Beyond The Message: When God's Kingdom Collides with Ours

Welcome to Beyond the Message, a midweek space where we continue the conversation from Sunday's sermon, unpacking context, exploring your questions, and growing as we listen, learn, and follow Jesus together.

Hey guys, welcome back to another week of Beyond the Message.

I'm Jess, I'll be hosting this week, and I'm joined by Pastor Grant Harris, who preached last Sunday.

He continued our King and Kingdom Come series in Luke 16, which we'll dive into soon.

Excellent.

Today we're gonna unpack a couple of things that are quite interesting, quite chunky.

So hopefully we can keep this nice and short for you and not waffle on too long.

We'll be looking at what exactly the kingdom of God is.

Um, Grant really wanted us to get into that.

If you were there on Sunday, you'll know that.

We're gonna explore one of Jesus' most misunderstood parables.

We'll discuss what wise kingdom living looks like today, and we're gonna wrestle with the question: what future are we really investing in?

So some good stuff.

I like it.

No pressure.

Uh-huh.

Bring out all the good stuff today, words of wisdom.

Before we jump into it, I'm gonna take give you my take on your sermon.

You tell me if that's right, wrong.

Can we score you?

Yeah, out of ten.

It'd be fantastic.

I was actually lying awake last night thinking about how I should have worded this, and I haven't changed it.

So let's see how we go.

Didn't just ask AOI to do it.

No.

Carry on.

On Sunday, we explored Luke 16, one fifth one to fifteen, Jesus' parable of the shrewd manager, where a surprising story becomes a compelling challenge to stop living for what is temporary, start investing in what is eternal, and ask whether every part of our lives is serving God's kingdom or our own.

Perfect.

I love that.

Five stars?

Yeah, I I go five because it was short.

Yes.

I spent 30 minutes talking about it.

I know, I can sum it up.

That's right.

There's the sermon done.

Don't even go listen to it.

Just joking.

Um, is there anything you wanted to add, take away?

No, I think it's I spoke to somebody after our service who said that it was their favorite passage.

And I've literally never heard anyone say that.

And then he soon after that said, but I've never heard anyone preach on it.

So it's a passage that's not often preached about, and I think for the very reasons that I articulated, it's it's challenging.

It there's lots of interpretations, I think we'll get into that.

So it wouldn't be one that we often speak about.

So it was a good to unpack it.

It was a great message, it was super challenging.

So if you haven't listened to it, in all seriousness, go and check it out.

You can find it on our website windsorpark.org.nz forward slash sermons, or you can find it on our Spotify and Apple podcasts as well.

It might go viral.

It might go viral, who knows?

It's easy to hear Luke 16 and think that this is a sermon about money.

Yeah.

Um, but in Luke's gospel, it's fundamentally a sermon about the kingdom of God.

And so as we mentioned earlier, you did make a point of us unpacking what the kingdom of God is, because you didn't have the space to do that in your sermon.

The sermon's restricted to a certain time frame.

Um, but it is an important part of what we're going to discuss today.

So what is the kingdom of God in your view?

Well, I wanted to raise that, and I guess I set it up to raise it because I was thinking about it a lot in the last few weeks, more than usual for me.

I often think that the kingdom of God is kind of Christianese language that we talk about.

But obviously, it's very scriptural as well, so it's very much in the Bible.

But what is our understanding of what the kingdom of God is like?

It's not ordinary language that we use in our everyday life.

You know, I'm serving a kingdom.

And back in the old days, of course, kingdoms were big.

And I guess the most easy to identify example is that a lot of our ancestry goes back to the United Kingdom.

So the United Kingdom of the kingdoms, you know, over there in England, Wales, Scotland, etc.

Uh, and so we sort of understand that, but what is actually a kingdom and how we live in that space?

Because in the New Testament, John the Baptist, you know, because we're Baptist, comes in and says, you know, repent, for the kingdom of God is near.

And he's referring to Jesus coming, and so God's kingdom coming into our our world.

What does it actually look like?

And how do we clash with that?

And I think that's the big issue that Luke wrestles with.

It's the big issue that actually the gospels wrestle with.

How do we live in God's world when we're living in our own world?

And I want to use uh an example that might be a little bit controversial, but it's a historical example that I think is close to our hearts here in ATRO or New Zealand.

So if we go back into history, uh Maori, I guess, are in the indigenous people of our land.

They have a certain way of looking at the world, and they had a certain way of looking at the world.

And if I narrow that down to one aspect of it, land, which is problematic globally.

But for Maori, land is something that is communal to this day.

They have Murai, um, their iwi, their their family, their farnos, corporately owned land, that was their view of it.

Land was never an individually owned asset to have until people, my ancestors started coming to New Zealand.

And the New Zealand Company, which was the company set up in London to promote New Zealand, sold land to people without even having the land to start with.

And I think of an area in Wellington and the lower heart.

That was one of the early areas where conflicts arose because settlers would come to New Zealand, go to this land, and say, Yeah, we've bought this land, it's ours.

For Mori, they were like, What do you mean?

Yours.

Come, yeah, share with us.

Let's live together, but it's ours.

And there was these two worlds colliding, you could say two kingdoms colliding, and it's caused conflict.

Back then, it causes conflict to this day because these two worldviews, and no one could really negotiate it, and obviously in our history, it's caused lots of division, it still does.

We're still living in the light of that.

And so when the kingdom of God comes to our world a couple of thousand years ago through Jesus, it collides with the kingdoms of that day.

And that's why in this passage we see the Pharisees, or particularly through Luke, we see the Pharisees.

Jesus talks to them a lot, basically saying, Your view of wealth collides with the view of a kingdom of God view of wealth.

Not that wealth is bad, but how you're using it and what are you using it for.

And so I think in this parable, it's one of those ones where we see these two worlds colliding, and that's the kingdom of God.

God comes to our world in Jesus, and he has a way in which he sees the world, he sees relationships, he sees people, and it clashes with our view, and that's our experience today.

So when we talk about the challenging aspects of forgiveness or generosity, it's because we we have a way that we see the world and it clashes with God's way.

Um, and I guess that's the way why the world has been broken a lot.

Um, but I think understanding that the kingdom of God is God's view of humanity, is love for people, and then how we live in that place, and that is really hard for us to get our head around.

So I guess I think a lot about the kingdom of God.

I had a long drive last week and I was thinking about it the whole time.

Um thinking about how how do we explain that?

So I kind of thought of this New Zealand example.

We still live in the clash of cultures.

We still live in the clash of culture from God's world against the world in which we are trained and often kind of indoctrinated to live in.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I think it's worth us growing into and thinking about that so that when our hearts are challenged about generosity or wealth or forgiveness or how we see people, and that's what I'll be talking about this Sunday, um, it's understanding this clash is real for us.

Hmm.

Yeah, it's a lot to wrap ahead around.

Um, it's good though.

I guess it's almost thinking like even in different countries and cultures, we view the world differently and we do things differently.

Yeah, totally.

And yet the kingdom of God is how God wants us to live, right?

Yeah, so the kingdom of God is something different from all of our cultures, it transcends culture.

Yeah.

Um and it applies to all of us, no matter what race or background that we come from.

We just live in a world of colliding cultures, and the kingdom of God adds another dimension to that.

So I think this passage in Luke chapter 16 is coming up against that because the the shrewd manager or the frontomos manager is planning for something worldly, planning for his future.

Luke 16 · chapter mention

Um, and Jesus says, that's okay, but why aren't my people of light?

Why aren't my followers planning for something that is eternal?

So we plan for our own futures.

We probably all have Kiwi savers, etc.

We plan for something and we put a lot of effort into it.

It's all in our news all the time, but it's temporary.

I mean, we're all gonna die.

So what Jesus is saying is like, also, my way of looking at it is to say, no, people, they're gonna they're gonna live forever, they're eternal.

You should be investing into that.

Um, and so it's this clash of the temporary versus the eternal.

This is what Jesus is saying, and saying that to the Pharisees ultimately as well, and saying, so you guys think about the temporary, your love of money, he describes it as.

Um, that that clashes with an eternal view of people.

Good.

So then what would you say that kingdom people are?

Who would you say kingdom people are?

I think breaking it down for someone who doesn't know this Christian language.

Kingdom people are anyone that might call themselves a follower of Jesus, whatever term we put around that, um, a Christian, you know, born again, saved, whatever.

Um we are people of the lights, but we're also broken.

So we're never gonna be a hundred percent on board with what Jesus says.

We we grow and we mature into that, and I really believe that one of the things that we strive to put into people's lives here at Windsor is this ongoing journey of understanding what that's like.

So I turned 56 last week.

Um, happy birthday to me.

Happy birthday to you.

I probably understand the kingdom of God more than I ever have, but it's taken me a long time, and I'm still learning on that journey.

So I think that's the journey of discipleship.

I guess that's my point and thinking about what the kingdom of God means to us and how it changes our priorities, how it changes our hopes and dreams for the future and what we do in life.

Um we get this constant barrage of messaging around our our life and what the world thinks we should look like.

But we need to be thinking and growing into so what does this look like to be God's people, the people of light?

Because in effect, we do have an eternal reality that we believe in.

And so, how are we investing into that?

That's why I love this parable because it actually it's a real clash and it does challenge us to think about the kingdom of God.

So let's get into the parable then.

So the parable of the shrewd manager, when understood without context, is pretty confusing.

Uh, we had have a conversation post-your sermon because I learned through conversation just to wrap my head around it more, and it almost in a way can seem like it contradicts what we know the heart of God to be, but that's without the context, right?

So why is this considered one of Jesus' most difficult parables?

Um and why do you think Jesus intentionally told stories that weren't immediately obvious?

Yeah, let me start with that one.

Yeah.

Um, I think it might not be immediately obvious to us, but I think when Jesus is telling his parables, he's speaking into a culture that probably understands it more than what we do.

So even the term Pharisee, it takes a little bit to kind of understand what a Pharisee is.

Or break it down for us.

Well, Pharisees, uh community leaders, teachers of the law, they were the big dogs.

They were like the mayors of the city.

But they were religious.

Yeah.

So it was a religious society.

Um, we're a secular society, so there's immediate differences kind of in there.

Um, but they were rule keepers, you know, it was all about law and stuff like that.

But they're also very selfish, they were about themselves at the end of the day.

Okay.

So, so, so growing ourselves into that space.

So, Jesus speaks into an environment when we read these stories that people knew what a Pharisee was.

They were right in front of them, they understood that.

So, part of our discipleship journey is understanding the life and times of Jesus' world and seeking to translate that into our times and see what that kind of looks like.

So, I think um this parable can be hard because you know, context is important when we're looking at Bible stories, understanding a little bit of what the Middle Eastern world was like at that time.

Um, it's a growing thing for all of us, and that's the purpose of reading the Bible and growing into it.

So, and and this passage in itself, when you get some of those dynamics, it's just one of those passages because it is quite obscure.

And also it was written in Greek, you know, in the New Testament, and so our translations are a little bit different.

So we call it the parable of the shrewd manager.

If you look at a different translation of the Bible, there's different words that are used because translators kind of get together.

I mean, I read from the NIV, and I like the NIV, it was put together with hundreds of scholars.

So, you know, they have to sort of agree of what that means, but there's still a translation issue for us because English and Greek words don't always translate easily.

So understanding that was a big thing for us as well.

And I guess that's probably one of the biggest things in this passage is that language in the word shrewd, which you broke down really well um in your sermon.

Um but also that parable is difficult because it's one of the few parables really that over hundreds of years scholars have kind of disagreed about and its meaning and its application.

And so there is probably as one of the activities that I gave people in my further resources section in my notes, it was like whack that passage into AI and ask what other I'm gonna pause for a second because I did that.

Oh, you did that, good.

So I just think it is quite good to jump into this because I've got a question to come out of it.

So you mentioned that there are around six major interpretations of this passage.

So there's Jesus is praising the manager's cleverness, not his dishonesty.

So learning from his foresight, not his ethics.

The manager removed excessive interest or unjust charges, so his actions may have actually corrected an unethical system.

Is this the right list that you were looking at?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I hope so because that's what I came up with.

Um, there's one that is the focus is on acting urgently, so the manager knows his opportunity is limited, so he acts decisively while he still can.

Another is that the focus is on faithful stewardship, the parable is less about money and more about using everything God entrusts to us wisely for his kingdom.

The fifth is that the focus on allegiance.

So the climax of the passage is Jesus' warning, you cannot serve both God and money.

The real question isn't about wealth, it's about which kingdom we're serving.

And then the one you ended up landing on, um, your interpretation was the manager gave up his own commission.

So he sacrifices his personal profit to secure his future, demonstrating wise stewardship rather than continued dishonesty.

Why did you land on this interpretation?

Yeah, and this is one of the essences of uh reading the Bible and learning for ourselves around how we read the Bible, is one of these passages that does have differences of interpretations according to different people.

And I think for me, in my own view of that, that's why I say people have argued about this one for centuries, and I argued with myself for about a century over it.

I I landed on that interpretation because of the tools that I use in my biblical scholarship.

So when I studied theology, I bought one of the things that I invested in was a really good commentary series called the NIB Application Commentary Series.

Um I still use them to this day.

People use them out of my library.

Um having commentaries to guide us, particularly those of us that wanted to go deeper into scripture, is one of the tools that we use.

And and in this particular one on the Gospel of Luke, it's written by a scholar called Daryl L.

Bok.

Um, and he's a fairly well-known theologian, and I've read his other books in my life as well.

I I respect his view.

He touches on the different views and he kind of unpacks why he thinks that this is the best interpretation of what happened in that situation.

But then in the footnotes, he says, and I formed my view by reading uh from another guy called Fitzmeyer, who is another scholar scholarship.

And Fitzmeyer formed his view by reading from some others.

And so, in my understanding, I guess as a biblical scholar, I'm thinking, who am I learning from?

Do I trust them?

Does that make sense?

Um, and so reading widely and those sorts of things.

And so as I have read and prayed through that, I guess I just felt like it resonated the most with me.

It seemed to make the most sense from a cultural angle of what might have been going on at that time.

Um yeah, there's questions, nothing kind of fits perfectly, but I guess I felt in my heart that I feel like this was the one that that leads the most into the bigger point of the parable.

So in me, relying upon others who are more scholarly than me, um, and reading their work, but reading widely as well is part of our growth in biblical scholarship.

Um, and you know, not everybody wants to do that.

So I guess in the message, I kind of said, This is where I've landed.

I acknowledge that there are other views.

And some people have said to me, I've never, or one person said to me after church, um, you know, I've someone that's quite senior, they were like, I've never heard that interpretation before, and they've been around a long time.

And they're like, but it it sounds really good.

So for me, it's my growth as well.

Ongoing study of scripture when we were preparing a message and when we're looking at what we're gonna say from it, we have to say to ourselves, do we support that?

So it was not just reading something, it was me having to live that.

So wrestling with that.

I guess it's also does it fit in with the wider message of the gospel of what Luke is preaching?

Absolutely, but all of those interpretations that are given for this passage could feed into the kingdom of God narrative, which is what Luke is talking about.

Yeah.

Um so they all feed into that, absolutely.

And ultimately, you have to end up with what I call dynamic tensions sometimes when it comes to the Bible.

It I could be wrong.

It feels to me like I'm supportive of that direction.

Somebody else might disagree on that, but ultimately it is still feeding into Jesus giving us some examples around our allegiance to him and to his kingdom.

Um, however, we kind of get there, we can get there in different sort of ways.

I think it also reminds us of the importance of having these conversations with each other because it's easy to read the Bible and not understand the context or have this viewpoint that's shaped by our own history and our own things that have gone on or things that we've been taught.

But then when we go to a life group, when we go to church and we share what we're learning together, we have these opportunities to actually grow together and form views together, which is actually quite special too.

And I'll also accept that in the church we're all different, we've all got different things going on in our lives.

That I guess as a as a pastor and as a leader, I expect that some people will trust me ultimately.

But I also accept that sometimes, well, you go look for yourself.

You've done it.

When I say that there are different interpretations, I guess this is the point of this one.

I said to people, well, go and have a read of them, go and have a look at them yourself.

What resonates with you?

It might not be me, what what I said.

Um, but I I think that's important for us that we don't always have to believe everything that we hear.

But there are tools and there are there is wisdom around who we read, how we read, and ultimately what we believe.

Good.

This week's big idea, really, from my point of view, was living from the future backwards, letting God's promised future transform the way that we live today.

Um, so you use the example of an athlete making sacrifices today for a future goal.

Um, I guess what does living from the future backwards look like for us today as everyday Christians?

Yeah, it it's a matter of us thinking around what are our priorities, ultimately what are our hopes and dreams, and what are we investing into?

And I think this passage is kind of saying people are are important, people are eternal.

So, how are we, both as individuals and as a church, how are we investing into what is eternal?

And what is eternal is not, to be honest, a lot of the stuff that we invest into, because uh in this parable it's talking about uh this shrewd manager was just investing in his uh life uh post-being sacked.

Um so what was temporary, and Jesus is saying that ends.

Um, so people of light should be investing in what is eternal.

So how are we missionally engaging with other people?

How are we uh ultimately telling people about the good news of Jesus?

How are we using our resources to invest into that space?

So as a church, and and that's that's why I said, you know, are we mentoring younger people?

How are we going discipling our own family?

Uh what are we doing for ourselves?

Um, you know, how are we investing into the thing that does last, which is our I guess our spirit, our soul with Christ.

So practically it challenges us to think about our stewardship of whatever we have.

I'm the first to say that's super challenging.

Um one of the things that I do outside of Windsor, I'm the chair of the Baptist Union superannuation scheme.

So we look after the superannuation schemes of Baptist ministers.

Um and let's be honest, this year it's kind of sucked, returns wise.

I can get a bit depressed about that, but this passage would say to me, Don't worry about it.

It's only temporary.

I wrestle with it.

I wrestle with what it is to provide for my family and for the future.

Whereas this passage would say, Don't worry so much about that.

Think about what's eternal and how you're investing into that.

But it's a personal challenge too.

Yeah, I guess it's really tricky when the culture and the expectations and the demands of the world we live in today, not the kingdom, the world, um, does put all of our focus on immediate comfort, satisfaction, urgency, comparison, um, instead of the kingdom of God.

This is the clash.

This is cultures clashing.

This is the kingdom of God clashing with the kingdoms of our world.

Totally what Jesus was addressing.

And so when you were preaching, I was trying to think for myself like, what are the areas that I need to be working on to be investing in the kingdom of God and not just my own little bubble and little world that I'm living in.

And it was interesting because I was taken in so many directions.

I was taken in is what I'm doing for work, kingdom building.

And I hope so, because I work in ministry, um, is what I'm doing in my relationships, kingdom building.

And honestly, probably not.

Like I probably need to be a lot more invested in that.

I've got a lot of friends and families that don't know the hope of Jesus that I should be sharing about more often.

Am I investing in my children?

And I'd like to think that I am, but could I be doing it better?

Absolutely, because they one day will be able to do that for other people as well.

And so it is really interesting because it's actually forcing us to look at our lives and how we're living it and to reevaluate actually, am I putting God first in this?

And therefore am I putting others getting to know God first in this as well.

So it's confronting because it's very confronting.

It's overwhelming as well.

It can be.

And we were chatting just before.

We watched, I watched a video, a little reel the other week about someone who was pretty much saying that every single Christian should be an extreme Christian because if like our hope should be that every single person knows Jesus, and we should be wanting to shout that from the rooftops.

And it was quite confronting because in a sense I was like, okay, I don't think we should be shouting it from the rooftops and you know Bible bashing people, but actually we should be wanting everyone to know Jesus.

And so, how do we find that balance then?

The balance is hard to find.

Yeah.

I think it's a work in progress.

I think I keep my eyes on open, my eyes open on others, and I'm like, how do they do it?

How do I do it?

And my conversations with people.

I would I would say this if you're on social media, pick out a couple of people that are strong well, pick out this one person.

Right now, Adi Savir is All Black's captain, lives his faith, I think, incredibly well.

I just literally watched a little reel in the news last night with uh what's that new good-looking guy, all black love?

Oh, Reuben Love.

Reuben Love.

Sorry, Ben.

And so Reuben Love was being interviewed post the test match in Soil on Saturday night.

And Adi Sevier just kind of pops over into this middle one, gives him a little kiss on the cheek, and then says to him, I just love the way that that God is using you to thrive at the moment.

And then walks away.

I'm like Adi Sevier is all black's captain.

I think lives his faith really well, just incorporates little things.

He's not scared to say he's a Christian, who's definitely not scared of that.

He's just living his faith in a very authentic way.

And I think people can see that in him.

And so I'm like, that's pretty inspiring for us at the moment.

Um, so you know, I guess learning some things from others, giving stuff a try.

You know, I was a sport chaplain for over a decade, and at the start of that, I was like, oh, what do I how do I do this?

But over the time I just learned to be able to incorporate my faith.

I mean, I I prayed for the the breakers every home game before they went out on court, and I thought long and deep around how I would pray a literally a one-minute prayer.

It would take me sometimes an hour or more to think about a one-minute prayer.

Because I was like, all right, God, what words do I use that sensitively and authentically will show what I believe and then you know what I believe about who who you are.

So I think it's definitely a challenge for us all, but I think that's the journey.

And that's none of us are going to be experts, but looking at other people, taking some risks ourselves, having the courage to say, you know, can I pray for you?

My example that I often talk about with the breakers was once I was spending a bit of time with one of our players who was going through some family stuff.

And after training one day, we were standing in the middle of the court and I was asking who's going.

And he said, Ah, it'd be really good if you could pray for me.

I'm like, Yeah, no worries, bro, I'll pray for you.

And then sort of, I guess, started walking away.

And so, not like right now.

I'm like, in the middle of the court.

He says, Why not?

And I was like, It's a very good question.

Why not?

And I literally prayed for him right there in the middle of the court.

Um, and you know, for me, that was a little lesson.

That was I felt God giving me a little bit of a kick.

Why wouldn't you pray for someone just there and then?

So I think learning to know that yeah, people are so important and that we do have a part to play in that.

And that just give some stuff a try.

Don't don't be scared.

I think we do overcomplicate it.

I think we do make it a much bigger deal in our heads than it actually is.

I think we do.

And I think of our serve team that went down to Marangy Bay and went and connected with people, and someone came back from it and he said, I just had the most amazing conversation for 40 minutes with a guy, and he was open to it.

And it was easy.

There was no pressure, there was no um give your life to Jesus right now.

It was just having a conversation.

And I think we do that in so many ways.

And I kind of think back to our Come Holy Spirit series, and it's just being intentional about inviting the Holy Spirit to be with us every day and to guide our day, and then to be aware of where he could be prompting us or speaking to us or encouraging us.

I think you said a key word in there.

You said intentional.

Yes.

How are we intentional?

I give you one other example as a mother.

One thing that Joe and I were very intentional about with our kids when they were young was giving them the right sort of books to read.

Um, you know, social media was young, so that wasn't a big deal at that time.

But Ku Rong, which was an Australian Christian book chain, still in existence in Australia, were the main kind of Christian book chain at that time.

And we invested.

We talked about it, we said we want our kids to read the right kind of books.

Um and so we invested in buying them good Christian-based books um that would sew some good things into their lives.

And VG Tales was big at that time, and so you know, as as much as the other stuff, you know, we we weren't, you know, shut off to the world.

Um, they were exposed to that as well.

But we were just we would like to think, looking back, that we were intentional about what we sewed into our kids.

It seems to have worked out reasonably, okay.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

I think it comes down to intentionality and then uh also acknowledging that it's gonna be uncomfortable potentially because nothing grows out of sitting comfortably.

Exactly.

Um, but that we're not doing that alone.

I just can't get past what Jesus says at the end of that story.

Um remind us.

Well, when you say what is what basically what is great in the world's eyes is detestable to God.

It's strong words.

It's it's a confronting parable because of the strength of the words.

And that should make us a little bit uncomfortable.

It makes me uncomfortable.

I mean, I'm privileged, there's no question.

I live in a privileged world.

Um, I wrestle with that all the time.

I wrestle with what it means to be a good steward of that, and I wrestle with what it means to me to respond to that.

Um, so I I I'm not saying I'm an expert at this at all.

I'm still wrestling with it.

Um but there's strong words in that parable, and they should make us a little bit uncomfortable.

Sure, it's in there.

Um, I guess something that I thought would be helpful um as we do wrap up this week, is to give you, our listeners, something that you can mull over and contemplate.

And it's just really a continuation of your message is what's one thing that God has entrusted you with that maybe you could hand over to him and his kingdom more?

Um what's one kingdom investment I could make this week?

And that's not necessarily a money donation.

It's what's something you can do that allows you or someone else to be one step closer to the kingdom and who might benefit because I choose faithfulness over comfort.

So just questions to reflect on, mill over.

Um I think it's a good question to ask ourselves, particularly for people that I work in a church, I'm a pastor.

You work in a church, you're kind of surrounded by Christians.

Um a lot of people don't.

A lot of people listening to this are at work, um, doing whatever they do, which is fine.

Um, you know, we're all called to different things.

Um, it's just that we're surrounded by more Christians and a lot of people aren't.

Um and I would say to those people, just what's one thing that God is saying to you in your workplace?

One relationship that you're fostering, one person that's on your heart, you know, as you grow in relationship with someone, looking for those opportunities to just be able to say, Hey, I hear what's going on for you.

I'd really like to pray for you.

Or as Fraser said on Sunday in that cool video, you know, if someone's expressing some faith, would you like to I'd like to take you to an alpha course with me?

Not just here's a course you could you should go to.

And it takes courage to do that.

I fully accept that.

But but that is the call that's on us.

So good.

This week we're jumping into Luke 16, 16 to 18, and we're skipping a couple of verses.

Um we're skipping those verses.

Oh, sorry, those are the verses that we're skipping.

Yes, sorry.

Why are we skipping those verses?

Uh good question, because they're really difficult.

Um they are kind of they flow out of the discussion that Jesus is having with the Pharisees.

Yeah.

And so it is about law and it is about um our our allegiance to him and to the commitments that we make to Jesus.

So they are good passages, particularly verse 18.

It talks about what is it, adultery.

It's quite confronting and it probably needs quite a bit of unpacking.

Overall, our heart with the series is that we are sort of talking about what the kingdom of God looks like.

Those verses are important and we don't want to skip them for any other reason, but our flow in this series means we're just gonna park that for another time into what that means because they do flow into the allegiance to Christ, and the parable that follows that one, um, the parable of the rich man Lazarus um kind of continues the theme of what the kingdom looks like.

So we'll come back to that.

Yeah, I guess we we probably won't in the course of this series, but if anyone wants a fuller description of what me an email totally because that this confronting passage, yes, um, and it can be taken very much the wrong way, particularly verse 18.

Yeah.

Um, and so yeah, look, if you want to know more about that, absolutely all I do probably is photocopy or scan the copy of my commentary that sort of feeds into the verses that we've already looked at.

I think we need to get a commentary for our library.

I think that's a great idea, then people can come access it themselves.

Yeah.

Well, I it's not uncommon for me to scan parts of commentaries and send them to people.

But then someone can just flick through it.

Anyway, we digress, we digress.

This is a cam uh conversation for uh later.

Um lots that we unpacked today, interesting things, is a bit longer than usual.

So apologies for that.

Sorry.

Me behind the microphone.

And it's so I just learned through conversations, so I'm gonna talk because that's what I do.

Um, if you did have any thoughts, if you had any reflections, any further questions, please do send them through windsapark.org.nz forward slash podcast.

You can find a little form there, send through information.

If you've got any questions for this coming Sunday's message on The Rich Man and Lazarus, please again send through your questions or reflections.

We'd love to unpack them further.

Until then, we pray that God will continue to shape us as we listen, learn, and follow Jesus together.

Thanks, Jess.