Plants or People - Shane Willard

so that's me for this morning which means that i now get to hand over to someone who's going to bring a very deep word for us this morning i can tell we had him in the first service and it was really great so it's my pleasure to announce shane willard i'll speak for this morning [Applause] thank you everybody all right you can be seated oh it's good to be here with you if you're like following actual bible jonah chapter four we're going to get there in just a second now i i'm going to be reading from the end of a book which is inappropriate so i have to sort of catch everybody up to what that book's talking about and um we'll do that and just like it's always good to be with here with my my presence church family and um and and just always enjoy uh my time uh with you if this is the first time you've ever seen me this is all i do i travel around and speak i've had the incredible privilege of being a mentor by a pastor who just happens to have his rabbi training as well so my stuff sort of comes from that bit i also have a master's degree in clinical psychology so i am qualified to switch your head out so careful what you say to me i see through it all trust me all right so on your way out today um we have my team out there robin and shona and bronya they'll be out there to help you we've we got our usbs with our new stuff from the last couple years i've got a brand new series on the book of revelation uh the reason is because i got so embarrassed by this oh my goodness i was so embarrassed by the stuff i've seen i thought oh please help us god so i i decided instead of arguing with people on the internet because that's stupid um it's just teach it and you know there you go uh also the acc in uh in queensland asked me to do a christology course uh which which my friend chris mulher and dustin bell helped me film and so that's out there now along with some other stuff and the reason we do all that is because um we we make money from it and we live with a conviction that we're not simply called to go to heaven when we die we're called to bring heaven to every place we see hell here so a hundred percent of what we make from that we give to the poor and the afflicted uh we have three children's homes in china that look after children with mental disabilities uh two and henyang one in chiang shia we also have a rescue home in cape town that gets girls out of the sex industry off drugs high school educated and job trained so we can do our part to break the cycle of poverty in the cape town flats right so um you could uh you could pick those things up out there also if you're familiar with me then this won't be news to you but if you're not this will be and so what i do anytime i'm at a place i save the most special message for the for the night message so that i can invite people in the morning back all right so i'd like to invite you back it's a it's a five o'clock start right so now i tell you why that's good news right so five o'clock requires almost no faith um if you're over 40 right because because if you're here and you're over 40 that means that we don't do things outside after seven right right i'm 45 i get it right we never do we never do things outside after seven ever like i travel the world sometimes people say hey you want to go to a movie or something i'm like what time does it start they're like 7 45 i'm like am i an animal are you like what are you talking about if you're if you're over if you're not over 40 you don't understand it the day you turn 40 you'll get it what happens is is is the day you turn 40 you start calculating forward as to when you're gonna be able to go to bed right and so if so church starts at six oh god if church starts at six it takes a big faith because if there's any move of god at all or anything this could push you way past eight before you actually get home master chef all that so here's the good thing with five o'clock right is the good day with five o'clock because it requires no faith uh you you'll we'll be done at i don't know 6 20 or something and and i promise you what i'm gonna bring tonight if we capture it and apply it it will change your life if it doesn't i'll pay you back whatever they charge you to come right that's fine too so there's no risk no risk in this at all right so come on back tonight at five o'clock so i want to talk to you about how the book of jonah now any time any time you open the bible you gotta ask two questions one what happened two more importantly what's happening in me right now because of what happened so let's define some terms because words matter less than how we picture words working all right so if i say christian right a christian is not someone who believes in jesus demons believe in jesus that doesn't that's not the thing christians are not people who believe in jesus christians are people who allow jesus to fundamentally shape the way they see their whole world and that's two different things so a christian community is one that endeavors to see the world how jesus saw the world to see god how jesus saw god and to apply scripture how jesus applied scripture right so so in doing that christianity is an endeavor to of a certain it's a different sort of being in the world in other words it's it's a it's it's a it's a beacon christians should never ever be known for we believe in jesus they should be known for we behave like jesus would have behaved in our world right christians should never ever be known for endeavoring to go somewhere else rather we should be endeavoring to bring heaven to every place we see hell here right so this is this is a fundamentally different way of of being in the world and i want to look at a jesus story i want to look at a jonah story and i'm going to start by reading the end of the book so i can't do that so i'm going to summarize the entire book of jonah in five minutes you're going to have to pay very close attention okay ready here we go okay so there's this guy named jonah he's the son of amitai uh he was called by god to preach to nineveh it's a pretty quick line in the book but it's loaded with meaning nineveh was this was the capital city of a place called the assyrian empire they were ruling the entire known world at the time and they were lunatics okay so we're more familiar with the roman empire because the roman empire was when jesus was living and when you when you crossed the roman empire they crucified you what that means is they beat you 80 to death and then they nail you to a stick until you suffocate that's how the romans did it the assyrians if you cross them they did not crucify you the romans invented that the assyrians peeled you what they did is they tied you up in front of everybody and they had tools that they had developed to torture people while keeping them awake by skinning them alive there was one particular assyrian king named tiglath polizer now let's give some mercy to tig laugh polizer if your mom named you tiglath you would have issues too like who does that to somebody oh he's beautiful he looks like a tig lath right so tiglath tiglath was a particular uh a particular lunatic he had he he had mastered the art of skinning people alive now that's easy for me to say but i want you to think about that for a second how do you master the art of anything you practice a lot is that who was it stephen pinker said uh to to master any sort of activity requires 10 000 repetitions which means he had 10 000 tries and failed before he mastered the art of this is what he would do of knowing just where to cut on someone's face and just how deep to cut so that they didn't die so that you could peel their face off while leaving them alive as an example so if you've ever if you've ever bought into some of these on some of this online stupidity about how oh you believe how bad the world is and all the governments are corrupt okay look i get it that god's got a ways to go but it's not tig lath policer okay tiglath polizer ruled the entire world with this iron fist and he peeled people's faces off who crossed him there's one story from assyrian history about a small farming town i think in australian terms think pittsworth there's a small farming or dolby or uh or gunda windy or chinch i'm getting closer now all right so so so there was a small farming community and uh rumor had it this farmer was was speaking ill of of the empire and so word got back to god pleaser so take life pleaser didn't he he's not gonna investigate this he he shows up at the small farming community with the army he finds the farmer he lines his six kids up and he murders the six kids in front of the farmer and then he ordered his military to rape his wife to death and then immediately after that he put the guy's eyes out so that the last thing he saw was his children and wife being brutally uh murdered he then cut the man's ears off cut his nose off and peeled his face back and left him alive as an example this is what happens when you mess with us all right so this was the assyrian empire so god calls jonah to preach to these people right now jonah goes nah no i'm not going to do that i'm not going to go not going to go to nineveh and preach because i'm partial to keeping my face it's like not going to not going to happen and so he he runs and he gets on a boat and it just so happens that he gets on a boat with merchants who care about people more than profit which is unbelievable storm comes up he says hey just throw me overboard we're gonna throw you overboard we're gonna throw our merchandise overboard why because people matter more than prophets and so there's a there's a real confronting sort of thing in the story that the pagan sailors actually had more of a godly outlook on humanity than god's prophet did so anyway so there's this whole thing so he ends up he ends up in the open ocean and of course he's gonna drown it just so happens there's a fish that's there right and so the fish saves them from drowning and you know i was taught when i was a kid that the fish was god's judgment so like my sunday school teacher was like hey if you don't do what god says you could end up being swallowed right which okay there's a it's a horrible application uh to what the story is because in the story the fish is not god's judgment at all the fish is god's salvation because and jonah calls the fish his salvation why because if you're going to drown and there just happens to be a fish there that's called salvation and so the entirety of chapter two is jonah on his own in the belly of the fish you don't really know what's going on except for jonah tells you and evidently what he does is he prays ten perfect prayers from the book of psalms which okay so he'd praise these ten perfect prayers and then god evidently tells the fish to throw up and the fish throws up but not in the open ocean where he's gonna drown anyway the fish throws up happens to be really close to dry land where he can just walk up and it happens to be close to the road that he needs to go to uh you guessed it none of us so jonah sort of acquiesces to the whole thing but but in in a way he does in a way doesn't he goes fine i'll preach to nineveh he goes to nineveh and he preaches the worst sermon ever um it's only five words in hebrew it's eight words in english here's what he says 40 days from now you're going to be destroyed see you later right horrible sermon um but it backfires and it works uh and it's it says that everybody in nineveh repented including the king and even the animals fasted which was quite something and it's at this point in the story that you you start to learn why the rabbis say jonah is in the bible to teach us what not to be um because jonah tells on himself and he says i knew it i knew you were a compassionate gracious slow to anger abounding in love and forgiveness god i knew you were not going to destroy the ninevite so what you find in the story is that jonah didn't want to preach to nineveh not because he didn't want to be skinned because he didn't want god to be nice to his enemies and so what happened was is jonas happened to learn that god is not nearly as interested in getting your enemies as you are and god is not nearly as interested in getting you as your enemies are god loves people just because they're people see in jonah's world people who skin people alive are evil they're anti-god and god wants to destroy them what you find in this story is that god is not intent on destroying anybody he is endlessly eternally consenting in his mercy asking people to mutually consent back which leaves me with all kinds of questions about the people we think are anti-god have you ever seen a christian on the internet label someone as anti-god were they as bad as the ninevites i think not i we even get really stupid like we'll talk about just people who annoy us as anti-god what we really mean is you annoy me but instead of owning it like you annoy me we go no no no you annoy god because god is like me right we we do this we we say like i would say to you that sally in accounting as annoying as she might be she's not tig lath pleaser right and so we tend to escape go together we say god jesus bible scripture truth but what we mean is us with a giant megaphone that i'm so like god that if i don't like something then god must be like some so if you're not in agreement with me you're not disagreeing with me you're disagreeing with god keep it take it up with god and then we do it in the most innocuous things like song choice like people say oh man god wasn't in that song today god wasn't in the song just listen just just say it like you mean it i don't like the song right it's okay no seriously isn't that okay and i would fundamentally respect you more if you just said i do not prefer that song versus oh god wasn't in that right i well what we find in this story is that it is in us to scapegoat people not like us and then label them anti-god and jonah is having to deal with god wants to be nice to people he considers as evil now you're caught up with the story uh if you're a linear learner though you got lost so so i did this for you and bring that first slide up for me if you don't mind what we learned from this story is that when we run from god we run to the strangest places that you never when god consents in love and humbly waits for our mutual consent when we non-consent to god's consent we end up not where we want to be it never works out that well like i i used to i used to be a counselor and um i remember this this one this this poor girl i've told this story all over the world because she just it sticks in my mind she's right she's probably 18 years old and she had a boyfriend that was toxic and quite frankly horrible and of course her loving parents didn't approve of the boy because he was toxic and sort of dumb and quite frankly horrible and so um and so they said you look we don't approve of this and she of course goes into a state of rebellion right and so she comes and sees me and this is what she says to me she says shane i'm just sick of it i'm tired of my dad telling me what to do i'm tired of my mom telling me what to do i'm tired of god telling me what to do i'm tired of you telling me what to do i'm going to show all of you and i'm going to go get married and i thought to myself well hang on so your solution to being tired of being told what to do is to enter into an institution designed to have someone else tell you what to do now how many of you know that doesn't work out that well right and okay she did get married a couple years later it blew up divorced all that we helped her through it and she's i and and i can i know her she's doing great now okay so the story ends well but when we run from god we run the it just never works out right we also learn in this story that god is generous with his grace no matter how far jonah runs god is always out in front of him consenting again that at no point in the story is god getting jonah or god getting the ninevites he's out in front of all of them essentially saying you you want you are you done are you tired of yourself like are you ready let's say it this way next slide um that what we learn is that god wants to get us back without paying us back so in other words the the the i love the way the first church said this the first church said that the entirety of the bible can be read in the prodigal son story and and it's so true in other words pick any passage in judges or any passage in first chronicles or any passage anywhere and you you're somewhere in that story you're you're either non-consenting to god's consent and then ending up ruining your life in the pig pen only for people to think god's mad at you but god is actually looking for you to come back without any payment at all all the consequences are your own doing you get to the end of your own consequences i love the way the first church the first century church said it they said the wrath of god is a metaphor for the self-inflicted consequences of non-consent to consent that is beautiful so you get tired of the self-inflated consequences of non-consent of consent and then you come back only to be welcomed by god without any punitive payment that god wants to get us back without ever paying us back we also learned that great moves of god start with a genuine revelation of the love of god for us and them that you can't want mercy for yourself and justice for everybody else here's a guy that did nothing right and god still saved his life and he didn't learn from that to be kind to other people now the book of jonah ends with this odd parabolic object lesson around a plant and i want us to find ourself in this story here's what happens next slide so jonah went out and said this is jonah chapter four verse five this is the very end of the story so jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city and there he made himself a shelter sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city in other words he's still hoping god will destroy people he doesn't like then the lord god provided a vine and made a group over jonah to give him shade for his head to ease his discomfort and jonah was very happy about the vine if you're a notetaker that's the key phrase he was happy about the vine but but it dawned the next day god provides a worm and it chewed the vine so it withered and when the sun rose god then provided a scorching east wind and sun blazed on jonah's heads and he grew faint he wanted to die and he said it'd be better for me to die than to live so jonah's now suicidal he's really he's having he's having some real issues here but god said to jonah this is a rhetorical question do you have any right to be angry about the vine the i the obvious answer is no i didn't have anything to do with it it wasn't here two days ago uh i actually have no right but jonah have you ever had somebody not pick up the vibe in the room you know right so jonah oh no so yeah say he says it's sprang up overnight do you have any anger about the divine i do he said i'm angry enough to die right jonah's not getting it but the lord said well you've been very concerned about this vine though you did not tend it or make it grow it just sprang up overnight and died overnight but nineveh is more than 120 000 people who cannot tell the right hand from the left many cattle as well should i not be concerned about that great city the end that's how the book of jonah ends with a question about whether we prioritize our plants or people it's about a question about priorities it's not about a question of right or wrong it's a question of priorities prejudices not under wanting mercy for ourselves and justice for everybody else god love me god get them that doesn't work now if you're a linear thinker i did this for you next time what we learn is we can run from god but we can't outrun him we learn that god wants to get us all back without ever paying us back but here's where i wanted to land this morning and that is this what we learn is that we can surrender to god's moral will for our lives and still miss god's redemptive plan for the whole world what we find in this story is that jonah finally sort of surrenders to god's personal will for jonah's personal life and even in that full surrender to god's will for him jonah still was disconnected from what god was up to and everybody else and that's where the church never needs to be a group of people surrendered to god's personal plan for my personal life while losing sight of what god is up to with everybody else now we see this illustrated really well in a jesus story so there's the story of jesus and an encounter in the book of mark outside of a place called jericho jericho was like the rich place right that's where the roman sympathizers lived and said there's this encounter between jesus and um and a vulnerable person a beggar a sick person a blind person um this is about how jesus wants his followers to engage the most vulnerable and it's very very confronting watch what happens next slide then they came to jericho is jesus and his disciples together with a large crowd stop who are the characters in this story jesus his disciples and people following jesus there's no pagan there's no roman pagans in this story it's jesus his disciples and people following jesus let's call these people christians the church christ followers now watch what happens as jesus said his disciples together a large crowd was leaving the city a blind man named bartimaeus that's the son of timmius was sitting by the roadside begging and when he heard that it was jesus of nazareth he began to shout jesus son of david have mercy on me it's another message for another time why he called him son of david when his dad's name is joseph but nonetheless keep going next slide and many rebuked him hold on who are the only people there disciples of jesus so here's what's happening in the story followers of jesus are rebuking the marginalized the vulnerable the beggar in their own pursuit of jesus a group of people who have fully surrendered to god's moral will for them but yet could somehow disconnect god's will for them with god's love for everybody that that really doesn't apply to us at all does it you wouldn't know of a group of people who are refusing to act in the best interest of the vulnerable because it violates their personal liberty would you like anybody like that who who would in the name of jesus express freedom in christ by declaring their right not to do things that are clearly in the best interest not of them but of the most vulnerable we wouldn't know anybody like that we wouldn't have had to deal with any of that in the last few months would we we wouldn't have had to deal with questions like why do i need to wear a mask if i get it i won't get that sick yeah but here's the thing one you don't know that that's one one of my good friends died this week in detroit michigan of covet he was 50 years old he got it and died in 48 hours okay so you don't and he didn't have any other comorbidity all right so one you don't know that number two it is statistically improbable that there's not a few people in this room right now who have children with i don't know some sort of lung disorder or heart disorder and if they get it they will die and so christians should never be the people pounding their chest going we are free without understanding that liberty in christ is best expressed and experienced when submitted to the higher ethic of love by considering the most vulnerable person in our communities first okay all right maybe i'm not maybe i'm maybe i'm not making this clear okay so um how we think of and treat the most vulnerable is critical to not believing in jesus it's critical to seeing the world how jesus saw the world seeing god how jesus saw god go read matthew 25 and ask yourself how important is our treatment of the vulnerable gonna be when we face jesus one day and the answer is very important and what's happening in this story my god i i realized that i i'm if i can just make a one degree difference here it's a big difference may we at least the people in this room and the people watching may we never use jesus's name to rationalize stepping over these people were stepping over the most vulnerable in their own pursuit of jesus if we ever rationalize thinking about the most vulnerable that way while then saying i in other words if you can drop on your knees in worship and treat the most vulnerable in a way that puts them at risk you have missed the entire point of jesus because what's happening in this story is followers of jesus are rebuking the beggar in their own pursuit of jesus and they fail to miss the irony in that but he shouted all the more jesus son of david have mercy and jesus stopped and said call him in other words how many times do i have to say you are about me but i am about him right this is the problem when people go i'm just about jesus i'm just all about jesus okay i get it but jesus is all about that guy let's put some language around this next slide um are we overlooking the beggar in our own pursuit of jesus or maybe another way to say it is are we pursuing god's will for us while ignoring his will for the rest of the world because maybe pursuing jesus and loving our world is the same thing just one quick 15 second thought for the bible nerds okay if you're a bible nerd here's 15 seconds of awesome for you if you're not hang with me for 15 seconds i'll get off a bible nerd them in a second all right i can read greek i know nerd alert okay i can read greek and in greek there's something called first attributive position what first attributed position means grammatically is that the first condition and the second condition are the same thing so when you use and in first attributed position this and that the this and that are the same thing so when jesus said here's the fulfillment of all scripture which by the way jesus never called his followers to be right about one verse he called his followers to fulfill scripture by doing unto others as you would have them do unto you now jesus said love the lord your god with all your heart soul mind and strength and the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself in greek that's in first attributed position which means to jesus the way jesus saw the world the way jesus supplied scripture and the way jesus saw god loving god and loving your neighbor is the same thing in other words you can't be humble before god and harsh with people can't do it can't do it you can't love hey and by the way there's this great book gosh you should read it it's awesome what's that what's the name of first john it's this book the entire book is dedicated to that concept that if you say you love god and you do not love your neighbor you are a liar that is first john in one sentence which leads me back to jonah for us to wrestle for a second next slide how does the book of jonah end the book of jonah ends with a question and that question is this jonah there are people in there should i not love them because they're people they're evil i know but they're people but they're anti-god yes sort of but they're people i i love them and he leaves it with jonah he doesn't tell jonah what to believe he just says they're people yeah but yeah they're people yeah i know they're they're should i just love them because they're people is that okay with you considering i made all this i get to decide who i reach out to right what is the first and only description of jonah being happy this is so remember i told you 20 minutes ago and jonah was very happy about the vine that is the only time in the whole story that jonah says he's happy think about what a horrible existence that would be how many opportunities does jonah have to be happy lot and jonah was called by god and he was happy to be called by god no and jonah disobeyed god and god didn't punish him for it as a matter of fact god reached out to him in the middle of all that and he was happy about that and out of all the boats he could have chosen to get on he got on a boat with merchants who cared about people more than profits boy he was happy to be on a boat with a nice group of people like that and even though he got thrown overboard anyway instead of drowning there happened to be a fish boy i'm very happy that a fish was here to save my sorry rear end even though i'm doing the exact opposite thing i'm supposed to be doing nope very happy about the fish no no no and then god told the fish to throw up man jonah was so happy god told the fish to throw up i got to tell you man that's that was that was horrible down there i'm so glad the fish threw up man so happy god told the fish to throw up nope not happy about that oh and the fish didn't throw up in the middle of the open ocean where he'll drown anyway he threw up next to dry land he could just walk up there boy i was so happy that he threw up on dry land and he just happened to throw up on dry land next to the road i needed to get on so i didn't have to journey further than necessary i'm so happy he threw me up here ha-ha the only time jonah is happy is sitting by himself in his own comfort hoping god destroys people he doesn't like what is wrong with jonah do you know anybody like that did you shave with that person this morning do you know um yeah you shave in a mirror i'm talking about yourself they're sorry what's he talking about who shaves with who right um who'd you shave with that's disgusting [Music] dad going it man as the great theologian pink says it i'm a hazard to myself don't let me get me i'm my own worst enemy come on now how many pink references you gonna hear in a sermon that fits do you know anybody starting with ourselves who actually sit in our own pleasure and would be secretively celebratory if somebody we thought was evil went through something bad you know anybody like that we know anybody that sits in comfort underneath our own plants secretly hoping god gets them someone that was saved from open ocean drowning has still not learned that you can surrender to god's moral will for you while missing the point for everybody else what joan is doing at the only time in the whole story that he's happy is he's sitting in his own comfort hoping god gets people that he thinks is evil may we never may we identify that part in all of us and eradicate it from our life let's put some more language around this next slide god says you care about a plant i care about people you're happy when your plant lives and you're angry when it dies i'm happy when people live and angry when people die jonah how you feel about your plant is how i feel about people as annoyed as you got when your plant died that's how annoyed i am when people die as happy as you are when your plant lived that's how happy i am when people live jonah how you feel about your plant is exactly how i feel about people which leads me to this we all woke up this morning in australia a top five greatest nation on the earth a nation of motor cars paved roads stores that pre-packaged food for us clean water in our taps machines that do washing other machines that do drying world-class healthcare right down the road and it's largely free or at least affordable no one in this room right now is terrified of going bankrupt if you get sick why because this is australia and everybody in this room right now is either an australian citizen a permanent resident or you're breaking the law and here's the thing here's the problem with plants the problem with plants is there's nothing wrong with them who gave jonah his plant god did who gave jonah his comfort god did there's nothing wrong with the plant the problem with the plant is that plants are temporary and people are permanent and so when it's when we prioritize our temporary pleasure at the expense of losing sight of god's love for people australia is full of plants is it not in nimbin i think it's legal australia's full of everybody realize i am being metaphorical here i'm talking about things that temporary i'll give you example this is you want something awesome about australia this is so this is one of the greatest things about australia i gotta be honest when i hear australians complain about australia let me be blunt where are you gonna go like if you can't make it here bro seriously where are you gonna go let me tell you one of my favorite things about australia on my australian phone i have an app called ko now if you've never heard of this this is some awesome stuff hey so ko in full hd anywhere in australia allows me to watch live american sport anywhere it is awesome hey no no no i mean whatever you're thinking is next level awesome here's the thing right i found out a couple weeks ago ko can be temporary here's what happened i realized that the heart of australia is the rule areas so since the beginning i have told rule pastors if you're willing to put on a meeting in a way i can do i will come out and bless you there's no demands there's no because some of these guys are giving their life working two jobs beside and if i show up like if you if you show up in the middle of the outback on a tuesday night all you have to do is be better than nothing and people turn up right and so right because if you sleep in and drink cokes or you two can one day look like this i was speaking in a place called ganda and gained as elton sort of in the middle of nowhere and then the next night i was speaking in king arroy and i had a day meeting in a place called morgan so in the morning i had to drive from ganda to murgan which is supposedly the main road do you know out of 100ks how many k's has data signal on that road none i think there are skeletons everywhere out there because if i broke down out there who you gonna call and there was a big game on there was a big game on i was and i thought i'm gonna break this right up by listening to my big game and then the data signal i got three k's out of ganda and no signal and i was very angry about my plant dying god says hey how you feel about your data signal have you ever been somewhere and your phone lost its signal how irritated do you get and what do you do you turn it off turn it back on and that's all you know to do if that doesn't work we're doomed right god says hey how you feel about your data signal is how i feel about people as frustrated as you get when it goes away that's how frustrated i get when people don't get it hey you know what in in your house in everybody's house in here i'm assuming there's wi-fi wi-fi is awesome it makes netflix work it's awesome netflix is awesome and now look there's some flaws on netflix but 400 years ago friday night entertainment was watching the disembowelment of the village betrayer netflix is better do you remember do you remember the last time your wi-fi went out and how does that feel you realize all of a sudden that literally everything is in some people their thermostats their locks for their doors are connected to their web what do you what do you do when the wi-fi goes out and the only thing most people know to do is what unplug it wait 10 seconds and plug it back in and if it works great but if it doesn't what do you have to do you have to call telstra oh my goodness flipping telstra all right you have to sit on hold and as frustrating as anything in the last in the last six months i would say robin has sat on hold with qantas 50 hours 50 hours of someone's life on hold you can't get back because they keep changing the rules on me in the middle of the thing and it's frustrating you know what god says god says as frustrated as you get about your wi-fi that's how i feel when people are hurting themselves um now great sermons are not meant to be agreed with or disagreed with they're meant to be wrestled with i don't care if you agree or disagree that doesn't matter what matters is are you willing to think it through so so let's let's wrestle a bit next slide um how do we actually think about our enemies like jesus called us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us so that we'll be children of our father in heaven the first description that jesus gives of what a child of god looks like is someone who loves their enemies like what hell do we think about our enemies and i mean get past sally in accounting is a bit pedantic i mean the people we the people that disagree with us politically do we scapegoat them in the name of jesus what we've missed the whole point of jesus then are we still using them thinkers let's say this way are we acting for temporary pursuit or for permanent progress are we living for our plants or for people and here's the thing here's the prayer really is may we have the grace to enjoy our plants without feeling guilty but the irresistible urge to never prioritize plants before people like enjoy the plants but keep people first because loving god and loving people same thing is there any place we've forgotten our fish it's very important every now and then to remember our story of unconsent and how we ruined ourself and how god did not pay us back but was with us the whole way trying to get us back without paying us back um let's say it uh this way next time do we believe or do we really care it's one thing to believe in jesus it's a whole nother thing to actually care about the things jesus cares about may we never be the people who step over the vulnerable in the name of jesus i realized that you're going to forget 96 of everything i say by wednesday unless you re-watch this over and over and over again so um but one way i can get you to remember something is by just summarizing it in one sentence so here's the sentence i want you to take with you plant or people plant are people and may we always be the people who don't just believe in jesus but see the world how jesus saw the world may we never use our liberty in christ in a way that justifies treating the most vulnerable less than the most important oh my goodness may we never use jesus's name as a rationalization to treat the most vulnerable the least important because to jesus the most vulnerable are the most important may we be people who get just as annoyed at that as we do happen to call telstra and that's pretty annoying may we prioritize people instead of plants so lord give us the grace to enjoy our plants but never at the expense of people jesus would you teach us to love who you love and treat our world see god and apply scripture how you saw the world saw god and applied scripture i hope jesus got bigger the cross works better the resurrection of central scriptures got bigger not smaller may you take a second and wrestle with what plant needs to be replaced with a person grace and peace [Applause]

Channel: Presence Church AU

Views: 218

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: p8PanRES1P0

Length: 44min 56sec (2696 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 14 2021