Northside Church - Sydney
Never Ending Story Week 1 PM: His, Ours, Your Story
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, hi drama for a Sunday night, and all the way from 1984. You guys know me too well. Hey, if you're not familiar what you've been watching then is the great scene from The Great Movie The Never-Ending Story. And there we see a young boy bastion has escaped into his school attic after being chased by a bunch of bullies into a bookstore in which he'd discovered a book that was unlike any other. Having stolen it goes back, reads it for the day. And as he does, he delves deeper into this unique adventure, and the strange things begin to happen as we saw that the characters of this book, they're desperately searching for an earthling child to save their land, Fantasia, from disappearing. And in these final scenes, we just saw a trayou, the young child warrior, the hero of the story. It comes back to the child like Empress, and he says, "I've failed, I've gone to every part, every corner of Fantasia, I've lost my friends, my horse died, he's bleeding, he's bruised, and he says, Empress, I've failed you, all this suffering for what?" And the Empress says the trailer was the only way that we could get in touch with an earthling child. And the bastion reads on in the school attic, and he makes his startling discovery that Fantasia is disappearing because the earthling child fails to recognize that he's part of the never-ending story. And as he reads on, he discovers that the earthling child is so desperately seeking is him. Guys, is the Bible that different? It's a unique book, it's a different book, it's like no other. And its pages are not just a story, but rather it's history, history, the story of God written throughout all of its pages, and what we'll see throughout this series is that God's desire since the beginning of time is to call you and to call I into the greatest adventure we could ever imagine. God is calling you into his story, his never-ending story. And so in that sense, the aim of this series over the next six weeks, his first and foremost, is to discover the heart of that story, we call that God's mission. And in doing that, also discovering the gifts and the talents and the abilities that God has given us, to play a role in that. And most importantly, we want to discover the role of the church and how we together as a community participate in that. In simple terms, it's his story, it's your story, and it's our story in that sense. And so a bit like the book that Bastion read from there in the attic, we're going to read from one similar from Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through to 10. God says this to you tonight, he says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Now, all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions, is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. In order that in coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Or it is by grace that you've been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it's the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do." You know who our Paul was writing to there, I know you good Christians would say the Ephesian church and that's correct, but he was writing to a bunch of kids in the attic where the blanket pulled over the top of them and reading these incredible words. Look in that sense, Bastion's story that we saw in that film clip is the story of every Christian. And every Christian at one point or another in their journey has said the three things of Bastion said in that clip. The first thing he said right was it's impossible that he goes on to say, "I can't believe it, they can't be talking about me." And then finally when he comes to the realization that he's a part of the never-ending story he says, "What do I have to do?" And so that's where I want to track tonight, simple outline. I thought Bastion said it well, that's where we go with the sermon. You see the first point tonight is that every Christian like a Bastion says, "That's impossible." Right? Look, wouldn't you agree that when we first encounter God's never-ending story, that's exactly what every person says about God. It's impossible. It's impossible that a God would be deeply interested in me. It's impossible that God would span the universe and become a man and live and breathe and teach and call me into a relationship with him. That's impossible. And we say that, why? It's impossible not because we lack faith or we're not imaginative enough or we're not gullible enough to believe that Christian stuff. What Paul says here interestingly is because every person before they encounter God's never-ending story are spiritually dead. Well, that's a charming way to start the evening tonight, isn't it? I think you'd come on, Paul, a bit more positive thinking in that sense, but I can't get away from it. That features two, chapter one. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. Now, that is almost offensive, isn't it tonight, if we read that? Almost offensive. Come on. I know lots of good people that do lots of good works, and let's just get to the verse 10 stuff. The good works. There are lots of lovely people out there. It sounds too condemning, but here's the thing Paul's just being real. He's being real. You see, I call it the Sleeping Beauty Principle. We know, we all know Sleeping Beauty, right? Gorgeous thing, lying there, waiting for her prince in her deep slumber. She in essence was almost living a living death, right, until that prince would come in and kiss her and awaken her and they lived happily ever after. I can see half the blokes are already lost tonight. Thanks for the puncy illustration. All right, boys. It's the Han Solo Principle. We remember at the end of Empire Strikes Back, the Darth Vader throws Han Solo in to be frozen into Carbonite, and at the very first scene of Return of the Jedi, we see hanging like a trophy in the kingdom of the evil world called Jabba the Hutt. There was Han Solo frozen in Carbonite, living a living death, until this mysterious bounty hunter enters the palace, dangerously comes in, undoes the special code on the side of his living coffin, unfreezes him, catches him in his arms, and Han says, "Who is this?" And the bounty hunter whisk off the mask, and this long flowing hair comes out the top. And Princess Leia says, "It's someone who loves you." And he said, "Boys can't get emotional." Well, Sleeping Beauty Principle, boys, it's a Han Solo Principle, but look, that is exactly what Verse 4 is saying, right? Verse 4. Here, look at here. Here it is. It's where George Lucas got it from. But because of his great love for us, God, who was rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions, are you with me? You see, that's exactly what it's saying. It's good saying God is the great prince, you sleeping beauties that comes in and awakens you. It's his God is a mysterious bounty hunter, boys, that in spite of your incapacitation and carbonite freezing comes here and wakes you up. It's not saying that you're a bad person or you're worthless, Paul's just being real. There was nothing within us that could awaken us to the story of God. How else do I put it? The grace of God, his efforts, is the kiss that awakes your soul from a death sleep. And he says you're dead in your sin, he's not being condemning or patronizing. Paul was saying outside of the action of God, you're spiritually dead. You're not awake to the things of God and his story. And it is just a story up until that point and it's impossible. The story of God is impossible to take in initially. That was the case for Bastion. He thought this is crazy. And then what else does he say? You see, when he gets a little bit awoken, he starts to understand, he starts to be awoken from his slumber and Bastion, when he got what was going on, he's like a Christian that when they get the God's story, God's never ending story, that we were spiritually dead and yet God has broken into our lives and awokeness like sleeping beauty or hand solo. When we start to awaken and see that that's what God is doing in our lives, we begin to awaken like Bastion. We go to the stairs and we say, I can't believe it. They can't be talking about me, they can't be talking about me in this book. It begins to ask himself, and maybe you need to ask yourself tonight, what if this stuff is really true? What if it's more than just a story? God's story, it's the gospel, that's what we say in church, it's not just a story, it's a truth. It's a truth that is injected itself into people's lives over the centuries. It's a truth that turned the world upside down. It's a truth that comes into your life and expands your horizons and reshapes your view of the world and it changes you from the inside out. The question you have to ask is, what if this story is true? Here's the exciting thing for you tonight, if you're saying, look, I don't believe in this God stuff and I don't believe in this Jesus stuff and I'm not sure I can believe in this Jesus stuff. Let me ask you the question, if you're even here in the first place, why have you come? Are you searching, are you looking, if that's the case, why would you even have those feelings in the first place? Why is that sense of restlessness? Why is that yearning deep down? What is that? Not in the middle of your stomach, you know what it is? It's the beginning of faith, it's the beginning of faith and it's great news tonight because if you're asking yourself that, if you're asking these questions, you see, apart from God, we've just learnt from Paul, you won't even be asking these questions in the first place. And what it means, don't you see that even just an awareness of the sense of God is a sign that he's already working in your life? You've been asleep, Paul says, and so God has to be active in your life right now, otherwise you wouldn't be thinking about it. You know what's happening when you're thinking about God, just thinking about God, not saying having to be a Christian right now, you've been kissed by the prince sleeping beauty. The bounty hunter has started to undo the code on the side of your carbanite coffin in that sense. You're beginning to wake up in simple terms, it's the beginning of faith. And when you begin to awaken to the story of God, guys, then you pick this book up and you say, you know what, they can't be talking about me because I'm going to talk to the Christians tonight, what I find fascinating in his parallel between the Bible and Bastion and the way that I'm drawing this out for 20 minutes, I know you appreciate that. What I do find fascinating and continue to human me is that the Empress said that Bastion couldn't believe because he didn't think that one little boy could be so important. Now, guys, isn't that Christianity 101, isn't that the heart of the Christian message that we come in here and we come from our everyday life and we read these pages and it says things, I don't know, it tells you that you're a kid of the king and it's told you that you've got a right to become the children of God. It says you heirs to his kingdom and all his possessions, it says you're not God's enemy but you're his friend, it says you're forgiven, it says that you're loved unconditionally, it says that you're needed, it says that you're valued, it says that you're treasured, you're his treasured possession, it says like Bastion, we delve in and read these words, verse 10, for we are God's workmanship and we read through that and we run to the stairs and we go, is it possible? They can't be talking about me. You know why I think it's because we see this all the time, we see it in friends, I'm sure it's true for your life. We spend so much time having our story written by the wrong author, by a parent who said that you're dumb or you're stupid or you're not going to amount to anything or the work colleague who said you're never going to make it or the peers in the school playground that are hassling you because they're going to say either too skinny or you're too fat or you're unattractive or you're never going to get a boyfriend, never going to get a girlfriend, you spend too much time listening to the wrong story and I think that's why guys that the Bible God's story will always tell you who you are before it tells you what to do. That's the heart of the message tonight, that we have to get the sense of who the Bible God's story really tells us that we are, you are God's workmanship, workmanship. That in which he puts his effort and his hands into, I used to make little clay things for my parents and put it in the kiln for fathers and mothers' day. I love that thing, it's to carry it home or precious, my little clay, money jar or whatever inconceivable thing it was, it was just a bunch of clay, but I love that thing. Now if I can love my little chunky little bit of clay that much, how much more can the creator of the universe love and feel about you and we read these words and we go, "It can't be talking about me." Finally Bastion says, "What else do I have to do? What do I have to do?" You see something had changed within his heart, we can see by that point in the film clip that he'd gone away, he'd thought about it, he'd tussled with it, he'd made a choice and when he got that sense that he realized that he couldn't be part of this never-ending story, the instinctive reaction is, "Well, what do I have to do? What have I got to do?" You might be asking exactly the same sort of question tonight, you might have been hanging out at church for one week or three weeks or three months in that sense, you might be asking tonight, "Bastion, what have I got to do?" You know the first thing that you've got to do because Bastion stories the story of every Christian, the first thing you've got to do is step into God's story and you do that by faith. How did it happen? Look at the way that it happened with Bastion, Bastion did it because he got caught up with the main character of the story. You remember at Atreu and his desperation, feeling that he'd failed in his hardships of his mission, been lost in the swamp and the horse had died and he'd lost his friends and he went to the far reaches of Fantasia and he was battered around and he nearly lost his life and he was saying, "All for what?" And the Empress said simply because it was the only way to get in touch with an earthling. You see when Bastion came to the realization that the person he was reading about in this adventure had gone through all of that purely for him, he said, "What have I got to do?" And he stopped reading the adventure and he started living the adventure. If you see the last scenes before the credits, you need to go and hire this movie this week, I'm telling you. You see Bastion and Fantasia is just about blown apart and he sits with the childlike Empress and she says he's been transported into the story and she says, "Go, go have fun in Fantasia." But there is Bastion in every scene that Atreya had been in. Now it's Bastion in the same scene. And so Atreya's horse became Bastion's horse and Atreya's lucky dragon became Bastion's lucky dragon and Atreya's friends became Bastion's friend. Every chapter was his. In other words, Atreya's life became Bastion's life. And you go, "Yeah, but that's just a story." Guys, surely you know, even by now, you know where I'm going with this. Guys, this is an ultimate Atreya, there's a real Atreya, there's a real hero character in this never-ending story who embarked on a dangerous mission to save Fantasia and he lost friends and he was cast out and he was beaten and he was bruised and he didn't almost die. He did die. And why? It was because it was the only way to get in touch with an earthling child with you. So friends, when you read through this never-ending story with its funny symbol on the front of it and you read through its main character and you realize that on that cross and after all the suffering that he endured that he did it for me, you stop reading about the adventure and you start living the adventure. That's what it means to place your faith in Jesus Christ's friends. That's what a Christian is. A Christian is simply that you step into the life of the main character of the never-ending story. Remember, anyone that claimed to live in him must walk as Jesus walked and you fight for those that Jesus fought for. You love like Jesus loved. You talk like Jesus talked. The ideals of Jesus become your ideals, the dreams of Jesus become your dreams in that sense. To believe in Jesus is to participate in every scene of his adventure. And so, friend, maybe in that sense, maybe you need to step out of the attic and into the story tonight and you can do that at the end of the service. Let me talk to you tonight, if you're already a Christian, if you've already done that, you'll understand that. If you want to understand what makes our story, the story of the church, so different from every other story that goes around, whether it be Hindu or Islam or all the major religions of the world, here's the thing here. We need to realize, guys, that all the other religions of the world are trying to escape it. Christianity is the only religion in the world that's trying to break in. It's trying to break in? Why? Because of the good works that God has planned for you to do. Your God's workmanship created in Jesus Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for you to do. You see the life-changing truth in this passage tonight, here's the thing. You need to realize that you have been saved, not just saved, but you've been saved from something for something. You've been slaved from your eternal slumber, Han, and sleeping beauty. You've been saved from that, but it's not just so we can go and party. You've been saved from that, so you can be saved for his purposes in the world. Of course, Christians, when they keep breaking into the world, that's what they've been saved for. They're going to keep going to keep going into the urban centers and the places of darkness and the workplaces and the deserts and the mission drips. Guys, it means that the challenge that God's story poses for you and I tonight, if we say that we are a part of this, is this, that it is insufficient. It is incongruent. It's incompatible to call yourself a Christian and not be doing the good works of God. It is incompatible. It's insufficient. It's incongruent to just let the mission team do the mission of God. His story is your story and it's our story of the church. What does that look like specifically? Well, you have to come back next week. I call that incentivization, but look, guys, tonight, I just wanted you and I to get this. I just wanted you and I to get this, that there is a truth here that if you grasp it, it will change your life, not just for next 20 or 30 or 80 years, it will change it for all eternity, that there is another story than the one that you've been writing for yourself or someone else has written for you, whether it be a parent or a peer or someone else in your life. It's God's never-ending story. You've been given this life, not because you're some weird random bunch of atoms that have somehow mysteriously come together, you've been given this life because God has planned and purposed things for you to do since the beginning of time. He's been active since the beginning of time to bring you into his never-ending story. He's calling you into that tonight. Friends, you were all young bastions with a stormy weather outside and a blanket over the top of us reading through this going, "Could it really be talking about me?" Guys, are you a part of it? Are you a part of his never-ending story? Are you a bastion? Do you need to step into God's story tonight? Take up the life of the character at the center of this story. I'm not talking about a tray. I'm talking about the ultimate a trailer who not only risked his life, but he lost his life so you could be a part of it. Come and talk to one of the team tonight about what it means to follow Jesus Christ. His life can become your life, but most importantly, have you been awoken, Christian? You were dead once, but now it's time for us to get to work sleeping beauties. It's time for us to shake the carbonite poisoning off yourselves, Han Solo's, and it's time to do the good work that the author has prepared in advance for us to do. May we think through it, may we pray through it this week as we uncover what it means over the next six weeks to be a part of the never-ending story. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, help them to be more than just a story this week, Lord, and help them to be more than a story for each and every one of us in this place. Even if there is someone that's come into this place, doesn't know how they got here. Maybe they've been invited by a friend, maybe they've just been thinking, maybe they've googled and they're here for some reason, Lord, just with the clear that this stuff doesn't happen by accident, Father, that as a great author, you have been weaving and pre-planning lines and paragraphs of our lives into your broader story that has been unfolding throughout history. Lord, may each and every one of us not miss the opportunity, Father, to ask that question, what do I have to do? Sit and to meditate on what it is that you are calling us to be a part of Father over this coming week. So Lord, we praise the Church that this series be a watershed moment for each and every one of us as individuals, but also as a Church that, Lord, you might awaken in us passions and purposes and practical outworkings, hands in our feet and the people that we reach and friends and families and neighbours driven by Lord, greater vision and greater beauty and greater wonder of the incredible thing that you were doing in this world. We love you, God. We thank you that you're so interested in your creation that you chose to be in a relationship with us through your son, Jesus Christ, our hero. So it's in His mighty name that we pray these things this week. Amen. [MUSIC PLAYING]