor for God is most significant to you? This one is a bit more of a Bible nerdy one, but would love to hear anybody have anything. It doesn't have to be a yeah, deeply, sort of, theologically deep thing. Just any title or name.
I so, this one for me. My favorite book in the Bible is the book of Hebrews. So I'm going to put my glasses on. I'm old school. I like to use the Bible.
And it's in Hebrews chapter six and moves on to seven as well, where it talks about Melchizedek. For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who made Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom and also Abraham gave a 10th part of all, first being translated King of righteousness, and then also King of selling, meaning King of peace, without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither the beginning of days nor the end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a 10th of his spoils, and indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham. But he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham, blessed him who had who had the promises now beyond all contradiction, the lesser is blessed by the better.
He mortal men receive tithes, but they he receives them of him of whom it is witnessed that he lives. So it goes on and talks about Melchizedek. And we know, from that, that Melchizedek represents Christ. And the beauty of Melchizedek is that Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life, the only way to the father that he created, that get, that he bridge, that gap that allowed us direct contact with the father in heaven so that we may have a relationship with him and know him.
But more importantly, does he know you? So I'm going to throw a spanner in the works because Jesus said, you know, talks about in the end times that I never knew you. So my question is not that do you know God? But as Christians, does God know you? So I want you to think about that, because we can say that we know God through creation, we know God through prayer and all that sort of stuff.
But my question to you is, does Christ know you? Because when you stand before him, before the great White judgment throne of God, will your name be written in the Book of life?
Thanks, Dave. Really appreciate it. Yeah, so much there. Because being a king and a priest, this things which ultimately are still earthly representations that are just an analogy of sorts for the ultimate king, the ultimate praise. Thank you friend, thank you. Yes. So in this style of analogy, again, it falls short because if you say God is good, for instance, even just as a really simple sort of title for him, well, first we're using imperfect human language, which is immediately flawed.
You know, if I say what's good for white, what's good for my white, well, am I saying what's good for gaining weight or what's good for losing weight? So you are interpreting things straight away. So it is imperfect sometimes. And also, an imperfect reference of goodness compared to God that we don't actually know complete goodness only in contrast to what is bad.
So there is beauty and power in all of these analogies, but it's just helpful to recognize where they fall short. And this is where Colbert comes in as a Swiss theologian in the 20th century. He was sort of coming from a different era in time, obviously, 700 years after Aquinas, and he was looking at a world that was instead of looking to creation and science as something to prove God.
Instead, at this point in the enlightenment period, moving into modernism, science and rational, rationalization was actually being used to try and disprove God. So he was saying, well, maybe some of these forms of metaphor that people have previously relied on have some issues in my context. So he ultimately pointed towards, maybe in some ways the most obvious revelation of God, who is Christ himself.
In John 14 nine, anyone who has seen me, Jesus has seen the father. So as we sort of come to this final analogy for this morning, I'd love to know, is there a moment in the gospel? Is there a element of Jesus which for you just most powerfully and personally reveals God?
I'm just a little a little snippet here from, Matthew 12, verse 46, while Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you. He replied to them, who is my mother? And who are my brothers?
Pointing to his disciples, Jesus said, here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. I don't know why. Like all throughout the Bible, You know, God is referred to as the father. But this, I don't know, some, One day when I read this, it just kind of the whole concept of family, just kind of.
And they've got so many broken families. People have so much childhood wounding this being a part of a restored family is just quite amazing. Kind of. And with Jesus and God and, and it's very complicated, but that perfect restoration of family and that, it kind of spoke to me about, an answer to that longing to be a part of something that we all feel sometimes, you know, sometimes you're you're with a lot of people, but you still feel alone or, you know, sometimes you don't feel like you belong or just, you know, those sorts of feelings.
It not it's not quite right. That idea of that restored family that you're part of, that is just such an incredible. It's such an incredible revelation to me. Thank you.
Thanks, Lizzie. Being adopted into the family of Christ, really, really powerful.
So, as Lizzie had herself sort of pointed to not just Jesus as God stand alone without any relationship, that there is Jesus, part of his identity is solely hinging on the Holy Spirit and God the Father. And this is the one thing that we can do if we become almost to Christ centric, that we forget to seek the Holy Spirit who is living and breathing today, that we only look to Scripture and tradition and previous things rather than fresh revelation of God.
So yeah, just wanted to point to one Corinthians two, where Paul himself writes, I'll just wait until we get it up on the screen. Perfect. Thanks, mate. No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.
This is what we speak not in words taught to us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the spirit. Explaining spiritual realities with spirit taught words. The person without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the spirit.
So it's sort of the takeaway that I want to leave you with today. That there is actually a final analogy of God that I find really powerful. And that's the work of Meister Eckhart, who was only 100 years after Thomas Aquinas. And he was really big about the silent contemplation and the it's not just through silent contemplation itself, in which we can experience God, but silence as an analogy for God.
When he writes on silence, he's not talking about the cessation of thought that we empty our minds in the way that a Hindu or a Buddhist would, but more in the way that it is the awareness of silence permeating all things our words, our thoughts, all of creation. And it's seen really powerfully in the story of Elijah in the book of one Kings 19.
I'll just wait till it. Yeah. Perfect. Oh, sorry. That's a good quote. Actually, I should read that as this is Mr. Eckhart himself saying no image represents and signifies itself. It always aims and points to that of which it is the image. And since you have no image but of what is outside yourself, which is drawn in through the senses, and continually points to that of which is in the image, therefore, it is impossible for you to be bare, defiled, or blessed by any image whatsoever, and therefore there must be a silence and a stillness, and the father must speak in that, and give birth to his son and perform his works free from
all images. And yeah, if we go to that passage in One Kings, it's really beautiful when Elijah is seeking God, and the Lord said, go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. And then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord.
But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah?
Ultimately, the best way to know God is through an amalgamation of all of these things and reflecting on his presence in creation and reflecting on his names and titles and metaphors of Him in Scripture, and reflecting ultimately on the greatest revelation of Him in Christ. And not just having that as head knowledge and walking along on our day, not allowing it to sink into our heart, but having genuine moments of silent reflection to really allow that to permeate into our souls.
So I'd like to encourage you this week to find some time to reflect on one of those things a bit more, just for 10 or 15 minutes in the silence, and find what God's Spirit might have to further reveal to you. So I'm going to call the band up as we pray. Father God, we thank you so much for all of the ways in which you reveal yourself to us through your son, through your Holy Spirit, through your Word, through your creation.
God, you are a good and generous God, and you continue to bless us each and every day. And God, we just pray that, as Steve said, it wouldn't just be that we know you, but we are known by you, Jesus. You yourself say it is not those who prophesy and cast out demons and heal that will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who are known by you, it is not our works, it is our intimate relationship with you.
And I pray this week as we go out and reflect further on all of the ways in which you reveal yourself to us, that it would not be due to good works, that we would think we are coming closer to you, but it would be through seeking a deeper, intimate relationship with you. So we thank you for this.
We thank you for this time, and we pray that as we go out of this service, we can continue to talk about these things, that our conversations would not go to superficial and shallow things, but we would continue to encourage, exhort, and teach one another with words of wisdom and encouragement. In Jesus name, Amen.
Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at the 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.

Easter Sunday - Mitch Levingston

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TRANSCRIPT
 
Hey, welcome to the Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.
on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But. But when they entered, they did not find the body of Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that claimed like lightning stood beside them.
In their fright. The woman bowed down with their faces to the ground. But the man said, why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen. Remember how I told you while he was still in Galilee, the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinners, but crucified on the third day, and they rise again.
Then they remembered his words. When they came back on the tomb, they were told. They told all these things. Of the 11. And to the others it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the others with them I told the apostles, but they did not believe the woman, because their words seemed to them like a nonsense.
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw strips of linen lying on them shelves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
Oh, he is risen indeed. Indeed he is risen this morning we're going to do with. So on Good Friday we did the stations of the cross. We're going to do a stations of the resurrection through Luke chapter 24. And Luke 24 is, I guess, like all gospel writings, quite remarkable.
And Luke has set this up that they're going to take a look at three different events on the same day the women coming to the tomb and finding an empty Jesus appearing to the two disciples on the impious road. And lastly, he's appearance to disciples in that room, showing them his hands and his feet and the wounds that he bore.
It's really interesting that Luke mentions, first and foremost, that this day is the first day of the week. Weeks disappear like this. It feels like a Monday starts and then suddenly it's Friday. And here that the first day of the week, it's showing that this is something. A new beginning is a new day, a new dawning. That's something remarkable has happened.
And when those women come to that tomb and see it empty there, and just those two angels there gleaming in light, I know this is something remarkable, and I love the question that the angels ask why do you seek the living among the dead? Why do you seek the living among the dead? It's a fantastic question, because how many of us are seeking dead things when the risen Lord Jesus is offering life for us, he's offering wholeness.
He's offering something greater than we could ever imagine. And so this Easter Sunday, friends, ask yourself the question why do you seek the living among the dead?
Obviously, the angel's words, the fact that the tomb is empty head encourages the women to be the first witnesses to the resurrection. If you notice, says John, who brilliantly read that passage to us, you'll notice that Luke mentions all of these different women who got Mary's, you got Joanna's, and you got even other women who would just not name.
They just said with them and you perhaps wondering like, well, why does Luke make so much reference to all of these women? Why are there women? Why are there the first ones to see the empty tomb?
It's because Jesus Christ had come to flip how life operates. I read a passage from a Jewish scripture called Mission Son Hedren. This is written, around the time when Jesus was around, and it says these words women, slaves in mind is that of children. Alas, children are disqualified from giving testimony. Read that again. Women, slaves and minors are disqualified from giving testimony.
That was the prevailing Jewish culture. Women are unreliable. If you're going to put clients on McNew, you don't use women. You use men. But Jesus has come to bring in this shift to deliberately uproot cultural norms. And you see here the apostles, when they hear this testimony, what do they say? Oh, that sounds like fantastic news. We believe you.
In fact, they say, well, I think it's utter nonsense. And because I love to teach you guys little bits of, you know, interesting facts from the Bible, this word nonsense is letters and letter. Ros is only used once in the New Testament, but it's used lots and lots of times in other Greek writings. We have. And all the other times they used that.
With Greek writings, it's often used in the context of a comedy play of someone who doesn't get the joke. It just seems like nonsense to them. That's quite ironic. And hopefully today you'll see this as we explore Luke's Gospel together. A little irony in this. The men had spent so much time with Jesus man, he'd seen him do so many miracles, had heard these teachings, do not believe him.
It's the women, the women, the ones who are considered by that society to be valueless, to have no testimony, to have no say, and how things were. I guess one of the things we can learn from the women today, our culture often thinks that the resurrection is nonsense, that what we believe is nonsense. So, friends, today I encourage you to do what the women did.
Be present now. Present at the cross. Present at the burial. They're present at the tomb. Friends today be present. Don't search for the living among the dead. Search for the nonsense. Search for the nonsense of the gospel. That's the heart of the gospel message that Jesus is risen. So I encourage you today to reflect upon that as the women come to the tomb by the nonsense of the gospel, embrace the fact that Jesus come to shift how we see the world.
And friends, don't search for the living among the dead.
Reading on from Luke 24, verse 13. Now the same day, two of them were going to a village called mace, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing him.
He asked them, what are you discussing together? As you walk along? They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them named Cleopas, asked him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? What things? He asked about Jesus of Nazareth, they replied, he was a prophet powerful in word and deed before God and all the people, the chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him.
But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but they didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was still alive.
Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it, just as the woman had said. But they did not see Jesus. He said to them, how foolish you are, and how slow to believe all the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things? And then into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going further, but they urged him strongly, stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over. So he went to stay with them. When he was at the table with them he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them.
The then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, were not our hearts burning within us? While he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us, they got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the 11 and those with them assembled together and saying, it is true, the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.
Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them. When he broke the bread.
So in a biblical narrative, is the size of the narrative shows how important it is. In Luke chapter 24, the length of the amazed road shows us that for Luke, this is a really important part of his resurrection narrative, and just as there was irony in the first part, we looked at with the women understanding in the disciples, not in Peter leaving perplexed.
So it is here we have the informed two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, telling the uninformed Jesus all about the events that had happened. And I love how Jesus doesn't mince words here. He has this quite harsh reply to them. How foolish you are, and how slow to believe that Jesus had said those words to me.
I take that as quite a personal affront at how foolish I am and how slow I am to believe. Now, the problem with our two disciples on the Imus Road is that they had these expectations of Jesus that were unrealistic. The expectation was that they were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel, i.e. this would be some sort of political messiah, someone who'd come in on a war horse, who'd get rid of the Romans and redeem Israel that way.
In their mind, dying on a cross was not part of that plan. And, it's so devastating that Luke doesn't give us this Bible study that Jesus unpacks to them on this walk. We can kind of guess maybe he talked about the suffering servant from Isaiah 52. Maybe he used Hosea six two, where the prophet tells us that the on the third day the Lord will restore us.
We don't know. But anyway, Jesus uses the Old Testament to show that, hey, this was the whole point and purpose I'm meant to suffer. And I, the Messiah, was meant to suffer and die and come back to life. Now, if you indulge me for a little bit, when we get to the part where their eyes are opened, there's some really, really cool things in here.
And maybe one day Mary and I can talk about this in our banter podcast, going to a bit more depth. But there's a lot of things happening at this moment. And so then when they're there breaking bread, Luke uses language that he's he's already alluded to two other occasions in his gospel. And can we think of some significant meals have happened in the gospel?
One of them is the feeding of the what, 5000? And the second one is the moment that Jesus institutes Holy Communion. So automatically the regional rate isn't meant to go, oh, okay, I'm meant to think about this, but this is where it gets even cooler that Luke's also riffing off some of the Old Testament. And one of these moments here is when Abraham invites Yahweh himself in human form and two angels in there, Yahweh reveals that Abraham is going to have a child.
Will Sarah going to have a child? And the second one, which is almost like a direct reference to Genesis three seven, their eyes were opened. The very first meal in Scripture wasn't a meal of joy. It's a meal of heartache. It was an illegitimate meal when the serpent tempted Adam and Eve to eat this bread bearing fruit. And Scripture tells us at that moment the eyes were opened.
They recognized that they were naked. And here, on the first day of a new week, of a new creation, when Jesus sits down with these two disciples and this little house in a mass, and he breaks bread, their eyes are also opened. Jesus is beginning to unravel the curse, the bondage that humanity has lived under. This is the first meal in the new creation.
And friends, this is why breaking bread while we celebrate communion is so important, because it's a reminder that Jesus presence, he might not be he physically. He vanishes just like those he did with those two disciples. But he's still present. It's the meal that reminds us the broken body of Jesus and his blood that was shed. Look forward to a future hope and a future promise.
So friends, today, how many of us are foolish and slow to believe? How am I ever said picture to Jesus? That's like what the road disciples had. Someone we thought was going to be different. And then when those expectations aren't met, we're left just completely and utterly disappointed. Perhaps there's times in your life where Christ is actually walking with you.
We haven't recognized him for whatever reason that might be. Perhaps there are moments within you where you feel this burning within your heart. We haven't pause to notice. Perhaps that's the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to you. Perhaps, friends, there's a face, a person that you are speaking to that might be hiding Jesus presence. Because as this story teaches us, God turns ordinary spaces and makes them holy.
That's what the resurrection is all about.
Well, I was still talking about Jesus. Jesus is still himself, still among them, and said, peace be with you. I was startled and frightened, thinking I saw a ghost. He said to them, why are you looking troubled? And why do doubts rise in your mind? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself touch my hands.
Oh, God does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have. When he said this, he showed them his hands and feet, and while they still did not believe it because of drawing the wise moment, he asked them, do you have anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of boiled fish, and he took it and died in their presence.
He said to them, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything you must be fulfilled. That is what an abomination. And what is this? The prophets and the Psalms, that he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures. He told them, this is what was written. The Messiah will suffer from the dead.
And on the third day he he'll write, and hook repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Well, we preached in his name to all the nations beginning. I show you some. You are witness of all things. I am going to send you what my father has promised, but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from the high.
When he had led them out to the city of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left and was taken up to heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
For so much great work. Hey, on our final reflection through Luke 24, there is this implied question that Luke is asking when are the disciples going to believe? And, in the Old Testament, their, testimony was held valid if you had 2 or 3 witnesses. Now, so far, this is what Luke has been building up.
We've had the two women at the tomb. They have seen it there. Hey, she's not there. Peter himself has seen the the the grave clothes lying there. The disciples on the road have encountered the risen Lord Jesus. Now, will the apostles themselves actually believe? What will it take? Yes, be more irony. Luke is kind of tapping into a takes an encounter by the risen Lord Jesus for them to believe.
And it's quite interesting when they think that Jesus is a ghost. Now, in our mind that seems a bit silly. We don't really believe in things like that. But in the ancient world, if someone died particularly horrific deaths such as crucifixion, there was this sort of underlying belief that the ghost of that person could come back and haunt you.
And so that's probably what's going in their mind right now, like, oh my goodness, it's a ghost set. A Jesus is come back to haunt us. This is why Jesus makes such a concerted effort to go, hey man, look at, look at, look at my hands, look at my feet. I'm a sight I want some food to eat because I'm hungry.
Flesh and blood need food to eat.
Luke caps off this most important day of the week here. Jesus, appearing to his disciples. And if you remember back to Palm Sunday, spoke about how Jerusalem is the center of Luke's gospel. Jerusalem disappears so much. In fact, that's that's what Luke sets up as Jesus traveling to Jerusalem to fulfill his destiny. Now, at this moment of his resurrection, that's where his disciples end up going back to Jerusalem, worshiping and praising God.
As we finish this morning. Well, just focus a bit on cross wounds. The great church, Father August, Saint Augustine of Hippo, he said from the tomb he arose with his wounds healed. He scars kept. For this he judged expedient for his disciples that his scars should be kept, whereby the wounds of their heart might be healed. Well, how about Jesus still bearing those scars?
It's this powerful, tangible reminder. I love it there in the video, these kind of hands I got like, how long? And you can see through them, but how about those scars look like they're there as this powerful reminder that suffering has now been transformed into a symbol of healing and of faith, and a victory, the resurrected Christ with his wounds.
It shows us that the resurrection doesn't bypass the realities of our suffering and evil in this life. Instead, they somehow bring this transformation and those scars that Christ bears for all eternity. They're reminders of what it took to unify God and humans.
In Christ's suffering, that redemption is found, as the prophet Isaiah said so long before Jesus walked on this earth. From Isaiah chapter 53, from verse five he says, but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. And friends, today, if you are carrying.
You're carrying scars. You're carrying doubts, whatever it might be. Today is the perfect day to do it. As we remember the resurrection of our Lord, we remember that he still bears the scars for eternity as a reminder of the cost of our sin, but also as a reminder that these wounds bring healing. As the prophet said by his wounds we are healed.
That's the invitation Jesus wants us to have today. That's the invitation he's offering to us. It's not here in Luke's gospel, but we're doubting Thomas. And there he you know, he said, I'm not going to believe unless I see his wounds and his side. And Jesus is happy to show them. Show them to him. And Thomas acknowledges that, my Lord and God, that same Jesus today wants you to reach out with him.
So look at his wounds and find healing. And if you wish to do that today, I give you an opportunity. We have our prayer corner here. We pray for people here who love to pray for you. I would love to pray for you. I'd love to pray with you. Any one of the pastors here love to pray for you and find healings here.
The wounds of Jesus. Friends, he is risen. He is risen indeed. Let me pray for us, Lord and Lord God, we give you thanks for this day, as if just it quickly journeyed through Luke's Gospel. That powerful first day of the week, reminder of the new heavens and the new earth that you're going to bring one day when this earth is restored and made whole.
And Lord, I pray for us, in particular, those of us that are carrying wounds that need to find healing, to find the healing through the wounds of Jesus. For those of us that need our eyes open, I pray that you open our eyes. And for those of us that need to leave behind the dead things, because why we are searching for living things amongst the dead.
So, Lord, I pray your blessing upon us on this Easter Sunday and we thank you for the new life that we have in Jesus. We pray this now in the precious name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at the 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.
 

Good Friday - Mitch Levingston

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.
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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.
Well, we gather this morning as Christians united through the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. This morning we're going to go on a journey, a journey through each of those final moments of our Lord. We will relive Jesus heartfelt prayer he poured out to his father the betrayal by Judas, the false accusations, the denial by Peter. He's flogging, coronation of a crown of thorns, the journey to Golgotha, the crucifixion and burial.
This morning's reflections are focused on Christ's sufferings as we enter the story of Scripture through words, sounds and pictures, we can relive those awful hours of our Lord's suffering. But this is also an opportunity to remember. Remember the solidarity that Jesus has with us as we face the crosses in our life. All of us will encounter a cross.
There are apparent crosses sickness, death, divorce, or accidents. Maybe our crosses are the burdens of fear, loneliness, the uncertainty about the future. How are we going to put food on the table? Whether it's experiencing a life altering cross or perhaps it's a minor cross, none of us can escape the trials of life. The monotony of work, juggling children, strained relationships, friends, big and small crosses await each of us.
And these crosses are not here to punish us or torture us, but simply because we live in a broken world, in desperate need of redemption.
Jesus willingly accepted the cross he received. Jesus takes it all and the world is redeemed through his cross. The invitation of Jesus is to hand over your crosses and burdens to him. And today, friends, I invite you on this Good Friday to see the presence of our Lord in the burdens you carry today. May we become more aware of the crosses in others and seek to alleviate them before we have our first reading.
Open up in a word of prayer. God of power and mercy in love. You sent your son that we might be cleansed of sin and live with you forever. Bless us as we gather to reflect on your suffering and death. And may we learn from your example the way we should live. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
It's my pleasure to invite Isabel up to give our first reading from Luke 2239 to 46.
Jesus went as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, pray that you will not fall into temptation. He raised you about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down, and prayed. Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours. Be done.
An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him, and being in anguish, he prayed most earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. When he rose from them from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sir, why are you sleeping? He asked him. Get up and pray so that you and you will not fall into temptation.
Jesus powerful prayer in this anime is a testament to the agony as he wrestles with the will of his father about the horrors that he's about to experience. We just given a glimpse in this moment of the turmoil that the cross brought to Jesus. This moment is a test of submission to his Father's will. And because Jesus succeeded in this test, he's now able to empathize with each of us as we struggle with our weaknesses and as we wrestle with God's will in our life.
We now have our second reading from Mark chapter 14 from 43 to 50.
Just as he was speaking. Judas, one of the 12, appeared with him was the crowd, armed with swords and clubs sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them. The one I kiss is the man. Arrest him and lead him away under God. Going at once to Jesus, Judas said Rabbi, and kissed him.
The men seized Jesus and arrested him. Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Am I leading a rebellion? Said Jesus, that you must come out with swords and clubs to capture me. Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me.
But the scriptures must be fulfilled. Then everyone deserted him and fled.
We are not told what Jesus emotional state. What our state was, or his thoughts as Judas came in to betray him. We can imagine that there was hurt. There's nothing more painful in life than being betrayed by one who claims to love us. And most of us here in this room hopefully would not consider ourselves a Judas. Someone who portrays a loved one.
But think back to the moments when we had professed devotion to Jesus. But our thoughts, actions and our lifestyle reveal a divided heart. A heart that's not devoted to him, a heart that's willing to betray him. We'll now have our third reading, where Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin. From Matthew chapter 26. From 59 to 67.
Thanks for.
The chief priest and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for the false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. Many false witnesses came forward. Finally, two came forward and declared. This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. Then the highest priest stood up and said to Jesus, are you not going to answer?
What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you? But Jesus remained silent. The highest priest said to him, I charge you under the earth by my living death. Living God's God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God. You have said so, Jesus replied. But I say to all of you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming down in the clouds of heaven.
Then the highest praise to his cousin said, he has spoken blasphemy. Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think he is worthy of? Death fancies and spit on his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him.
Jesus is sentence like a common criminal and accused of crimes that he did not commit. Yet Jesus humbly accepts this injustice. His trial and criminal status are all because of our sins. All the sins of humanity are placed upon his shoulders as our Passover Lamb. The injustice that Jesus experienced is a tangible reminder of the injustice that faces our world, as people are condemned for their race, beliefs, politics.
The list is endless. As people continue to be unjustly condemned in our world, it is a powerful reminder that the one who faced the ultimate injustice will bring justice to this earth. When he comes. We will now have our fourth reading from Luke 2254 to 6062. Peter denies Jesus.
Then, seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the High Priest. Peter followed at a distance, and when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard, and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked at. She looked closely at him and said, this man was with him.
But he denied the woman. I don't know him, he said, a little while, a little while later someone else saw him and said, you are also one of them, man, I am not. Peter replied. About an hour later, another asserted, certainly this fellow was with him, for he is Galilean. Peter replied, man, I don't know what you're talking about.
Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him. Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times. And he went outside and wept bitterly.
It's the second betrayal our Lord faced on that night, and Peter's threefold denial of Jesus is ultimately driven by fear. Fear of man. But before we criticize Peter too harshly, consider the times where you also have feared man more than God and denied Jesus through your words or actions. This moment is pivotal in Peter's life. It's not the walking on water, not the confession of Jesus as Messiah.
It's this moment when Peter recognizes who he is weak and broken. But in this moment that our Lord uses when he's resurrection to restore and Saint Peter out as one of his chief apostles. Lord, grant us the gift of honesty, so that we may not fear to speak the truth even when it is difficult. We'll now have our fifth reading.
Barabbas is released from Mark chapter 15 from verse 6 to 15.
Now it was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested. A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did. Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?
Asked Parliament, knowing that it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priest stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead. What shall I do, then, with the one you call the King of the Jews? Pilot asked them. Crucify him! They shouted. Why? What crime has he committed as Pilate?
But they shouted all the louder, crucify him! Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged and handed over to be crucified.
In Aramaic, Barabbas means son of the father, and ironically the true son of the Heavenly Father was condemned and the evil son is free. What do you imagine went through Barabbas mind as he was granted freedom? Do you think his life changed better for that day? Was he grateful for the horrific death that he avoided? Did he use his newfound freedom for God's glory?
Or did he waste that precious gift of mercy? We will never know. His tale is a mystery, but yours is not. Friends. What will you do with the pardon? Jesus has offered you. What will you do with your life? For the great gift that he has given? I now have our six reading. Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns.
From Matthew chapter 2727 to 31.
Thanks Ben.
Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the pretorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a star in his right hand, then they now in front of him and mocked him. How? King of the Jews, they said they spat on him and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again, after they had mocked him.
They took off the road and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.
Imagine for a moment the physical pain that Jesus endured.
Imagine a whip going against the skin of your back. Imagine fist against your face. Or a crown of thorns being placed upon your head. Mocked as King of the Jews. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Stands humiliated in a makeshift purple robe. The cruel crown of thorns on his head. Friends, that image is the cost of sin.
While we can never fully appreciate the extent of Christ's physical pain, all we can do with it is live lives worthy of the calling and the sacrifice he made. Lord, I pray that you grant to us patience in our times of suffering. There are times of suffering. May result in a sacrifice of praise. I come to our seventh reading.
Jesus takes up the cross from Luke chapter 23 from the stats 26 to 31. Right now.
As the soldiers lead him away, they seized Simon from Sarina, who was on his way in from the country and put the cross on him. And made him carry it behind. Jesus. A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me.
Weep for yourself and for your children. For the time will come when you say, blessed are the childless woman, the wombs that have never bore, and the breasts that have never nursed. Then they will say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills cover us. For if people do these things, when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?
Jesus taught us that to be one of his followers, we must be prepared to deny ourselves and to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. How many of us are willing to pick up the cross? When faced with the challenges of life, no matter how great or small, it provides us an opportunity to do what Jesus did. Accept our suffering gracefully.
We learn in this moment that not every cross is meant to be born alone.
Simon's sacrifice. Simon's willingness to pick up the cross is an example for us on how we can help carry each other's burdens. I pray, Lord Jesus, that each day we faithfully bear our crosses and bear the crosses of each other. We now come to our eighth Bible reading. Jesus is crucified for Matthew chapter 2733 to 43.
They came to a place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull. There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall, but after tasting it he refused to drink it. When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots and sitting down, and they kept watch over him. They over his head. They placed the written charge against him.
This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, you who were going to destroy the temple and building in three days, save yourself. Come down from the cross. If you are the Son of God.
In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders mocked him. He saved others, they said, but he can't save himself. He is the King of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trust in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him. For he said, I am the Son of God.
By the time Jesus has reached Golgotha, he suffered many indignities already. Betrayal, denial. False judgment, the beatings, the mockery and the ridicule. And these moments before he is crucified, Jesus is stripped. The mere dignity, the protection, the comfort of his clothing is stolen. And there he is, naked before the crowd hanging upon the cross. Out of love for us, Jesus is made vulnerable.
Jesus is dehumanized. Jesus laid himself down on the cross and willingly stretched his hands and his feet to be crucified.
It's on a it's upon a cross. A person dies with his arms spread out. When our Lord spread his arms out, he did it to draw all people to himself. This great sacrifice has opened the gates of heaven for all who believe in him can share in Etern all life. We will now have our ninth reading. Jesus promises his kingdom to the criminal from Luke chapter 23, verses 39 to 43.
Your. One of the criminals who hung that hill and sold it at him on your Messiah. Save yourself and us. But but the other criminals rebuked him. Don't you feel God? He said, since you are under the same sentence, we are the. We are punished just justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.
Then he says, Jesus, remember me when he comes into your kingdom. Jesus answered, truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.
As Jesus life ebbs away. His words are not of condemnation or pity for himself, but of forgiveness. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Amid his anguish and suffering, Jesus calls upon his father to forgive and not to condemn. This is the real challenge of the cross. We give those who have hurt us most, despite the mocking of the crowds, the curse of the other criminal, immense, excruciating pain.
Jesus offered mercy and salvation to the penitent criminal in his humanity. Jesus suffered, but in his divine nature he loves and pardons sinners, even dying upon a cross. And friend two. Today we can join Jesus and that criminal in Paradise. Our 10th reading is Jesus dies on the cross from Matthew chapter 27. This is 45 to 56.
From noon until three in the afternoon. Darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon. Jesus cried out in a loud voice. Eli, Eli, lema sabbath Danny? Which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When some of those standing there heard this, they said his calling Elijah. Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge.
He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stove, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him. And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
The earth shook, the rocks split, and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died will rise to us. They came out of the tombs after Jesus resurrection and went into the holy city, and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified and exclaimed, surely he was the Son of God!
Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Majd Dillon, Mary the mother of James, and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee. Sons.
Our Lord Jesus, you offered your life for everyone, even for your enemies, to transform their hearts. Your love should not shy from death as you offered your life for all. May we do the same. Jesus once said, very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.
But if it dies, it produces many seeds. It's through death that, paradoxically, life is found. And we find life by joining in the death of Jesus. As we join Jesus in his death, will you make the decision each and every day to die to yourself and follow after Jesus? Lord, we thank you. You offered your life for all.
Lord, have mercy upon us. We now come to our 11th and final reading. Jesus is placed in the tomb for Mark chapter 15, verses 42 to 47.
It was. It was preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath. So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus body. Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died.
When he learned from the centurion that this was that, it was so he gave the body to Joseph. So Joseph brought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in linen, and placed it in the tomb. Cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joseph, saw where he was laid.
That night, as Jesus body was laid in the dark heart of the earth, and they cried, stone rolled in front of it. Be natural for his followers to think. God, why did you permit this? How could a loving God allow this to happen? As Jesus mother Mary gazes upon the lifeless body of her son crucified and broken. Mary is not only the mother of our Lord, but many ways she can come to represent the mother of all who suffer loss.
She stands in silent grief of all who have lost loved ones, whether to the cruel hands of violence, the slow embrace of sickness, or the sudden shock of tragedy. There are times, friends, where it seems the darkness of the tomb will overcome us, that evil is victorious. But the answer to all our grieving and despair lies in this place.
The tomb is transformed into a womb, a place of new birth, a place of hope. And our presence here this morning is witness to that. That Jesus death was not in vain. That his suffering and death are not in vain. May we have eyes to see the promise of new life that darkness cannot contain. And as his body sits there in silence, patiently awaiting resurrection and new life.
Friends, that's the hope. We also carry. Lord Jesus, we thank you. Your death is a sacrifice that unites heaven and earth and reconciles all people to you. May we who have all faithfully reflected on your death and your great sacrifice. Follow in your footsteps so that we too can share in your glory when you live and reign, when the kingdom comes in its fullness.
Amen.
Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at the 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 - Palm Sunday

Welcome to BANTER; the weekly podcast where we unpack Sunday's sermon. 
Mitch & Murray explore who the four gospels work together to reveal the multitude of ways Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem was fulfilling Old Testament prophesies and subverting Jewish expectations. They also reflect over the past 40 days of the Lent Challenge and share what they personally found helpful and challenging.
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