GROWING – How different people change us into different people. Brad Jersak at Ivy Church Didsbury @bradjersak #Bgbg2

Brad Jersak

Woah this was goooood!!  Theology is meant to be accessible and bring life to you. If this grabs you, why not check out the FREE Course ‘Living the Christian Story’ WTC (Westminster Theological Centre) are doing right now. Brad is one of the lecturers at WTC, oh, and so am I. We asked him to speak into our series on how we grow as disciples based on Ivy’s mission statement, KNOWING, GROWING, GOING – focusing on…

GROWING

God is gathering people who are very different, into one community of love – using that community to change us from the inside out.

Luke 6:12-19

12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

Don’t you wish you were there? Power is coming out from Jesus!!

He picks 12, who will be eyewitnesses of everything, including His resurrection. So the rest of the disciples who go out after them subsequently will be able to check back that it’s the REAL gospel.

Luke lists their names. Notice they’re very different people.

He has this group who grow and go. They’re healing, setting people free – just like Jesus. But notice again, how different they are. There’s nothing very glorious about having a group of people who are just the same as each other meeting together. Having a group of very different people together is a sign of God’s Spirit doing something!

For example:

Matthew would be seen as a traitor to his people. Taking taxes, giving to the enemy and keeping some for himself.

Next to him is Simon, the Zealot – insurgents who would assassinate Romans. This is how terrorism starts. Desperation breeds that.

Jesus puts the two at the same table. The collaborator and the conspirator, get sent out two by two. He’s changing them to become brothers.

Isaiah prophesies one day,  ‘The lion and the lamb will lie down together.’ That’s not a vision for a petting zoo in heaven. It’s a picture for now. A community of love being formed. Reconciliation of very different people, even those at odds with each other. It’s happening now all round the world, in the name of Jesus.

Like Bob Ekblad (another WTC faculty member). Goes into prison every week. Bringing together immigrants from Central America and the poor and gang members and neo-Nazis and they end up in the same room and it’s like ‘Who would we hate the most?’ Everyone who does his Bible studies comes to Christ, because they connect to a God of love. And they pray for each other and are healed.

Brad’s church: They prayed for a strategy, thought they would reach to cool Gen X types. InsteadJesus told them to start a home group in a care home for people with disabilities. They had lots coming, disruptive adults but then the carers came along too and then families with kids who couldn’t sit still came. Then addicts came because they knew it was a safe place to be broken. All so different, God brings them all together.

Look at Romans. Paul’s list at the end we just skip through. Paul’s goodbyes. Don’t skim it.

He’s saying Hi to the people from the Emperor’s household.

And then two people who haven’t got names – they have numbers not names – because they are SLAVES. In the same group as the royalty?

When you get those kind of people together – it’s amazing.

What if you don’t make particular people your ‘target group’ – but make the Trinity your target group, then God will come, and bring His friends.

Think about the apostle John and his brother James. They were called ‘The Sons Of Thunder.’ Do you think they had tempers?

Is there any evidence they did? Ask the inhabitants of the Samaritan cities that rejected Jesus, who they wanted to ‘call fire down on like Elijah did?’

Jesus rebuked them and said ‘You don’t know what spirit you’re calling.’ That’s fascinating in itself… ‘I didn’t come to destroy people I came to SAVE them.’ He’s changing this son of thunder into a son of God.

So later John writes ‘Beloved, let us love one another- for everyone that loves knows God and is born of God…’ Wow. He’s John… Lennon! What happened? A community of love changed him.

How about Peter? Mark 8. Peter gives the right answer to a question and he’s on a roll and gets commended for that. He’s feeling good. But he absolutely refuses the idea of Jesus’ suffering.

Then you read 1 Peter – He says, ‘Don’t be surprised if you suffer for Jesus, it’s precious, powerful.’ What got into you?Jesus did.

And you know how Peter died don’t you? Crucified upside down, glorying in suffering for Christ.

Jesus brings us together to use us, to change us, into the Beatitudes people.

Where do you fit in this family?

Do you wonder if you belong?

You don’t belong because you’re like everyone else. You fit in because this is a family that’s so different.

They don’t preach ’em like that any more.

When I was on the long and winding road that ended up with Anglican ordination, at one point I was interviewed by the then Bishop of Derby. He asked me what kind of books I liked to read, especially in terms of theology and I mentioned I was a big fan of Spurgeon.

I’ll never forget the Bishop’s reply as he lifted his reading glasses, ‘Oh really? Do you really think we have anything to learn these days from a 19th Century baptist?’

I could see he was serious. I replied, ‘Well people from all levels of society used to flood into every place he preached, up to 10,000 at a time, so yes, I think so.’

This morning I read one of Spurgeon’s sermons. Wow. The title of it is enough to rattle a lot of cages, but its subject matter and content shows that in terms of competing agendas, liberalism vs literalism etc., there really is nothing new under the sun.

Go and get yourself a cup of coffee then read the talk and ask yourself if there’s anything the church these days could learn from Spurgeon about how to call people to be doers of the Word and not just deceived hearers.

If you haven’t got time to read the whole thing – at least look at this, how does it compare with the response at the end of even the strongest evangelistic preaching; there’s no easy A, B, C, (Admit, Believe, Confess) here – but he outlines a call to soul wrenching personal examination.

‘if it should be laid to your heart to endeavour to seek after repentance, I will tell you the best way to find it. Spend an hour first in endeavouring to remember thy sins; and when conviction has gotten a firm hold on thee, then spend another hour—where? At Calvary, my hearer. Sit down and read that chapter which contains the history and mystery of the God that loved and died; sit down and think thou seest that glorious Man, with blood dropping from his hands, and his feet gushing rivers of gore; and if that does not make thee repent, with the help of God’s Spirit, then I know of nothing that can.’

 

 

Catch some passion from Andy Hawthorne today.

If you’re a preacher, this is a masterclass in how passion persuades.

It’s hard not to grow a church that reaches people far from God and helps them find their way back when you have someone like my mate Andy Hawthorne in it. In fact – there is nobody like Andy!

I get to have breakfast with him most weeks and he’s one of the people who inspires me to GO FOR IT, by the way, he’s speaking at Ivy Kingsway this Sunday am.

I don’t want you to miss out on connecting to this passionate, uncompromising and gifted man whose charity The Message does so much great stuff he’s been honoured with an OBE.

Watch this video, you probably won’t need to turn the volume up. Below it is what I take from this PASSIONATE talk he gave to a national Youth Workers a couple of weeks ago– watch it here:

http://www.message.org.uk/2014/05/20/restoring-hope-andy-hawthorne-at-yws14/

So…

Keep Mission central. Not only mission – EVANGELISM! PREACH! Preach the cross! To bear MUCH fruit. Not just loving people, of course we do that but we have to tell people the way TO heaven and out of hell.

And that’s COSTLY! But if we are red letter Christians we have to say what he said about now and eternity.

Do we believe this any more? The only thing that counts, the only thing TO count, is disciples!

If we don’t proclaim the gospel – who will?!

The Holy Spirit will come and bring CONVICTION. Don’t we want righteous young disciples?!

Step out! If they don’t hear it, they won’t have hope restored.

John Wesley: social reformer AND he said ‘You have nothing to do but save souls!’

William Booth: ‘Not called to evangelism? Put your ear down to the Bible and hear him call you – to go….’

Let us build rescue shops within a yard of hell!

This Is What I Wanted To Preach Yesterday – Judah Smith Does It 100 Times BETTER!

I made a point about Barabbas at our Good Friday service, it was okay – but this is ANOINTED.

Unfortunately whoever’s doing the transcript mishears him a couple of times, it’s even better than the words!

Ready – Aim – Preach!

(continuing my series of thoughts on this most vital area for ministry…) 

In 1948 Harold Laswell described the ‘Magic Bullet’ theory of communication. Communication = a process whereby a source transmits a message through some channel to a receiver. It’s called the magic bullet theory because the sender shoots the message out of his brain into someone else’s. The listener is passive in the experience.

Others modified the theory and included the idea of ‘Feedback.’ (How the listeners respond will have an effect on the sender). It seems really simple, and lots of us can think that’s what communication is. Cause & effect.

I preach a message from the Bible, the most powerful text in the world, someone hears it and, ‘Bingo!’ (or maybe no more bingo, if you’re preaching that gambling is wrong).

Message sent (cause) —– Received (effect). I deliver it, you get it.

But anyone who’s ever done it knows there’s a lot more to it than that isn’t there? ‘There’s many a slip ‘twixt ear and lip.’ When you look out at people scratching, shifting, checking the time and yawning; the magic bullet isn’t doing its job. Maybe the gun’s misfiring, or the bullets are blanks?

Or perhaps its because you never took AIM?

Imagine walking through the woods and suddenly you hear the crack of a rifle, you hit the deck as branches snap around you. What the heck?!

Eventually you see there’s a hunter (at least he’d call himself one) wandering around firing indiscriminately until finally, mercifully, he runs out of bullets: You ask him what on earth he’s doing.

“Well, I know there are deer out here in these woods somewhere, I figured if I shoot out enough bullets in as many directions as poss, eventually I’ll hit one.”

Ever heard preaching like that?  It makes you want to run for cover.

Probably my favourite recent Christian book on preaching would be Communicating for a change, by Andy Stanley.

He starts off the book with a parable of a truck driver who helps a preacher get better;

Lesson 1? Ask where you want to go. Preaching is like a journey; you go somewhere and end up somewhere. ‘The question is do you end up where you wanted to – or just drive round willy-nilly?’

If you don’t have a destination – you’re just driving round! He suggests you DECIDE in advance where you’re headed. In driving and in preaching a clear destination is VITAL.

If I just go on about various things I’m thinking or learning – it can be interesting (parts of it, to me at least).

I heard a Pastor once talk about ‘Preaching the notices.’ Don’t take him literally! What he meant was there’s a way for your sermons to drive the whole church forward – highlighting a value the church needs to have magnified or clarified (eg servanthood) or the vision of the church and a call to get moving or sustain momentum together…taking everyone on the journey with you where they discover truth together.

So, when you get up to speak – can you tell me the destination? Have you got clarity on that?

Ready to Aim? If not – you’re Fired!

Blah Blah Blah Preaching

I once heard Andy Stanley say, “Our approach to preaching should be shaped by our GOAL in preaching.”

What’s your goal with this Sunday’s sermon? Why are you doing this? What do you want to accomplish? Someone can say, ‘This is my goal’ but did you ever come out and wonder – what was that ABOUT?

It was Stanley again who said that instead of DETERMINING our goal, many of us INHERITED a goal. (from our church, pastors, preachers, theological college etc). I’ve gone through all of these goals during my time as a speaker;

a) Teach the BIBLE to people

Here, the Bible comes before people; you’re so focused on digging into the content the listeners are secondary, listening in on your musings. Success in this scenario is, ‘I got through it, I covered the material, and nobody died before we finished.’

Some home group leaders are like that. I was, when I led one. If the notes were two pages long I hated not finishing and would cut off a meaningful pastoral conversation because we still had to fill in the blanks on John 3:16 (For God so loved the _______). Teaching the Bible like this requires no real wrestling with the text itself, little creativity, no application, no visuals so it’s remembered. You just have to know a little more information about the Bible than the people and line by line tell them what you found out, till your slot is over and we sing a hymn.

People do this with varying levels of success. I remember being told about a young preacher who was asked for feedback by the old church warden, he said ‘There were only three things wrong with that sermon. You read it. You read it in a boring voice. It wasn’t worth reading.’

b) Teach PEOPLE the Bible

This is a little more audience focused, you want them to really know the Bible, so its not as dry, you get some personality involved, 4 things that rhyme, even better if they rhyme in Greek and start with the same letter, maybe throw in an application at the end.

People like me who take copious notes love this kind of preaching! We go away with more of our Bible coloured in saying, ‘I’ve learned something deeeeep today, I bet the apostle Paul didn’t even know he meant that when he wrote it!’

One of the first churches I was a member of had a leader who was a master at this; we’d do six weeks on one verse in Romans. I remember him telling us about when Paul referred to barbarians it was because to the Jews that’s what all the other languages sounded like to them ‘Bar, Bar, Bar…’ I loved that fact. Wrote it down. Remembered it for 25 years so far. One day it might win me a pub quiz. But it’s unlikely to solve any of the problems of the world or even answer the questions of a hurting individual. You’re not meant to be Stephen Fry on QI.

It’s good to help people know the Bible of course – but Jesus had most problems from the people who’d memorised most of it, so maybe knowing more is not the BEST goal. It’s not the Bible you know that matters, it’s the Bible you apply.

James 1 says there’s a way to handle the Bible so it really works inside of a person. But there’s a way too of  just listening to more information when we haven’t a goal to change or apply it is blatant self deception. It can be as much use as someone saying ‘Blah, Blah, Blah.’

“Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself – DO what it says.”

What does it SAY?

What should we DO? Don’t just parse the verbs. VERB the passage. Put it into action.

Anyone who chats through a Bible study, takes a page full of notes, gasps at the insights and knowledge, but does nothing about it in their life except, ‘That’s interesting, shall we discuss it a little further?’ is like a person who looks at themselves in the mirror and sees a huge bogey on their chin and goes ‘Arrrggghhh!!’ – then just gets on the bus and goes on with their day regardless.

You get no credit for looking in the mirror and knowing you’re a mess. What will you do? This is the difference between Greek and Hebrew thinking apparently. In the West we think we know because we know, but the Hebrew mindset says you show what you know by what you do.

James doesn’t say you’ll be blessed by what you KNOW. You can memorise 12 great principles of anointed marriage and still be instant messaging behind her back to that young girl in the office. It’s the same with money, parenting, or business. The blessing doesn’t come because I know. Or don’t.

It’s what I do. Or don’t.

There is no blessing in knowledge. The more we know about what God says and the less we do about it, the deeper our self deception.

And I know it’s all grace, but I can’t help tremble a little at the copious amount of words that I have written in my notebooks at those conferences and those churches, together with all the things I have taught as if I have known, but not done, will condemn me on that day when Jesus comes back.

20 years ago, George Bebawi told me, ‘Any knowledge that doesn’t help us love God or love people more, is useless.’

I’m up for the kind of knowing that gets us doing, but I love the way the King James puts this verse: ‘Knowledge puffeth up…’ LOVE is more important than knowledge. Thats’ a great goal for preaching, for us all to be loving more than knowing what agape means.

Together With People DO The Bible

There’s a lady in our church called Mavis. She has learning disabilities, and she is one of the most spiritually mature people I ever met. She always wants to love people. What she knows, is love. When the offering plate comes round, whatever she has in her purse goes in.What she knows, is generosity. She loves the people who help her, what she knows, is gratitude. She loves the worship. I’ve never heard her complain. I’ve often had a word of prophecy right from God through her when needed it. Often it sounds like a big smacking kiss on my cheek.

I want to grow more like her. I want Ivy to be more like Mavis. Because then we’ll all be more like Jesus.

Atomic Preaching #Bgbg2

I’m going to do a few blog posts around the vital area of preaching, which I think may incidentally help anyone who has to communicate in front of groups.

If I’m going to read anything, I’ll usually read something about leadership, or communicating, or Jack Reacher (but I’ve read all of those now so until Lee Child cranks out another I’ll read another book on preaching).

Communicating almost every week to large groups of people for years means I’ve grown and developed since I first recall standing up at the age of 14 in school.

I found myself in front of the class and electing to do a speech rather then present an essay. I wasn’t scared, I was excited. I loved the opportunity,  and half way through remember I felt something in that moment of ‘this is what I was made for,’ so – I joined the Police instead – until God put me on track with what he wanted me to do with my life and it ended up involving an awful lot of preaching and teaching.

That first speech was where I described to the class in graphic detail my research on ‘What Would Happen If A Nuclear Bomb Hit Manchester.’

Guess what – I had everyone’s attention! In those days everyone believed the Russians were ready to press the red button and we’d all end up obliterated or irradiated any day, so we listened to jazz funk at the school disco and tried to forget it. But the question was always there.

The first thing this first public speaking experience taught me was that you should aim at addressing the questions people are actually asking, rather than just imparting something you think is interesting.

A lot of preachers never get that. And if you haven’t got an aim – you should be fired.

Man, I’ve heard some boring sermons.

I came to faith partly as a result of hearing one great evangelistic sermon, by Eric Delve, but later when I first started regularly attending church I figured sermons were just something you just had to get through 95% of the time, perhaps because purgatory had been abolished.

One of the pulpit regulars was apparently a member of ‘The College of Preachers’, and he used to tell us so, but what he said each week was a disjointed collection of random thoughts of a faintly spiritual nature. Like listening to someone reading from various months off a Patience Strong calendar.

I thought that was preaching was, so I didn’t want to be a preacher.

I don’t know how he did it really, it must have been a very deep spirituality because I found it hard to read the Bible and not find that it had a point, it seemed very pointed to me, so I thought I couldn’t preach.

Sometimes preachers can have everything but a POINT!

Do you listen to your own talks?

Do you get regular feedback 1) from a cheerleader 2) from someone honest.

Did you have a point? Never mind three. Never mind three beginning with P.

Just a point.

Did you know what the sermon was meant to do?

If you didn’t, nobody else will guess.

We have to look at this because the church needs many more, better communicators. Why?

Because God has chosen the foolishness (I know it feels like it sometimes!) of preaching to move the gospel through culture. 

So preaching still matters. The reason so many churches have downgraded preaching is because so many people are doing a terrible job of it. And I know God can use it anyway, and looks at the heart and all that – but surely our strategy should not be that he works despite us?

Pick an aim – and press the button!

No Such Thing As Private Morality.

Tomorrow we finish a series I have loved us going through at Ivy, all about David. We’ve been in his life for months and learned a lot.

But as we draw a close on his life, I’m left wishing he finished better – and praying that I will finish well.

David was a man after God’s own heart. But as we track through his life we know that David’s heart was often broken. All of our hearts are broken by sin. By wrong things we’ve done and things done to us. Last week we saw how at times, temptation won and sin reigned in David’s heart and controlled him.

If you want to check out my video teaching on that fall with Bathsheba it’s available free on ‘Ivy Player’ on www.ivymanchester.org now

Now while David was forgiven of that because he turned to God in repentance, consequences came back to bite him. That’s something we often forget ahead of our sin, or even post confession.

Consequences.

There were consequences with regard to how much God could bless him, because that was linked to how much God could trust him. Ouch.

God effectively said to him, ‘I’d have done so much more through and for you…’ But David’s legacy was limited because of his sin.

And of course there were massive consequences in his family.

As I have observed it, people who go their own way and ignore God’s advice and commands about marriage, relationships and sex INVARIABLY end up with much more complicated lives.

All kinds of consequences. Mixed up, messed up families.

There’s no such thing as private morality.

‘Well what goes on in private doesn’t matter to anyone else.’

Crap.

It doesn’t just affect you – it affects generations of people, it affects society. David was told in scripture really clearly that a King should not ‘multiply wives.’ One’s more than enough! But he thought ‘I know best, and I have these needs, and I’m the special one…’ so he added lots of wives. Seven official ones, some count eight. He probably lost count too, what with all the concubines as well.

Then Bathsheba, someone else’s wife. And twenty children. Talk about complications!

The Bible pulls no punches in describing the murky gory detail of what went on with David’s kids, following his sin with Bathsheba. The terrible example he had set, his private contrition but public abdication of responsibility as a father; it’s X rated stuff at times, Game of Thrones has nothing on these power games and lies. Everyone’s in bed with someone or wanting to be.

To say the family ends up a mess as the years go on is a massive understatement.

So in the week a new prince was born, tomorrow we finish the series with the story of King David and a prince called Absalom in a royally messed up family. You’ll be able to listen to the talk on our website free podcast next week if you like.

But I want us to reflect on the families around us. To pray for and think about our own families. Families in our culture. What does that even mean these days?

Because David modelled sin to his kids as they grew up, then ended up as a passive father while they went from bad to worse. Probably because of his own failure, because of guilt and shame, because he’d set such a bad example, he was frozen solid as a dad. He didn’t engage with his wives because he had too many, he didn’t step up, discipline or confront his family as it went more and more dysfunctional.

Why? It seems David needed to be liked by his children more than he needed to be a Dad to them. He cried a lot and got pathetic around them but he wanted to be a pal not a parent.

He kept telling himself, ‘It’ll be okay, it’ll be ok.’ It was not okay!! The snowball was just getting bigger and bigger and bigger…

Problems don’t go away just because we want them to, or ignore them long enough. Resentments grow stronger. Patterns get deeper. Rifts become wider. That’s why God wants us to deal with and discipline sin, not deny it! He wants us to see sin for what it is and the damage it causes. To confront it and take action.

Before private sin leads to public shame.

Help us Jesus.

Make This Sunday’s Message RESONATE!

I’ve been a Nancy Duarte fan for years, highly recomending her books as a great investment to anyone who communicates (that’s you) and especially preachers.
How fantastic to discover that one of the world’s leading authorities on getting your message across in a way people will hear it is also a Christian and passionate about THE Message that changes lives forever and the world for good.

Invest 20 minutes on this video, and take notes! (I have the structure line on my office wall now together with some other prompts to help as I pull messages together).