Northside Church - Sydney
Elemental – Week 1: Faith
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Sam has chosen a great series for January and he's back next week to continue. It's simply called Elemental Core Components of Life in the New Year. In the morning congregation I've started a series entitled "Brand New Year", same old you. Do you want to be the same in the coming new year? And as it turns out, knowing that he'd be away this week, we've both chosen the theme of faith and trust as being core requirements for our movement into this new year. Are you wanting to deepen to increase the level of your trust in God, of your faith in God? Would you, would that be something that would enrich your life, that would take you to a new level of discipleship? You know it would. I know it would. So that's our theme for tonight, increasing our levels of faith and trust in God and reaping the benefits thereof. Let's join together in prayer as we commit this message to the Lord. Father God, we're going to need the guidance of your Holy Spirit and His leadership to take us into the pathways you want us to explore tonight. Lord, in these remaining moments of the service tonight, may each of us get a fresh understanding of what it means to really put our faith and our trust in you. And if that's been an issue for any of us, if that's been a little problem in recent times that we've been lacking in faith, lacking in trust, Lord, will you please restore us to the rightful position of being totally sold out to you in the knowledge that that's where you want us to be? And that's where we need to be as disciples of the living Christ. And it's in His name that we pray. Amen. This was pretty chilling television. I watched a Karen Affair show sometime last year and they were illustrating how easy it is to lure children into the clutches of strangers. They had some concealed cameras and they'd assemble the parents together. Parents who'd said, "Oh yes, we've told our kids about danger stranger. We think these kids will come through." And it was really frightening just to see that some professional actors, kind of luring these kids, and it was anything from, "Would you like to come to my car and pet my puppy? I've got a little puppy over here." And the kids just sort of going across and somebody rolling up and saying, "Look, I know your mum and she's asked me to come and take you inside to meet her." And it was just really hard to watch, to think that this is such a problem area in our society and just the ease with which kids could be lured in that way. And of course, we know why. We know why that is the case because children are so trusting. It's one of the beautiful characteristics of that stage of our development. Kids, when we're kids, which is so trusting, we see the world is so perfect and so ideal. And of course, as we get older, our inclination to be so trusting, changes as we experience more and more of life, of course. And these chains are both necessary and desirable for our own protection. We come to realize there are people out there who will hurt us, people we cannot trust, people who don't have our best interests at heart. And we learn those sort of things, those sort of lessons through bitter experience. And provided you can avoid becoming jaded or cynical, which is the last place any one of us want to be or need to be, provided you can avoid that. A sort of a healthy level of distrust or at least a healthy level of awareness is both helpful and desirable to protect us against some of the real hurts and disappointments. But here's the thing. Here's the thing I want to tackle tonight. For many of us, our tendency to become less trusting in the broader areas of life, less naive if you like. This is also reflected in our tendency to be less trusting when it comes to God. Or should I say, there's less of an inclination to put our trust in God. And that seems to be the case with many of us as we move into our adult years. And that's a really sad thing. That's a very sad thing because when you really think about it, our trust in God should increase as we move deeper and deeper into life and into spiritual maturity. Because a number of reasons. Life becomes more fragile for a start. Problems become more serious. Relationships become more complex. I mean, there's a world of difference between a little girl in kindergarten saying, Oh, Ben won't give me back my pencil case. And later in life, that same girl saying, Ben doesn't talk to me anymore. Ben doesn't respect me anymore. Ben tells me he doesn't love me anymore. And he's going to leave me and the children. I mean, you just can't compare those two conversations. Life just becomes so much more complex. The issues we have to deal with in life in our adult years can be extremely difficult, very heart-rending. So you'd think we'd be more inclined, not less inclined, to put our trust in God as a source of our strength as the provider of our peace in those difficult times. But that's not always the case, is it? We struggle at times to put our trust in God believing we have the ability to sort it all out. Or at least we should have the ability to do that, to solve our problems and to meet our own needs. Meanwhile, the clear message of the Christian faith is we need to trust God more. We should trust God more. That's what comes through from preachers, from teachers, from connection group leaders, through Christian books and Christian DVDs. That's the message. You've got to trust God more. You need to trust God more. But you know, it's one thing to say we need to trust God more, but there's a prior question. And the prior question is why? Why trust God more? Now, guys, I happen to believe, and it's a foundational component to this message tonight, I happen to believe that we would be more inclined to trust God if we were more cognizant, more aware of the need to trust Him. And before we go any further, I want to give you three quick reasons as to why we should be trusting God more. Number one, God asks for it. That's pretty basic, but that's the truth. God asks for it like any loving parent, so our heavenly Father delights in seeing His children respond to Him through faith and trust. He just loves it. And why is that because will it deepens a relationship? It strengthens the bond. Those of you who are parents, or who would love to be parents, or who are aunties and uncles, anybody who has contact with children, grandparents, you know how important it is that the kids in your life have total trust in you. It's crucial. And you also know, if you're experienced in this area, what an absolute thrill it is when you get expressions of trust placed in you as a parent, as a grandparent, as an auntie, or an uncle. I mentioned my little granddaughter, Cadence, last Sunday night. And just in passing, I said that when I rolled up recently at Adelaide Airport on Boxing Day, that she raced straight past me. And I was a little bit perturbed. And she said, I said, "Is that any kind of welcome for grandpa?" She said, "Grandpa, we've got to have a run up." Now, we always have a run up at home when I meet her at home, but I didn't realise we had to transfer that to the airport as well. But that's the way she wanted to do it. So she goes, miles up the pathway, comes roaring at me, and she's five years of age. She is getting taller. She is getting stronger. She launches herself into one of these run-ups with the power and the velocity of a satyr and rocket. That is no exaggeration. Like, she just holds herself, right? And I'm expected to do that. Hey, whoa. Now, I mean, she thinks I'm invincible. And there was a time when I may have been, but no longer. But I mean, what kind of stunt would it be? What kind of grandfather would I be if, right at the crucial moment, I said, "Whoa, that is a surprise for you." I mean, you can do permanent damage. That shark could be irreparably damaged psychologically and mentally if you'd pull a stunt like that. She has got to know that when she throws herself at grandpa, there's no way in the world. And then he else, other than a great big hug, total security, that's going to take place. See, parent, that's see God loves that. I mean, God is a father. He's a heavenly father, but he loves that level of trust. The best known Bible reference to trusting in God is Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding in all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your past. Now, that's the best known, but there are many others. Let me give you a few and you might want to look these up at another time as well. Psalm 37, verses 4 to 6. Listen to this. Seek your happiness in the Lord and He will give you your heart's desire. Give yourself to the Lord. Trust in Him and He will help you. Can't make it any care of the mat. He will make your righteousness shine like the midday sun. What about Isaiah 26, verse 3? "You Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you." And then Isaiah 57, verse 13, listen to this. This is God in a sort of a sarcastic way, almost addressing the people through Isaiah and He says, "When you cry for help, let those idols of your save you. A puff of wind will carry them off, but those who trust in me will live in the land and will worship me in my temple." Guys, God asks for our trust. That's number one. Secondly, we're at our best. We are at our best when we put our trust in God. Not until we reach the point where we're prepared to push beyond our own ability to manage our life, not until we're ready to push beyond that, will we ever fully discover our potential, our capacity as children of the living God. Particularly, this relates to areas like service, leadership, generosity. Some of you know what it's like to really push in that area. And you just stepped out in trust and say, "Well, God, we're going to commit to this and we're going to have to work out because things are tight, but we're just going to commit and that North side history has been littered with that sort of faith, expressions of faith and trust." When it comes to sacrifice, persistence, leadership, you never know your full capacity until you're prepared to go beyond what you're comfortable with and leave the rest in God's hands. And look at the scores of Bible characters who only really discovered their capacity, their potential. When they got to a point where they said, "Okay, Lord, I can't see how this is going to work out, but I'm prepared to put my trust in you in the belief that you will deliver." I mean, how many people express trust in that way, like Moses, Abraham, Ruth, David, Esther, Paul, Peter, the Bible is full of these people who only really aspire to their full potential when they stepped across the line and said, "This is out of my control, God. I'm leading it to you. I'm trusting in you." I think back on my life and I'm sure you can think back on your lives, those defining moments, those pivotal points, when from a human standpoint, you had all sorts of hesitations and misgivings. You just couldn't see how it's going to work out. God calling you into something. You're taking a certain opportunity. You're stepping up into a certain leadership or service role. You couldn't see how it's going to work out. You're taking on a new job. You're moving to a new center, a new city. But you put your trust in God and said, "Well, God, you've called. You better work it out." I trust that you can. Looking back, you can see how it all worked out. For me, it's very easy to think of the moment and all the surrounding events that made up my call to the ministry. That was so... That call of God was so... alien to how I thought my life was going to go. I'd been raising the church. I'd been a Christian since I was 15 and believing God right from the start. But I was certain my life was mapped out in a certain direction. You see, from a very early age, late primary school, all through high school, my hero was my dad. I would, some mornings, literally watch him go out of the house and go off to work, and that's what I wanted to do. My dad was a very successful businessman. He would go off in an immaculate suit, beautiful briefcase, beautiful white shirt, love these ties, go to a company car, drive off. That's what I wanted to do. That was the only thing I wanted to do. It may seem strange to some of you, but that was my goal in life. I responded to an advertisement when I left high school in Perth. I wish I'd kept the advertisement because the actual wording was, "We want to hear from young men and women who want a career in commerce." It was the only thing I saw on that page. I responded to that ad. It was with BP Australia. I started with it in Perth. They took me to Brisbane, to Melbourne. I was on my way to becoming an oil company executive. I was going to be in the spirit business. I turned out to be in another form of spirit business. It was a motor spirit to start off and then the Holy Spirit business, but when you had a mindset like that, that's what I really, really wanted to do. Then when God put his hand on my life in my early 20s and said, "Gram, any leadership gifts I may have given you, I don't want you to use those in corporate Australia. I want you to use those in my church." That was a huge paradigm shift and I was very resistant to start off with. I couldn't imagine how serving in the church could be anywhere near as exciting as serving in corporate Australia. I just couldn't imagine that. It hasn't got been gracious because there's only a handful of churches in Australia that combine a church and a conference center and have lots of business people in them. God's been so great in that this is just the perfect setting, I guess, in that sense for me with those earlier aspirations. It was a huge step of trust and I can remember even signing the application forms for the College of the Bible in Melbourne thinking, "Well, God, if we're going to pull this off, man, four years of full-time study, four years out of the workforce, hello, just married a wife, all the rest, just lots of doubts, but God was faithful." Look, I've said this before from the platform here and I know this doesn't apply to some of you and I really feel for those for him it doesn't apply. But when you are doing something, you know you are destined to do. You can push through anything. You can push through anything. 1976, I graduated. That this year will be 34 years since graduation plus four years of student ministry and when you know this is what you are destined to do, you can push through anything and praise God. My testimony is I've been able to push through many barriers over the years, many things that otherwise if I didn't really believe I was called to do this, I might have flinched and it might have been a bit too much. So why trust God? Well, he asks for it. We're at our best and he's the thing. He's at his best. He is at his best when we trust him. God does his best work through individuals and churches who trust him to act, who believe he has the power to achieve the miraculous, who are confident that the one who begins a good work will bring it to pass according to Philippians 1, 6. Our God consistently does great things through groups and individuals who allow his spirit to move freely, not restricted, but inhibited. But to move freely at achieve his purposes, whereas very little of kingdom significance happens in settings where his spirit is inhibited, restricted, quenched where faith and trust might be just words on a worship banner on the platform or words that appear in a fairly dull and lifeless service. Not a lot happens for kingdom, of kingdom significance in those settings where faith and trust are just words and not part of the DNA of the church, not being lived out in the lives of the people. But of course, and we've got to get to the crunch point here, whenever Christians talk about the need to trust in God invariably there's a big elephant in the room which nobody's prepared to acknowledge nobody's prepared to talk about. And that big elephant is in the form of a question. And the question is this, what about when we put our trust in God and we pray a little hearts out and nothing appears to happen? At least nothing that fits in with our plans. Nothing that turns out the way we'd like to see things turn out. What about those times? And guys, I've got to tell you, in my years of pastoral ministry, this would be the number one reason why people drop short of putting their trust in God and why in many cases people leave the church. It's because of apparent lack of response on the part of our Heavenly Father. We've got to deal with this. This is a big one. I've said from this platform many times that one essential requirement needed to move into spiritual maturity, you can stay in spiritual immaturity for your whole life. But if you really want to move into spiritual maturity and tackle the big issues head on, you need to develop a healthy theology of suffering. It's absolutely fundamental. As Christians we must be able to reconcile our belief on the one hand, our trust in a loving, gracious, merciful, miracle-working God. We have to hold that intention with the reality that this side of heaven we are surrounded at any one time by disappointment, by injustice, by hurt, by pain, by disease. It's a reality. You've got to be able to hold those two in tension from a mature faith perspective. There are no easy answers here. This is the lifelong quest of the disciple. It's the lifelong quest. Nobody gets this 100% right this side of heaven. This is a lifelong quest. Among other things, this quest involves seeing, suffering, not as an inhibition to our faith, not as an impediment to our faith, but as fuel for our faith. That's a huge step. Abraham Wright was a Puritan pastor back in the 1600s, a man who'd suffered a lot. On one occasion, this is what he wrote. Look at this. This is powerful. "I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty, strengthened by my witness." You'd have to really know what real feeling and suffering was to be able to write that sort of thing. Of course, in the first century, Paul put it this way in Romans 5 and verses 3 to 5, listen to this. He says, "We also boast of our troubles because we know that trouble produces endurance. Endurance brings God's approval and his approval creates hope. This hope does not disappoint us. For God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit who is God's gift to us." Guys, I know when you're really up against it, when you're facing major setbacks and disappointments, when there are health challenges, when there are financial difficulties, relationship problems, difficulties at work, and things just aren't falling into place. I know that when that's the case for you and for me, no amount of words makes any difference. You can hear a sermon, you can hear a reading, you can watch a video or DVD in it. If you're not in the right place to receive what God wants to give to you, if you're shutting him off, no amount of words makes any difference. What I want to do tonight, it's just really hard to hang on, would you agree? It's just really hard. That's exactly what we need to do. With a new year upon us, it's a great opportunity to prayerfully make that choice, to keep hanging on, to keep trusting no matter what. It's a brand new year. It need not be the same old you. They should move into 2011. And lovingly as I can, I want to urge all of us to increasingly put our trust in God and believe that ultimately his plan and purpose will prevail. Now, I've got a final word for you tonight, which has been a great help to me in this area. And if it can be of help to you, then praise God, our time together will have been very worthwhile. With my trust levels have waned somewhat. Look at this. Take this on board. If you can't trace the hand of God, trust the heart of God. We'll say that again, if you can't trace the hand of God, at least trust the heart of God. Let's be honest, it's not always easy to see God's hand in situations of suffering and injustice and pain and hurt. It's just a reality. It's just not sort of, it's that spiritual immaturity that sort of just, you know, attributes everything, even the most horrific things to, oh, well, I guess that's just what God desires to happen. That's, it's just not going to cut it with thinking people. If you can't trace the hand of God, trust the heart of God. And of course, when we need to remind ourselves of the heart of God, the nature of God, and that is seen, his heart, his nature is seen most vividly in the one whose birth we've just celebrated, the one who sat with those who were suffering, the one who prayed for the powerless, the one who restored the broken hearted, the one who wept with the grieving, even our Lord Jesus Christ. That's where we see the heart of God. That's where we see the nature of God. If you can't trace the hand of God, trust the heart of God. Romans 8 is, for a lot of Christians, their favorite chapter in all of the Bible, and there are many reasons for that. It happens to be one of my favorites, if not my favorite chapter. I think it's because it contains verses like these. Look at this, Romans 8.24. If we see what we hope for, then it is not really hope. For who of us hopes for something we see, but if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. In the same way, I love this, the Spirit comes to help us weak as we are, for we do not know how we ought to pray. Anybody identify that tonight? Sometimes it is some situations where you just don't know how to pray. But the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans, which words cannot express. And God who sees in our hearts knows what the thought of the Spirit is, because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will. Guys, Jesus, there's the heart of God. Jesus is the one who gets alongside. His one is there to encourage and nurture and to weep when we weep and to suffer when we suffer. But he's the one who's promised that ultimately we will have the victory. Everything will ever take us from his love. He will never leave us or forsake us. Listen, you do a run up with God, the heavenly Father. He's not going to step away. I mean, if we can do that as ordinary parents and grandparents, there is no way in the world that a heavenly father is going to do that. He's never going to step away from the run up. I couldn't think of anything better in this year of 2011 than for you and me to get a whole new perspective on what it means to trust God. And just do the run up and leap in his arms. I know some of you are facing some very tough situations, some real painful situations, because I've walked with some of you partially in this last year. And I've got no easy answers tonight. I don't know how it's going to work out for you. But I do know this, but the alternative to not trusting in God is just not worth thinking about. I remember years ago, back in my last church, a really sad thing happened one night. A young 22-year-old guy was killed in a bike accident in the suburb of McGill. He was the son of one of our really prominent members, a doctor, who was just a real saintly man of God. And this doctor had served in India for many of his early years when some of his colleagues were getting some of the plum jobs in some of Australia's hospitals. He'd chosen to go to India. And he had also chosen here in Australia to be a flying doctor for a number of years, based in Alice Springs. You get even a picture. He's a great man of God, a real humanitarian. And you can imagine how we all felt when he's one and only son, John, was killed on a wet road late one night coming home from a friend's place on a bike. And I was just a young pastor in those days, and I noticed on the roster that Dr Crowley's term was coming up for communion, to lead communion in the morning service. I remember calling him just a couple of weeks after the funeral, and I said, "Dr Crowley, I notice you're on duty in a couple of weeks. You haven't said anything, would you like us to make alternative arrangements for you on that day believing it'll be very tough for him to do that." He simply replied in his characteristic, "Quite manner. No, that'll be fine, Graham. That'll be fine." I didn't know what to expect. He did not make one reference to the death of his son in that brief communion talk. All he said was something along these lines. Life is tough, and sometimes things happen that we don't have any explanation for, and we're faced with a choice. "By the way, trust God for the future, or we don't." It's not much in between. He said, "I and my wife have chosen quite deliberately, quite consciously, we will trust God for the rest of our lives." No questions asked. And then he talked about the love that God had expressed through Jesus' sacrifice and communion. It was one of those moving communions I'd ever been through. Simple, short, but a great testimony. And that's what we're talking about tonight, you know? Just do the run-up. Embrace God. His embrace will get a hold of you. And you take that into 2011, and something of his plan and purpose will unfold for you. It may be different to what you expect. It was different for me. But then you look back. Wow. Thank you, God. I'm glad I made that jump. It's a bad prayer. Well, Heavenly Father, we thank you for the different stories represented here tonight. Some people who are new to the faith, some people who are very experienced in the faith, some young, some old, Lord, we're all united in one thing. We all find it difficult at times to trust you as we ought. You've asked us to. Deep down we know we're at our best when we do. You certainly are at your best when you're given the chance to flow freely by the power of your spirit through individual lives and through churches achieving your amazing plans and purposes. And so, Lord, will you give us the faith and courage to do the run-up, the trust run-up this year and throw ourselves at you in the belief that you will hold us. Nothing will take us from your love. You expect us to think and to exercise due diligence and to use the brain you've given us. You expect us to do our part. But there are some things, Lord, which are beyond us if we're to reach our full potential. And they're the areas where we're going to need all the faith and trust we can muster. We'll need the power of your spirit to achieve it. We claim that right now through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.