Money, Love and Happiness | Michael Ramsden

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] it's a pleasure for me to be with you [Applause] Myles and Sarah are very close friends and two of two of the most sort of inspiring one of the most inspiring couples we know my wife and I always look at how the Lord has used them down through the decades and the years and their determination to keep God at the center whether things are going well or whether they're hard and it's just been amazing to have that friendship I don't always think positively of Myles he has four degrees four degrees I think he can technically say he has four degrees from the University of Oxford which to me just sounds a little bit greedy do I mean you know one's okay twos understandable some people have three but once you start getting four then that's just you know cause for concern we're gonna be looking briefly we'll take about half an hour because I'd really love to be able to give time to have some Q&A and depending on how the questions go and so on I may call on my colleagues and just to deal with some of them but when we look at this subject of money happiness love when we're looking at those these three things what we're often doing is we're looking altum Utley for the right thing but sometimes in the wrong place and the trouble is is if you're looking for the right thing but in the wrong place you're never going to find it as a matter of fact the worst come thing can happen which is you find the thing you thought you needed and then all of a sudden you realize it's not what you were looking for at all so there are some there are some very interesting questions and issues one of the interesting things about the person of Jesus Christ however is he never questions our desire for fulfillment what he constantly questions is ultimately where it's going to be found how will that play out in our life now there's a the church any professor of economic history at the University of Oxford who I sometimes quote because I like saying she jelly professor of economic history because it sounds like something amazing is about to happen he points out in one of his books that the challenge of affluence is that the flow of reward into our life undermines our capacity to enjoy and we said it again the flow of reward into our life can undermine our capacity to enjoy it now that if you think about it is an amazing thing what does that mean it means when you anticipate getting the latest iPhone or whatever it is Huawei there's more joy in that that makes sense in the three months thinking I'm gonna get it I'm gonna get it I'm gonna get it when you get it the depreciation curve in economic terms is very steep okay within a week you're already wondering what comes next so one of the things that we try to fill our life with is novelty in other words the new will somehow enthrall us but again to put it in in the terms of economics novelty depreciates at a very steep rate because by definition something isn't new when you've had it for a while so we often find ourselves in life running on what we could call a hedonic treadmill now there's some very fascinating research that's being done that I'll briefly share with you and then I want to dis turn to the scriptures because Jesus Christ is well ahead of the curve as normal when it comes to these things but when I did some study in economics I was taught about the rational consumer and the rational consumer was famously defined by a very famous economist but Milton Friedman as someone okay the rational consumer always makes rational choices they're aware of all of their motives all of the options all of the consequences of those options and what their own good is now just think about that to be aware of all of your motives all of your options all of the consequences to those options and what your own good is now that's why most modern economists would say the rational consumer is a myth okay this person just doesn't exist even when it talks about what is good for us it's hard to define very often in political speech when people run for office they give speeches and they say things like our country is sick vote for us will make it better and they use a medical analogy now there's a problem with that analogy that GK Chesterton very famously picked up on he said there's a big difference between medical science and our political and economic science in medical science the doctors often disagree about what is making you ill that make sense so you you go to one doctor he says it's this problem you're another doctor is this problem they disagree about the illness but the one thing doctors all agree on is what a healthy body looks like so the doctor may send you home from the hospital by necessity with one leg less they will never ever send you back from the hospital with one leg more in other words the doctors agree on the good this is what a healthy body looks like they disagree about the bad but in political science in economics science would seem very happy to agree on the bad something is wrong what we disagree on is what the solution should look like and the solution that one person proposes to another person is worse than the problem it seeks to solve and this is very often why we tear our eyes out each other's eyes out in politics it's not that we can't agree that something's wrong the fundamental problem is we can't agree what is right what does it mean to have the good life what does it mean to be fulfilled what does it mean to actually to actually be complete whole now Jesus Christ answered this question directly he was asked the question and he answered it the question that he gets asked comes up in Luke chapter 12 and in Luke chapter 12 verse 13 it says someone in the crowd said to Jesus teacher tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me now this is an amazing question and actually I'm preaching from Myles Tillman's Bible because it's more anointed than mine the guy comes and he says teacher tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me I'm not gonna go into all of this right now this is a cry for economic justice okay the question is obviously coming from a younger brother his problem is that the older brother according to the custom has inherited the bulk of the estate and I'd like to say as an older brother myself I believe this is a very reasonable and godly thing to happen so the younger brother comes and he says look you tell my brother to give me my share this is a cry for justice now I don't know if you were here for the morning but here's the problem very often we disguise the longings of our heart and we convert them into cries for justice the trouble is most of our pursuit of justice is no longer informed by the pursuit of love think about it globally how many causes for justice around the world right now whether it's framed in terms of politics economics or land how many of those political disputes are motivated by a love of justice to do the right thing and how many are driven by hatred and anger when you pursue justice through disappointment or anger it doesn't work even if you get what you wanted that's why in hosea chapter 5 verse 7 it says you have turned justice into bitterness and as a result all of your righteous fruit tastes like poison it's a very powerful image when justice is becomes bitter the fruit it produces is actually poisonous so someone comes to Jesus with a cry economic cry for justice ok give me this money now there's an assumption which the young guy is making and it's very simple if if I get what I want then my life will be complete and so often in the field of money love we assume that we get the combination right happiness is the result does that make sense we're looking for a combination that somehow makes us complete what Jesus Christ does in his answer is amazing Jesus looks at the guy and says man who made me a judge between you now he's actually quoting from the Old Testament this is the same question that comes up in the life of Moses and I won't go into all of that but it's quite abrupt Jesus takes them back to a point of authority and he says to the guy asking the question you've asked me a question who has given me this authority Jesus says has have you given it to me in which case would you listen to what I have to say has God given it to me in which case would you listen to what I have to say the guy has to ask the question first you know it's very easy to give advice that isn't wanted the next time someone asks you for advice you better ask them if they really actually want to hear what you have to say Jesus is taking him back to a point of authority then Jesus says take heed and beware of greed now that warning to beware of greed is fascinating it's very hard to resist something you cannot see one person put it like this they said it's hard to see the wall of your prison when the cell is made of glass it's hard to see the wall of your prison when the cell is made of glass sometimes we can live in effect in a glass prison because we can see through the wall we think we're free but actually we're trapped within it Jesus says beware of greed now why does the New Testament warn against greed more than any other sin because it does have you ever wondered that and the answer is we don't see it the walls have greed we do not see it's not like adultery okay no one commits adultery and then looks at the woman lying next to them go whoa you're not my wife okay you can see it I mean it's pretty obvious but when is the last time in a Bible group someone came to you and said my sin is greed you see we can see lust we can see all these other things but to see greed to recognize it it's very hard the the Greek word here is is is fascinating in if you have a King James translation it will say take heed of covetousness the the Greek word is a compound word it means beware of desires that cannot easily be satisfied some desires no matter how much you feed them are never fully satisfied and Jesus as you need to beware of unsociable desires desires which no matter how much you feed it it will never be enough then Jesus goes on to say something he says a man's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions and he told them this parable the ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop and he thought to himself what shall I do I have no place to store my crops and he said I know what I'll do I'll tear down my barns now bit bigger ones and there are store all my grain and I'll say to myself you have many plenty of goods laid up for many years take life easy eat drink and be merry now there's there's a play of words in this text which we don't always get in the translation because it's really fascinating let me start off by asking you a question is it right to be married or not now there's an interesting question I actually once asked this question in Oxford at a theological training institution to a group of people who've been ordained and I said I have a question for you is it right to desire your own happiness and there was silence in the room that tells you something three years of theological education they still don't know if they're meant to be happy or not now we hear that word marry and we interpret it negatively there may sense it's the context which decides its use this is the same word in Greek that is used by the father in the prodigal son when the father said but we had to celebrate we had to make merry for this son was lost and is found he was dead and is now alive so that this word itself is neutral does that make sense it's not speaking against the idea of merriment what gives it its moral context is the context the word itself is used in but the word itself can go either way so the Bible Luke the Gospel of Luke uses it positively and negatively so let's just back up and see what's been said here Jesus said there was a guy who had you know a reasonably sized business and then the dream came that every businessman lives hopes for he has one year in which the return on his investment is so enormous he can retire the the greek word is a man's fourth brought for many crops the the greek word there is from the from frost it comes from you freighter you frame it means it means to produce then you know to produce like a fruit to return and in greek if you take any greek word and you put the letters e you in front of it it makes it bigger so I'm not talking about brexit and the EU and there although the EU well that's currently getting smaller but up until now it's been getting bigger and bigger but when you put a EU in front of a word it expands it it makes it bigger so he takes the word to bring forth and they put EU in front of it does that make in other words this was a bumper return this was something more than could normally be expected so now the guys in primary problem is wealth management not wealth creation so how does he store it and then use it so it can be enjoyed over a long period of time and he says to himself jesus said you have many things laid up for many years I'll tear down my barns now the bigger ones and I'll say to myself eat drink and be merry now that word Mary is fascinating it comes from the the second part of the word is the word of Rome it means the diaphragm the first part of the word is the letters EU you what are those words do well they make the next word bigger how do you expand the diaphragm are there any singers here there must be at least one person who sings in a choir or something how do you expand the diaphragm yeah you okay so do you the word you thrown literally astir that's what's meant by that word that deep inhalation of satisfaction does that make sense I can finally say it's okay that's what the father said in Luke 15 we had to youth Rome we literally had to be big diaphragm people this is a moment where you go this is wonderful so you see the logic from the you frost from the abundance of things comes the you throne this abundance in life and God looks at him and says you fool now the normal Greek word for fool is the Greek word more wrong we translate it into the English word more wrong it means to be a more wrong to be stupid that is the word which is used to be foolish in most of the Bible this is a unique exception this is not the word used here the word used here is a p' thrown now the throne is the diaphragm when you put the Greek a the Greek alpha in front of any word it negates what comes after it you see what God is saying you who from the you frost the abundance of things comes as you've thrown this deep satisfaction in life you will end up a Frome you will end up with the opposite of what you hoped you would get so it's a very powerful image it's challenging the idea that once we have enough everything else automatically is the case now notice something here this is not talking about making money this is not talking about how you store money this is talking about whether you believe is going to be enough to deliver everything else you need in your life the Christian view of money is actually very positive we're told to steward and to give there are two different things gift that means you give up control when you've given your money it's gone there you have no control steward implies control so when you have stewardship over something you have control and your job is to multiply it the Bible talks about both so the Bible has no problem with the making of money the generation of money how we store money or how we use money the question is what do we think he can deliver in our hearts and the answer is if we put our trust there it's never going to be enough now the Bible teaches a similar parallel also when it comes to human relationship I am one of the reasons I love the Anglican Church is I don't know what happens in this church but if you read the wedding vows in the Anglican Church they're actually very profound if you look at the wedding vows all through history they're very profound now today we help we'll have this thing where people write their own wedding vows now there may be people here who wrote their own wedding vows so don't take this overly personally but I find it interesting when I'm at a wedding and they've written their wedding vows and one person looks at the other and they say you're my all in all you make me complete you make me whole without you I would have no reason to live the interesting thing is historically the church would have have seen those statements as potentially blasphemous because the only person those words you can speak to is God God can complete you God makes you whole without him there is no reason to live with him you have every reason to live if you put that trust in another person you're trying to make that person God in your to your heart and now you've not simply created an idol you've created an idol that will fail they will disappoint you they cannot fulfill that role it's impossible so you're setting yourself up for failure even before you've started in the context of marriage we find the fulfillment of love from him that make sense his love is shed abroad in our hearts by the power of his spirit and from us it overflows to other people now there's a completeness there so the Bible has these two parallels with both of them now here's then what I find really interesting as you go through this thing after God says you fool he says this very night your life will be demanded from you then who will get everything you prepared for yourself it's very difficult to truly live in light of eternity we look and we're pursuing things that we hope will fulfill us what we but what we often mistake in our life is we think we live in the hope of in unrealized dreams so the most of us think look once I finally get to that level then everything else by comparison makes them make sense now let me just try and unpack this a little bit because hopefully this will become key the research I referred to earlier yet the economic the economists are been doing what they basically say is this the way most of us live our life is we want something we live in desire of it and when we experience it our it goes up here are likely aware to excite it then we experience a drop in satisfaction and then we repeat the pattern of behavior okay so you buy the next phone the trouble is the next high is lower than the first high and then you go down again and then the second glow is lower than the first flow so then you repeat the pattern of behavior again through your consumption so now you do it a third time and a fourth time each time the high gets lower then I sense and the low gets lower so the overall curve goes down like that what that means then is if you want to get the same level of satisfaction in life you can't repeat the first behavior you have to do something which is more extreme to get the same level of satisfaction and then you have to do it a third time even more extreme even more action to get the same kind of hit if you talk to anyone who's got caught up in pornography they'll they'll describe that cycle for you the first thing that thrilled them wasn't enough the second time it had to be a bit more extreme and then a bit more extreme and then a bit more extreme you're pursuing an increasing level of extremity and you're making the treadmill go faster and faster and faster to get the same level of satisfaction what Jesus is trying to speak to in Luke 12 this is in one sense rephrasing what you read in Isaiah 55 in Isaiah 55 it says come to me why spend your money on what doesn't satisfy why spend your labor on that which is in gold come come to me and your soul will delight in the richest affair you may have heard this sometimes quoted across Christmastime or something like that again it's the same parallel structure God isn't questioning our desire for happiness he's saying look you're spending your time your energy on all of these things but they don't satisfy you you're spending your money on things which don't deliver in your life why do that why keep doing something which cannot meet the desire of your heart even if you got more than enough of it but and then God doesn't say this solution to this is to give up this desire for fulfillment give up the desire for happiness in your life that's not what he says rather he says you will find that desire met when you fully meet me when you fully come to me one of the challenges that we have in this world is that the more money we have or the more power that we have or the more popular that we are or the more beautiful that we are we tend to rely on ourselves and use God when we get stuck whereas what God wants us to do is to learn to rely on him and allow Him to use us for his purpose and this then has to be then be the ultimate thing that Jesus Christ is actually teaching here what he's saying to every single one of us is look if you're trying to rely on these things to bring fulfillment into your life it's gonna be bankrupt it doesn't matter and it will never you'll never hit that level and even if you one day do you think you've made it at that point was one gonna come a time when God will call make a given account ask you to give an account of yourself and it won't be yours anyway you need to find a way to live on this differently the youth thrown the satisfaction in life doesn't come from the you frost the abundance of possessions that's going to lead you to a Frome you're gonna have to find a different thing and it's actually found in the pursuit of God and the person of himself now let me give just one last thought and then I want to open this up for questions what does this mean therefore for a theology of work not only for often thought about it why do we work it's a very interesting question I have a feeling if you ask the average Malaysian why do you work they will say something like well I need a house I need clothing I've got you know four kids you know and now they've opened Starbucks in Malaysia I feel permanently impoverished it said so that's why we need to work yeah we work for food clothing and shelter do you remember that Jesus Christ got asked that question don't even remember that jesus said do not worry about what you will wear or about where you will sleep for the pagans run after these things so Jesus says the pagan answer as to why do we work is to get food clothing and shelter now that's that's very interesting when most Christians give the non-christian answer to a very basic question it tells you that something's gone wrong up here now Jesus's answer should make us all panic jesus said do not worry about all of these things okay this is what the pagans run after does that mean he wants us to be naked and homeless what Jesus says next is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible but never in context because the context Jesus is speaking to us about money work and why we do it can anyone remember what Jesus says next go on someone's repeating I can hear it but seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you what Jesus Christ saying Jesus is saying that the purpose of work isn't to get food clothing and shelter that's the byproduct of work jesus said you seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness the reason why God has put a calling on your life and sets you to work is that is where you're gonna learn about his rule and his ring he's put you in a place where you can seek Him first and if you seek him first and where he's placed you to work all these other things food clothing shelter are added to that's the way he's designed it in other words the goal of work for the Christian is something much greater than the byproducts of it and if you get the goal and the byproducts confused very often you take shortcuts in your life to get the byproduct and you forget about the goal altogether this is also what Jesus is trying to teach us in Luke 12 he's saying the same thing but in a different way he's not against any of these things the question is what can it actually bring into your heart in your life wherever he has placed you you seek him first and then when you've sought him first then you ask yourself what do I do with the byproducts I'm going to say one last thing and then we're going into Q&A and I haven't been asked to say this by the way just in case you're wondering it's possible actually maybe at one point Martha shared this with you cuz I remember sharing this had a huge impact on me when I first heard it the reason why it's very important to understand about the gold and the byproduct is it totally changes the way you even think about money I have the privilege of working with a guy called John Bechtel he is in his late 70s coming up for 80 you can speak fluent Cantonese and he's pretty good at Mandarin but he's a big heavy American guy I like him because when I sat next to him he makes me look like an athlete and but John's family was the last family to be forcibly expelled from China one of the last foreign missionaries they burned his father's library in public all of his books and they went to Hong Kong while John was in Hong Kong at a young age he noticed all these kids on the street and I won't even attempt to give you the Cantonese name I think it's like assumed Ocampa but I'm probably not even saying that right I probably said something potentially very rude I don't know but John saw all these kids and he began to ask himself the question we need to do something to help all of these kids well he wanted to set up a camp to do summer camps for the kids and he found three different sites to hold camps and every time he couldn't raise the money the third site he found was perfect it was a school it had already sporting facilities it was everything you would want a camp to be and about that time a guy called Billy Graham you may have heard of him came to Hong Kong and he had a guy traveling with him an American businessman called Walter malloon Walter went on a tour of Hong Kong with John Bechtel John Bechtel shared the vision for the camp and what he wanted to do and at the end of it this guy Walter said John that's the most amazing vision I will help you secure the vision I'm going to go back to America and raise all the money that you need while three months later John Bechtel got a letter through the post it said dear John I have some bad news for you things haven't gone as well as I hoped I've only received one donation for you to buy the camp and I enclose it with my letter and in the letter there's a second envelope addressed to him he opens it and there's a letter in there from a twelve-year-old girl he said Mr dear mr. bechtell I've heard about your vision and what you want to do in Hong Kong as I prayed about it I felt I wanted to send you my pocket money that's been given to me this month to buy ice cream I enclose it with my letter with much love Belinda Holmes and with the letter there was a $1 note and then after she signed her name's she said please use use my letter and money to buy the camp well John was so upset with this letter he almost put it in the bin but his wife said to him John I think you need to do what this girl has asked you you should use her money and her letter to buy the camp the school so he went to the school and he found the caretaker and he said to the caretaker I wish to make an offer to buy the building and the caretaker said what is it and he handed over the letter the guy read the letter and saw the dollar bill and said is that a joke and John said no and the guy threw the letter back at him John then got very legal on him and said if you don't pass on my offer to the board I'll report you to the government because by law you have to pass on every offer so the pea tech is said fine well here's the amazing thing the board the own that property read the letter and they were so moved by what they read they agreed to sell him that site for $1 now if John Bechtel was speaking to you at this point he'll put a picture behind him last time I saw that picture was on the screen about three times the size of this it's an aerial photograph of the largest stadium in Hong Kong he was taken six years ago they had a reunion for everyone who gave their life to Christ in that camp there were 80,000 people there 20 years later John Bechtel was telling their story in a church and after he'd finished telling this story a woman in her 30s came up to him and said mr. bechtell my name is Belinda Holmes and 20 years ago I was that 12 year old girl who sent you that $1 well John made the elders of the church go outside and bring everyone who hadn't left back into the building and he introduced them to the woman he'd been talking about in his sermon he suggested they take a collection to send her back to Hong Kong so she could see what her gift had done well apparently they raised enough money to send her her family and half the British army back to Hong Kong one dollar she gave what she had she put it into the hands of Christ and it's had the most incredible return for the kingdom when we get the goal of work and the byproducts of work confused we miss out on so much what God has for us God doesn't challenge us about how we think about how love and money operate in our life at a human level because he wants to take something away from us it's cuz there's so much more he has for us so what is it that he's speaking to you about what is the reason why you work what is the purpose of it and is it possible that we're looking to find satisfaction in something that was never designed to fully fulfill our heart that's what Christ has for us okay that's enough rambling from me I'm upfront about this so hopefully at least one or two things have been said that makes sense if the person next to is fallen asleep now is the time to wake them up and you may rebuke them for eating too much rice we're gonna have a time of qat I don't know how mussels I think miles has got a thing there are two microphones at the back you can ask me any question you want anything about what I've said something I haven't said do I moisturize any question you feel you want to ask me utterly okay and then we'll run with that until it's all about three o'clock does anyone have a question at this stage hi Michael first of all thank you so much for your your sermon in the morning it was incredibly moving and I think it gives us a lot to think about love but for now I have two questions I think this is leaning towards the apologetics side of things the first question is if God is all-knowing meaning that he knows past present and future and his omnipotent him so so he knew that Jesus is gonna die and rise again so what is it that he actually loses when he knew that he was gonna get Jesus back huh okay did you all hear the question the question was if God is all-knowing all-powerful sees everything and he knew that Jesus was going to die and come back to life what does he lose when he actually dies yes that the question is since that's a really good question okay who wants to ask a different question okay [Applause] look the question is brilliant let's make the question harder during the time of emperor Nero it was reported that when Christians were fed to be eaten by lions that those that were found that still had faces were smiling so here's the question when Jesus was crucified just before he was in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating blood and tears father if it's possible take this cup from me a few decades later Christians have been fed alive as martyrs to the Lions and they die with smiles on their faces does that mean they were braver than Jesus or maybe there was something wrong with the Christians they're like mentally they wanted the pain and so they're there in the arena they're looking at the Lions and they're going ooh Lions I've always wanted to be eaten alive by a lion God thank you for answering this prayer so why were they happy now this raises a really important question and it lies in the other part of your question if Jesus knew he was going to be raised to life again what's the big deal with dying look if you knew for sure I had the power to resurrect you to bring you back to life and I invited you on the stage and said do you mind if I shoot you if you know for sure that I can bring you back to life why not I mean that's a great story isn't it the next time someone's new boasting about the new house they bought you can say yes I was resurrected last week I mean that's like that's even better isn't it so so what's the problem now the reason why this is a really good question because it's connected directly into what we're talking about and I don't know if you've made that connection the simple truth is well let me ask you why do we say when we sin why do we do it let's not pretend that we don't do it why when we sin what do we think will happen to us what will it give us pleasure joy right okay nobody sins thinking this is gonna really hurt and make me miserable yeah when we sin we think I'm going to enjoy this and when we think about holiness the way it works is this you know some visiting speaker comes to your church gets you all excited you say God from now on I'm gonna live only for you and you do it for about two weeks and after two weeks you realize it's very hard and you're like gosh you know this whole holiness thing is pretty difficult and then you sort of say to God God look I deserve just a little bit of sin in my life right now okay for the last two weeks I've been doing everything for you and only about you and I'm just gonna take this little bit of sin for me you know like being on a diet and then you think you know I have been on the diet for two weeks just a few squares of chocolate it won't hurt anybody now what this reveals is we think about sin in an insufficiently serious way we equate sin with pleasure we assume when we're doing the things that we shouldn't do it will make us happier but jesus knew the truth there's a phrase in English we don't use it a lot anymore as I said a shame the phrases as miserable as sin it basically means to be utterly depressed and it's all an accident of language let me ask you another question and forgive me if this is too blunt let's supposing you're thinking of committing some kind of sexual sin before you commit it you live in the excitement of it then you have the moment of it shortly after that what's the next feeling you have how do you feel even better or worse you see the way sin entices us is it promises something that it can't deliver and actually the long-term effect of it is it not to simply lose a disappointment even less it leads to death and imprisonment so well here's the trouble when we think of experiencing sin we think pleasure when Jesus thought about experiencing thing he thinks death this kills everything so now let's come to the cross because the real pain of the cross isn't the physicality of it does that make sense it's not the physical pain he's about to go through when Jesus Christ goes to the cross he becomes sin for us he becomes a curse for us he takes our sin into himself and as Jesus Christ takes the sin of the world into himself what does he pray oh boy this feels really good I wish I didn't Dolch myself a little bit earlier what does he pray why have you forsaken me and Jesus Christ now experiences the single most painful thing you can possibly know in this world so painful to take sin into his life he's even praying father if it is possible take this cup from me but not my will but yours be done we have to totally rethink the way we think about sin and that's the price that Jesus Christ is ultimately paying on the cross that's the thing that he most terrifies him and that's the price he's willing to pay because you're right he knows he's gonna freely I lay my life down I'll pick it up again but there's something even bigger going on the way thin and traps all of us is it I say it's promising something it can't deliver it looks good from the outside it kills you from the inside and that's what Jesus was willing to do that's what when we talk about his death on the cross that's what we're talking about it's the most amazing thing the way to find a way to pursue God isn't to make yourself feel guilty that's not gonna work and look the way it tends to work is the God I'll live for you you're amazing I'm feeling very tempted I don't think I can say no I think I deserve this because something Bad's happened my life so I sin then all of a sudden you have the remorse I feel terrible and it feels so terrible you say to yourself God I'll never ever do this again okay and then you're back to where you start it but then you start feeling tempted again okay then you think I can't stop myself then you actually do what you're meant to do then you feel so guilty you think I'll never ever do that again and then you come back to where you are any of you familiar with this washing cycle the trouble is eventually it becomes meaningless does that make sense you go around so many times you think forget it nothing's changing it will kill you there is a way to see that cycle broken with Christ I don't have time to unpack all of it now but that's the reason why your question it ties in so beautifully what we're talking earlier it's the it's the depth to which God was willing to go to rescue us and we have to realize what we're messing with does that partly answer your question it's a very profound question you said you had to know by the way if you prefer to write your question down if you have a 100 US dollar bill write your question on the hill pass it up to the front and I'll read it I think you've covered the second question is more or less covered by your answer but the second question I had initially was if God was humane he was kind he was merciful could he think of a more humane way ha yeah to rescue us yes yeah you don't hear the question okay if God is all loving and kind why the cross why not some other way and I love this question it's really it's very very very profound have you ever read the book the cross of Christ by John Stott have any of you here read that book I thought if you haven't read the cross of Christ by John stop put up your hand don't be ashamed if you've never read it shame on you look there are only a few books I've read multiple times the cross of Christ I've read maybe I don't know how many times I've read it it's one of the most profound books you could possibly read and it asks again that question isn't there a better way let me just say this Jesus Christ came willingly into this world he knew what was before him he was willing to pay it even though he was willing he's praying Lord if there's some other way but you know this that tells you something that tells you something that it was willing but it wasn't easy and if there was another way I'm sure he would have taken it and it comes back to how seriousness how serious we think sinners again we think sin is a minor problem it's not a minor problem it kills us we were all created in the image of God we're like we were made a bit de meses in his image that means when we sin we don't just simply sin against God we also sin against our own highest welfare when we damage and destroy ourselves sin isn't just a simple thing which needs to be forgiven it brings death into this world that needs to be reversed and Christ's cross and resurrection speak straight to that I unpack it even more for you but up by that book I'm not on commission okay Uncle John's now gone to be with the Lord but you should read his book oh boy now the professionals are coming out to ask me questions that they didn't say was gonna be that hard hey Michael thank you so much for an amazing talk I love the way that you look to that play on words in the Greek a throne you frame and and I enjoyed following it myself and I look the way that you've just commended to everyone doing some reading yeah I think everyone needs to do some more reading and I'm so encouraged by how many questions and how many people are here and and yet you said you'd had the experience and I've had it myself of and asking a bunch of people studying theology what happiness is and no one knowing and it reminded me of the quote by the great Carl Bart he who has no joy is no theologian and and you've got that giant I see it and you're a theologian and I just wonder how you would encourage this group of people here to to do that hard work of theology that brings joy of going deeper and finding that you know someone once said someone was at the trouble with a lot of theologians is they go down deeper stay down longer and come up murkier than anybody else and and that is there's a sad reality in that but but let me put it in a slightly different way which hopefully the trouble with all forms of study and relationship as they take commitment and that's true for love as well I remember before I got married I heard my father-in-law preaching he was a great preacher and father and he gave the illustration he said I love my wife more now than I did when he first when I first got married and I remember listening to that as a young man thinking what a load of rubbish and I can also remember thinking there must be something wrong with you I said because I said the feeling I have for an now is so intense so powerful you're this burning longing I have to be with her is so all-encompassing there can't be anything bigger than that so there's clearly something wrong with you you married someone you weren't that excited about it and then slowly over the years you've slowly warmed up and you're closing in on where where I am you know what's the matter with you well now I I said I'll be celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary this year my wife I'm trying to currently plan what to do with her to mark the occasion and I can tell you now I love her more now then I possibly could have known 25 years ago because the commitment takes you deeper and that's true about everything if you fall in love with God and you take that commitment seriously so you want to learn and study and appreciate the more you fall more in love with them not less it fuels your passion if you get married to someone you spend more time you talk to them you learn about and find out about them you understand them you know how you work together your love grows that's why so many human hearts are empty there's an absence of commitment which means that they never enter into the depth of that reality so we have to rediscover the joy of that kind of commitment and it had it I'll just give one other example a couple of years ago I was in London and I was in a department store and I got talking to this guy who was buying something in front of me and I could tell he was American and so I just said oh we're in America you from he said I'm from LA and I said what are you doing here he said I'm here on holiday with my wife and I said oh where is she and he said how she loves the theater but I hate the theater he said so she's watching some matinee and when it's finished we're going to go out for dinner and I said well actually bizarrely I'm waiting for my wife to come down to London I'm gonna be speaking that actually I'm speaking to HDB the next morning in London and my wife and kids were coming down was staying in the hotel that night to go first thing in the morning to the church so I said so I said so I then got talking to him and I just said what do you do and he said I used to run the LAPD hey the police department in LA and I said I know exactly what you do because I've watched all the movies that he responded like you responded he started laughing and we sat down and sided talkie then and a few hours earlier I'd been having lunch with the general and I said to this general in the army I said you know when I was 15 I knew what I wanted to do with my life now God changed it but I wanted to be a lawyer and I was working hard and I was committed to achieving it I said forget about being 25 I now meet 35 year olds and they're not committed to anything they change their work job every two years they're drifting through life how do you breathe leadership in the absence of commitment and the general sat back in his chair and he said this is the number one problem we have in the army he said I was in charge of office selection and training for all Armed Services all the different branches of the armed services for the UK and this was our number one problem we have a real problem finding offices today and so I told the story to this guy that I just met and I said to him how would you answer that question I asked him the same question how do you breed leadership in the absence of commitment and he smiled at me and he said well for the last five years of my life I was in charge of officer training for the LAPD he says and this was our number one problem he said we flew in motivational speakers we flew in experts we flew in all kinds of people too reverse that and we couldn't do it this is when I left and retired the problem we had is people didn't respect the eldership at the leadership above them because there was no commitment there look in the absence of real commitment you're going to miss out on so much leadership capacity relationship understanding and when you're committed and you put yourself through that you don't end up less excited you end up more that's them and it thrills you and it's the most amazing thing to see and so you know I'll commend you I don't know how the Bible school program here works is it available to anyone will have to be pursuing ordination everybody is look the more you study this the more amazing it is if this is God's Word the most amazing things are in here I probably need to wrap up the formal part of this let me give one final story which is true I have a great privilege of working with a guy called Professor John Lennox in Oxford and he's a very cuddly man when he speaks he's so warm and gentle you want to go up and just give him a hug because he is so friendly and at the University in Oxford there's a program run through the side Business School for world leaders and I can't remember if it's 50,000 pounds or 80,000 pounds for five weeks but either way is a lot of money so it's largely attended by military dictators former heads of you know various countries and you know and so on and John was invited to go and do something with them and so what he said to them was he said I'm going to give you just one lecture and what I'm going to do is we're going to look at an ancient piece of literature and we're going to learn together what does it teach about leadership and he opened the Book of Daniel from the Bible and they got them to read it now when you're charging let's say 80,000 pounds for a five-week course you get feedback on every lecture so every student was asked to give their feedback on every single aspect of the course for three or four years in the row the single highest rated added value component of the entire program was the Bible study that John Lennox would lead with them out of the book of Daniel and there weren't any Christians in that room there are some amazing things in here when you study at a new plummets depths you should be able to take someone the greatest leaders in the world put them in the room say this is what is taught in here and have all of them go Wow some of you God might even be calling to appear before kings prime ministers and rulers the question is if he ever gave you that opportunity what would you say to them and it's found in here so if you haven't thought about doing that Bible school or going deeper let me let me encourage you the most profound insight you could bring into the boardroom into the political sphere to society at large or even your family is in here take the time to go deep in here you will never ever regret it you've listened very well you all deserve a cookie thank you for having me [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Applause] you well as

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Length: 61min 58sec (3718 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 29 2019