Cutting through the noise

[Music] is [Music] alive [Music] [Music] me [Music] breaks the night [Music] morning to you crossway happy sunday it's it's a thrill to be joining with you online this morning my name's sam i'm part of the team here at crossroads one of the youth passes at crossway at our beauty's campus and it's a joy to be with you online this morning it was nice and sunny when i left my house this morning so hopefully you enjoy some time out in the sun today if you're here in melbourne or if you're indeed anywhere around victoria or around our country or the world it's a thrill to be with you here on this sunday morning here in victoria it's a big night last night we love our sport here in this state and it would be remiss of me to not start our church service this morning before saying go dees go the melbourne footy club um anyone out there who's been watching and was celebrating i think it's 57 year drought between premierships for that footy club we're cheering on with you i was watching the game last night and it was a thrill one of my good friends the young adults pastor nick glenn here at crossway is a huge melbourne footy club fan and i know that he was stoked with that result um any bulldog supporters watching live this morning commiserations your boys put up a really really good fight it was back and forth there in the game but the ds were able to pull away with it towards the end so um yeah awesome awesome game last night i was on the edge of my seat watching and whilst i'm sure we would have loved to have more people in our lounge rooms whilst we were watching it was a good opportunity to enjoy that together a couple of really fantastic things that i'd love to bring before you this morning we've got a fantastic time of worship together we're going to be able to hear from pastor heather this morning come and bring the word of god before us which is fantastic but i'd love to bring just something specifically to you um this morning around our crossware creative arts ministries we know that they do a fantastic job glorifying god with with music and dance and acting we look forward to christmas coming later this year as well and the fantastic work that our creative arts ministries will do there but we've got something really exciting coming over the next couple of months is we've got another album release coming from our crossway worship team which is absolutely fantastic and it's something to be really excited about if you've been following our crossway worship ministry uh you'll know that they released an album last year and have released a number of singles and and they minister to me and minister to my heart and and fantastic in terms of the way that they bring glory to god and worship god um an awesome expression of our heart of worship as a church community to him and um so we look forward on october the 8th to the release of a song called future hope if you've been following crossover worship on our social media platforms you maybe have seen some stuff in the past couple of days teasing that but we're really looking forward to that that'll be the first song of five songs on this new album that'll be released and this new album really aligns with our theme this year all things new we know that we've heard pastor dale speak a number of times to that about the passage in in revelation 21 in which it speaks about god making all things new about restoring broken creation and bringing it back together and um this passage and um and this theme and this worship album um actually has um a lot of basis around a japanese art form called kinsugi a picture is going to come up on screen really really briefly um that right there is um kinsugi art that you're seeing right there so what you can see is a bowl that has actually been broken into lots of different small pieces shattered broken apart and then what this art form does is it takes all of these broken disparate pieces that are spread apart and actually joins them together with either liquid gold silver or platinum and it it's it's its basis is around taking something that was broken was damaged was cast aside and actually restoring it back together creating something that is more beautiful than what it was in the first place restoring a broken creation and making something new out of it making something new out of that broken bowl and there's so many different parallels in scripture about this so many different examples of of our heavenly father taking us and our broken pieces and and our our shame and and our guilt and the things that distance us from god and actually mending us and piecing us back together and creating something new creating something more beautiful than what existed there in the first place through that breaking through that separating through that waiting and then revealing something beautiful in the future and so we're really looking forward to that future hope october the 5th is the first song and there'll be five more songs each song is related to a different step in the kinsugi art process and so we're really looking forward to that i trust that you'll be able to find that on whatever music streaming platform that you choose to use but i wonder if you just reflect with me before we go any further just around that premise of taking what was broken and making something new out of it we've been sitting in this space as a church for 2021 all things being made new in us all things being made new around us might there be an area of your life this morning as you're tuning in to watch church and tuning in together as a community where you are trusting for god's promised hope in the future that he will be taking what seems and feels broken and separated and smashed apart in your life right now and that he might be taking that to a different place he might be creating something new out of that is there a particular area in your life where you're trusting for god's hope and promise right now because if there is i'd love you to just hold that right now in your mind and your spirit and i'd love to commit that before god in all the different households that we're represented in right now um just that we would hold that that we would hold that before our heavenly father that we would not rush anywhere that we would just enjoy this time as his holy spirit fills our homes and just present that before god just present it and and hold it before him that we might trust that he has a hope for that area of our life and that we base our hope and our foundation on him would you pray with me church heavenly father we thank you for your goodness to us [Music] we thank you that we are never finished pieces that you continue to refine reform and renew us through your holy spirit even as we as we see areas of our life that are broken or that are distant or or that we're afraid of breaking and that we're afraid of becoming distant god you see that and you say that there is a hope and a future for us that we don't base our hope or our future in anything other than jesus christ that we lean into him that we commit ourselves to him and to his goodness to us and so we pray for our church family for crossway church that as we hold these things before you heavenly father that you would speak to us that we would trust in your faithfulness and that you would move in our lives we love you heavenly father we thank you for the opportunity to gather together this morning in your name we pray amen it meant it is it's a joy to be gathering with you this morning whatever campus or crossway that you're gathering from say g'day to our southeast campus we know that you guys have been just kicking into a wednesday night midweek service recently online and you've had a number of opportunities to have some really awesome times of community together good morning to you this morning and to our brighton campus as well it's a joy to be with you this morning into our buildings campus welcome to church this morning it's great to have you with us if you are new to crossway and perhaps you just found us online man we would love to connect with you and find out a little bit more about who you are what your story is um and you can do that by connecting with us in the chat right now so whether you're on facebook or youtube we've got some hosts in the chat who would love to connect with you find out a little bit more about your story and potentially help you get connected into the life of our church so there'll be a link in the chat that you can head to right now um we know that church is better when you don't do it alone and you don't just sit in your home tune in tune out but that you're connected into community and so really encourage you to do that if you are new to crossway as a church community this morning [Music] um we are at the final week of our missions appeal that we've been doing across the life of our church for the least of these supporting the 71 international workers that we have who are part of crossway around the world at 25 different countries i believe and this is a really really valuable piece for us here as a church community and so i'd love to throw something onto your screens for a minute and then i'll share a little bit more information about that so yeah let's enjoy watching this together church [Music] this year's international appeal is called for the least of these jesus used those words in matthew chapter 25 and as much as you did it to the least of these brothers and sisters you did it for me two of our international workers are karen and spencer daniel they they minister primarily amongst the sri lankan people they're actually melbourne-based and they reach out both to the sri lankans in melbourne but also to people in sri lanka they are workers with praxis and we're going to hear their inspirational story so much of what praxis has done is born out of prayer let's hear from spencer and karen daniel so our team told us one year that they'd like to do an outreach program in some of these villages for christmas now they can't go into these villages and preach the gospel but because of christmas for christmas they can go into some of these villages and do a christmas program so they use the opportunity to have a children's program one of the villages that they went uh went to um all of the the kids come with their parents so they were able to tell the christmas story and give out christmas gifts to the kids and the parents after hearing the story many of them wanted prayer so they had the team had opportunity to pray for a lot of and this is buddhist and hindu villages this particular village was a hindu village now usually we don't like funding things like that sending money you know gifts and money or gifts or things like that uh but in this instance pensa and i we spoke about it and we thought oh we'll do it as a once off thing and not as a recurring thing to be constantly you know shipping gifts for so many children and all of that so we did that and then this girl at that program she received one of the gifts she was 12 years old almost 12 years old and she came to know jesus as a result of that program and she went and shared the gospel with her family her grandma her father and her her siblings they were also at the program her mother she didn't have a mother mother had left them and they all became believers within a couple of months within the next year she got cancer bone cancer and it became progressively bad but by this time she had really come to love jesus and she was sharing the gospel with all her friends and in her village and she would tell our leaders that all she wanted to do was tell as many people as she can about jesus before she dies so the team there and all of them got together and they were helping this family so the village got to see how uh the believers looked after this family and this girl she needed a lot of help because every week she needed to go to the hospital early this year in april she passed away and the whole village by that time had come to see what it looked like to be a follower of jesus to be a christian really and so they all wanted uh our team to conduct the funeral service in the village they used to tell the team that they saw this girl as an a like an angel you know because she had an incredible testimony in the village few people from another village had also come for this funeral people known to them and through it through friends and they all heard her story and her testimony which was shared in the funeral and the gospel that was shared at the funeral following that the team tells us that another girl take shana's age from the other village that had come in had also want had come to approach them and said she wants to know jesus too and she wants to follow jesus the way shani did and she is now her with her family the village that she comes from they are inviting of uh they said there are about 10 families who are requesting our teams to come over and pray and we look back and we think okay how this happened as a result of this christmas program that was run by the team and the gifts that we sent to give these children and just one of those children happen to be shani so we decided okay every year if they decide to do this program outreach to children they will support it because it's a small cost but in terms of the kingdom it's an incredible investment our target this year is three hundred thousand dollars you know our international workers are placed in some of the toughest environments of the world genuinely putting their life out there for the sake of the gospel it's not a big thing for us to demonstrate a generous spirit so with a target of three hundred thousand dollars let's help to resource those 71 workers in 25 nations come on crossway let's be generous dig deep and god will bless you as you do [Music] what fantastic stories of the ministry of the gospel of jesus christ around the world to hear from the extended reach of our church community from crossroad baptist church what an opportunity each and every one of us have to play in supporting the kingdom of jesus around the world by giving and choosing to be generous with our finances directly to this mission's appeal to the least of us for the least of these um we've raised 119 000 of those 300 000 up until this point and we still have one more week that this appeal will be open so i encourage you church um do be prayerful about your giving towards this appeal do be prayerful about your opportunity to support our brothers and sisters in jesus christ in the way that they take the gospel to their communities um your generosity directly supports these men and women around the world in the way that they do that to their community in their own context so um if you'd like to choose to do that either right now or after the fact this week you can find all the details on our crossword website towards that but i encourage you to be be generous and and prayerful as you reflect on that crossway kids if you are watching right now we've got an awesome church experience for you this sunday morning we're celebrating with our crossway kids community they had big steps sunday a couple of sundays ago and a number of different children chose to place their trust in jesus for the very first time which is absolute cause for celebration and joy in our church community um we're we're still celebrating with you if that was you and you've recently accepted jesus into your heart for the first time but if you're watching head over to our youtube channel um there's an awesome church experience for you this morning an opportunity to connect with others and also connect with god in in the study of his word um so head over to that right now guys and um just before i um invite heather up to to preach the word with us this morning i do have something that that i need to share with you this morning um former pastor here at crossware baptist church reverend john blacker um has gone to be with the lord this past week um and um so we we just want to uphold his friends and family particularly his wife val in this time and in this season um there there are no specific service or funeral arrangements yet but um those will be made known to you if you'd like to engage with that but would you join me this morning as as we uphold the life and the ministry of reverend john um in our church community for a number of years and also uphold his family and particularly his wife in this time before i invite heather to come and share with us this morning let's pray church yeah heavenly father we we thank you for your presence amongst us right now and we thank you for the life of reverend john the ministry to so many of us here at crossway who have called crossway home for a number of years and served and ministered faithfully and attended faithfully and we just thank you for john thank you for his life and the many hands and and feet and hearts and souls that he touched through his ministry god um pray for your peace and your your spirit to rest upon his family particularly his wife val in this season that will be challenging after losing her life partner god of so many years god would you draw near to her if she draws near to you in this season may you be her peace her comfort and her refuge lord jesus be present to her we pray and we do pray for heather right now as she brings the word of god before us god would your word be alive and living this morning would it touch hearts and minds and um and would we receive it well we receive your holy spirit well this morning we pray this in the mighty and matchless name of jesus amen hi crossway great to be with you today it feels like it's been so long actually since i've been able to connect with you either live or via video but um i just i'm privileged to be with you today and thank you for tuning in and for those of you who are listening later on as well thanks for being with us it's great to have you with us today um i just want to put out just before i start a really quick thank you there were a number of people who engaged a couple of weeks ago um crossway uh is a um or so i should say ark is a justice park partner with crossway and um a couple of weeks ago um we put out a call just for people to surprise a foster carer and to get engaged with that over national foster care week and there are a number of people who did that just stepped in and sent a a meal or a delivery around to um a foster family that they knew and a whole lot of foster families were surprised and it was just wonderful to say hey well your church family we want to bless you we're with you in this journey and this mission that you're on so thank you for those of you who engaged with that and i just want to remind you um if you are interested in foster care or know anybody who is or you want to engage with us in any way in this mission then just head on over to arcaustralia.org we'd love to have a chat with you about how you can be involved in that mission as well but today i am not going to be speaking to you about foster care or god's heart for vulnerable kids specifically i really felt like god had impressed upon me something significant to share with you today it's a message that i believe is from the holy spirit it's a message that i've been wrestling with over this past week just trying to bring to the point where um really you would understand in a new and fresh way what god has been revealing to me over the past few weeks as well and pastor sam taylor and i were having a chat over this last week and we decided actually it was worthy of a couple of weeks he's he's preaching next week and so the two of us have decided to do a little mini series and it's called cutting through the noise i don't know whether you've noticed but the noise at the moment in our society is deafening we're we're isolated more than we have been before but the noise is huge whether it's noise from media whether it's noise from social media from friends and family there's just so much going on and there's a degree to which we can feel overwhelmed and just sort of um stuck in the middle of the noise just wondering what do i listen to and and what am i hearing and how do i navigate through this and how do i cut through the middle of this and it's a season i don't remember a season in my life that has been more noisy when it comes to opinions and just all of the stuff that that we're being hammered with at the moment and so i really believe that for the next couple of weeks the lord would have us speak into that particular area if you're feeling overwhelmed by the noise at the moment i want to tell you you are not alone probably 90 percent of people at the moment are feeling overwhelmed by the noise and it's fascinating i heard a friend in new zealand said um recently said on a podcast that he was running he said it occurs to me that when you're dirty the very last thing that you want to do to get clean is to bathe in more dirt because all that does is just make you more dirty right when you're dirty what you want to do is bathe in purity and i love that analogy because essentially what he's saying here is we if we're in the noise if we're in the midst of noise if we're in the midst of chaos absolutely the best thing for us to do is to come to a place of purity and serenity and goodness and mercy and love and grace and that place is right with jesus for some of you as you tune in later on today and even maybe for some who've tuned in right now live you're even sick and tired of tuning into church because of the noise because it feels like more noise and and i would just want to remind you that actually the word of god is more important preached into your soul at the moment than any other time that i can think of in my lifetime it's really profoundly important there is some noise that is purity for you and cleansing for you and there is other noise that you need to take a break from and place yourself at the feet of jesus and allow him to minister to your soul and so we're going to have a look today at a passage in luke's gospel luke chapter 19 and i want to have a look at the story of zacchaeus i was thinking about this as as i was preparing this message i don't think i have heard a sermon preached any time really in the past couple of decades about the story of zacchaeus we tend to relegate some of the stories of scripture to the kids department yeah and this is one of those stories you know it's a it's it's got the sort of imagination and it makes a good story book but actually there's some profound truths in the story of zacchaeus and so we're going to have a look at his story today because he's someone who understood what it was like to be living in noise and to find his way to jesus in the midst of it so we're just going to read um from luke chapter 19 verses 1 to 10 and i'm reading from the passion uh just because i love the way that it sort of rolls off the tongue and the story is descriptive so here we go on his way to jerusalem jesus had to pass through jericho there lived a very wealthy man named zacchaeus who supervised all the tax collectors he was very eager to see jesus and kept trying to get a look at him through the massive crowd and since zacchaeus was a short man and couldn't see over the heads of the people he ran on ahead of everyone and climbed up a blossoming fig tree to get a glimpse of jesus as he passed by when jesus got to that place he looked up into the tree and said zacchaeus hurry on down for i must stay at your house today so he scurried down from the tree and found himself face to face with jesus as jesus left to go with zacchaeus many in the crowd complained look at this of all the people to have dinner with he's going to eat at the house of a crook zacchaeus was amazed over his gracious visit to his home and joyously welcomed jesus zacchaeus stood in front of the lord and said half of all that i own i will give to the poor and lord if i have cheated anyone i promise to pay pay them back four times as much as i stole jesus said to him your repentance shows that today life has come to you in your household and that you are a true son of abraham the son of man has come to seek out and to give life to those who are lost if there's anybody that i could think of jesus just even in the gospels who had to deal with noise zacchaeus is one of those people and he had noise in a whole host of different areas a whole host of different voices speaking to him and so we're going to have a little bit of a look at that today the first noise uh part of the noise for zacchaeus was his physical limitation the bible tells us that he was short he couldn't see past the crowd so he had he had a physical limitation was just simply holding him back zacchaeus had determined he was going to see jesus he was in jericho and he wanted to see jesus coming he'd obviously heard about him he'd obviously he had some kind of impression of who jesus was and potentially thinking this might be the messiah i have to see him and so he had this passion and this desire to chase him down but of course he had this physical limitation as well he was short and how on earth was he going to see past this throng this mass of people i was um having a little giggle actually last night when we were watching the grand the grand final yeah max gone because his head was like head and shoulders above everybody else on the team and uh you know he wouldn't need to he could just stand at the back of the crowd he'd be able to see but zacchaeus was the shortest of the short people and here he was he wasn't able to access jesus but he was thinking to himself i'm going to do whatever i can to get past the physical limitation now for us we've got physical limitations as well obviously right just even illustrated by the fact that i'm here speaking to you through a camera and you're sitting at home or you're out walking listening to this message right now we are physically limited we've got physical limitations but i want to remind you today that covert restrictions don't have the power to limit the spirit of jesus they do not in fact the greatest church growth has happened in worse situations than this but it doesn't just happen because of physical limitations what it requires is for god's people to pursue him the same way that that zacchaeus did he went i don't i'm not going to allow my physical limitations to stop me i'm going to climb up a tree it's not dignified it's not comfortable i you know i feel like a bit of a fool doing it frankly but i'm going to do it because i want to see jesus the physical limitations only limit our engage our engagement in jesus mission if we cower if we retreat or if we allow them to restrict what he wants to do through us jesus is calling for us to be engaged in his mission he wants for us to see him and he wants for us to build within our souls a desire to pursue him desire to be with him a desire to be engaged with him to be connected with him and to ensure that he is the one we are seeing and his is the voice that we are listening to i love that zacchaeus just goes i don't care my physical limitations they're part of the noise of the situation i don't care i'm going to do whatever i can to get to see jesus second part of zacchaeus noise was others opinions and attitudes why couldn't zacchaeus just go to the front of the crowd short people can usually just get to the front of the crowd right well he couldn't do that and there's a significant reason for that it's because he was the chief of the tax collectors there really is no way to describe how much the people of that day the jewish people of that day would have despised this man he was jewish and he'd sold out to the romans to become a tax collector so that he could oppress his own people and steal from them and take taxes for their oppressors and not only was he that he was actually in charge of all of the tax collectors in jericho he was in charge of them so he was the one who was running the roster as it were he was the one who was sending them all out and so he was sort of the the boss of the worst of people tax collectors weren't even allowed in synagogues back then they were considered worse than prostitutes in the in the the society of the day and zacchaeus was worse than all of them as far as the crowd was concerned and his what had happened was that his choice had ostracized him from society and in this moment these voices were a part of the noise saying to zacchaeus you are not welcome here the opinions and the attitudes of that crowd said to him go away don't be near us don't come you're not welcome you shouldn't be seeing jesus you shouldn't be able to get to see him anyway in fact nothing good should be happening for you because you're a shocking person and we can't stand you and i want to tell you that kind of opinion and attitude is noisy for the first for the person who's experiencing it the reality is that zacchaeus made those decisions himself but the attitude and the opinion of that crowd that says you are not welcome was so loud for him the bible doesn't even doesn't even mention that he tried to get to the front of the crowd he was just he knew that noise he knew it and so he just retreated to the back and went what can i do to ensure i still get to see jesus so he climbed up to the top of that tree now i want to say to you we are flooded by opinions now i mean you know this to be true and so many people are mentally exhausted by the opinions of others and we think to ourselves oh it's just the news shall shut that down or it's just social media so i'll shut that down but now it's starting to be conversations with friends and family as well and we are exhausted by the opinions of others we're just simply exhausted by it it's noise and it starts to wear us down but i want to say to you today you can choose to see jesus and to listen to him and to see and experience what he thinks and what he says above the opinions of others but you have to choose to pursue him you've got to choose to climb that tree jesus resolved to see jesus despite the opinions and the attitudes of others they saw him as unworthy but he knew that seeing jesus was more important than their opinions a third of of zacchaeus noise was self-doubt and i'm sure of this the bible doesn't specifically mention it but surely the man who had given his life to oppressing his own people would have had self-doubt and sometimes the the loudest of noises for us is actually our internal narrative it's the way that we speak to ourselves it's the way that we question ourselves it's the way that we um we harass ourselves and we we talk ourselves down and we look at ourselves and we say you are unworthy or you are unlovable or all of these things that we can say to ourselves or why can't you just be somebody who's strong why can't you be someone who's confident why can't you speak to people more lovingly why can't you do these things you know we have this self narrative that is constantly harassing us and in a time of uh of confusion despair and chaos self-doubt becomes higher and stronger and more full-on it just does and so we are we are hearing that that becomes part of our noise but i just want to say this to you today whether or whether you are worthy of him or not is not actually the issue whether zacchaeus was worthy of jesus or not was not the issue the issue was whether jesus chooses you the issue is whether jesus chose zacchaeus and he did so zacchaeus sat in that tree probably thinking i just want to see from afar i'm not worthy i'm not worthy enough for him to engage with me but i just want to see him and what ends up happening is jesus comes along and looks at him and calls him down and then stands at him in front of him face to face and it's like in that moment there's this recognition oh it actually doesn't matter whether i'm worthy or not it only matters whether jesus chooses to be with me and so in that sense then it's my responsibility to chase after him to pursue him to want to see him to somehow want to engage in some way because then jesus opinion becomes so much more profound than my opinion of myself regardless of the noise zacchaeus determined to see jesus no noise would stop him and i love that no physical limitations not social limitations not self-talk he positioned himself to see jesus and it changed his life it changed his life so if this is a moment of despair and confusion and chaos for you i want to tell you position yourself to see jesus it'll change your life it'll change your life so i want to talk about what it is for us and how we can cut through this noise one of the things i think that we see in in zacchaeus's response the first thing i think we see is persevering faith zacchaeus came faith face to face with jesus his faith which was demonstrated through expectation through desire through position through hope that faith that if i somehow see him then maybe i'll get something good out of this maybe i might see a change maybe i might see transformation his faith caused him to look up it caused jesus to look up and see him now faith is the the substance of things hoped for and the evidence not of things not seen and if zacchaeus had no faith he would not have seen because it was his faith they got him to climb that tree right that perseverance that expectation that desire to to see jesus got him to climb that tree if he didn't have faith he would not have seen jesus and it ended up that his faith with him was actually his gateway to jesus we need to position ourselves to see jesus we need to position ourselves to see him and sometimes that simply means just cutting out the noise and making time sometimes that means just going i am going to give you that space lord i'm going to carve out that space i'm going to do what i can to climb that tree as it were so that i can see you to expect to hear him to have the faith that expects to hear him to have faith that hopes in his direction and his guidance rather than floating in a sea of uncertainty to chase after his power in his authority all of these things come through faith and we need to be people who once again kind of stir up a hunger and a thirst to see jesus and to hear his voice even when the odds are stacked against us seeking we need to muscle up the desire and a yearning to see him i love this in psalm 63 verse 1 and from the passion again it says this god you're my god i can't get enough of you i've worked up such a hunger and thirst for god traveling across dry and weary deserts so here i am in the place of worship eyes open drinking in your strength and glory i love this the psalmist is saying i can't get enough of you i'm actually working up a hunger and a thirst for you i'm actually working up a desire for you i'm working up a passion for you so that you can be seen in my life so that i can experience you so that i can hear you so i can hope in your direction and your guidance so i can chase after your power and your authority i'm going to work that up and the bible speaks again and again and again and again about that i think specifically about the way that that paul speaks to timothy in the first chapter of second timothy and he says to him fan into flame the gift of god he says i'm persuaded that the faith of your mother and grandmother also lives in you but you need to fan up fan into flame the gift that god's given to you because he hasn't given you a spirit of fear he's given you a spirit of love and power and sound mind and he speaks to him from this place sort of imploring him just build up the yearning build up the passion you need to chase after the desire fan it into flame i wonder about um what you're willing to do you yourself what are you willing to do to see jesus what's the tree that you need to climb the second thing uh is this that zacchaeus uh he was listening to jesus we need to learn to listen to the spirit this is a wonderful thing jesus called zacchaeus by name so often in scripture we see god changes the name of people when they when they encounter him or they're transformed by him we see god change their name but usually throughout the gospels people are spoken about there was a woman who came to jesus there was a man who came to jesus and not often do we see their name spoken about but zacchaeus is called by name jesus calls him by name and i think there's a reason for that zacchaeus name actually means pure and this is a man who wouldn't have seen himself as pure at all but jesus saw what in his what was in his heart and who he was created to be and knew that all zacchaeus had to do was just live out his calling the name that he had been given everyone else in the crowd saw zacchaeus choices zakir's choices and defined him by those choices but jesus saw his heart and gave him a way to get back to the essence of who he was not by judging him you never actually hear jesus say you should do this or you should do that instead he encourages him he loves him he's present with him and zacchaeus just simply out of the response of being with him being in his presence comes to a place of repentance it's extraordinary this was a classic example of jesus bathing someone in purity to get rid of the dirt just come and be with me come and be in my presence and that dirt that noise that's going to fall away from you and you're actually going to have a transformative moment and change the way that you do life see zacchaeus had all of this noise but in this moment he needed to listen to no one else but jesus just the voice of jesus just listen to his view and when the crowd is saying we hate you you're unworthy and when he's thinking to himself i am unworthy jesus says you know what i choose you that's what i see and so zacchaeus had an opportunity then to listen to the voice of jesus you know what you have the opportunity to listen to the spirit to pursue his voice what are you saying to me lord how are you speaking to me today lord what is it you want me to do today lord and that brings us to our final kind of how we can cut through the noise and it's living obediently and i've said here this is practical because so often we think about living obediently as being this kind of esoteric thing that sort of happens i don't know somewhere in the spiritual something but actually living uh with obedience living a life of obedience is about doing what god is asking you to do in a practical sense you see what happened here is that zacchaeus family were also saved when zacchaeus saw jesus both through his own desire and through jesus meeting him and peeling back his outer crust the effect was not just on zacchaeus it was on his friends and his family as well and what happens is that when we live a life of obedience and we listen to god and we say lord what are you saying to me and now what am i going to do about it there's a ripple effect that happens and it actually changes the world around us not just our own and jesus response is this he says you are a true son of abraham he says that to zacchaeus so of all of these jewish people who were there going oh he's been oppressing us he's terrible he's an outcast jesus says no you're a true son of abraham why because you listened and you obeyed that's what makes you truly one of my followers i love that if we want to be right in the will of god we need to be people who are listening to his voice and being obedient to him you know i was a couple of weeks ago um our my gorgeous husband lucas was chatting to our neighbor and she was talking about how her husband is stuck up in queensland um and not able to come home and it's the first birthday uh that he'll miss if they're one of their five children and she's been sort of managing on her and it's pretty tough and um and she said he's he's got his birthday this one of the kids that's got his birthday this weekend and and he's not going to be here and i just want to make it special and we're in isolation and all this kind of thing and so lucas you know just across the fence he's saying to her oh well we can help out with that and then he he lovingly offered my services he says oh my wife makes cakes um so she can make a cake for his birthday so anyway um our gorgeous daughter aroha and i together created an avengers cake for this kid and like i have to say yeah it was pretty impressive if i'm allowed to say that myself we took it over to him and uh to them in the morning and he was just like his eyes just sort of popped out of his head he's going what is that she says it's your cake and and we walked away we came back home i was thinking to myself i'm feeling pretty good about myself you know we've connected with the neighbours we've done this it's been great um you know i'm feeling pretty good about myself lord and it wasn't until a couple of days later whether i was chatting with some people i was talking i'm going you know what we need to be engaging in what god is saying for us to do it occurred to me i had not prayed about that interaction i hadn't asked god what do you want me to do we might have done something nice for that family but we haven't done anything transformative yet and if i was actually engaging in listening to the spirit of jesus if i was engaging and listening to what he was saying and obeying him i might actually see some transformative things happen in that relationship not just nice things there's a difference you know god has actually called us to be a light in the darkness he's called us to engage with his mission and when we choose to live obediently in a practical way lord what are you saying to me and now what am i going to do about it it makes a difference to the people around us and we can make a habit of that and it will cut through the noise colossians 1 27 says this living within you is the christ who floods you with the expectation of glory this mystery of christ embedded within us becomes a heavenly treasure chest and hope filled with the riches of glory for his people and god wants everyone to know it christ is our message we preach to awaken hearts and bring every person into the full understanding of truth it has become my inspiration and passion and ministry to labor with a tireless intensity with his power flowing through me to present to every believer the revelation of being his perfect one in jesus christ i want to say to you christ in you is the hope of glory and he is a hope of glory for the world around you but he is also the hope of glory for you in the midst of chaos in the midst of confusion in the midst of all the noise can i implore you crossway can i implore you if you are listening today you must go to him you must listen to him you must seek him you've got to climb that tree and you've got to see him and everything else can fall away because you need to bathe yourself in the purity of jesus you need to do it what's the tree you need to climb what is it that you need to shut out so you can see him would you pray with me jesus i thank you that you are powerful you are good and you are for us that you love us that you see through the noise that you are not restricted that you are not limited you see every single person who is tuning in to this message today you know us you know the noise you understand it you know our response to it you know our return our uh internal reactions to it you understand you see and you are for us and you love us and you want our hearts you want to draw us close to you so that you can transform us not the opinions and attitudes of other people not our physical limitations not our self-talk but what you want to do because you are god and we are not and we know that you see the end from the beginning you are not surprised by any of this as the lord we have the absolute privilege of looking to you and to hearing from you and to seeking you and i pray lord that you would bring a conviction into our spirits that we would never let that go but that we would pursue you regardless of any noise that is coming our direction that lord you would help us cut through that noise that when we come to you you would make it so clear what you are saying to cut through everything else we want to honor you we want to live by your word and by your ways and lord we know that you are our salvation and so we give ourselves to you for your purposes and we ask lord be present with us in the matchless name of jesus amen [Music] spirit sound brushing wind fire of god fall within holy ghost breathe on us we pray as we repent turn from sin revival labor smothering [Music] the fragrance of heaven pour your spirit out pour your spirit out [Music] holy purify faith indeed refine us fight strengthen what remains so we the church [Music] is holy anointing the power of your presence pour your spirit out pour your spirit out eyes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we can hear the wind blowing blowing blowing and move upon our prey [Music] we can hear the wind [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] the power [Music] pour your spirit out [Music] we need your presence we need your anointing [Music] holy spirit come and have your way right now wherever we are at god have your way and jesus we want to glorify you we want to magnify you [Music] because you are worthy worthy of all our praise [Music] jesus [Music] you were the word [Music] one with god the lord most high your heat and glory in creation [Music] now revealed in you our christ what a beautiful name it is what a beautiful name it is the name of jesus christ my what a beautiful name it is nothing compares to this what a beautiful name it the name of jesus what a beautiful name it is the name of jesus [Music] so jesus [Music] what a wonderful name it is what a wonderful name it is the name of jesus christ what a wonderful name it [Music] what a is name it is the name of jesus [Music] name of jesus [Music] [Music] you [Music] the praise of your glory [Music] [Music] you know [Music] yours is the glory [Music] what a powerful name it is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] of jesus [Music] when the music fades and all stripped away [Music] and i simply become a longing just to bring something that's worth that will bless your heart [Applause] [Music] i'll bring you both [Music] you search much deeper within [Music] and it's all about you it's all about you jesus [Applause] [Music] it's all about you jesus [Music] king of land no one could express how much you deserve [Music] though i'm weakened [Music] i'll bring you more than [Music] you search much deeper [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] it's all about you jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's all about you jesus [Music] is all about you it's all about yes it's all about you it's all about you it's all about you jesus it's all about you this morning jesus how how might we be positioning ourselves this morning crossway to see jesus and how might we be expecting to see jesus through faith in our lives this week thanks so much heather for sharing what you shared and bringing that before us the story of zacchaeus and just the opportunity that we have in that space to climb that tree to separate ourselves from the noise that we so readily experience and instead to find out where our grounding is come back to truth come back to the truth of scripture and position ourselves to see jesus this morning we've got a couple of awesome opportunities to to see jesus in in our crossroad community over the coming week we're going to be partnering with a number of churches around the white horse community to do some prayer walking around our local communities the streets and the parks and the suburbs that we find ourselves in as a decentralized expression across way you'll hear more about that in the coming weeks but that's something that's fantastic to look forward to as an opportunity to allow god to transform us as we do that and also transform our streets our communities and our neighborhoods and allow that to lead into action that might be a really great way you'd like to participate in that and and show obedience to the holy spirit if you're part of our southeast community we've got csc live this coming wednesday night an awesome opportunity to be together in community so you can head to the southeast social media or the website for that and if you are a young person we would ordinarily have been going to winter camp if you're a high schooler this coming monday tomorrow literally unfortunately we've had to cancel that but we do have an awesome opportunity we've got staycation coming this coming week which is a great opportunity for us to not only connect in with community but also to allow ourselves to be transformed by jesus so um you can head to the crossway youth uh page on the website or our social media we've got so many different opportunities for you to connect in if you're a young person or if you have a young person in your household would really encourage you to head that way we've got an awesome week week coming up second week of the school holidays to kick into term four you're not going to want to miss that so make sure you head over there and just in closing it's been a thrill to join with you together this sunday just in closing before we head out into our week's church family i'd love to do just what heather challenged us to do i'd love to position ourselves to see and experience jesus today and just to ground ourselves in some truth and just to find ourselves in a space where we can experience him and experience his presence as we head into our weeks into our workplaces into our zoo meetings every everywhere that we find ourselves we're going to sing a doxology together now you might like to turn off that second screen you might have had you might like to lock your iphone and put that down and just really allow yourself to be present with the spirit right now you can sing you can choose not to sing but we're going to sing this doxology praise god from whom all blessings flow praise him all creatures here below praise him above ye heavenly hosts praise father son and holy ghost the team's going to lead us today thanks for joining with us crossway and allow yourself to experience the presence of jesus now as we end our time together god bless [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] creatures here [Music] heavenly [Music] go praise god from blessings [Laughter] praise him all creatures hear me [Music] heavenly host praise gold [Music] [Music] oh [Music] you

Channel: Crossway Church

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Length: 71min 0sec (4260 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021