24th March 2024 - Teaching Service

That is in Josh. Father, I thank you for the gift of who

he is to your kingdom and to your purposes. And Father, thank you

for the giftedness and the sacrifice that Josh has made being a busy doctor,

Lord to prepare this word today, and so Father, our hearts are ready

to hear well, he's ready to preach. Lord God, Father, would

you anoint this time? Lord? Would you cause breakthrough to come? Lord?

Would you cause a real lease to come? Lord? Would you multiply

the word that goes out, Lord God, that it would echo beyond here

into eternity in Jesus' name? Amen? Amen, Thanks duve Hi, everyone,

good morning. I didn't mean to start like this, but I think

I feel quite overwhelmed with emotion, and I remainder when Paul says, I'm

strong when I write to you, but when I come to you, I'm

timid. And so when I feel a bit like that in the sense that

there are people in the room now that have discipled me and trained me,

and I wouldn't be the kind of person I am today if it wasn't for

them, And I think so for those of you that I haven't met before.

I used to come to us throughout most of my childhood and teenage years,

and during worship, I was just reminded of so many encounters I had

with God as a young teenager that shaped me into the person I am now.

And I wouldn't trade them for the world. And they're so precious.

And I said prayers in those years that I had no idea what I meant,

what I was actually praying, But well God takes them seriously and and

he hears us even when we really don't think he does. So that's just

another thank you to the people in this room. You know who you are,

and I hope you do, so thank you. I'm sad not to

be joined by my wife, who's much more interesting than me, and ah

much more, much nicer than me, and my son who is much just

awesome. His name is Milo. He learned to say Jesus recently. He's

a year and a half, I know, uh. And we have another

one on the way in the oven. So we're going to be looking at

the scriptures today, and I think as Protestant Christians, we have a temptation

to think that that it's the sermon that's really the the meat. But it's

not You'll be hugely disappointed if you think that I'm going to be giving you

any kind of life. It's the scriptures that have the power and the life.

My wife and I go to a group of house churches in London called

Crossnet and one of our practices that we take really seriously is scripture memorization.

And actually on Easter Sunday, everyone has been taking lent to memorize scripture and

we're just going to have a massive festival at everyone reciting scripture. And so

I'm going to try and recite some scriptures to you today. I would love

it if someone could actually what we call spotting, which means someone actually looks

at the scriptures. If I get something wrong, I'd really love you at

the end to just pick your hand up and just say, forget it wrong,

because it's important that we cite accurately. But you know, the early

Disciples, the followers of the Way, it says in the Book of Acts

that they dedicated themselves to the public reading of scripture. Sorry it doesn't say

in the Book of Acts. This isn't Paul tells Timothy and to Timothy too,

to dedicate yourself to the public reading and scripture, and so I'm going

to be reciting some scriptures today and I hope it blesses you. There's something

incredible about having the scriptures preach to you. My wife, Caitlin v Lent

has just memorized the Sun on the Mount and we think we're almost there.

Every time she memorizes it, you just feel the presence of God so powerfully.

So there's something there's a power in knowing scripture. So it's love to

joining everyone online and everyone here. Just before I pray today is Palm Sundays.

Letty read that amazing passage. And I'm not going to be speaking specifically

on on Palm Sunday. But the thing that strikes me so much about Palm

Sunday is that the people that are saying Hosannah a week later later are saying

crucify him. And when we as we go into Holy Week into the next

week, I find it so interesting and insightful the effect of the crowd on

people. You remember that the people that said Hosannah then shout crucify him.

You remember Peter who's saying who's declaring his that's Caitlin's artworth Peter who says to

Jesus. I'm I'm going to be your most loyal man, like you can

bank on me. And then a week later people are just asking him,

like you did he come with him? And he's no, and he denies

Jesus. And I think it's easy to look read these stories and not think

about us. But we are like that too, that at the moment we're

all in the room together and we all worship, got adored worship. It

was amazing. And then it's actually very easy to follow the way of the

world. All too easy, actually, And we're going to be talking about

that today, about the way. And I think Palm Sunday is one of

those sort of for me, it's actually a warning to us to wake up

and to think, what way am I following? Am I going to follow

the crowd? If you want to be a Christian, you can't follow the

way of the world and you have a different way anyway. I'm just going

to pray and then we're going to the scriptures. Have any Father, we

look at you and we love you. We ask that your word would be

life to us. We're all hungry and we're all desperate for food, and

we pray Lord that your word would be life to us, like you said

at the end of the summer. Now, blessed is he hears my words

and puts them into practice. Your Jesus, I pray that we would hear

your words and put them into practice in our lives, and be blessed.

Amen. Okay, I respond very well. If people talk to me in

the church that my wife and I go to, we have questions for about

fifteen minutes after the talk. And it's hilarious how many times I've given a

talk and at the end someone asked me at I realized, basically the premise

of my whole talk was wrong. But it's great to have questions. The

disciples ask Jesus questions, and so please do ask questions, either at the

end or during. We're going to be looking at three incredibly familiar pastures,

incredibly familiar pastures today, and I hope that the Holy Spirit feeds you with

them. What I'm going to be talking to you about is the main thing

I want to talk to you about today, is that to be a Christian

is to follow the way. To be a Christian is to follow the way.

Then the way, an easier way or more sort of simple way to

understand what it means when we talk about the way is the word lifestyle,

which is quite You hear lots about lifestyles, particularly in medicine. In my

work, you hear people talk about lifestyle medicine, about having a healthy lifestyle.

It's quite a cool term. But we're going to be talking about jesus

lifestyle and his way of being. So let's start by looking at the familiar

pastes John fourteen, verses one to six. John fourteen, verses one to

six. I haven't memorized this one yet. Do not let your hearts be

troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me in my father's house and

many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you I'm

going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare

a place for you, I will come back and take to be with me

that you may be where I am. You know the way to the place

where I'm going, Thomas said to him, Lord, the way you're going?

How can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the Way,

the Truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except

through me. So I'm talking to you today about the way The early Christians

in the Book of Acts were actually called followers of the Way. It was

like saying what we call Christians. They were called followers of the Way.

And I think we're much much more familiar with the term the truth and the

life. If you're a good Bible believe in Christian, you know Jesus is

the truth. You know that I knew that from before I knew how to

drink water. I just I knew Jesus is the truth. And if you're

a charismatic Christian, which we all are, you believe that Jesus is the

life that in him is fullness of life, has right hand a pleasures forevermore.

But the way, what does Jesus mean by the way? I think,

like I said earlier to you today, the way means a lifestyle.

The way it means a lifestyle. And you might ask, what's the lifestyle?

I think a lifestyle are the decisions and behaviors that we take in our

lives that we make to try to achieve the good life. To try to

achieve the good life. Everyone has a lifestyle in this room. We all

live our lives in a certain way, and we all have different influences on

how we live our lives. We come from different cultures, We come from

different family upbringings, different philosophies, different Christian traditions, even in this room,

different educations, different political persuasions, different social networks. And even if

we go to something even more practical and small scale, if you take something

like the example of eating a meal, we all eat meals in different ways,

really different ways. I've spent some time in a Benedictine monastery, which

I found absolutely transformative in my life, but the way they eat their meals

is different. We our meals so it's in silence, and then in the

evening someone reads a book whilst everyone's in silence around the table. I imagine

that's different to most people in this room. Some people might when they're eating

a meal, might listen to the radio. Some people might sit around and

have a chat catch up on their day. In Japan, I recently learned

that there's a cultural practice that you try to finish when you're eighty percent full,

and so at the end of a meal, they have this mantra.

I don't know what it is. I'm afraid it it's be Japanese, but

it sort of says we stop when we're eighty percent full. It's a different

way of eating a meal. Some people eat really fast, some people eat

really slow. I eat way too fast. And I always admire those people

that eat food so slow. I think they're so spiritual and so so mature,

and I just eat before I can register what I'm eating. But that's

a question. Do you know how to eat in a way that you give

glory to God? Do you know how to do you enjoy eating? Is

it filled with gratitude and praise for who made the food that you're eating,

where it's come from from God, Who's provided the sun to grow it.

I don't. I often eat when in the middle of if I'm working,

or that's a way. That's a way in which you eat. So that's

a small, tiny example when we talk about our lifestyle, and Jesus is

saying here to his disciples. If you want to know the Father, if

you want to have a relationship with the Almighty, if you want to know

him, you have to be a disciple, and your whole life has to

become like mine. You have to eat meals like I would. You have

to pray like I do. You have to teach like I teach. You

have to have relationship like I have relationships. You have to worship like I.

Do. You have to forgive like I do. You have to trust

like I do. You have to memorize scripture like Christ did. You have

to be alone like Christ did. We hate being alone. We have to

be silent like Christ was. We need to fast like he taughts us to

remember in the som Mount and he says, when you fast, we have

to heal the sick. We have to love like he does. Our whole

life, from our sleeping to our waking, everything has to take on the

way of Jesus. So this is the first point. Number one. Jesus

says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and our

whole lifestyle has to take on his life. There's a wonderful little phrase from

someone of whom I've actually never completed a book of because I find it too

difficult to read, called Dallas Willard, and he says, if you want

the life of Jesus, you need the lifestyle of Jesus. If you want

the life of Jesus, you need the lifestyle of Jesus. So passage number

two Galatians five, and I'm going to recite this Galatians five. This is

verse well, actually verse thirteen to the end. I might even go into

chapter six. So here we go. Actually, I'm going to start with

I'm going to just mention verse one of chapter five, and then I'm going

to go down to verse thirteen. So Galatians chapter five, Verse one,

it is for freedom of christis set to us free. Stand firm, then,

and do not let yourselves be burned again by a yoke of slavery.

Amazing verse thirteen. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be

free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flow, but rather

serve one another humbly in love, For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping

this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour

each other, watch out, or you'll be destroyed by each other. So

if you live or lead, can get the next verst. I'm not sure

it's live all there. So I say, walk by the spirit, and

you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what

is country to the spirit, And the spirit what is country to the flesh?

They are in conflict with each other. So you're not to do whatever

you want to. So if you are if you live by the spirit,

if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

The acts of the flesh are obvious sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, hatred,

discord, jealousy, and the selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, drunkenness,

aldis and the like. I warn you, as I did before,

that those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But

you can join anyone. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,

peace, issues, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self

control. Against such things, there is no long Those who belong to Christ

have crucified the flesh along with its passions and desires. So we live by

the spirit. We are to keep in step with the spirits. Let's not

become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Brothers, if someone is caught

in a sin, you, who live by the Spirit, should restore that

person gently, be careful lest you might also be tempted. Carry each other's

burdens, and in doing so you will fulfill the law of Christ. I'm

gonna stop there. So powerful, so amazing, So I think we are

different to the world. We're different to other world religions. We're different to

Buddhism, we're different to help self help. We're different to Islam, we're

different to secularism. We're different. And the Way Jesus's Way, the Way

is not just a how to guide of how to have a good life,

although Jesus tells you you will find goodness if you follow him. The point

of the Way is that you have an incredible relationship with the Spirit of God.

The point of your lifestyle, being like Jesus is is that you can

live your day in the presence of God. There's a beautiful little book again

I haven't read. I always quoe books, haven't read called Practicing the Presence.

Does anyone read that book? It's a sweet, little, tiny little

book and it's one of Caitlin's favorite books. I think it's a favorite book

by someone called Brother Lawrence. And it's essentially this incredible exploration of a monk

who simply tried to do everything aware of the presence of God. And this

is what this passage is touching on, that our lifestyle, the way we

eat, the way we drink, the way we sleep, the way we

use our money, the relationship we have. They should be done in Jesus's

way, so that we live in the spirit of God. We live in

every moment aware of Him. And that takes work. Tell you what,

I do not think about God all day long. I don't know about you,

guys, I wish I did. How amazing would that be to be

aware of Him, to be familiar with Him like a dove on your shoulder.

And this is the point. Since we live by the spirit and us

keep in step with the spirit, the point is is that we might not

keep in step with Him even though we live by the spirit, and so

our lifestyle needs to look like Jesus is Why is it that Jesus before he

feeds the five thousands, he's desperately trying to get away, He's desperately trying

to be alone. He's trying to keep in step with the Spirit. He's

trying to be present with his heavenly Father. Amazingly in that story though,

he actually then gives up that to serve people. And there's an amazing flexibility

about Jesus. He's amazing. He's amazing. So we all need the way

of Jesus. You can't have a fruitful life with love, joy, peace,

which is what we all want. You can't have that unless you have

a spiritual life. And you can't have a spiritual life without the spirits.

And how did Jesus keep in step with the spirits? It's lifestyle, It's

lifestyle. I love this, absolutely adore this phrase. I don't know who

said it, but I just love it. So psychological. Your actions reveal

your beliefs one hundred percent of the time. Your actions reveal your beliefs one

hundred percent of the time. And we need a lifestyle like Jesus to be

able to bring our beliefs into a obedience with God. Fasting is a great

example, and I've tried to get into fasting recently. I basically hate it.

It sucks, but it's so good. You know. The theologian called

Scott McKnight calls fasting whole body worship. There's a sense in which I don't

know if particularly for people that are working for anyone, when you become you

know, when you just get into the kind of rhythm of the day.

Now you just have a you have a to do list, you have a

job to do, you have a routine, and you're just in that rhythm.

There's a sense in which fasting just interjects into that rhythm and you're you

get a pang of hunger, and I try as much as I can to

turn that pang of hunger into all my word, my soul. Hunger is

for you so much more than my body, and I'm not aware of it.

And so fasting is one of those lifestyle things that Jesus does that keeps

him constantly in communion with the spirit. Jesus says, I'm the father of

one. They were one in unity, perfect unity. So your actions reveal

your behavior one hundred percent of the time. To walk in the spirit is

to work with grace so that you become the kind of person that is deeply

trusting in God all the time. As a life mission, to be trusting

in God all the time, where you're not thrown about by good news or

bad news, where you're a deeply rooted person. I want to be the

psalm one person, you know, person that is deeply rooted. I always

get given someone whenever people pray for me. I love it. I want

to be deeply rooted. So we've looked at I'm the way the truth in

life. We've looked at walking by the spirit and that amazing fruit that we

all want. You know, the King Paul says, the Kingdom of God

is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We all want the

Kingdom of God. We all want righteous peace and joy, but we get

it by living a life in the Spirit, by following Jesus's way. Right.

The last passage is in Matthew Matthew eleven, verse twenty five. Again

you'll know it's that's twenty five to thirty. So at that time Jesus said,

I praise you, Heaveny Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, because

you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little

children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things

have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except

the Father. No one knows the Father except the Sun. And to those

whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who are

weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon

you and learn. Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in

heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is

easy and my burden is light. So the kingdom is for children. If

you become like a child, take my yoke on you and you'll be rested.

I think there's sometimes a sense and I can sometimes get to this headspace

where sometimes I think we all can we can all feel sometimes that prayer,

fasting, memorizing, scripture, silence, whatever scripture discpline you want to take,

is actually a bit of a bird. It's a bit like I'm actually

already really, I'm actually already a bit stressed by life, and doing this

extra thing is it doesn't feel like it's taking stress off. It feels like

it's adding stress on. I don't know if that's anyone else, but it's

definitely me. But you've actually, I've actually misunderstood what it means to follow

the way and what doing the way really means. If that's what you're feeling

to be a follower of the way, Jesus is saying you have to be

like a child. Now, what he's not saying is that you should be

childish. He's saying you should be like a child, you should be lowly,

you should give up your status, you should get off the treadmill of

trying to be an important person, and have everyone tell you that you're awesome

all the time. Get off that treadmill. Give up your status and flippant

to in your relationships with one another. Be like Christ, who in very

nature didn't consider quality with God something to be grasped. Give it up.

Off your treadmill is particularly important. I think. Give up your desire to

be famous, to be powerful, to be praised by others. Remember Jesus

in the Sunlin Amount says they'd be like the Pharisees. Don't pray like them,

don't fast like them. They've actually already got their reward. They've received

their award in full. Be like a child, be lowly, be give

up your status. And if you do that, then if you get off

that treadmill, which the whole world is on. You know, when you

go for an interview, what are you doing. You're selling yourself. You're

trying to tell people how awesome you are so that they're and there's a sense

in which you need to do that. That's not in the Kingdom of God.

We're not trying to impress God. Please don't try and impress God.

It's exhausting. We're like children, and he's our father. We are little

children in our father's family business. Children have no economic output. They just

drain you economically. If you want to get rich, don't have kids.

Jesus is saying, if you want to have the kingdom, then you have

to take on my yoke as a child. Now, what does the term

yoke mean? Does anyone know what that means? Loads? Yeah, and

what does he mean by putting on a load? Does it mean we need

to get a backpack and put it on our bags. So at the time

where Jesus were, it was life, and still today, there were lots

of rabbis. There are lots of teachers, and every rabbi came with a

yoke. It's like a set of teachings. Jesus is saying, if you

want to be my disciple, if you want to follow my way, you

need to be like a child and take upon yourself my teachings, my way

of living. But he's saying that unlike the yoke of the world, unlike

the teachings and the formation and the pressures and the expectations of the world,

my way is easy. My way is lighter. In other words, he's

saying, well, you're everyone here is carrying a burden everyone is carrying.

Remember we said at the beginning, we're all we already have a lifestyle,

were already eat food in a certain way, we already practice our lives in

a certain way. But Jesus is saying, give that up and take upon

yourself my yoke. But in order to do that, you have to be

like a child. You have to give up the rights to try and be

famous, to try and be loved by everyone. You have to give that

up. If you do, you get life, You get him. I

love how realistic Jesus is about humans. He's so hilariously realistic. I love

at the end of chapter six and some of the that Jesus like, don't

worry about tomorrow. It's got enough problems with itself. So it's almost pessimistic.

Each day has enough trouble of its own. We're all preoccupied all the

time. And there's probably people in this room. There's things in your mind,

important things. Might you might have received bad news. You might have

an urgent deadline to meet. You might have a conversation you're going to have.

You might just have the dinner and the lunch on your mind. You

might have all array of things on your mind right now. We meditate and

worship all day long, but we just don't often make it about God.

We're all experts at meditation, all of us. We're just we don't always

meditate on the things that are best. We don't always think about the amazingness

of Jesus, the goodness of him. We're all excellent at dedicating ourselves to

discipleship. We're all excellent at being formed by things. We listened to the

I listened to the radio all day long, and badline addicted to it.

We are often put ourselves at the submit ourselves to what our boss might think,

or what our friends might think, or what our our family you might

think. And then you're really getting into real territory. They're particularly with Jesus

teaching on family. But Jesus is saying, any burden other than my commandments,

other than my teachings, will crush you, It will disappoint you,

and ultimately it will kill you, at least spiritually. Jesus says, my

burden, my yoke, my teachings are light. That means you can all

carry them. Everyone can follow the way of Jesus. Everyone, No one's

too weak. They are right for you. Become like a child, give

up the chase for status and popularity, the desire for human glory, and

take upon yourself his way of life, his lifestyle, the one of peace,

the one of love, the one of joy. He says, I

am the Way, the truth, and the life. So thank you so

much for listening to me today. I just want to end by praying.

And I think in my life, particularly in the last I say, three

or four years, I've just found so much fruitfulness thinking about my lifestyle and

dedicating myself to trying to make my life style look more like Jesus'. And

the fruit of it is that at very least you've become. You just become

more like him, and you people around you notice it. You can ask

Caleb, just become a better person. She is the best person that So

I just I hope that the spirit gives you a vision to unite your life

with his, and that you just get to enjoy the fruit of the spirit,

which is so good, isn't it. So let me just pray,

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your way, which is light,

which is good, which has survived through thousands of years. But Jesus,

we are like those people that say Hosannah on one Sunday and the next Sunday

say crucify him. That's us. But we pray that by your grace we

our way becomes Your way. We long for the fruit of the Spirit to

be in our lives. We abide in you, Lord, We take pleasure

in you, We enjoy you. How good is it to be with you?

Now? We give you the glory, the power, the honor,

now and forever. Amen. Thank you.