Northside Church - Sydney
Never Ending Story Week 4 AM: Overflow
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. The word real, the word real seems to have taken on a new significance for this generation. Have you noticed that? Yeah. We talk about real coffee. What we do from the platform, Sam's always talking about real coffee. We talk about real leather. Back in the '60s, my dad had a Rambla. I was so proud of this guy. He had a Nash Rambla, beautiful car, and had leather seats, but we used to say, "Look, it's got leather seats." It didn't have like real leather seats, just leather seats. Of course, we know that real men don't eat quiche, at least that's the theory anyway. Of course, companies love to display labels, this contains real fruit, no artificial preservatives or flavors. It's kind of ironic that we crave the real thing, and of course, Coke has always been known as the real thing, it's kind of ironic that we crave the real thing when it comes to products and commodities while at the same time being prepared to settle for so much superficiality and artificiality when it comes to the really important things of life like relationships and moral standards and ethics and values. We're very flippant about those, but we want the real thing when it comes to products. That's another story. I want us to go back to ancient times when James was around, and in those days, and James the man who wrote the passage this morning that was read to us by Ronnie, in those days there were many religions, many, many religions in the ancient world. Many attempts to connect with the divine. Some of these, of course, involved strict adherence to rules and regulations, extreme acts of self-denial, even self-deprivation as people try to express their faith and belief in gods of wood and stone and iron, and in some cases you had to do certain things to gain the favor of the deity. Of course, that's strictness produced, as it always does, hypocrisy, produced Pharisee It often produced within the penitent believer a sense of inadequacy, a sense of failure that they just weren't quite making it in the way they were supposed to, and then along came the good news of Jesus Christ with its emphasis on grace and forgiveness and freedom, and many people, especially those of the Jewish faith, sounded really difficult to forgo some of the ancient rituals and the laws they'd always kept, and time and time again people like Paul had to remind them of the very centerpiece of Christianity. And he does so here in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 10, this verse we know so well, look at this, it is by God's grace he pleads with them that you've been saved through faith. It's not the result of your own efforts, but it's God's gift so that no one can boast about it, God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus, he's created us for a life of good deeds, which he's already prepared for us to do. Do you notice that verse 10, he's created us for a life of good deeds. Now friends, we know that the good deeds won't save us, we know that. The good deeds won't save us, but the lifestyle of service will certainly provide evidence. It will provide the confirmation that something's happened within, something transformational has happened. It's proof that something has taken place by the power of the Holy Spirit. And then of course long came James, who expands on this point of our calling to a lifestyle of good deeds. And he says in the reading that's just been read to us verses 14 to 17, James chapter 2, God good is it. For you to say that you have faith if your actions don't prove it, can that faith save you? Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes, don't have enough to eat. What good is there? And you're saying, God bless, keep warm, eat well if you don't give them the necessities of life. So it is with faith. If it is alone and includes no actions, then it is dead. Now there's no conflict here. Okay, people have said over the years, oh look at this, Paul's on about grace. Here's James. He's on about works. It's a bit of a conflict here, not at all. Look, Paul's talking about legalism. Paul is addressing people who are still hung up about the requirements of the law, those little nitpicking details of the Jewish faith, these little regulations that they were doing out of a sense of duty. That's what he was addressing, whereas James is addressing the whole notion of laxity. In other words, those who were sitting back smugly and comfortably in their grace-based faith and saying, well, of course, how I live doesn't really matter, be saved by grace. Thank you, Jesus. Everything's cool. James says no way. It does matter. And then he kind of launches into a full-on description of what real faith, there's that word again, real, what real faith looks like. He makes it clear, real faith is not something we say, that's the first thing. I mean, anyone can make certain professions, can give mental assent to various theological and doctrinal propositions without being any change in how they live. People can do that. On occasion, Jesus made this point by telling a parable, and it's recorded in Luke chapter 6 and verses 46 and 47. Look at this. Jesus says, why do you call me saying certain things? Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and then you don't do what I tell you? Anyone who comes to me and listens to my words and obeys them, I will show you what he is like. He's like a man who, in building his house, dug deep and laid the foundation on rock and the river flooded and hit the house, but it could not shake it because it was well built. He then described this person as one who builds a house on a shore rock, whereas the person whose faith is merely a matter of saying the right things, oh, Lord, Lord, that's like a person who builds on a house of sand, the floods came and wipe it out. Well, it's clear also from James that real faith is not something we feel. Now, of course, there's an emotional component to our faith. We're moved by the plight of suffering people. We're touched by the many situations of need and despair and sadness we see all around us. I mean, he's a guy in the reading. In James, he's a guy who sees a brother in need and he says, "God bless you, keep warm, eat well." I mean, he's feeling sympathetic, but he's not being moved to do anything about it. Something else. Real faith is not something we think. Yes, there's an aspect of faith that requires us to diligently search for truth, to be willing to delve into the rich treasures of Christian thought and doctrine. You know, the Christian faith lends itself to that sort of cerebral rigour. You know that. I mean, Christian faith has nothing to be shamed of in that area, but the church over the years has often escaped into the preparation of positional papers and policy documents and all sorts of theological and social issues and we've loved the big debates without ever just simply going, "Look, let's just get on with the job of ministering in the name of Jesus." Why do we have to capture all this rigour of positional papers and so on? That's happened sometimes, very sad, but James isn't finished. He asserts real faith is not something we believe. Now, that may sound shocking. I mean, isn't it a New Testament, I mean, isn't this book full of references highlighting the need to believe in Jesus, believe in the good news? What about the day of Pentecost, Acts 2, 41? Many believe the message and we're baptized. We're about 1 John 3, 23. What God commands is that we believe in His Son Jesus and love one another. Friends, of course belief is an important component to our faith, but here's James and a few verses along from the reading that Ronnie read to us. This is verse 19. Look what he says, "Do you believe there is only one God?" Good. The demons also believe and tremble with fear. So in other words, belief on its own is not sufficient to distinguish a person of faith because even the demons believe, that's not a big thing. There's another vital element and, of course, some of you are way ahead of me and you know what's coming. It's the one thing that makes all the difference. Real faith is something we do. That's the thing. More than what we say, more than what we feel, more than what we think, more than what we believe, the measurement of our faith in Christ according to James lies in our actions. And that's why verse 18 is so powerful. Look at this. Someone will say one person has faith and another has actions. My answer is, "Show me how anyone can have faith without actions. I will show you my faith by my actions." Because I'm sure you're getting this, like this preaching, this preaching teaching series, it's about finding our passion, it's about celebrating our gifts. It's about surrendering these to God's purpose. It's about moving us all to greater levels of action within our church, within our neighborhoods, within our communities. It's happening already. It's happening. We've had people step in a new role within our church just in recent times based on this series. We've heard stories of people making intentional relationships. It was happening on Thursday nights, it's been happening in our Sunday services. Intentional relationships, using their gifts to try to influence friends and neighbors and colleagues, for God. It includes a lot of people who discovered new levels of generosity during our appeal for Madagascar, fantastic response as people thought, "Wow, you know what, normally I'd give this much, but I really need to look deep and give this much," based on what God has given me and based on the gifts that he's given me. What are we going to be celebrating the theme of faith in action? Yesterday we had our team to send on glee on the Hope Street community down there. We did their backyard blitzing. So proud of those guys. They did this yesterday. We have other teams who go to Alexander Campbell House, minister to the elderly on another week of the month. This morning, look at these young people standing before us, faith in action. Not prepared just to say, "Oh, yeah, god bless and just hope something works out over there at Madagascar." I don't really want to know much about it but from that, this guy's, "No, I'm going to go. I'm going to do something." Wow. That's pretty powerful. I've come back from an amazing weekend in Tasmania, where a church, not much bigger than this one, a number of years ago, did something that just blew the minds of all of us who were observing. In the city of Launceston, the biggest building is the patterns woolen mill. If you know Launceston, you will know this is the biggest building in that city. I think it's one of the biggest buildings in Hobart, in rather in Tasmania, I'm sorry. It has nine acres under one roof. That's just under four hectares. For those of you who met Rick, this church bought it. It started for sale from the receivers at five, six million. Everybody wanted it, got down to $650,000, can you believe that? So they bought this thing, and it just blows your mind. Nine acres, nearly four hectares under the one roof, and they have 20 units for the homeless. They have huge areas they're about to develop a disabled play area for disabled children of Launceston. There's one project after another utilising, and they're only utilising a small section of it now. The bulk of it is a revenue thing where they store things, they store things. It's multi-storey, and it's a storage business which is very profitable, very lucrative. It's very exciting to see what these guys are doing, and then to sit around the table with my senior ministry colleagues and hear the various stories about what churches are doing around Australia, to put faith into action. Friends, it's where it's the touch point. So, as we've been saying every week, what's your passion? What do you need to get involved in? Is it something in this church? Is it something in your community where you go as under the banner of, you know, Seven of Jesus Christ, World Changer, based at Northside. That's bad. We love that. Everything has to be done under the banner of Northside. Are you discovering your passion? Are you yet to discover the area of ministry you need to be involved in right here? Faith without works just doesn't cut it. Our faith lies in what we do. Write some more sentences. Write some more paragraphs this week in The Never-Ending Story.