Jesus

Hey everyone, this is Charlie from Encounterchurch Henley and thanks so much for tuning into our

podcast. Our prayer is that through this podcast you can have an encounter with Jesus that will

change your life and now get ready for an inspiring message from our preaching team.

Thank you, welcome everyone. For those who don't know me, my name is Tex. I'm one of the pastors

here at Encounter Henley and if you are new, welcome. I have an expression that I use all

the time which is that the best parents in the world are the people that don't yet have children.

Now, I say this, I'm talking about the my kids will never have chicken nuggets. There'll be no

process garbage for my little one. Screen time, no thank you. What happened to good old fashioned

getting on the floor, playing with your kids, a tantrum at the shops? Absolutely not. Why not

simply explain to your toddler that daddy will not stand for this behavior any longer and these

acts of belligerence will not stand in this house? These are all things that I definitely said

before I had children. The last one verbatim by the way, car is like a toddler doesn't know what

belligerent means and I said and she will learn. Now, all of these expressions and all of these

things that I said were spoken with good intentions. They were all spoken with a fervour that I believe

to be true at the time and truth be told they're probably all still really good principles.

And then the craziest thing happened and it changed my entire mindset and everything about

me inside and out, which was I became a dad and I had kids and all these great ideas I had about

parenting didn't quite work. I thought they might because all of a sudden chicken nuggets at the

drive-through became a staple and as I slid the happy meal into the backseat knowing full well

that that was probably going to be half consumed in front of an iPad when we got home because I

was completely exhausted because I'd worked a full day that day and then I had gone to the shops to

pick up bread and milk and the many tantrums that followed from the toddler who was convinced that

we did need the 58 other things that they kept on grabbing and knocking off the shelf and I was

like nope that's not going to do and now dad's exhausted but at least we have chicken nuggets at

an iPad. Now pre-kids I really really really thought that I had everything figured out that I

knew what it was going to look like, how it was going to work, the kind of dad I was going to be

and then I actually had to learn it and I had to live it and I had to do it and it was absolutely

nothing like I'd imagined. I love my kids, I love that love almost like I said love for a second,

I love my kids and I'm really embarrassed to say that it took me a lot longer than I was anticipating

to adjust and to get into that day-to-day of the doing and it was only through seeing it up close

and allowing it to change my mind minute by minute and in all honesty kind of humbling myself and

accepting how wrong I was over and over and over again that anything actually started to change

and everything started to click and that kind of got me thinking when was the last time that you

had a moment, a real life altering, life-changing experience when something happened to you or

around you or through a conversation that you were involved in that actually forced you to stop and

pay attention. Not only pay attention but maybe even change your mind or potentially alter your

entire perspective on something and maybe it was a person you met and wrote off upon first introduction,

maybe it was a band that you hated the first time you listened to them and then all of a sudden one

day you find yourself buying both tickets and flights to Melbourne to go and see them, maybe it's a

holiday destination that you just assumed wasn't for you and then you took your family there no

less than like seven times in like a 10-year period and I really miss Bali and travelling which is

also expensive with kids. Or maybe for some of you like it was for me being in this room is that

change. Maybe a life pursuing discipleship unto Jesus is that change and maybe while we're at it

maybe there's a potential or you're considering a pursuit of a life in ministry maybe that's that

change. Because none of those things were ever part of the plan, it wasn't for me. And if you're

still sitting somewhere in that spectrum or maybe you haven't considered there's a spectrum at all

to ponder, welcome you're in really good company. Maybe you're a lifelong Christian, maybe you're

on the other side of this and hearing yet another sermon on the prodigal son or the Samaritan woman

at the well or John 316 just feels kind of redundant because you've heard it all before and what's

left to unpack anyway. I think goodness you're right you can all have your Sundays back, we're

all going home. I saw some of you kind of shake your head and we've all heard those sentiments

from people, what's the point in going to this conference, I've already heard it all before,

what's the point in going to hear this person speak, why are we covering this ground again,

we've all heard it, some of us have probably said it. Now in my experience both sides of that equation

both the questionable truth seeker and the long-term believer can struggle to hear the

message sometimes. The former does so out of a lack of understanding and the latter tends to do it

out of comfort or just a refusal to have their foundation shaken again. Both sides of this

are pretty understandable. I was 34 when I gave my life to Jesus, that was 34 years of life as a

non-believer and that's not quick to shift or adjust, those mindsets and those behaviors and

those habits and those patterns will sit and they will sink in and the same can be said for

long-term believers, our brain actually hardwires us to take things that at one time seemed miraculous

and eventually we reshape it so it just becomes ingrained knowledge.

So as we enter into today's teaching and as we enter into a new year,

text is the first term of the new year, surely you're going to talk about new year's resolutions,

I'm not but I really want you to take this as an opportunity to challenge you to be expected once

more, expect to be amazed, not by my preaching, or lost in beautiful wonder by Jesus, maybe for

the first time or maybe for once more but I am challenging you to really leave yourself open

to that because I truly believe that Jesus is worth it and it's in this that we find Nicodemus.

So we return back to the teaching text, after dark one evening Nicodemus comes to speak with Jesus,

Rabbi he said, we all know that God has sent you to teach us your miraculous signs or evidence that

God is with you. Now Nicodemus is not just a Pharisee which is like one of the religious elites

and scholars of the time but he also said in the Sanhedrin which was a group of 70 elders that kind

of made up the Jewish High Court in the area. Nicodemus is a learned man, he is a scholar,

a leader, a teacher, a privileged man, I hope I'm painting the picture here and here he is under the

cover of darkness coming to see Jesus. So why is he doing that? Well it starts with his first word,

the first word out of his mouth when he arrives there, he says Rabbi. Rabbi means teacher. Nicodemus

has come to learn, he's come to be taught by Jesus. He has seen and heard of the miracles,

signs and wonders and as a result he knows that God is with Jesus and that he has been sent to

teach. Rabbi. Now this isn't genuinely like an incredibly humbling title for Nicodemus to call

Jesus. Nicodemus would be used to people coming to him to be taught, to sit at his feet, to hear

his wisdom, to learn. So by the very act that first word Nicodemus rocking up and saying Rabbi

that shifts the power dynamic entirely and immediately. Teacher, teach me. And we all know

Jesus is very happy to oblige. His opening salvo is as to the point as they come, he says I tell

you the truth unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God. Now Nicodemus

doesn't understand how can a man be born again, I can't exactly crawl back into my mother's womb,

can I? Delightful imagery from Nicodemus here, what a man. And as Jesus proceeds to explain he says

Nicodemus you need to be born of both water and spirit. You've been born of a physical human life,

water, but what you're chasing and what we should all be pursuing is an everlasting heavenly spiritual

life. Humans give birth to human life but only the spirit can give birth to a spiritual life.

So Jesus continues, the wind blows wherever it wants just as you can hear the wind

but can't tell where it comes from or where it's going so you can't explain how people are born of

the spirit. So you see with wind itself you can't see or understand what started it or where it's

come from. But what you can do is you can feel wind against your cheek, your face, you can see the

tree branches that sway as a result. A tornado doesn't need to be understood for us to see the

houses that are flattened in its path but they sure act as proof that it existed.

Cores can be hard to see but results are undeniable, they will always show.

And Jesus proceeds to teach with that in mind, if you won't believe me when I tell you

of earthly things how can you possibly believe me when I tell you of spiritual things?

Again we're going to carry on with the scripture here where he says,

no one has ever entered heaven and returned to earth but the Son of Man has in order to be

lifted up so that everyone that believes in Him will have eternal life. Everyone, everyone.

Now Nicodemus again would have been raised believing that your entry into heaven was

assured via your bloodline and via a series of elaborate laws that conveniently enough

mostly the Pharisees were the only ones of really capable of fulfilling.

Laws around purity and perfection and cleanliness that were all but impossible for the average person

to adhere to. Things like class, privilege, gender, creating barrier after barrier after barrier for

the average person. And now Jesus is being pretty clear in stating like, hey Nicodemus your previous

beliefs, they're being shaken up pretty big time at this point. Now Nicodemus let's be clear is not

being taught a new religion. He's having his eyes opened to the truth about his own religiousness,

his very own belief structure, something he's built his entire life on. Now Nicodemus was not

a young man, he was older than me if you can believe that, but he's been raised in the faith.

He's been dedicating his life to study and teaching and all of a sudden Jesus comes with a

pair of specs with custom script, slides them on Nicodemus' face and now the chart that he could

see before from the other side of the room it was a little bit blurry before and it's a bit

clearer now. That's not an eye, that's a teak. He's not condemning him with guilt. What he's doing is

ensuring some clarity. Now those moments we talked about earlier when you have to reflect on what

you've known or what you think you've known or what you've believed to be true, there's absolutely

no way that this wasn't one of those moments for Nicodemus. We come back to one word, it's one word

at the beginning, rabbi is the word that we used to set the place and now one more word we can come

back to that shakes up everything that Nicodemus would have known and that word is everyone.

The walls you have spent centuries building are about to be destroyed.

All the stuff you did or you do it's nice but it's not important. It's the very inner workings of

your soul that need to be addressed, your very understanding of life and its purpose is going

to change. That is why you need to be reborn. I love this, there's no way that Nicodemus wasn't

sitting there a bit slack jawed, a little bit reeling from all this stuff that's being thrown at him

and Jesus is relentless and he follows up with the most beautiful and succinct summary of the

gospel that there is and he says, for this is how God loved the world. He gave his one and only son

so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his son

into the world not to judge the world but to save the world through him.

And for God so loved the world that he sent his only son.

Not to condemn but to save and not just some everyone, everyone that believes in him will be

saved. There's a reason we call this the golden verse. Eternal life is what's on offer.

There's one thing that's required and that's a belief in Jesus.

Nicodemus must have been like, you cannot be serious. That's too easy. There's got to be

some hoops that we have to jump through. Maybe I've got to memorize something or recite it

or is that like a little secret handshake or something that we can kind of like work into

the mix here and surely not everyone. Like Jesus may have come to save like you and me but not the

real sinners, right? The liars and the thieves and the murderers and the sex traffickers and the

yes, them too. AWToser puts it like this. He says, Jesus Christ came not to condemn you but to save

you. Knowing your name, knowing all about you, knowing your weight right now, knowing your age,

knowing what you do, knowing where you live, knowing what you ate for supper and what you

will eat for breakfast, where you will sleep tonight, how much your clothing cost, who your

parents wear. He knows you individually as though there were not another person in the entire world.

He died for you as certainly as if you had been the only lost one. He knows the worst about you

and is the one who loves you the most. Yeah, everyone.

And it's that reality that makes Jesus Jesus. It's that truth that makes this something special

to behold. That makes the way that Jesus loves me and forgives and pours out grace upon me and you.

It makes that more incredible and just more amazing than we can possibly comprehend. There

are no words for this. And in truth, that's the heart of what makes all of this so hard for Nicodemus

and most of us to truly get our head around. I'll never forget the first time the concept of grace

kind of tried to nestle its way into my brain, I suppose, and I kind of had this like mental

unraveling via text message to Mike. It's a fast and fine because I just couldn't get my head around

it and he was like, yeah, that's kind of the rub. That's kind of how it works. Because it really

just forces you to think like, is there truly a love that can possibly exist like that? And if

there is, is it truly accessible to all of us? And if there isn't a love that exists like that,

and if it truly exists in that way and it truly exists with all of us, surely there have to be

some strings attached. And the final part of today's scripture holds the key. There is no

judgment against anyone who believes in him, but anyone who does not believe in him has already

been judged for not believing in God's one and only son. And the judgment is based on this fact,

God's light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light. For their actions

were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be

exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what

God wants. No strings. Here's the rub. When we believe, when we're truly saved, when we're truly

reborn in Christ, if we're truly following Jesus, we have a need and a desire to bring those dark

things into the light. Mother Angelica has this quote, which is simply believing in the existence

of God is not exactly what I would call a commitment. After all, even the devil believes that God

exists. Believing has to change the way we live. We are so loved and safe and secure that we no

longer need to fear the truth, not of the world, not of our sins, not of our Savior, not of God.

Because when you're living in that kind of love and that kind of freedom, Jesus isn't going to

force your hand into better behavior. He's not going to force you to read your Bible more.

But when you live in that light and when you live in that safety, the kind that has been and can

only be provided through Jesus, those things become the deepest desires of our very heart and soul.

There's no law that says I should be completely honest with my wife or to treat her with respect

or to prioritize spending time with her or going out for dinner and acting in a way that shows respect

and honor and love. Man, it makes for a heaps better marriage when I do these things. Doesn't it?

People are like, does it? It does. Sorry. Thank you. Can't confirm. I hear that. I

receive that. Even then, even then, I'll give one back for you back here. Even then, when I do these

things, because I don't always get that right. This is a quote you've heard before from Willard.

You've heard it definitely in this room before. You're going to hear it many, many more times

over the years. Grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning. Effort is action.

Earning is attitude. You have never seen people more active than those who have been set on fire

by the grace of God. Now, my marriage certificate is an earthly assurance of our relationship,

mine and car. I'm sure I could just, I guess, rely on that and fall back on that to cover over every

mistake. Every issue, every shortcoming that I've got, and I've got plenty. But my actions in the

light of that truth and in the light of that are what tells you about my posture and the desires of

my heart. Now, encounter can and will continue to run good programs. We're in the middle of Word

Week right now. You're not too late. You should sign up. We ran 24-1 prayer day yesterday. Tim and I

are going to stand up on this platform all year and we're going to talk to you about the virtues of

prayer and daily scripture reading and believing the best in people and helping the needy and

building good relationships and all these other things that are really good for us. Why are they

good for us? Because they have Jesus' fingerprints all over them, which is normally a very good place

to start. But we do these things because we believe in Jesus, because we can trust and believe in that.

But I need to make it really, really clear. None of those things, that laundry list of stuff we

just read out, none of that is designed to get you into heaven. That's done. That's secured

through the very act of belief in Him. That's all it takes. That's all it's ever taken. That's all it

will ever take. But we do these things because they've been born out of that love and out of

a desire to be closer to someone that we love and that loves us. Soul altering, trajectory,

shifting, earth, shattering, love. I'm going to invite the band back up. That's okay.

Now, I thought that I had things pretty well figured out. I was mostly a good person. I was

living the middle class Australian dream. I mean, I swore a bit too much and I yelled a bit too much

and I drank a bit too much and I was semiish, considerate of others, ish sometimes. But I was

mostly a good person, right? By most people's definition. You didn't know me back then. You'll

have to take my word for it. Don't ask Cara for more specifics. And then what happened? What changed?

Well, my daughter and my wife invited me to church.

Now, in saying that, cadence at the time was eight years old.

A reminder, that flip of the script that we had earlier with Nicodemus and Jesus, right?

My eight-year-old daughter, this is the one I meant to be guiding. This is the one I meant

to be teaching. And she showed an interest in something and forced me to reconsider something new.

And then my wife, who I love and loves me, endorsed it. Now, these are two people that I

loved that I trusted offering me a new way to view things. So I too humbly went to a teacher.

Now, unlike Nicodemus, I didn't have the privilege of going straight to Jesus at that

point in time. Well, not to sit down in front of him. So I went to my wardrobe instead. It could

have been worse. And through that teaching, my life too was dramatically and irreversibly changed.

A touch of the Holy Spirit, a flurry of tears and the recognition that I definitely had some new things to consider.

I knew that my life was changed forever. I went back as part of this, by the way. And I found the

messenger message that I sent Mike the day of Encounters' launch at Prospect, funnily enough.

And this is, as I'm sure you can imagine, as someone who is a man of very few words most of the time,

I'd written this very lengthy message to Mike that is too hearty a laugh, Jacob.

I sent this really lengthy message to Mike and it basically signed off with,

I have no idea what happened to me in that room tonight, but I know that I cannot ignore it.

And then I took Mike like four days to respond and I wondered if I'd said something wrong.

Genuinely, I was like, oh no, do I send another one? Anyway,

the birth of Jesus, his message, this gifting from God has changed everything.

Everything that we had thought we knew wasn't and isn't as it was.

A relationship with Jesus again is all that we need and it's all we've ever needed.

I love this. God's love didn't just feel for the plight of a fallen world.

God did something about it and he gave the most precious thing that he had to give.

His only begotten Son, this Son Jesus becoming both the expression and the gift of God's love.

And we talk so often about how we need to look to Jesus like a child would,

hearts full of expectation and love and eyes full of wonder and we're not doubting.

But why? Why do we do this? Why are we looking at Jesus like a child?

We look to Jesus and it's a God like a child because God comes to us as a father.

Not an earthly father like me who makes mistakes and misplaces his frustrations

onto his children, but as a heavenly father who paid the ultimate price for our shortcomings.

For our failures and for our sins, with the full knowledge that if we were the only sin

on earth, he would have done exactly the same thing in exactly the same way.

Thanks so much for tuning into this week's message.

If you felt challenged or need progress, please contact us at www.global.org.

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at Encounter Hindley. Or if you're interested in how you can support this ministry,

please go to our website, EncounterAdelaide.com.au.

Thanks again for listening. God bless you.