Northside Church - Sydney
Guest Speaker//Troy Blair
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well good morning, it is so good to be back here at Northside again. This church has such a special place in my heart and I just, so many familiar faces and it's just so great to see you again. The good thing is, and as I said this morning at the 9am service, that there are many faces here that I don't recognise, which is even better in some regards because it shows all the good things that God is doing in this church and how his favour continues to get poured out on this place. Seeing new people coming along to this church and calling this place home encourages me and Edwina so much. Edwina sends her a guards by the way as well and I know many of you know Edwina and our daughter Taylor and they send her a guards. But we are encouraged, I keep in contact with Michael and Sam and Gia regularly and they keep us updated and everything that's happening here at Northside and we always just give thanks to God for what he's doing here at this place because this is a favoured church well and truly. Now in case you don't know me, I know many of you do, but in case you don't know me just a quick rundown on who I am, well I'm Troy, hello Troy, some sort of stuff and some of the things about me that I like, well I only really like one thing and that is the Sydney Swans and yeah so there's more obviously AFL fans at the 9am service so we'll have to do something about that Michael, Sydney Swans are my big passion and I love following them and they bring me great joy, particularly after last night's win, but there are many things also that I do not like. I do not like raw tomatoes, I think they are the worst things in the history of the world and Kirstie's down there nodding with me again, absolutely, hate raw tomatoes, I hate the singer Jewel, anybody know that for me, the balance of Jewel just make me want to do something I shouldn't want to do and also I do not like vertical drops, I don't like scary rides so stay away from roller coasters as much as possible, but what the problem is saying our daughter now is 10 and she's growing up too quickly and because I saw Andy Galliford here a little bit earlier and Taylor and Andy sort of grew up together for the years and I can't believe how they gave me his guide but with the growing age of our daughters comes the opportunity for them to challenge us immensely and Taylor challenges me all the time when it comes to issues of scary rides because she's a bit of an adrenaline junkie and I just hate it so she's been pushing me all the time more and more and more ways and that's had scary outcomes and two of the more memorable ones is when we went to Movie World on the Gold Coast, anyone beat up to Movie World on the Gold Coast before? Yeah a few of us, excellent well if you go to there you know over the back corner of Movie World there's a place called Wild Wild West and there's this sort of log ride that you get along and sit in it and it goes along the water and then all of a sudden it takes you up to the top you shoot out from the, a couple of stories up and you go screaming down a big incline splash down there at the end everyone gets weird, everyone screams and everyone's supposed to have a good time, Taylor saw this and said come on dad we're going, I'm going no chance, absolutely no way am I going on that thing, you're kidding me? So her face was deflated and I knew I missed an important dad and daughter moment but she did the next best thing, come on mum we're going, so she took her wiener on it and they make their way around and heard the screaming as they shot out from the top and screamed all the way down splash it got wet and she bounded out of the ride and came up beaming and I just knew what was happening going to happen next, got to come on with me dad it's not that bad, it's not that bad, what do I do here, okay I'll do it, so I went on the ride from hell, this log ride from hell and it was terrible and got off the top and shot out and then screamed all the way down and I don't know what is about amusement parks, they always have the camera they're set up at your worst place because I'm screaming my guts out here and my face is all distorting from a fear of falling and that sense of my stomach dropping and they took a picture of me, are you kidding me, so we got the photo and then big splash down the bottom and everything was all right, that it wasn't as bad as what I thought it would be, now with that situation behind us the next opportunity Taylor had to take me on a scary ride was down at Questacon down in Canberra, you know I've been down to Questacon, yeah I need a couple of people, Questacon is almost like an interactive science centre if you're not quite sure what it is and it's especially good for kids to learn about science stuff, one of the rides at Questacon if they're called, that's a giant great big slide, it sort of like puts Coney Island at Luna Park to shame a little bit and what happens is you have this big slide and all these kids were having a good time and Taylor came up and saw this slide, come on Dad let's go, so building upon this newfound confidence in handling scary rides, I immediately said sure let's go, we donned the attractive car key overalls that you're supposed to help you slide a whole lot better and we climbed a couple of stories to the top believing we're going to have a good time, well we got to the top and everything changed because Taylor goes no way, I'm not going on that Dad, I've got to do the Dad thing so I've got to go first, curse that being a role model to your child thing because I didn't want to do it and because what you had to do was you had to come and sit on a ledge, you had to climb over it on something and sit down on a ledge like this and your legs were dangling down over on this slide and then you had to reach out and grab a bar, almost like a trapeze bar if you like, suspend it almost like a mid-air and then you swung out and you hung vertically there and then what you're supposed to do is let go, you would drop a few metres, vertical drop and then the curvature of the slide catches you and slides you down to the bottom, well here I am hanging out there, the fear of vertical drops and I'm going no way and what made it worse was this people 14 year old ride operator whose tentacles hadn't even dropped yet telling me to be a man and drop, there's no way that I was going to do that, I'm going you're kidding me, I hate the sense of falling and you're telling me to be a man, you're not a man yet, I couldn't do it so I had to come back in, so Taylor goes okay I'm going to give it a go and she went out there and praise be to God she couldn't do it either, she came back in and we did the walk of shame back down the stairs, trying to hide our face and all these other kids running up the stairs going, the slides this way guys, what are you going this way, we just want to hang our heads and kept on reassuring ourselves down the way saying it's all right, everything's going to be okay, we'll do it next time we're here, yeah as if, two situations, two very different results, the first one, the opportunity I had was said no chance, not coming at all, not doing it but then eventually changed my mind and went on it, the second one was saying absolutely I'm going to do it but then nothing coming about it, which had the best outcome, which of those two situations, if you have your bibles with you today which I hope you do, I hope you turn them into Matthew chapter 21 and if the Bible is a new thing to you then the best way to find Matthew is go to the back of the book and move towards you left and you'll find a couple of guys names like your fine name of John and then Luke and then Mark and you'll eventually come across Matthew and in Matthew 21 Jesus tells a parable of the two sons and this parable, the Jesus teachers is a mirror if you like to us who, about our decisions, about the things that we say and our follow through and our integrity because Jesus is trying to get us to understand God and our response to God and the implications of our response to why Jesus is asking his audience at that time, the implications for our life now and our life and eternity is so much scarier than any right and Jesus tells the parable of the two sons as we can see up there on the screen and this is what Jesus said to his audience that day. He says what do you think? There is a man who had two sons, he went to the first and said son and go and work in the vineyard, I will not he answered but later he changed his mind and went then the father went to the other son and said the same thing, he answered I will sir but did not go, which of these two did what his father wanted? The first they answered Jesus' audience answered, Jesus said to them I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you, for John came to show you the way of righteousness and you did not believe him but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did and even after you saw this you did not repent and believe. To try and work out the significance of this parable we need to start having a look at who exactly Jesus was talking to and who are the main characters in this parable, what do they actually represent? Now we know that from just a few verses earlier in Matthew 21 we know that Jesus is actually in the temple in Jerusalem talking to the chief priests and elders of the time, these most spiritual of all people in the city of Jerusalem and Jesus found himself in Jerusalem because a couple of days earlier he'd come into Jerusalem as part of Palm Sunday. So we know that when he's speaking this parable he's in his last days of his ministry before he is eventually arrested and crucified as many of us know the story of Easter. And so Jesus is telling this parable to religious people in the last days when every single word counts because he knows that time is about to run out for him. Why this parable to these group of people? What was so important that he was trying to get them to understand? So in this parable as with many others the father figure in this scene is God, the heavenly father. And what Jesus was trying to do is get people to consider the fact that God's sons, his children, are in fact Israel. That's pretty standard. People understood that Israel was in fact God's children if you like. But what Jesus was bringing the attention to was the fact that it was two Israel's because there was two sons. The first Israel is Israel that obeyed God. The second Israel, like the second son, is one that disobeyed God himself. And so with this parable Jesus was trying to get these guys to consider which son they were. Are they the first or the second? So Jesus knew what son they were. Jesus knew what they thought they were. But Jesus was trying to get them to confront something that they never confronted in their life before. And this is so important because this is one way he wanted to focus his attention in the last couple of days before he was at eventual death. Are these religious people the first son? Well obviously not. Because Jesus worded in such a way that they took great offense because he said to them the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going to be the ones who are going to head into the kingdom of heaven ahead of you. These tax collectors who have been ripping off fellow Jews have been storting money from their fellow Jews. They weren't nice people at all. And the prostitutes, well their lifestyle spoke for themselves. They had little respect for themselves, little respect for other people, little respect for God and the rules of society. They were people that just didn't really fit in all that much. But the funny thing is John the Baptist came and told the chief priests and the elders and all people including tax collectors and prostitutes the way of righteousness. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes you know they ignored what John the Baptist initially said. They just went along and get on doing what they wanted because they liked their life. Even with the radical elements of it, they weren't overly beneficial. They liked it. They could keep on getting what they wanted. They kept on having the experience that they wanted to have. So they initially said, "John the Baptist, what are you saying? I don't want to borrow that." But the funny thing is they started to think about the things that John said. They started to think, "You know what? John's got something here and I want to know more and I want to experience more. I want to actually live God's way." So they changed their mind and started living out the things that John the Baptist was encouraging them to do, to experience what it means to live a righteous life. It's interesting that Jesus used the term in here, "change your mind" because that is exactly what the term "repentance" actually means. See repentance, I'm not quite sure if you've ever heard this before. Repentance is not some super spiritual concept but rather it basically means to change your mind and head in the other direction. And so these tax collectors and prostitutes, they decided to change their mind and start living repentant lives. So Jesus is making the point here that the Kingdom of God is not about our words, necessarily but our actions matching our words. See the really interesting thing here is what the responses of the second son because God says to the second son the same thing he does to the first son. He said, "Go into my vineyard and work for me." And the second son says, "I will, sir." The interesting thing is when you have a look at the original Greek text that this parable is written in, the word "sir" here is the Greek word "curios." Curios is most commonly translated as the word "lord." So read that into it now, "I will, Lord." When I spent some time reflecting on this parable and allowing God to talk to me about it, he drew me to a part of Jesus' sermon on the Mount that you'll find in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, particularly in Matthew 7, because Jesus says an interesting thing about the word "lord," because Jesus says this, "Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven." It's interesting that the second son says, "I will, Lord." And Jesus follows us up, reminding me about what he says in the sermon on the Mount. Not everyone who says, "Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven." See, this is where the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus just integrates so beautifully, so seamless where they support one another. It's almost like it's by design, because Jesus tells us what the will of the Father is, but you know how John the Baptist refers to the will of the Father? He says it this way. In Luke chapter 3, in the message translation, he says this, "It's your life that must change, not your skin." In your Bible, if you don't have the message translation, this is what more likely you find in your Bible, produce fruit in keeping with repentance. In Jesus' sermon on the Mount, just before he talks about this, "Lord, Lord," and entering the Kingdom of Heaven, he says, "You will know people. You'll know which son you are. You'll know which child you are of God by your fruit. You'll know them by the fruit," Jesus says. It's interesting that when you bring those two concepts together, what Jesus said of you know them by the fruit in this parable together, you'll ultimately know if you're a child you are of God's by the way, your life reflects the fruit of God, changing your mind and heading in another direction, because ultimately it is the way that we head in God's direction, the way that we live that out, the way we express that change of direction and living God's way will be the thing that determines what fruit we actually produce or not. See, the Kingdom of God is about our lives being radically different because we have changed our minds and decided to live God's way. The greatest deception we do to ourselves and the greatest injustice we do to the death that Jesus suffered on the cross is for us to say, "Yeah, Jesus, you are Lord. I call myself a Christian. You are Lord of my life and then do nothing about it." And we say this to ourselves all the time. Let me give you some examples. We say things like, "Sure, Jesus, I will call you Lord, but I won't get baptized. Sure, Jesus, I will call you Lord, but I'll keep on drinking as much alcohol as I want. Sure, Jesus, I will call you Lord, but I'll keep on sleeping with my boyfriend. Sure, Jesus, I will call you Lord, but I'll still keep on gossiping. Sure, Jesus, I will call you Lord, but I won't serve in your church. Sure, Jesus, I will call you Lord, but I don't really need to be overly committed to your church at all, really, do I? Sure, Jesus, I will call you Lord, but I won't tell people about how much you love them and care about them. Sure, Jesus, I will call you Lord, but I will be selective about who I love and care. Sure, Jesus, I will call you Lord, but I won't tithe. I'll keep my money for myself." You see, we say Jesus is Lord in our life so many different ways. We call ourselves Christian people, and yet does our life actually reflect the things that the Father is wanting us to do? If this parable tells us nothing, it says if we call ourselves a Christian, if we've said yes to God, it said yes, I'm going to do what you want, our life better show it. But the problem for that for me is it's saying, well, if I've made that decision to follow God, if I've made that decision to call Him Lord, does that mean now I need to live a perfect life? That I can't make any mistakes? There's a very big difference between the two sons in this parable and about the way we live, because the first son, the first son, just wanted to live the Father's way, he's got to make mistakes, but at his heart at the core of his very being is somebody who wanted to live God's way. Second son couldn't give a rip. Second son says, "Yeah, I will say yes to make myself perhaps look good, because I'm a respectable person. I'm not like those other bad people like those who rip people off, like those who sleep around and prostitute themselves. I'm not like that, so I will say yes, because I'm not like them, but I won't do anything about living God's way." Which one are you? Do you live out of a desire to live God's way, recognizing that his way is the best for you, and it is all you can do in response to everything that Jesus Christ has done for you, or are you like the other one, the other son who uses the term "Lord" simply as a word, but whose reality has no power in your life now and in eternity. This stuff matters so much so that Jesus spent the last few moments of his life telling this very parable to people who are good, people who are religious, because he was trying to get them to understand which son they were, because he was trying to get them to lead them through the way of righteousness. John the Baptist says, "Produce fruit in keeping river of repentance." Our words, repentance comes through our words. Our words are our verbalization of the decision that we have made to change direction and start heading in God's way. Our prayers that we say to God is a verbalization of our decision to start living God's way, to change our decision, to change our direction. And we verbalize that by saying, "God, I am so sorry for the way that I have been living my life. I now choose to live your way." Repentance comes through the verbalization of that decision, but ultimately fruit is produced by our actions. We may have good fruit in our life. We may do good things, but that repentance though, why are we doing it? You and I in our life, we have good people around us. We have good people in our family, in our friends, in our workplaces, people who are just good people. I know you know who they are in your life. I've got them in my life as well. But why are they being good? See, we are good people. We do good things. We produce fruit that is reflective of our intention to actually follow God's way. The other people who are just good are just doing it because they're just good people. The difference is the intention and motivation behind our good deeds, but behind doing producing fruit. Repentance leads us to producing good fruit. On the flip side of that, repentance saying, "Oh, I'm sorry God. Forgive me. I'm now heading in your way, but not doing anything about it." Well, Jesus is Lord saying, "Yes to God, well, that's just a term that has no bearing upon your life now or in the future because you're intentionally and blatantly not caring about what the Father actually wanted you to do. There's no fruit in there at all." And here's the ultimate indictment against the chief priests and the elders. As we can see up here in orange, for John came to show you the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. See, the problem is with these religious people who are saying, they knew that John the Baptist was a prophet. They knew that he was a man of God. He knew that he was a person who could hear the words of God and proclaim it to the people. But there, and with the fingers in the ear going, "I'm going to ignore that. I'm going to ignore that. I don't care. La-la-la-la-la-la." Was that too loud, then? Because I have no idea because my fingers are in my ears. They knew that he was a prophet, but they totally ignored the things that God wanted to say to them. Not only that, but they were starting to see lives transformed by the very presence and power of God. The tax collectors and the prostitutes were having their lives radically transformed, radically transformed from somebody who would sell themselves to somebody who would come into the temple, worshiping God for all his goodness and greatness. That's a life who's transformed, who gave up their previous way of living to live a new way. That is a life that's radically transformed. And the problem is that these chief priests and elders were ignoring the evidence of God at work amongst them. And they believed that they don't need them for themselves because I'm good and respectable. I don't need that. But Jesus was trying to get them to understand, you've even ignored the very presence and power of God in people's lives and what could happen in your life as well. You've rejected God twice. You've rejected the words of John the Baptist and the evidence of God around you. Is your heart that hard? Is your life so immune that you don't want to be a part of that? Do you think you're so perfect that you don't need the presence of God in it? Are you that good that you don't need a transformation yourself? This is hard words that Jesus was speaking to you. You might not think that he's ordinarily being incredibly judgmental here, but he's being anything but because if Jesus didn't love these people, he wouldn't have said anything to them. He'd have let them keep on going on the merry old way down the road to wherever they ended up. He spoke this parable to them in the last days because he loved them so much. Sure, he spoke hard, but he spoke words of hope to them in the midst of this parable as well. Because as we can see up there in orange, he says, I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. He doesn't say that you guys, you're not going into the kingdom of heaven. It's just these other people who have their hearts open to God. They're the ones that are going to experience the fullness of the kingdom of God both now and in eternity. Ahead of you, you're not without hope. You're neither without hope. But the thing is, what is stopping you experiencing all the power and presence of the kingdom of God in your life is your pride because you don't think you need it. You don't think you need it at all. You think you're too good. You think you're too perfect because you're not like those others. That is the thing that's always going to stop you experiencing the kingdom of God in your life. Because what we have to remember, it's not people's sin that stops some experiencing God, but rather it's what they do with Jesus and the decision to live God's way. It's what they do with a change of mind is start heading in God's direction. That is the thing that stops us experiencing God now and will stop us experiencing him in all eternity. It is our pride. It is our belief that we don't need to do anything because we've already said yes. Jesus challenges those religious people at the time, as he does so with us today. What are we going to do with the words of John the Baptist? What are we going to do with the presence of God amongst us here at Northside as we see incredible lives transformed? What are we going to do with Jesus' words when he says in Matthew 28, he says, "Go out into the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit." That to me sounds like an opportunity to say yes. Many people go along and simply say, "I just need to say yes." That's a motivation for us and our evangelism to share God's word, to get them to say yes. But we forget, as Dallas Willard says, it is the great omission because he goes on to say, and Jesus says, "After those words about going out into the world," he goes and says to them, "Teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." That is teaching people to live God's way, the often forgotten thing. We may say yes, but we have forgotten to follow Jesus' way. Many of us are in that boat, maybe even here this morning. We have said yes at one point in our life. We may even have said yes to baptism, but we know in our heart of hearts. We haven't been following God's way. Jesus wants to give you the opportunity to change your mind and start heading in His direction so that you can experience a fullness of His kingdom now and in eternity. Rejoice in prayer. "Help me, Father, we just want to thank you so much for the truth in your words that come from your Son Jesus." Lord, the truth that says that you are concerned about the way that we live. You are concerned about the decisions that we make. You are concerned about our attitudes to living your way. So much so, Lord, that your Son told this parable just before He died. And we have prayed so much, Lord God, that those words had an impact in Jesus' audience those 2,000 years ago. But equally, Lord God, I pray that your words today to us has an equal impact upon us. May our hearts not be so hard to hear these words this morning. May our hearts be open to you today, Lord God, for us to see who we truly are in reference to you. There may be people amongst us here, Lord God, this morning, who have said yes to you in the past, but have recognized so much that they have chosen to keep on living their own way and haven't been following your guidance, your instructions, your way. Thank you so much, Lord God, that you are gracious to us, that you are kind to us. Because as we remember in the, as it says in Scripture, Lord God, in Romans, it's your kindness that leads us to repentance. You are kind to us. You are gentle to us as you reveal who we are. You are kind to us, Lord God, and may that kindness lead us to changing our mind and living your way. Lord, if there's anybody here this morning who has that realization, because of the movement of their spirit and their heart, may they have the courage to talk to somebody about that. May one of the ministry team members here, Lord God, are one of the elders, myself. Lord God, I know this place is filled with so many people who at one stage said, initially said no to you, but they have changed their mind and started living your way and their life is testimony of your presence and power in it, because they have, they are producing fruit that's in keeping with a changed life. I praise you for the lives of the people amongst this gathering here this morning, Lord God, in this church, who that is their story, living their own way, but changing their mind and now living your way to an incredible experience and knowledge of who you are. I thank you so much for that. Lord, for each of us, Lord God, here today, may we just hear your voice and the strength to change which son we may be. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen.