The Great Realisation // Ty Gibson

hey everybody welcome to storyline Church online so glad that you're joining us for this event we are eager to break in to some key concepts from the Bible as we spend this time together but I want to encourage you to track with the comments sections in the chat box and tell us where you're from if you have a prayer request there's a way that you can share that prayer request with us as well because we'd like to pray for you whatever you're going through wherever you are in the world we want to invite you and encourage you to communicate with us because we're here right now for you at this time well I don't know if you've noticed this but one of the trends for this Quarantine time is that celebrities and famous people have begun going online reading children's stories I mean they know that we're cooped up in houses and they know that a lot of schools are closed and children are at home with their parents and the parents are absolutely going mad trying to figure out things to do with their children so I think it began with Michelle Obama and then Reese Witherspoon and Danny DeVito and a whole list of celebrities and famous people began just sitting in front of a camera and reading children's stories and then uploading them so that you could basically have a break from your kids and put them in front of the screen and let them listen to a story well all these famous people were doing it and then suddenly out of nowhere on April 29th a young man 26 years of age named Tom Thomas I think he goes by Tom Roberts Thomas Roberts from New Zealand but he lives in London this young man decided to not just read a children's story but he wrote one and it is a work of absolute creative genius it's only four minutes long and as this young man has communicated his ideas in the form of a poem it creates a story that is absolutely remarkable the story is titled the great realisation with an S for the British spelling and this story is astounding I kid you not the attraction is so strong that in a matter of days multiplied millions of people had watched it all over the world last I checked over 25 million people on various platforms have watched Thomas Roberts tell his children's story called the great realization well the question immediately arises why the attraction what's so amazing about this story that so many people are watching it well first of all it is a work of genius just the storytelling itself is amazing it's very good writing its artistic but really what the attraction is is that it is communicating something that all of us know at an intuitive level have you had that experience where somebody says something they articulate something and you say ah you just said what I was thinking I was feeling that very thing and you just wrapped words around the thing that I couldn't find words for we've all had that experience well Roberts has put pen to paper and created a story that speaks to the deepest longings of the human heart in ways that are just remarkable for example in the great realization the open of the story is very fascinating it was a world of waste and wonder of poverty and plenty back before we understood that hindsight's 2020 and then this you see the people came up with companies to trade across all lands but they swelled and got bigger than we could have ever planned and then this we'd always had our wants but now it got so quick you could have everything you dreamed of in a day with just a click and then he goes on from there it's remarkable outlining how the world or at least much of the Western world has become so obsessed with getting and acquiring stuff that the world has become so top-heavy with corporations owning our lives through media and through the advertising industry and through everything that surrounds us like a non-stop barrage of images and messaging he basically speaks into our deep inmost hearts and he says something that we all know at some level and what he says is this the world as we know it is not the way it ought to be the world as we know it is not how it should be I mean just pause and think about that for a minute we know this we don't need anybody to tell us but when somebody comes along and raps words around what we feel at the most visceral level of our souls Wow it's like an epiphany or the name of the story it's like a great realization you're like wow of course the world is really not the way that it's supposed to be life in this world is supposed to be beautiful and good for everyone forever and that's the key idea there's something going on inside of us where we have a sense that we're meant for something more that certain things that happen continually in this world aren't supposed to happen the story is utopian in that sense it creates a utopian vision of what ought to be so it's super optimistic it it reaches into us and says hey the world is not the way it should be it should be beautiful it should be good for everybody we know on a certain level of our thinking and feeling process that the world has been overtaken with selfishness and greed in ways that are having an effect on humanity as a whole and on the planet itself but here's the thing if you stop and think about it you know and nobody has to tell you in a story I don't need to quote the Bible to you to prove this to you but you know that children should not die of starvation I know this for simple want of food we know that no person in this world should work hard forty hours a week or more and still not have enough money to live well we know this nobody has to explain it to us no corporation should be allowed to pollute the sea and the sky for huge profits and we just know this somewhere inside of our core we know it we know that the oceans should not be full of plastic threatening the life of the beautiful ecosystem that is going on in that beautiful subterranean world we know this and nobody has to tell us we know that the sky shouldn't be filled with carbon trash to the point that the very world and with which we live is struggling to breathe and we know that politicians should not make laws that favor the lobbyists who are paying them off on the side we know these things and nobody needs to tell us getting a little closer to our individual lives we know that families who live together in homes should not go through their days never speaking to one another we know that children should be playing outside not sitting inside staring at screens and robert's ingeniously covers all these bases in the course of a four-minute story I can summarize in three points what it is that the great realization is telling us the great realization according to Roberts is that greed and selfishness are destroying the world that's number one number two that people are meant for relationships not for materialism in consumption and number three that the world the earth itself is meant to be managed in such a way that it flourishes and yields its bounty to us without compromise this is the great realization of a mere children's story which by the way is more of an adults story if you know what I mean because it speaks to you and it speaks to me but listen Roberts now I don't know his background I don't know his belief system I don't know if he's just come up with this out of the intuitive sense of the way the world ought to be and the way it ought not to be but I'll tell you this the Bible itself the biblical story paints exactly the vision that Roberts has painted in this story now if you read scripture as a whole you you notice that you could divide it into three basic parts Genesis chapters wanted to describe the world as God made the world to be and therefore as it ought to be and that world in Genesis two one and two is described as good good good good good and very good everything's good it is paradise it is a beautiful situation in which there is no harm there is no tragedy there is no pain that's Genesis 1 and 2 the first two chapters of the Bible the rest of the Bible is describing what the world looks like under the poor more management of fallen human beings and God's plan working through history to bring it back to part three of the biblical narrative revelation chapters 21 and 22 which are a mirror image of Genesis one and two that describe the world as it's going to be when it's finally back the way God intended it to be part one of the biblical story is simply the world in beautiful paradise part two is tragedy and want an oppression in part three is the world brought back finally to the way God intends it to me now there are a number of times in the Bible when a prophet will achieve a very high level of clarity with with just a few words this is this is a characteristic of Scripture where a prophet will in a sentence in a line achieve a level of clarity that speaks to us at the deepest level of our hearts romans chapter 14 and verse 17 is one of those passages the biblical writer here is the Apostle Paul and he's been reasoning through in the book of Romans what he calls the gospel or the good news that was personified in Jesus Christ but here check this out in Chapter 14 he's winding his way to the end of his series of deductive arguments in favor of the gospel he comes at chapter 14 and verse 17 and in a single line he achieves a level of clarity that takes in the entire vision of God for the world he says listen the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness and peace and a joy in the Holy Spirit the Apostle Paul looks at the world as it is and like the great realisation by Thomas Roberts he says the world is not the way it ought to be and then the Apostle Paul says but I'll tell you the way the world ought to be I'll tell you the way God intends the world to be because the kingdom of God or God's way of doing things if the world were the way God wants the world to be and eventually it will be the way God wants it to be but the kingdom of God he says is not eating and drinking let's pause right there Kingdom you hear the word King and then you hear Dome well dome is domain or domicile or home a king dome is the domain or the home the domicile over which a king reigns so with the word Kingdom the Apostle Paul essentially is essentially saying to us that the kingdom of God is the domain of the world the domicile of the world the world as a dwelling place as a home the kingdom of God is the world when God the king is ruling over the world and it is the way that he as the king wants it to be it is the king's domain the king's domicile in the kingdom of God Paul says the world when it is the way God wants it to be is not eating and drinking why does he say that it's not eating and drinking I mean certainly we need to eat certainly we need to drink we get thirsty we get hungry we need to eat we need to drink but listen the Apostle Paul says the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking by which he means the kingdom of God is not defined by consumption it's not confirmed it's not defined by materialism yeah we need to eat and drink but it's not defined by eating and drinking it's not defined by by sheer consumption and the acquisition of more and more and more Paul is saying listen the world is not meant to be a place that is defined by the consumption of things it's not defined by eating and drinking it's not meat or drink the old King James Version so it's not food and water so what is it then what is the world when the world is the way God wants the world to be he says listen I'll tell you what it is now that I've told you what it isn't the kingdom of God is not consumption and materialism it is righteousness it is peace it is joy in the Holy Spirit the word righteousness means the state of him any him and he her any human being the state of him who is as he ought to be how ought I to be how ought she to be how ought the world to be that's righteousness righteousness is the word that encapsulates the way things ought to be the word literally carries the meaning of relational integrity relational integrity that's when you and I are living together in such a way that I don't cross the neutral space between us to violate you and you don't cross the neutral space between us to violate me we don't use the material resources of the world to violate violate one another I don't take what's yours you don't take what's mine and if I have more than you have there's a generosity that overflows and I can supply your lack this is righteousness righteousness is the world the way it ought to be but Paul says that the kingdom of God is not consumption and materialism it is righteousness and peace peace what is peace now in our modern language we tend to think that the word peace refers to something super personal going on inside of my head or my emotions like some kind of inner tranquility so I can experience peace all alone in a room by myself but the biblical idea of peace is not inner tranquility all alone in a room by myself the word peace here in the New Testament in the Greek is array may I like the name Irene for a girl that's where it's derived from which means peace in English so the name Irene for a woman is a beautiful name that says oh she's at peace well in what sense is that lady named Irene at peace does she merely have inner tranquility well that's what you could think the word means but it's derived in the biblical narrative from the Old Testament idea in the Hebrew of Shalom the word peace is not a word that describes me alone in a room in a state of inner tranquility it is a word that means harmony between individuals harmony between individuals it is a state of national or corporate or communal tranquility it is peace between persons it is describing what it's like to be at rest from conflict and that's why we use the word peace sometimes as an antonym for war we speak of peace talks with the Middle East for example or any other part of the world right peace talks that is we're engaging in political dialogues that are toward bringing about a state of national or international rest between individuals and people groups so the kingdom of God is not materialism and consumption Paul says it's righteousness it's peace and it's joy the word joy in this text absolutely amazing the word joy is Cara and the word means get this this is beautiful joy means the state of being glad the state of being glad cheerfulness or this from the Greek lexicon joy is calm delight calm delight cheerfulness so-so do you hear what the Apostle Paul is saying he's saying listen he's saying the kingdom of God is not materialism and consumption it is rather it is rather the world the way it ought to be people living with relational integrity one toward another producing peace or harmony or rest between individuals and between people groups and that peace produces joy or a sense of inner delight a sense of cheerfulness can you imagine a world like that a world in which human beings have realized in a great realization that Jesus is the great realization embodied in person Jesus is the one in whom all the implications of righteousness and peace and joy were lived out and embodied when we look at the life of Jesus we see him living with perfect righteousness that is relational integrity living toward all others the way we ought to live toward others when we look at Jesus we see a kind of peace that is absolutely astounding Jesus modeling in a small group a small Posse called the disciples twelve guys and their rabbi traveling around displaying what it looks like to live as a microcosm of peace those twelve became the foundation for what the New Testament calls the church the church is the community the alternative community in which the implications of righteousness and peace are lived out and modeled for the world to invite them in not to keep them out to invite them in and that righteousness and peace according to the Apostle Paul that is found in Jesus Christ produces joy it produces cheerfulness it produces a state of calm delight man the world could use some righteousness some peace and some joy and finally the Apostle Paul says and all of this is administered to us by the Holy Spirit by the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit is God's representative in the world residing in the hearts of human beings convicting and drawing us to himself in ways that sometimes we don't see coming like when a young man 26 years old looks at the world and says you know it's not the way it ought to be and he writes a story a children's story a poem called the great realisation in which we're told that the world has the potential to be something so much more than it is the story ends by saying that the coronavirus has basically been an event in history that has produced the great realization of our need to reconnect as human beings and to push back on all of the materialism and consumption that is destroying relationships and destroying the world and in this regard Roberts poem is what I would regard is naive well maybe it's on purpose that it's not you because it is a children's story after all and it is trying to paint a picture of how things can be but it is naive to think that this world on the steam of our own willpower and good intentions is somehow going to ultimately self correct it is much more likely that there will be some correction that will occur and a whole lot of pain maybe even anarchy if the economy doesn't turn in a better direction that it seems to be headed but the scripture tells us that what's needed is not merely an abstract realization as the great realization but we need a Savior we need the great realization in the person of Jesus Christ in whose liberating salvation one person at a time one home at a time one community at a time the principles of righteousness and peace and joy can overtake people's lives I want to urge you I want to encourage you to pause and to take on board the Apostle Paul's incredible vision of the kingdom of God Paul's incredible vision of how the world might be if Jesus Christ were at the center of our lives I want to encourage you to cognitively with your mind believe in the righteousness and the peace and the joy that is found in Christ and emotionally to intentionally take it on board in your heart and say not only do I believe it but I want to be a part of it and then not only intellectually and emotionally but in your life I want to encourage you to intentionally begin to say to yourself you know what I'm gonna be one of those people who by the grace of God begins to live toward my fellow human beings in such a way that they will sense that I will sense that we are in relationship without harm producing peace and generating anime using calm delightful joy take it on board with your mind with your heart with your life now we're gonna be doing something this coming Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. Pacific time and an 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time that I want to invite you to we're gonna be having an online Bible study you can look for details for that upcoming online Bible study at storyline dot Church take a look and be with us on this coming Wednesday evening where we're going to actually tackle some of the biggest hurdles or obstacles or barriers people have to faith in Christ there are people maybe you sometimes I have to admit me there are questions that come up in my mind that form a barrier that make me feel like you know this isn't tenable this doesn't make sense you may have friends or family members who during this coronavirus season are beginning to think a little more seriously and soberly about what life means we're gonna be addressing some of the most crucial questions regarding people's obstacles hurdles that keep them from faith in Christ that's this coming Wednesday night 5 p.m. western time 8 p.m. Eastern Time I hope you'll join us story line dot Church to track and I'd like to have a closing word of Prayer with you as we take on board Paul's vision of the kingdom of God Father in heaven thank you for your word and the clarity that it brings thank you that we have people in our world like Thomas Roberts who's thinking about how the world is and how it ought to be thank you that the Apostle Paul in a single sentence has communicated such a beautiful and vital vision of the way things can be in our world may we with our minds with our hearts and with our lives take on the righteousness that is embodied in Christ and experience the peace and the joy that comes from knowing him as our personal Savior that is my prayer in Jesus name Amen hey thanks so much for watching we hope that message was a blessing to you God's Word is powerful it penetrates into our minds into our hearts brings about transformation in every aspect of our lives listen we don't want you to miss any content so again we want to encourage you to click on subscribe and track with the content that's going to be coming out week after week and if you'd like 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Channel: Storyline Church

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Keywords: storyline church, ty gibson, the great realisation

Id: bjpyo9ySnBQ

Length: 29min 35sec (1775 seconds)

Published: Sat May 09 2020