Latest / Growing Together in the Gospel / Anniversary Special: Round Table - What does it mean to Grow Together in the Gospel?

Transcript

Anniversary Special: Round Table - What does it mean to Grow Together in the Gospel? · Growing Together in the Gospel

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was a year ago that Growing Together in the Gospel first aired, and in that time, we've been amazed at how well received it's been, not just locally, but across the world.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: To mark the occasion, we thought it might be nice to get Dean to sit down and tell us a little bit more about himself and ask him a few questions.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: On this occasion, we thought it'd be good to focus on what it means to grow together in the Gospel.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: But in the future, we hope that we might be able to include more topics that are important to you.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: For this to happen, all you need to do is to send us your reflections, your feedback, or your questions via the link in the podcast.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: You'll find it at the top of the details that accompany every episode.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: But before we hear today's discussion, we would like to thank you all for listening to our podcast.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: We are very blessed to receive such good teaching at LBC, and in the spirit of going into all the world, wanted to share it more widely.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if you enjoy listening to Growing Together in the Gospel, please leave a review on your podcast app as it helps other people discover it too.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And please share it with your friends, so that they may be blessed by the teaching as well.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you very much for all your support.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: And here goes, our very first round table.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's about a year since we first launched Growing Together in the Gospel.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's been quite a journey.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've learned an awful lot in my little study talking about levels and gain and all sorts of stuff.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Still don't really understand them, so I hope that the quality of the audio is alright when it comes out on the podcast.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: But to sort of celebrate and mark the occasion of it being a year old, we thought that it would be a really good idea to sit down and have a good old chat about what growing together in the gospel is all about.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So with me today is Dean, who is the person who delivers all those wonderful sermons that we listen to every week on the podcast.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: So Dean, good morning.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Aurelie.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about your story, because you've been minister what, for 10 years or so at uh Lempster?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So 12 years at Lempster.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then I was assistant pastor, as I often say, to a church without a pastor in Bournemouth for a number of years.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, it has been been quite a journey.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what brought you to to Christianity?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: What what brought you to faith?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was um it was a failed attempt to unconvert my wife's family, is the simple uh answer.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: She yeah, so I I met Naomi, my my current wife, and my only wife, and um, and got to know her and her family, and uh I I like them, I spent a lot of time with them, and and I grew to understand that they were they were called Christians and they went to church and and that was that that was a key part of their life.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I as I got to know them, I I I was always that person in school who I love science, I love love studying and and reading, and so for me, religion had no place, not that I was really against it, but um I had no place for it, I had no belief in it, and if you asked me if there was a god, I would have said no.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact that they believed sort of stirred something up in me to think, really, I don't I I never really encountered people who actually believe this, people who went to church but not actually believed it, and so it sent me on a quest to try and really save their Sundays.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: They they wasted a lot of time going to church and and doing church things, and so if I could unconvert them, then I could free up more time and and and do them a favour.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did, I set out on a quest at the time.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: The big names were were Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and those sort of people, and so I gathered their books.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was a person called Darren Brown, who's still I feel I think he's still performing an illusionist, and he had a story of being a Christian and and coming out of faith, and so he had a list of books that had demolished his faith, and so I set to work reading them, and and it was Naomi's mum actually.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: They went on a church weekend away and brought me a little book of the Christian arguments that I took and thought, brilliant, now I've got the the wall that I need to knock down, I've got the information to to dismantle.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in reading that there were some interesting arguments that I hadn't really thought about, but nothing really stood out apart from this picture of Jesus at the end that made me think, I don't think this is who I'm fighting against.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: The the idea that I had of God in my head is probably the standard old man of the sky, figment of your imagination, ancient um belief that doesn't have any bearing on the modern world.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly there was this person who who looked real, and I often say it's like he had dirt under his fingernails, he didn't glow like he was radioactive, he didn't sort of float along without blinking, he was he was a real person who real people met and touched and spoke with, and it was really that humanity of Jesus that drew me in to say, I I don't think I've ever met you before.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've met God and this abstract idea, but I never met Jesus.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, it was it was that suddenly I was reading the gospel, I found a Bible in the back of a cupboard in our house, a good news version, and I was reading that, and and uh amazingly, within sort of a few days I thought this isn't who I'm fighting against, this isn't the God that I don't believe in, this is someone who I I I think I think I want to know more about.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so my first prayer I've often shared is was God, if this is what you're like, then I'm willing to take a step.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and really I've been doing that ever since, just taking another step after another step as I've discovered more of who he is.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so yeah, I've I ended up becoming a Christian, obviously, being baptized, going off to college and studying.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the leaders of the church saw something in me, so I went into training.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was then assistant pastor in a very messy situation, and then spent time with Naomi, travelling around the country, visiting lots of churches, trying to work out what God was calling us to.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh one of my lecturers uh when I was at Moreland studying, uh Ian Coffey suggested a place called Leominster, as we called it at the time.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we came up and and yeah, and fell in love with the place and and found a home here, and so have been here now 12 years.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's in summary.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's quite that's quite an amazing story.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm afraid mine's far less interesting, but uh I can't well thank you.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I I can point back to I mean, I suppose a little bit like you, there wasn't a huge emphasis on we went to church every week when when we were younger.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think my family and my parents have always been sympathetic towards Christianity, yeah.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: There certainly was no you won't get involved with that lot when I was growing up, but there wasn't any sort of push towards it either, and I think on reflection, looking back, I think probably there was a lot of searching going on uh you know in my my mum's life, certainly at that time.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I actually was quite an unpleasant child.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say that whilst I was confirmed at a young age, I probably became a Christian, made the decision to become a Christian when I was 15, and it was after some pretty poor behaviour.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the people who had been really wonderful throughout my teens were a couple called Ralph and Hazel Thompson.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: So Ralph was the minister of Wesleyan Reform Chapel, which was in a little village down the lane in Lincolnshire from where we lived.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And every week, without fail, he and his wife Hazel would open up their house to a bunch of smelly teenager oicks like us.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we would just sit around, and unbelievably, now with hindsight, we watched episodes of um a chap called Watson.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: He was an Anglican, he was very clever, he used to have these videos, you know, television programs.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: We'd sit there and we'd watch these episodes and then we'd discuss them.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm just looking back and I'm just thinking, how on earth did Ralph and Hazel inspire some young teenagers who really weren't thinking about God all the time, that were enjoying coming together as a little group.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: How did we sit through all those videos?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we did.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And can I remember what he said?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not really, no, but I do know that at 15, with all of that lovely influence, that love, that support, that it wasn't pushing, it wasn't you must.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, the day I became a Christian, Ralph said, but I thought you were already somebody who had a faith.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, but I didn't believe I did.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there was no push, it was just kindness.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it was people who gave their time because it mattered to them that these people that they had in their community, these young people, um, they wanted them to have an anchor, they wanted them to have a place, and they they loved us.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say, you know, that that's been an amazing influence on me that maybe brought me to God and to faith.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: But what's interesting in both our stories is that neither of us grew up in a perfect Christian family going to church and having this wonderful sort of idyllic childhood where we were only blessed and nothing went wrong.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of a slightly Walt Disney palace sort of existence with princesses and princes and little butterflies and and birds that sang in our garden to us and things like that.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Neither of us had that.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: We both made a decision to come to faith in the face, I suppose, of a lot of people who would say, Well, that's a bit stupid, or really, what are you doing that for?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Very interesting.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: But we find ourselves here now, we do, and uh we are we've got a podcast, it's called Growing Together in the Gospel.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that that that I think it's amazing.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what a journey.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't quite quite get my head round it, sort of thinking that yeah, things that I might say go out to people apart from those in front of me.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't get my head round it or or really think about it because it becomes a bit too much.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it is amazing.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: You send me the the updates of people that are listening, and it's uh just blown away that yeah.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is amazing, isn't it?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh just want to thank everybody who does download and listen to the to the podcast.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: We love the fact that you're doing that, and you know, if there's just one person out there who is benefiting from what we get every Sunday um from Dean's uh teaching and and from our little church in in Leimster, then then it's all worth it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: But no, I I just somebody who's been coming along to Leimster now for seven years, uh Dean, I've really enjoyed the teaching, and I just thought that it should be something that more people hear about.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I was keen.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um now I've got a bit more time to see if we could just get that message out a little bit.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, 50 different uh countries are listening to the podcast, and uh, you know, huge numbers of cities uh around the world.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um popping out some of them, uh look at the list.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I have no idea if some of them are bots or whatever.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the world is full of bots now, isn't it?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: But uh but I I think there's a lot of people out there.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and uh and I um I have to say personally that I've been really blessed by the whole process.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not been easy, and I do apologize to everybody now that my skills today, an audio technician, are limited.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh, as they say in the world of sound and audio, if it's garbage that goes in, then it's garbage that comes out, and there's nothing the guy with the sliders can do.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I do my very, very best.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Alan.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's all right.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we chose, I remember sitting in the in the coffee shop uh just over a year ago, and we were talking about this, and I know you were a bit reticent thinking, well, who's gonna want to listen to this and all the rest of it?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: But but I wanted to call this growing together in the gospel, and I hope you like that title.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I do, I do.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, because I think that's the the thing.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think when we become a Christian, we're done.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think it's like life as a child, we grow into adulthood and you know, all of that sort of stuff.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And as a Christian, I think we go on the same journey.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So growing together in the gospel um meant a lot to me, and it also created an activity around the podcast itself.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's an activity, it's not a done deal, it's not a there I'm sorted.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's every day I can learn something new.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: We are acting, we are growing.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's activity around our life.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it's growing together in the gospel.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now I've got Elijah on there that you're teaching that, we've got um we've got revelation, we've got all sorts of stuff on there.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I just thought it might be helpful to come back to that word gospel.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: We've we talk a lot about the gospel, we talk a lot in Christian circles about preaching the gospel and all that sort of stuff.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: I thought we should explore that word.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: What would you have to say about gospel and what it means?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's one of the topics that I I love.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was um doing my my degree at Morland's, we had to choose a topic for a dissertation, and so I actually chose the title What is the gospel?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh at the time there were a couple of books that had come out, and and I was reading them and they were suggesting things about the gospel, and and and I was sort of thinking they're they're saying different things about that this core, what is the gospel?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: What is the message that we preach?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: What is the thing that we believe?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I for me it was something I I I started exploring and then I started asking people, sort of, okay, what is the gospel?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're getting different answers and different emphasis, and and I wouldn't say that any of them felt wrong, but I was just thinking, okay, well, how how what how how small do we do we go to say this is the gospel?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then also how how big can we throw the net to to say we've preached the gospel?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because we don't want it to be uh anything you might say might be that might be helpful or good, is that is that gospel?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and also how narrow, what sort of what are the terms we need to use, what are the the phrases?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I picked up on that quite a lot that people would say, oh, they don't preach the gospel, and you'd ask, Well, why don't they preach the gospel?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And people would say, Well, they don't preach not in most circles, it was something like they don't preach uh heaven or hell, they don't preach repentance, they don't preach sin.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was a big movement sort of churches that people would say, Well, you've got to be careful because they don't preach the gospel, they don't mention sin enough, or they don't mention this enough, and they don't mention that enough, and and so then I was going, okay, well, what what do we need then?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: What are the the key things that we need to say we have preached the gospel?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so that was how I how I began um exploring this idea, uh, and and it it for me it was it was fascinating because it it it it it opened my eyes to to the heart of the gospel, um to the heart of Christianity, of and it when I when I think I arrived at what I think is is the answer, it it sort of just went, Oh yeah, it's so obvious, it's it's something we all believe.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're to ask me what is the gospel, my simplest answer, which is very apt for the first question we've asked on this question and answer, the answer is Jesus.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there we go.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you tune in, guys.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: That that is going to absolutely play to every skeptic in the world, absolutely, and so but but keep listening because there is more to it that that the gospel is Jesus, but it's it's maybe the way to explain it is we have four books in our Bible, and they are called Gospels.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we have Matthew, we have Mark, we have Luke, and we have John.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so the question becomes, What why are they called Gospels?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the answer is because they are presenting the gospel, they are the gospel according to that's the full term, the gospel according to Luke, the gospel according to John and Mark and Matthew.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So they are preaching the gospel, and then you ask, okay, what is the content of these books?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they are containing the person of Jesus, uh, but they're more than just they don't just say Jesus the end, they talk about his his birth, his life, his teaching, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so all these things uh are are part of it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the gospel can be as small as Jesus is Lord, which if you remember, that's what John Um Paul says in Romans, where he says, if you believe that Jesus is Lord, and if you confess Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that he's raised from the dead, so that summary, Jesus is Lord could be a summary of the gospel.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is a Lord that we we we revere and we we say he is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, uh, and we believe in.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then you could expand it out to say, well, he is also the king who died in our place and rose from the dead to conquer over sin and Satan and death.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so you could expand it a bit more.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: You could expand it even further and say that he is the promised Messiah from the line of David, uh, who has lived a perfect life that we haven't lived, who has died in our place to pay for our sins, who has risen over death and is now ascended to the right hand of God and will return again to judge the living and the dead.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you could expand even further.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So saying Jesus doesn't mean we're just saying Jesus to people and and then they believe in that.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's presenting Jesus, and that could be as narrow as Jesus is Lord, and you need to believe in him, or it could be as wide as the story of the Bible from beginning to end, the creation and our fall, and God's promise and his redemption, and Jesus paying for our sin on the cross and rising from the dead, and and the so you could go as far as that, but it centers on him that he is the gospel.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I love Mark where he belings.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says, He says, This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there it is, it's the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you were to ask Mark ask Mark what is what does that mean, then he would go on.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me tell you about Jesus.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what he did, here's how he lived, here's what he taught, here's here's who what we saw when we looked at him, and and as each gospel centres sort of between a third and a half of it on his death and resurrection, this is a key part, so we don't diminish that, but it is Jesus who dies, it is Jesus who rose from the dead, and it's Jesus who ascended, and so it is him that we we call on.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when we look in the Bible, we see those four gospel stories.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, at Sunday school, we're always taught that gospel means good news, and so what you're sharing in your explanation there, and in what you're saying about the things you were looking into as part of your training and your dissertation, um you're actually talking about that good news, that what however you're framing it, however, people rather are framing the gospel.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um the unspoken bit is that Jesus is the good news, he's pulling together the promises of the Old Testament, he's he's that good news in the moment when he's walking around the deserts of Israel with the disciples and amongst people who are suffering, and and he's able to heal and teach and encourage.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that good news is core.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, what would you say then?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for you, you want us to understand the gospel is.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's answering a question with the question that I I would say that the gospel it so it's Jesus and his lordship and his kingdom.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then the question is, well, what does that sound like to the person who's in front of me?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if you notice it when you read the gospels, there's very little application that there's Jesus' teaching on what it looks like to live under his rule and in the kingdom.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, the application comes out in the letters later.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So the letters of the New Testament start each one with Jesus, his lordship, his death, his resurrection, that he is the promised one of God, he is the Messiah, he's in Colossians, he's the image of the invisible God.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's all these wonderful descriptions that that is gospel, and then they very quickly transition to now husbands, love your wives in this way.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Workers work as if you're working for the Lord, children don't disobey your parents, and and the parents don't exasperate your children.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love that one, don't exasperate your children, and it very quickly comes back down to here's the application of the gospel and here's how that works out in everyday life.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I tried to distinguish between the gospel, which is the presentation of Jesus, seeing him, believing in him, um, understanding him and knowing him, and then the application that comes later, which can be different depending on on who you're talking to.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: So in um when Jesus is meeting the woman at the well, he is good news to her in the way that she is a woman who has lived her life and been with different people, and I don't know, there's a loneliness there, there's an emptiness there, there's something she's trying to fill, and Jesus comes as the one who can fulfil that.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's no preaching of of other things that we might often include, but he is good news to her in that moment.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then you've got a man on the road who's blind and Jesus heals him, and in that moment he's good news in that healing, and so he's good news in different ways to different people.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then outside of that, in Acts 17, you've got Paul who goes to the Areopagus and notices in their city a statue to an unknown God, and so he says, You have a statue to an unknown god.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you about the God who's revealed himself in the person of Jesus.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if you reach out and find it, you will find him because he's not far from you.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: So he presents Jesus as the the answer to this longing in the human heart of a God who we don't know but we believe might be there.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so different ways you see that uh that the gospel is presented, and then they are called each one is called to believe or trust or surrender or repent uh to believe in that.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So there's still that that call to something of Jesus, surrender to him, but even that can use different language.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Matthew uses repentance, repent and believe the good news of the gospel.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: John, I've often highlighted that in the Gospel of John the word repentance doesn't appear as a response to Jesus.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: He uses the terms trust and believe, uh, because that would have spoken to the more Greek audience that he was writing to.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, depending who you're talking to, you come up with um not a different gospel, same gospel, same Jesus, same life, death, resurrection, and teaching of Jesus.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: But depending on who you're talking to, the way that their world is broken, the way that they are separated from God, the way that sin has taken a hold, or the enemy has captured them, the gospel enters in in a different way.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking on the way over trying to find an illustration.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And over the last few years, because of COVID, we've learnt about viruses, and it's not the most helpful illustration.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: You get these little balls with the different spikes on it.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And my understanding is that one of those spikes attaches to a cell so that the whole of that virus can get into the cell.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say the gospel, like I said, it's not the most apt illustration, but the gospel has many spikes, many ways that it might attach.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: It might be speaking to your sin and your guilt and God's forgiveness for that.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: It might be your shame and your sense of unworthiness and it it's speaking to that.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: It may be your loneliness or your fear, it may be to the lies of the enemy that have captured you.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: It may there's a hundred ways that our hearts and the world is broken.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the gospel may enter into your life in one particular way, but doesn't mean the rest of it doesn't matter.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, all of it will come into your life and shape you.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: But there are different ways that the gospel can enter into some Jesus can enter into someone's life because he'll meet you in different ways.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so my mind was a search for answers and the truth, and that was how I arrived at Jesus.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Later I came to understand sin and that's role in my life, and my my rebellion against God and my need for repentance and forgiveness.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: But that wasn't my first step.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: That it's still part of the gospel, because the gospel is all of Jesus, but the way it entered my life was through a search of truth view, it's something different.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Those that yours is through that that love and that welcome of someone that that that was a way that the gospel came in, and then later an understanding of different things.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it it means that the gospel is it's both bigger than we ever dare believe, because there's there's all that Jesus has done and accomplished that can apply to someone's life, but in that moment, face to face with a human being, it can be as narrow as their sin, their brokenness, their emptiness, their longing, and and come in in that way.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just love that that that that it is, it's bigger and smaller than than than we often think.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in terms of certain things that you need to tick off, that there aren't it.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I've got a sleeping dog here.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um he's having a little dream.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: He is um, yeah, that it's both bigger and more narrow.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it can it can meet people wherever they are um in the way that they need it.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, in a sense, the gospel is quite simple in that it's about a relationship, yeah.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's about a man who walked through the deserts of Israel and who literally met people in the moment then, but who you say and we say as Christians now remains that living man, human God Messiah, yeah, who is both.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's complicated, maybe for a future sort of episode.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: But um, he is still very much the same Jesus that walked through the desert, felt the sun on the back of his neck, got the sand stuck between his toes, um, grieved over loss.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: He's the same person who would meet me in my, I don't know, loneliness or a need for for companionship and affirmation at the age of 15, that would meet you in that quest for, but what's this really all about?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Surely this God stuff's nonsense.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, in that sense, the gospel is very simple, it's about Jesus, yes, who meets us where we're at.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, it's highly complex.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if you notice the gospels, each of them spend, like I said, a third to a half of their story on that last week of Jesus on his death.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's something to that.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Most uh it's been highlighted before, most biographies of people spend a lot on people's life, and very few spend so much time, would spend that proportion of time talking about someone's death.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is a key part to it because on the cross, or through the process of that last week and the up to the cross, you see Jesus stepping into nearly every facet of human life.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: You see him um facing betrayal, um, and then he becomes good news to all those who face betrayal.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you see him facing um injust uh persecution for all those who faced injust persecution.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: You see him bearing the sin of the world for all those who have guilt and are bearing a weight of guilt in their own life.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: You see him um crying out, Why have you forsaken me for all those who've ever felt forsaken?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: You see him um praying forgiveness for his enemies, for all those who've had that that desperate challenge of having to look at their enemy in the eye and say, I forgive you.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: You see, you see, but each one is is not it's not one thing that he's doing on the cross, it's everything he's doing, all the all the darkness of the world, all the sin of the world, all the all the the the brokenness, they all culminate in this this week, and particularly in this moment where he hangs on the cross.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like you say, it's on the once you could say Jesus died for our sins, and that's that's a nice sum summary, uh, and that covers a lot.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: But when you start to pull that apart, you see that that that encompasses an awful lot.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: That it's not just when we say that, it's not just forgiveness of sins, which I think is part of it, but it's the power of sin.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I often point out that the Bible talks about sins as in things we've done and we need forgiveness for, and that's perhaps a very familiar framing of the gospel to people.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the Bible also talks about sin, sin as a power, sin as a liar, sin as a a cage in which we live, sin as a and and so he he's also dealt with that on the cross.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I my fear is that if we we only frame it one way, we actually shrink the gospel, as wonderful it is forgiveness of sin and righteousness from God, that that's incredible, but it's it's it's still not the full picture.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's even more that he's done, and even more, and that the gospel speaks to that, and particularly the cross and res the death and resurrection speak to that, the the breaking of that power, the the disarming of the enemy and his lies, all these things feature uh and so I think Scott McKnight talks about um theories, atonement theories is how he terms it.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is is the gospel about forgiveness of sins and or is it about um cleansing us from our shame, or is it about breaking the power of the enemy over us, or is it about um an atonement and a just um punishment so that we can God can remain holy and the just and the justifier?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And his answer, and I think I agree, is that why not all of them?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we need to select one?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: It might select one for that moment, but all of this is it's multi-fascinated.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was Spurgeon who talks about like a diamond, and as you turn it in the light, it refracts light in a different way.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's one light and one diamond, but as you turn it and look at it from different angles, you'll see more beauty and more more wonder in it.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I I love that idea that that's what we do.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the cross is our symbol, it's why we come round the communion table, because every time we do, we look at it, and the hope is that we would see another another refraction, another shift in light that we go, he's even done that and that and that, uh, that the gospel becomes bigger and bigger the more we understand it, that it isn't just a an ABC, right?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: A B C now you're in.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually the A to Z, it's the beginning and the end, it it covers so much of life, and it isn't just a ticket or uh the way you get in, it's actually it's it's more than that, so it's a whole reframing of of the life, the universe, and everything.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because actually that's a really good point to make there, because actually, in some uh circles and in some people's understanding, um Christianity in the gospel is about going to a big tent meeting where maybe somebody like Billy Graham is speaking and saying this is what Jesus has done, he's died for your sins, he's broke the risen from the dead, and through that he's broken the power of death and hell.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you believe, then you are saved.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's almost as if you can leave the tent, you can go to the local store, you can buy the sandals and the uh, you know, and the wacky Christmas uh Christian sort of uniform, and and you're good.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to heaven.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Which is another question.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: What is heaven and where is heaven?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: But you're going to heaven, it's all good.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not really enough, is it?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's so the gospel is if Jesus is Lord, like so that's that's a helpful framing, a nice three-word summary, Jesus is Lord, then that lordship doesn't just get you in the door, it brings you into a new kingdom.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's in all the gospels, that is the the perhaps the most common framing of the gospel.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's the gospel of the kingdom, or the kingdom has come, or that's Jesus' instruction again and again, the kingdom is near, repent and believe, the king is here, the king has arrived, repent and believed.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so that and that doesn't say come and acknowledge him and then walk away and ignore it.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, you make him king, and then you live under his kingship.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so the gospel it does include his death and his resurrection, but also his ascension and his return, uh, which often get left out in gospel presentations, but he is the ruling and reigning king now and invites us to live under that lordship.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so our podcast being called Growing Together in the Gospel, you can't if you if it's just the ABCs, you don't grow in that, you understand it, you believe it, and then you you move on to something else.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: But discipleship is growing in understanding, okay, if Jesus is king and his kingdom is come in my life and in my vicinity, and then I need to to shape my life it uh to that.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: That uh it's like a stream, if a stream's flowing one way, if the kingdom flows one way, then I want to be swimming in in line with that, I can swim against it, but I don't no longer want to, I want to sw be in step with it and in the flow of it.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the way I handle my money comes under his lordship.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Jesus, you are king, and so how do you want me to handle my finances?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like I say, in the New Testament, the letters they say, Okay, here's now you love your wife.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: You love her as Christ loved the church, and wives you you love your husbands and and you you forgive and you don't go to bed angry, you you you you work on this and you you submit to one another and you you surrender to one another, and that's that's perhaps so familiar to us in our culture that we forget that that didn't exist before the gospel influenced and shaped the world.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was Tom Holland recently.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um he just he did a a Q ⁇ A and and he was talking about people who say, Well, I don't need God because I'm good enough.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he said that they miss that the gospel has so shaped our culture over thousands of years that the only reason they can say I'm a good person is because they've been influenced by the got the kingdom of Jesus without realizing it, that they live in a world where it's it it seems wrong to murder.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now for us we go, yeah, of course it does, but that before Jesus, that these things weren't questioned, that that you could have that you could treat your wives in certain way, you could treat slaves in certain way.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: That the fact that we we bulk at that and go, ooh, I would never do that, is because the kingdom has influenced us, that we've the culture has grown in the gospel, even without realizing it.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Christians are those who are just doing that intentionally and saying, Yes, we we want to that we want more of his kingdom, which comes back to Jesus' prayer that he teaches us, your kingdom come, your will be done.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: That we want that's what it means to live in the gospel, not just believe it, but to let it shape every area and and every corner of our life.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um that it might be all of it might be surrendered to him, shaped by him, informed by him.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not just God give me more lists of things to do in my life, it's I need his strength to help me.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel doesn't just say here's stuff to do, it says there is someone who has borne the weight so that you can do this, there is someone who has provided strength and grace to do it, there is someone who, when you fall, picks you back up, there is someone who who covers your failures and your weakness and and brings them into himself so that he can transform them and renew you.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: That it's it's not just more stuff to do, it's a way of doing it that doesn't feel heavy and burdensome.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because the gospel can otherwise the kingdom of God can become oh just another list of stuff.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the things I should do and how I should behave.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like when the Pharisees were around with was it 513 or whatever?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so they they yeah, that all that, but Jesus says, No, you come to me that you're burdened, I will give you rest, because I'm that kind of king.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's not just what to do, it's uh it's a way of doing it that is is light and easy, Jesus says.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: It it's it's filled with grace and mercy, it's filled with his strength, it's sustained by his spirit, uh, and all of that comes out of the gospel because Jesus is the one who gives us the spirit, who who pours out the spirit into our heart who and makes it possible to even live this life.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's yeah.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and and that's all really, really helpful, but in that little last bit there, it sort of sounded idyllic.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to say that in my life I haven't all found it plain sailing.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's been time no, I haven't.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's been times which have been really, really tough.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I just think of people, the loss, I just look at the world around us, the the noise, the nonsense, the betrayal, the treachery, the disaster, the destruction.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not easy just walking, is it?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: As a Christian, it's not just sort of like butterflies and tweeting birds, surely.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, so if you look at the the presentation of the gospel in the gospels, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and believe the gospel.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so that isn't uh that everything is now under God's Lordship in the sense that it's a done deal, that everything is finished.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus has has brought it, but he brings it in the way that he describes it, it's like yeast that works through the dough, that that it's come in in a small form, and yet it's the kingdom.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: The kingdom, yeah, the kingship of Jesus that that he is come, but now it's now it's to spread until every square inch of the world is covered in it.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're right that there is much of this world that um where God's will isn't done, which is I think why we pray God your will be done, because it it it isn't um that Jesus is actually called the first fruits, which is an interesting term that when Jesus died, he takes on the sin of the world, he resurrects to to bring new life, but he's the first fruit, so he's those first shoots that come up um to signal that the harvest is flourished.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so there are many farmers, perhaps even this year, with the weather we've had, who went out to a field, they planted seed, they looked out, and it hadn't taken, or such a disease had come, or something had come, so it didn't shoot up.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first fruits is those little shoots that go, right, it's coming.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: We know that it's gonna be a harvest because we can see the first fruits.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not here yet, it's not fullness, it's not complete, but those first shoots are coming up, and Jesus' resurrection is that first shoot, it's the the confirmation, it's coming, that uh things are not gonna be perfect, you will not be perfect, that this is this is an outworking, this is gonna gradually come until it covers all the earth.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so that's that's the time that we live in.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Some theologians call it the now and the not yet, that that it has been done, it is finished, it is sealed.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have that hope, a hope that is unshakable, we're told, but we don't experience that.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: That there is hardship and there is heartbreaking situations, and there is our own failure and our own sin and our own reluctance to surrender to Jesus' lordship.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so that there is still that frustration, and we don't see it all clearly, but we have beyond all our failures, we have a hope.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, confirm that if Jesus rose from the dead, then it is coming, that his kingdom has broken in, that the enemy has been disarmed, and and that while he he prowls around seeking to devour, he he does not have the final word Jesus does.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so that again is part of the gospel that we can present.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is coming again, uh, that he is going to make all things new, he is going to wipe away every tear and heal every wound, and and in this life, Jesus isn't a sort of a king that rides into battle going, Yeah, see, come follow me because because nothing ever touched me.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: He is the king who suffered and died at the hands of a broken world.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, when you be if I come back to Jesus, he becomes my my answer to that struggle.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um God, why does it feel like I'm forsaken?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have an answer for that, but I do have a king who also said, Why have you forsaken me?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: God, why do I feel like it it's so that sin just wins again and again, and I see Jesus who is killed by sin.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and I don't have an answer, but I have a Jesus who understands.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, Jesus becomes my my answer, he becomes my solution, my strength in those moments because he he isn't a king who just rides in a cloud above all these things.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who steps into that mess and steps into that brokenness and from there lifts me up.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um so in the book of Philippians, Paul uh touch gives us this sort of um journey where it says Jesus, who was God, doesn't hold on to his godship but comes as a man, even lower than that he dies, even lower than that he dies on the cross, so he's at this lowest point, so that he can take hold of anyone who's also at that lowest point and rise up again and rise up and rise up and bring us with him.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, that that frustration, that pain, the gospel speaks to that because it says, Well, Jesus descends however low you may be, Jesus goes down to that low level, so he can take hold of you and then bring you up with him, and because he's come up, you have a hope.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the hope isn't that um this life will be easy or that nothing will ever touch me, but even if it does, he is greater, he is bigger, he is stronger, he is able.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm hurting, yes, he sits in that hurt.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and he understands that hurt because he had that hurt.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: He does, and when I'm betrayed, he sits in that betrayal, yeah, and he knows that my betrayal is real, it hurts, visceral, yeah.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that really, really tears into you.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but he has experienced that betrayal too.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: He has, and uh there is that sitting with, and that's important, and that identification, but there is also eventually when the time is right, him him lifting you up and raising you up to be able to rise above that, that he doesn't sit there and just leave you, so you're both stuck in that place.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: There is a time where he will he will equip or he will strengthen, or he will speak his comfort, or he will bring something of his kingdom's grace and goodness to to rise you up.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that might be someone who's betrayed that that ability to forgive their enemy.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we've heard incredible stories over the years of people who've been able to they've been in that place where they've been hurt by someone who's sought to destroy them, and they've been able to rise up with Jesus and offer them forgiveness.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just sort of one example of what Jesus does.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just He does sit with us and that's a wonderful comfort, um, but He does He is also the one who conquers over that and does raise us up with Him eventually.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that'll be in this lifetime, and I trust that sometimes that will be in eternity, where everything is wiped away and made right, but we will be raised up with Him, that we we're not just left in a mess with a comforter, as wonderful as that is, and I think in some situations that's all we have, and that that is enough.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also a hope of healing and restoration and making right, which I think the kingdom speaks to as well.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if this is cell phone, I want you to correct me, Dean, uh, if I'm just hearing things uh in the way you don't quite want me to hear them.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you know, I'm taking from this conversation that becoming a Christian, that touch point where we perhaps hear the gospel, maybe for the first time, maybe for the hundredth time, but finally something, a penny just drops, and something just happens, and I just think, oh wow, yeah, this is amazing.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: From that small touch point where Christ is able to come into our life, Jesus is able to literally become a real thing to us, um, a real person to us, a real presence.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a little bit like my getting to know a new person?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I might form a new friendship, and that friend is somebody that I barely know when I first meet them.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, after the weeks, the days, the months of going visiting places, of just sitting in the garden in the evening, shooting the breeze, or sitting around having a coffee or a tea, or just talking about things that are affecting me uh or them during their day?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is it a little bit like that living relationship we have with other people?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously, I don't want to compare Jesus with a an average human.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but does he come into our life, meet us where we're at, and basically become that guide, that friend, that person, that that reality in our life that over time um expands a conversation in our lives.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we might meet in our loneliness, but down the line in a month's time, I might be talking about the fact that I'm so cross with this, that, or the other, or I'm anxious about the future of the planet because there seem to be so many weird things going on, etc.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: That within each of those phases and seasons of the conversation of my life, there's a sort of journey in my thinking, in the conversation and the teaching that he can give me, the thoughts that he can give me on the things that I'm experiencing in that moment, that anxiety or whatever.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that over time, a bit like a good cheese, I go from that sort of milky sort of way, yeah.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure that uh, yeah.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: That I don't want that to catch up.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: But no, but no, seriously, a bit like Edge, you go from that sort of milky way, sort of um bland into something really quite mature and that's got flavour and interest and dimension to it.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you think that sort of very flawed and I'm afraid long winded uh exposition of a sort of relationship, how it goes from very little to very great, to that point that you know somebody, how they think.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you have the ability to say, actually, I don't think that's the right way to think about it.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that is uh a helpful uh is that am I hearing you right?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: That is a helpful way of maybe summarising the sort of thing you're saying about r Jesus and our relationship with him.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is because that that that is maturity is is the goal that I would mature in Jesus, so that I would so live under the gospel with Jesus is Lord and His King Kingdom has come.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so that that's that's that that summary, and that it's come because of his death and resurrection and and conquering over enemies and sin.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a as I live under that, my life becomes so shaped by it as I walk with him and as I understand him more and as I see him more clearly, that my life that I'm mature, that that it almost it becomes a point where I'm no longer having to be told things, I I've become something that's real transformation.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's a at the start, we're told that we're like children, we need milk, so we need Jesus to perhaps be more direct and and to don't do this and this is wrong and avoid this.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: But there comes a point where I know his heart that I'm I uh it's more instinctual that I I come across situations the Bible doesn't even speak about.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible doesn't talk about AI and how I use it, it doesn't talk about about I don't know the nuclear weapons and those things, but I so understand his heart and his his his his his lordship and and I've got to know him that I I respond in the way of Jesus because it it's become I'm transformed, I'm I'm filled with his spirit, and which is interesting because that's how John frames it.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: He says this is eternal life, and in many gospel presentations, eternal life is you get to be in heaven with Jesus forever, which I think is true, and that's fine.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: But John doesn't say that.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says this is eternal life, that you know God and his son who he sent.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: So he says eternal life isn't about length of time in a particular place, he says eternal life is knowing Jesus.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's now it is so it's eternal life has begun here and it continues on, and we will know him and grow to know him and grow to know him.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that I I just find it fascinating that John John does that.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's so clarifying it in terms of how they understood who Jesus was, that it wasn't just going to heaven when you die.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's one and again, I I often sound like I'm diminishing that that that that idea of heaven and earth being recreated and us being with God and and God being all in all.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful idea, everything healed, and so we're not removing that.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: But like you say, it starts now.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know Jesus now.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: The good thing about heaven is I will know Jesus perfectly.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's like a cloudy mirror, Paul says, but I will know him, and heaven isn't heaven if Jesus isn't there, and that's the idea of that that if if it if it's not God, then I don't want to be there.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because he he is he's the goal of the gospel, he's not just the source of the gospel, he's also the goal, knowing him, walking with him, understanding him.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: And John takes that and says, That's what eternal when we talk about eternal life, that's what I'm talking about.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: When John wrote those words literally walking in the garden with Jesus, yes, yeah, yeah, it's back to how it was meant to be.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: So when John says those famous words that God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life, he then later says, Well, the eternal life I'm talking about is they would have Jesus, they would know him, they would know his heart, they would know his voice, they would know his eyes, and when they the the look that Jesus has for them, the delight he has for them, they would know his presence, they would know they would it would be more of an experience of Jesus than I think perhaps we're we're used to.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Which is what Jesus said, because they went to just one thing when Jesus says you can study the scriptures because in them you think you have life, but you don't come to me to to to get that life.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's something about me, which again comes back to he is the gospel, it's something about me and and encountering me and and knowing me, that is the whole goal.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um we we love the good stuff, I love the forgiveness, and I love the the cleansing of my sin, and I love the the the removal of the power of sin in my life.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: I love that the lies of the enemy are disarmed, but all of that is done so I can get to Jesus.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the barriers that that block me and and hide him from my sight, but when they're removed, if they're removed and I have nothing, then then it's it's good stuff, but gee if it's all done so I can come to him.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sin is taken so that I can come close to God.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm washed and cleansed so that I can be near to God in his holiness.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um the lies of the enemy are disrupted so I can come close to the truth of Jesus, but it's he becomes the goal, and like I say, that becomes the the life that I now live under the gospel when I want to grow and mature and that it becomes more than an external thing or something I have to keep bringing to mind.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes it's just the story that I live in, it's the the the way that I think, it's it it's permeated.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love it like a chicken, it's marin, you're marinated in the gospel so that the flavour goes all the way through right to the centre.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just sitting on the outside, it's it's every part of you.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, so the gospel encompasses cheese and chicken.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: So again, what I'm taking from this is that a lot of people can think of God as being sort of this old man sitting on a throne, high up there, perhaps a little impatient, a bit um intemperate, um, zappy light, punished, blah blah blah blah blah.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's perhaps even the God that you thought you wanted to destroy it before you became Christian.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's the sort of God that you walk into a church, a beautiful place.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: You might not believe, you might not be somebody who goes to a church very often, but you go into the space.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Even you know, Dawkins goes in and he he says, you know, I just love being in these sort of spaces, they're so peaceful.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're yeah in that sense.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I suppose he's finding it a very affirming and and and wonderful restorative place.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you know, anybody can walk into a uh a church and they can look up at that glazing, the lovely colourful glass in the windows, and they can see Jesus' face and God, and there he is up there, yeah.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Remote.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: He's a picture, he's at a distance.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: But what you're really emphasizing is he's not.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's that person who walked around that desert with those people, he's wrestled with all of these human frailties and feelings, he was tempted, all of that sort of stuff.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that is very much the same now.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when we do say, okay, I I'm I'm really interested because I I I no longer see that picture in the glass, but I see a real person I like.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is the person you liked.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not fighting this person you said.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: The Jesus I'm finding out about, I'm not fighting, I like I think even Dawkins says, you know, the good man Jesus doesn't.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't necessarily go all the way to say, I recognize him as my Lord and Saviour.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: But he he says, I like this guy, I like what he does.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: But where we come to that point, and then we say, actually, I want I want you to be the Lord of my life, this is about a companionship and a real relationship.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the gospel.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: That is the heart of the gospel, that it's not a set of beliefs, it's actually a relationship.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: That each day we're more confident in sharing a secret we've been suffering under, or we become a little bit more confident about sharing those things that really hurt us or whatever, yeah, to the point when we leave this life.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we have been as moulded as we can be in the time to become the sort of best image of the person God wanted us to be.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: That and that idea, that's I think it's James who who says that, that the that he says the demons, you believe that there's one God, he says to the to his hearers, or the the recipients of the letter.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You believe in one God, good, so do the demons, and they tremble.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so the point he's making is yeah, believing stuff about God, that's that's one thing, but the demons don't submit to Jesus, they don't walk with Jesus, they don't they don't know him in that intimacy, they they they understand him, perhaps better than even we do, and they understand his power and his glory and his beauty and his holiness, but they don't they don't they don't delight to surrender in that, they don't delight to walk in that and that and so that becomes a a bit of a warning that yeah understanding God, and so I I Jesus came to my life as as the carpenter of Nazareth, but I soon discovered he's also the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, that he's not as you get to know him, he is not one or he is both and that he is both the Lord of life and the one who holds all of creation together by the word of his mouth, and and the one who was before the beginning, and and there's Alpha and Omega and and all these things, but he's also the carpenter with calluses on his hands who who lifts up your head when it droops and and carries you and and says, Give me your burden, and looks into your eyes.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: That the the wonder of Jesus is that he is both at the same time.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: He is both one that I cower in in reverence and awe because of his majesty, and but he's one who I'll climb into his lap because he is he is he is my saviour and my friend.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and that that I don't think I've ever I've never settled that in my head.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I I probably swing wildly between one or the others.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think we all do, but but he is both, and I think the wonder of that can't be contained in in simple formulas.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that I experience daily, and sometimes I experience that majesty and and awe, and sometimes it's that intimacy and closeness that he is the high and lifted up one who has come near.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's not one or the other, he is he is both at the same time, and that's part of the the walking with Jesus.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: I get to discover and and be in awe of both and and learn it again and again and again.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and thus it it's not one thing that I tick off, right?
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've got that now.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a it's now like I said, it's a it's a it's a melody that plays in the background, it's uh it's a way that you walk, it's the atmosphere um that you you understand that shapes that yeah, when when you hear I don't know, politicians and world leaders making declarations, I know there's a higher voice than theirs.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so that just becomes the their their voice becomes the background noise to the voice of Jesus, who says, I am coming again and I will make all things new.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and but he's also like you said, the comforter in grief and sorrow, where I feel like I'm the only person in the world.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one whose whose comfort is greater and whose presence is is is a balm, as as the old hymns used to say, that that that that satisfies and carries me when I need to.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so he is like that poem, he's the he's the footprints in the sand that carries me when I can't, but he's also the king who who destroys his enemies and lays them low because he his kingdom is righteous and good, and evil cannot stand in his presence.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, they say that but it's that relationship that that helps me to to know that, not just to understand it, but as I grow in him, I I I see him.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: But like you see, in the gospels again, they're the perfect example.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: You've got Peter who sees Jesus in one way, and one minute saying, Jesus, get away from me.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm unclean, and the next minute thinks he has the audacity to tell Jesus what he can and can't do.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you get both in the in the gospels, they're they're wrestling with this this man who they I we know your dad, we know that he made a table for me, but but now you're you're the king of kings, and we'll be laying down our coats and and tearing leaves off the tree to celebrate you riding into tree.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's you see it all in the gospels that this wrestling with this man who is not a man, this God who is not a god, but not say it in the right way, but he is this god man, he is he is he is in the flesh, he is one of us, but he is beyond us.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that he cannot be contained in either, but but he can be experienced, he can be known, he can be you can relate to him.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: And as Jesus, we can relate to him, where we could not go near the presence of God, yeah, yeah, because we'd just be consumed.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's it, yeah.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that yeah, that that distance was was emphasized and and reinforced, and and Jesus does, he brings that near.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so in Colossians, it says he is the image of the invisible God.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: In Hebrews it says uh God has spoken in many ways, he spoke through prophets, he spoke through burning bushes, he spoke through a donkey at one point, he he spoke in many ways, but he is spoken most clearly in his son Jesus.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's Jesus is the clearest voice of God, he's the clearest image of God.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I'm asking what's God is like, my first reference is Jesus, and that's not to diminish God, because Jesus doesn't like I said, Jesus is still holy and pure and righteous and king, uh, but he is he is the the image of God that that we are given to see God most clearly.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I've really enjoyed talking with you this morning, Dean.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think we've got lots in there for people to chew on to think about.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you think?
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Do please feed back to us, tell us what you think, and Dean's here and he wants to answer your questions, or he wants to at least give you a response, because I don't think even Dean would say he knows everything, but he would give you from his heart what he thinks would be a good and a right response in the frame of the gospel.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, thank you very much for the time you've given us.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm glad that Rufus, who has been lying next to us throughout this, has not made too many noises, and I hope that doesn't come through.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um but hopefully we'll be able to do something like this again in the future.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: Go well and go with God.