Northside Church - Sydney
Overflow – What Goes In Must Come Out Week 2: It's Selection
We're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, we're in the middle of a three-week series at the moment, straight back into the middle of it all. A series called Overflow, and the premise is this, what goes in must eventually flow out. And what we learnt last week from the Word of God as we've been going through the Psalms is that basically you could be a tree. What if, and the analogy's there for very good reasons, what if this year that your one resolution could be that you have a life of just like a tree, a stability, with roots that go deep into God, roots that go deep down into sources of living water, so that regardless of your circumstances, whether good or bad, you flourish? If you could have a year of wisdom in which, as the Psalmist said, they know the right season in which to harvest and produce a fruit. What if you could have a life in which you knew the place that you're at, even if you're not seeing much growth or great stuff happening in your life, you knew that there would be a time for you in which you would flourish? What if we could have that season of productivity, like I said, that regardless of what is around us, we would stand firm in the things of God? So we looked at the what if, we looked at the what if, and I hinted at that this week we're going to look at the how, and so in thinking about the how, you know, Graham posed a good question this morning, he asked her, you know, what is one question that you could ask any celebrity in the world? And one of our congregants said today, the question he would ask is, did you dope? Did you or didn't you don't, because that is a story that has pervaded the news. I'll keep them secret, but he said, look, my wife hasn't ridden a bike since she was 12, and she's been ridden about Lamp Sun strong all week. There's no doubt that the story of Lamp Sun strong has pervaded the newspapers all week in that sense as the revelations have come out that he is a drug cheat in the sport. And so in that sense, I thought there would be no better time for me as a great lover of cycling to look at the topic of obedience, the how we become part of that tree as far as the case study of obedience according to Lance Armstrong. Because here's the question. Why are most so many people asking, talking about this stuff, asking people about this stuff? Like half of you probably don't even ride bikes, and it's a big question. Here's why, here's the reason why it's got nothing to do with whether or not you can scale the Pyrenees on the back of a bike, it's this, the question of did you dope? It's really people are asking each other now, is in the very deepest of your heart of hearts a line that regardless of whatever happens around you, both positive or negative, you will not cross. It's a great ethical conundrum, it's got nothing to do with religion in that sense, and yet people are asking, is there a line, is there a standard in your heart of hearts that regardless of incentive, regardless of fear, you refuse to cross? Because for Lance that wasn't necessarily the case. And so tonight we read from God's word, Psalm 119 verses 30 through to 40, it says, I have chosen the way of truth, I have set my heart on your laws, I hold fast to your statutes O Lord, do not let me be put to shame, I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free, teach me O Lord to follow your decrees, then I will keep them to the end, give me understanding and I'll keep your law and obey it with all of my heart, direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find a light, turn my heart towards your statutes and not towards selfish gain, turn my eyes away from worthless things, preserve my life according to your word, fulfill your promise to your servant so that you may be feared, take away the disgrace that I dread, for your laws are good, how I long for your precepts, preserve my life in your righteousness. Alright obedience according to Lance Armstrong, where should we go tonight? Look, here's my first tip to Lance into us tonight is we've got to realize when it comes to obedience that the anti-doping agency is not your enemy, it's your friend. In other words, law is good, you know, chatting to the guys we've seen in Lance's story, if you don't know it I'm going to take you through it tonight, I hope you're okay with that. But when he was talking to Oprah and working through it all, what began to come out was that there was years and years of systemic cheating that was happening in and around his team, they were taking drugs in order to beat other writers, there was all sorts of cheating, there was all sorts of blood transfusions, there was all sorts of different hormones that were used, there was all sorts of lies that were being told, there was all sorts of manipulation that were being told and no doubt every time that Lance would go and see the anti-doping agency sign on the back of the caravan, whether it being in the Pyrenees or in Italy somewhere, every time he'd said that no doubt fear would have absolutely gripped his heart. You know, that since the agency was his nemesis, it was his enemy and we saw that, the US doping agency was pursuing him violently, he was even suing friends in order to get away with this sort of stuff. But you know, look, we could be left to ask here, you know, why all these rules, why are these regulations, why are these hindrances on guys that just want to ride, guys that just want to get into a bit of lycra, have a bit of fun, right? Normal guys, normal guys. But look, we're forgetting something here, there's a principle in all of this, there's always a principle coming, isn't there, with my stories. Look, look at the way that the Psalmist talks about it, it was a real mystery to me last week and I don't know if you picked up on it, but in Psalm, Psalm 1 that we read from, listen to what he says in verse 2, "But their delight is in the law of the Lord." And then tonight we read in Psalm 119 verses 33 to 35, it says, "Teach me our Lord to follow your decrees or laws and I'll keep them to the end, give me understanding and I'll keep your law and obey it with all of my heart, direct me in the path of your commandments, and there I find delight." This guy's off his head right as far as the modern world's concerned because these delight in laws, he'd look, here's the principle, the principle is that laws are good things. And we need to know that and understand that as a church, particularly in the modern day church where we overemphasize grace to such an extent that we can simplify our Christianity and say, "Well, grace good thing, law bad thing, grace good, law bad." But here's the thing, look, you know, chatting to Graham and his stories about India throughout the week and he was talking about the ways that he was driving down there and if a farmer was driving a truck in India and they saw their farm on the other side of the road and it suited them to drive on the wrong side of the road, you know what they do? They drive on the wrong side of the road and the trucks would be whizzing past you, you only have to look up, you know, Russian road rage fails on YouTube to see all sorts of ridiculous accidents because of the way that people just disregard laws. Come on, you and I both know that if we're driving up the F3, we are grateful and we are thankful that someone has read the Road Rules book and we know to drive on the left hand side of the road. Laws are good things, the principle is that the laws of God are good things and whenever the Bible talked about it, it always talked about his wonderful statutes and these wonderful laws in this sense and as a side note, Jesus as well and the reading of Graham had this morning said, "You know, I've not come to abolish the law, I've come to fulfill the law of God." Not the slightest stroke of the pen will be missing from this at the end of the day, law is good and what the Psalmist is saying is that human life is so set up that it only exists in harmony when we live by the laws of God. The life has been designed to live by these laws of God in the same way that the laws of cycling have been set up so that we could witness the beauty of men in Lycra climbing the mountains on bikes. Look, let me put it another way, what if Lance Armstrong won his seven tour de France titles which are now being stripped from him by simply pulling out a gun and shooting all the other contestants? I mean, that doesn't make for good cycling, he'd still win the race, he'd be the first one across the line, but where's the fun in that? It's got nothing to do with skill and technique and training and the determination. You see, competing within a strict set of guidelines is actually the very thing that makes the act of that competition fulfilling. Laws are good things and so without that law, there could be no joy, there could be no purpose and here's the question for you, if you know that if we're all agreed right that the contravening the laws of driving could possibly lead to death, then we have to ask the question tonight, you have to ask the question tonight, would not the same principle apply to the integrative whole part of your life? I mean, wouldn't the same principle apply as what I'm saying to the laws of God? I mean, if there are laws that you know, if you know you disobey the traffic laws, you could lead to death. What if I said to you tonight that there are a set of universal laws that God has set in motion that have the same results, wouldn't you want to know what they are? Well, that's what the writer is saying in the Psalm, verse 30, I choose the way of truth. I've set my heart on your laws, he's not saying I'm choosing to be religious and he's not saying I'm choosing to have a moral high ground so I can feel superior to my mates. Now, the Psalmist is saying that the laws of God are the very fabric of this universe of how individual and societal life is meant to be, that's the intended purpose. So here's the thing, if there are that set of laws, if there is a way to live like that, if there is a way that if we contravene it leads to death the same way it is with driving, then the Bible is saying the aim of the human life is to be changed into the sort of people that naturally want what God wants. You think about it, you think about what any daddy's like, he doesn't give his kids rules just for the sake of ruining their fun, when he says don't run across the road, he's not saying that to kill their joy, he's doing it because he loves them and he wants to set in motion a context for them that he's going to be the best for them in the long run, you know, laws are good, that's what we're saying. And that the race works in cycling, the race works when every writer comes up to that start line and they want to race the way that the rule makers tell them to race, right, that's his the thing, the anti-doping agency is not your enemy, it's your friend. And so in that sense we should just all live that way, the cyclist should all be obedient to that and if the anti-doping agency that is God and the great law maker himself, we should be obedient to that right, we should just live that way, up a dewy, dewy, you see, here's the next, here's the problem with the human life, probably up front, we all spiritually dope, we all spiritually dope, you know, you're saying how can you say that, that's offensive, but bear with me, I'm going to get to what that means in a sec, but let's take a look back at Lance's example, I had a, the boys, you know, we were sitting around a barbecue on the weekend discussing this and by the way, if you want to know if there's a bunch of cyclists having a heated discussion, it's because you see a bunch of blokes in denim shorts, pink shirts and shave legs, talking very loudly. And so that was the scene that was happening at the Clovelli Bowls Club and one of the boys got really upset because he said, you know what, Lance had no choice, Lance had no choice to do what he did, you see, because Lance was the point where he discovered he'd had this amazing talent, he was a talent cyclist and he was winning all the junior championships and he was rising up through the ranks and he was getting to this point where he moved into the professional league and realized that these guys were absolutely smoking him and he's thinking, what are these guys on? And then he realized what they were on. And so there he was at this junction point thinking, I can move back to the amateur leagues and become a fun recreational cyclist or I can move forward into the big leagues and make myself a heck of a lot of money, but it's going to cost me something. And he knew what they're on and he knew at that point that was the point in which he had chosen to dope, you know what his rationale was? Everyone else was doing it? Everyone else was doing it. And see, here's the thing, the minute that that opportunity for gain via self-interest crept into the system that was the cycling world, this little small example of the larger example, the minute that self-gain crept in, law was subordinated to desire. Law lived underneath the desires and the wishes and the will of every other person that was in that system and you could make the choice, you just do what everyone else does or you fall behind the rest of the pack. You know what's really interesting? That's how the Bible talks about sin, not good people versus bad people, the Bible talks about sin in the way that when self-interest crept into not the cycling world but the world, and the way in which the whole system of the world began to unravel because people realized that there was gain to be had through self-interest. And friends, isn't that exactly the sort of tension that you could be feeling tonight? This tension, I know deep in my heart that there is and there has to be some sort of overarching rules that will not change and yet I have a choice, I could deny my integrity at work. Why? Because everyone else does. I mean, I know a whole lot of people that don't declare all their income on the baths for the quarter, what would the rest of the world know? You could deny your integrity in relationships. I know that the word of God says that a great principle in his great laws that he set up that you shouldn't yoke yourselves with people, be joined to people that don't share the same spiritual values as you do. And yet you're faced with a great tension and every Friday night, I know having been single for eight years when the friends come and say to you, well, why don't you just get out a bit more? Those church focus so stuffy. You know, what you should be doing Sam, you should get to the clubs and you should meet a few girls and you should have a few drinks and you should go crazy and you should just loosen up a little bit, big fella. I mean, I know some of you friends that are struggling with that tension at the moment, where you know that there is an overarching principle that has been created for how you designed to bring wholeness to your life and yet everyone else does it and they seem to be having a heck of a good time. How's that fair? Everyone else does it. And the other one is that you see here's the other reason why we spiritually don't because we think rules and laws will restrict our freedom. All right. That's why people don't want to, people don't want to take up Christianity. It's, it's a coach for me. I don't want to, you know, that's the modern way of thinking Christianity is restrictive and it's oppressive and, and look, that's modern thinking isn't it? Modern thinking means freedom equals an absence of restrictions. I'm only free when there's no restrictions on my life. I'm only free when I'm the only one that can tell me what to do. And yet here's a question. Why do people study? Why do people go to university? Why do people train? Why do people practice scales on the piano? I mean, that's, that's putting restrictions on yourself, right? You wouldn't want to restrict yourself into three hours of study a week. You wouldn't want to restrict yourself to a bit of piano practice. Would you? You're not free. It's because you know deep down personal trainers. Why would you get a personal trainer at this time of year? You know deep down that if you restrict yourself and, and for go this personal freedom just for this point in time, it'll lead you into a deeper freedom, deeper freedom of playing scales of lifting weights of, you get what I'm saying. So it's freedom really about an absence of restrictions. Take a look at verses 33 to 36 for a second. Teach me a Lord to follow your decrees and then I'll keep them to the end. Give me your understanding and I'll keep your law and I'll obey it with all my heart. Direct me in the path of your commands. For there I find the light. Turn my heart towards your statutes and not towards selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things. Now here, look, this is an interesting little contrast that's happening here. 30 to 33, 34, the Psalmist was setting up the ideal, you know, that the law is good, that I'll set my heart and I'll obey everything and then it goes straight into saying turn my heart towards your statutes and turn my eyes away from worthless things. There's a real stark contrast there. You know, why would someone who has just said, I'll keep your laws and I'm obeying your laws and I'll do good things. Why is that person now saying in the very next verse, turn my heart away. Turn my eyes, it's subtle, it's subtle what the Psalmist is saying is that whether you realize it or not, you're not spiritually free, turn to turn your heart and to turn your eyes means that someone or something has already got your attention. I could ask you tonight what has been the one thing that's granted your attention this week. I'm always conscious that I'm speaking through the veil of this smoky haze of things that is already dominating your life. Very real things for us, Kirsty, and I'm sharing a heart tonight said, you know, she'd been told this week they've got to move house. One of the most upsetting, you know, tough things to deal with, we have to deal with in our lives and yet we'll come in and obey his laws and worship him and praise God and let's be real guys, whether it's houses or health or relationships. I know that that's what I speak into tonight, the psalmist knows that and what he's saying is whether you realize it or not, we're not free. In other words, how else could I put it, we're all doping. You say no way, I don't take drugs, I don't do any, and I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that you take drugs, I'll just clear that up. Oh, big sermon, big, what'd you do at church, got told I was a drugtaker, awesome. No, no, I'm not saying that, you know, just go with the metaphor, will you, here's what I'm saying, you know, you're thinking, look, Lance might have been doped with HDH and EPO and if you want to look up those things then get some of the books that are out about him, but he may have been doped up with that stuff, but it's not about what he was doped up with, that's why he doped in the first place. Here's a principle, this is how and why we spiritually doped because, you know, like Lance, because of self-interest, we either consciously or unconsciously look for performance enhancing systems in our life, we're always looking for a performance enhancing system. You hear the great words of the gospel that you're chosen and you truly loved and we're totally accepted by God and it's never good enough for us, we're always looking for a performance enhancing system, I mean, why else, you know, the great, you know, the best performance enhancing systems that humans have, is that we lie, don't we, why else do we lie other than to perpetuate the issue that self-gain has entered the great peloton that is the human race, that for that point in time, the approval or the benefit or the gain that you would get from telling that lie is more important to you than the promises and the laws of God. We performance enhance, girls, why do all guys for that matter or you metros out there, why do we beautify ourselves and why are we so obsessed with beauty in our society because the world tells you that if you're a beautiful looking person, you get ahead and if you can get ahead like that then, we can enhance the performance by looking beautiful and so therefore the irony is that even if you're a non-Christian, even in the absence of the restrictions in your life, you ain't really free, you're not free, you're a slave to the lie like Lance was, you're a slave perhaps to beauty as some, poor girls are in that sense, you're a slave to your career, you're not really free and that's why, I've said it before, come on, I need to just remind you tonight why Christianity is a different approach to the concept of law because in Christianity we say that freedom is not the absence of restrictions but as John Stott says finding the right restrictions and submitting yourselves to these, I mean is the goldfish flapping around on the 45 degree piece of concrete on Friday next to his fish tank, it's really free but you don't want to go into that tank do you because tanks are restrictive and tanks are oppressive and tanks limit my right to have freedom and friends my question's going to be are we living life like goldfish flapping away on the concrete, what the laws of God are that we're going to get into next week and how we engage into that is that there is a tank for which you've been built that although it feels restrictive and oppressive is the very environment for which you were built for like a goldfish and here's things side point, you know the irony after all of this sort of stuff with Lance and all the great things that he won, great feats that he achieved and the way that he beat everyone else, you know people thought he was almost superhuman in that sense right, this guy's a freak seven titles and in fact you know here's the irony and by moving beyond the laws of that doping agency Lance didn't become more human, he became less human, the wonderful beauty of cycling is to see humanity and the human body at its best put on top of a machine and to compete against one another and to train and push each other to limits physically and psychologically and all that's just a fraud because he was less human and so in that sense can't you see that the laws of God operate exactly the same way, that whilst it feels good at the time to move beyond that and whether or not there may be some gain to move beyond his laws they don't make you more human, those actions make you less human for God is the one that designed you and in that sense he operates exactly like that he's the one that says to offer forgiveness to another person, he's the one that says to love your neighbor, he's the one that says to pray for your enemy, all of these things make sense, don't make any sense, we say you're just trying to kill our joy here lord but here's the thing, look harbor unforgiveness and it will kill you, harbor anger and you'll probably want to kill someone else but these are things that God has set up because he's designed you and created you for the environment in which you were meant to live, we are so wired we are so wired that left to our own devices will engage in performance enhancing activities all the time and they make you more and more less how God intended you to be, so that's the problem, if we're real world doping, we're all dopers in that sense spiritual doping and so therefore to finish off tonight let me just finish briefly by saying the big question is how when it comes to obedience, how do we live strong in obedience to God and if you're followed lance you'll get the pun, why does selfish gain exist in that world of cycling, I think because cycling is just representative of the rest of the world, it's a microcosm of the macrocosm cycling is a world in which the mantra is the first shall be first and whenever that particular mantra exists in any type of community then self gain will run right and we'll see all sorts of these funny sorts of things but here's the thing what if there could be a peloton, what if there could be a community of people that got together and understood first and foremost that they play by different rules, what if there could be a peloton, imagine the cycling peloton where the rules were not the first be first but the last shall be first, I mean could you imagine that sort of peloton through the Pyrenees, every time the weak little champer had eaten a little too many hamburgers the night before drops off the back of the pack and the leader the strongest of the lot puts on the brakes and brings back the cadence and turns back down the road and begins to cheer him on up the hill, the minute that anyone began to fade and cramp and slow down the leader of the pack would stop and hand them a bottle of water and a bit of Gatorade, can you imagine what the Tour de France would look like if we could change those sorts of rules, if people could just live by this mantra that the last shall be first, look you know I'm going to church is the great peloton that lives by those rules, we don't cycle thankfully for some of us but the last shall be first and the first shall be last, that's what Jesus Christ said, we live by rules that are different but is that just enough, I mean it sounds a bit ideological, is it, will that be enough to change us into a life full of obedience, just a mantra in ideology, look side note, I don't know where you sit with Lance at the moment, if you've been following all of this sort of stuff but chatting to a few of the boys, you know some of them are really struggling, one of them said to me you know what, I still really like him, some guy on Facebook, he already said you know what, Lance Armstrong's still my hero, he would still do heaps better than me even if I was on drugs, you know for some people the conflict did none more so than the entire nation of America, you need only go to the Nike store and see entire floors dedicated to him and he's lived strong charity, Lance are represented a lot of wonderful and good things, I mean imagine every little kid on his first pushy at Christmas time encountering his first hill and the burn of the lactic acid in his legs and the little five year olds just willing himself to go if Lance can do it, I can do it, if Lance can do it, I can do it, you know how much of a hero would this guy have been to every little guy or big guy for that matter, wanting to push themselves up a hill, experiencing the pain and the reality of the cycling world and Lance showed to someone who endured hardship and trained hard and worked hard and experienced pain and experienced suffering even overcame sickness in his cancer and was an incredible hero to many people around the world and 90% of him is to be admired and to be wondered at and inspired by and yet in these revelations this week that dream has been broken, broken by the fact that someone who looked like he was just like us, a human being with a commitment to obedience could achieve such things, all of that is broken because it was, we realized he was not more human, he was less human than you and I today in that sense and we sit in wonder now and we go back to the drawing board and we poo-poo the sport and we wonder and we ask the question is there a person out there that could be a hero like that to us again? Well, it's a good question, you know, he still wants to ride, you know, that's the sad thing about it, he still wants to ride, you know, he said his life ban, his life ban is like a death to him, like a death to him, why it's because he didn't ride just for the money, it's because it's who God created Lance Armstrong to be, a wonderful, brilliant genetic rider, it's what made him fully alive and it doesn't seem fair in that respect that so many people out there in the cycling community, we know are doped up to the eyeballs still and they still get to ride and they still get to compete and Lance sits it out on the sidelines and at the same time we watch now as the hammer of justice is going to come down upon him and the book's going to be thrown at him and legal cases and suing and all that sort of you know what it's sounding like to me, I'm seeing the gospel come along here, I'm seeing the gospel according to Lance Armstrong because it does answer the question is there a hero like that, you know, there was a man who played by the rules and still won, there was a true champion who rode the perfect race and the great story of the Bible is that the anti-doping agency that is God knew that someone somewhere was cheating the system and as we see here whilst the realistic response in this word the Bible should have been that this entire world and community should have been wiped out, the true champion steps forward without needed to be pushed into an Oprah style interview with all the cameras for a confession puts his hand up himself and no totally blameless says I'll take the punishment, he takes the ultimate death sentence he takes the ultimate ban upon himself so everyone else may continue to ride and do what they love doing the most, you see can't you see it's the gospel according to Lance Armstrong if you want to hear I like that you need to see the true Lance, Jesus Christ who I also overcame pain and also overcame a suffering and also overcame sickness in that sense the show is that it's possible to have victory in your life when you do play by the rules as silly and as stupid as they sound, that's the gospel according to Lance and at the cross all of the punishment of the USDA, you know the USDA is just a fraction what Lance is going to inherit is just a fraction of what Jesus Christ will take on and did take on for the entire world so everyone else who's still struggling with their incentive to want to self perform and to move into performance enhancing techniques can ride like the wind and do what they're created for, therefore we obey not because we have to but because we want to, that I'm sure there are plenty of people out there now in the cycling community that have seen what have happened to Lance and seen the way that he's fallen on his sword and some of them still might be inspired by the fact that realistically if they're still cheating they might get caught but that's a motivation out of fear when you see someone who didn't deserve the punishment take it for you you won't want to obey not because you have to but because you want to can't you see the engine for obedience so in that sense that's how we live strong three application points first and foremost can you see that the law is good, can you see that law is good do you at least want what God wants for your life if not maybe the next question is if you submit to yourself tonight that that realistically submitting yourself to various restrictions in your life leads to a deeper freedom in your personal training in your career in your piano playing if you could admit tonight that you live by that sort of principle I got to ask you the question why not apply it to your spiritual life why not apply it to the laws of God and finally the last question is whose authority are you really under a law of God or the law unto yourself you know it's why we need to constantly look at our approach to the Bible allow the Bible to search us as we search it and some of you know come up against the Bible and I can guarantee there are going to be things in this thing that you don't like or you don't understand or could even offend you for that matter and yet you have to not just write this off to interpretation at the time and just say it's an interpretation issue but ask yourself why does it offend you why do I find this difficult to process because we're either standing under the Bible or the Bible standing under us whose authority are you really under and do you understand why that's the question do you dope do you dope is is there is there a line deep in your heart of hearts tonight that regardless of what happens around you positive or negative you will refuse to cross is there an authority in your life are there rules and restrictions rules that are not there to kill you fun but create the context in which you can fully demonstrate to the world who God has created you to be that will be the great tension the tension for all of us when everyone else is doing it to still remain obedient not because we have to but because we want to let's pray