1st July 2018 | Oxford Falls 6PM Service | 1 Corinthians I Michael Ramsden

it's gonna be absolutely awesome well we are so blessed to have Michael ramsden with us here tonight he is absolutely blessed our cotton socks off this weekend and I don't know if you heard him last year when we had him in our evening service but you are in for a treat let me tell you a little bit about Michael Michael ransom is the international director of rocky ravi zacharias International Ministries and joint director of the Oxford Centre for Christian apologetics he is extensively studied and taught law economics and moral philosophy and is passionate about engaging with people all around the world about questions of faith he has spoken to world leaders at the White House NATO and the European Parliament and he's travelled from Oxford the UK to be here with us today can we please stand and welcome and honor Michael Ranson as he comes to speak with us this evening thank you thank you [Applause] you know thank you very much please do take a seat it's absolutely wonderful to know wherever you travel you find family and that's one of the incredible things that I discovered after I became a Christian and it's wonderful to know that there's family here as a matter of fact I also have blood relation family here as well in Australia and one of my cousins comes to your church she sat down here on the front row Emma so I'm just telling you that so if you don't see her just text me and let me know so we can follow through I tonight I want to talk about something which in one sense theoretically should be the most obvious thing to all of us but sometimes you feel like you're looking at an issue it's there is something so obvious about it it's difficult to see someone once very profoundly said it's hard to see the walls of your prison when the cell is made of glass and there are sometimes there are some things which were around us which are just part of the environment a part of the atmosphere we live and we breathe it is just there all the time and we know that something's shifting we know that something's changing it things feel different but we just it's hard to see what it is and in one sense that's what I want to be talking with you about this evening there's a well-known story I don't know if you've heard it before this is the trouble where these stories is we all like telling the same ones of a guy who was working in a building site and there was a foreman who was appointed to look after the building site because there's always the danger that people will come and steal stuff anyway one day he's the foreman he's standing there and a guy comes along with an empty wheelbarrow and in an empty will Bible there's a cardboard box and he looks at this guy and he thinks this is the most bizarre thing I've ever seen so he looks in the box it's an empty cardboard box he's thinking well I can't stop someone taking a cardboard box so he waves the guy through but the next day there's the guy with an empty wheelbarrow and in only thing in the wheelbarrow is a cardboard box the guy thinks there's something wrong with this so he decides to search the guy rather than the box Pat's the guy down searches him there's nothing there third day same guy comes he's got an empty wheelbarrow a box in it at this point he thinks you know what there could be something hidden in the which instead of air maybe he's put something in there he takes the tire off the wheelbarrow it's just air in there nothing's been hidden well this happens every day for three weeks every day the guy comes to the Check Point he's got an empty wheelbarrow with the box in it and it starts to drive the foreman insane he knows something is wrong he's sure something is wrong he his Paul is obvious thrown something wrong he can't tell what it is he starts to lose sleep so after three weeks the guy comes and again there's the wheelbarrow and there's the empty box in it and he takes the guy in he says I want you to come into my brings him into his little you know has a little Hut he makes him a cup of tea sits him down and says you have to help me out he says I am literally losing my mind he says I know you're doing something wrong I know that somehow you're cheating me you're cheating the system says and I can't sleep is I barely slept in the last three days every night it's getting worse and I'm begging you you have to tell me what you're doing because if you don't tell me what you're doing I'm not gonna be able to live anymore and I promise you I'm not going to stop you because I haven't been able to figure it out or I'm begging you what are you doing and the guys would have looked over his shoulder and said I'm stealing wheelbarrows we sometimes there's something it's right there does that make sense it's right in front of our nose that we feel like it should be the most obvious thing and we're struggling we're struggling and when it comes to our current culture there is stuff now which we look at and we're struggling to see it we can describe it but we're trying to think what's at the root of it what's going on just over a year or so ago I was reading a paper and I came across an editorial that really struck me he just slept off the page and I thought I have to write this down and so let me just read to you part of what this journalist wrote he said this he said what were witnessing throughout the West right now is the politics of anger there is anger at the spread of unemployment leaving Hall regions and generations bereft of hope there is anger at finances who brought the global economy to the brink of disaster and yet continue to roared themselves as though nothing has happened there's anger at CEOs using public corporations for private benefit and there's anger that while a few have benefited disproportionately from the global economy most people have seen their standards of living staying static or even decline there's anger at the perceived impotence of governments to control the spread of X REME ISM and terror there's a widespread feeling that the world of the 21st century is running out of control this is led to a resurgence of the far right and the far left these are dangerous forces the far right see Tina returned to a golden age that never was the far left in pursuit of utopia that will never be they are both enemies of freedom the problems facing the West are real and serious the results of massive dislocations in the global economy the Information Age instantaneous worldwide communication and the outsourcing of production and services to low-wage economies what makes them so intractable is the fact that they are global and long-term while the very best of our political institutions are national and focused on the immediate future but there's something deeper behind the dysfunctional politics that we now see in the past half a century we have been living through one of the graces unstated social experiments of all time we've tried to construct a world without identity and without morality instead we've left it to two systems to deal with the problems of our collective life the market economy and the liberal democratic state morality has been outsourced to the market the market gives us choices and morality has been reduced to a set of choices in which right or wrong have no meaning beyond the satisfaction or frustration of desire we find it increasingly hard to understand why there might be things we want to do can afford to do but we shouldn't do because they're dishonorable or disloyal or demeaning in a word unethical to many people in positions of public trust have come to the conclusion that if you can get away with it you'd be a fool not to do it and that is how elites betray the public they're meant to serve and when that happens trust collapses and a civilization begins to die meanwhile liberal democratic states of abolished national identity in favor of multiculturalism the effect is to turn society from a home into a hotel in a hotel you pay the price you get a room and you're free to do what you like as long as you don't disturb the other guests but a hotel is not a home it doesn't generate identity or a sense of belonging now isn't that incredible and I can remember just reading that thinking you're now giving expression to something which so many of us are wrestling with and we're feeling but it still doesn't even get I think completely to the heart of it it may be described in some of the causes and some of the out workings of what we see but it doesn't describe the heart 18 months ago the most quoted poem in the world in editorials around the world so this is the advantage of Google now you can do these crazy searches but there was one poem which was quoted more than any other in almost every single newspaper in almost every country of the world that has a free press and it was by WB Yeats the center no longer holds thing fall apart and we're now just heading into a world of madness because that poem somehow also gave expression to something that we feel that we think we should be able to see but somehow we can't lay hold of it and we're struggling to define it now what is going on why is it that we that we're wrestling so much why is it that it seems that the three most powerful words in the English language right now are I am offended why is it that we talk about a snowflake generation all you have to do is touch someone and they go into meltdown why is it that it's never been more popular to feel offended as someone has said the only better feeling in the world right now have been right is feeling wronged and the reason we all want to feel wronged is when we feel wronged we feel it justifies our anger against someone else it's very interesting normally when we lose our temper of someone and we get mad at them when you wake up the next morning you sort of go oh why did I do that or at least that happens to me on a fairly regular basis but the interesting thing is when you feel wronged and then you're angry with someone else or you're mean to them or nasty you don't wake up the next morning feeling bad about it you wake up feeling good about it you even feel they deserved more than what you did to them and which is why in a in what's increasing now called a victimized culture where even happy to make up things about other people because we feel they deserve the full vent of our wrath and our anger given everything they've done against us what on earth is going on now classically when we described culture if you're in sociology you would you would we would talk about generally speaking to different pipe types of basic culture and contrast them on the one side you had what are called honor cultures and although it looks different in different settings as a huge part of the world that would traditionally fall into this category and in an honor based culture the most important thing is acting with honor conducting yourself with honor it's what we look for in our leadership is what we esteem and what we value we want people to act honorably and conduct themselves with honor and if you were there to attack me and you were to criticize me I will want to defend my honor so you attack me and you try to make me look dishonorable I need to now publicly defend my honor this looks like different things in different cultures in the 17th century 18th century Europe someone would come up with a white glove slap you in the face and then it will be pistols and no swords at dawn on a base cultures I mean since someone has publicly brought you you need to defend your honor you have to act honorably now we would contrast that with dignity based cultures now on a dignity based culture the narratives different and the dignity based culture I don't need to earn your respect by acting honorably the narrative is you should respect me because of who I am simply because of the way I am and who I am and the fact that I'm a person means you should treat me with dignity and respect and what we look for in our leaders what we value what we esteem what gives you status in your in your country and your economy is acting with dignity and an a dignity based culture if you attack me I may not respond publicly to defend my honor I may take you quietly to go to a little room somewhere sit down say let's have coffee and resolve it there and having resolved it there I may come back and say to everyone you know what we've worked it through everything's good let's all move on and that would be seen as a dignified response there will be me acting with dignity and we esteem it we evaluate we look for it in our leadership now the thing that honor and dignity cultures have in common is that you don't go crying off to Daddy every time you get into trouble it's not honorable every time you get into trouble even if you have huge connections to pick up the phone and say daddy will you sort this out for me now my sense you don't make third-party appeals for intervention unless it's really serious because that's not honorable nor is it dignified it's not dignified to act that way and every culture of the world ancient Chinese culture Arabic culture African culture European culture you'll see it in their classic novels stories of princes and princesses you know who should act with honor but don't in a sense you know they're always crying off to someone else to get them to sort off their problems and either the stories end well they come of age and they realise how they've been acting does that make sense and then they become a good king or queen or it ends badly at least for them you know they get disposed and now someone better and more noble comes to take the throne and lead the country and so classically this is what we've always looked for but now we are increasing living in what we call a victim based culture in a victim based culture the narrative is very different in the victim based culture the narrative goes something like this hey everything I do and everything I say is only explicable by love but anything you do if you dare disagree with me is only explicable through hate which means we're now living in a culture where every time someone disagrees with someone else the only express it's only explanation in terms of motive is you hate me I began to notice this a couple of years ago in England when we had in a very interesting series of events that captivated me was a very well-known actually Australian born English actor mum Australian born academic living in England called Germaine Greer she's a well known feminist pretty sure she's an atheist I think she is from what I've read and she's very very high profile well Germaine Greer made headlines in the UK a couple of years ago when she made comments about transgenderism I'm not going to repeat what she said because she used lots of short four-letter words as a believer I'm not allowed to use them although if I were to use them as believers you would have to forgive me and what she said was indeed offensive and there's no question about it and she was due to be speaking at a big university a few weeks later so the National Union of Students had a debate in which they decided should they ban Germaine Greer and no platform her prevent her from speaking at British universities and they decided the answer to that question should be yes so the Union at the University debated and wanted to pass this motion well at this point a guy called Peter Tatchell who is Britain's leading gay rights activist and has been for many decades he's been campaigning for gay marriage for decades he held a press conference with the BBC and he said it's wrong for you to Brown Germaine Greer you can't Platform her she's a world-famous academic you should allow her to come and speak at the University go along disagree and ask difficult questions because he said this Peter Tatchell was no platformed by the student body for amongst other things being homophobic now how does Britain's leading gay rights activist suddenly be accused of being homophobic and the answer is well the student one of the students involved in passing this motion against Germaine Greer was gay everything I do is motivated by love anything you do if you disagree with me is only explicable to hate he hates me I'm gay therefore he's homophobic so this motion was debated voted on and they wanted to they wanted to pass it now at this point another British academic by the name of Richard Dawkins you may have heard of him he held a press conference with the BBC and also used a lot of awfully short words that had to be bleeped out and let it be known what he thought about the intellectual capacity of a group of people who could look at Peter Tatchell life and conclude on the evidence that he was a homophobe he said in effect that he thought these students had a form of had the mental capacity more commonly associated with forms of pond-life which are invisible to the naked eye I borrowed that line from Black Adder just in case you're wondering he basically said in his opinion a group of students who could come to this conclusion was so thick they never should have been allowed to go to university in the first place because he ran to the defense of Peter Tatchell a motion was put before the body to have Richard Dawkins no platform from speaking at British universities at this point a guy called Sir Brian Cox who's probably Britain's leading sort of atheistic scientists often on television has a lot of programs massive profile he held a press conference with the BBC saying you can't ban Professor Richard Dawkins from speaking at universities in England I mean he's like he's pretty well-known you need to let him speak what on earth is going on and the answer is we're living in a victim based culture all of us the way we get status in our culture is by being a victim it's not by acting with honor it's not by acting with dignity which is what Richard Dawkins has got in his mind it's by being a victim and the bigger a victim you are the more status and the respect you feel that you should command you begin to believe that the rules that apply to everyone else shouldn't apply to you you're a special case everyone is a victim how many of you here have seen the original Superman movie okay that's 12 the rest of you are culturally uneducated okay let me ask you this question what were the original Superman's weaknesses apart from kryptonite what were his weaknesses and the answer is zero morally perfect physically perfect mentally perfect rationally perfect he reminds me of me in so many ways I mean he's gentle kind sensitive strong I mean he was just perfect have any of you seen Man of Steel the millennial remake of Superman how does that movie star Superman is on a boat in a fog lost he feels cosmically abandoned cosmically lonely misunderstood misrepresented separated from his parents separated from his home he's not even sure who knows who he is even Superman needs a narrative of victimhood to be a superhero in today's culture just think about it every Marvel movie and I don't know how many more they're gonna produce but it's been a lot so far how many of you watch Marvel movies don't be ashamed but if your hand no shame on you it's a complete waste of time I only watch movies because I do cultural research and analysis that's why just think about it every hero in Marvel is a victim every one of them they've all been abandoned abused betrayed hurt misrepresented even Captain America possibly the most boring superhero ever conceived in order to have a successful remake how does the SEC my Captain America movie have to start he has to be betrayed by his country betrayed by his friends abandoned by those incapable of forming relationship chronically misrepresented and twisted against he needs a victim narrative otherwise he can't be a hero in a victimized world for us to have status we need to portray ourselves as victims now I don't know a lot about Australian politics I don't no matter our Australian society I don't know what it's like on your campus if you're a student but I want you to take any contentious issue and run it through your head and ask yourself is the debate being driven by honor dignity or victimhood the trouble with victimhood is then we want to hang on to our pain from the past is what gives us status as a matter of fact we're even willing to lie and exaggerate about the amount of pain and betrayal we've known because the more we've known the more status we have and the amazing thing is is whether I'm speaking in Asia the Middle East Africa Europe or North America in every country I've been to in the last three four years as soon as I start talking about victim culture the leaders will come up and say this is exactly what's happening in our country how do you know about it it has become a virtually global phenomena and it's so dangerous and it's so different for us classically let's take a really bad this takes something which is terrible you see for a victim culture to work you need real injustice victim culture is about inventing injustice you need real injustice the question is how do you respond to it so let's take a really bad case rape someone's been raped now you want to counsel them you want to help them you want them somehow not to be imprisoned by what's happened well classically the counseling is designed to do at least two things this designed to be mourn that but at least to number one please don't allow this event to define you this event doesn't define who you are now make sense you don't allow this to define you and number two don't allow what has happened to you this terrible horrible just think to dictate and direct your future if you allow that to happen the person who did this terrible thing she was now robbing to you evenly in the future let alone what happen in the past and even if all you can do is put them on a parallel track where they have to leave of that live with the pain and the hurt and the betrayal and all of the concert even if they're on a parallel track you at least one that peril track to be saying please this doesn't define you you're more than this and you want to do everything you can to help them but in a victim culture because we get our status from our pain and our grievance we hang on to it either whatever is happening to us now or whatever happened to us in the past we have to hang on to all of our historical grievances it's what gives us status in our culture which means that our cultures are now locked in a vortex of competitive grievance we're all trying to out victimize each other so if you're not part of a pre-established victim group you're going to argue for reverse victimization okay I'm being victimized against because I'm not a woman or I'm not this or under make sense it's reverse discrimination I'm being victimized too and then we start have a debate about who's the bigger victim and we're locked in this vortex that's sucking everything down as one political commentator has said our politics is only going to become increasingly angry and divisive until we find a way to break this cycle it's dominating everything and we see it everywhere now it's in light of this that I want to therefore share with you probably the only sermon you're ever going to hear out of the first verse in Corinthians where Paul writes the church in Corinth and he says Paul called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and our brother Sosthenes now I don't know if any of you have ever read 1 Corinthians 1 verse 1 and thought who on earth is Sosthenes it's a good question isn't it I mean what's he doing even if you've been invited here as a guest and you're not even a Christian chances are you've heard of Jesus Christ you may possibly have heard of the Apostle Paul but who on earth is salsa knees and why is he in the opening verse of this book to the letter and Corinth I mean who is he if you ever asked yourself that question well Paul went to the city of Corinth and when Paul went to Corinth he shared the gospel there he shared the good news of Jesus Christ and a guy called Christmas who was the head of the synagogue and his entire family became Christians now as a result he joined Paul and so the Jews elected a new leader of the synagogue called Sosthenes now Sosthenes was egged on by some people around him saying you need to shut this guy Paul up and so Paul brought a law case against so Sosthenes brought a law case against Paul before a guy called galio Gallio was one of the two most powerful judges of the Roman Empire he was if you like one of the Supreme Court holders legally speaking across the Roman Empire the dominant Empire of its time his brother was a guy called Seneca who was a tutor to the Emperor Nero so he had a direct line to the Emperor that's what you call real political connection and power and so they bring this law case before galio to shut up Paul and stop Paul talking to people about Jesus Christ I'm sure here in Australia if you are a Christian you could find it very hard to imagine anyone trying to use the law to stop people talking about their faith is it unimaginable anyway they bring the law case before Gallio and Gallio refuses to hear it he says look I'm not getting involved in this and I'm not interested and he throws the case out and then the people turn on solsa knees and they beat him to a pulp and they leave him half-dead on the steps to the court now I know what you're thinking some of you are thinking Michael how are you getting all of this information out of 1 Corinthians verse 1 and the answer is it's all in Acts chapter 18 that's the first half of Acts 18 so just go to the book of Acts read the first half of the chapter and that's that's the story the question is what happened next what happened when the crowd left Socinus unconscious on the coastal port steps beaten to a pulp in the anger and now Paul is standing there what on earth happened and I'd like to suggest to you that it's not at all difficult to imagine that this Apostle Paul who had been saved by grace walked over to Sosthenes extended a hand of friendship picked him up put his arm around him took him home cared for him and Sosthenes became a Christian and when Paul writes to the church in Corinth he starts off by saying I bring you greetings in the name of Jesus Christ as does soul Sinise do you remember him do you remember the guy who tries to use the power of the imperial court of Rome against you who was so set on destroying you who so hated you to remember him by the way he says hi from Jesus - I should have said it earlier by the way I should have said hi from my friend David Bennett who is working with some of you will know and if you haven't seen his testimony is it on your church of his testimony or Church website somewhere or connected has he shared it here or saw its online what David was one of those guys he was the gay rights activist with the megaphone standing outside the churches hating all of you guys and then he fell in love with Jesus and now he loves you guys although he did tell me a couple of you are not in his good books and I'll speak to you later why does Paul reference Sosthenes at the beginning of his editor corinth and the answer has actually found a few verses later paul's bean store says to them in verse 10 I appeal to you my brothers and sisters in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you agree with one another that you say there be no divisions among you you may be perfectly United in mind and thought my brothers and sisters some from Chloe's household of him for me that there are quarrels among you so Paul first of all rights to the church and he's saying I hear you guys are divided I hear there are disagreements amongst you of course that would never happen here at c3 actually his language is stronger than that when he says you're divided the Greek word he uses is eros is from Ares eros is the goddess of war Paul literally writes them and says I have heard reports that lead me to believe that the goddess of war has been released in your church that is a very powerful image it's very powerful that at each other's throats they're disagreeing with each other they're attacking each other and he writes them saying I appeal to you in in modern Greek it's a fairly modern weak word Baraka Laura it means pleased but it carries with the idea of begging I am begging you I am on my knees and I am pleading you and I am begging you you need to be United you need to come together somehow some kind of spirit of division and Wars being released amongst you and you need to understand that that can't possibly be true here it can't be true in the church because it is true we once hated each other and we once thought of ourselves that way and we won't treated each other that way but now we've been forgiven and with it we've experienced this love we can't do that anymore it's not an option we're gonna have to love each other your brothers and sisters that's the whole point you don't get to choose your brothers and sisters I know we would sometimes wish that we could but we can't he's saying you guys you have to learn to love each other you need to remember how much you've been forgiven and then you need to extend that same forgiveness to everybody else and then after he appeals to them for unity he begins to address them and turn them back to the division of the world in which they're in now it's really interesting there was a survey done about a week ago published by one of the world's largest German think tanks in which they surveyed 125,000 people in 50 different countries and one of the questions they asked was when do you feel your government ever asks in your ever acts in your own interest and here's what's interesting they survey democratic countries and dictatorships dictatorships answered that question more positively than democratically democratic governments as a matter of fact in the Western world 63% of people said that they felt the government never acted in their interest or rarely and if you want to know what these are precious regimes are oppressive regimes are there countries like Sweden Denmark and those are the famous oppressive nations that are stopping people doing from what they want there is huge massive scale disillusionment with our government everywhere we're cynical about politics to a whole new degree we see division and we see nothing that seems to deal with it nothing that seems capable of changing people's hearts nothing that's reducing the amount of hate in our society nothing that's protecting us from terror nothing that's making it better nothing that's making it fairer nothing that's making it more just and we'll fryers weakens and everything's getting worse and at times we have to be jolted awake because there is real and justice in our societies there's no mistake about it but if we think that we're worst off than been in a dictatorship where people are brutalized and just simply disappear then maybe there's a part of our thing where we're we're misinterpreting what's happening around us because the society isn't built about getting your own way society is about having a commitment so strong to each other that you're prepared to give up your own weight in order to find some kind of unity over Society where everybody wants have their own way isn't a Society at all it's just a group of warring individuals and that's precisely what we're in danger of becoming so Paul then having then talked to them about that he then says he turns his site to the to the world and he does something which is rhetorically brilliant and if I had an hour I'll go into detail with it with you and don't say our men otherwise I will but if you read the next part of this letter to the Corinthian church and you pick up any what's called technical commentary on the text any commentary that really delves into the language of the text you'll find most people will say something like this this is Paul's most eloquent writing this is Paul at his most eloquent and fluent and beautiful now why do they say that well the reason is is that there's a section that basically runs from 1 Corinthians 1 verse 17 there all the way down to 2 Corinthians 2 first to chapter 2 verse 2 and III don't can't run through all of it with you but it basically goes like this he talks about I'm coming to you he talks about the fact that people shouldn't be using lofty words he talks about his preaching and then he talks about the cross and then in 2 Corinthians 2:2 1 Corinthians 2:2 he talks about his coming to them his use of lofty words the cross and the proclamation it's they mirror each other do you see that they're the same and then he sort of they has like an argument it goes like this 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 I mean since that's what those are all the verses in between so it's like a B C D 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ABCD so it's very beautiful and as a matter of fact what makes it even more interesting is in if you read the passage he says this isn't about being eloquent and he actually warns about it but he's at his most eloquent why most eloquent because when he gets to 7 when he gets to the middle of this huge restore achill structure he says to them back he comes back to the cross and he says but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles but those whose God has called it's both the power and the wisdom of God you're me to read it to you and how the language it was actually written in let me just read it to you forgive me for lowering my glasses I'm not trying to be professorial this is what's called being convicted by pride inadvertently a couple of years ago I went to my optician and they said Wow at your age by now you should need reading glasses it's amazing you don't give it another two years and you will and last year I went to my optician and I said your prophecy has been fulfilled I'm having trouble reading so they said made me these lovely very focal glasses and I used them for a year and then I broke them so when I went back to the optician recently they said do you want very focus again I said you know I really don't think I need them that badly just give me a normal pair and now I found out I can't read anymore so when I lower my glasses the end of my nose is for no other effect and honestly I can't see anything I'm basically seven diopters out in each eye and if you're an optician you'll realize that basically means that that's in focus if you're three feet away from me and I'm not wearing your glasses I've got no idea who you are but let me read to you what how what he is this is how it's written hey Mei is stay Cruz saw men Kristin s stay room air non you day s men's scandal on Ethne sind a more rayon did you hear it it rhymes that's why they say this is Paulette is most eloquent he's warning about the use of eloquence and preaching the good news of Jesus Christ and he breaks out into rhyming Greek while he does it now what on earth is going on what on earth is happening here well the most famous speech in the Greek ancient Greek speaking world was given by a guy called Pericles Pericles was a general who helped build the Parthenon one of the seven wonders of the world and he also led the Greek army against an invasion from the barbarians and he successfully repelled the attack and after this great victory they asked all the great orator x' in the land to give speeches commemorating the victory and Pericles gave a speech that was so moving that was so powerful that was so strong they asked it to be repeated every year on the anniversary of the victory it made grown men break down and cry every year on the anniversary of this victory they repeated it every schoolchild knew it it was the most famous speech every culture has these speeches if you're in England and you say to people we will fight them on they will say the beaches well how do they know that you only said three or four words and the answer is well it's a really famous speech everybody who every school kid knows that if you're speaking in America and you say four score years and so many years ago well how do you know that and the answer is if you live in America I've actually bought a live one with me he's travelling with me him you learn it in school right you know we often stand up in front of your parents and they recite the speech to their parents everyone knows that every culture has speeches which a landmark and this was their landmark speech and the interesting thing is if you take Pericles is speech and you take 1 Corinthians 1:17 - 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 2 you'll see there are 67 points of comparison but doing them and that's slightly too many to be coincidental but here's the interesting thing about the speech of Pericles shortly after this famous eternal victory the barbarians came back and they destroyed Athens and every year on the anniversary of the first victory even after they'd been defeated they stood up and recited the first speech there was a Greek philosopher called Aristotle who said about the speech he said you know the amazing thing about this speech is when I read it I know it's all historically wrong I mean it's completely wrong is we didn't win an eternal victory it wasn't this huge you know irreversible defeats it wasn't this you know none of it's true we lost but he says the rhetoric is so beautiful the words they're so moving it causes my spirit to soar like an eagle in other words what Aristotle is saying is look the events have no meaning the historical meaning of these events have no meaning no significance nothing but Pericles his rhetoric gives meaning to these events which otherwise they wouldn't have and it's good for my soul and so much of what we're doing in our politics now is just beautiful rhetoric designed to stir somehow the soul either to inspire us to anger or what to motivational to whatever it may be but the Apostle Paul reverses the logic the Apostle Paul when he's writing corinthians says guys it is not my eloquent speech which is giving power to the life of jesus christ the life of jesus christ the gospel of jesus christ his life his death and his resurrection those are real events of historical power and they give my speech effect do you see what he's saying he's reversing it he's not saying the preaching of the gospel is not designed to be some kind of emotional story that moves you to tears anything okay God maybe I'll try and be nice to you he's saying no it's not your speech that gives the gospel power and if you're trying to give the gospel power through your rhetoric you'll empty the gospel of its power when you truly understand the gospel of Jesus Christ you will realize that his life deser action rifdha and resurrection and the promise of his coming again is a historical event which is able to change everything else around it including you if you're here today and you're visiting as a non-christian rather than just having been invited from a church please don't think that the Christian faith is just some kind of emotional state of mind it affects the emotions for sure it should inspire drive us to love care and compassion it should but it's not some kind of rhetorical device to make the world a better place it is God has stepped into this world in human form he has taken on the powers of evil and hatred and darkness and he's defeated them at the cross his resurrection is not the reversal of a defeat he suffered at the cross his resurrection is the manifestation of that victory and he now comes to us and he offers us the same power the same transformation in our heart and life is incredible it is utterly remarkable it changes everything it takes people who once hated each other and wanted to kill each other and turns them into brothers and sisters so they can hug each other and embrace each other we've we where was so far removed from these things we sometimes miss it now I'll give you just one example in the Gospel of Matthew which is one of the accounts of the life of Jesus if you're reading it at one point it very casually says you know that Matthew the tax collector in Simon the zealot did this together well if you lived in the night if you live 2,000 years ago and you read that you would have fallen off your chair why Matthew the tax collector works for the occupying Roman forces and he's a sellout Simon the zealot is part of a reactionary physical force that went out to go and kill collaborators like Matthew the tax collector and now you're reading that the two of them are working together him together with Jesus if you were to hear their story 2,000 years ago when the Gospel of Matthew was when I allowed to be wait a minute stop how's that possible that's like me telling you that the leader of Isis and Donald Trump have become best friends and they're going around helping the poor and needy you would be like what that can't possibly be true there's no way that's going to happen but when they were really Matthew that's exactly what of and how a world made these two people Simon the zealot would have preferred to have stuck a knife into Matthew the tax collector than offer him a hand of friendship what happened in his heart and the answer is he met Jesus Christ and Jesus changed his heart and his life it actually transformed him to encounter the person of Christ is to be changed and transformed by him it is the only hope for a world which is set on destroying itself earlier this year I met with someone who modern how best to put it let's just say he's inspired an awful lot of international terrorism in the last few years and the opportunity was given said would you like to meet this person and so after we agreed we went to go and meet this guy and I knew who he was and I'd read about him in the press and and he's one of the most you have to have wanted people in the world right now and after he came in and smiled and greeted us we sat down in the room and his opening question was if someone believes the wrong thing does their life have any value opening question so here's my tip for addressing international terrorists be gentle so I looked at him and I said well what do you think seemed like a safe question and he said no he said in my experience even when people join our group they never change he said I've never seen a human life change I've never seen a human heart change he says when people join us they're just as selfish mean sex-obsessed and everything else they were before their character never changes the only thing that changes are their thoughts he says so I conclude the only thing we can change are our thoughts and if we don't change our thoughts to be in correction with what is correct then that life has no value because you're refusing to change the only thing you can change and now I finally under stood why he was prepared to kill so many thousands of people within his own religious group let alone Christians and so after we'd interacted and for a while I I asked him a question I said do you know the story of the prodigal son in the Bible and to my shock he said no because he was a very well-read man so I was shocked and if you don't know that story it's a story of a father who has two sons and the younger son comes and says give me my share of the inheritance now in other words dad please drop dead I've been waiting for a long time and you're still alive to my disappointment and that's considered to be insulting in most cultures of the world and I told the story of how the son loses everything gets completely lost and when he stood a long way off the father ran out to him embraces him kisses him and the father offers him peace and given is's of a gift even before the son speaks to the father and then I said you see the father loved the son even when the son was doing the wrong thing and believed the wrong thing now his reaction was interesting he got he got exploded with rage for 20 minutes he said something like this that is totally unrealistic he said clearly you're a young man and I felt I could agree with that word he says and you're utterly romantic in your view of the world because this is utterly impossible no one can live like that no one can act like that no one can do anything like that what you're talking about is utterly unrealistic here's why and he went on and on and on he says and finally you'll come of age and you'll realize that's true and after 20 minutes when he finally calmed down enough because at one point he used a phrase where he says it makes me want to touch the handle of my gun which is not a good sign I said but when Jesus told this story the father he was talking about is God this is how God loves us and he sat back in his chair in his eyes went all moist and I said I've seen plenty of people's hearts change said I've known of Taliban fighters who've encountered the person of Jesus Christ and they've gone from wanting to take other people's lives to be willing to lay down their own life in service of others and as we talk more and more and more he said I'd love you to come back and so just Allah bring my family I'm hoping it's not it's for good reasons rather than anything else but this is what the gospel of Jesus Christ does it changes lives and if you're here today and you think the gospel of Jesus Christ has anything less than that then you've never truly understood the gospel he wants to change your life and he wants to change your heart and in a minute and if you've been sitting and maybe you've been thinking about the gospel for a while and you've met Christians and you've been pushing to a side or maybe you think about that you somehow maybe you've made some kind of initial step but you realize you need God to change your heart to get rid of the anger and the rage and all of that mentality stuff we were talking earlier I'm going to offer a prayer in a minute and I'll just ask you probably just to briefly just stand where you are as a sign of saying look I'll just like that god I need this prayer in my life but before I do I want to just tell you on one last story when we look at our world especially that description I gave it looks so messed up we think this is huge I mean what can I do it's not possible you know in London there's a statue which all kinds of people have their photograph taken in front of and none of them actually know what it is it's very famous because the statue is on the masthead of the London Evening Standard which is the paper than the biggest-selling paper there in London and they think they're having their picture taken in front of a statue of Eros the goddess of love because it's a fat cherub little wings and a bow and arrow it's in Piccadilly square when people stand normally lovers when we sense you know and they have their picture taken with the statue behind them but that statute isn't eros that is actually a star a statue of Eros his lesser-known brother and to Ross it is the statue of selfless love it was erected in London when a man by the name of Shaftesbury died because when Shaftesbury became a Christian and his heart was changed he campaigned tirelessly for changes in labour laws to protect children for the establishing of schools for the provision of hospitals for hospices for care for education for fairness and he utterly transformed the landscape of London so much so that when he died the city was a radically different place to when he had first come into it and on his death they could think of nothing better to do than to erect a statue in the image of the god of selfless love which actually they really renamed the year after the god of christian charity is a symbol that he had laid down his life in service for his nation and completely changed it with the gospel of Jesus Christ and God is looking into each one of you every one of you here who call on the name of the Lord and he's saying I want to use you to transform your community to transform your city to change your nation you need a start by making peace with people we don't take reconciliation in the church strongly enough Paul takes it very strongly as a matter of fact Jesus Christ himself said if you go to the temple to worship and you realize that someone has something against you leave your gift there and go and make peace with them first you remember that in other words Jesus Christ is saying worship me second I'd love you to show me anywhere else in scripture where he says something like that it's that important to him you need to make peace with your brothers and sisters and then from there you begin to make peace in your community you reach out to those who've been offended ignored hurts lost abused and you hold out a hand to them you invite them to come along you bring them into your connect group in other words you're generous to other people generous in your understanding generous and your your forgiveness you become generous in your hospitality you become generous in your giving how to encourage you since they were talking about I've said earlier be generous in it I do a lot of travel so the way my wife and I tithe is we make sure we to set it up electronically so that every month 10% of our income goes to the church that way if we're not there we don't miss it that that's the beginning of our giving that's not the end of it our first commitment is to our local church I hope yours is - if you're a believer should be - here but then you think well what else can I do the reason people like Shastri changed London wasn't because they asked the question what can I do they ask the question what more can I do Jesus what more would you have me do to change this world whatever it cost me however much I have to lay down I'll do it for you and so I want to challenge every one of you here a call on the name of the producers Christ what more can you do what more can you give and what more what what is it that God is saying to you that he would have you do to be an agent for change and transformation and good in this world and for those of you who are on the outside looking and I'd like to offer this prayer that you may come to know him that the love of God may be shed abroad in your heart because God Himself came into this world in the person of Jesus Christ he took all the evil the hatred and the sin in this world and he took it with him to the cross and it was nailed to him there he's paid the price for everything we've done so we can offer us forgiveness and through his resurrection now offers us a new life literally a new type of existence a new mode of being a new heart and if that's where you are then I'll just love to be able to pray for you and so I'm wondering if I could just make this appeal just a little bit broaden if you're sitting here this evening and you know that and you need to respond to this message by giving God your life or maybe giving it to him afresh if you're sitting here and you're saying I think the bitterness this victim mentality whatever it is is taking a deeper root in my life and I ever knew then I'll just invite you just to stand for a moment and open up your hands as if you want to let something go because we just have to let go of all of that and hand it over to him and there was a big thing to ask I'm standing up here I'm gonna be holding my hands out too because I want to know the reality in the transformation this in my heart as well and I'm gonna offer a prayer and so as we sit here let me just ask you are you in that place where you just know you need to say yes to God today and that of what you have if you I have as I invite you pray with me and let's make this resolve both to know him and to make him known let's just pray together father I want to thank you for the fact that you love us so deeply Lord you know us nor do you see us nor do you even see those of us that are sitting here thinking this needs to be me but it just feels so scary well it's not too late father thank you that you're able to transform and change our very being and who we are or thank you that you came into this world to deal with all of the sin and the hatred and the darkness around us and you came to bring light and love and life father we pray may we know that new life in our hearts Lord may we serve you Lord may we fall in love with you afresh and all may we give ourselves to you Lord change us and use us father a lot to bring change in this world and we pray all of this in Jesus Christ's name Amen well thank you for staying awake it's been a pleasure being with you pray for everyone in the Bible School I'll be speaking to them on Tuesday they'll need an extra measure of grace for everyone else enjoy the rest of your evening thank you for having me Pastor Chris

Channel: C3 SYD

Views: 13,156

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Keywords: Michael Ramsden, C3 Church, C3 Oxford Falls

Id: 2RCRHZAjrXQ

Length: 52min 38sec (3158 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 01 2018