Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Chroma Church podcast.
[00:00:07] Thanks.
[00:00:09] Thanks.
[00:00:11] I'll auction off this green Bible up here, if anybody who'll give me.
[00:00:18] Well, it's always.
[00:00:19] It just is great to be here. It's one of our homes in this beautiful world and beautiful, beautiful life that the Lord has. Has given us. I'm doing something a little bit different today, Taking a tiny little bit of a risk, but I think it'll be. I think it'll be okay. I think it was okay the first service. Nobody walked out, and Steve hasn't told me to never speak that message again. So I think I'm probably going to be okay.
[00:00:45] But it really is.
[00:00:47] You know, sometimes when you are in a. In a house, you might not realize how special it is. And I understand that a little bit because we were part of Bethel for 15 years, and when we first got there, there weren't that many people there and very privileged that we got to be a part of that. But to be honest, in many respects, I feel even more privileged to be in relationship here because this is our land, this is our nation, our country, and so we love the place. And we came when Steve and Juliet weren't here and we were treated just the same as when they are here. It was just like. It was no different. It was just like we missed them.
[00:01:25] It was beautiful. So now, by way of just a introduction, I actually prepared this message about two or three weeks ago. The only reason I say that is because you could easily interpret it and think that I prepared it in response to some things that are happening in the world, but I genuinely didn't.
[00:01:43] What happened was that I was asked to speak on a subject on upcoming trip to Joburg and been asked to fit into the series that they're doing, which I actually really enjoy that. And I like the challenge of maybe reading something or studying something or thinking about something.
[00:02:03] And the subject they gave me was sexuality. And it's like that really isn't my subject. It's not one of mine.
[00:02:09] You know, I've got opinions, but it's not something where I would typically stand. And I just started to develop a message really about it as I kind of asked a question and realized that actually sexuality is not the problem.
[00:02:26] The problem's the context of our world into which that is placed. And so I'm not sure exactly what the title this message would be. It could be something like restoring the creator's narrative. That might be one. It might be Put God back in the Sender. That might be another.
[00:02:43] It could be whose report. Will you believe that could that could be another as well.
[00:02:48] But why don't you stand up before we do anything else and let's read the the Word of God and and I love in this house that you stand.
[00:02:56] I've been around some churches that stand and it's religion that they've been doing it. But in this house you stand because you love the word of God. You honor the Word of God. And, and I, I love that so many people are bringing real property Bibles that have paper and smell that you can write in. I haven't worked out the digital Bible for me in a meeting yet. I don't, I don't quite get it. It doesn't work because I get distracted because somebody would text me and I know you'll tell me turn my notifications off, but then I've got to remember to turn the back on and, and then I'll miss a whole load of things. So I'll stick to this. All right, John, let's, let's go. John 1 let's start start. John 1 I wasn't going to start there, but let me just change that.
[00:03:43] John 1:1 in the beginning was the Word.
[00:03:47] That's good.
[00:03:49] That really is good. That's much better than you gave it credit for.
[00:03:53] And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[00:03:58] All things came into being through him, and apart from him, nothing.
[00:04:04] No thing.
[00:04:06] No thing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
[00:04:21] Genesis 1, verse 24 Then God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind. And it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. And God saw that it was good.
[00:04:51] Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness and and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female. He created them. God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
[00:05:37] Romans 1:28 and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper. Being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed and evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, Insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil. That is a phrase I had never seen until I read this passage for this message. Inventors of. Of evil, disobedient to parents without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but give hearty approval to those who who practice them.
[00:06:51] You may be seated.
[00:06:54] There's a whole bunch of.
[00:06:56] There's a lot there.
[00:06:59] Let me narrow something down.
[00:07:02] The entire history of life, of creation can be narrowed down to these two questions.
[00:07:16] Is God at the centre or have I put me at the center?
[00:07:27] Humanity.
[00:07:29] That's it.
[00:07:30] It's the entire history from creation right the way through all of eternity.
[00:07:39] Do you have a God centered world or a me humanism centered world?
[00:07:48] Because that will determine everything now and in the future.
[00:07:56] See a God centered world has that story, that creators narrative.
[00:08:09] See we are as people, we are a story, we live a story.
[00:08:18] The Bibles we have are stories.
[00:08:21] And our generation in particular, not necessarily more than any others, but it's just become more evident than any other. We tell stories and we're influenced by stories and those stories are like they keep on coming, don't they?
[00:08:42] And actually we weren't in my opinion designed to carry the weight of the pain and the questions and the sadness and the division that we end up living in today.
[00:08:55] You see if I have a God centered world and I start with the Creator's narrative, I start with a narrative. I just read it to you. We are made in his image, or the image of the Trinity actually. Let us make man in our image. We're made in the our image of God, but we are also designed.
[00:09:20] We have a designer, we have purpose.
[00:09:30] Purpose, design, image, community, put in family.
[00:09:41] Absolutely essential and important for us to see that and understand that we are put in community, in family. We have design, we have image, we have purpose. And I'll put it here, but it's in the context of eternity that we have this narrative by our Creator. You're made in my image. You're designed after your kind.
[00:10:11] You have a purpose. And he sums up the purpose about multiplying and Tending the earth and subduing the earth and having dominion over the earth. And so when we have God at the center, we have this narrative.
[00:10:27] And it's vital to see that this really is the battle of all ages, is that we find ourselves in the middle of this narrative. Now you might say, why do I start with a creator's narrative? And I don't start with the messianic narrative of Jesus and the Gospel. It's because when, when God created, we didn't need Jesus.
[00:10:51] We only need Jesus because we fell.
[00:10:54] We only need Jesus for the restoration of all things.
[00:11:00] So where I start is this. There is a narrative that we are given by the creator, by the designer, the designer's narrative. You see, if you don't have the creator, the designer at the center, and you put me at the center, then my narrative becomes a narrative which is.
[00:11:24] And there's many things I could put in here, but it becomes the narrative of things like, well, it's my life.
[00:11:31] It's my opinion.
[00:11:36] I can't write that says opinion.
[00:11:40] My life, my opinion, my voice, my rights.
[00:11:48] And actually what happens is I become God and I position myself as being God in my world. And somebody said to me after the first service, of course, the real problem with this is that if we do that, we all stand alongside somebody else who's got a different God because they've got different opinion, different life, different rights, different voice.
[00:12:15] See that the question is, are you at the center?
[00:12:21] Your opinions, your life become the sum total here.
[00:12:26] See, this is outward focused.
[00:12:30] This is God affecting every area of my life. This is me creating the center of my life, which isolates me.
[00:12:39] See, one of the interesting things I looked at, because the subject I told you I'm going to speak about, I'm going to speak about sexuality.
[00:12:50] You see, if I put that there in the middle, I make the issue or the people group the problem.
[00:12:59] And because I've got this me centered world, I'll view this through the lens of my opinion, of my rights, of my voice, my life.
[00:13:20] But you see, if I've got this over here and I put the opinion, the problem, the issue, the sexuality here, what I'm able to do is to view it through the lens of the designer's narrative.
[00:13:37] Whereas over here, everything goes inward and I limit it here, the designer's narrative has equipped me to answer the questions.
[00:13:48] See, if I remove God from this, I end up with this.
[00:13:55] See, who, who's influencing you? Where, where do you get your influence from?
[00:14:01] Well, you know, we live in this, in this world where the influences are, are just, they, they never stop coming at us, do they?
[00:14:11] And the, the reality is that if we start putting issues and people groups in, in the middle here without God, we actually make them the victim and them the problem.
[00:14:27] But they're not.
[00:14:30] The problem is that we remove God from the center and we remove the narrative.
[00:14:36] And we need to restore the narrative, the creator's designer's narrative.
[00:14:43] See, we live in a world like there's eight narratives. I stole this from someone else, but I found it very helpful.
[00:14:50] You see, there are these eight narratives I'm going to give you, there are others, but these narratives are influencing us. What should happen is that our God centered world should influence the narratives of the world. But what's happening is the narratives of the world are influencing us.
[00:15:10] Let me tell you what the eight that I use are. Individualism.
[00:15:16] Now the interesting thing about all of these that I'm going to give you is they all contain some elements and some sort of nuggets of truth or things that are okay.
[00:15:29] And if you put them around here, then God can conserve each of them.
[00:15:36] So individualism, it's all about me, which is really what this whole message is really about.
[00:15:42] Individualism puts me at the center of everything. Consumerism, consumerism says I am what I own.
[00:15:51] And we see that in our world.
[00:15:53] It's so dominant, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with owning stuff. The question is, does it own you?
[00:15:58] I mean, if you can afford a Ferrari and it doesn't own you, enjoy it, I'm good, I don't have an issue about it. But if somebody buys Ferraris because their identities in having Ferraris, they got issues. Do you understand where I'm coming from?
[00:16:13] So consumerism, individualism, nationalism, which is a hot topic at the moment.
[00:16:20] But you see, if you view nationalism over here through the lens of God, there's nothing wrong with loving my nation.
[00:16:27] There's nothing wrong with praying for my nation. There's nothing wrong with being proud of my nation's history and its influence on the world. But it's a God lens first. But if it's a nationalism lens first, then it causes problems.
[00:16:45] Individualism, consumerism, nationalism, New Age, which actually makes me a God, which again is really related to individualism.
[00:16:55] Now again, a little nugget of truth in there. We're made in the image of God, it's just that we're not gods, but we are made in the image of God, says little pieces of truth. But these are all influencing us, these narratives.
[00:17:10] A scientific Naturalism, which basically is it, you know, it just all happened. It's the, it's the evolution stuff. It's the extreme evolution stuff. That of itself is actually very interesting because one of the things I've been learning just recently is that science is used to be a branch of theology in the universities that were founded 506, 700 years ago. If you studied theology, you studied science. If you studied science, you studied theology.
[00:17:43] So again, there's some truth there. Moral relativity, of course, without the plumb line of what's right, you end up with moral relativity. You end up with people deciding that's morally okay for me.
[00:18:00] So it's, you know, it really is a huge issue.
[00:18:04] Once you get moral relativity and you reduce, you remove the plumb line. There are people who are arguing that paedophilia should be made legal.
[00:18:15] It's a natural consequence of removing the plumb line and moral relativity.
[00:18:20] It's the natural constants of removing God from the, from the center and the plumb line that's there.
[00:18:26] So how am I doing on numbers? That's six.
[00:18:33] This is probably my favorite because it feels the most relevant in many respects. But it's post modern tribalism.
[00:18:44] Now, unless you don't have a social media account, you all have that. Because what's happened to us is we've ended up with a tribe, our tribe that's feeding us and our news and our information. And you literally can meet people who will argue with you that black is white because their group of people on their social media world are convinced that it is that way.
[00:19:10] And so that is a huge part of our world. And then another beautiful one, which is salvation by therapy.
[00:19:19] It's there, it's all over the place now. A little bit of truth in there. We need help.
[00:19:24] But you can't get saved by therapy. You can only get saved by Jesus Christ.
[00:19:28] So all of these narratives are affecting us, but what should really happen is we should be affecting the narratives.
[00:19:37] That's really the goal. So the me centered world is being affected by all of these narratives. So when I put the issue in the middle, I am dealing with that issue through these narratives that is affecting me. But when I put God in the center, I am viewing as it were, those narratives through the lens of God. Does that. Do you see where I'm coming from? Which is why for me, when we start to face questions in life over here, we've made ourselves God.
[00:20:13] We have literally made ourselves the God of my life, my choice, my life.
[00:20:20] Now I'll go to this One, because it's really over this side that it belongs.
[00:20:28] When I think about four things that I teach about quite often I've talked about here, when I talk about revival, what I'm really saying is that revival is that I put Jesus or God in the center of individuals.
[00:20:52] That's really what we're saying is belief and faith in Jesus Christ, which obviously means putting God at the center of my life. Revival means put God at the center of my life.
[00:21:03] In very simple terms. Yeah. Is that okay?
[00:21:07] Not many of you agree with that.
[00:21:10] It's just simple way of putting it. What we're saying is that's what revival looks like when millions of people put God at the center of their lives. That's revival.
[00:21:19] I should have put revival there, shouldn't I? Revival.
[00:21:22] Reformation is to put God at the center of society.
[00:21:32] Yeah.
[00:21:36] Renewal is to put God back in the center of the church.
[00:21:42] In other words, to remove religion form without power and put the person, the presence, the power and the principles of Jesus back in the center of the church.
[00:21:52] It's brilliant. The other day we had Tim Hughes here, and it's really beautiful. And it's funny because he said something we all know is true in a way, but he said it in such a way that it just slightly caused that little bit of a ripple. Because he said, you know, the church isn't evangelism first. The church is worship first.
[00:22:09] You get worship right, you'll get everything else right.
[00:22:13] Put him in the center. Because if you put him in the center, we will worship. Trust me. If he walked in here now and stood in the center, we would be worshiping.
[00:22:22] We wouldn't be worried about evangelizing.
[00:22:25] We wouldn't need to.
[00:22:28] So revival is we put Jesus at the center of individuals. Reform is we put him at the center of society. Renewal is we put him at the center of the church. And Renaissance is. Actually, I think that we put him at the center of the future.
[00:22:44] Why do I say that? There's a quote by. I'm sure I got his name completely wrong, but his name's. Is it Francis Thomas? For some reason, I get his first name confused in my head. Five hundred years ago, he said this.
[00:22:57] At the fall, man lost his innocence.
[00:23:01] He sinned, in other words.
[00:23:03] But he also lost his dominion over creativity. In other words, he stepped outside of the designer's narrative. Have dominion. It's part of the purpose.
[00:23:15] What Bacon says is this religion, or specifically Christianity, will restore the innocents. It will deal with the lost innocence.
[00:23:25] But he said this science and creativity will restore dominion over creation.
[00:23:33] It fascinates me because in many respects, I think what we're really saying with this is we need to put God back in the center of science and creativity.
[00:23:43] And when we do that, everything changes.
[00:23:46] See, as we live in this world and we face the challenges that, that we all face, in many respects, the me centered world, it causes tension in our lives. You know, all of us, you know, we come from different communities.
[00:24:07] It's a reality. You have a different community, you have different kind of codes of the way you do life.
[00:24:13] You have a different culture, you have different life experiences, you have different context of your life.
[00:24:23] And so the problem comes along and you're viewing it through that, and what happens is that the way you deal with that problem, you're kind of dealing with it in the context of all of this.
[00:24:37] But what should really happen is that if I put God at the center of my life, God helps me to live in my community, in my different culture, in my different context.
[00:24:51] And that's the way it should be because we do all have different experiences of life. See, all I'm trying to say is that the only answer to this life is a God centered life.
[00:25:03] That the divisions and the problems and the hatred come when we have a me centered life and I've made myself God and, and therefore the problems of this world become the big issues and they become the victims and they become the problem.
[00:25:20] But actually what we need to do is to have God at the center so that we view the issues and the problems of our society through the designer's narrative and through that lens.
[00:25:33] Now, I'm speaking for 30 minutes. I mean, there's a whole lot of other things to put in there.
[00:25:39] But you see, my real challenge to you is this is to challenge you. What are your narratives? What is the narrative of your life?
[00:25:47] When an issue, a problem, a circumstance happens, comes along, you're having a discussion about it. I think what Juliet said about students going back and facing stuff is, what's your first narrative?
[00:26:03] Is your first narrative a God centered narrative?
[00:26:08] Because if you put the God centered narrative right in the center of your life, then that influences your response, your opinions, your behavior.
[00:26:20] Now what I'm beginning to see and develop an understanding of is that once I get the, as it were, the designer's narrative back in here, then I can add to that some other narratives. For instance, how we treat people, so we treat people with love.
[00:26:40] I mean, I believe in absolute love. I believe that Jesus came for every man, woman and child ever has ever Will live. I don't have any question, any doubt about it. So how we treat people with love, once I get that narrative, I can do that. The problem comes that a lot of people want to put that love narrative in the middle of here without the designer's narrative. And what happens then is we reduce the standards of the designer's narrative because we're trying to prove that we love them, but we should love them because of an outworking of the designer's narrative. Does that make sense?
[00:27:19] See, we add these other narratives. I started to list them. I mean, there's probably a series that lasts me 20 years, probably. But I know there's a messianic, the gospel narrative. There's the kingdom narrative. It's how we expand the influence of the king. There's the narrative we're given in the parables, which is really about the kingdom of heaven. Looks like they're narratives about life and justice and business. They're real narratives. There are narratives about how we treat other people that we see in really a lot of Paul and Peter's writing.
[00:27:54] There's the narratives of the spirit and word and truth, but all of them actually depend on us having this at the center and believing he designed us.
[00:28:03] So my challenge to you is this week, as you face situations, as you're processing stuff, discussing with other people, I want to encourage you to check, is this my center?
[00:28:18] Is God at the center of me, my life, my. My narrative? And from there, you're actually able to protect and live in your different context, Community, family, with God at the centre. But me at the centre actually starts to break down community and context and the society that I'm a part of. And really, it's kind of almost as simple as this.
[00:28:50] You have a choice. You put God at the center, and that goes alongside eternity.
[00:28:58] And that's a huge subject, is eternity.
[00:29:02] It's probably one of the most important. But I don't know that we teach it that much, because our understanding of eternity totally affects how we live here and now.
[00:29:13] I mean, we have this great tension. We're made in the image of God, but we're dust.
[00:29:19] Like, it's fascinating.
[00:29:21] We stand on platforms like this and say we're world changers, but we're also dust.
[00:29:28] It's that great context. You know, we're specks on the great picture of eternity, the billions of people that have lived. But he knows you by name. He loves you. He has a purpose for you.
[00:29:43] God and eternity versus me.
[00:29:49] And now, which one do you want to choose?
[00:29:54] Because I know what? I'm going to choose my wife. I don't know how many times a year she says this to me.
[00:30:00] She said, how do people live without him?
[00:30:04] How do they do it?
[00:30:06] How do they cope with the pressures of life?
[00:30:09] We weren't meant to. We weren't designed to. Ecclesiastes 3 says he has put eternity in our hearts.
[00:30:18] You are wired for this.
[00:30:22] You're not wired for this.
[00:30:25] You're wired for this.
[00:30:27] And somewhere in the past somebody said in every person is a God shaped hole. I believe it with all of my heart. And until you fill that hole, you'll be over here making problems and issues and people, the victims and the problems of our world. But if you can move over here and restore the designer's narrative, you will be able to cope with the challenges and the problems and the issues of this world.
[00:30:57] This side is often judging us on this side often.
[00:31:05] I'm not bothered about that. I just want to make sure that as I walk into this week, I have the designer's narrative.
[00:31:13] I'm made in his image, there is a designer. I have a purpose.
[00:31:18] I have community.
[00:31:20] And he saw that it was good.
[00:31:23] And that's the narrative that I want to challenge you to check as you maybe put a reply on social media. Just check.
[00:31:34] Am I coming from a designer's narrative or am I coming from my life, my opinion, my voice, my choice?
[00:31:42] Or am I coming from I'm made in his image, there is a designer. I have a purpose. I'm part of a family and it is good.
[00:31:54] See, the inherent nature of that worldview is good.
[00:31:59] The inherent nature of this worldview is its evil.
[00:32:05] Steve, do you want to come up and close?
[00:32:12] Thanks for listening to the Coma Church Podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church. For more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship and how to donate, visit our website at Chroma Church.
