Northside Church - Sydney
I Heart This Place – Week 3: A Place That's Different
I'm listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well I won't forget the conversation at Org we're at a restaurant, it was a nice dinner and my best mate is a non-Christian guy, said you are so lucky to work in the church. And it was surprising enough that he'd even be talking about that, but I said well why is that? Well it'd be such a nice place to be I imagined, whenever I'm at work I have a number of different co-workers in finance that are either trying to backstab me or make me look like an idiot or trying to get me out of the job, it's just a battle every single day and if I stuff up I'm never going to hear about it again, but the church is not like that. And what was really funny for a guy that has really hardly ever been inside of a church, he was his perception that the church is supposed to be a place that is different, not like the rest of the world, that's what he was communicating and that's what he was getting across. And part of the problem when we say church is that there has lots of different meanings. People think of cathedrals and crosses and stained glass windows and of course it didn't look anything like that in the time of Jesus, he used the word ecclesia or the gathering, the gathering of God's people. And here's the point that when Jesus came along and he broke into the world he didn't leave a set of instructions, he didn't leave just a book he left a community and he modeled this life, this community in the way that he walked and he picked these disciples out and he didn't say, you know, come on, I'm going to take you to the blackboard on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon and I'm going to put the principles up there and you're going to go and do it. No, he came in and he modeled and he lived this life that was radically different to the world around him and so what he did is he birthed a community and here's the thing Christian community is really a demonstration of the mission of God. Is that God then? That is in relationship to one another and in relationship to the world, the Christian community, the people of the church were to express exactly what the gospel was meant to be like in every area of life, what our lives were supposed to be like. In simple terms, the church was meant to show the world what it is like to be truly human and that's different, it's different from maybe, yeah, the way you are with your coworkers, maybe it's different from the way it is in the school playground, maybe it's different from the way that you live in life at university, it's different and so when we talk about what is the love about Christian community, that's where we've been at for the past couple of weeks, I heart this place. If you're not generation-wise, I heart this place means I love this place. At least I love about aspects of the church, we've seen the various ways that the church is something to be loved and prized about because James is a practical book, a practical book that shows you what life is meant to look like when you live the gospel out and tonight we look at the fact that we're supposed to be different. This passage teaches us tonight that we are different, real simple, whenever we get over ourselves and get under God and when you get that from the passage here in James chapter 4 verses 1 through to 10, what causes fights and quarrels among you, that they come from your desires that battle within you, you want something but you don't get it, you kill and covet but you cannot have what you want, you quarrel and fight, you do not have because you do not ask God, when you ask you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures, you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world or becomes an enemy of God, or do you think scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely, but he gives us more grace, that is why the scripture says God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble, submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you, come near to God and he will come near to you, wash your hands you sinners and purify your hearts, you double minded, grieve, mourn and wail, change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. Some interesting big words we saw last week, James is a bit of a hard hitter, he just tells it straight how it is and we are going to unpack that tonight, but at the same time I am going to say I have really been struggling with this this week because God has really been convicting me in this area, it is so applicable to all of our lives, it is so simple in some respects as well, but something I was thinking about as I was prepping this is I will never forget the first time that I saw this particular show, I am sure most of you have seen it, but it was a different looking talk show, that is for sure because there were people at either sides of the stage and they had a set of bodyguards right in the middle of the stage, big black burly guys, and instead of Oprah there was this funny greyhead guy with a microphone that seemed to be inciting all sorts of questions that were just arcing the people up at either side of the stage, and it seemed to be the pattern of this show that each episode somehow the bodyguards were there for a reason because they would jump up out of the seats and tear each other's hair out and they would fight and they would go crazy, I am talking about Jerry Springer, it was a new revelation revolution in talk shows and we looked at that and what was crazy is that it just seemed to catch on right, people loved to watch it, why is that, do you look around at the world around you and ask the same question, what is it about the nature of some of these sorts of shows, we live in a world guys where relationships are constantly blasting themselves apart, and if you have ever been in leadership or in a friendship group you are constantly fighting the fact that relationships are tearing themselves apart, and thankfully when we look at Springer the bible says that Christian community is supposed to be different from that, it is supposed to be different from that and you need community, it is important to be part of community, I mean like what happens when you hear a great song, what happens when you see a great movie, what happens when you have an experience that just moves you, what do you want to do, grab someone, tell them about it, you see we are geared for community but at the same time we live in a world in which community is always falling apart, there seems to be some sort of force in this world that makes community impossible to keep and yet it is one of the greatest needs of your heart and what hope is there for us then, enter Jesus Christ, this guy gets up on a hill and he says you are the light of the world and you are sitting on the hill and he gathers these ragtag band of people together on a small hill in Palestine and he says you know you have heard it said on channel 7 in the new show Revenge that is coming up, get even, but I say to you no turn the other cheek, you have heard it said don't murder but I say you don't even get angry, this guy was revolutionary, now what is Jesus doing here, because what is interesting is James is the brother of Jesus, echoes a lot of the same sentiment of the Sermon on the Mount, what is Jesus doing, here is what he is doing, he is making God known by creating a new community to show the world how life is really meant to be lived, and guys that is what we are today, a place that is different, James reflexes in verse 18, it was just before the reading, he says peacemakers who is so in peace reap a harvest of righteousness, the question is I wonder is your workplace represent a harvest of righteousness, is your school represent a place that is a harvest of righteousness, and it is a funny word in here righteousness means to be right with God and also at the other end of the spectrum to be right with others and so it means to have a harvest of righteousness means to be moving into a unified peaceful relationship with God and other people, you know what he is talking about, community. And what he is saying here therefore is that outside of relationship with God relationships unravel, because when you unravel your relationship with God or other relationships unravel, that is why I have got Jerry Springer going on, why the world we see these relationships unraveling because on the flip side and when you move into relationship with God into a harvest of righteousness relationships form again, healthy loving united relationship, I call it the gospel according to lemmings, lemmings were if you haven't seen it they were a hit in the 90s it was a it was a hit computer program and the object of the game was to guide these little creatures called the lemmings through a number of obstacles to a designated exit and the status quo of the lemmings game was that their current status always led to some state of destruction they would fall off a cliff or they would dive into water or something like that and part of that your deal was is to move into the game from the outside and guide these lemmings through the obstacles of life into a path of safety. And what I am trying to say here guys, Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, the Word of God breaking our lives, we need someone from outside of our situation to guide us into how life was meant to be and if that doesn't happen then we like the lemmings, these funny little creatures move into places of further destruction you see guys the Bible's commentary on Jerry Springer and revenge on Channel 7 and co-workers trying to take you down is that outside of God guiding your life or their lives we inadvertently walk ourselves into deeper danger until someone from outside of us intervenes and so therefore guys the church is a precious distinct community of God different from the world but we're for the world, we're there to show our co-workers and our family and our friends how this life is meant to be lived and to guide them John Stott puts it like this instead of always being one of the chief supporters of the social status quo the church is to develop a Christian counterculture with its own distinctive goals value standards and lifestyle, a realistic alternative to the contemporary society which is marked by materialism so centeredness and greed, Christ's call to obedience is a call to be different not conformist, such a church joyful, obedient, loving and free it'll do more than please God it will attract the world, it is when the church evidently is the church and is living a supernatural life of love by the power of the Holy Spirit that the world will believe, see what, see what Stott's getting out what this passage is saying that we must do, James's focus on community it's saying we must be different, we must be different from the world for the world why because when the world sees exceptionally loving communities they want to be a part of it and that offers an opportunity to be saved and to move into this new style of life but not only that it convinces them that the message in the community of Jesus Christ is actually true, we need to be different, now what James is also saying this is getting to the tough part is we're different when we get over ourselves, what he's getting at is where can it potentially go wrong, where can our communities, if that's the ideal of community where can it go wrong, what could keep our community from being the ideal that we've just been discussing, verses one to four in there James is talking about the fights and the quarrels amongst the church, what causes fights and quarrels among you obviously James is assuming that there have been fights and quarrels amongst the church here but he's saying that he's upset about the fighting in the church, he's saying what causes the quarrels it's fighting and you sort of like do verses one and two what causes fights and he gives it he's like having a little conversation with himself, verse two you covered but you cannot get what you want so you quarrel and fight you see James's focus like the Bible often does he's not just on the behavior but the cause of the behavior, now you're waiting for it because I'm going to give you a tool here tonight that it's a bit like a spiritual nail gun, an article in American newspaper in Bismarck recently said a guy accidentally shot himself in the head with a nail gun and was lucky to survive it took doctors two hours to get it out of him and you see here's the thing about a nail gun and here's the thing about a spiritual nail gun, a nail gun has either the potential to incredible harm or it has the potential to build up very quickly to be positive and constructive in building up and so here it is and this is what will make the distinction your life can either hurt or it can even kill as James is saying or it can build up it's like a spiritual nail gun and what will make the distinction between how you use your life in this way is this principle that the breakdown of Christian community happens when you want something but you can't have it. It sounds simple but let's unpack it here for a little bit, you see the word he's using here in verse two is head and A the Greek word where we get the word hedonistic from where it means to be pleasure seeking, a pleasure seeking society as a hedonistic society and so what he's saying is to live a life of hedonays to live a self pleasing life, it's the live a life that pleases yourself and so therefore James is saying that the breakdown of community, the killer of community, the nail gun in the head of community happens whenever you seek to please yourself, wherever your comforts and your needs and your preferences and your desires are more important than everyone else around you. Are you getting this? The reason why James is saying we don't fully experience this type of community that God intends is because if we dare admit it and this is the stuff that's been hitting me this week is that we'd rather put our own preferences a hundred times a day ahead of those that are around me. But you know there's a choice, there's a choice. You know what that choice was? It was the choice that Tom Hanks made in saving private Ryan. Captain John Miller, his mission that he had just received from his superior offices was to go and find private James Ryan the last of a surviving brother of four brothers. Captain Miller goes and he assembles a team of six crack shot guys around him and they head into the most treacherous or the most dangerous bullet flying war situation that you could imagine that already come out of war, they were moving into war and they go in after this private Ryan seeking to find him through various European battlefronts. And they encounter all sorts of intense fighting and then finally in the very end scene of the movie, I hope I don't spoil it for you. But Miller in seeking to save Ryan succumbs to his own injuries in battle and his mortally wounded. And Ryan, this private had never known this Miller that had come out of nowhere. Didn't even know that they were looking for him, sits beside him and watches this man pass away. See the choice, the choice I'm saying and the principle here is to save him, private Ryan principle is my life for me or my life for yours. My life for me or my life for yours, guys, the church to be a Christian to be the church is to be on a mission to save private Ryan. I'm not literally saying that there is a literal private Ryan out there. What I'm saying is that our mission is a church and for you as an individual is to make the decision upfront that you will be willing to let go of your own preferences ahead of time for a total stranger. For someone who may not have even met yet, so that you might be able to bring them back home, the choice my life for me or my life for yours. Now, you're probably thinking that sounds a little bit mellow dramatic Sam. Come on. What does it look like? Look, my life for me, my life for yours, that choice is like you face with the choice that someone has a glaring fault and I rub you up the wrong way. My life for me says, I need to point that out straight away. My life for you says, hey, I'm just as flawed and I thank God that he's made us all equal. Someone has a different opinion to you in connection group. My life for me is you dogmatically defend your opinion at the expense of everyone else's feelings. My life for you thinks, how can I gently help this person come to a self revelation of God's truth by the Holy Spirit? And when you find irritating his towards you after the service tonight, my life for me says avoid him like the plague. My life for you says, I'm going to sacrifice my 10 minutes sit down and sympathetically pay attention. How's your mission going, Captain Millers? I've already been through this, by the way. I've already done my time with God on this, but it's what the word is saying to us tonight, guys, our lives are like a nail gun in the Christian community. We've got the choice of the harm to hurt, offend, or to build each other up at the cost of our own preferences. And guys, if you want to kill community, then think more of yourself in each moment. But if you want to build community like our mission statement says here at Northside, then think of others. It's something we constantly have to work through and process. Does it mean that we should never have arguments in the church? No, of course you're going to have arguments in the church. But what James is saying is here's a question of why you're having an argument. James says, are you arguing because you want to win or because you want to warn someone in love? James says, are you arguing because you want to hurt or because you want to heal? He says, are you arguing because you want to laud it over someone or you want to lift someone else up? Are you arguing because you want to prove your opinion or you want to pour into someone else? Guys, here it is. The Christian life at every moment of every day is the opportunity to choose, to get over yourself. My life for me or my life for yours, that's what James tells us where to be different. But we do it by getting over ourselves. The only way we're going to get over ourselves realistically is if finally we get under God. The only way it's going to happen because now that either sounds confronting or it sounds downright ridiculous because the reality of the pattern of the world around us is to be humble and to humble ourselves and submit. It's not the way it is, but the Bible doesn't talk like that. Look at verses 6-8 in this passage. He says in James chapter 4 verses 6-8, but he gives us more grace and that's why scripture says, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble, opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. The biblical pattern of life is always totally upside down to the rest of the world. George Michael says, you want to get up, you want to get down. God says you want to get down, you'll get up. It's the opposite to George Michael, but at the end of the day, the biblical pattern of life is always like a Mr. Squiggle drawing, upside down. That's why, look probably, if you're a person here tonight that's hearing this for the first time, that sounds confusing to you, but then maybe that's it because the Bible is always upside down. The Bible is always saying that the last shall be first and the first shall be last and as Graham preached this morning that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Here's the thing, this is a great mystery of the God of this universe. I can't explain it guys, but it just works this way, that the way to feel truly comfortable and at peace and great about yourself is actually to admit to yourself that you really don't have it all together. To admit to yourself that as much as you think that you're in control when you look at the complexity of the life around you and the complexity of this universe, you go, I literally have the understanding and the comprehension of a leming, but there's a God in control. There's a God who's broken into my life and is guiding me over the obstacles and scaring me away from the cliffs of life. When he is guiding our lives, and there's not so much of a burden of us trying to control it anymore, and that is humility. When you get under God's way of life, you progressively discover that's the way you were created to be, that's humility. You see, if self-interest is the poison of Christian community, then humility is its antidote. Humility is the antidote. Now part of the problem is when we think about humility, we think of it in the way the rest of the world talks about it, that to be humble is to be shy, but it's not that at all. You read throughout the Bible, it's not like that at all. Humility is not that when you see the way that it talks about it, because look at what James is saying in verses 7 to 8, he gives more grace, that's why scripture says God opposes a proud, but shows favor to the humble and the oppressed. Submit yourselves then, humble yourselves, submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Funny line, particularly if you don't believe in all that sort of devil stuff, but let's paraphrase what James is saying. He's saying, in the same sentence, here's what he's saying, guys, be humble, and by the way, don't fear the most evil, powerful force in the world. So to get, he's saying, be humble, but don't fear the most evil and powerful force of evil in the world. Now that's total at loggerheads in terms of what we think. Does that sound like shyness? No. You see, here's why, because biblical humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. Vehicle humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. And so in that way, it's looking at your self less, it's being focused on your self less, because to be humble is to have an unparalleled confidence in your own worth and the knowledge that God is taking care of the circumstances in your life. God's got it under control. That's why you can humble yourself and take on the devil. God's got you back. Biblical humility is the confidence in knowing your value in God and that God is controlled. It's not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. So finally, let me finish this up here, because we could be looking at this and going, you know what's too hard? Try it, be there, can't do it. And it is difficult. But what I love about the Bible is Jesus Christ calls us to do stuff, whenever He calls us to do stuff, He never asks us to do something that He's never done Himself. You see, when you want to talk about my life for yours, that's exactly what the act of Jesus Christ was. In Romans 15, one Paul says, "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not please ourselves." And here's what Jesus did. God was equal with God. He had a quality with God. He leaves the comfort of that place with God. He comes down, He not only gets over Himself, He not only gets under God, but He gets under us. That's why the Bible says that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. And so, guys might have reminded you tonight, if we're thinking that getting over ourselves and getting under God is too hard or it's too silly, guys might have reminded you tonight, what did Jesus do in that act on the cross? He lived out these verses in verses 6 and 7. God opposes the proud of it, gives grace to the humble. He humbled Himself for right. Submit yourself then to God. He submitted Himself to God, all right. Resist the devil. He did that in the desert, remember? He lived out these passages and then yet we get to verse 8 and it says, "Come near to God and He will come near to you." And that's one passage that Jesus Christ didn't live out because in that moment a darkness in Gethsemane, when He needed God at His absolute darkest hour and He cried for God to draw near to Him. He draw blank. And at the cross He cried out, "My God, why have you forsaken me? Why?" The Father withdrew from the sun so we could draw near to the Father and He would draw near to us. That's what Jesus Christ has done for us tonight in these passages. He was the one who experienced this cosmic loneliness. God withdraws so we can move closer to Him. And what it says no matter how imperfectly or haphazardly you live this Christian life, God will not withdraw from you because He's already done it at the time. And at the great upside down Mr. Squiggle picture that is the cross, Jesus Christ proved this tonight, guys. But putting the interest of someone else ahead of your own preferences is how God intended human life to be. That when you are willing to put to death your own desires in your own preferences, in your own opinions, and even put to death your own life for God, He will lift you up in due time, due time. How else do I put it? You know who Jesus is? He's your Tom Hanks. He's your Captain John Miller. But when you didn't even know that God had sent a search and rescue party out for you, He is the one who truly made that decision up front to carry out the mission of the Father, to search for you. I have all sorts of battle fronts to endure all sorts of pains and hurt, not just at the risk of his life, but at the cost of his life in order to bring you back home. For any of you gotten over yourself and gotten under God yet, now please note, this is not a condescending statement here tonight, but it is a great invitation to the mystery that is a Christian life. I can't explain it. But Jesus never asked us to do something that He didn't do Himself. Does your life feel scrambled and confusing and without purpose? Maybe you're looking at it upside down. Maybe you didn't realize that someone has been looking for you over all sorts of battle fronts so you can come back home. You can tonight if you place your trust in Jesus Christ. It will mean a death, a little death, lots of little deaths along the way, but you will move into a richness and a wonder that you will never experience otherwise. Guys, the church should be and is a place that's different, not because we read a bunch of rules or it's part of our mission statement or it's because it's politically correct, but because our Captain Jesus Christ never calls us in to do something that He hasn't done Himself. Guys, we won't be a place that's different until we realize this, that in every moment of every day of the Christian life is an opportunity to get over yourself and get underneath God. May you experience the richness of that paradox this week. May He reveal that to you through His Holy Spirit. It won't come without your decision to do so. Let's pray about it now, shall we? Heavenly Father, let's pray that these words tonight, they are hard hitting from your word. I just pray that we don't feel a sense, Father of shame or of guilt, but we do, Father, come to this moment tonight to that place of conviction. Father, I'll be the first one to put my hand up to say there have been moments, many moments in my Christian walk, which I've sought my own preferences in this place and in this community. But Father, we take your word seriously and tonight we believe that we sit at a junction point in which the antidote for community killers is constantly being generated from each and every one of our individual decisions tonight to be ever aware as we walk into this week and as we walk into conversations after the services and we walk into our groups to deliberately live by that principle of not my life for me, but my life for yours. And so it's in faith that we step out tonight, Father, it's in faith that we do this tonight, Father, it's in faith that we die to these things in our life. That we believe, Father, we're going to see fruit bursting out of this place like we have never seen before, because we've come back to your word, we've come back to its simplicity and we've endured some of the pains and the ups and downs of its application as we walk into its great paradox and the wonder and the comfort and the fit that is your life for us. Be with us this week. Be with us for the rest of this year, Father, as we're a community that seeks to live this out. And we pray this now in Jesus' name. Amen.