Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Lies, Addiction and How to Break Free || SLP366

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Lies, Addiction and How to Break Free || SLP366 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, welcome.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas Larigood again here, intern at Speak Life, covering for Paul Feesey, who would normally do this intro.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: As you know, Paul's one-year-old daughter Libby is extremely ill at the moment in hospital in London.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: There have been people praying for her around the world, and there have been some answers to prayer, but still a long way to go in her recovery.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So do please keep praying for her and the Feesey family and the doctors.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Glenn will give some more details about that at the start of this episode.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Slightly different podcast today, Glenn on his own, so he will give some updates, and we're going to play a sermon that Glenn recorded on Sunday the 20th about John 8 at Christchurch Bansted.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you enjoy the show.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do subscribe to the Speak Life Podcast on your podcatcher of choice, and a rating and review really help us get seen and heard by more people.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So without further ado, I will hand over to Glenn Scrivener and I will catch you on the other side of the show.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, I'm Glenn Scrivener, and thank you so much for joining us on the live cast.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, Paul Feasy is not with us, and I thought I'd give a little update as to uh what's happened to Paul and the whole Feasy family in the last week.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as we came off last week's livecast, uh Paul had a missed call from Becca, his wife, and uh Libby was unwell, their one-year-old daughter.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: She's just 14 months old, and uh they suspected that she might have had pneumonia when they first took her to uh to hospital, and then it was very apparent quite early on that she was uh a lot more sick than that.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: She's been rushed to a specialist hospital in London, and things got uh incredibly hairy.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh at the beginning of last week, um she uh had to be resuscitated.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Becca and Paul had to be removed from uh ICU as they resuscitated their 14-month-old, and and Paul wrote very movingly on Facebook about how he thought that might have been the last time he'd ever seen his daughter alive.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: So amazing to think that seven days ago uh Paul and I were sitting right here in the studio having uh a chat about aliens or whatever it was that we were talking about, and uh all this was about to unfold.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: It was a week that Paul uh and Becca did not have planned at all, and yet that's the way that it has uh unfolded.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And in the meantime, they've had thousands of people praying for them from all over the world and uh sending in uh all sorts of uh well-wishes but but but also uh tokens of love.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the feces are very, very well loved, and uh poor Libby has had to go through multiple major surgeries, including uh open heart surgery.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: They still don't know uh what is wrong with Libby, and so that's a massive prayer point for us at the moment.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um she's getting stronger and stronger, so she's able to endure uh more tests.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and the CT scans that she has had uh seem to be zeroing in on where they think the problems might lie uh for her.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: But that's a massive uh prayer point for us all.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Let's be praying that uh they discover what it is that's uh that's wrong with Libby.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Let's pray that she stabilizes, let's pray that she continues to strengthen, let's pray for healing uh for Libby and uh God's peace and protection to really surround Paul and Becca and uh Melody and Clara as well, Libby's two older sisters, as well as obviously for Libby herself.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so we we very much hope that uh Libby will be back fighting fit soon and that Paul will be back with us uh when he's able.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: But uh what I thought I'd do uh today is um Brandon John Keman is saying, Praying now.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you so much, Brandon.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, you're joining you're joining thousands from around the world in praying for Libby Feasy, and we do believe that uh those prayers have made uh a big difference.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um this weekend I've been up in Banstead in South London helping out Christchurch with an outreach weekend that was uh entitled uh Freedom, Unlocking Life to the Full.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I got to speak uh mainly from John's Gospel at a series of different events that Christchurch were holding.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: And uh in a minute we're gonna look at uh my Sunday morning sermon from John chapter 8, uh from verses 31 to 36, the famous You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna be thinking about that together.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna be thinking about uh the way in which Jesus assumes that all of us are liars and slaves.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um we tend to think of you will know the truth and the truth will set you free as this lovely verse that grandma stitch cross stitches onto a wall hanging, and uh and yet it is a very confronting truth.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: We are all self-deceived, we are all addicts, we're all liars, we're all slaves, and we need the Son of God to set us free.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Mr.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Green in the comments saying prayers.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you so much.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh let's keep on praying for uh Paul and Libby.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Amanda Kay saying our daughter has had three So yeah, we'll be we'll be thinking about this issue of uh freedom in a second.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's one other thing I'd love you to be praying for, although it does not have anywhere near the urgency of prayers for Libby, is uh this week is a writing week for me.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: So uh this morning I've been toiling away at a book that I'm working on that'll come out uh early next year.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know what it will be called yet, but I think this is the first time that publicly I'm going to discuss the possible titles for this book.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um basically it's taking the insights that uh people like uh David Bentley Hart have had uh when he wrote his book uh Atheist Delusions and talked about how history has been so shaped by the Christian Revolution, or Vishal Mangalwadi's book, uh the book that shaped your world, that again has talked about how history has been so shaped by the Jesus movement.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um obviously Tom Holland's book, Dominion, is uh is very similar, and over 650 pages, Tom Holland has talked about how the cross is just at the heart of the modern world and of the the uh the values that we have as human beings, and uh really Christianity has been the most transformative movement in the world.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but obviously Dominion is 650 pages, or uh Alec Ryrie has uh uh written uh his book on Protestants and how um certainly that wing of uh the the the the the Latin Christendom has really shaped Western civilization, or you could think of The Evolution of the West by Nick Spencer or any number of these books um that I find fascinating, but um when I try to give them to people and enthuse them about the fact that the world is far more Christian than we generally think, people are like, I like the idea of reading 650 pages.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Can you summarize it for me?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's what I'm trying to do.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: With the good book company, I'm writing a book um that is either called title number one, what do you think?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh we could call it the water we swim in, or you could call it uh title number two, the air we breathe and the ground beneath, or we might call it mid-air, uh history's great leap of faith.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um basically though those are three working titles that we're working on at the moment.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what you guys think of in the comments.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Should we call it the water we swim in?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Should we call it the air we breathe and the ground beneath?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Should we call it mid-air history's great leap of faith?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: We will think about that.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm on my second uh writing week.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I've kind of carved out a week here and a week there.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I'll have another writing week um in July as well, and hopefully, I wrote a third of it in uh the last writing week.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm hoping to write the second third of it this week, but I really need your prayers, so please do uh be keeping me in your prayers.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Amanda Kay says, I so enjoy how you think and write.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Can't wait for this book.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: I like the last two titles best.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think so.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Brandon John Kemeny says, Ooh, midair is nice.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think so too.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think I might be I might be leaning towards mid-air.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Patrick Tumusime, uh Patrick Tumusime, he says, I think the second title is more descriptive and catchy.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think you might be right.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, to say um the air we breathe and the ground beneath actually describes the shape of the book.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because essentially what I'm gonna do in the book is take you back to life pre-Christianity, like life pre-the emergence of the church in the first century.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: And let's go to Rome, let's go to the Coliseum, let's see the gladiatorial games, let's see people just fed to wild beasts for entertainment, let's see crucifixions for entertainment.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Let's see infanticize and exposing infants just as the the natural and wisest course of action, because all those things were just human universals, really, and the Roman Empire, as well as ever every other human civilization, was just very happy to practice infanticide.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, let's let's think of the way in which the sexual economy of Rome was based on a freeborn male's right to have sex with whoever and whatever he pleased, uh, be it his wife or his mistress or the children in his household, or the slaves, or whoever.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, really, when you go back in history before the Christian Revolution, you're encountering a profoundly alien world, and it is Jesus Christ that has changed things.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so the shape of the book is to go back before then, and then to take you through five pairs of um values that we all take for granted these days: rights and equality, and then a chapter on uh humility and kindness, and then a chapter on sex and sexuality, and then a chapter on scholarship and science, and then a chapter on progress and freedom.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: And in all these things, we'll we'll see how the values that we take today as being obvious, natural, and universal are nothing of the sort.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Those values have derived from Jesus and the revolution that bears his name.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: So that's really showing us the air that we breathe.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And the air with that we breathe is profoundly Christian air, or at least Christian-ish.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then in in the last part of the book, I'm gonna write about the ground beneath.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: And essentially, I'm gonna say, look, you don't need to take a leap of faith in order to come to Jesus.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: To come to Jesus, you do not have to take a leap of faith.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: You've already taken an almighty leap if you believe in human equality, if you believe in human rights, if you believe that consent, for instance, is absolutely vital in a sexual relationship.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you believe in the scientific method, if you if you believe in progress, if you believe in freedom, if you believe in any of these ideals, you've already taken the most almighty leap of faith.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you have no grounds beneath your feet unless you come to Jesus.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because Jesus is the one that earths those values and actually makes sense of them all.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the air that we breathe and then the ground beneath.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: So uh yes, oh good.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: We've got we've got some disagreement in the comments.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Brandon John Kemany says history's great leap of faith.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then he follows up with he agrees with Patrick, title title two is more accurate, but title three will sell.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Philip, Philip Alcorn says, I'm sold on Title II.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I I hope I can sell you all on whatever title we come up with.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: But um actually, there was another title I came up with a friend the other day because I I was kind of explaining this book to him, and uh and he then said, Ah yes, but Christians have taken part in all sorts of atrocities down through history, haven't they?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll get into this in the book.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Christians have embroiled themselves in the most horrendous atrocities, but judged by what standard?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, conquistadors are horrendous judged by the standards of Christ.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: But judged by the standards of every other empire that has ever existed on the face of the planet, um, that's just business as usual.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: The Crusades.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um when when you write the history of the Crusades, and instead of saying that they fought under the banner of Jesus Christ, instead you say that they fought under the banner of Genghis Khan or Julius Caesar or even Muhammad, what do you call that kind of behavior?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: You call it business as usual.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: It is only the fact that they they march under the banner of Jesus Christ that it becomes the grotesque evil that it truly is, because Jesus died for his enemies, he did not kill his enemies.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: So have Christians committed the most horrendous evils down through the ages?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they absolutely have.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: But by what standard are we judging those to be evils?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: And and we tend to judge them by the most profound, the most profoundly Christian kind of values.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like what what other empire would possibly think to put the cross at the heart of all things when the cross is a sign of the power of empire to put to death Jesus?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: To put him to death, and yet somehow through his sacrifice, through his victimization, he rises up to found a kingdom that's very different to the empires of this world.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: We tend to take on the values of that kingdom and then judge Christendom by those values.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: That only goes to show the enduring the enduring strength of Jesus, really.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so as I got into a conversation with my friend about this, you know, I I kind of said that you know, when people uh criticize Christians, they use Christian values to do so.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: So i if you criticize um the Christian West, for instance, for being colonial, it's only because Jesus Christ puts a radical question mark over every exercise of power.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus Christ says in Mark chapter 10, you know, it's the Gentiles who lord it over everybody else, not so with you, says Jesus.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um instead, whoever wants to be greatest among you must serve.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: So the criticisms that you hurl at Christianity are themselves deeply Christian.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: The problems we have with Christianity, and I've got problems with Christianity, I'm sure you do too, but the problems we have with Christianity are profoundly Christian problems.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then my friend said, look in the workplace, I'm always hearing, I'm always hearing that Christians are bigots.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, what what do you say to that?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you you say that what's so bad about bigotry?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like what is so bad about marginalizing people?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: What is so bad about discriminating against people?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: What's so bad about hardening the difference between differences between people and treating different people very, very differently?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because Plato had no problem with that, Aristotle had no problem with that, okay.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um what's so bad about bigotry?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: That could be another title.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um that might be a little more inflammatory, but there's a possible title.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um What's so bad about bigotry?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um and really it's just it's just Jesus.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's just Jesus who saves us from all these things.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't checked out uh my interviews with Tom Holland in the past, um I I think you'll get a lot out of them.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I I interviewed Tom Holland back in 2019, and I interviewed again him again in 2020, and what he tends to do as a an historian coming at things from a quite secular point of view, uh, is basically look at life as normal without Jesus and what a horror show it is to us, just just naturally.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then the Christian revolution.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I put it to him twice, in fact, but both in 2019 and in 2020.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: I said to I said to Tom Holland, you seem to be saying what kind of evangelicals say in a different setting.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's either Christ or the pit, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um It's either Christ or the Pit.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you'll you'll see um if you go to those interviews, what you know what Tom Holland says, you know, to that.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: But um this is what I'm trying to get across in my book, and probably trying to get it across in about a fifth of the length of uh of Dominion.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Brandon John Kemany says, now that'd sell.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: What's so bad about bigotry?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe if uh if the good book company, if my if my publisher is watching, maybe that's the one.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: What's so bad about bigotry?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: We shall see.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so as I promised earlier, uh what we're gonna do now is uh have a look at a talk that I gave yesterday at Christchurch Bandstead.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciated my time at Christchurch Bandstead.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've been uh with them before doing uh some mission outreach.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, the last time I was there, we did a whole week of mission outreach, and at every single event, we had at least somebody coming forward saying that they wanted to trust Jesus or come back again to Jesus.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was extraordinary, and we had a great time just this weekend at Christchurch Bandstead, and I so appreciated their desire to just push out there with the gospel of Jesus, and I'm I recognize how difficult it is right now.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, June 21st, today is meant to be the day that we were released into freedom.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Today's the day when we were meant to um to have Boris grant us back our freedoms, and we were we were gonna be released into the summer.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that has not proved to be the case, and things are on pause at the moment, and it's difficult to plan things.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I've had people left, right, and centre, cancel bookings that they've made, and I was gonna speak in somewhere, and they've just decided to press pause, and we'll we'll see.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and I can totally understand all those decisions, but I really uh do admire Christchurch Bandstead for really pushing forward and saying we're just gonna we're just gonna do this.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um I do think, and perhaps we'll do uh a live cast on this at some stage.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: I do think that um all the emails that are being sent to me at the moment, you know, it they're all being signed off with stay safe, stay safe.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a perfectly good public health message.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Stay safe, stay safe.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I I do think that we need um when it comes to the things of the kingdom to be bold, to be brave, to push out there.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: And while we might say stay safe from a public health point of view, let's be bold, let's be courageous when it comes to a kingdom point of view.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um we yeah, we need to do that, Alan.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I I just I just applaud Christchurch Banstead for being brave and being bold about that.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: So what we're about to see is uh a clip from yesterday's uh church service at Christchurch Banstead.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um I speak from John chapter 8, from verse 31 to 36, and my title is really Um Freedom Where Can It Be Found.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: So why don't you have a uh a look at this?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh do please be praying for Paul and uh especially for Libby Feasy.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh do be praying for my book writing this week.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but without further ado, here is my sermon on John chapter 8.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: The reading is from John chapter 8, verses 31 to 36.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: John chapter 8, verses 31 to 36.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: They answered him, We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: How can you say that we shall be set free?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus replied, Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hello, I'm uh Glenn.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: If we haven't met before, I'm uh Ruby and JJ's dad.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Emma's husband, and uh I've been here quite a few times now.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: I love coming up to Christchurch Banstead.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: I usually live in Eastbourne, and uh my job is really to go around and talk about Jesus.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I love to do that with God's word open to show you who Jesus is because I think he is the great liberator.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think he is the answer to our heart's cry for freedom.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I'd just like to say a short prayer now that I would be clear, that we would hear from God's word about who Jesus is and what he can do in each of our lives, and that we might experience real liberation this morning.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Can we pray that that might happen?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Father, we want to know you, the very best Father, and we want to know the liberation that your son brings to be children in your family.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: So show us Jesus again, so that in his face we might see who you are truly like, and in his face we may see what we are truly like.
• 22:00
  unknown: Like.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what do you think of when you think of freedom?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: If you were to do a Google search for freedom and look at the images that show up, what you tend to find are pictures of people on top of mountaintops and looking out to the far horizon with a sort of quasi-heroic look in their eyes.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe the sun is rising or the sun is setting.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: But what you'll notice about all the various images of freedom is that the people in the images are alone.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: They're all by themselves.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Whether they're in an open-top car with the breeze in their hair or on top of a mountain, they are alone.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's very interesting about our modern understanding of freedom.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: So often we think that freedom is me being able to do whatever I want.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: And the end result of living that kind of life is that you end up all by yourself, surrounded with all your kinds of comforts, and you might be independent, you might be free from one perspective, but you're all alone.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: So we just saw that video, best dad.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: And what do you have?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: You have a dad who has the world at his fingertips.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: He's surrounded by all the stuff that he likes on his screen.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: But him ordering his life around himself and around his own desires, does that liberate him?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Or does it enslave him?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: He sinks down into the sofa and he discovers his granddad and his own dad.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: And his dad has been there for 30 years.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: He was captured by a screen of his own, the TV.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: And we might think that being free to watch whatever you want, to do whatever you want, to go wherever you want, that that is a definition of freedom.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, have you ever noticed how being free and being lost can be quite similar?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Setting out for freedom, you can actually end up losing yourself.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: I remember it's a university, my first day at uni, and I thought, I'm leaving home.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: This is the definition of getting free, right?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh my mother said her final words to me as we unpacked the last box and she was about to head back to the car for the last time.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: She gave me a hug to see her boy off to university.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: And with a tear in her eye, she said, Glenn, just fly, Glenn, just fly.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: And because sarcasm is my love language, I said yes, but only because you're the wind beneath my wings, mother, which which was a terrible thing to say.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I've I've been regretting it for 20 years since then.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: But we kind of understand what my mum meant by that, right?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: She she meant that when you fly the nest, suddenly you're free, and you can be the person you're meant to be.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: And sort of freshers week is the first week of university.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, these days, now as a speaker, I often go to University Freshers' weeks, and I see a whole bunch of sort of 18, 19-year-old versions of myself trying to get free, and you've never seen such lost people in all your lives, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, physically, you're lost, aren't you?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in that first week of university, you know, you don't know where the lecture halls are, you don't know where the library is.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: To be honest, after three years, I was none the wiser on either of those things.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: But you don't know where things are physically, but but also you you don't know where you fit in.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: As Sylvia was saying, there's such a pressure to achieve, to be a certain kind of person, and you don't know which mask, which persona to wear.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a real slavery, actually.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: A whole bunch of people trying to get free, ending up lost.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, the wisdom at that stage is generally if you feel lost, what you need to do is to find yourself.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard that wisdom before?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we try to do, isn't it?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you leave home, when you start the new business, start the new career, start the new family, go on holiday, whatever it is, you feel like you need to find yourself.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: But have you ever thought about what a nuts idea that is?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're lost and you find yourself, that means you've just found a lost person.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: And has finding a lost person ever been much use to you when you're lost?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever been in a new situation?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, oh, where's the library?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm lost too.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that that's not much help, is it?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: If you're lost and you find yourself, you're just going to find that you're lost, which is no great find, is it?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you're lost, what do you need to find?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: You need to find home.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: And when you're home, you can just be yourself.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: The pressure's off at that stage, isn't it?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing to prove, nothing to hide, nothing to lose.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: You're just you.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: Here in John chapter 8, we are meeting the freest man who ever lived.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: According to the Bible, he is the one who has come from home to find you.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how you get free.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Don't find yourself, you're lost.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's one who has come from the ultimate home, he's come into our lost situation, and he can bring us into his family love.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then when you find home, wow, you're home.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Home free, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Let's have a look in John chapter 8.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't have uh a Bible at home, uh we'd love to give you one of these.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: We've got some copies of John's Gospel at the back.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love you to keep on reading in John's Gospel.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great way of being introduced to the basics of the Christian faith.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps we can have up on the screen behind us.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Is that possible?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: Can we have on the screen behind us uh the first couple of verses of John chapter 8?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Here is one of the most famous biographies ever written.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is perhaps the most read piece of literature in human history.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: This biography of Jesus, written by one of Jesus' closest friends called John.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And in the middle of the gospel, Jesus is surrounded by a whole bunch of Jewish authorities.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: And verse 31, little number 31, it says, To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a famous famous phrase, isn't it?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: Have you come across that phrase before?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: The truth will set you free.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's the sort of thing that grandma sort of cross stitches onto a wall hanging, and it sounds really lovely, doesn't it?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: The truth will set you free.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here to tell you this is dynamite.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because what is Jesus assuming as he tells people the truth will set you free?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know what he's assuming?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: He's assuming that we are liars and slaves.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: He's assuming that we don't currently live according to the truth, and we are not currently free.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's a shock, isn't it?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: We are, according to Jesus, self-deceived and addicted.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a shock?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds lovely, doesn't it?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: You all know the truth and the truth will set you free.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, think about the assumptions.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus is saying you don't currently have the truth and you are not currently free.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: What does he mean by that?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, think about the way you and I live our lives every day.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: You and I live our lives with, well, I live my life with me at the center, right?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I need all of you to orbit around me, the light of the world, the sun, right?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: And you're a little planet, and some of you are, some of you are very important planets in my life, and some of you are like Pluto, and I can't even decide whether you're a planet or not.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: And you're you're out on the on the fringes of my life, but I am at the very center, and I need you to play along with my story of myself, okay?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: You get a you get a tiny little snapshot of this on the road, don't you?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever you're on the road, everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: And everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac, right?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: But you drive just right, don't you?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: You're the center of all things.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you need everybody else to play along with the story that you tell of yourself.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: There was another brilliant uh example of this that I experienced a few years ago.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: We we made another film a few years ago, and we wanted to have a uh a time lapse of sunrise in Eastbourne.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: So Eastbourne's where I live on the south coast, and stupidly I decided to get this sunrise, it was in May.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, sunrise was about 5.10 in the morning, and for about an hour before sunrise, it's still quite light.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you so I I was up before four, go to the beach, and for some reason the timer on my camera wasn't working, and so I had to manually press click, you know, every 30 seconds to get a shot, and then another shot, and then another shot.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it was 4.10, 420, 430, 440, you know.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: And and at this point, the sun had not yet risen.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: I was waiting for it to rise.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: I was waiting for this wonderful time lapse of the sun rising over the ocean.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: And right around sunrise, I noticed this golden ball emerging from the sea, completely out of shot.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: And my first thought was, this has ruined the day.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: And in my head, I swear, for the first two and a half seconds, as the sun rose out of shot, my thought was, that's probably not the sun.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: It can't be the sun.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: I know where the sun's going to be.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: I've set things up.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a very intelligent man.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: I went to Google Maps.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I'd figured this out perfectly.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: That cannot be the sun.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: For at least two and a half seconds.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: I was coming up with all sorts of alternative explanations for what this golden ball might be emerging from the is it a ship?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a nuclear event?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: What's coming?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: What I was absolutely certain of is that it could not be the sun because I know where the sun was.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: I had oriented myself in this direction.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: My outlook was this way.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: And this thing was getting in my way.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: And what do you call that?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: You you call that person self-deceived, don't you?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: That person is not living according to the truth.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that person is not free.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: What did I need to do?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: I needed to shift the camera and put the light of the world in the center of things.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: But that's the one thing we don't think to do, because we always want to put ourselves at the center of our little world.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: And we always want everybody else to play along with our little story of things, which means we are self-deceived and we're addicts.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: We're liars and we're enslaved.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: We need the truth, and the truth will set us free.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: But we're always resistant to the truth.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: The people in the next sentence, it's fantastic.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: In verse 33 on the next slide, they answered him, We are Abraham's descendants, and we've never been slaves of anyone.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: How can you say that we shall be set free?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's hilarious.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: If a Roman soldier was overhearing these Jewish people speak like that, he would have at least chuckled to himself, just silently, wouldn't he?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there he is, the Roman oppressor of these Jewish people.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: And they're saying, we've never been slaves of anyone.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: And if that Roman soldier had done any history, he would realize that they've been slaves of everyone, right?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Who haven't they been slaves of?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: They were slaves of the Egyptians, they were slaves of the Philistines and the Moabites, they were slaves of the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Persians and the Medes and the Greeks and now the Romans.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: Who haven't they been slaves of?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: And yet, this is what we're like.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: When I say to you, you are addicted, you are self-deceived, what's your instant reaction?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm not, I'm free.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: I do whatever I want any old time.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I wonder if the word of God is convicting you right now.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's not the case.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe even as you flick through your Facebook feed, your Twitter feed, even as you consume all the media in your screen, maybe you realize that the things you consume actually consume you.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: Have you noticed that?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because you say to yourself, Well, I only do what I want to do.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, well, exactly.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: But that's what every addict says, right?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: I just want the next hit.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's what I want.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm free, right?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: When I when I get the next hit, I'm free because I'm choosing to do it.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, but don't you see?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: You're a slave.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're addicted.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe your drug of choice is not heroin, maybe your drug of choice is male attention, female attention.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe your drug of choice is achievement in the workplace.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe your drug of choice is earning enough money to project that image of myself out into the world.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally people will realize I'm somebody.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well then, okay, but how much is enough?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Are you an addict?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: Can you stop?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: All of us have various addictions.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: We go after what we think we want, and it ends up enslaving us.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's an apocryphal tale told about how you can catch a monkey.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard this before?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: Apparently, you can put a jar into the forest and you put an apple inside the jar, and the aperture of the jar is just wide enough for a monkey hand.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: But once the monkey puts his hand into the jar to grab the apple, he's stuck.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: And of course he'd be free if only he'd let go of the apple.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: But the monkey never lets go of the apple.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: He just he just wants what he wants, and he's gonna grasp after it.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: And he's a slave.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus says, This is what human beings are like, this is what I'm like.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is what you are like.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Is there any hope for us?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, very much so.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: But first we need to do business with verse 34.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus replied, Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we're all like.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: We think we're just getting what we want, and what we want is enslaving us.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like Augustus Gloop from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know the scene?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: He just wants to get the chocolate river and ends up drowning in it.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is our lives.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: In one sense, we're drowning in freedoms.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: In another sense, we're very thirsty for real connection, for real liberation.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: How are we gonna get it?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Jesus goes on.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: Verse 35, he says, Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: He's setting up these two different paradigms.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: You can live your life either as a slave or a son, either constantly working towards some kind of wage, some kind of goal, constantly under orders, unfree, enslaved, or you can live in a family home.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: What's the family home he's speaking of?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: Where he's about to go on to talk about himself as the Son, the Son of God.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is who Jesus is.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: He has come from an eternal family of love.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: He is the son of a father who has been loving him and filling him with the Holy Spirit from before the world began.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: This is the ultimate family.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: This is the family that was there before people or planets or protons.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: This is the family that you and I were made for.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: We were made to come home to a father's love.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: To be united to the great liberator, Jesus, to be filled by the spirit of adoption so that we can just call out, Daddy, I'm home.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you and I were kind of made for.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: But instead, by default, all of us turn our backs on that family love and we try and make it out in the world, and we try to make a name for ourselves, and we try to perform, we try to acquire, we try to achieve, we try to earn.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: We live like slaves, right?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: And how much is ever enough?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: Just a little more.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: Just a little more, just a little more.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: What do you call that?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: You call it addiction, you call it enslavement.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: And here comes Jesus and he says, there's a different way to live.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: You can live as a son or a daughter in that same family.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: Where the verdict from on high is your foundation.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the finish line.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you embark on a career or something, you you have a finish line in mind of wouldn't it be great if I climbed to the top of this ladder?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't it be amazing if I achieved this, if I performed in this way, if I got that trophy?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: You think if only, if only, if only, and that's the finish line.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, you're a slave to that thing.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because if it goes well, well, you're proud, and if it goes poorly, then you're disconsolate.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: But Jesus says there's a way of living where the verdict comes first.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: Where the foundation is, you know what?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: You're loved.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: You belong.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: You are welcome.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're at home.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus says, come on home to that family.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: How does it happen?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: Verse 36.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: So if the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus' great work was to be a liberator.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: And what does he do?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: He does what love does.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you see your beloved addicted, what do you want to do?
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: You want to enter into their plight.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: You want to be alongside them in their battle.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you want to lift them out into freedom, don't you?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what Jesus has done for us.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: He has dived down into our plight.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Here we are, liars and slaves.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Here we are, addicted to all the things that will kill us.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus dives down into our spiritual stupidity.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: And on the cross, he takes on himself all the consequences of our spiritual stupidity.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: On the cross, he dies the slave's death.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: Did you know that that's what the cross was in Roman culture?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't tend to, you certainly would never crucify a citizen of Rome.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: If you were a free-born man in Rome, there was no danger of you ever being crucified.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was the slave's death.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was known as the slave's death.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was a deterrent.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: So that no matter how terrible your conditions were in your household, you would think, well, rebellion against my master is not worth it.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because crucifixion is even worse.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus comes down and he dies the slave's death.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's what love does, right?
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: Love enters in.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Love says, Let your pain become my pain.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: Let your unfreeness and slavery become my unfreeness and slavery.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: Let your pit become my pit.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus comes all the way down to love us.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: You won't find any love like the love of Jesus.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: Every other spiritual teacher and philosophy basically says, climb, right?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Every other spiritual teacher stands at the top of the ladder and says, you might want to try putting your left foot around there and then yet with your right foot, right hand grasped like this.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: Every other spiritual teacher in philosophy is about advice for climbers.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: Here is Jesus descending down to the pit for you and for me.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Mumford and Sons once saying, There's a love that will not betray, dismay, or enslave you, but will set you free.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: To be more like the man you are made to be.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: Love that will not betray, dismay, or enslave you, but will set you free.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: Be more like the man you are made to be.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: You see, we we go for independence and we think we'll get free.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: No, you just get lost.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: But Christ connects himself to us in love, and he draws us home so that now we can walk out into the world and the verdict is already ours.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: Greg Leganus was a uh Olympic diver and he won all the medals going, got all the world records, and Sports Illustrated once asked him Greg, you are famous for nailing a dive at the end of the competition.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you have to do the perfect dive, or you'll you won't get a Metal, and you get up to the 10-meter board, and somehow, under pressure, you are the man.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: How do you do it?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: And Greg Lagana said, Oh, it's simple.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: I just climb up to the 10-meter board, remind myself my mother loves me, and I dive, right?
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just that sense of here is an identity that cannot be taken away from me.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: Even if I belly flop into the into the pool and make a fool of myself.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: My mother still loves me, right?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if Greg Luganas can be liberated by the earthly love of a parent, how much more can we be liberated by the eternal love of God?
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: A heavenly father who says, You're mine for free and forever.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's the liberation that's on offer with Jesus.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: How does it happen?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: It happens through two things.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: The Bible always talks about these two things.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: It always says, repent and believe.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: Repent and believe.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to come in on the family home, repent and believe.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: Repent is a word that just means turn.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: Just think of me at the seafront with my camera pointed in the wrong direction.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: What did I need to do?
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: I needed to turn.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: I needed to orient myself now, not according to my own plans, not according to my own vision for life.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: I need to admit I'm an idiot, okay?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: I've got this wrong.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I had everything in hand.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: I was wrong.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: I turn.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I put the sun at the center.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: On that day, I put the S-U-N sun at the center.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to come home to Jesus, you can put the S-O-N sun at the center.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: You turn and you reframe everything around Jesus and you say, you know, Jesus, I'm not who I say I am.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm who you say I am.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: You say to Jesus, sorry, Jesus, I thought that when it comes to living the good life, when it comes to freedom, I thought you were the problem and I was the answer.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's the natural state of the human heart, isn't it?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when it comes to life, you always think God's the problem and you're the answer.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Wrong.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: Wrong.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: You're the problem.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm the problem.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: Chasing after my own little desires, that only addicts me.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: I need to repent.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: I need to say, no, I am not the answer.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm the problem.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus, you're the answer.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: I want to put you at the center, put you in the frame.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: You repent and you believe.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: What does it mean to believe?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we had it in our prayers earlier.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: John chapter 1, verse 12 says, To all who received Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: To believe in Jesus is to receive Jesus.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: To say to him, Jesus, I've made a mess, but thank you that you've come.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: Take me home to be with you so that I can call your father my father, so that I can know your spirit as my spirit, so that I can walk with you through this life as the free person I was made to be.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: Is that something you want to do?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: In a second, I'm gonna pray a prayer that just says, Jesus, I'm turning and I'm coming home.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: I want you at the center of all things.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't we just bow our heads right now?
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll lead us in a prayer that says that.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the words I say are not magic.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you don't have to say them verbatim to Jesus.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: He understands.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: But these might be the sorts of things you might want to say to Jesus if you want to repent and believe, if you want to come home to this kind of love.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you that you have loved me.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you that you have come into this world to share in my pit, my darkness.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry for thinking I'm the answer and you're the problem.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry for my sin.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: Please forgive me.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for dying for me.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for rising again to new life.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: I turn to you.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: I receive you.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: Please let me know.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: That fatherly love that liberates.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: And walk with me through this life and into your eternity.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there we go.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: Any comments or questions can be emailed to info at speaklife.org.uk, or you can join the lively debate either on our YouTube channel or our Facebook page.
• 49:08
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• 49:12
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• 49:18
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• 49:22
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• 49:27
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• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for joining us today and keep speaking life.