Michael Ramsden - A matter of convenience

you will see that I am an evangelist if while I'm preaching it sounds like I'm trying to convert you you will be a hundred percent correct that is where I go with every message let me just say a little bit about myself so you know who you're going to be listening to I know many of you have also traveled a lot to be here this is God's grace to you now where you can quietly shut your eyes and have an asleep I will come and personally wake you up at the end as you heard I I left England very young I have very few virtually zero childhood memory of the UK we moved out to the United Arab Emirates in the 70s when I moved there there was one hotel in Dubai I don't know if you've been to Dubai recently there's more than one hotel there now from there we went to Saudi Arabia we lived in Riyadh in Riyadh I there is no church I heard nothing about the gospel of Jesus Christ if you organized a meeting like this in Saudi that would be a crime punishable by death they will chop your head off using an axe is a very effective deterrent there are no repeat offenders and I grew up hearing nothing about the gospel at the age of 17 or so my parents moved to Cyprus I moved there with them and for the first time I met Christians and there was something different I could see it was suggested to me that we should set up a youth group and I thought this sounded like an exciting idea lots of young people getting together so I convinced someone to lead a youth group I got my friends together my brother got his friends together we went and discovered it was going to be a Christian youth group because and the guy who suggested it was a Christian and the guy he told us to ask was a Christian and so we set up this Christian youth group but we were fascinated by it it was it was amazing about six months in I was talking with the youth leader one day and he said oh I've been trying to organize to take away on a camp he said and I and I said that sounds like fun he says we can't get permission I said who do you need permission from he said well we need permission from the chief of police and from the Minister for Interior so I went home and my family is connected this ain't like that I went home I said to my mother do you know the Chief of Police she said yes she says when I was 15 he invited me to go out with him and your uncle George knocked out his two front teeth and said if he ever spoke to me again he would kill it I said look I need to go on this camp we need his permission my mother rings him up that was standing in the kitchen she picks up the phone she rings him up the guy said I had no idea your son wanted to do this I would do anything for you of course you have my permission she hung up the phone she said what else do you need I said I need permission from the Minister of Interior my mother picks up the phone finds out he's on holiday rings uncle George within within 24 hours a fax arrives from his holiday location giving written permission to release the camp so we can go away we then got a lot of our friends together we went to the camp I got there a day early to set the camp up and on the second day of that camp I became a Christian so the Lord actually had me organized and planned my own conversion and that was the beginning of my walk with Christ I I became a Christian on a Saturday night I remember it very clearly I went to my first Bible study on a Tuesday evening by that time I had read the New Testament twice I was halfway through the Old Testament I had a huge passion for the Word of God I went to this Bible study after 20 minutes I ended up leading the Bible study and at the end of the Bible study my youth leader a guy called Bob Moffett who was the area director for youthful Christ Middle East North Africa he looked at the group he said if you could ask God for one thing what would you ask him for and I said that he would make me an evangelist and that's what they prayed for me and that's what I've been doing ever since so it's a real it's a real delight to be with you now let me explain what we're going to do this morning is in the danger of being a little bit heavy and depressing because we're going to be focusing very much on the world someone said to me once Michael when you speak about Jesus your face should shine like an angel when you talk about Hell your normal face will do and to some extent what we're going to describe this morning is is is hellish quite literally and I was fascinated to to hear the introduction just now I have only arrived late last night I didn't hear what happened here yesterday but the title that I was thinking of giving this morning session was called a matter of convenience question mark so it's been very interesting to hear what happened here last night because I'm going to be picking up on that theme this morning and this evening now this evening I hope we can have a lot more fun but this morning I'm just warning you that this may at times just feel hard because some of what's happening in the world right now some of the global trends global movements should cause us to stop and maybe at times even weep but we just can't lose sight of the hope of the gospel so my plan is is to make you feel so depressed this morning that by the time I come to speak this evening anything will sound good news by comparison so that's where we are now let me start by reading to you this is from yesterday's newspaper it must be true it's in The Times this is from page this was page 15 of The Times yesterday a university student who raised her hand in a meeting was accused of violating safe sports rules because the gesture could have intimidated other people Imogen Wilson vice president of academic affairs at the University of Edinburgh was threatened with expulsion from the student council meeting after a safe safe space complaint was made against her miss Wilson 22 used supposedly inappropriate hand gestures by raising her arm according to the association's rules which are similar to those at other universities meetings need to be in a space which is welcoming and safe rules prohibiting discriminatory language and actions compel students to refrain from quote hand gestures which denote disagreement miss Wilson said she'd raised her arm in disagreement after being accused by another speaker of failing to respond to an open letter despite having made efforts to contact its authors and then it later goes on to say she was then censured a second time when she was seen shaking her head when someone else was speaking now this safe space debate is the debate happening in almost every developed nation of the world but what lies behind it is some thinking which affects every nation of the world as I know it so that's what we're going to try and understand a little bit this this morning now let's just start with thinking about tolerance the word tolerance has been become a virtue in almost every political system in the world today it's seen as being absolutely vital now what we need to understand however is that tolerance as a virtue is the enemy of all free society why because you cannot disagree with someone and tolerate them at the same time as soon as you disagree you cease to be tolerant so tolerance as it is defined today not classically as its defined today is the enemy of free society let me try to explain it for you let's supposing you were to say to me Michael I saw you having a cup of coffee with Steve Thomas this morning did you enjoy talking to him and I say I can tolerate the man let's supposing you you hear that on my return to Oxford he cooked me a home meal and invited me to his house and you said Michael I I hear I hear Steve barbecued for you the other day how was it and I say it was tolerable imagine Steve overheard me saying that what do you think he's thinking I want my goal to come back and speak at a salt and light event again and I'm definitely having him round to my house for another meal you see when I say I'm prepared to tolerate you what I'm saying is I am merciful kind and beneficent you may call me Michael the beneficent you however are stupid stubborn and wrong you're so stupid and stubborn there's no point me trying to explain where you're wrong so waste of time so I'll put up with you I will tolerate you it's a virtue to my benefit at your expense when however I say I respect you now I'm saying something radically different when I say I respect you I'm saying there is something about you that demands I treat you in a certain way it's got nothing to do with me it's got all about to do with you and all free society was built on the foundation of respecting others because we are all created in God's image and we are all his children so we treat all people with respect but here's the key thing you can respect someone and disagree with them you see it between friends they can disagree about football teams making disagree about politics we can even disagree about church structure and strategy but still respect the person and love the person we're talking to and maybe even bless them in it respect is the foundation of all free society and that is why we have forgotten how to disagree with each other in the modern world and this is true for almost every political system around the world in which I operate whether it's in Asia or whether it's in the Middle East or whether it is in Africa or whether it's in Europe or whether it's in the Americas or whether it's in Australia we don't know how to disagree anymore everything is taken personally and so we have lost the voice now here's the key thing this is a cultural phenomena against everyone now as Christians we sometimes particularize things to us that make sense they're doing this to me because I'm a Christian sometimes that's true but we have to be careful here not to victimize ourselves this goes against everyone so we have lost this this understanding of respect in most of our cultures we don't know how to run disagreement anymore we are using tolerance to silence everyone and it's even in danger at times of silencing the church more church leaders today are scared of being intolerant and perceived as being a tolerant than they are of the Lord and that's not the right way round now that's number one so this park that they're number two are you feeling encouraged yet it's going to get much worse leave me not only you're going to be praying lord help him you'll be praying Lord take him by the time we get to the end of this this time I'm telling you the next one is economic now if you want the detailed thinking on this you can read a textbook an economics book it's being translated into a I think over a hundred languages it's entitled capital by a French economist called Piketty now it's a light read it's about 1,200 pages long and it's one of the most technical economics books I've read in a long time you're going to love it not only will it look good on your bookshelf that book is so big and so fat when you die they could bury you in it now here's what Piketty says and i'll give you his if you like the the heart of his thesis and i'll unpack it for you but here's what he says he says the rate of return on capital has outstripped the rate of return of income ok the rate of return of capital has outstripped the rate of return of income now what does that mean well that means if you live in Oxford where I live 20 years ago and you were a doctor you could have afforded to buy a very nice four-bedroom house in headington where I live very easily today if you were the highest earning doctor at the John Radcliffe Hospital the flagship research hospital of Oxford University being paid 150,000 pounds a year you would struggle to buy a small apartment it means that if you're middle-class and you live in any of the major cities of the world today Kiev Johannesburg let alone Hong Kong or London your number one concern is even if my children get good jobs even if they become consultant surgeons how will they afford to buy a home it means that there's an increasing number of people feeling excluded from the economic system and we haven't even talked about people who are living on working-class salaries and the challenges they face people feel shut out they feel excluded from a system that they cannot buy into anymore Capital has been increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and more and more people don't have access to it now historically this kind of economic movement leads to either civil war or war between nations now it's compounded in its complexity by the fact that most people in the world look to their government in the way they used to look to God in most countries of the world it used to be the case that people look to God for peace happiness fulfillment security now we look to our government to provide those things as voters we're asking government to do something that only God can do in order to get elected therefore politicians have to promise the impossible to win the vote and then of course they can't deliver which means that the cynicism and disillusionment when it comes to our politics is it an all-time high now we'll pick up on this theme again in a more positive way this evening but it's a huge issue and it's affecting everybody now to add to that sense of cynicism there's been another if you like global awakening but it hasn't resolved itself happily a few years ago and when the Arab Spring first started I am I was speaking somewhere and someone said to me look at my collar you've been invited to be part of a consultation of 14 people got various government leaders and leaders of various different agencies from around the world they're going to be 14 people in the room they want to talk about the Arab Spring and they want you there to join them and I said well look I'm honored to come there's just no way I can get there I said I'm I'm speaking at lunchtime the day before the following morning I'm speaking in a different City somewhere else and I there's no way I can get all the way to wait there to meet with these people and I said oh don't worry we'll we'll send a plane to fly you and so I prayed for about half a second and said yes now I have to confess I was sat in this room and sat next to me was the British Foreign Minister and I have to admit our sitting thinking he was going to speak first and I was sat next to him with my arms folded thinking well this will be a waste of time he's a politician what he could possibly have to say and as soon as he started speaking I reached down into my briefcase and I was looking for a pad of paper and a pen to start taking notes but this was his opening line his opening line hypocrisy is the new global unforgivable sin that was his opening line hypocrisy is the new global unforgivable sin because of the internet Facebook Twitter media people have access to their leaders lives as never before they see the opulence of how they live and the sacrifices they're expecting the people underneath them to make and they hate it they are angry they are so angry they are rising up in violent revolt and will do anything to bring these people down anything and I think he's right now you don't have to spend much time talking to the millennial generation of today to understand how sensitive they are to the charge of hypocrisy but this value of hypocrisy has resolved itself in a very unhappy way because if you want to have integrity which is a huge issue in today's culture especially if you're young classically when you said you're a hypocrite what you meant was this look the standard is up here and you affirm that standard and your behavior is down here and when you call someone a hypocrite it was a challenge make your life fit with your words but there's another way to overcome that golf of hypocrisy instead of changing your lifestyle you just lower the standard and that's exactly what we have done we have lowered the standard to an all-time low and we've embraced it and we're celebrating it we are celebrating things that we used to feel ashamed of now in a church culture where people are scared of appearing to be intolerant at that point the church loses its public voice and feels it can say nothing about anything anymore and that is a disaster it is an absolute disaster wish I had don't want to get sidetracked here too much but in second Corinthians the letter breaks itself down at one level into five sections and I don't have time to run through all five sections the way the Apostle Paul breaks it down as he he basically takes five well the reason it breaks down into five sections is what the Paul does is he starts off each section with talking about referencing the tradition this is what I've always taught this is what I've always said wherever I've gone this is what you've all heard me say then he tends to take a problem in the negative he takes a problem negatively then he tends to give you a theology within which to address the problem then he returns to the problem positively and I says and then he makes a personal appeal this is what I do follow me as I follow Christ and so on that's why some people feel the letter is very disjointed that make sense because you've got him you know speaking on tongues and he's speaking on love then he's speaking on tongues again it's because in each of the sections he looked at the problem in a more negative way then he gives you the theology to properly understand it then he applies it in a more positive way make sense he references the tradition this isn't new and then he makes a personal appeal he does it five times now the middle section which I depend on me now but the middle section oh sorry the second section is about morality and if I can draw this big enough is about morality and he starts off with a particular problem which is what he normally does he says it's actually reported that two men a man and his father are sleeping with the same woman and far from feeling ashamed you celebrate it and then what he does now just do the first character he he then says and this is a problem now he goes on to talk about the cross the resurrection communion the church and the Trinity he says you are violating sexually all five of these things now the trouble with the church today is they don't see why the cross would unfix and something of the atonement the Trinity communion resurrection and so on we think it's quite a minor thing for Paul it's huge now here's what's interesting what he does there's only one other time in scripture where we read about a man and his father sleeping with the same woman there's only one other instance I can think of well actually have a brief reference in Genesis but it's in it's you you find it in the Old Testament find it in the book of Habakkuk where it says in chapter 2 a man and his father sleep with the same woman and then it says and by so doing you profane his holy name now there's a word Hebrew word I think almost all of you are familiar with hallelujah you familiar with that word okay you got got how you yah praise His name okay and it looks you have the first character looks like this it looks like like a pie do you see that and there's a little gap between here and here if you close this little gap from here to here on that letter instead of being a soft H hallelujah it becomes a hard H hallelujah profane his name what the Prophet is saying is your life should be a hallelujah before God but you have turned into a hallelujah before God you are profaning his name and so what Paul does is he starts off in his second section in second Corinthians talking about ethics he is saying to them do you not understand what you are celebrating is profane you are literally hallelujah in his name you are bringing profanity on him which is why it's so important with why the church must regain her public voice but we're digressing here I can't I can't stray too far away from where we need to go otherwise we won't finish till tonight so we have hypocrisy we talked about tolerance we talked about this huge economic global issue that we face everywhere we go oh we felt about how do we talked about the growing cynicism and we've looked at just so far just to get back into the flow of this the the discharge of hypocrisy the anger that people feel about their leaders now there's one other bit that we need to add to this that makes this even harder sociologists around the world are calling it the culture of victimization it means that increasingly we're breaking into little groups and we see ourselves as a subgroup of victims and because we're all victims we deserve special treatment the rules which should apply to everyone else don't apply to us and everything we do as in the cult of victimhood everything we do in our little thing we're motivated by love but everything done against us is motivated by hate and that becomes the only narrative and we all go back into the past to find historical grievances historical differences where we're Bray's in which we can describe ourselves as victims and our message is you don't understand me you don't understand us it's different for you and everybody is part of one of these little cults and they're all a war with each other this makes such a confusing culture it is self destroying people are literally turning on themselves and destroying themselves now this is one of the reasons I only mention this in passing this would take a whole other section to deal with properly this is why if you live in a major city anywhere in the world regardless of the general culture and you're you're between about 25 and 35 you want normally to be mentored by one of your peers now why is that now traditionally people have done mentoring we do it in the church they do it in the world people have executive coaches but why in the business world 225 every roles want to have an executive coach who's 25 or 26 or 27 why we would say that doesn't make sense you need someone with experience but the reason why they want to be minted by their peers knows a fascinating 2-3 page article of this in the Financial Times a couple of weeks ago that's that's the paper I like reading for fun this it's got the best cartoon strip you've ever seen um the reason is is they don't feel understood by the generation ahead above them they say look for you your dream was look when I got married I was 23 my wife was 22 okay by the age of 28 we owned our first home okay kids came shortly after that okay then my old car brought and I brought another old car to replace it so I had the Volvo estate so at that point I was now apart from the fact I don't have a dog you know I had a home I had a Volvo okay I had a wife and I had two kids and also a growing stomach I was the stereotypical at that point middle class how many young people today you know of who aspire to be married by the age of 23 how many think it's feasible to own a home their own home by the age of 28 when do they think they can economically afford to sustain a family now if you're dealing with rural ministry or you're in rural areas and that doesn't matter we're talking about rural France okay or rural Middle East it's different okay because these things haven't hit there as high yet but everywhere else that's the problem how many of you have pastors have talked to young people and say look you don't have to be rich to get married okay you don't need you know living together isn't an excuse because the economics is hard have you had that conversation they're looking for people who understand them they are desperate and the reason they want to be mentored by their peers as ignorant you know the reality you're not selling me a pipe dream that I know I can't retrieve you you are living this with me so help me figure this out and this is confusing for both the poor and the rich because the rich young guys who are young newly qualified lawyers if you're a newly qualified lawyer by the way working in London starting salary 120 thousand pounds a year I don't you think bench where pastors pastors salary should be linked to lawyers salaries I mean just think how many disputes you have to deal with okay and they get to do like one case for several months you have to do several cases a day so you know strong they're really strong you know things to be said here now I can't speak for all of the countries represented here but if you're earning 120 thousand pounds a day in London and you're paying enough tax or taking home eighty thousand a day eighty thousand a year what could you afford to buy zero so we need to understand this as the people are looking for people they want to understand now how do we respond to this now I have to you know if you want to be encouraged you look at the scripture if you'll never be discouraged just look at the world for the challenges we face but here's what I'd like to do I sort of like a professor from prophetic counteraction to this I'd like to have a look at the Luke chapter 10 we're going to look at something a story you guys know so well and my job is going to be to rescue truth from over-familiarity because we're so familiar with this story I'm going to look at the parable of the Good Samaritan now let me start by saying this there's a tendency for us sometimes as Christians to think hey when you want heavy-duty theology you go to the Apostle Paul okay because he writes complicated stuff that's hard to understand even Peter said that in 1 Peter chapter remember some of the his letters are hard to understand so if you've read Hebrews and thought this is confusing ok that's what Peter was saying yeah this is hard but if you want simple stories for kids go to Jesus right so we worship everything about Jesus Christ apart from his mind I just like to suggest to you that if he is the Son of God he might be slightly brighter than most of us in this room yes it's just just a possibility now Jesus Jesus tells a story here which is which is fascinating now I want to go to all of the story in in huge detail I don't have to not not in this room or if I do have to go to the story in room then we've got other problems that we need to talk about otherwise now you all know the story the question you know who is my neighbor that's the immediate context of this I might put it back into the immediacy of its context just to make sure all this is legitimate but I want to make some other observations out of this text for you so you have the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho now why is that important look every culture and you you this is not difficult for any of you to imagine every one of you lives in a part of the world and if someone came to visit you you would say oh by the way I wouldn't go there in the middle of the night that makes sense every if you live in a reasonable-sized City okay there are just some parts of the city you would say to people I wouldn't go for a 1 a.m. stroll through that part of town on your own ok maybe with five or six friends with Uzis yes but on your own no I wouldn't go there that's just true everywhere now the road from Jerusalem to Jericho runs through the desert it goes through the middle of nowhere it's bandit territory it is unsafe so this would be like me so then when the man falls amongst robbers here's the problem if I were to say to you I took a evening stroll out of the highly center into the center of that little town just down the road from here yesterday evening and I saw a guy beaten up left half naked and dead on the side of the road and I walked by on the other side of the road you would all say to me you're callous you didn't even get help but let's suppose now saying to you I was walking through the streets of Baghdad at 1:00 a.m. or Afghanistan or wherever it may be now those picture changes doesn't it because you get out of your car out of your vehicle and you go walkabout in a place like that at a time like that you're asking for trouble so this road runs through the middle of nowhere a guy falls amongst bandits he stripped of his clothes he's beaten he's lying face down naked in the road now how do I know that I'll come back to the minute but he must've been lying face down I'll explain in a moment and he can't speak now when the priest comes by he has a dilemma the the priest they serve up in Jerusalem they live down in Jericho there's like a big complex there that make sense so the fact he's leaving Jerusalem going down to Jericho means he's finished his priestly tour of duties used to cast lot because there were so many of them they used to go up so for a while then they'll go back okay so he's finished his priestly duties he's going back now a lot of people say the reason the priest doesn't stop is he doesn't wanna be ceremonially unclean but we can't make too much of this just read the Old Testament if you touch a dead body and you become unclean it takes a week to purify yourself you have to wash a couple of times and that's it besides he's leaving Jerusalem he's not going to Jerusalem to serve in the temple he served in the temple he's left hey there is no temple in Jericho that only one it's in Jerusalem so it's not a big such a big deal but this could this could be this is dangerous he is in the wilderness maybe it's a trap maybe if he stops the guys who did it - this guy just waiting I'll just jump on him that's what's going through his mind now so when he says he passed by on the other side the audience that Jesus was speaking to are fine with it no one is thinking he is callous no one thinks he doesn't care this is dangerous it's a tough call this is not easy now if the guy is Jewish and he knew he was Jewish then maybe you could make an argument he should absolutely stop but here's the problem he's not wearing any clothes you can't speak to him from the moment I stood on this platform you've looked at the way I've dressed you're listening to my accent and you're making calls about how well-educated is that man what kind of background does he have how wealthy is he where is he from my English accent sometimes confuses people they think what part of England are you from well I lived in the Middle East or Mo's you know all of my life from a very early age everyone around me spoke Arabic okay so the way I learned English Mayank chap was listening to the BBC World Service this is the voice of the BBC does that recognise that okay we do this all the time we make those judgments about people all the time so we figure out where they're from because if this guy who's half beaten by the side of the road is some kind of multi-millionaire you'll be crazy not to help him right or some powerfully connected person of course you might take the risk but there's no way of knowing now the guy's been stripped of his clothes why did I say he's lying face-down well look if you're a Jewish male and you're not wearing any clothes there's an easy way to tell whether or not you're Jewish now if you're confused on this come and speak to Steve Thomas he can draw a couple of diagrams to explain it to you and if you're still confused he can do it to you so here we've got this unconscious naked guy lying down on the road by the side of the road maybe if you knew he was Jewish maybe if you knew he was one of yours you should stop my sense if a soldier even if a soldier walked by on the road that would be okay but if the soldier discovered that man was a man in his own unit and he didn't stop do you think that would be okay no no no but there's no way of knowing and Jesus says a man was walking well he's likely to be Jewish if he's going from Jerusalem to Jericho but you can't be sure so as Jesus tells his story it was a tough call but maybe it was the right one just too many unknowns too many variables so then the Levite comes by now the Levites helped the priests in the temple and he's got exactly the same dilemma what do I do now again he touches a dead body is unclean but that's not a big deal the week of washing a couple of times Jericho anyway he's not required for service it's alright but it's dangerous it's bandit territory he's got no way of knowing who this guy is is he one of us or is he one of them he can't tell he goes by on the other side now every culture of the world tells stories and threes hey all of our jokes there was an Englishman an Irishman and a Scotsman right which is why if I say to you there's an Englishman an Irishman and a Russian some people already start laughing a little bit thinking oh this is different I wonder where this is going see some of you were so easy to please I love preaching that's fantastic so we've had a priest we've had a Levite who you were expecting next and the answer is the delegation of Israel okay the delegation of Israel serve the Levites and the Levites serve the priests you know the temples are messy business there are fires to be made there's wood to be carried there are ashes to be cleared there's water that needs to be carted around everywhere that's what the delegation of Israel do so that's what everyone's expecting to come next and maybe because this unimportant person now comes along and makes sense like you know like general Colonel foot soldier maybe maybe he could potentially risk his life to help this guy because he's a no one so what happens well you know the story of Samaritan comes they hate the Samaritans yeah there's enmity between them you want to talk about culture of victimization you want to feel about feeling excluded you want to feel about lack of respect and all that kind of stuff tolerating their presence well that's exactly what this is and the guy gets off his donkey he tends to the guy by the side of the road he needs emergency ER that takes a little while and it's highly vulnerable okay you're squatting down next to a body I mean that's a fairly vulnerable position okay that's hence David's restraint restraint right when he sees saw squatted in the cave to do something to remember that that's one of the most compromising postures known to man okay so the fact David didn't go for him when it's a sure thing is purse a whole other story so he's down by the side he's tending to the guy he can't be keeping the lookout after he's done the emergency ER he puts the guy on his donkey and takes him to an inn now again you need to understand this please fall there are no wins on that road zero the first ins on that road were built in the 1500s by the Crusaders because there's no water there so there were no Inns or settlements on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho that's why it was bandit territory he was totally unhospitable the Crusaders they had a whole military machine and in order to restore peace and get rid of the bandits between Jerusalem and Jericho they built forts along the road because they had a military machine to supply them with water and with food and you could stay in them that's when the ins came along all of the settlements all of the ins from this road are about five miles off the main road in they're all Jewish ok so when it says he took him to an inn he doesn't just keep going down the road till he finds the next place he goes off now to a Jewish settlement as a Samaritan so let me give you a contemporary example let's talk about cowboys and Indians there's an Indian riding through the wizard wilderness and as he's riding through the wilderness he sees a naked white cowboy with arrows sticking out of his back he gets off his horse and he goes and tends the man binds him up puts him on his horse and rides off to Dodge City he pulls up outside the saloon bar and ties his horse up outside and he carries this wounded cowboy into the inn into the saloon puts him up on the counter bar and says to the bartender this guy's one of yours here's a little bag of silver take care of him in two weeks time I'm going to come back and if there's any outstanding bill I'll settle it and he turns around to leave now imagine it's a movie and as he turns around to leave BAM the film ends and the credits come up now what's your first thought what's the question you want to have answered look your first reaction is I don't believe it they're going to make a sequel that's your first thought because you want to know the ending what's the question you want to know what happens to the Indian does he get out alive I mean the most likely scenario is a mob arrives take the guy outside and they Lynch him to a tree that's the most likely ending but you don't know most people think the story of the Good Samaritan the cost the price which is paid is to do with the money he handed over that's not the price he paid he put his life on the line to rescue that guy this could cost him everything this could cost him everything he could cost him his life he may never get out of town alive who is my neighbor to whom was this man a neighbor Jesus never asked the first question he changes it he never answers who was my neighbor he says to whom was this man neighborly - what do you see in this story well it's it's incredible you want to see respect in action well you see it there a characteristic which is best described as tolerance you can't see more respect for another human being than this how about the victimization culture he was part of he was excluded he was in a minority group how what does he do how does he act well that's just simply overcome and blown under the waters don't even part of the narrative but what does it cost him to do it the answer is everything everything the culture we live in isn't that unusual you think it's hard today well it was hard back then we're not facing in that sense anything new it's just as difficult it's just as hard and it still requires just as much now I also had no idea only the first I heard about this was in the introduction I even turned to Steve Thomas and asked him for a little summary of the talk saying as soon as I heard what was said by my Finnish friend earlier who speaks the most impossible language in the world are there any finish here really I don't know if your language was inspired by heaven or by somewhere else but you have a very complicated language bless you and may you I'm a sure the Lord gave it to you for a reason anyway hey yes it's gonna cost him it's gonna cost him everything I was preaching in HDB about a year ago first time they ever asked me to do it they said well I do eight services and I said look I I can't do that repeated sermon thing I know some of you in this room can do it I've tried I can't do it how I did eight different messages on the day anyway the next time I went back they said look look just do just do six but you can repeat the same message it's fine and I said I don't know if I can pull it off and I tried I did the first one and the first one wasn't that good because I was fearing having to repeat it the second time was slightly worse but by the third time it was so bad even I didn't like it so Nicky Gumbel was up there introducing me and I'm just looking at my Bible thing I'm going to switch so I just switched messages and just preached something different but I did something that I've never done before I actually gave the audience a choice I said look I could take this in one of three different ways I'm not sure which way to go and I gave them three titles I said I'll allow you to vote okay all right I said so I said like I preached on this I could preach on this or I could preach on that I can't remember what the first two were the third one was on integrity half the audience were non-christian 95% of the audience raised their hand preach on integrity that tells you something Jesus Christ gave everything for us everything he didn't hold anything back people are looking for people who believe that to be true our problem as a churches is as our vision is just too small right now I was preaching at the garden tomb site last Sunday I have to say probably the greatest felt privilege in my life so far having spoken out in places like you know the White House you from America god bless you I don't never forget my opening line thank you for Laramie to come and speak to in this place since we tried to burn it down in 1817 they but I can honestly say I I look forward to that morally we can't be sure of the location exactly but I was so excited eat or just preach at the sunrise service on Resurrection morning you know from that location I was so excited and I was speaking out of out of the Gospel of John but there was something that hit me for the first time as I was preparing that message and it was when Mary comes to the gardener she feels she's asking for the earth when she says did you take him just show me tell me where you put him and I'll go get his body she's not interested in blaming anyone and then she stopped pointing the finger she don't even ask him the guy to bring the body back she say now I'll do it all she wanted was the physical body she wanted that connection to Christ does that make sense something to cling on to that's all she was asking for and here's the thing at the very point she thought she was asking for too much she was actually asking for too little she would have settled for a corpse Jesus was offering her resurrected life so often we're just asking God for too little we think we're asking the earth but we're actually asking for much less and so often because we're asking God of so let so little we think he's asking not very much of us either he wants everything he wants all of it I'm gonna have to be prepared to put our lives on the line for the gospel we're going to have to be prepared to go to prison for preaching the gospel we're going to have to be prepared to lose everything for the gospel that's that's what he's asking us for that's how to overcome the cynicism in this world when people see a group of people who love God so much they don't care what anyone else does to them a group of people who genuinely believe that whatever the state does to you you're still free there's a freedom the state gives there's a freedom the state can take away there is a freedom that Jesus Christ gives you no one can take it away from you ever no matter where you go this is this is the gospel we've been given and it speaks powerfully powerfully and it's run out of time let me just read one this is from a colleague of mine in Egypt to being seeing some amazing things happen there and we run a small training center in Oxford we just take people for a year and we try and train them but here's here's something he just sent through this was just as the revolution broke out in Egypt he said dear all I want to share with you an intense experience I went through yesterday I'd appreciate it if you take a couple of minutes and read this long post I was invited to speak to a group of 60 atheists yesterday now you talk about you talk about changing culture in 2009 Google described Egypt is the most religious country on the planet they did a religious attitude survey 99.9 percent said they were very very religious in 2012 they repeated that survey and this time 24 percent describe themselves as agnostic or atheist 25 percent swing in 3 years you go to the University of Cairo today and everybody and Eileen being virtually everyone if you walk through the public spaces is reading Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion in Arabic everyone so that's why he was invited to speak to 60 atheists many of those guys in Chatham sweat were atheists Hanuman square sorry wrong for that well actually well no they were Christians there but anyway this sorry I was invited to speak to 60 a theists they were in a camp discussing atheism and Christianity most of them are not familiar with Christianity on short notice I was invited to speak on our God's laws an obstacle to freedom that's Egypt honor how many of you can identify with that title are God's laws an obstacle to freedom I got ready and went I took for young people with me who was disciple it says now I must mention that I live in a very religious country he's writing to his other students being an atheist is usually by conviction and against the culture it's not because of apathy or simple influence now imagine 60 intense Middle Eastern angry atheist s-- some of whom have spent time in prison for political activism sitting in a room with one Christian mayhem is the right description completing a single sentence was a challenge let alone a thought as a culture we lack courtesy of civil conversation we simply overpower and that's what happened I got people shouting at me throwing curses at me it was so much fun for them the questions of God's rules was irrelevant given they didn't believe in God the very notion of God was absurd and despicable to them they kept pushing me to answer more basic questions I ditched my talk and we had an open discussion we spent three hours going back and forth in middle eastern-style question-and-answer which means everyone talks at the same time and although they were very aggressive they seemed to respect the fact that I took their question seriously it's time went by I got better they listened more we talk past each other less something was happening finally someone asked me why did God create this blank world he said and for an amazingly ten uninterrupted minutes I shared the christian story trinity creation fall Redemption restoration they had never heard it before the session ended at 10 p.m. and until 4:00 a.m. the next day we talked with them some said they could finally see the way forward hallelujah pray for these people most of them hate religion it's cause pain and abuse in their lives and our country I found myself in deep love with them the organizers called me an hour ago they want me to go back to the camp tomorrow to speak about evil and suffering I'm trying to reshuffle my schedule I hope I can go back I hope you're encouraged by this story God is at work although things look hopeless I see God planting seeds that will grow through the years I love you all and miss you very much all of the challenges we've seen present an opportunity for the gospel all of them we should know how to treat people with respect even when they hate us we should know what it is to love your enemies we should know what it is to lay down your life in service of others and God is not spending sending us out into this battle with the spiritual equivalent of a water pistol he sends us out into a spiritual battle with the spiritual equivalent of the atomic bomb the holy spirit let's not lose heart and this but instead let's pray and let's go let me pray for you father we look at the world and we see obstacle upon obstacle a world which is genuinely lost and in a living hell without you and facing the prospect of an eternal hell but Lord we don't lose heart we look at you we see you the resurrected Christ who specializes in rescuing the dead and the lost father you turn nations around and you turn lives around we cry to you Lord for our nations Lord may they come to know you may we not lose heart may we not ask Lord for two little Lord open our eyes to the scale of the challenge before us and the opportunity that we see and we pray that our lives may glorify you and please you and honor you and we pray this in Christ's Holy Name Amen

Channel: Salt & Light International

Views: 28,901

Rating: 4.8108749 out of 5

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Id: rxw8wR0M16k

Length: 55min 19sec (3319 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 13 2016