Questioning Christianity Q&A - Tim Horman

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's great to be here.

[SPEAKER_03]: My name is Linda Bailey.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm part of the ministry team here at one.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is Reverend Amazing Tim Hormann.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he's our senior minister and has been leading us through this questioning Christianity series over the last eight weeks.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's great to have you here, whether you have been here for the whole series, and I can see that there are even some people who come to our 10 o'clock service who have prioritized this service because they just didn't get enough time.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just maybe another eight weeks of this series.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll please know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Exhausted after today's eight weeks.

[SPEAKER_03]: But you're here to hear a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_03]: Or if this is your very first time at our church, very special welcome to you.

[SPEAKER_03]: We are just going to be looking at questions that people have asked throughout the series.

[SPEAKER_03]: And to be honest, each question really stands alone.

[SPEAKER_03]: Each question is a question that you might be having.

[SPEAKER_03]: each question might be a question that someone has asked you or something that you've explored or you've wondered about for yourself.

[SPEAKER_03]: Some of these questions might be a complete surprise to you and you might think, oh, I've never thought of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now I don't know the answer.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you're in the right place.

[SPEAKER_03]: and we are going to do our best to explore as many questions as we can.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tim is just put a timer on here, so um, and should I restart it?

[SPEAKER_03]: who's going to speak more tonight?

[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to say though as we kick off that our approach to this should really be more around questions and not answers but responses.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I'm going to be giving the answer to many of these questions but I am going to give a response and I'm going to give my considered response to some of them and we'll have some that will come in live as well but it is a response so please know that this is part of a conversation

[SPEAKER_01]: that we're having together as a church, that the church has had for hundreds of years around many of these questions as well, and we're still wrestling with them.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, question and response probably would have been a better way to frame this, but that's okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think, as you said, it's your right, whether you've been, whether you're not even sure, if you're a Christian yet, whether you've been a Christian for decades.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're all still on this journey.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're all still wanting to grow and as Darren preached this morning, if you didn't hear his sermon, can I encourage you to go and listen to that?

[SPEAKER_03]: We're all on the journey to be more like Jesus and to be with him, to be more like him.

[SPEAKER_03]: and to do what he does.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we're all on the journey, whether you think you thought, I could have answered that better than Tim, or whether you're like, oh, I never thought of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, Tim, for the.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that was a great prayer we ended the worship with thanks for that grace, because one of my deepest fears is being found out to not know what I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_01]: So doing something like this is a big step of faith for me, kind of

[SPEAKER_01]: putting myself out there in this way.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you're so good at it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you.

[SPEAKER_03]: You said this morning, you've concerned about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And look at all these amazing friendly faces, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: We're all with him as we go.

[SPEAKER_03]: So let's start off with just an easy one that came through throughout the series.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're going right back to the beginning to creation.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the question is, why would God create

[SPEAKER_03]: this beautiful garden for Adam and Eve with all its amazing beauty, all of creation within this beautiful garden and yet put in it a potentially deadly tree right in the middle.

[SPEAKER_03]: The way they phrase it is what kind of parent gives their children a room full of stuff to play with including something that can kill them.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why would God have started our incredible earth like that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so with the Genesis stories, and I know that there's a lot of debate about this, certainly the way that I read them, if you look at Genesis 1, you're clearly dealing with a piece of poetry.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you get into Genesis 2, it becomes a story that I think whether you read the story as kind of literal, like these things happened exactly as described, or whether you read them in a more metaphorical allegorical way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I actually don't think it really matters, which way you approach it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think at the end of the day, what it's trying to illustrate is not necessarily to explain everything, but to help us understand what it means to be human, who God is, and what the human vocation is, what we're called to do and be as human beings and image barres of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, one of the key things in the story is that we are created to bear God's image and his likeness and to work with him

[SPEAKER_01]: in ruling over the creation, partnering with him in fulfilling our vocation to take care of and in fact the Genesis two chapter two says protect.

[SPEAKER_01]: The creation, so there's this calling to work with God to expand God's blessing, to multiply the flourish and all of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the two trees, I think, meant to illustrate something that the tree of life illustrates the call to do that in partnership with God.

[SPEAKER_01]: kind of eating from God's tree as it were, eating from what God provides, trusting in God, walking with the Lord, then there will be life and blessing and shalom, and the order that God intended for us to rule over would be maintained.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there's this warning that if you don't do that, and if you try to define good and evil on your own terms, and make yourselves gods do this without partnership with me, then you won't be able to hold it all together.

[SPEAKER_01]: The creation will begin to fall into chaos and into ruin, and it will be death.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord literally says, if you do this, it will be death, and everything will start to degrade.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that's the warning, we can either walk with the Lord and serve him in partnership with him, do what we're called to do as human beings, image barriers, or we can go about this on our own terms, and if we go about it on our own terms, there'll be severe consequences.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the warning, the two trees, tree of life, tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the reason it's described that way is because

[SPEAKER_01]: What we're then going to try to do if we go on our own terms is to find what is good and what is evil for ourselves rather than in reference to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we find very quickly that we can't do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everything begins to unravel.

[SPEAKER_01]: We invite death into the world and chaos.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what we call sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: And ultimately, you know, that's what we're talking about when we describe the fall.

[SPEAKER_03]: Speaking of the fall, the thing that sets Christianity apart from all other religions is Jesus, and the understanding that Jesus is God's son, that He came to earth, He died, He rose again to save us from our sins.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is the story that we live within and even our Western culture, you know, has a lot within it that comes from that culture and that understanding.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: But why did that have to happen?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like why did Jesus have to die when God is all powerful and all knowing and he could just click his fingers and would be forgiven?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is a really interesting one because in actual fact, there is forgiveness before the cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are many occasions when God forgives those who ask for forgiveness.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, Jesus himself said that Son of Man has power to forgive sins.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he forgives sins before the cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's actually not quite true to say that there wasn't forgiveness before the cross or that there was no way for God to be merciful prior to the death of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think what we're talking about here, when we talk about the death of Christ and the suffering of Christ, certainly forgiveness of sins is one part of that and a really important part of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if we actually go back to the creation story, the real issue is that we have invited death and destruction chaos into the world throughout disobedience.

[SPEAKER_01]: So our sinful action has led to a much greater problem and Jesus will describe this in

[SPEAKER_01]: lies under the power of the evil one.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's actually something much greater that God needs to do than just forgive our sins.

[SPEAKER_01]: He needs to forgive our sins, but he also needs to set the world free from what has taken it captive.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a much greater power at work which we are the victims of.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we talk about original sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those we're kind of born into a state where we have no option but other than to be sinners.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the result of what happened in the beginning.

[SPEAKER_01]: What then Christ has come to do is make it possible for us to escape that situation to be forgiven but also so much more that is to be set free from the power of death, to be set free from the power of evil in the much kind of broader sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think actually there's a passage in Colossians where Paul talks about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll just read a bit of it because it's an interesting way of framing the gospel story.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way,

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when Jesus begins his preaching ministry, he doesn't say repent and believe, because I've come to forgive your sins.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says repent and believe, because the kingdom of God has come among you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a kingdom that's come into the world through Christ, which is at odds with the kingdom of this world, but the brokenness and the sinfulness of this world, which ultimately, when Christ goes to the cross, he is taking on all of that evil,

[SPEAKER_01]: and all of that destruction and all of that chaos is absorbing it into himself so that through his death and then resurrection, he can defeat those powers.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then as we're forgiven, we're not just forgiven of our sins, we're actually then brought into a new kingdom.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're brought into a new kind of relationship with God.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're brought into a new way of being human.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, the old way of being human, the original way of being human, that we were always intended to experience.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Paul puts it like this, so he says that,

[SPEAKER_01]: The son is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Paul here is taking us all the way back to creation.

[SPEAKER_01]: For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth visible and invisible, thrones and powers and rules and authorities.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes on to say, and here's the head of the body of the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then in verse 19, he says, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself, all things,

[SPEAKER_01]: whether things on earth or at things in heaven by making peace or his blood shed on the cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: Once you are alienated from God, because of your evil behavior, but now Christ has reconciled you through his physical body, through death, to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation.

[SPEAKER_01]: So at no point there does Paul talk about forgiveness.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might notice, he doesn't say, Jesus did this to forgive you of your sins.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, he did this to reconcile you to God,

[SPEAKER_01]: Includes forgiveness, but it's so much more.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's about restoration of relationship.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's about being becoming again in Christ, proper image bearers of God, living in His kingdom that He's now the ruler over.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's so much more going on than just forgiveness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Clearly, it's an important part, but the death and resurrection of Jesus breaks open a whole new way of us being human and living into what the world was always meant to be, the kingdom of God.

[SPEAKER_03]: So a couple of people are asking, how we can read the Bible and, like I know, as you were reading that passage in Colossians, it gives me great faith and great confidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I mean, when we're talking to people outside the church, they don't believe in the Bible.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's not enough evidence for them because already the Bible is just some document for them.

[SPEAKER_03]: How do we, how come we have an understanding

[SPEAKER_03]: is the God that Jesus was the Son of God.

[SPEAKER_03]: How can we get the confidence that we can truly believe that God is God, all powerful, Jesus was the Son.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is the best way for us to live.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a huge question.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think

[SPEAKER_01]: The reason is called faith is because you have to take a step of faith, you have to say, okay, I may not have all the answers, I may not have all my questions answered, I may not understand everything and hey, I'm still in that category, like there's lots I don't understand, there's lots I'm still wrestling with, a lot of things that I wish I had clear answers for, but ultimately, I think what I would say to people is just read the gospels and

[SPEAKER_01]: Look at Jesus for yourself and see if you find him to be a compelling figure.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think just reading the words of Jesus and encountering what he does and how he treated people and ultimately so starting with the gospels and I just say, look at Jesus, kind of like we're singing tonight, look at Jesus, focus on Jesus and then take a step of faith, ask, okay, Jesus, if you're real, then I

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to experience what you offer in my own life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that act of faith is incredible.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Jesus himself said, all you need is faith, the size of a mustard seed, and you can move mountains.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it just takes a simple prayer.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what you'll find is that God is so willing to open up His love to you, and open up His life to you, and pour out His grace.

[SPEAKER_01]: and show you that he's real.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so there is the, I think, scripture, I think the New Testament, I have confidence in the accuracy of the New Testament in terms of its historical reliability.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably the documents of the New Testament, a sum of the best attested ancient documents we have at period, like at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are more copies of these books than we have of just about anything else from the ancient world.

[SPEAKER_01]: So some of the best historically

[SPEAKER_01]: So I think you can trust in the New Testament, but I say that as a Christian, and I say, so look at Jesus and if you find Him compelling, then ask, what is it that Jesus himself found compelling?

[SPEAKER_01]: And He's clearly trusted in His Father and He trusted in the Old Testament, and then the New Testament is a reflection of all of what that means.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you start there and you're kind of build out from there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say, don't you?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's really easy to let the big questions and a lot of the uncertainties stop you.

[SPEAKER_01]: but I would really just encourage people to try Jesus with themselves.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know this series has been very much a head series.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like we've been looking at kind of deep theological things.

[SPEAKER_03]: You've been amazing at bringing non-biblical evidence and reasoning because when we're talking to people outside the church, we can't just say, oh, the Bible says.

[SPEAKER_03]: But what I hear you saying in this faith element,

[SPEAKER_03]: There's more than just intellect, there's more than just theory, there's more than just reading and analyzing an apologetic.

[SPEAKER_03]: Can you, and yet I know you personally, so I know you are a man of faith with a big heart that you relate on the Holy Spirit, which is not just an intellectual.

[SPEAKER_03]: Can you share a little bit about

[SPEAKER_03]: how you marry your heart with your head in your faith.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because I know quite a few people have asked the question, well Tim, what did you struggle with?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what are your tripping points?

[SPEAKER_03]: What do you doubt?

[SPEAKER_03]: Because it's really easy when we have the mic and when we've been well planned, it can feel like it comes off really schmick.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we all struggle and we all have our doubts and we all have all.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're all on a journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Can you share a little bit?

[SPEAKER_03]: maybe of your heart, of your faith in your journey?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look, first of all, I want to say that one of the questions that did come through, which I'm not sure if we would get a chance to touch on, but let me just mention it briefly.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is why did we take such an intellectual approach to this series, rather than say a hard approach?

[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the reasons for that is, or another kind of question that came along with that,

[SPEAKER_01]: you know, speak to this series.

[SPEAKER_01]: And my approach to this was really to try and create some plausibility.

[SPEAKER_01]: So raise the questions and talk about them and look at them from a Christian perspective and also try to do justice to some of the other perspectives.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then only once we've sort of talked through that and established some plausibilities and common ground,

[SPEAKER_01]: Then I would talk about Scripture and how Scripture speaks to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't want to use Scripture to proof text and to say, the Bible says therefore, what I wanted to say is, here are the issues.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here are the challenges and the questions that people have.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's wrestle with those.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then let's see what Scripture says about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And do we find what Scripture says plausible?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do we find it helpful?

[SPEAKER_01]: And if it is helpful in terms of explaining the way the world is, and kind of common human experience.

[SPEAKER_01]: is calling us into through Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then if we find that compelling, then wonderful.

[SPEAKER_01]: My hope was that people would hear these talks and go, okay, there's more to this Christian thing than maybe I've heard through the media or through my friends or skeptics.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to dig into this for myself.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I wasn't trying to answer every question, but just open up the possibility of people digging in further.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, in terms of my own faith, my own journey,

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when I left university, my faith was a bit shaky, I'd gone through, I hadn't abandoned my faith, but I had a lot more questions coming out of, I did a literature degree, so I encountered post-modernism, post-structuralism, all the French, continental philosophies, and it just kind of, what it really did is it made me question the reliability of the Bible, and I really struggled with that for a long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I did then when I went to seminary was I spent the first

[SPEAKER_01]: a couple of semesters, at least, actually longer, really digging into questions of is the Bible trustworthy?

[SPEAKER_01]: How do I read it well?

[SPEAKER_01]: How do I read it in such a way that addresses the kinds of questions that many skeptics have about it?

[SPEAKER_01]: And the process of doing that really restored my confidence in scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so at one point in my life, it would have said the biggest stumbling block to me as a faith, as a person of faith, would have been just a reliability of the scriptures.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like I've wrestled through that for many years and it come to a place where I really believe that the scriptures are trustworthy and true.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think even though there are lots of things that may appear to be contradictions, I think a lot of those through careful analysis, thinking historically reading scripture carefully, paying attention to genre,

[SPEAKER_01]: all of those questions and contradictions, maybe not all of them, but most of them can be answered and can be worked through.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we're humble enough to kind of not come at the Bible like, well I know what it says, but actually what does the Bible say for itself?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'd say where I'm at now is I still really read someone sending a question which really hit me hard and that was, you know, how can I trust in the goodness of God when

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we watch the news and we see children in war zones with their legs blown off, you know, stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that, that just really still, I find that really hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know that God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know that he is at work in the world to heal what is broken, but I still, I get really frustrated that the agenda that God seems to be working on here, the timeline, is a lot longer than

[SPEAKER_01]: I would be comfortable with and I do wrestle with the fact that we're still living in a world.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is both beautiful and I have hope in the future in Christ but also so broken and so painful and there's so much suffering.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't have good answers for that actually.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I did.

[SPEAKER_01]: The only answer I really think that is satisfactory when it comes to the problem of evil.

[SPEAKER_01]: is not so much, I've can theorised about, you know, could God have done this or that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Could you have made the world like this or that?

[SPEAKER_01]: But what I do see God doing is, unlike just about any other religion really, he's not demanding that we do better and demanding that we come up to his standard and that we fix what's broken.

[SPEAKER_01]: What I see God doing in the Christian gospel is God himself is coming into our suffering and entering into our pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: and he takes it on and he suffers with us and he transforms it through his own death.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's just no other religion on the planet that even comes close to something like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just think it not only makes the question of evil more, it doesn't solve it, but what it does do is it says, I have a guide, I believe in a guide who is doing something about it, has done something about it in Christ and is going to continue to transform the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that also, I mean, part of the point of the incarnation, I think, is that God is humanized.

[SPEAKER_01]: God becomes something that we humans can understand.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not distant and he's not careless, he's not sitting up in heaven, demanding we do better.

[SPEAKER_01]: He comes close in Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: He takes on flesh and it becomes one of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we can look at Jesus and say, I understand what God is now because I can see someone.

[SPEAKER_01]: a fellow human being who is also God and that makes God someone I can approach and I think that's kind of the part of the whole point of the incarnation too not just that Jesus came to die for our sins so that he could absolve the justice and wrath of God but that God would come close to us so that we could come close to him.

[SPEAKER_03]: Another tension, we live in that tension of believing that God is a good God, but seeing the suffering of our world to bring it in turn a little bit more, a little bit closer to home.

[SPEAKER_03]: We believe that we are made in the image of God.

[SPEAKER_03]: but we also believe that we are sinners and we fall short of the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_03]: How do we live in that tension?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I often think sometimes we should have the most confidence out of anyone because we believe God and we believe He's goodness and we're made in that image, but then we need to humble ourselves as well and go where we fall so short.

[SPEAKER_03]: How do we not be arrogant, but not be, like, totally self-deprecating all the time as well, where is that tension?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think it is a tension.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those who've done the O.I.

[SPEAKER_01]: will know I talk about this a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is an unresolvable tension to living life in the kingdom of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it shows up in a whole bunch of different areas, actually.

[SPEAKER_01]: So on the one hand, we say, like we've just been mentioning, we have hope in the kingdom of God coming in Christ fully and completely.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we also say that it has come to some degree already, but just it's not fully here yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we're living in this tension of what's already come and what hasn't yet come.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that already not yet tension is all through the Christian life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, one of those is, I am saved, I am born again, I am filled with the Holy Spirit, Paul says in Colossians 1, I now stand holy and blameless in God's sight because of what Christ has done.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, these are an incredible identity markers that should give every Christian

[SPEAKER_01]: incredible confidence to say, like I'm, I am made new in Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am a glorious image bearer of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am a child of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm adopted.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have all of these great benefits.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm blessed.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm filled with His Spirit.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm loved.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm forgiven.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: But,

[SPEAKER_01]: As Christians, we also say, and I owned none of those things.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't do a thing to get any of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't deserve any of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: All I did was say, yes, to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I put my trust in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is all given to me as a gift.

[SPEAKER_01]: So on the one hand, I say, I'm a glorious human being, made new in the image of God through Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I have all things in him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But on the other hand, I say, and I did nothing to get out all of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so as Tim Keller would say, it both raises us up to the stars, but humbles us down into the dust.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so as Christians, we live in that tension of what has already happened for us in Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: What is still yet to come?

[SPEAKER_01]: What Christ has already achieved through his death and resurrection?

[SPEAKER_01]: What will happen when he returns?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this called then to live into our full identities image burrows of God is kind of what we're all about

[SPEAKER_01]: Christians, like the reason we come to church, the reason we study the Bible, the reason we worship, the reason we pray, the reason we struggle with temptation and sin and all of that stuff is so that we can keep on growing in what we've received in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the key thing for a Christian, I think, is to say, I don't actually get more of something from the outside in when I do these things, when I worship, when I pray, when I study scripture, when I love my neighbor.

[SPEAKER_01]: All I'm doing is actually living into more

[SPEAKER_01]: So I actually have everything I already am and will be in Christ and my task then is to try and deny the flesh, limit that kind of old nature as much as I can and live into the new.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is attention and I don't always get it right and I stumble and I fail.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the reasons why we're doing Romans 8, and after this,

[SPEAKER_01]: is because this is really what Paul struggles with, too, if you read Roman seven, he says, things I do, I don't wanna do, things I don't wanna do, that's why I'm not doing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who will deliver me and then he says, but there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's both end.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is, I think I'm sure anyone who's followed Jesus for any length of time will know exactly what that tension feels like.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when we sin, when we fail, when we make mistakes, when it lose our salvation, God doesn't hate us.

[SPEAKER_01]: conviction, that compulsion, that that is not who I am and I shouldn't be doing these things because it degrades the image of God in me and it degrades what Christ has done for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you really know that, like when you really know how much you're forgiven and loved, a lot of Christians will say, well then that becomes just an excuse to do whatever I want.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think if you really understand the love of God and what he's actually done to forgive you and set you free, then

[SPEAKER_01]: Everything within you would want to grow into that and live into that and be faithful to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the difference between the law-based religion and a grace-based religion is that law tries to compel you to do what is good by fear, whereas grace compels you to do what is good by love.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the reason we have done this whole series is so that when we converse with people that we're in relationship with our neighbors, our colleagues, that we have greater confidence in being able to talk about our faith and answering some of the questions that they have.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that they have an understanding of the image that they have also been created,

[SPEAKER_03]: In and that they are also made in the image of God and we want all of God's goodness and glory for them as well

[SPEAKER_03]: If they don't receive that, one of the questions we had was, how do we reconcile that as people who believe in Jesus and know that we will be with Him for all eternity?

[SPEAKER_03]: No matter how great our answers may be to our friends and our neighbors with the questions that they have on faith, if they don't believe that,

[SPEAKER_03]: And therefore, there is a separation between them and God.

[SPEAKER_03]: No matter how good they are and how much we love them.

[SPEAKER_03]: How do we justify a good God who dams people to hell after they finish in this world?

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, this question's going to take longer than 30 seconds.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll try and finish on that one.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would have paused the time of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, look.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a really, really hard one, and it's one I wrestle with as well, because I have had family members who have passed away, who have not been Christians, and that's, it's very hard to think through that.

[SPEAKER_01]: A few things that have helped me, I guess, think about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, I think God is far more gracious than we could possibly believe or imagine.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus did say that even faith, the size of a mustard seed is enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I do have hope that even if I can't see what was going on in a person's heart, God does, he knows the content of their heart way better than I do.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think any cry for mercy, any cry in the middle of the night, for someone who may not call themselves a Christian, but yet,

[SPEAKER_01]: wants to try and understand, I think God will hear that.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm not necessarily saying that means they're therefore forgiven.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I do believe in a gracious God who's done everything possible in Christ to make the way for us to be reconciled to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think therefore there's going to be no one in hell who is there by accident, who just got there by mistake.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that will be the case.

[SPEAKER_01]: C.S.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lewis describes hell in me Christianity as a place where the lock is on the inside of the door, in that everyone who will end up in eternal punishment, whatever that is.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, I should say I don't believe in hell as a kind of fiery medieval torture chamber.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't think that's a biblical image at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: the grave, to the second death, to the lake of fire, the outer darkness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there are lots of different metaphors, and I think we really have to be careful that we don't reduce them all down to one.

[SPEAKER_01]: What is clear is that God will enact justice at the end of time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that those who deserve his justice, everyone who observes him, past the sentences.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think given that God is God

[SPEAKER_01]: When all of those things are revealed, everyone will say, that is a true and just judgment.

[SPEAKER_01]: There won't be a single moment where we'd say, God didn't make the right decision, I think, ultimately.

[SPEAKER_01]: So one, no one's going to be there by accident.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think Lewis is right, that ultimately, those who end up in hell will be there because they chose to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things he says is, we're called to say in life, they will be done.

[SPEAKER_01]: at the end of time, the Lord will say to us, they will be done.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like we will get what we really want in the end.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that whatever it is that we really desire, will ultimately be what we would call hell, a punishment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in terms of God's justice, let me frame it like this, because this is a huge question.

[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine a world where God wasn't just for a moment,

[SPEAKER_01]: Where God said those children who are kidnapped and raped, you know those child soldiers, those women who've been abused, those men who have been tortured, all the wars, all the things we do wrongs human beings.

[SPEAKER_01]: What if God just said, I don't really care.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just forgive all of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we would say, but hang on.

[SPEAKER_01]: What about Hitler and the six million Jews?

[SPEAKER_01]: Surely God just can't forgive that, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So when we flip the question and we say, can you imagine, often from our point of view, we say, how can God adjust God and a loving God go together and how could he punish people for their sins?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I would want to say, what if we had a God who didn't?

[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of world will we live in, where we said, all of those terrible things that we do to each other, God just shakes his head or shrugged his shoulders and says, I don't really care.

[SPEAKER_01]: you, you know, you brought this on yourselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or he just says, well, I'll just forgive all of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that makes a mockery of justice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like, when we actually do suffer an injustice, everything within us wants that to be set right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like imagine if someone killed a loved one, one of your family members was murdered.

[SPEAKER_01]: You, everything within you would want justice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason we want justice is because we know that there is a right and a wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so does God, and so, and he will account for every evil deed.

[SPEAKER_01]: But not only that, so people will let themselves off the hook by saying, well, I'm not a murderer, not a rapist.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm not racist, I'm not this or that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the warnings we have in Scripture is say Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats.

[SPEAKER_01]: The judgment in that parable is not based on what you did.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's based on what you didn't do.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the ones who served the poor, who fed the hungry, who visited those in prison, the Lord says, come into my presence with joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a whole bunch of people that say, but why are we being punished?

[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't do anything wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord says, yeah, but you didn't visit me in prison, and you didn't close the naked, and you didn't feed the poor.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in that sense, it's not just the sins of co-mission, like the things that we do wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: God also judges the things that we fail to do that we should have done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so in that sense, we're all guilty, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no one who's innocent because we could all say, yeah, there's more of good I could do.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in that sense, we're all under God's just judgment.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we also have a God of love who wants to take his justice seriously, but also love us and forgive us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the reason Christ comes is so that he can take on the punishment that should have been ours.

[SPEAKER_01]: that only God can pay, that is, he can pay a price that is sufficient for every evil thing that every human being has ever done.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because he's the creator.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's what Paul says, Colossians, he's the first born of all creation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Through him, all things were made.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what Jesus has come to do is rescue this broken world from its death and disorder and evil.

[SPEAKER_01]: which he does by paying the penalty, but it's not so much to satisfy the wrath of the Father, as much as it is God the Father's son and Holy Spirit working together to do what only they can do to rescue this creation from the death that we brought into the world throughout disobedience.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so anyone who frames this as like angry God the Father punishing innocent Son Jesus doesn't really understand the gospel, it's God the Father's son and spirit working together to deliver us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he does that because he's a God of justice, the penalty must be paid, but also because he's a God of mercy and grace and wants to deliver us from that penalty, so he pays that debt himself.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the heart of how we're forgiven, but then that's just the step into this whole new kingdom of God life in Christ that we were talking about before.

[SPEAKER_03]: As you can hear we could, we could be talking about this all week into the next week as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we're going to wrap it up there because we would like to take some time to spend in communion.

[SPEAKER_03]: But can we thank Tim for sharing for us?

[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks everyone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_03]: As you, if you've been around over the last two months, you will have seen how much time and effort he has put into every sermon.

[SPEAKER_03]: And can I just say if you are a regular here at one, you are incredibly blessed.

[SPEAKER_03]: to be under the leadership of this man and we all are and we really thank you Tim for the life that you live so that you can answer some of these questions but also lead our church as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let me pray and then I'm going to invite Darron up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just before the end of the praise, thank you for your words, but

[SPEAKER_01]: If there isn't anyone here tonight or a few people and you are genuinely curious seeking looking to follow Jesus but have lots of questions, I would love to talk to you so please do come up and chat with me after so please if you're a Christian and you've got questions don't monopolise my time at the end.

[SPEAKER_01]: If there are some folks who are exploring who would love to know more about what it means to follow Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to have some space to talk to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll be up the front.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please come and see me.

[SPEAKER_01]: For those of you who are regulars here, you always shouldn't in email.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be happy to chat at another time, but I really would just love to, if there is someone here or a few people that would love to talk to me face to face, I'll be here coming chat and that would be amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be my privilege.

[SPEAKER_03]: And with that in mind, thank you to everyone who sent through your questions either tonight or throughout the series.

[SPEAKER_03]: They will help us to inform us as to what we can preach on in the coming year.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to start planning our sermon series and even the responses we got from the survey helped to create this question in Christianity series.

[SPEAKER_03]: It has been in vain, we will keep these questions and the questions that were sent through tonight too.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we will endeavor in our sermons to keep in mind that these are the questions that you're grappling with.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's pray.

[SPEAKER_03]: Heavenly Father, we

[SPEAKER_03]: are so humbled at your incredible justice and love and your creation and your never-ending grace and mercy for us.

[SPEAKER_03]: Lord, we have questions, and we will forever have questions.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I thank you that you are a God who is open to journeying with us as we journey with those questions.

[SPEAKER_03]: that you don't look down upon us because we question, but you want us to have a robust faith that can answer people's questions, but also give us the own our own assurance of faith and hope in you.

[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you that you are not a precious God who condemns us when we don't have full faith in you, but you come alongside us and you journey with us.

[SPEAKER_03]: Holy Spirit, we pray that for those who have really significant questions and want to have an experience of you, not just in their heads, but in their hearts.

[SPEAKER_03]: Holy Spirit, meet each of us exactly where we're at.

[SPEAKER_03]: You love us, you have created us, we are made in your image, and you desire to have relationship with us.

[SPEAKER_03]: We pray that as people are open, as we open our hearts and our minds to you, meet us Lord Jesus, help us to know that you are real, that you accept us and that you love us and that no matter what we have done, you have enough grace to cover all of us and more each fresh every day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Be with us, help us to recognize you, bring other people around us to help grapple with our questions, save environments in small groups and in church and amongst friends that we can continue to grapple with these questions and that in all that we do, we have a greater understanding each new day of who you are Jesus, what you have done for us and how we can be more like you.

[SPEAKER_03]: We pray this in your mighty name.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, before we finish, we want to take a time to take communion tonight.

[SPEAKER_02]: Before I kind of lead into that, I do want to say that this series has been 8 or 9 weeks I think we've done.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've actually recorded all of the talks if you've missed any of them and we've set up a page on our website purely for recording the many faces of Tim.

[SPEAKER_02]: and these messages and the reason we did that is because we know some of you would have missed messages but also because it's a resource for you to use if you have conversations with people and if you do know someone who's asking these types of questions we want to place that you can send them that has all of it in the one place and so if you've missed any they are there on that part of the website.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've linked in our menu on our site as well so you can find it easily but do feel free to share that with people as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: So about 30 years ago, I had a time of coming back to faith in my early 20s.

[SPEAKER_02]: I had a period of time away from God and I came back to faith and found my faith growing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought one of the best ways for me to grow in my faith would be to go to Bible College.

[SPEAKER_02]: I thought, I'm going to just throw myself fully into it and learn as much as I can about God.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I went off to Bible College expecting that my faith would grow.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the first six months I did full-time study, did New Testament, Old Testament, I think I did some Greek, I did all kinds of stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: And my brain was so stretched during that time.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I remember distinctly getting to the end of that six months and asking myself, how's my faith grown in this six months?

[SPEAKER_02]: So I realized that whilst I had grown in knowledge during this time, my brain had expanded.

[SPEAKER_02]: I learnt so much about the Bible and I learnt so much about Jesus, that my faith actually hadn't really grown that much because I've been so busy stuffing as much into my brain as I could.

[SPEAKER_02]: That I hadn't actually spent much time with Jesus.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I'm not tonight saying that we don't want to exercise our brains with our faith.

[SPEAKER_02]: I believe that God wants us to use our brains.

[SPEAKER_02]: He wants us to think in our faith.

[SPEAKER_02]: But we also need to bring our heart to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm really glad that Tim and a Linda spoke a little bit about that tonight.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus invites us into something deeper into a relationship and for the last nine or so weeks we've we've exercised our brains a lot.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know I've got to the end a couple of ten summons over this thing and over this series and I've just gone wow that has expanded.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's made my head hurt a little but it's been so good but we want to draw it back to the person of Jesus as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am sure that Jesus hurt his disciples' brains some days.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am sure that some of the things he taught them left them just going, wow, that exercise my brain.

[SPEAKER_02]: But he was also constantly using language that was drawing them into a relationship with him.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you look at how he called his disciples, we're seeing Mark III verse 14, it says, that Jesus appointed the 12 that they might be with him.

[SPEAKER_02]: and that they might preach the gospel.

[SPEAKER_02]: But first, so that they would be with him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Didn't say that he appointed the 12, so that he could give them lectures and that he could teach them about him.

[SPEAKER_02]: He wanted to be with them.

[SPEAKER_02]: John F. Dean Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and branches to describe the kind of connection

[SPEAKER_02]: that he was inviting people into.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, abide in me, make your home in me and I will make my home in you.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the kind of connection that he was drawing them into.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we see him using all kinds of language.

[SPEAKER_02]: Another one he uses is the yoke.

[SPEAKER_02]: It says, like a two oxen being yoke together in a field, he says, I want to be yoke to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to be close to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to go through life and work beside you.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is a closeness, this is a relationship that's being talked about.

[SPEAKER_02]: And whilst doctrine and theology and apologetics are really good things, they're really described Jesus.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you don't fall in love with a description of someone.

[SPEAKER_02]: You fall in love with a person themselves.

[SPEAKER_02]: I fell in love with Vanessa, my wife, not because someone described her to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: we went out on dates together, we talked with one another, we shared life together, we communicated, not because someone told me she was a great person.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so Jesus, whilst we can describe him and we've done a lot of describing him tonight, we wanna encourage each of you to take a moment tonight to just be with him.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so tonight we're gonna take communion,

[SPEAKER_02]: And communion is something that we practice fairly regularly here at one church.

[SPEAKER_02]: The first communion, the first eucrists, was the night that Jesus was betrayed.

[SPEAKER_02]: When he sat with his God, when he sat with his disciples and he shared a meal with them.

[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't, on his last night, give a lecture.

[SPEAKER_02]: He shared a meal, and he took bread in the middle of that meal, and he said, this bread is my body, broken for you.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's disciples at the time, wouldn't have understood what that meant, wouldn't have been until a couple of days later they would have gone, ah, that's what he was talking about, and then that same night, he took a cup of wine, and he said, this wine is my blood shed for you.

[SPEAKER_02]: That night he didn't explain it, he just told them every time they met together to take those emblems and to eat and to drink those things to remember him, to remember the sacrifice that he gave.

[SPEAKER_02]: And for centuries, where as followers of Jesus has continued to do this practice of taking bread and juice and wine, to remember the person of Jesus, to remember his life, but also

[SPEAKER_02]: to have his body broken, and to have his blood spilled.

[SPEAKER_02]: So tonight we want to just encourage you to come forward whether you are, this is your first night or whether you've been coming here for years, you're invited to come to this moment, just to be with him, to remember him, to connect with him, to talk to him.

[SPEAKER_02]: We can invite you to come up and you can just take the juice and the bread in your own time.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to take it back to your seats and just take a moment with Jesus, that's totally fine.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to sit somewhere quiet on the edges, you're welcome to do that as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: But before you do, let me just pray for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: Logo, we thank you for this series.

[SPEAKER_02]: We thank you for the way that has stretched our minds.

[SPEAKER_02]: We thank you that it's allowed us to ask questions and wrestle with them.

[SPEAKER_02]: We thank you that you gave us minds to think, to know, to understand, and that these help us to know you more, but Lord God right now, we just wanna be with you.

[SPEAKER_02]: To put the questions aside for a moment

[SPEAKER_02]: We thank you that you call us friends and tonight we want to sit with you our friend and be with you.