The Way of Jesus 2.0

We have three speakers this morning, everybody, and they are Dale,

Meredith, Luke Bates, and yours truly.

So why don't you welcome them as they come forward?

We are in a series that, yes, it's called Uncovering the Way of Jesus.

Do you want to pulpit as well

a rose between two thorns?

Yes.

Maybe we can share pool picture of that one.

You are that rose

Luke.

Okay.

So today begins kind of the beginning of having a conversation, in rather than

just kind of, providing information but having a little bit of back and forth.

And every time we've done conversation formats, I really think they've

been helpful just to spark your own internal conversations around,

in this case, the way of Jesus.

Beautiful.

So, Dar, I know you're gonna start us off.

All right.

So yeah, how this morning's gonna

roll is, I'm just

gonna do a bit of an intro.

And so we started this series last week, so if you weren't here

last Sunday, if you haven't caught the first part of this series.

Make sure you have a listen to the podcast 'cause it does lay the foundational

groundwork, for what

we're gonna cover in the weeks ahead.

So you can access that, that through the Red Door app.

And so this morning I'm just gonna share a bit of an intro, introduce

the passage of scripture that we

are gonna, be speaking

out of this morning.

And then, I'm gonna

have a chat with these two good

people here.

And it's

gonna be good.

Yes, yes, yes.

Let's look at the scripture for this morning.

Matthew four verses 1, 2 11.

And so this is the account of Jesus temptation with Satan in the

wilderness.

And so it

says this, then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be

tempted by the devil After fasting, 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

The temp came to him and said, if you are the son of God, tell

these stones to become bred.

Jesus answered.

It is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but in every word

that comes from the mouth of God.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on

the highest point of the temple.

If you are the son of God, he said, throw yourself down for it is written.

You will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in

their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

Jesus answered him.

It is also written.

Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

Again.

The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms

of the world and their splendor.

All this I will give you.

He said, if you will bow down and worship me, Jesus said to him, away

from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God, and serve

him only then the devil left Him and angels came and attended him.

So in this passage we got, we see this account of Jesus being tempted to walk.

A way other than the way of God, these three temptations

that at their core represent a temptation to walk another way.

And so this morning we're gonna leverage out of these three different

temptations, specifically within the context of a way that we are

all discipled in, in the culture and in a time place that we live in.

And so, yes, this is, part two.

Of our series.

Like I said before, we have laid the foundational framework last week

when we looked at the wide and narrow way that Jesus teaches about towards

the end of his sermon in the Mount.

'cause Jesus doesn't just call us to belief in him.

He calls us to follow him, to be as he is in the world, to

follow and live out his ways.

And why is that?

Because these ways are the only ways that lead to life, to the

abundant life that he promises.

But we do have this problem, and this problem is encapsulated in the

wisdom of Proverbs four 12 here.

Which we did reference last week.

Have we got, got that there?

No, we don't.

All right.

Well, it's very easy.

It's very short.

There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.

Okay?

There is, there are ways of being and living in this world that seems

so very right to us, but ultimately they are destructive to us.

They are self-harming ways, but in a sense, there is no such

thing as just self-harm, right?

I know self-harm.

We have a very specific context in our time

and place, for what

comes to mind when we think of that.

But you know, scripture talk, Paul talks

about it, those who've

been led away from the face and pierce themselves with many griefs.

When we walk in ways that are not the ways of God, we pierce

ourselves with many grief, but it's never just ourselves, is it?

You know, whatever harm we do to ourselves, whatever ways we walk in

that are destructive, always have an effect on those around us as well.

We do not live in isolation.

And so this isn't just about you, it's about who we are in the world being

a blessing to those around us as well as we learn to embrace and uncover

more and more the ways of Jesus.

And so

another, important

thing to note, and we touched on this last week, there is no neutral

third way, which is I think a lot of times we get seduced into thinking,

and maybe not terribly consciously, but we might go, oh, I know I'm not.

Fully walking committed to Jesus.

I know I've got these ways that probably aren't great, but they're not really that

bad because I'm not murdering anybody.

I'm not doing anything deeply, profoundly evil, right?

And so we think we're okay in this third way, this neutral territory.

There is no neutral territory.

There is only the narrow way or the wide way.

There is only the path of life or the path of

destruction.

And so Jesus,

if we just look at,

there's no fe, there's no fence sitting.

There's no fence sitting.

There is no fence.

You cannot sit on it.

You cannot occupy a neutral territory.

So Jesus, have we got this next?

Have we got the slides working this?

Yep.

So Jesus is not a supplement to the world's way.

He is the alternative.

Okay?

We can't just add Jesus to the ways of this world that we particularly like

and fond of and think are serving us.

And go, I can supplement my life with some Jesus and that's gonna add a little

bit of pep and a little bit of zing and a bit of extra guarantee that my

life's gonna be all I want it to be.

He's not a supplement.

He is the alternative.

There is the way of the kingdom of God and there is the way of

the world, and they stand in co.

Star con contrast to one another, but we are always being tempted to embrace

the ways of the world are around us.

Dale, I've always liked mm-hmm.

How Jesus is not a, an extra book in your library.

He's a whole new library.

Yes.

Very good.

A

lot of times we'll see him like a Yeah.

Oh yeah, I've got the Jesus book.

Cheers, mate.

Yeah,

no, no.

We're talking about a re a renovation that's beyond what we've ever had before.

Sorry.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

It is very good.

So the thing we're gonna look in, look at this morning, contrasting to the way of

Jesus, and we're gonna use that scripture that we just read at the beginning.

There is the way of consumerism.

So one of the ways, the wide ways that creeps into the church,

creeps into the life of the disciple is that of consumerism.

And so what do we mean by this word?

So it's a word we're all familiar with.

Very familiar with, right?

And so in a nutshell, it's an economic theory.

The consumer spending is the key to individual wellbeing, right?

And so that's it in its economic sense.

But we know it's far more than just economics, don't we?

It's an actual identity.

That in our time and place we get born into and discipled in, it's an

actual identity that we have to learn how to shed when we follow Jesus.

And if we're not aware of it, we will try to get Jesus ends.

Through consumeristic means because we have been formed in this

identity and it takes some renewing of the minds, but the ways of

consumerism, they are fundamentally antithetical to the ways of Jesus.

And we're gonna go through some of this this morning as we have this conversation.

'cause they're built on opposing assumptions about what life is for, what

people are for and what God is like.

So a

couple of, statements

to help us, I guess,

frame this.

So self at

the center versus Christ at the center.

Consumerism says it's about me, my needs, my wants, my preferences, my fulfillment.

And Jesus says, deny yourself.

Take up your cross and follow me in consumerism.

I'm the customer in the kingdom.

I'm the disciple.

One demands to be served.

The other exists to serve.

Last week we talked about the good life.

We all want to know what the good life is.

Jesus says, the good life is found as you walk in my ways, right?

But what we get deceived into believing, particularly like in this

area of consumerism, the good life is found as I put my needs first.

As I am constantly driven by the question, what's in it for me?

Is this good for me?

That's the consumeristic identity that, speaks so loudly in our

lives if we're not aware of it.

So, next one, acquisition versus surrender.

So consumerism and thrives on accumulation, more comfort,

more convenience, more options, more experiences.

But Jesus teaches simplicity, simplicity, surrender, generosity.

So consumerism informs us into takers, but the way of Jesus is always about giving.

All right, so.

Using or being motivated by consumeristic means will not lead to Jesus ends.

And this is something that we have to, I guess,

resolve, in our own

minds

and hearts.

Consumerism

tends to shape, reshape, tempts us to reshape Jesus' ends.

Worship discipleship mission.

Using Satan's means manipulation, spectacle, and power.

That's what we're gonna look at this morning.

But Jesus refused every shortcut he embraced the slow, hidden

way of love and obedience.

Can you say that again?

Slow, the slow

hidden way of love and obedience.

Yeah.

One more time.

The slow, hidden way of love and obedience.

Yes, yes.

It is only obedience to his ways that will ultimately lead to life.

So let's have a look at this first temptation.

And this is a framework I've

borrowed from, Eugene Peterson.

And, so yeah,

this is not original to me, so you could probably track that down if

you wanted to look into it further.

So this first one, stones into bread.

The temptation to be relevant.

Interesting, huh.

So the consumeristic version, this of this is give the people what they want.

So just

a quick, picture that

I just wanna present to you this morning as we dive into

this discussion around this is.

What can the consumeristic, way of living often does in the context of church?

It turns church into a destination rather than a vehicle.

Okay, so what do I mean by this?

The people of God have always meant to be, I. The vehicle through

which Goss outworks his plans of redemption in the world, right?

We are meant to.

From the time of Abraham to the Israelites, the call has always

been the same, to be people through whom God can bless the

world, by blessing them the world.

Is blessed, right?

And but what, when our consumeristic culture says is that church needs

to be this destination place where all your felt needs are satisfied.

That's, that offers a buffet of religious goods and services that you can come and

sample from each Sunday so that you can walk out with this sense of fulfillment

and feeling good about yourself because you are the center of it all.

And we can so easily form these ways of thinking and it happens all the time.

You know, where do people go in a, in church, oh, well this church wasn't

meeting my needs, so now I'm gonna go and we've got this buffet of churches and we

can just hop around Because, you know, choice is such a great thing, right?

Well, it's not, it actually stops us from just planting and being where God

has put us this illusion of choice.

This is not, red door is not meant to be a destination for you

where all your felt needs are met.

It meant to be a vehicle that transforms you for the glory of

God and for the good of the world.

So.

All right.

So churches can often feel the pressure to meet felt needs.

Like I just said, Christians may come to church asking, what

is this gonna do for me today?

Rather than, how can I offer myself to God and these people?

So the key concept here, relevance is a byproduct of faithfulness, not a strategy.

The church's role isn't to mirror the marketplace, but to be a sign of

the kingdom, even when that's slow.

Countercultural or uncomfortable.

Alright.

Which of you two wants to go first on your thoughts and

reflections on this particular

temptation?

I think I

would want to help us to start by, by thinking about consumerism from a

position of that, that this is, it is a system and it's fueled by powers.

It is not a, it's not just, it's not just something that's come

about that we've all agreed to.

There's forces behind consumerism, and they're evil forces.

They're dark powers that are rallying against the ways of the kingdom of God.

So I wanna start there for us as we talk about consumerism,

because sometimes I think if we, we just talk about, oh yeah, no.

You know, I, I tend to buy a bit too many things here or there.

We can kind of just erode what is actually taking a place, and I wanna

be more suspect of it than that.

I want to, I wanna encourage you to have a vision, similar to that as well.

This is, this is a system, this is a power I. There's working against,

and, and we, we, we live in the waters of these powers and systems in

this world.

And I think

we've gotta be, we've gotta be really humble, through this series.

Our hope is that we would come with humility and say, search us Lord.

You know, know my anxious thoughts, know, know all those wicked ways within me.

You know, that's the, that's, that's what I'm coming to in this series anyway.

I. Lord, dig up, what am I blind to?

Where am I falling for these powers?

And the thing about consumerism is that there's a, there's actually a

really, really simple way, to, reflect and to understand whether you've

become a victim of it in your life.

And that is that you will look at things like community, like family,

a church, and you will view them.

In ways that, that, that you'll spend most of your time

and reflection of these, these

life giving, opportunities

that we can

enter into.

You'll, you

will spend most of your time thinking inwardly as opposed to

outwardly, consumerism by its power wants us to turn into ourselves.

And its promise.

It's actually, it's a, it's, it's a sneaky little thing, isn't it?

Consumerism.

And I was, it, it wants us, it wants us to, it wants to answer the

question, what do you want and what do

you need?

But the problem

with consumerism, it never actually answers that question.

It, it, it, it welcomes us into this infinite loop.

And I was like, I was sitting

at, at on Friday,

I was out with Beck and we were.

Down at

Carousel,

mecca of

consumerism.

Mecca

of consumerism, you know, worshiping the

idols.

And, and someone

in our family just, she, she really wants some new pajamas and she's,

she's, she loves Peter Alexander

Wright.

And, I'm sort

of standing there and I'm watching mom and my, my beautiful wife go

through and work out what to get.

And I'm just like, this is amazing.

It's actually phenomenal.

This business model of Peter Alexander.

Here's this guy who's making pajamas, right?

And you can get similar pajamas.

They're nice pajamas, right?

You feel 'em, you, oh, that's nice.

And but the reality is you could walk down, you could walk down to

Kmart and get something similar.

For like 20 bucks.

And Peter Alexander's charging $130 for something similar, right?

I mean, what's the difference?

What's going on here?

It's a dash out.

It's a logo, right?

They're cute.

It's cute, right?

But what is it promising?

Tell us.

Well, it's speaking into, it's going, it's promising that you

can identify with something.

It's promising that, that as you identify with this thing, that it will bring

meaning to you.

That, that

somehow will fulfill you.

And, and the reality is that if we stand back and look at it and

we go, it won't, there's a, I mean, nothing against Dash Hounds.

They're cute, but a, a a dash hound embroidered onto some pajamas,

they're not gonna, I'm gonna change

my life.

It might

make me feel good about myself, but you'll enter, enter into

this infinite regress, and.

And Jesus, by his example in these three

temptations, offers us

I think a point of, of actually reflection as we see him, met with these

deceptions, these temptations, we begin to, we can actually begin to be welcomed

into this story and go, where, where have I not cho chosen the Christ way?

As these deceptions have come to us, and Jesus refuses in these three temptations

to turn inwardly, he refuses to.

What does he do?

No, he puts his, he puts his mind and his heart and his

affections towards the word of God.

His affections are for his father In the midst of these deceptions.

And, for me, that's, that's what, that's what the answer is in the, in the midst

of consumerism is, is to actually ask in our lives where this is coming up,

whether it's in the life of the church.

And all you think about is where your unmet needs are in the life of

the church, is to actually start by meditating on the examples of Christ in

these temptations and go, Lord, help me.

Help me to take my eyes away from myself and to look at you.

My God, help me, lead me into everlasting life and away from this incessant need to

have, to do, to have to, to answer that question is, what do I get out of this?

Jesus doesn't answer that question.

He couldn't care.

He couldn't care less about that question.

By his example in his life.

I could ramble and ramble, but I won't.

I just wanna offer a couple of examples of where I've

seen this, come and

clash even within our own church community.

I don't know if you remember that season of COVID as we look back on that with

affection.

You know,

for us as a church leadership, there was, there was temptation.

It was to temptation to answer that question.

What do

they want?

There was,

there was a strong temptation in us, and as we had to make decisions around what

we were gonna do for the life of the church, we asked that question, are we

willing to actually meet those anxieties and face them as a church leadership?

And some of the decisions that we had to make, we were asking

these questions, weren't we?

Will people leave our church because of the decisions we made?

Guess what

they did?

Over that

period of time, we, we had about 20% of our church community.

Leave our church and maybe go to other churches or, or sadly for some

of them have, they've, they've sort of not found a new church community.

But the problem, the problem was, is that we had to, we had to ask that

question of what is our responsibility as, as shepherds of a church.

It's actually not to give you what you want it, it's to prayerfully consider

to be on knee praying for you and going, Lord, what do you want for us?

As a church community, it's actually going, Lord, what do

you want for your people here?

That's, that's the bigger question.

And we can actually be invited to ask that same question in our lives as well.

Adam, I'm gonna hand over to you 'cause I could just keep

going here and that's not fair.

That's fine, man.

That's fine.

Can you know

that slide, the relevant slide, can you just jam, jam that up again?

And we're talking about that first point, aren't we?

Yeah.

The, the temptation to be relevant.

Yeah.

When I. Think about that scripture where you know, if you're the son of

God, tell these stones to become bread.

My sort of eyeballs.

See, hey, to be relevant, this is about you being your own source.

Like you make your own bread, like you go and get it like you make it, rather

than it being a source of saying, oh.

God is my source.

And I think for me, the idea of the temptation of being relevant

is it's such a temptation to send a message to hearts, even, even right

now to say, it's actually

quite interesting.

It's humanistic culture.

It's individualistic culture, and it's consumeristic culture

merging to send one message to your heart, you have what it takes.

By yourself.

You have what it takes.

You know the answer is you don't.

Neither do I. If we did, we don't need Jesus.

Does this make sense?

So the temptation is to believe that we can create our own bread.

No.

We need the bread of life.

We need Jesus to be our source.

Can I get an amen?

Thank you, but he is our source.

He is our source.

I think part of the reason why we fall into the trap is how we measure.

Are you being successful in your source?

Being the source?

And the way we measure it is bigger, better, faster, but the kingdom doesn't

measure it in bigger, better, faster.

The kingdom measures it by faithfulness, fruitfulness, and

finishing the work that God had given

you to do.

As a temptation

to be relevant.

It's recognizing that the, the greatest.

Person who's relevant is Jesus, and we try and be relevant ourselves

rather than just pointing to the fact that he is the relevant one.

Here's the

relevant one.

This week

I felt the Lord speak to me, and I feel like I've got a word for you

all today, and I'm gonna link it into this idea of being relevant, right?

Because when we meet people, there's this pressure to be relevant to them.

Do you agree?

Trying to meet them where they're at.

And that's not a wrong thing, but I felt like the Lord and I wrote it down.

I said Thursday morning I was with the local pastors.

We gathered together the Coburn

pastors.

And I felt

in that meeting, God speak to me to tell you all red door that.

Over the coming months, there's gonna be an increased need for you to be

ready to gently and with respect, share the hope that you have in the

relevance of Jesus, that there's gonna be an increased frequency of this.

The problem is, is that if you don't know this, increasing frequency is

coming, you may miss the opportunity that arrives at your front door

'cause you're not aware of it.

And it may will mean for many of you who aren't used to doing this, there may

be a feeling of awkwardness, but this is where I felt the Lord speak to me.

And this is what you need to hear today, that you are gonna meet people, you're

gonna have an increasing frequency of meeting people, and what's gonna happen

is they're gonna start asking you questions about the relevance of Jesus.

Right.

This is what's gonna happen and what's gonna happen is the other person is

gonna pull out of you in the most natural, exhilarating thing you've ever

experienced in your life, the reality of Jesus as you open your gob and tell your

own little stories about who Jesus is.

Yeah, this is gonna happen in increasing frequency.

And so if you're sitting here going, oh, I don't know if I got the

right words to say, I'm not sure.

I promise you, you don't even need to worry about that.

'cause the person who's hungry for the relevance of Jesus, they're

just gonna start pulling out of you the living bread that is Jesus.

Does that make sense?

So you don't need to make the bread yourself, like have your

little bakery and go, here's my attempt at presenting Jesus to you.

No, he's just gonna get pulled outta you.

I think, when you

have those moments of encounter, you need to be trusting that you

don't need to repackage Jesus.

Oh, that's great.

Don't repackage.

You need to

repackage his words, his teachings in a way that you think

will be, acceptable

to the other.

Okay.

Listen to you.

A really interesting teaching from the new Pope, Pope Leo.

On, this week on same sex marriage, and he could not have been clearer, right?

He spoke it in the most biblically Orthodox way, but he spoke it with

such grace and love and truth, and it was astoundingly relevant, right?

Jesus is the ultimate one.

Who is, he is eternally relevant, right?

Because the things that bind and deceive and blind people in

our world, they haven't changed.

They are the same things as the time that Jesus walked.

He is eternally relevant.

The enemy doesn't have new schemes, so his truth will always set people free.

But only as we trust in it and we present it in all its fullness and

not try to repackage it in ways that we think will be more palatable.

Does that make sense?

It's very good, Dale.

All right.

Can we go to the next one?

Let's do that.

All right.

The next one here, the next temptation.

Throw yourself down.

So the temptation to be spectacular, oh my gosh.

Has this not crept into the Western Modern day church in big ways?

So the consumeristic version make it exciting.

Keep people's attention.

You know, churches might rely on performance, personality,

production, emotional highs.

Wow.

People into the faith.

Measuring success.

And I think through the, the nineties and the early two thousands, we saw

this big time church megachurches exploding and they, and competing

in production levels with the

world.

Right?

And, and

that can be great for bringing people in through the door, but does it form

them into disciples of, of Jesus?

Well, that is the question, isn't it?

So Christians influenced by entertainment culture may expect

worship to be stimulating or novel.

And can be quick to disengage if it's quiet, if it's slow, if it's

clunky, if it's ordinary, now know there, the pressure on preachers to be

entertaining and to, you know,

to, to excite and to evoke emotion.

You know, people wanna walk out of church often with this consumeristic mindset of,

oh wow, that really resonated with me.

That message, I hear this all the time and it drives me bonkers.

Right.

I think if a flying fig, if it resonates with you, I always wanna know, are

you gonna walk in obedience to it?

Is it transforming you?

Do you look more like Jesus?

Not Are you stoked with a bunch of fun resonating feelings, right?

Resonating, it's a great word, and it's a terrible word all at once.

Sometimes they

do mean like it's the Holy Spirit sometimes.

Sometimes that's.

It's a great word,

but it's also when we think, oh, the work's being done, just

because I resonate with it.

Yes.

No, I think we're picking up what you're putting down.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good.

All right.

Cool.

The way I like to talk about it, sorry, and again.

No, you

go.

Just, just, you can speak up,

rose, anytime.

Do you know how you have a balanced diet?

Is you eat, you eat well, right?

Right.

Now, if, if you're gonna only serve chocolate with vegetables because you

need to get the vegetables down and you're serving chocolate with every single

thing, you know how your diet's gonna go.

Pretty, pretty, pretty bad, right?

Where the church, and please don't hear the anti production

megachurch conversation here.

We're not talking that way.

What we're talking about is actually serving a balanced diet where you taste

and see that the Lord is good, right?

So it's not, chocolate's not bad.

Yes.

Who likes chocolate?

I think I'm the best.

I love the Tola the most.

We do it with moderation, right?

We don't live off it.

Does that make sense?

So I think that's just something to comment around this whole church space.

Well, it comes

down to the deep motivations and the means you are using.

And so if you, you can express the beauty in the wonder of Jesus

through high level production.

Don't get me wrong.

But if your ultimate goal is actually you've been led in the deceptive path

of consumerism, yeah, you can easily use those means to draw a crowd and

think you're doing the work of God.

Right, and all you've done is draw a crowd and you've hyped up some

emotion, and we don't want that.

The world doesn't need just people who are hyped up on good

worship and an entertaining word.

They need disciples of Jesus who are salt and light in the word, who've been

def, who've been formed deeply more into the likeness of Christ, not just

had a, a good experience, you know?

All right.

Luke, what are your reflections on this?

Yeah, what do you think?

Yeah, I, I.

I disagree with everything you said.

Yeah, I knew

you would.

I think this,

I think this is one of our biggest temptations, within our modern

culture and, yeah, I wrote

down where we're kind of like zombies when it comes to being

entertained and having what we

want now.

And we feed on it and, and you know,

it fires the dopamines, you know, and it, it feels good,

right?

Young people.

If

there are, any young

people in this morning, you, you probably wouldn't believe this, but

there was a day, there was a day when,

when movies, didn't, didn't

come out on

your phone.

There was

a day when movies used to

come out, down at the,

at the

theater and, sometimes

you had to wait like a couple of years.

Didn't we Adam?

Well, you'd have to wait.

You had to be patient

for the next Indiana Jones install for that

next Indiana Jones.

Or worth waiting for, by the way, a lot of the rings not always.

Yeah.

And or, and then

if you couldn't go to the movies, sometimes we couldn't

afford to as a family.

We had to wait until it came out in blockbusters.

And where did that take?

That took another couple of years to come out on tape.

And so this incessant need to be entertained to have things now

is actually eroding us as humans.

It's, it's deforming us.

And why is it deforming?

'cause we're actually losing.

Imagination, which is a very human thing to do, is to create, to dream, to

imagine, to be in

places where we actually have freedom to do that.

We don't have that

anymore.

And the sacredness

of wonder is

escaping us.

One of the

greatest gifts for me as I traveled across the country with my family last

year for three months was just being disconnected and just being able to sit.

In wonder of what is around me and just like quite, quite con, like a lot of

conviction of actually realizing that I don't do this in my day-to-day life.

I don't sit in wonder in simplicity.

There's a sacredness of silence is a nourishment.

That we are letting slip through our fingers.

We're missing opportunities of silence.

And the gift of silence.

Do you know there's a gift of the mundane, like to actually just

to enjoy the mundane of life.

Do you remember back in the day when your mobile, you know,

you'd have snake and that was

about it and and you got

bought a snake for a while and you, and you used to just stand

lining up in a fish and chip shop.

You actually start having conversations with people?

Yeah, we, that has, that's, that's disappeared from our culture.

And that's a, that's, that's actually, that's a d detriment to us as

humans.

And, so this incessant

need has bled into our church culture.

We're needing to be entertained.

We're needing to have what we want out of this experience.

And so we see within the church, people running around looking for the

better preacher, the more charismatic

preacher, the better

worship.

And this is so apart from the heart of Christ for his bride.

Let me use a biblical example of what God is like in comparison to this.

Think of Moses.

Moses rejected by the Egyptians, right?

He does a naughty

thing and so he's rejected.

And, and then questioned by the Israelites is called by God to

come and be the voice of God to his people and then also to Pharaoh.

And we forget this man is the voice of God and God's people, and he can

barely string a sentence together.

God uses that type of person to liberate his people.

That's what God's like, God's slower, God's so much more in

the mundane than what we suspect.

You think that he's here to

tickle our, our emotions

or to, to make our hair stand up?

No, he's, he's, he's doing a far more greater work in us,

and that's what he's welcoming

us into.

And that,

that's, that's, that's what I've got to,

mm, very good.

Very good.

Just, just quickly, we had this experience at Easter in Fremantle and I

had this, privilege

of having a conversation with a young lady, her name's Shawni and Shawni

happens to be here this morning.

I did not know she was gonna be here this morning.

I didn't know.

That I was gonna talk about this, Shawnee and I had a conversation

around the nature of AI and

creating, videos using

the AI tools that are currently exist and are developing as we even speak this

moment.

And, I. I didn't

know Shani was gonna be here.

So Shawni, thank you that the Lord used you to speak to me about the way

of Jesus in relationship to artistry.

We live in a society and a world that is saturated by make it spectacular

and do it in 14 seconds flat.

Whilst as quickly as

possible with as little as possible, possible, most, most efficient as

possible, whilst taking everyone else's creative capacity and merging it into

something that doesn't look like anything that anyone ever made, which literally

is called stealing other people's stuff.

That doesn't sound like the way of Jesus, right?

What ended up happening was Shawnee's.

His voice spoke to my heart and I came away going, wow, we're not gonna do that.

And what ended up happening was this young lady spent 400 hours

painstakingly animating these little nuanced images at each little station

and the heart, the time, the effort.

That's the type of stuff that God's spirit infiltrates and uses to speak

to hearts, not the drive through.

I wanted yesterday.

No, it's actually the delayed gratification journey that

Jesus infiltrates and uses.

Does that make sense?

So as much as we can go, yay ai and Sure.

I'm, I'm sure I'll get some emails with this week.

You can send, send them to I don't give a rip.com.

That's fine.

But.

What I'm trying to say there is we just gotta be so careful

about the tools that we form.

There was once a quote, I think, I think Churchill said it.

We, we build buildings and then our, oh, we form buildings and

then our buildings form us.

These tools that we form end up being the things that form us.

So we gotta be very careful about the, the, when our little eyes see.

Okay.

Anyway, that's around the space of being spectacular.

Mm. I'm wondering if we need a

whole

service on the topic of ai.

Yeah, I'm, you'll probably develop it isn't I feeling?

I just go, man, we gotta think well about this.

It's just 'cause it's quick and it's fast.

I use it and sometimes I feel like, am I eating the forbidden fruit here?

Like something and this needs to be thought through.

Well,

we're not.

Yeah, we're not doing it now.

That's a whole idea.

We're not doing it.

Well, I,

I do like to think

you do like to think on the fly in the

moment and we're going.

I think it's still worth going 0.3.

My love.

Point three.

It's definitely worth being's polite to

0.3

before it takes over the world.

Yes.

Before it takes over the world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we all become its

minions.

All right.

Point three.

Yes.

Okay.

All the kingdoms.

The temptation to be powerful for the consumer's version to grow the brand,

dominate the market, and so churches can adopt corporate strategies, branding,

competition platforms, influence and empire building, all to win for Jesus.

Now, as I, as we talk about, you know, these observations of how these things

can infiltrate the church, right?

And.

Don't, don't sit here thinking we're going, oh, red door's got all this nailed.

And it's all those other churches out there, all these temptations that

we've talked about, the, these are temptations that we face as we seek to

shepherd you guys and lead this church.

And we are just as guilty as any, any church of the

temptation they're giving into

these things.

You know,

just even an example of how we talk about.

You know, our announcements, like we've gotta check ourselves, right?

Do we announce it in a way of like just leaning into fomo?

Yeah.

Which is the world's way of consumerism.

You've gotta come to this or you're gonna miss out.

Right?

And that's to use the world's means to try and get Jesus ends.

And that doesn't work.

You can never get Jesus ends by using the world's means, but in our own desires to

wanna be validated by having people show up to the things that we're doing right?

Because we are weak and human and flawed like everyone else.

We can give into these temptations and try and emotionally manipulate.

Using consumeristic means to get people's buy-in and stuff like that.

It happens in overt ways in the church, and it happens in subtle ways.

And we need to be aware of these things in our own heart because they

are antithetical to the way of Jesus.

So the temptation to be

powerful, Christians

may be drawn to influential churches, leaders, celebrity appeal, seeing

churches as a product to consume or of movement to boost their identity.

Again, I'm gonna say this all right.

Please, please, please.

'cause you hear these things and there's a root can be a temptation

to slip into self-righteousness.

Oh, I don't do that.

Oh, I would never do that.

Oh, those don't do that.

Please just allow the Lord to examine your own heart in these spaces.

So the way of Jesus is the way of the cross.

It is not coercion, it's not dominance, it's humility, it's sacrifice, it's love.

You cannot advance the kingdom of God using tools of the kingdom of the world.

You know, one thing Jesus was never worried about was drawing a crowd.

Jesus was great at drawing a crowd and he was great at decimating a

crowd as well and neither bothered him

particularly much.

Yeah.

All

right.

No, he wants to reflect on this one.

I

just think of things quite humorous because there's a Satan telling him

all these kingdoms can be yours and his Jesus, like the king of every kingdom.

I go, and don't you know who I am?

Like, I just think it's humorous.

I'm sorry.

I think.

One of the things that this, again, it's probably more prevalent in

0.2, where we see Satan twisting scripture and when every time you

see s scripture twisted, it tends towards the elevation of self, right?

The Bible's not about you, it's about Jesus.

Right?

And I think it extends into this section where I think there's a. There's a

definitely a, a, a desire in all of us.

You know, the, the idols of the heart are power, comfort, control,

approval.

These are

the things that we, we sort of, we head towards.

And, but how do you follow Jesus the way of Jesus?

In light of the, the water we swim in, it becomes critical to be

able to discern the voice of God.

So what's happening here actually is Jesus discerning the, the voice

of God, the voice of the Father to know, yeah, all these kingdoms.

It will be mine, but now's not the time In this, you don't understand

what I mean, but like in the timeline.

So Jesus was able to discern the voice of God.

And I think that just the thing I wanted to take this moment is to remind us

how do we discern the voice of God?

'cause I think we forget.

How we actually meant to discern the voice of God.

So lemme give it to you quickly.

The w the written word of God.

We must be referencing what we are hearing to God's word.

Would you agree?

I. Thank you very much, which means be careful.

'cause guess what we just read could be twisted, right?

So that's why step two wise counsel, if you're just doing this discernment process

by yourself, you might make an error.

Actually.

Go to wise counsel, go to people who aren't gonna give you the

answer you really want to hear.

Go to people who are gonna challenge you, right?

Number three, I call it the unction of the spirit.

The Holy Spirit is gonna bring a sense of direction, a sense of

movement, a sense of clarity to your

own heart.

But be careful

because that's also very closely connected to the peace of the heart, right?

But who knows?

Our hearts aren't perfect.

So yeah, we're looking for the peace of the heart, but

beware the heart can be easily.

Misled.

Oh yeah, that feels good actually.

Careful, you might be slipping down a slippery path.

So the, the heart is a measurement of discerning the voice of

God, but it's not the only one.

You with me?

Yeah.

And then the last one I've got written here is external confirmation,

bit like, fleece man.

What's his name?

Gideon.

Gideon.

You know, he threw the fleece down.

You know that thing?

Fleece man.

You know, he tested external circumstances, right?

Oh, as a confirmation that God was speaking to him again.

Everyone say beware.

Beware.

I mean these are ways, but there's a couple of them.

We've just gotta use carefully, which is why the word of God and why is

council so critical to be a part of how we discern when we might be slipping

into, what is the temptation here?

Oh, it's actually about me to be powerful, Adam, be getting too big for your boots.

Sit down, let someone else do it.

Like, I gotta hear that.

Do you understand what I'm trying, trying to say there?

Yeah.

Okay.

That's enough.

Luke, what are your reflections?

Yeah, I think

power is, the struggle

for power is really the struggle for

control.

And, and that,

that was, that's where it

all began, in the garden

with Adam

and Eve.

God blessing

them with life, with true liberation and

freedom, in him, with

him.

And yet that wasn't enough.

They wanted

more.

And, and that's,

that's our, that, that's what we've been struggling with ever since.

We want more, we want more power.

And there will be a hundred percent areas of your life where this disposition,

this desire for control and power will be

coming up.

And it's

hard work.

It's hard work 'cause we're so blind to it and we, we, we speak

it away.

We validate, and we dismiss, where this

is

coming up.

I wasn't

gonna share this, but this has been something that's really been

a work for me over the last few

weeks that, I'm understanding

that my

anxiety.

How I operate

internally, my anxiety is usually in other people's heads.

I spend a lot of time worrying about what other people are

thinking, whether I know about

it or not.

And, but

the, the root cause of that anxiety is control.

I want to have power.

That's where it comes from.

It's self-seeking.

It's selfish.

There's no, there's, and I, I cloth it in in love.

I cloth it in, oh, I want the best for this person.

So I wanna, I wanna try and help them see in Dale, and I've joked about this, you

know, if this other person just knew my way, they would be, they would live the

right life and they'd be happy, you know.

And so what I'm saying is, is it's, it's, it can be very, it can be very subtle

and it can appear like other things like anxiety or worry, or, but the root

cause is this desire to have control

over others.

And it's

subtle and it's, it's, it's not, it's not life giving.

Jesus isn't wanting us just to be clear as a church, to be a

better church, in our branding.

In our stage, in our production.

He's not wanting that.

What does he want?

It was so beautiful that you quoted Isaiah, 'cause I'm

gonna speak from Luke four.

Jesus's mission isn't that he's calling us into something different as a church.

What is it?

Oh, he is, he's calling us to actually come and, and not just say the gospel.

It's to live and act out the gospel to those in need.

That's the mission of Christ, to seek and save the lost to, to come

and help liberate those who are in

captivity.

To meet those

that are in our society.

Homelessness is huge.

One of the greatest privileges we have is people coming to our

offices during the week in despair.

They've got no money.

They, they, they, they're living in their car.

They, and for us to be able to hand them some groceries and say, bless

you in the name of Christ, you know?

That's right.

And, and, and in that exchange, I don't, I personally, I don't get a lot out of it.

Okay, I might get a thank you, but that's actually the work that God's calling us

to I is to come and seek and save the lost in partnership with the spirit.

And, and these are people that don't have power, isn't it?

That we're called to those that are powerless.

We're not called as a church.

We're not called to cozy up with those in power.

Oh, that's hard work, isn't it?

To fight against that desire within our culture.

I'll leave it there.

Just wanna, en encourage.

My good friend

Phil Baker, who's

here today, we were on

a plane once, this is many, many years ago, and he told me, well, I

think it was from Adelaide to Perth.

We were flying and he said to me, Adam, it does not matter a, a scare

the crowds that you minister to.

It only matters if when you minister to the one, so here's the funny story.

That day, I don't even, Phil probably doesn't remember that

same day.

We got outta

the airport late.

It was like seven o'clock and we had to take some stuff back to the church

'cause we'd been doing some stuff.

Anyway, I'm there at the front and there was this one person, the doors

were closed at the church and they were asking for help at the front of

the church on the same day that Phil told me it only matters about the one.

And so I'm sitting on this.

On the curb with this person trying to listen to their woes.

And I just remember thinking, oh Lord.

Like see these moments that are are difficult, right?

They're difficult.

But see the reality of the richness of that's the Jesus way, his ability to

just sit with the one, sit with the one.

And that's not powerful or spectacular.

No,

it's

not.

But yeah.

But

God says, but it is the

way of the kingdom,

I think by way of bringing

this home.

I was just,

I was just thinking of these three different things and

I said, you know, at the

beginning, you know,

this is a framework developed by Eugene Peterson, and I just love

Eugene Peterson, but I think as I'm reading this, I'm going, oh my gosh,

this is, this is what he lived.

So if you don't know Eugene Peterson's story, he was a faithful pastor

to a church of about 300 people.

His entire, pretty much his entire ministry life, but he

was a man who was given multiple opportunities to be powerful, to

be relevant, to be spectacular.

He was invited to come and be pastor of bigger congregations, because

that's often, in particularly the American context, it's like a.

You know, it's like a career pathway.

You're, you're, you know, you, you, you're meant to just take on bigger

churches as part of your career.

And he just felt that call to always be faithful to this community

that God had placed him in.

But he was constantly had these temptations put before him to be relevant,

to be spectacular, to be powerful, and he consistently said no and stayed

faithful to serving these people in this place, in this community for decades.

And look at his legacy.

Yeah, right.

In not seeking to be powerful, spectacular, and relevant.

He became one of the most powerful, spectacular, and relevant voices

in modern day Christianity with so much, he's just got so much validity

because he walked the way of Jesus.

He sacrificed.

He stayed in these humble ways and that did not for a second.

Discount him from the call of God on his life.

And I love his story and that's why I have so much trust in his written words,

because of the life that he lived and the humble life that he demonstrated that in

so many ways looks like the way of Jesus.

And this, I would say to you as you find yourself tempted to the spectacular,

to the powerful, to the relevant, as you listen to podcasts and whatnot,

do you know the way of the life of the person you're listening to?

Because they might be able to have all the charisma in the

world, but do you know their life?

Can you testify to being able to observe their life and go, oh,

they live in the way of Jesus.

This isn't just words for them.

They have incarnated what they are preaching about,

and I can testify to that.

So this is where we've gotta be so careful of this diet that

exists out there of spectacular, relevant, powerful content, right?

Do we know the lives of the ones who are preaching it?

And are they incarnating the life of Jesus?

And these are good questions.

It's so interesting,

isn't it, that the result.

You know, we are reading it like, thank you, Ana.

Avoid relevance, avoid spectacularness, avoid powerful.

But when you do the way of Jesus,

yep.

They actually become manifested in a way that's glorifying to him.

Like I said at the beginning, seek first his kingdom.

And all these things will be added to you, but don't seek his kingdom

through worldly means, I guess is a way to sum up this morning.

Are we good?

Yeah.

Why don't we stand?

I'm gonna pray for us and then we're just gonna sing together as we close.

It's all good.

Created chaos up there.

It's good.

Just close your eyes.

Just put your hands out in front of you if you feel comfortable to do that today.

And

remember this, pathway,

this way of Jesus is not something that you've got to

kind of do better, try harder.

It's just a simple receiving of the Spirit.

So Holy Spirit, please come and reveal to us the way of Jesus so it becomes so clear

and visible in our eyes, in our minds, in

our hearts.

Father, we

thank you, God that you've not.

Left us alone, but you've given us your spirit.

So come Holy Spirit that we've been praying these last few weeks, like,

come Holy Spirit and lead us into the way of Jesus, the way of everlasting.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.