Northside Church - Sydney
HIStory Week 5: Jesus: The Wiki-Leak
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Do we have any older brothers or sisters in the house tonight? We've got a few out there, good to see. Question for you, moment of honesty. Did you ever, when you were a kid, try and sneak a peek at your little brothers or sisters journal? No? This could sound really weird, I could sound like a real weirdo because it was my mission as an older brother to somehow gain access to my little sister's journal so much that she even had some care bears type journal or something with a lock on it and I managed to pick it with a sort of a pin, yeah, yeah, I was mission impossible. What is it about our nature, or maybe just my nature, that finds ourselves so true and do that? Because look, whether it's journals there, look, one guy took it to a whole nother level in 2006, this guy called Julian Assange and he liked to go sneak peeking around the journals of the various government agencies around the world and he launched all of the sorted details on a website called Wikileaks. And if you haven't heard about Wikileaks, it's led by this famous Australian, he and his organization again to access to 1.2 million secret government documents, secret company documents and they published it on the internet and it's accessible right now to everyday people like you and I. Some of this widespread public revelation, one of the most secretive government information revelations in modern history and over the past five weeks we have been looking at perhaps the greatest question anyone could ever ask in their life, who is Jesus Christ? And we have seen through John's prologue, that's John chapter 1 verses 1 to 18, that he's the reason for life, that he's the one true light that has broken into the darkness, that he's the ultimate lifeguard, that he's the one true God personified and it's all been centered around this one key doctrine called the incarnation. Now, when I say the word doctrine in church, I can see some of your eyelids already starting to just fade a little bit and you're thinking, why have we got to talk about doctrine? It's boring, it's dusty and yet the incarnation is like the Rosetta stone of your life. If you don't know what the Rosetta stone is, it's this incredible shield, I think they call it like a document that was discovered in ancient antiquity and it had the same passage of writing in both hieroglyphics and ancient Greek and as a result, the Rosetta stone they were able for the first time in history to translate all of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics from one stone. Anything else like it in the world, there's nothing like the incarnation to translate and unlock the great mystery and the meaning of your life through all the great scriptures of the Bible. Tonight we'll discover, yes, he's been a lifeguard, an ultimate lifeguard and the one true God will discover that Jesus is the ultimate wiki leak, that the degree of Jesus' revelation makes Julian Assange's wiki leaks look like he released a photocopy of his sister's childhood journal. That's pretty much how big Jesus' revelation was and how is he the ultimate wiki leak, it's because Jesus, when we look at this passage tonight, we'll see that he was on the inside and yet went public so that we could be in the know. So keep that in the back of your minds, we're going to read from John's gospel, it's all in here, trust me, it is. First 16 onwards in John's gospel chapter 1. In the fullness of his grace, we've received one blessing after another, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God, the one and only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. Short passage tonight, but what we see first and foremost is that Jesus was on the inside and I keep wondering why I hold all the wiki leak stuff for so sensational, I mean 1.2 million documents, doesn't seem to float my boat over morning reading through all that sort of stuff. And I'm thinking why does this such a been who hard about this wiki leak stuff? And I figure the answer is probably why we love all those action movies, right? James Bond and Mission Impossible and the Born Identity, they've all got something in common and that is that they all involve some grand and elaborate plan to uncover secret information. And what I find funny is like why is it that most of us are prepared to sit for two hours watching some guy chasing after a piece of paper, it's because it's because there's something deep within us that desires to be on the inside. We want to feel like we're on the inside, we want to feel like we're in the know, right? We've got the secret information, that's why we love wiki leaks. And it's not just in knowledge and that sort of stuff, socially it's the same principle. What do you think rejection is one of the greatest pains that a human can feel? Because we're not on the inside. And often like Julian Assange, we'll go to great lengths to get ourselves on the inside. Take me, for example, as a 14-year-old boy, I heard that my favorite jazz band, Directions in Groove, were playing at the basement. And talk about Mission Impossible, particularly me with my baby face, trying to get a 14-year-old into a club that is over 18. And look, I don't recommend this, we've got any youth in the room tonight, don't do this. But I was desperate to get on the inside. And so as a result, I got my sisters' eyeliner pen and started to make little scribbles like a little beard on my face to try and get into the basement. And so I went in trying it off down the circular key and up there, probably still this height. And I get up to the basement there with these scribbles and the bouncer takes one look at me and you can see him trying not to laugh and he's like, "You can't come in. You can't come in, big fella." Because stupid as it sounds, come on, we're all drawing fake beards on our lives with mascara pens, right? How we talk, restaurants we want to eat at, clothes we wear, careers we're proud of. We're all doing that because we think somehow it's going to get us on the inside. And it's one thing to gain access to a nightclub, I'm still having to draw mascara stuff on my face. But it's one thing to gain access into a nightclub, into a journal, into local government secrets, even into the great secrets that Wikileaks hacked into. But the greater problem for the human race is how do you gain access to God? How do you gain access to the one who's in the ultimate load? No. How do you gain access to see how he thinks, how he's going to operate? If ever there was a person labeled top secret, he'd be it right. And whether it's God or government or James Bond or the basement in circular keen Sydney, here's the thing you'll always be on the outside unless you know someone on the inside. We want to know the inside information, but we can't and yet in this passage when it comes to God, John says there is someone who's on the inside. Verse 18, it says, "No one has ever seen God, but God, the one and only," he's talking about Jesus there, who is at the Father's side. Jesus was the great insider. Jesus was the great insider and yet we see from that he then goes public. He was a great insider, he goes public. What, look, and I was saying, what makes Wikileaks so sensational? I think it's because for the first time people were reading information that they never dreamed accessible. I was getting myself into all sorts of government documents this week as I was doing sermon research. I hope the church doesn't get busted for my internet surfing, but when they got into that, the stuff, this is the stuff that James Bond movies were made of, secret government cables and secret communications between prime ministers and foreign ministers and it was proof, mainly for the conspiracy theorists, how they think the governments are these oppressive agencies, these so-called governments of free nations, they're saying, right, they're now in fact oppressive and secretive and controlling and see, I told you they're manipulative. They see the ways that these governments are controlling things and think about it, think about your family and friends, wouldn't you agree that those that don't know God sometimes see him in the same vein? They see him as this guy that's oppressive and secretive and authoritative and controlling and secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes, right? They sort of see him as this movie director that's barking out orders from above and just allowing life to play itself out. It's like that movie The Truman Show, you ever seen The Truman Show? And Burbank is born into this giant man-made dome, which from the very beginning of his life, all the actors are in on this secret that they're pretty much just controlling his entire life as the rest of the outside world looks on. And then one day as Truman's growing up, a light, a literal light, like one of the ones we've got here, falls from this great dome in front of him and almost kills him and as it was so totally out of place, Truman begins to think for the first time in his life that maybe this world isn't all there is to be around him. And it bursts in him this desire, this insatiable drive to go exploring to the outer edges. He's convinced that there is a world greater than where he lives. I think sometimes as we look back on that movie and see the way that Truman's life was controlled by Kristoff, the great movie director who sat up in the room with all the screens and coordinated all the actors and told them where to go and tried to keep the secrets from Truman about this world outside. I think some of us can think that God is like that. This director that's trying to just keep the secrets in and yet verse 18 says no one has ever known God, but Jesus has made him known. John says we saw his glory. We saw him. You see what Jesus is doing here? Jesus is the literal light that's fallen down from the sky. Jesus is the one that ignites and asks the same passion that Truman had. Same passion that says, hang on, this is not all there is to be around here. There's something greater. There's got to be another world outside of this. There's too many funny things going on to put it another way. Jesus is the ultimate wickly leak. He takes the most secretive insider secrets of God, the father, and he takes them public. Why? It's Patrick Henry, one of the founding fathers of the United States puts it, he says, the liberties of people, the freedoms of people never were, nor ever will be secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. Then Jesus we read in John 1515, he says, I no longer call you servants because a servant doesn't know their master's business. Instead, I've called you friends for everything that I have learned from my father I have made known to you. God's not a ruler that's concealing his transactions. God's not a ruler that's trying to keep his secrets because when John says God the one and only who's at the father's side has made him known, he's saying for you and I the transactions of the ultimate ruler have been openly disclosed. He's not trying to hide anything. God's not a cruel producer like Christoph that's leaving our appetites for another world unsatisfied. God came into the dome, so to speak, and he calls us friends, and if our greatest problem is getting the information, getting the insider information, then God in going public gave the world the opportunity to access information people never dreamed of. What would God do in this situation? How would God handle criticism when I'm up against it? How does God handle pain and suffering in life? What would he know about all of that? We see that in the person of Jesus Christ, he says, "Just look at Jesus." I think Julian Assange did something special. Jesus is the ultimate wiki leak, he was on the inside and he took God public and I guess a final question for us tonight is why? Why do you take him public? It was so you could be in the know. What I really feel for Julian Assange is, let's be honest here, is anyone ever looked up wiki leaks? We've got one, thanks, Steve. No Julian as well. All right, let's get some goss a bit later on. You see, the irony of the wiki leaks is a room full of couple hundred people and one person, well two of us now, have actually read the information that has gone there. You see, why haven't people gotten into it? This is top secret stuff. This is the stuff that James Bond's made of. Come on, we should be getting into this. I believe that we haven't looked at it because the revelation of information is only helpful to the degree that you understand its significance. For most of us, we go, 1.2 million documents, it's cool, but how's that going to help me live in my life? It's like teenagers when you try and tell them all this sort of information, try and tell them all sorts of stuff that's going to help them grow up, get a good job, whatever. They just don't get the degree of the significance of what you're talking about. When you take time to reflect deeply on what the incarnation means for you tonight, you can go one of two ways. You can either go, "This stuff is so heavy and so lofty," I forget it, I'm not reading about it, or you might go, "Yeah, I'm a little confused, it sounds crazy that God became a man, but I'm going to find out the wonder and the amazement of what that really means when I look at Jesus Christ." Even if we comprehend this great truth, we're still left asking why? Why would God go to all these lengths to span the universe, to fall into our funny little dome here on Earth? It's because God wanted to be known. God wanted to be known. And knowledge of God is something that's so significant in the Bible. In fact, Jesus only gives a definition of eternal life once in all of the Gospels, and it's in John chapter 17 verse 3, he says, "This is eternal life to know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent." Knowledge of God was an important thing, and it wasn't just headspace knowledge. When you learn your Bible, like the times tables at the back of the toilet door, and you understand all your Bible passages, and you can say, "John 3, 16," it's not that sort of headspace understanding of God, whether Hebrews, when they talked of knowledge, always meant understanding plus experience. And so what it means for us is that to know God is to be in a dynamic, interactive relationship with him, and here's why. Because we learned last week that God's a person, and if God's a person, then it means you can know him and relate to him in the same way that you know any other person. How do you know another person, other than being their friend on Facebook, you interact with them, you go and talk to them, and their presence bears down on you, and it has an influence on you, and you can sense them in the room with you, and God works the same way. And so what does it mean to experience God in that way? Look, the experience of the presence of the glory of God, and that is what John is talking about, it's not sort of some electric shock or a fuzzy, warm feeling, gives you goosebumps. But when we see it throughout the Bible, it's always a communication of his character who he is. You know, guys, I know Christians, you know what that means, it's when you're praying and you're reading and you're walking down the street, you know, you just sense that you're not alone, that someone is with you, that these truths pop out of the page to you, that God himself through his spirit is revealing who he is to you, and so you grow deeper in that knowledge. See, I don't know about you, but see, the question in people's hearts often when they come to Christianity is, is this going to make me happy? Am I going to be happy if I follow Jesus? And I mean, that's a bit like asking a kid, or if a kid asks, do you think it's hot if you stood next to an atom bomb? The? It's sort of like if an athlete after years of training goes for the gold medal, stands up there on the podium, the medal is around their neck and they walk up to the athlete and say, "Was that fun?" Well, yeah, it's fun, but it's a heck of a lot more than that. Heck of a lot deeper than that. And so in that sense, the glory of God is exactly that. It's something that is so much more. It's not less than fun, but it's so much more. You see, the glory of God is so great that it actually transforms the question. To be asking, "Am I going to be happy?" is not the right question. The secret of happiness is to want to know God more than you want to be happy. Because when you move into those depths and you begin to understand Him, you can either want to be happy as your main goal in life, and for many people never be, or you can want to know God's glory and have everything. And you know what? Half the time, happy gets chucked in. But don't aim for happy as the goal, aim to know Him. God wants to be known, and it also means to be in the know means that you are no longer on the outside. What do you mean, no longer on the outside? If you guys ever ever been to, we've talked this through before, rock concert, I think of it all the time because I used to work for a rock concert venue. And so whenever we would have a big concert, there would be a big sign above the door. I don't know if you've ever seen them, it said no passouts. And pretty much what it meant, because I used to go down to hang out on the gate with the security guys, it would mean that if you were in the concert, you could actually lease it out venue. You weren't allowed to walk out of the concert and then come back in again, because you could just give your ticket to someone else and they could come in and enjoy it and you just keep floating around. And so there was no passouts. So what am I trying to say here? It's the gospel according to ticker tech. You see, when the Bible talks about the way that we were with God in the garden, he should have had a big sign above the top of it saying no passouts. I mean, we were allowed to be at the greatest rock concert there ever was. We were in the garden with God, we knew what it was like to be in relationship with him. But the deal was, if you wanted to walk out of that venue, then there was no coming back in. And what it meant, if there was no passouts, is that basically the only way you were ever going to get back in, if someone on the inside came out and gave you their ticket in exchange. And so the gospel according to ticker tech says, the whole story of the Bible is that we've been waiting outside the door. When we decided to go our own way, we could still hear the great chorus and the music on the inside, but unless someone was willing to take our place on the outside, we could never come in. And at the cross, at the cross, those doors burst open and Jesus Christ said to us in the very act of dying on a hill like that, you can have my ticket. When he was crying out, "Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?" He was saying, "I'll sit on the outside so you can go in." To be in the no means you're no longer on the outside and Jesus the great insider chose to be on the outside so that you could be in the no. He was a great insider. He went public so you could be in the no. Jesus is a great, wicked, the public revelation of God himself. What does it mean for us tonight quickly? It means until you receive that information, you're not truly free. Remember that Patrick Henry was saying that the liberties of the freedoms of people, people never were, never will be secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. Look, it's one thing to disregard 1.2 million documents on the internet right now. I can't half blame you. At the end of the day, we've got to ask what differences are going to make to our lives. But can I ask you tonight if there is a God, if that God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ, if that God has made the most secretive information in the world available to us tonight through his life, wouldn't you at least want to discover a little bit of what he's about? And Patrick Henry here to even not look at it would be denying your own freedom. So, friend, I've got to ask you tonight, if you're one of those people, are you restricting your own freedoms? Have you discovered who Jesus Christ is? Have you decided to read the documents, the story about who he is? It also means if you're a follower of him tonight, it means tonight you can be overwhelmed by his glory. And look, it's something I lament my own life. But sometimes I think we've sentimentalized the presence of God, sort of when we think God, we think tea by the fire, marshmallows. And yet, to talk about seeing the glory of God in a biblical perspective, this was out of the mind for anyone in those days in Judaism, to see the glory of God. The presence of God was suddenly terrible and it was frightening. And just from John's perspective for a minute here, you think after he saw and he tasted the wine that once was the water? And when he was there, when Jesus' friend, Larry, walks out of the tomb after being dead for four days, do you think after seeing that sort of stuff happening that he would write a passage like this and say fully the God, the God that became man and dwelt among us and we have beheld his glory? Do you think it would be that blase? He'd be said, we beheld his glory! We saw it, we tasted the wine, we saw Larry come out of the tomb, we saw this, you've got to understand this, we're underwhelmed by the glory of God. Right? Tea by the fire, marshmallows. A vision of God at work is the most exciting and the most satisfying experience possible and the Bible says one day we'll have a total picture of things, him and it's going to be a joy that's going to infect us in a way that is going to last forever, but he's saying now by faith in a partial way we can come into his presence and we can experience that and we can experience the wonder that John would have felt in 1 Peter 1 verse 80 says though you have not seen him, you love him and even though you do not see him now you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. Do you hear that? You don't see him but you love him. There is something available in Jesus tonight that anyone who takes that in, it's going to change you. I mean like what made the Apostle Paul think that way? This guy got bashed and beaten up and he went through hardships and he says they're just a slight affliction. Slight? Is he joking? But he says these slight afflictions are worth nothing, these present things compared to the glory that will be revealed in us one day. Paul bought the glory of God into his foreground and he saw the rest of life through that. He beheld the glory of God, guys I'm saying to you tonight don't be underwhelmed by the glory of God, don't sentimentalize him, entire life can be filled with a vision of this incredible and almost unfathomable reality that God became a man, present suffering. Nothing. Guys, the past five weeks we've been asking the most important question you could ever ask. Who is Jesus Christ? We've seen that his story, the story of Jesus Christ is one that changed human history. No persons ever been talked about or thought about, written about, made movies about the way that people have written and talked and thought and based their lives and entire nations around the teachings of Jesus Christ. So in this great passage, John chapter 1 verse 18 we've seen that he's the reason that he's a light in the darkness, that he's the lifeguard, that he's God personified, that he's even the great weekly, the ultimate weekly, the ultimate Julian Assange, Jesus is not just the ultimate weekly leak, but he's the true Julian. Jesus lost his freedom for the freedom of information, information that is available to you tonight. It's a God who can be known and it's a God who wants to be known and anyone that calls himself a Christian is just someone that's processing that unfathomable concept of the doctrine of the incarnation that God became human and the person of Jesus became fully God and fully man. What are you going to do with this insider information tonight? Jesus is the great weekly leak, do you know God the good news is that you can through placing your faith and your trust in him, if you haven't, if you don't understand what that means just ask some questions tonight, but if you're a Christian take a peek, just a little peek into your big brother's journal this week, a good thing is it doesn't have care bears on the front and it doesn't even have a lock on it which is really good, but he's a sort of older brother that doesn't mind you reading the deepest insights of his story. It's a God who just wanted to make himself known that that glory and that wonder overtake you this week and as we move into Christmas, may we constantly remember that you can't take the person of Jesus Christ out of Christmas, but the greatest question you could ever ask is who is Jesus and whether you follow him tonight, ask it, whether you are a follower of Jesus Christ, ask it also, let's pray. [BLANK_AUDIO]