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Christ-Centred and All-of-Life || Speak Life Distinctives || SLP374 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:03
SPEAKER_02: Hello, you're listening to the Speak Life podcast.
0:06
SPEAKER_02: Thomas Thorogood here, assistant media producer at Speak Life.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: And what you're about to hear was recorded during our first Speak Life Foundry Intensive.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: So we welcomed 20 creative evangelists to our studios in Eastbourne for five days, and they were there to meet the team, catch the vision, and learn the craft.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: And if you want to join us for the next Speak Life Intensive, we are accepting bookings.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: The next one is the week beginning 6th of December.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: And you can go to speaklifefoundry.com to find out more and book a place.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, I will hand over to Glenn Scrivener for the first session of the Intensive.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: So we've been doing an exercise in figuring out like who is Speak Life and what do we want to do.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if any of these things resonate with you, but I think they might.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: So we want to be Christ-centered.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: What's that?
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Sorry?
1:13
SPEAKER_00: So it's 20, there's 24 things, basically.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm very scatterbrained, Eric.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: You'll see that.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Christ-centered and all of life.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: We want to be biblical and creative.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: We want to be welcoming and weird.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: We want to be proclaimers and storytellers.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: We want to be evangelistic and church-facing.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: We want to be urgent about the evangelistic task and at peace.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: We want to be thoughtful and heart-driven.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: We want to be evangelistic and pastoral.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: We want to be confessional and ecumenical.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: That means working together with different churches, but also knowing where we stand doctrinally.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: We want to be ancient and modern.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: We want to be realistic and hope-filled.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: We want to be professional and charitable.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: And over the course of the four intensives that we're going to do throughout the year, we'll take three of these at a time.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: And so that leaves us with this first one.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: At Speak Life, we want to be Christ-centered and all of life.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is a real key to creativity and evangelism.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's not about techniques and it's not about a marketing ploy.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: It's about a deep conviction about who Jesus is.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Do we really believe that Jesus is the Lord, the light of the cosmos, the word of the Father, the operating system of the universe?
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, do we really have that kind of cosmic vision of Jesus?
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Because if we do, then there is no trade-off between doing a relevant video and a Jesus-centered video.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Right?
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Because don't we often think that creatively, oh, I know what's popular now?
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Pokemon Go.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: How do I get from Pokemon?
3:00
SPEAKER_00: I know what's popular now, you know, fidget spinners or whatever it used to be, you know.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember those?
3:07
SPEAKER_00: You know?
3:07
SPEAKER_00: And we were racing to find, you know, the gospel application of fidget spinners.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's there's three points.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Like the Trinity.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, no, that's heretical.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Please stop.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: But where does this come from?
3:23
SPEAKER_00: It comes from this desire.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to be relevant.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: I want to connect with culture, and I want to speak of Christ.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: And so we think the relevant stuff, the contemporary stuff, the cultural stuff is over here.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: The Jesus stuff is this kind of niche interest of a few Christian hobbyists over here.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: And how do we get from there to there?
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you need a bold, you know, new tribe of creatives.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we are.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: We're these crazy creatives, and we can use the whiz-bang new technology to get down with the kids and bring the ancient into the modern world because like and we start to think that we are the bridge builders between all of life that's out there and Jesus, who is the center of all things.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: But what if Jesus is a bridge builder?
4:13
SPEAKER_00: What if he is the bridge builder?
4:15
SPEAKER_00: What if he is the great mediator?
4:17
SPEAKER_00: What if this is actually Jesus' world?
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Like actually.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Not just a hobby on a Sunday, but actually Jesus is the logic of the cosmos by which all things operate.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: If that's true, then we don't need to trade off between being Jesus-centered and having a vision for all of life, do we?
4:42
SPEAKER_00: So I think what we want to do is get into Colossians chapter 1 in a second.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: But before we do it, I want you to have a think about these three questions.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: And as you think about these three questions, I want you to really answer with your gut.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
5:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't want your church-ified answer.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't want the right answer.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, I know we have a trustee here, and so we all want to have just give the right answer at this stage, but I want the real answer.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: When you think of God, what do you picture?
5:19
SPEAKER_00: And then as you think about that question, when you think of Jesus, what do you picture?
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And then I want the real answer to the question when God thinks of you, what do you reckon he pictures?
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you have a 30 seconds think to yourself, and then I want you to chat to your neighbor again.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And we'll come up with a picture of God, a picture of Jesus, and then what do we think God pictures when he pictures us?
5:51
SPEAKER_00: So I bet you didn't think you were gonna go that deep with uh the person you've just met this morning, did you?
5:58
SPEAKER_00: What do you think of God?
5:59
SPEAKER_00: What do you think of Jesus?
6:01
SPEAKER_00: What does God think of you?
6:02
SPEAKER_00: I bet you didn't think you were gonna go there on a Monday morning, but uh, well, the Bible goes there, so let's let's go there.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: I won't get you the um answer out loud.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: We'll see how Paul addresses each of these three questions in Colossians chapter one, and just have your antennae up for the ways that Paul answers those three questions as he writes to the Colossians.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: So, chapter one from verse 15.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: For in him all things were created, things in heaven or on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: He is before all things, and in him all things hold together, and he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel, this is the gospel that you heard, and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: So we have here answers to our three questions.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: So when you think of God, what do you picture?
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, we probably had as many different answers here as there are people, and you probably had loads of different answers, and you didn't know quite what you thought.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: On my way in, literally, Radio 4, they are, I think, right now doing a program that's all about the anatomy of God.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: And the presenter began their program with, What does God look like?
8:05
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Radio 4, national broadcaster, they are leading with the question, what does God look like?
8:11
SPEAKER_00: And who knows what kind of answers Radio 4 will give about what God looks like.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I know friends of mine, um, a friend of mine thinks of just a comforting hand on her shoulder.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Other friends think of light.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Some people have the stereotypical image of a man with a beard on a throne.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: It's difficult to say what does God look like.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Why is it difficult?
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Because he's invisible.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: That's okay, it's difficult to picture someone who's invisible.
8:42
unknown: Yeah.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: And that's not just that God would be a difficult picture clue.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh God would be a difficult pictionary clue, but it's far deeper than that.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: Because to see God and to know God go hand in hand in the Bible.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: So think of John chapter 1, verse 18.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, it says, No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son at the Father's side, he has made him known.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: No one has ever seen God the Father, but God the Son has made him known.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: And notice how John is twinning those ideas of seeing and knowing, and that's definitely in the background for Paul as well.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: To see God is to know God, and apparently we naturally do not know God.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
9:28
SPEAKER_00: There is an issue between us, and the issue is down in verse 21.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: We're alienated from God, we're not on speaking terms.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: There's been a divorce.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: That's why we are not in tune with the God of the universe.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: He is unknown to us, he is invisible to us.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: So when you think about God, what do we think of?
9:52
SPEAKER_00: We think of a thousand different things.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: And people fight over those different things very fiercely.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: But it's it's as though the heavens are like a giant mirror.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: And we all say that we're looking up into the heavens, but when we look up, we're really just seeing ourselves.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed how warlike cultures think God is a warrior?
10:12
SPEAKER_00: Right?
10:13
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing surprising about that, is there?
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed how philosophers think that God is a mind?
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything surprising about that?
10:23
SPEAKER_00: You know how groovy people think that God is a groovy vibe?
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything surprising about any of this?
10:31
SPEAKER_00: Right?
10:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, Freud in the 19th century, the great psychologist, he said that all God talk is just projection.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: We're just saying man in a loud voice.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who says God is just saying man in a loud voice.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Freud was right.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Naturally speaking, when you do a bottom-up theology, really you're just taking whatever you think is the highest in human experience.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: You're pumping it full of steroids, you're shoving it up into the heavens, and you're saying, Behold my God.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
11:05
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that God is invisible to us, and all our human notions of what God is like are totally false and need to be binned.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: But there is a right answer to the question.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, what should we think of when we think of God?
11:21
SPEAKER_00: What should we picture?
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, good news.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: There is an image, the sun, and even that word the sun, which is sort of taken from verses 13 and 14, is this idea in Jewish thought that the Son is exactly like the Father, a chip off the old block.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And here is an eternal chip off the old block, just like his dad, the image of the invisible God.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, it doesn't just say he's the best image of the invisible God, which is interesting.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just say he is the seal of a series of improving revelations about God.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: It just says he is the image of God.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: And the rest of the Bible concurs.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: He is the word of God.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: He's not just the best word of God, he's the word of God, he's the Son of God.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: He is in Hebrews 1 language the exact representation of the Father's being.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: He is the bright radiance of the Father's glory and the exact representation of his being.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: So, what should we answer to the question?
12:25
SPEAKER_00: When you think of God, what do you picture?
12:28
SPEAKER_00: We should picture Jesus.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Do we?
12:34
SPEAKER_00: So often we don't.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: I know that when I grew up, uh probably my picture of God would have been that God is basically like electricity.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Electricity is very, very powerful and it's invisible.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you harness it right, it will bless you.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: It will run all your appliances for you, right?
12:55
SPEAKER_00: But if you get on the wrong side of electricity, watch out.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Zap, okay?
12:59
SPEAKER_00: It's this impersonal power that I didn't really understand, and it's probably best if I keep on the right side of it.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: That was, you know, that was going on.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: That was my gut level answer to what is God really like.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: And yet, what is this image?
13:18
SPEAKER_00: This this image of God is the Son, and we'll see who Jesus is from the rest of this paragraph.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: But isn't that a much more attractive vision of who God is?
13:29
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a revolutionary vision of who God is?
13:33
SPEAKER_00: As this paragraph develops, we'll see that Jesus is the creator of all things who stooped down to us, so that by the end of this paragraph, how does the paragraph end?
13:44
SPEAKER_00: The paragraph that begins, the Son is the image of the invisible God, and the paragraph ends with his blood shed on the cross.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: What do you picture when you think of God?
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I picture a bleeding sacrifice with his arms outstretched to the world, praying, Father forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: Is that your picture of God?
14:08
SPEAKER_00: That is the deepest, truest biblical picture of who the living God is.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: You know how in John's gospel, Jesus is constantly, you know, talking about the hour when he will be lifted up from the earth.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, it starts in John chapter 2, he does the water into wine miracle, and it's the first miracle that really reveals his glory.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: And his disciples put their trust in him.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus at that point he says, You know, Mother, why do you, you know, why do you ask me to do this miracle?
14:37
SPEAKER_00: My hour has not yet come.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: And you think, well, what is his hour?
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And he keeps on saying, Well, the hour is the hour when I'm going to be truly glorified.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: The hour is the time when I will be lifted up.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And his disciples might have thought, I don't know, lifted up on a stage, lifted up on a platform, lifted up on a throne.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: And of course, you get to the end of John's gospel.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: And how is Jesus lifted up?
15:01
SPEAKER_00: On a cross.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And this is the glory of God shining out at full strength.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
15:08
SPEAKER_00: We believe in the Jesus God.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: If you come on Fridays to our Foundry Unlocked teaching, you'll hear a lot more about the Jesus God.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: But the God who is revealed in Jesus, that is the deepest truth about who our Maker is.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: And it's a stunning revolutionary idea.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's brilliant in evangelism, because, you know, if if anyone says to you, I don't believe in gods, well, you've got the question up your sleeve straight away, don't you?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Well, which God don't you believe in?
15:41
SPEAKER_00: And the God they don't believe in is the guy on the beard, the guy on the throne with the beard and the thunderbolt ready to hurl.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, that's that's that sounds like Zeus.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe in Zeus.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you about Jesus?
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus is what God looks like, second question, what do you think of when you think of Jesus?
16:04
SPEAKER_00: What do you picture?
16:06
SPEAKER_00: And again, I I think our gut level answers to that question are inadequate, shall we say?
16:16
SPEAKER_00: When you thought of Jesus, when you pictured him, did you did you picture this?
16:20
SPEAKER_00: The firstborn overall creation?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: For by him all things were created?
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Is that who you thought of?
16:27
SPEAKER_00: The creator of heaven and earth.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing Paul mentions.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, our Maker.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: Which, I mean, this is just this is just such an important truth for our creativity, isn't it?
16:42
SPEAKER_00: When we exult in and celebrate the world working as it should be, we are not just singing the praises of some distant maker.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Lord, creation's voice proclaims it.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did that sunrise, okay?
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Scroll through your Instagram, see all those wonderful photographs, okay?
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay, hashtag this is Jesus World, okay?
17:13
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus did.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And this is where Paul's mind goes.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, first of all, he is the firstborn overall creation.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: This is not what the cults say, you know, the cults say that Jesus was the first creature of God, right?
17:26
SPEAKER_00: So like God made this other creature called Jesus, and then Jesus made the rest of the world.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: So people like the Jehovah's Witnesses will say that's what the firstborn means.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: But of course, in the Bible, the firstborn just means the heir, the inheritor.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And as the eternal son of the Father who creates all things, he's not created, because he creates all things.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: So he can't be created, because he is the creator of all things, right?
17:51
SPEAKER_00: That wouldn't work.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: But he is the heir of all things, for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: So he shapes all reality, and he is the destination of all reality.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: And remember, Paul is talking about this one who sheds his blood on the cross.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: I know what we do in our minds.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: I've just told you a bunch of truths about our creator.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: And you took those bunch of truths and you threw them into the category over here called the creator.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: And the creator over here probably looks and sounds quite a lot like electricity.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Right?
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Paul is not doing that.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying, here's a bunch of truths about the creator, right?
18:42
SPEAKER_00: And here's this guy, Jesus, over here.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: He's saying you really need to fix your minds and your hearts on Jesus and fix them nowhere else but on Jesus.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And remember that he is your maker.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: The Horsehead Nebula and sunrise on the Swiss Alps and sunset at the Grand Canyon, that's Jesus' doing.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: That's the doing of the one who shed his blood on the cross.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: All things have been created through him and for him.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: He is before all things and in him all things hold together.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: And again, when you think of what do all things hold together in?
19:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe you did a physics GCSE or something, and you think, I know what holds all things together, like gravity or something, you know, the strong and weak nuclear force, or like didn't Newton answer that question for us?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: You know?
19:37
SPEAKER_00: What do all things hold together in?
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, Jesus.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And that is not to take Jesus and make him like electricity, right?
19:49
SPEAKER_00: That is to say, forget about electricity for a minute.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Jesus personally holds all things together.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: And a scientist might come along later and observe some regularities about the world and the way in which things hang together.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: But the deepest answer to why things hold together is Jesus personally.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: He upholds all things by the word of his power, says Hebrews chapter 1.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus' doing.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: You might want to come along later and slap a scientific label on some of those things, right?
20:22
SPEAKER_00: And call them the four laws of motion or whatever.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: You might want to, you know, talk about four physical laws or any any number of things.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: What you're really doing is observing some of Jesus' handiwork and giving a vague approximation to it in some mathematical language.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus doing all that stuff, okay?
20:42
SPEAKER_00: He is before all things.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: And in him all things hold together, and he is the head of the body, the church.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: He is the beginning of the firstborn from among the dead.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: I I love it.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: I love that word and there.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: It's like he's just said, you know, he holds all the universe together, and it's like the pinnacle of his glory is his connection to us.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: And, like, on his CV of achievements, you know, he's he's like ticking off all these different things.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the galaxies, that was me, you know, and the the genetic code in DNA, yeah, me too.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: But the thing he's really proud of, astonishingly, and he's the head of the body, the church.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, Jesus, really us?
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Like, you're you're kind of you're proud of us?
21:30
SPEAKER_00: This is this is on your list of achievements.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: He's the head of the body, and he is so proud of the church that he unites himself to the church far more intimately than he unites himself to anything else in all creation.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Think of all the things that the maker of the universe could associate himself with.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: And yet, what does he associate himself with?
21:52
SPEAKER_00: The body, the church.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: And he is as close to the body as a head, close to the church as a head is to the body, which is pretty close, isn't it?
21:59
SPEAKER_00: You know?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: If today you go in one direction and your head goes in a different direction, you know, if your body goes one way and your head goes another, this is a bad day for you, right?
22:11
SPEAKER_00: You need to be connected to your body.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is so connected to the body, the church, that he will lay hold of us and then do this incredible thing where he becomes the firstborn from among the dead.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: He plunges down into our death, takes us to himself, at our head, he absorbs and faces all the righteous wrath and indignation that is against us, takes it all, bursts out through the other side, and he takes us with him.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty cool, isn't it?
22:46
SPEAKER_00: The head crashes through death and hell, comes out the other side, and if you are attached to him, then your destiny is his destiny.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Where the head goes, the body follows.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: So that in everything he might have the supremacy.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Paul brings all this cosmic narrative of our great hero Jesus, and he boils it all down to the blood of the cross.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: This is really where all things hold together.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: What do all things hold together in?
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Not impersonal forces, but Jesus personally, reconciling all things personally in his body on that cross.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: The cross really is at the heart of all things for the Apostle Paul.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, I might just uh interrupt in the middle here if that's alright.
23:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm actually joined by Jack, who is an intern at Speak Life, and he was with us for the intensive that you're currently listening to.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: So uh Jack, how how did you find it?
23:57
SPEAKER_02: I found it really good, Thomas, thank you.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, absolutely it was brilliant.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: What was uh what was a highlight?
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Highlights.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Um there was a lot of different things that we did.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: I think just one of the bigger highlights was the people, like not just the people who were teaching us, but the people that I was surrounded by.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: So getting to work with people and being taught by people who knew what they were doing, were very creative, and also had a strong faith and uh a strong focus uh to commit to that faith and put that into the works they were doing.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: It was just an incredibly warm atmosphere and an incredibly welcoming community.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's great to hear.
24:34
SPEAKER_02: And as I say, you can join us uh online or in person for the Foundry Unlocked teachings, which will be on on Fridays, and the intensive that that Jack was just uh talking about.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: You can sign up to that at uh speaklifefoundry.com.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but we would love to have you along with us back to the podcast.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: And so again, we just don't have this divide between the world out there and Christ crucified over here.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: We desperately want to proclaim to the world Christ crucified, don't we?
25:11
SPEAKER_00: But that is not a niche hobby of a few spiritual people who get together on a Sunday, okay?
25:18
SPEAKER_00: That really is the operating system of the cosmos.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Everything operates according to death and resurrection.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: We might get into this more uh on Fridays if you if you come along to The Foundry Unlocked.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: But we we've answered the question who is God?
25:35
SPEAKER_00: He is like Jesus, entirely and utterly and completely like Jesus, his image.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: When we think of Jesus, what should we picture?
25:42
SPEAKER_00: The cosmic creator, sustainer, inheritor, and reconciler of all things.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: Did we think that?
25:51
SPEAKER_00: We need to have our imagination refreshed again by the Bible.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: And then that final question when God thinks of you, what does he picture?
25:58
SPEAKER_00: That's the uncomfortable question, isn't it?
26:00
SPEAKER_00: That's the one that makes you go, gulp.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: What does this God of heaven and earth think about little old me?
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, we tend to think that the answer to that question is like a dimmer switch.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: You know.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm doing a little bit brighter with God, and sometimes my spiritual life is a bit murkier, you know?
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Like Monday morning, I'm here at a Christian ministry.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: We've sang a Wesley hymn, right?
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Like, how brightly is your spirituality turned up this morning?
26:33
SPEAKER_00: Like, pretty, pretty awesome, right?
26:35
SPEAKER_00: But then tomorrow you oversleep and you kick the cats and you yell at the kids, and you know, and then the the dial goes down again, doesn't it?
26:45
SPEAKER_00: A bit murkier, you know.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: But the but the next day, maybe maybe on Wednesday, you help a little old lady off uh across the road, right?
26:52
SPEAKER_00: And the dial goes up again, doesn't it?
26:55
SPEAKER_00: But then on Thursday you run a little old lady over and and the dial goes down, and it's just it's you just swing back and forth.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: And is that how we think we are with God?
27:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, we yo-yo in and out of his favor.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Is that what it's like?
27:09
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is like, no, it's not a dimmer switch, it's on or off.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: What is the off position?
27:16
SPEAKER_00: Once you were alienated from God, here are three designations.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Once you were alienated from God, you were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, those are the three.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Alienated, enemy, evil.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Goodness me.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: But I guess if you're not connected to the light and life of the cosmos, what are you doing in the world?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus is the grain of the universe and you're not with Jesus, then you're going against the grain of the universe.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: You'll get splinters, right?
27:53
SPEAKER_00: This is the off position.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: But now, having come to Christ, here is the on position.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Here are three very different labels that God gives to you.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Holy in his sight.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: How does God see you?
28:12
SPEAKER_00: His sight?
28:13
SPEAKER_00: How does he see you?
28:15
SPEAKER_00: Holy, without blemish, unblamable in the old King James version.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Unblam, you are unable to be blamed.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Without blemish and free from accusation.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: Spotless.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Incredible, isn't it?
28:31
SPEAKER_00: Holy, God's special stuff.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Set apart.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Without blemish, pure, bright, shining, free from accusation.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: These are these are the verdicts of God the Father on you who are in Christ.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: If you've come to Christ, you are connected to Him as closely as a body is to His head.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: And now the Father looks on you in Christ.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: And how does he feel about you?
28:59
SPEAKER_00: He's delighted.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: He's absolutely delighted.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: He's thrilled.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: He's thrilled with you.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Behold, my son, in whom I delight, with him I am well pleased.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: That's how the Father feels about Jesus, isn't it?
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Behold, my son, in whom is all my delight.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: What does God say to you?
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Behold, my child, in whom is all my delight.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: That's how God sees us.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty good news, isn't it?
29:29
SPEAKER_00: Awesome good news.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: And I think it transforms the way we see God, the way we see ourselves, and the way we see the world.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: When we think of God, what should we picture?
29:44
SPEAKER_00: Let's picture Jesus with his arms outstretched to the world, bleeding even for his enemy.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: When we picture Jesus, who should we picture?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Not just a figure off to the side in human history who's important to Christians.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: He is the operating system of the universe.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: And his blood is really what holds things together.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: What should we think of when we think of ourselves?
30:13
SPEAKER_00: We are not yo-yoing in and out of God's presence, are we?
30:17
SPEAKER_00: We are loved, we are delighted in, we are cherished, we are wholly without blemish and free from accusation.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: And we get the fun job of going out to the world and saying, you know how you think of God totally wrong.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: I got it wrong.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you guys get it wrong.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Let me introduce you to Jesus.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And in him we've got the best good news in the world.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: How does this relate to our big theme?
30:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's a divide between Christ as being Christ-centered and being all of life.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: I think a true Christian approach to the world is a Jesus-centered approach.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: But as soon as you say Jesus-centered, people will think, oh, you're being narrow.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: If someone says, I believe in Christ alone, it sounds really narrow, doesn't it?
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's only as narrow as Jesus is.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: How narrow is Jesus?
31:17
SPEAKER_00: He's cosmic, he's epic, he is divine.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: One way I like to say this is that Jesus is God-sized, and God is Jesus-shaped.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Jesus is the co-creator of heaven and earth.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: He is just as God as God the Father is God.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is God-sized, but God is Jesus-shaped.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: And therefore the God we have to deal with is the God revealed to us in Jesus.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is God-sized and God is Jesus-shaped.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Another thing I like to say is that Jesus is the lens.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: There is no trade-off between being Christ-centered and being all of life, because as we focus on Jesus, Jesus is like a pair of spectacles through whom we can see the rest of the world.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus, we see what God is like and what the world is like and what we are like.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: As T.S.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Lewis has said, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Jesus can be focused on and must be focused on.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: But as we focus on him, that is not to the detriment of seeing the world.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus, we see the rest of the world, which is why at Speak Life we're engaged in not only lifting up Jesus in every way we can, but also seeing through Jesus how he describes the world.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: And so one way we've done that is through 321, which is a little gospel presentation where we begin with Jesus as the lens.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: Let's have a look.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Life according to Jesus.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: He's a lens we can look through to see reality.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: When you look at Jesus, you get a vision of God, the world, and yourself.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: In particular, Jesus chose us God's threeness, the world's two-ness, and your oneness.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: What's God's threeness?
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus chose us that God is three persons united in love.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: The night before Jesus died, he prayed, Father, you loved me before the foundation of the world.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus' picture of God.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Before there was a universe, there was a Father always loving him, the eternal Son of God.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Jesus also tells us of the presence of the Holy Spirit, sometimes pictured as a dove.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Forever the Spirit has joyfully communicated the love of God.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus' picture of God.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons united in love.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: What's the world's tuness?
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus shows us that the world is shaped by two representatives.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: First, there was Adam.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: His name means humanity.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: He represents all of us and is pictured in the Bible as a ruler over the world.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: But Adam turned from God, turned in on himself, and plunged the world down into death and cursed.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: This is the world we live in.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Made good, but full of selfishness, death, and disconnection from God.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, though, is the second Adam.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: He came down from heaven in order to meet us in this suffering world and to put it all right.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: Where Adam and all of us failed, Jesus succeeded.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: He lived the perfect life of love, but then on the cross he died the cursed death we deserve, taking responsibility for Adam's failures and for yours.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Three days later, Jesus rose again to a new kind of life beyond death and judgment, and he invites us into his new life and into his family.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: What's your oneness?
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shows us that you are one with Adam, but he calls us to be one with him.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: All of us are born selfish, we're born dying, and we're born without a vital connection to God.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible's terms, we're born in Adam.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus comes to those who are one with Adam and says, be one with me.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: If we trust in Jesus, then we are born again into the love of God.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: As one with Jesus, we get his Father as our Father, His Spirit as our Spirit, and His future as our future.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus will return to raise the world and to raise us the way He was raised.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: On that day, our response to Jesus will be confirmed.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Those rejecting Jesus will remain in Adam.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Those united to Jesus will share in his new life, his new world, and his family love forever.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: That's God's threeness, the world's two-ness and your oneness.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: That's life according to Jesus.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus gives us our vision of God and the world and ourselves.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: And so having centered ourselves on Jesus, we're now in a position to look at the rest of life.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: And a few years ago, there was something in the news where there was a scan that was able to be done for women as they're pregnant, and early on in the pregnancy, it could detect Down syndrome in the unborn.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: And in every country in which this non-invasive prenatal test was adopted, actually people would abort those children with Down syndrome at nearly 100% levels.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: We were and we still are facing a genocide.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do when you want to speak to the world about such a genocide?
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus is the lens.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: And so what we wanted to do was tell a Christmas story with Jesus at the center.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: But the nativity in which Jesus is at the center is a story in which all things orbit around him.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: And so you've got the angels up above, and you've got the animals down below.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And you've got kings, the highest in human society, and you've got shepherds at the bottom of the ladder.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: The nativity is a microcosm, and all of it orbits around the sun, the S-O-N Jesus.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: And so here's another thing we can do.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: If we believe in being Christ-centered and in being all of life, those things are not trade-offs.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: To the degree that we zero in on the Jesus story, we will see how he proclaims the world to us, the kind of world we want to live in.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: So here's our Christmas film called He Came Down.
37:50
SPEAKER_03: I know it's no one's fault.
37:52
SPEAKER_03: It's no one's fault that someone is born with a disability, but then you still feel like, but why did this happen to us?
38:02
SPEAKER_05: Welcome to all of you.
38:05
SPEAKER_05: Please take a seat.
38:07
SPEAKER_05: We want to now share a participant trait.
38:12
SPEAKER_05: This story of Christmas, we tell it in rhyme.
38:16
SPEAKER_05: Some actors have lines while some of us mime.
38:21
SPEAKER_05: I was overwhelmed with grief at the loss.
38:25
SPEAKER_03: I thought the beautiful baby has got down syndrome and it's such a disaster.
38:31
SPEAKER_05: Meanwhile, great Caesar Jugustus in Rome made a decree to return to your home.
38:39
SPEAKER_05: But Joseph is ruling meant Berthley Him town.
38:43
SPEAKER_05: So they rode on their donkey all the way down.
38:48
SPEAKER_03: God didn't give me a straightforward answer of why this happened.
38:52
SPEAKER_03: It just took time for me to realise God's answer wasn't so much what was wrong with Leva as much as there was something wrong with the way I was thinking.
39:02
SPEAKER_05: Mary was speechless.
39:04
SPEAKER_05: She didn't know how these things have happened, but still she bowed.
39:10
SPEAKER_03: I think of Mary, of all she goes through.
39:13
SPEAKER_03: It's not her plan, it's God's plan.
39:15
SPEAKER_03: She just goes with it.
39:16
SPEAKER_03: She's humble, she's calm, she's reassured by the fact that everything's gonna be okay.
39:24
SPEAKER_04: His lowly suffer.
39:40
SPEAKER_03: God suffered with us, and um and he gave us the most beautiful child, and there was no reason for me to grieve or compare her or you know, um, you know, feel sorry for her in a smile of you before she taught me.
39:59
SPEAKER_03: I thought she would lack.
40:00
SPEAKER_03: She's not lacking.
40:02
SPEAKER_05: So gathered around that we baby boy, all people are welcome.
40:08
SPEAKER_05: No heaven's joy.
40:10
SPEAKER_05: A tossed donkeys from shepherds to cake, the little Lord Jesus, God's will for Hebrew.
40:19
SPEAKER_05: He came to our darkness with her to love.
40:23
SPEAKER_05: He stooped to the price and the cross out of love.
40:27
SPEAKER_05: He spread in our weakness, and weakness is mess, and still he embraced us never to less.
40:35
SPEAKER_05: If you're feeling rejected, excluded a stranger.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: I know I can piggyback on what the world is doing and then yank people back to this other little speciality called Jesus.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: Our whole rationale is we go very deep with Jesus.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: We go very deep with the weird and wonderful Savior of the world.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: And as we go into the deep weird, we find that it starts to explain the world.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: It's not the way you might think.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: It's not building a bridge between the world out there and Jesus over here.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: It's going very deeply into our love and worship of Christ, but finding that as we go into this figure bleeding on the cross, suddenly it opens up, and we find him explaining the world.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: So that's distinctive number one.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: We want to be Christ-centered and we want to be all of life.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us, and then uh we'll have some coffee.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus Christ, we love you.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: And we see how glorious you are in these verses.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: We see that you are our maker.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: We see that you are our sustainer.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: We see that you are our inheritor.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: We see that you are our reconciler.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: And we are sorry for small views of you, Lord Jesus.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: And we pray that you would, by your Spirit, continually open our minds and hearts and imaginations to see you truly in your word, that we might see how high and wide and long and deep is your love.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: That we would know this is love that surpasses knowledge, to be filled with all the measure of your Father's fullness.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: Father, may all our efforts to reach the world actually begin with drawing closer to you.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: And would you help us to be fruitful?
44:18
SPEAKER_00: So that together with you, as your body in this world, may we carry on this work of this ministry of reconciliation to the world.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that we have such a privileged position.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that we have you, Lord Jesus.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: May we enjoy you in all that we do today.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, there we go.
44:42
SPEAKER_02: Hope you enjoyed that.
44:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh, do subscribe to the Speak Life podcast and and share, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch these sorts of things uh as well as listen to them.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: We'll soon be beginning our weekly evening live casts, and you want you won't want to miss those, so go to youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia.
45:06
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for listening.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: Goodbye.