Gateway Church Sermons
Saturday 13th July | Session 3 | Big Questions From Youth
So, Matt, we're putting you on the spot here with your questions. You ready? Are you prepared? Yeah? All right, go on then. - Okay, so the first question, because Jesus died on the cross and forgave our sins, does that... - We answered yes. - Does that mean... (audience laughs) Does that mean we could just sin all the time and it doesn't make a difference slash be really bad? - Just repeat the question. - Because Jesus died on the cross and forgave our sins, does that mean we could just sin all the time and it won't make a difference or be really bad? - No, it doesn't. (audience laughs) No, we're called to a life of purity. So, this wonderful gift of righteousness given to us because the work of Christ, we respond to Him in faith, but then we're called to live in a way which reflects that by living a life of purity and holiness. - Our next question is, if God is loving, why does He let us Christians get killed for their faith and that bad things happen to us? (audience laughs) - I thought it was gonna be easy questions. (audience laughs) - So, the whole question of suffering generally, you're specifically asking about Christian suffering. I think what we see is that God does allow His people to suffer. So, Apostle Paul talks about how, in his own bodies, filling up the afflictions of Christ, there's something in terms of when the church itself, the church in acts, in a sense, what Christ happened to Christ on the cross, not to any way replicate or complete something which was incomplete because the cross was complete, but somehow through the suffering of the church, the suffering of Christ is demonstrated to the world and God is purifying and preparing His church, even through the suffering that the saints have got experience. So, a lot of it, it's hard to see in a moment. Why is this happening to that particular person at that time? But in the fullness of time, we believe that God will reveal why all these things happen and that through it, He will bring glory to Himself, and He will bring goodness and blessing to His people in the end. (audience applauds) - Next question, why is Jesus a man and not a woman? (audience laughs) - Yeah, that's a really important question and it's very difficult to answer quickly 'cause it's such a big theological question. So, what we see in creation is God, God makes a man and a woman. He makes Adam first and he creates Eve that man on his own is not complete. There's a woman alongside and that's a model for all the human race, so it's true for all of us, whether we married a single, whatever our status in that sense. We're men and women together, that's how we reflect God as male and female. We are made in the image of God to reflect Him. And the human race as men and women reflect God and we cooperate with complimentary to one another. Men need women, women need men. We need his family, it's what we're doing this weekend. But what you see throughout the story of God's working throughout the ages is that, that's what we call representative types, wrapped covenant heads, Adam is representative of all the human race. And then God calls Abraham, who's the great promise blessing carrier. God promises it through Abraham and his descendants, all the peoples of the earth will be blessed. And then God calls Moses, who's the great liberator of God's people. And God calls David, who's a great king of God's people. And you always see that it's always a male figure who is the representative head of the human race. But alongside them, always women are involved. So Abraham has to be married to Sarah to become the father of the nations that David wouldn't have been born if it wasn't for his ancestor, Rahab, a prostitute and we're actually saved by God's grace. And so what we see, Jesus had to come as a man because it's always a man who represents the human race. Jesus comes as the new Adam, creates humanity new, and in him, all of us, a male and female, find our unity and can be saved. That's a very quick answer to a very good question. (audience applauds) - And our last question for this evening is, where did God come from before he created the world? - Yeah, well, of course that's an impossible question. What we know, what we're told, what we believe is that God always has been, always is and it's impossible for us to compute that because for us to think, us as finite beings to try and think in concepts of infinity is impossible where minds literally begin to fuse if we try and do it because we, by definition, cannot think in infinity when we are finite. So we believe that God always has, always will be. And it's very practical though, so that's not just kind of out there stuff. It really affects, I think as I said the other Sunday when I was preaching it all to road, affects how we view ourselves in the world, that the materialistic world view which dominates in the West says that we just, there was this point called the singularity. At the beginning of time, we're out of nothing, everything was created and then we're just here by random chance. And in the end, that's a very hopeless and cold worldview. It gives no rational basis for love, no basis for beauty, no basis for justice, no basis for meaning, we're just stuff and which would go back to stuff. That's very different from the Christian worldview. God has always been, God has a God of love. The overflow is love has resulted in us. And that means that we can know what truth is, we can know what beauty is, we can know what justice is because we know who God is, the God who's existed forever and will exist forever. - Thank you, Matt. (audience applauds) (audience clapping)