1 00:00:00,960 --> 00:00:04,040 Hey, hey, if you don't know me, my name's Chris. 2 00:00:04,280 --> 00:00:08,080 Alice and I are some of the pastors here and great to be 3 00:00:08,080 --> 00:00:10,840 worshipping Jesus together with you this morning. 4 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:13,440 It's moving, isn't it, that I found it moving in that time of 5 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:16,280 worship. Just love worshipping Jesus and 6 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,080 such a good place to be. So Alice is going to be speaking 7 00:00:20,080 --> 00:00:21,160 to us. She's done this series. 8 00:00:21,160 --> 00:00:23,760 She's going through the 10 Commandments this year and this 9 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:27,080 is week, the second one of those, if you want to catch up 10 00:00:27,080 --> 00:00:30,600 with other ones, they're all on our website, Spotify, Apple 11 00:00:31,080 --> 00:00:34,560 Podcasts or wherever. And those things are there. 12 00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:38,880 Let's let's pray, shall we, as we go into the Bible together? 13 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:49,720 No, thank you that we get this opportunity to sit and and learn 14 00:00:49,720 --> 00:00:51,080 from your scriptures, learn from you. 15 00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:58,200 And we just say that we we're hungry, hungry to be fed this 16 00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:00,040 morning. Feed our souls, feed our 17 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:04,680 spirits, train us. We pray, Holy Spirit, that you 18 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:08,320 train us and you recruit us to live life in all its fullness 19 00:01:08,320 --> 00:01:14,000 with Jesus as our Lord, bringing hope and good news to the world 20 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:20,560 around us. So I do that through what Alice 21 00:01:20,560 --> 00:01:22,920 teaches us this morning. Amen. 22 00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:30,640 OK. We are looking at the 10 23 00:01:30,640 --> 00:01:34,320 commandments and we're on Commandment 1 today. 24 00:01:35,120 --> 00:01:36,960 Can anyone remember what that is? 25 00:01:36,960 --> 00:01:43,480 We did a little round the table group work and we all kind of 26 00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:47,600 wrote down and collectively I think we got them just giving 27 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:49,960 being super positive feedback here. 28 00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:57,400 Can anyone remember what the first one is really interesting 29 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:00,000 and a lot of people say love the Lord your gold with all your 30 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,600 heart, soul, mind and strength because Jesus that is in the 31 00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:08,919 first five books of the Bible and Jesus sums up all the 613 32 00:02:08,919 --> 00:02:10,800 laws with love the Lord your gold and love your neighbours 33 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:12,200 yourself. So there's there's nothing wrong 34 00:02:12,200 --> 00:02:14,000 with that. It's not technically the first 35 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:16,520 commandment. Anyone remember the first 36 00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:20,600 commandment? Yeah, that's it. 37 00:02:20,600 --> 00:02:23,360 You shall have no other gods beside me. 38 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:27,680 You shall have no other gods beside me. 39 00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:32,000 Anyone being up a mountain in their life that's been 40 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:34,400 memorable? Want to share with the room, 41 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:42,680 Jane or anyone? Anyone can say a memorable. 42 00:02:42,680 --> 00:02:44,560 Just shout it out because we haven't got long. 43 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:47,960 Snowden. Yes, that's memorable. 44 00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:56,520 Oh, OK, that's yeah, that's always a bit 45 00:03:11,110 --> 00:03:29,360 00. Oh, that's brilliant. 46 00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:31,800 I, I thought it was going to end in the poor visibility. 47 00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:35,560 So I'm really pleased it ended on the mountaintop experience. 48 00:03:35,560 --> 00:03:37,520 That is the right answer. The mountain. 49 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:40,520 Anyone else had a mountaintop experience where it wasn't poor 50 00:03:40,520 --> 00:03:43,240 visibility? Any mountains you want to shout 51 00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:45,160 out? A mountain you've been up? 52 00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:48,480 Sorry. Oh, that sounds, is that New 53 00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:51,840 Zealand? Oh, sounds unpronounceable and 54 00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:54,080 beautiful, so I won't butcher it. 55 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:59,760 Anyone else? Oh, nice. 56 00:04:01,720 --> 00:04:03,840 Oh, yeah. Anyone else? 57 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:05,280 Yeah. Sorry. 58 00:04:06,320 --> 00:04:09,440 Oh, that, that that's yeah, that's good. 59 00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:26,160 Yeah, yeah, that's so good. It's beautiful. 60 00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:28,400 That is more biblical, by the way. 61 00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:31,680 Mountains in the Bible are more like our hills because they how 62 00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:32,960 could they have got up the mountains? 63 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:36,200 We get up now they couldn't. So when you see mountain in the 64 00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:39,880 Bible and city few 100 people, not not millions of people. 65 00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:44,120 Mountain, a nice hill in Malvern maybe, but in the desert more 66 00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:46,480 than England's green and pleasant land. 67 00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:49,080 Yes. Sorry. 68 00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:50,200 Oh, Oh yeah. Oh, God. 69 00:04:50,200 --> 00:04:53,440 Oh, yeah. OK that is really significant as 70 00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:57,760 well, that one because what's at the top of Machu Picchu There's 71 00:04:57,880 --> 00:05:03,240 yeah, yeah. So shout out a few more and 72 00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:05,520 we'll come back to that one. Carmel. 73 00:05:05,640 --> 00:05:12,400 Oh, yes, yeah. That's, yeah, 00. 74 00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:18,000 I mean, that that's we could just stop there, couldn't we? 75 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:19,480 Yeah, That was good. Yeah. 76 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:25,560 But so for the very reason that Machu Picchu has temple, a 77 00:05:25,560 --> 00:05:29,320 temple on the top of it, and all that we've shared is 78 00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:32,520 particularly in the ancient world, people felt mountains 79 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:35,360 were where the gods were and heaven and earth overlapped. 80 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:39,800 So pay attention when you read the scripture for any mountains. 81 00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:43,560 Jesus delivered his sermon on the mountain. 82 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:46,400 So it's a way to live where heaven and earth are one. 83 00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:47,880 You'll see it as soon as you see it. 84 00:05:47,880 --> 00:05:49,520 You see it everywhere. It's a brilliant way of 85 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:53,800 understanding spaces that are closer to God. 86 00:05:54,080 --> 00:06:01,840 And Moses delivers, God delivers the 10 commandments to Moses on 87 00:06:01,840 --> 00:06:05,160 a mountain, which means he's saying I'm going to deliver 88 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:07,520 something that is of heaven and earth space. 89 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:10,840 This is this is going to be your true humanity. 90 00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:14,960 I actually went out my Mount Sinai. 91 00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:18,600 I actually went, we were climbing up the wrong mountain 92 00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:21,680 and we saw tourist camels on the other one and we were like, oh, 93 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:24,840 climb down. Went up the other one really 94 00:06:24,840 --> 00:06:27,440 hot, had no kit because you don't when you're 19, don't 95 00:06:27,440 --> 00:06:29,040 think like that. Went to the top. 96 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:31,160 Some Germans told us off. They said you're going to die of 97 00:06:31,160 --> 00:06:33,320 hypothermia. Luckily they had blankets and 98 00:06:33,320 --> 00:06:35,360 hot chocolate so we didn't die of hypothermia. 99 00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:39,080 Woke up the next day to the most incredible sunrise as we've all 100 00:06:39,080 --> 00:06:41,960 talked about I've ever seen. It was a mystical, heavenly 101 00:06:41,960 --> 00:06:46,280 experience, despite being slightly comic, getting there. 102 00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:54,400 And that those are those are those moments externally that 103 00:06:54,400 --> 00:06:56,600 God wants us to live in perpetually. 104 00:06:56,600 --> 00:07:00,960 Internally, He wants us to live in a perpetual mountaintop 105 00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:05,600 experience in terms of a sense of wonder and awe and beauty at 106 00:07:05,600 --> 00:07:07,560 the world. And I say that within the 107 00:07:07,560 --> 00:07:10,840 context that we live in an evil age and terrible, terrible, 108 00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:15,640 terrible things happen. But I think Jesus is inner life 109 00:07:15,640 --> 00:07:19,120 with the Father was like that, although he was also familiar 110 00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:21,760 with sufferings. So there's a place for us to 111 00:07:21,760 --> 00:07:26,920 inhabit both a perpetual ongoing mountaintop experience as well 112 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:28,560 as being familiar with sufferings. 113 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:36,880 And I think we numb both. We can't bear either, but God 114 00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:41,480 brings this revelation, these 10 commandments, hundreds of 115 00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:44,560 commandments actually, which are summed up in the 10 from a 116 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:47,280 mountain, because he's saying part of how you're going to 117 00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:50,960 experience this mountaintop experience within yourself is by 118 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:54,080 living this way. So he's just delivered them out 119 00:07:54,080 --> 00:07:56,560 of slavery in Egypt. But what's interesting is it 120 00:07:56,560 --> 00:07:58,280 isn't just a political deliverance. 121 00:07:58,280 --> 00:08:00,800 You're oppressed. I'm going to put you in a land 122 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:03,360 where you rule yourself. You're not going to be oppressed 123 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:05,080 by a dominant empire, Egypt anymore. 124 00:08:05,080 --> 00:08:07,040 You're going to be in a land where you rule yourself. 125 00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:09,880 That wasn't enough. They needed an ethical way to 126 00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:12,000 live. They needed a way of life, which 127 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:14,960 suggests the oppression wasn't just external, it was also 128 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:18,040 internal. There was an internal oppression 129 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:20,840 as well as an external oppression that he wanted to 130 00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:24,720 liberate them from both the inside and the outside so they 131 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:28,240 could live in this perpetual sense of a mountaintop 132 00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:32,640 experience. So in the ancient world, you 133 00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:36,840 often get like we learned in Machu Picchu temples or 134 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:39,760 worshipping sites in high places, because that was the 135 00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:43,320 place where where you could sacrifice to the gods and 136 00:08:44,320 --> 00:08:48,880 ancient peoples. Often there's that is the range 137 00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:52,120 that people think Mount Sinai is, is in Mount Sinai. 138 00:08:54,040 --> 00:08:56,880 These are some some of the gods that would have been worshipped 139 00:08:56,920 --> 00:08:59,520 in Canaan. But this is this is pretty 140 00:08:59,520 --> 00:09:02,200 common practise. They basically worshipped for 141 00:09:02,200 --> 00:09:04,680 provision, protection and a sense of identity. 142 00:09:04,680 --> 00:09:08,760 So you had your local tribal God and you sacrificed to them to 143 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:12,640 get what you wanted from them. The relationship was extremely 144 00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:15,720 variable. The gods were very fickle and 145 00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:18,680 you were very vulnerable to the natural elements of the world. 146 00:09:18,800 --> 00:09:21,120 Literally you could live or die on the harvest. 147 00:09:21,120 --> 00:09:24,800 So you needed to sacrifice to the gods of weather and 148 00:09:24,800 --> 00:09:28,200 fertility and farming and so on to make sure you could live 149 00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:31,240 another year. So this is a kind of survival 150 00:09:31,240 --> 00:09:33,360 mode. A lot of the, the ancient 151 00:09:33,640 --> 00:09:36,720 worships were really literally about getting through the day or 152 00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:39,000 the week or the month of the year, not being subject to 153 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:41,480 sickness, death, disease, famine. 154 00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:44,680 And the gods were fickle. You never knew if you'd done the 155 00:09:44,680 --> 00:09:47,120 right things for them. You'd pleased them in the right 156 00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:51,080 kind of way. And, and so you were always kind 157 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:55,640 of on tender hooks and you, they developed practises and ways to 158 00:09:55,640 --> 00:09:58,400 try and appease the gods, which kind of made sense to to the 159 00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:01,600 people at the time in order to get them to kind of basically 160 00:10:01,600 --> 00:10:03,880 keep you alive. And these are the Canaanite 161 00:10:03,880 --> 00:10:05,360 gods. They were no different. 162 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:08,280 So there were actual physical statues that represented the 163 00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:10,440 God. And in a temple, you would have 164 00:10:10,440 --> 00:10:12,920 a statue. That statue wasn't the God, but 165 00:10:12,920 --> 00:10:16,400 it represented the gods he sacrificed to that statue. 166 00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:19,520 Sex with male and female temple prostitutes. 167 00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:22,960 I use the word I prefer the word sex worker normally, but to to 168 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:25,600 clarify this is different from the sex industry, temple 169 00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:27,400 prostitution. That's why I'm using that word. 170 00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:30,120 I wouldn't ever recommend anyone uses the word prostitute 171 00:10:30,120 --> 00:10:32,000 normally. It's completely inappropriate. 172 00:10:32,360 --> 00:10:35,280 But for to understand what I'm trying to say in terms of the 173 00:10:35,280 --> 00:10:39,880 ancient world, the sacrificial system was facilitated by male 174 00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:43,000 and female temple prostitutes and child sacrifice were among 175 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:45,120 the worshipping practises in Canaanite religion. 176 00:10:45,400 --> 00:10:49,280 In order to ensure that the wet season represented by the God 177 00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:53,200 bar who you will come across in your in the Bible won in the 178 00:10:53,200 --> 00:10:56,360 yearly battle against the dry season, April to October, who 179 00:10:56,360 --> 00:10:59,760 was represented by this God mocked Mote who you won't come 180 00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:03,560 across in the Bible, but you will come across in in ancient 181 00:11:03,560 --> 00:11:06,640 Near Eastern like religious sources. 182 00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:10,040 So there's an Old Testament scholar Laurence Boat here. 183 00:11:10,040 --> 00:11:12,920 He says their religion pictured the gods as little more than the 184 00:11:12,920 --> 00:11:16,800 personified power of the storm, the drought, the growing crops, 185 00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:20,080 sexual facility and the like. It is the task of human religion 186 00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:22,880 to win the favour of the gods and bring a favourable blessing 187 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:24,760 and order on our creative presence. 188 00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:28,840 For civilisation to survive, it is absolutely essential that 189 00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:41,600 Baal triumphs in the end. So when Yahweh says to ancient 190 00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:44,200 Israel, they've come out of Egypt, which had a pantheon of 191 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:46,800 gods, they were about to go into Canaan that had another pantheon 192 00:11:46,800 --> 00:11:48,920 of gods. You shall have no other gods 193 00:11:48,920 --> 00:11:51,880 before me. This would have been thoroughly 194 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,360 disruptive at every level of human experience, how families 195 00:11:56,360 --> 00:12:00,120 were built, how societies were built, how, how you, you 196 00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:04,120 understood your own life, how you stood your, your communal 197 00:12:04,120 --> 00:12:07,120 life, everything would have been thoroughly disrupted. 198 00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:09,840 This was a political statement, a religious statement, a 199 00:12:09,840 --> 00:12:13,200 cultural statement. It was in every, it, it, it was 200 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:16,720 a holistic statement of a thoroughly different way to 201 00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:24,280 live. So this commandment was about 202 00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:29,840 the difference between who God is, who's represented himself. 203 00:12:29,840 --> 00:12:33,840 Sorry, who's who's given us this name, personal name Yahweh and 204 00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:40,720 the other gods? It was about who we trust to 205 00:12:40,720 --> 00:12:44,680 deliver us, to heal us, to save us, to protect us, to provide 206 00:12:44,680 --> 00:12:49,240 for us. And the very first thing that 207 00:12:49,520 --> 00:12:54,200 Yahweh says is I am the Lord your God, I'm Yahweh, Elohim. 208 00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:58,200 So Elohim's just the word for gods, but he calls himself this 209 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:01,240 name Yahweh, and he's essentially saying I'm 210 00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:04,280 fundamentally different from these other gods. 211 00:13:04,680 --> 00:13:07,560 I'm not fickle, but I'm faithful. 212 00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:11,280 I'm not cruel. I make covenants. 213 00:13:12,640 --> 00:13:16,440 Relationship with me is not transactional, it's personal. 214 00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:22,320 So for this reason, he's saying you can trust me. 215 00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:26,320 I've delivered you out of Egypt. I've set you free from this 216 00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:28,880 dominant empire where you were being thoroughly and cruelly 217 00:13:28,880 --> 00:13:31,120 oppressed. I will provide for you. 218 00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:33,360 I care for you. I intervene for you. 219 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:37,080 I did it even when you can do it for yourself. 220 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:40,800 You can't offer me anything. But I came in and broke through 221 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:44,600 and delivered you. I'm not the personified power of 222 00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:46,360 the storm. I'm the creator of heaven and 223 00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:52,640 earth. I can ensure crops and fertility 224 00:13:52,640 --> 00:13:57,160 are blessed, but the root to the blessing and prosperity is 225 00:13:57,160 --> 00:14:01,440 living in agreement with Yahweh in His ways, not in the ways of 226 00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:04,560 Egypt where they'd come from, or Canaan where they were going. 227 00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:08,160 So it was a challenge to come out from the nations, to come 228 00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:11,840 out from the lies people believed about what the gods or 229 00:14:11,840 --> 00:14:14,600 God was like, which is our original sin. 230 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:17,640 We believe lies about the nature of God. 231 00:14:17,960 --> 00:14:21,840 He is very good, very kind, very generous, very abundant. 232 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:25,680 But human condition seems to be crippled and he's against us. 233 00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:28,240 We've got to do what we can. We've got to be transactional. 234 00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:31,840 We've got to do horrific things to get him to love us. 235 00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:35,360 You know, you can feel this kind of angst in the human condition 236 00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:38,360 because we believe the lie that God isn't good. 237 00:14:38,360 --> 00:14:41,320 He isn't faithful, He doesn't provide, he doesn't protect, He 238 00:14:41,320 --> 00:14:43,480 doesn't initiate. He isn't actually really in 239 00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:48,240 charge. And so this was the practises of 240 00:14:48,240 --> 00:14:51,400 the ancient world and this was the mindset change God was 241 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:54,120 bringing them to a repentance, A kindness, to a literally a 242 00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:56,360 change of mind about what God's actually like. 243 00:14:57,880 --> 00:15:01,280 And he does this through saying he's not only their tribal God, 244 00:15:01,280 --> 00:15:02,840 but he's the God of all the nations. 245 00:15:02,840 --> 00:15:06,280 And if they live his way, then everyone will understand this is 246 00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:08,720 what God's like. He is provision. 247 00:15:08,720 --> 00:15:10,680 He is protection. He is identity. 248 00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:13,920 And he does that freely and lovingly and abundantly out of 249 00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:16,520 his overflow. He doesn't need these kind of 250 00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:20,920 strange and odd sacrifices to kind of appease and placate him 251 00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:24,280 like he's a petulant toddler. He's not like that. 252 00:15:24,320 --> 00:15:26,880 He's completely different to what we think he is. 253 00:15:29,720 --> 00:15:32,640 And so when we get to Jesus, though in the 1st century, by 254 00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:36,080 then devout Jews would have understood there is one God. 255 00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:39,680 Although this God was complex, Elohim, the very first word 256 00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:42,080 Elohim in the in Genesis chapter, one that got in the 257 00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:44,960 beginning, God created is the singular, but God is the 258 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:46,840 plurals. They knew God was complex. 259 00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:51,640 They just didn't understand his complexity, but they believed in 260 00:15:51,640 --> 00:15:56,280 this one complex Elohim God who was who was creator of heaven 261 00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:57,920 and earth. And they were rejected 262 00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:01,120 wholeheartedly and renounced the paganism of their Greek or Roman 263 00:16:01,360 --> 00:16:04,000 context. So you have two kinds of people 264 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:06,920 in the New Testament. You have devout Jews who worship 265 00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:10,640 this one complex God and live by his way, seek to live by his 266 00:16:10,640 --> 00:16:14,120 ways. And then you have Romans who 267 00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:17,560 have their pantheon of gods, which were not dissimilar in in 268 00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:19,920 what they required to the Canaanites. 269 00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:23,480 And then and, and, and also the history of the Greeks as well, 270 00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:25,160 who they loved and basically imitated. 271 00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:31,360 So Jesus speaks into it and it, this is what I'm trying to do 272 00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:34,320 with each commandment, how Jesus interprets them, how Paul does 273 00:16:34,320 --> 00:16:35,880 and therefore how we can apply them. 274 00:16:36,600 --> 00:16:43,440 So Jesus is taken up onto a mountain by the devil, and the 275 00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:46,560 devil says to him in one of his temptations, or the adversary, 276 00:16:46,560 --> 00:16:50,840 this the liar, the accuser, he took him up onto an exceedingly 277 00:16:50,840 --> 00:16:53,400 high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and 278 00:16:53,400 --> 00:16:56,120 their glory. And he said to them, all these I 279 00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:59,040 will give you, if you will fall down and worship me. 280 00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:03,040 Then Jesus said to him, Away with you Satan, for it is 281 00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:06,119 written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you 282 00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:08,880 shall serve. He quotes Deuteronomy, which is 283 00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:13,040 a reflection on this text, what Jesus is doing. 284 00:17:13,040 --> 00:17:16,520 He's taking this idea of external idols that you bow down 285 00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:17,720 to. And even the Greeks and the 286 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:21,560 Romans were still doing that. And he's saying there's an 287 00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:27,079 internal idolatry of dominion. We want dominion on our own 288 00:17:27,079 --> 00:17:29,160 terms. We want to rule. 289 00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:33,000 We could call it worldliness, we could call it selfish ambition. 290 00:17:33,360 --> 00:17:39,000 We could call it the desires. People call it disordered 291 00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:43,560 desires, but he took something that looked external and said 292 00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:45,760 actually it's an internal human condition. 293 00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:49,720 Idolatry is worshipping something that gives you a sense 294 00:17:49,920 --> 00:17:51,880 of power and control and dominion. 295 00:17:53,600 --> 00:17:57,200 And Paul says something really interesting in Romans one. 296 00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:03,960 Sorry I didn't get those. In Romans 1, he kind of sums up 297 00:18:05,360 --> 00:18:09,280 the human condition by saying they exchanged the truth about 298 00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:14,000 God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather 299 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:16,440 than the Creator who is forever praised. 300 00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:22,640 So there's the reality, which is God, and we worship Him because 301 00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:25,280 that is reality. We don't worship Him because he 302 00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:27,160 needs our worship and he's a narcissist. 303 00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:29,560 We worship Him because he's the creator of heaven and earth. 304 00:18:32,120 --> 00:18:38,520 He's worthy, but what we do is we exchange that for created 305 00:18:38,520 --> 00:18:40,840 things. And Jesus is saying some of 306 00:18:40,840 --> 00:18:43,400 those created things are out there, physical things. 307 00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:46,760 And Paul is saying that, and he's also saying some of it is 308 00:18:46,760 --> 00:18:49,400 lies. We believe the created thing is 309 00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:52,240 a lie. We believe about what will make 310 00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:56,880 us happy. I'm going to quote Tim Keller 311 00:18:56,880 --> 00:18:59,520 now. I find Tim Keller quite complex 312 00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:02,360 because I don't think he understood women the way God 313 00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:03,800 does. I think he had a happy and good 314 00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:06,200 marriage, but I don't think he understood the agency and 315 00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:08,680 authority of women. However, I think he was really, 316 00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:12,080 really good on the idols of the heart, on understanding how an 317 00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:16,080 individual's and in systems we have individual and systemic 318 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:18,240 idolatry. So he's brilliant at that. 319 00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:22,080 So I'm going to honour my my spiritual father by quoting him. 320 00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:26,520 The first command asserts that we will either worship God or 321 00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:29,560 something else. Notice it does not envision 322 00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:33,160 envision 1/3 option. There is no possibility of our 323 00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:35,760 worshipping nothing. I really want us to get this 324 00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:38,200 because I think this is extremely perceptive. 325 00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:42,240 The first command, which is the one we're looking at today, 326 00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:45,920 asserts that we will either worship God or something else. 327 00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:49,120 Notice it does not envision 1/3 option. 328 00:19:49,440 --> 00:19:52,640 There is no possibility of our worshipping nothing. 329 00:19:53,560 --> 00:19:55,200 So we think, no, I don't worship anything. 330 00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:59,600 I don't believe in anything. I, I live, you know, just free 331 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:03,120 from all of that. The point Tim Keller's trying to 332 00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:06,040 draw out from that first command is we will be worshipping 333 00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:10,280 something if we're not worshipping God, since we need 334 00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:14,480 to worship something because of how we are created, we cannot 335 00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:17,640 eliminate God without creating God's substitutes. 336 00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:20,840 Something will capture our hearts and imaginations, 337 00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:24,440 becoming the most important concern, value or allegiance in 338 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:27,240 our lives. And this is, I think, really 339 00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:31,000 helpful phrase. An idol then for us now today in 340 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:36,560 the 21st century is making a good thing into an ultimate 341 00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:40,280 thing. So it could be something 342 00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:42,840 external or it could be something in our heart 343 00:20:42,840 --> 00:20:44,560 condition. But it's something that God's 344 00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:47,480 created because the only thing that exists in the whole world, 345 00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,920 God's created. And he says, Paul says, if he's 346 00:20:50,920 --> 00:20:54,200 created it, it's we, we give thanks for everything God's 347 00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:55,240 created. They are good. 348 00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:59,040 But if that thing becomes like that little idol statue on the 349 00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:02,400 throne of our lives that we bow down and we pay a price and we 350 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:05,920 worship and we sacrifice and we violate all our relationships 351 00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:09,920 for that was the thing that will oppress us and destroy us. 352 00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:15,520 That will be our idolatry and our way of life and and God is 353 00:21:15,520 --> 00:21:19,280 wanting to call us out of that oppression into the freedom of 354 00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:24,320 when he's there, life works because we we are governed by 355 00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:27,960 whatever we worship and only under him, his governance is 356 00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:37,680 perfect freedom. So what's the main to do? 357 00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:42,400 How, how do we identify idols in our lives and how can we be free 358 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:44,000 of them? That's what I really want to 359 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:47,160 drill down on today. I've actually got some questions 360 00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:51,040 that people can go away and use in their force or accountability 361 00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:54,760 or life groups because this is a deep long work. 362 00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:58,200 This isn't something that is a quick fix, right? 363 00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:00,840 Chapter #1 Let's go on to the second commandment. 364 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:05,120 I love over the next two years for us Christ to be forged in US 365 00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:07,480 through these teachings on the 10 commandments. 366 00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:11,600 So the best thing to do is just embarrass oneself, isn't it? 367 00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:16,640 And tell a personal story. Some idols are pretty cool to 368 00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:18,280 talk about, some are just embarrassing. 369 00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:20,080 Mine's embarrassing. There you go. 370 00:22:22,360 --> 00:22:25,880 And hopefully, as you hear me tell my story, you can start to 371 00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:29,760 see how it works, how we can tell what a pattern of idolatry 372 00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:32,960 in our life is, where where we're oppressed and not free as 373 00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:36,520 we're designed to be. When I was young, I went to 374 00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:39,600 boarding school. Whilst I'm acutely aware that 375 00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:43,880 access to a good education is a real privilege, I also felt a 376 00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:48,320 deep sense of low self worth, of longing for love, approval, 377 00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:51,480 validation. And I sought to heal myself 378 00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:56,480 through success. In my context, and this is no 379 00:22:56,480 --> 00:23:00,120 joke, every week the teachers would post the order of results 380 00:23:00,120 --> 00:23:02,760 for every class in the school, in every subject. 381 00:23:03,120 --> 00:23:05,920 This meant that every child in the school would know where they 382 00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:09,160 were academically in comparison to every other child in their 383 00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:11,520 school year, in every subject, every week. 384 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:14,600 That's why times there are changing, isn't it? 385 00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:21,040 That worked. I remember. 386 00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:25,400 I remember looking forward to those results coming because I 387 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,200 felt I didn't know I was getting a dopamine hit, but I didn't 388 00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,560 know that at the time. I felt better about myself 389 00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:35,760 because I usually see myself in like the top, some of the top 390 00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:37,640 positions in some of those subjects. 391 00:23:38,120 --> 00:23:41,560 So it just, it soothed me. I could feel it at the time 392 00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:43,280 viscerally. I didn't know it consciously, 393 00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:46,880 but I knew there was a, there was a pattern in me going that 394 00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:49,480 is making me feel better about myself. 395 00:23:51,360 --> 00:23:55,400 So success became, without me realising it, the source of my 396 00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,960 validation, approval and ultimately salvation rather than 397 00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:01,120 God. I'd made the good thing success, 398 00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:05,440 the ultimate thing. In the 1st chapter of the Bible 399 00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:08,960 we see God wants humanity to be blessed and multiply. 400 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:11,600 We see in Joshua 1 He even says the word success. 401 00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:14,000 If you meditate on the law day and night, you will be 402 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,000 successful wherever you go. And we see Jesus when he 403 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:22,320 multiplies to thousands of people bred he, he successfully 404 00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:27,080 feeds lots of people. So success itself isn't wrong. 405 00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:29,560 It's created by God. It's a, it's a multiplication 406 00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:32,040 principle. It, it's become, when it becomes 407 00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:38,880 the ultimate thing, it makes me and people I, it makes me toxic 408 00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,160 and therefore a very poor conduit for love for other 409 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:48,960 people. So that kind of grew in me 410 00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,280 without me realising it. And it looks different in every 411 00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:56,360 industry success. It looks like finance in money 412 00:24:56,360 --> 00:24:58,360 in the finance sector or maybe sales. 413 00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:01,240 It looks like votes for politicians. 414 00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:06,600 It looks like likes for influencers and in the Christian 415 00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:10,400 world when I was growing up in the in the West, it looks like 416 00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:14,440 having a testimony of such powerful overcoming that the 417 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:17,360 person is worthy of a best selling book written about them. 418 00:25:17,360 --> 00:25:19,360 They don't write it. Someone else writes about them 419 00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:24,280 so that when I was coming closer to God and encountering the Holy 420 00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:26,280 Spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit and was giving my 421 00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:31,600 life holy to God, that idol just translated from worldly success 422 00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:35,200 to Kingdom success in my heart. Think Jackie Pullinger 423 00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,800 overcoming addiction and seeing people delivered from heroin 424 00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,120 without any withdrawal symptoms. And I've been there and 425 00:25:40,120 --> 00:25:44,520 experienced it. It's unbelievable is worthy of a 426 00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:46,880 book. Or Brother Andrew experiencing 427 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,800 angelic protection on multiple occasions when smuggling Bibles 428 00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:52,240 into communist countries. Unbelievable. 429 00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:58,160 The testimonies of provision, protection and deliverance or 430 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,600 even someone like Lauren Cunningham, whose vision to see 431 00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,600 waves of young people serving as charismatic missionaries across 432 00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:06,960 the world birthed a movement, a new kind of missionary movement 433 00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,560 at the time called Youth with a mission, where every single 434 00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:11,320 person lived by faith financially. 435 00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,440 And so you see, test me after test me after test me a 436 00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,640 financial provision, along with all those will will have seen 437 00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:21,600 healings and other miracles. So that in my head, I didn't 438 00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,960 realise this, but in that in my head was what a successful 439 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:26,880 Christian was. And if you weren't have, if you 440 00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,120 didn't have that kind of story, you weren't really successful. 441 00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,520 And success was the thing that was going to heal me and save 442 00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,040 me. It gets worse. 443 00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:39,840 You don't realise this because I didn't. 444 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:44,480 But when you become a church leader, that then translates 445 00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:48,440 into another really toxic thing called numbers. 446 00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:53,560 Oh so cringy. I didn't even I literally had no 447 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,000 idea. Even when we were associate like 448 00:26:56,000 --> 00:27:01,000 pastor level, I had no idea of the the thing in the West about 449 00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:04,480 how you quantify successful churches because why would you? 450 00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:08,400 It's the most narcissistic, inward looking, odd way to look 451 00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,240 at the world. Anyway, it so happens that when 452 00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,120 you do become a church leader, numbers matter. 453 00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,840 So the numbers of people who attend your church, the numbers 454 00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,200 of people who are baptised, the numbers of church plants and 455 00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:23,560 although this isn't particularly connected to my ideal of 456 00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,120 success, the number of pounds people give financially. 457 00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,680 Because we live in a Theta driven capitalist economy, we 458 00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:35,800 don't know how else to measure success in the spiritual realm 459 00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:40,240 apart from numbers unless we have that massive testimony, of 460 00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:44,280 course, of overcoming. So I knew I'd been desperate for 461 00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:47,680 a powerful testimony, but I had no idea this was an idol or 462 00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:51,160 stronghold in my heart until I started paying attention to 463 00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:54,640 patterns of emotional responses. And this is what I, I want us to 464 00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:58,680 kind of hear how we can learn how we can be self aware with 465 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:02,120 the things that our disordered desires or the the good thing is 466 00:28:02,120 --> 00:28:05,080 the ultimate thing. So for many years I battled 467 00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:08,400 deeply with a sense of shame, humiliation and failure on how 468 00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,960 my spiritual life is doing in terms of a lack of a powerful 469 00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:15,640 overcoming testimony, and more recently even how Hope is doing, 470 00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,400 particularly in comparison with other churches who seem to be 471 00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,240 doing better in terms of numbers. 472 00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:24,200 I'd be taken out by envy over the smallest comment about 473 00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:28,800 another church or I sometimes or during our sabbatical. 474 00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,960 I couldn't actually go into any white church that entire time 475 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,920 because I felt such a sense of shame and humiliation, and I've 476 00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:41,280 even dreaded coming to Hope on a Sunday because I've just felt so 477 00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:43,400 broken and full of shame and humiliation. 478 00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,000 However, I also had a lot of head knowledge and convictions 479 00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:55,200 and values which were Hope is. We are here to serve every 480 00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,800 member, to be the person God's created us all to be. 481 00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,960 And so many of us at Hope contribute in many ways which 482 00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:09,800 can't be measured quantifiably. Also, we serve people that are 483 00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:14,040 very long, slow burn, like it takes 20 years to see a child 484 00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:16,040 grow into maturity and that's one of our dreams. 485 00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:21,680 Or we do things like partner with God's house, which changes 486 00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,000 the dynamic and potential for God to move in a because he 487 00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,480 moves when leaders are in agreement in a city, breaks that 488 00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:31,080 division and opens up a move of God in the city. 489 00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:35,560 But that can't be quantified. So I know my head, we're doing 490 00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:39,160 what God's asking us to do and we're and we're following the 491 00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:43,240 Spirit and fundamentally we're non negotiably, non coercive 492 00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:45,440 here. People are free to come and go 493 00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,800 as they like. We will go after the lost sheep, 494 00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,240 but we will not. We will let that rich young 495 00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:55,000 ruler walk away because everyone's free to follow Jesus 496 00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:59,200 or not. And of course, most importantly, 497 00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,360 I know in my head that fruit looks like Christ like character 498 00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,360 which will be exposed by fire on the last day. 499 00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:09,080 And therefore numbers alone can be misleading as a metric for 500 00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:13,480 success. I know this in my head and I 501 00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,280 fought as anyone who knows me for a second knows. 502 00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:19,520 I fought regularly to practise gratitude, confession and 503 00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:22,920 blessing other ministries. I do that wholeheartedly because 504 00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:29,200 it's the right thing to do. But in my heart, this wounds, 505 00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:39,040 this, this need, this idolatry was still powerful and had 506 00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,400 dominion over me. Because of these, I could see 507 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:46,080 these emotional responses were not in alignment with reality. 508 00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,840 So I've got this image of a balloon and we can call this our 509 00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:55,080 happiness balloon. We're designed to have that 510 00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:58,520 sense of well-being, contentment, peace, even in 511 00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:01,640 suffering in our inner lives. Remember I talked about that at 512 00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:04,320 the beginning, a sort of mountaintop experience of the 513 00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,680 wonder of the goodness of God and and well-being in the world. 514 00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:14,280 And occasionally we encounter things in our life that might 515 00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,840 cause this balloon to pop. We might get carved up by car, 516 00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:22,560 we might just get really fed up with that obsequious AI that 517 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:26,200 tells us our we're so amazing, but never actually tells us the 518 00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,720 solution to the problem that we wanted them to do. 519 00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:32,200 And we actually just want a human or we've like burnt the 520 00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,840 food and we get annoyed. I'm not talking about that. 521 00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:38,840 Those are one offs. That's just the irritations of 522 00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,680 life. I'm talking about the fact that 523 00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,440 every single time something happens that's in the same 524 00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,920 pattern, and we can see the pattern, our balloon pops. 525 00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:54,200 Every single time we get into relationships, we leave a trail 526 00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:58,000 of destruction behind us. Every single time we get angry 527 00:31:58,000 --> 00:31:59,720 and impatient when we're carved up. 528 00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:04,240 Every single time we feel envious when we hear about how 529 00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:08,200 much money someone else is making, it's the always, it's 530 00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:10,600 the every. It's the patterns that show us 531 00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:14,000 that this this has an eye. This has a a stronghold, a place 532 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,720 in our life that's exercising dominion and is oppressing us. 533 00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:20,920 It could be the approval of others. 534 00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:27,880 So for me, every time someone else's powerful ministry was 535 00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:30,640 mentioned, or more recently, their growing church, I would 536 00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,680 lose my Lovejoy and peace. I would that happiness balloon 537 00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:38,080 would burst and I didn't mind at all when someone was successful 538 00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,960 outside my lane. So it's really precise. 539 00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:45,960 I'm really genuinely happy for people when they succeed in 540 00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:49,360 their lane because they're fulfilling the calling on their 541 00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:51,160 lives and I'm really happy for them. 542 00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:55,640 But within a narrow scope of my lane, being a successful 543 00:32:55,640 --> 00:33:00,400 Christian, having that overcoming testimony or the the 544 00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:04,120 kind of sense of a successful church leader, I always lost my 545 00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,520 Lovejoy and peace to feelings of envy, shame and humiliation. 546 00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:11,760 These reactions were so out of keeping with the actual reality 547 00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:15,680 of my life that I realised I was worshipping the idol of success 548 00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:23,800 and this idol was oppressing me. So how do we identify an idol? 549 00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,080 We can, in our living free language, also call it a 550 00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,920 stronghold, a place where the enemy has a high point. 551 00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:32,720 That's that's that's very deeply defended in our heart. 552 00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:37,760 We pay attention to where the balloon of Lovejoy and peace 553 00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,240 repeatedly pops in the same circumstance. 554 00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:43,680 We are paying attention to patterns and underlying this 555 00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:45,560 pattern of emotional response is a lie. 556 00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:48,520 We are believing and holding higher than the truth like God. 557 00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,320 Let's sorry like Paul, we've exchanged the worship of the 558 00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,000 creator for the worship of the created thing. 559 00:33:55,080 --> 00:34:01,160 So how do we turn away from idols and worship God? 560 00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:07,440 Well, we have to ask Him what it looks like for us to worship 561 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:10,239 Him. We can't work it out on our own 562 00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,080 strength or wisdom because we are not free to see clearly. 563 00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,000 We're oppressed. We're darkened in our mindset. 564 00:34:19,639 --> 00:34:22,440 So for me, turning from this idol of success was actually 565 00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:24,920 really unexpected. It was. 566 00:34:25,159 --> 00:34:29,639 It makes total sense now. But basically, God had become a 567 00:34:29,639 --> 00:34:33,280 utilitarian means by which I could heal myself through 568 00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:36,360 success. I was no better than the 569 00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,360 Canaanites. They used the gods for a 570 00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:43,320 utilitarian means to make their harvest work, to save and 571 00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:45,760 deliver them. And I was doing exactly the 572 00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:47,560 same. It just happened to be God 573 00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,320 rather than money or books or something else. 574 00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:57,120 God had become the thing by which I could heal myself and 575 00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:01,120 what God wanted me to do is he invited me into an actual 576 00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:05,600 personal relationship with him where I actually tell him how I 577 00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:11,600 feel and I hear his voice. So it's not transactional, it's 578 00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:15,200 personal. Now I had not done this for a 579 00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,320 very long time because I felt felt ridiculous and self 580 00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,240 indulgent. I I'm only a bit aware of the 581 00:35:22,240 --> 00:35:24,880 level of suffering in the world that I've never experienced. 582 00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:28,320 And so there was no way I was going to tell God. 583 00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:29,920 Oh, I'm finding this really difficult. 584 00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:34,480 So cringey. So entitled and cringey. 585 00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:41,600 So I was grateful for my life. I confessed my sin. 586 00:35:41,720 --> 00:35:45,520 I blessed other ministries, as I said, but actually God was 587 00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:49,440 inviting me into a personal relationship with Him where 588 00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:51,840 actually I came to the end of myself and the only thing I 589 00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,880 could talk to Him about was how I felt because I felt utterly, 590 00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,320 utterly desperate. People say you shouldn't pray 591 00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,040 because of duty, you should pay because of desire, and only 592 00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:01,960 immature people pay because they're desperate. 593 00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:03,080 I was like, great, I'm in to show you. 594 00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:04,880 I'm just desperate. That's why I'm praying. 595 00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:09,200 And I found that people say, oh, I found God in the Psalms. 596 00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:13,160 I'm like, oh, for goodness sake, so first world. 597 00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:20,200 But I found God in the Psalms because I came to the end of 598 00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:21,920 myself. And in the book of Psalms, you 599 00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:24,040 find a really honest relationship with God. 600 00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:26,560 You find him people telling God how they feel. 601 00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,360 And they really were suffering horrific humiliation and in 602 00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:32,520 slavery and horrors that I can't even imagine. 603 00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,760 But there was permission within the Psalms to tell God how I 604 00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,400 felt. So I had permission to break 605 00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:46,400 before him and ask him to heal me and realised that this was 606 00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,800 this was toxic. It was a thing that was wrong in 607 00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,920 my life that had come in a wound that I hadn't dealt with in my 608 00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:55,920 childhood. And the enemy had taken up 609 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,280 territory says in your anger, don't sin. 610 00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:01,360 Don't let the enemy have some topple some legal territory in 611 00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:03,240 your life. When we don't deal with stuff, 612 00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,400 we don't realise we give the enemy legal territory and 613 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,320 especially as children, because we don't even know that that's a 614 00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:10,520 thing. And the enemy loves the 615 00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:12,400 vulnerable. He's always going after the 616 00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:15,480 vulnerable because the vulnerable aren't is armed so 617 00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,680 much to to to fight that spiritual warfare, to protect 618 00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:20,200 our hearts, to keep worshipping God. 619 00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:23,880 That's the duty of parents and guardians and carers to kind of 620 00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:28,160 guard children so they can worship God and not not receive 621 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:39,040 those wounds. So he took me to the place of 622 00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:44,240 reality of what what I was actually wanting wasn't him, is 623 00:37:44,240 --> 00:37:48,960 what he could do for me to a place of wanting him, for him, 624 00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:54,120 just for his own sake. And I recognised that like those 625 00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,520 those people, those primitive people who were building the 626 00:37:56,520 --> 00:38:00,200 Tower of Babylon who wanted to make a name for themselves, I 627 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,200 was just the same, just wanted to make a name for myself. 628 00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:05,280 So many names out there aren't there. 629 00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:08,120 At the name of Jesus. Every knee will bow and every 630 00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:13,200 tongue confess that he is Lord. And there's a recent teaching by 631 00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:15,400 John Mark Comer on the two halves of life. 632 00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,240 And he talks about one of the strengths of the second-half of 633 00:38:18,240 --> 00:38:20,400 life as we come to a place of acceptance. 634 00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,400 If if we do, we can fight against it and become bitter, or 635 00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:26,200 we can come to a place of acceptance. 636 00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:28,280 And it was just such a beautiful moment. 637 00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:31,520 So yeah, I think I'm coming to that place of acceptance. 638 00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:38,280 And he quotes Teresa of Avila, who says when one reaches the 639 00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:42,320 highest degree of human maturity, one has only one 640 00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,400 question left. How can I be helpful? 641 00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:50,520 And that's just this really beautiful content space to be. 642 00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,720 And that's, I think the space I'm moving into, hopefully. 643 00:38:53,720 --> 00:38:55,680 Apparently we're never healed. We're healing. 644 00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:00,560 But I feel a lot closer to that space of how can I be helpful 645 00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:06,680 when God commands us, You shall have no other gods before me. 646 00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,680 He is inviting us on a journey to know the depths of his love 647 00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:14,920 for us, his deliverance of us, his freedom for us, but also the 648 00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:16,800 depths to which we can love each other. 649 00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:20,280 Because now I feel able to love people, be present to them, 650 00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:23,800 listen to God when I'm with someone, pay attention to what 651 00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,600 the Spirit's doing. In a way it's very, very hard to 652 00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:34,760 do when we're we've, we're still worshipping other gods in our 653 00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:36,480 heart. We can do it. 654 00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,280 He protects us, He gives us grace. 655 00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,160 There's always more where sin abounds. 656 00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,920 Grace abounds the more, but I think the, the more sensitive we 657 00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:49,240 become to the nature of God, the more we realise our inability to 658 00:39:49,240 --> 00:39:52,480 love when we're also worshipping idols. 659 00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:58,640 But I also want to say as a side note regarding hope and probably 660 00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:01,640 the conviction of this sin came through being in this community. 661 00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:07,240 This is the most beautiful community of people I could 662 00:40:07,240 --> 00:40:09,240 imagine. And I absolutely mean this 663 00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:11,120 sincerely. I've written these words down 664 00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:13,760 and I mean it. I've words are really important 665 00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:14,880 to me. I wouldn't lie. 666 00:40:15,240 --> 00:40:17,200 I've never wanted to be anywhere else. 667 00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:20,400 And I cannot imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else. 668 00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:25,560 This community is loving, open, humble, kind, generous, 669 00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,720 thoughtful, compassionate. Exactly what I imagined and 670 00:40:28,720 --> 00:40:31,080 hoped a beautiful church community could be. 671 00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,400 And whilst as elders we always work on continuous improvement, 672 00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:39,640 I couldn't be more proud of this church in terms of our culture. 673 00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:45,280 So please don't conflate my process of my idolatry of 674 00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:49,880 success, which has distorted the reality of how I viewed hope as 675 00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:53,880 this idea with the what I've always believed. 676 00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:56,840 Hope actually is a really special place. 677 00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,920 I'm simply trying to explain to you what an idol of the heart is 678 00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:11,240 by using this personal example. So what we're going to do now is 679 00:41:11,240 --> 00:41:16,960 we're going to come to an end in our kind of group circles on the 680 00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,000 tables now. But also I really want us to 681 00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:24,440 work this through in our lives so that we are genuinely 682 00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,640 liberated because it's such a peaceful place to be. 683 00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:32,600 To have that happiness balloon not pop as much. 684 00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:37,600 To have that sense of well-being and contentment and God is good 685 00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:40,720 and anticipation for the day even in the midst of suffering. 686 00:41:40,720 --> 00:41:44,280 And that we live in an evil age. To have that space is so 687 00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:48,040 healthy. And we have a practise here, 688 00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,320 which is a bit like when you learn to drive it, it's a bit 689 00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:53,560 clunky and you kind of go mirror signal manoeuvre. 690 00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:55,920 I don't even know if you do that anymore because like you don't 691 00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:58,120 even need to drive a car. You have driverless cars, don't 692 00:41:58,120 --> 00:41:59,600 you? It probably doesn't even count 693 00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:02,760 like anything we used to do. But anyway, in the old days you 694 00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:06,200 had mirror signal manoeuvre. And of course I never go mirror 695 00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:08,240 signal manoeuvre when I'm driving now. 696 00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:12,040 But I needed to learn something. I needed to learn how to drive 697 00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:15,880 and, and this is learning how to repent, how to change. 698 00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:18,760 We're breaking it down into very concrete steps. 699 00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:22,800 Firstly, we recognise and the way we recognise is by paying 700 00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:25,800 attention to a pattern of emotions that are either under 701 00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:29,440 reactive or overreactive. Our emotions are very, very good 702 00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:34,160 data for how we're really doing. They're given to us as a gift, 703 00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:37,440 like a petrol light that does petrol even exist anymore? 704 00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,880 Might have to change my analogies to some other kind of 705 00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:47,160 moving car object thing. We can pay attention to that, 706 00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:49,800 that to our emotions. So we recognise and that's 707 00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:52,800 actually the biggest battle of all because everyone here is 708 00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:54,800 humble and we want to change. We wouldn't be here for any 709 00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:56,680 other reason. We could be like in the mall or 710 00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:58,280 gaming or something. We're here. 711 00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:00,720 So we kind of want to be transformed by the renewing of 712 00:43:00,720 --> 00:43:02,560 our mind. So the first thing we need is 713 00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:06,360 the recognition. The second is then the repent 714 00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:08,840 bit is telling God honestly how we feel. 715 00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:14,640 Just come to Him in that sense of sadness or maybe shame and 716 00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:19,480 the ways we've believed lies and how we've made the created thing 717 00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:21,520 the ultimate thing and how tragic that is. 718 00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:26,160 Just feel the emotion of that and then receive God's 719 00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,120 forgiveness for the lies we've believed, but also the effect 720 00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:32,080 this has had on other people. We have not been able to love 721 00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:35,600 the way we're designed to love because of this rebuke the 722 00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:39,480 Spirit which has energised the power of the lie in our lives. 723 00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:43,640 Whilst we don't have many physical idols now that we bow 724 00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:45,920 down and worship, I talked about that last time. 725 00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,880 They they, there is a real demonic energy behind our loves. 726 00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:53,960 These spirits are intelligent, they're seductive, they're 727 00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:56,440 clever, they're wise, they're shrewd. 728 00:43:56,720 --> 00:44:00,560 They brought down humanity. We need to have like due respect 729 00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,800 and we need to take authority and rebuke these spirits that 730 00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:08,920 energise these lies that we're not loved and we're not able to 731 00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:11,120 love others, which is humanity's design. 732 00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:15,400 And then we replace, we ask God by the power of the Holy Spirit 733 00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:18,080 to show us what replacing, serving this idol looks like 734 00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:20,640 practically. And for me, it actually looks 735 00:44:20,720 --> 00:44:22,960 really different to what you'd think it would look like. 736 00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:25,560 It just looks like being really honest and open with God and 737 00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:27,240 having an open relationship with him. 738 00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:30,320 And that's dismantling this and replacing this with an actual 739 00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:33,600 love relationship with God where I, I love him for him. 740 00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:41,080 So I'm going to pray now and then I, we can get in our 741 00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:46,040 groups, but also make a heart choice to kind of pursue this 742 00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,680 over the next period of time. It will keep cropping up because 743 00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:53,200 it's the, it's one of the, it's the root behind all the, the 744 00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:57,640 other commandments. Lord, I thank you so much that 745 00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:01,120 we can be free from the, the disordered desires that oppress 746 00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,240 us. And thank you that you've come 747 00:45:04,240 --> 00:45:07,320 to set us free. We will know reality, you say, 748 00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,080 and reality will liberate us. You shall know the truth and the 749 00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,520 truth shall set you free. And you are reality, Lord. 750 00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:15,800 So you liberate us from the things that oppress us and 751 00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:19,000 prevent us from loving God and loving our neighbour, which is 752 00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:22,080 our true humanity. And so we call into the light. 753 00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:26,800 Now we just call into the light, the patterns of responses and 754 00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,440 and emotions that you don't want us to live with anymore that 755 00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:33,320 show that we're believing a lie that you don't want us to live 756 00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:35,280 with anymore. We respect those emotions. 757 00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:38,920 We respect what they're telling us and we allow allow them to 758 00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:45,480 guide us into being honest about where we are worshipping idols. 759 00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,960 And we we just say yes to being a people because this is a 760 00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:53,080 communal command to all of us that we shall have no other gods 761 00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:56,000 before you. Amen. 762 00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:08,080 Thank you, Alice. So you've got one minute before 763 00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:10,520 we need to collect children if you've got little gems or kids. 764 00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:15,000 So take a moment to if it's just to, just to as Alice said, this 765 00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,800 won't be done and dusted in in 30 seconds. 766 00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:20,160 It's a thing to continue to unravel and unravel over time. 767 00:46:20,720 --> 00:46:23,320 If you want a moment to pray and ask God to continue to do that, 768 00:46:23,720 --> 00:46:25,120 maybe there's something to pray personally. 769 00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:28,760 Now do go ahead. If you'd like some prayer, come 770 00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:30,800 to the front. If anyone else, I'll be having a 771 00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:34,360 prayer with you. And, and then at 12:10, if you 772 00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,760 can go and collect children, kids and little gems. 773 00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:39,800 If you've got those. And then with tonight, we've got 774 00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:42,800 our AGM, which is, if you've not been to one of those, it's, it's 775 00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:46,560 more exciting than it sounds. It's a, it's a, a vision, time 776 00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:48,200 sharing vision for the next year with the church. 777 00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:50,320 We'll be commissioning our new elder team. 778 00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:54,080 And we always have. We've got a Trinity of Jelly 779 00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:57,440 babies, chocolate buttons and pretzels as well, which it's 780 00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,360 always a nice feature I think. So that's 7:30 in the prayer 781 00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:00,920 centre tonight.