In this episode of the Evangelists Podcast, we talk about Easter as an opportunity to share the good news.
SPEAKER_01The Evangelists Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Evangelists Podcast. I'm Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_00I'm Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_02Last week, Glenn, we talked about university missions and particularly when you came back from Kingston University. Yeah. And you said then that you were going to Sheffield on Saturday.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_02How did it go? Did you get up in the snow?
SPEAKER_00I didn't. They had a snow day. So on Saturday up in Sheffield, I was going to be doing some teaching at uh Porterbrook, which is a sort of a training course stroke college, training people for ministry that's uh particularly associated with the crowded house. So I was going to go up there, but they had uh blizzards up up north, um down here on the Sunshine Coast. It's uh blazing sunshine and blue skies, but um it was amazing going up on the train on Saturday, uh just heading north of of London and and seeing this sort of snowscape. Um so unfortunately on Saturday we couldn't have that training, so instead I I sort of preached on the Sunday and then we filmed me giving the training to camera uh on the Sunday afternoon.
SPEAKER_02So so people will watch that at a later date will they be part of that?
SPEAKER_00That will be particularly for the Porterbrook people, but um we we might be able to make that uh teaching available for others uh as well. But really, I mean the highlight for me up in Sheffield was the Sunday morning. It was uh a baptism service, and uh a couple of people were getting baptized and and they brought friends from all over the country actually, and and people came and I was preaching on the cross, and uh it it really gave me a vision for what's possible with with church when folks invite their friends into this community in which we're all worshipping Jesus, in which we hear the word of Jesus, we had the preaching and we had the baptism, and uh the non-Christians were so visibly moved by church family together, by hearing the word of the cross, and by seeing their friends take this step in baptism. Um it was so powerful evangelistically, it was uh it was really wonderful to see, and and off the back of it, uh quite a few people wanted to do three two one, the the evangelistic course that we've been working on. Um and that was great, and it was great to hear that one of the one of the girls getting baptized in among a whole heap of friends who are telling her the gospel, sort of three two one was part of her journey to faith. So that was really lovely to hear. Um but it was just just great to see local church as as this evangelistic community and and people brought in and and just being stunned, people who had no idea about the gospel before, but coming into this community and all of a sudden they've got thousands of questions and and they want to do uh 3-2-1, so that's great.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. And uh so you're came back on Sunday or was it Monday?
SPEAKER_00It ended well, I got back into Eastbourne uh very early Monday morning. But yeah.
SPEAKER_02You weren't having a duvet day on Monday then. But uh well that's good. So tell us what's coming up. You've got uh something on tomorrow going up to uh Leeds, is it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, back up to Yorkshire. So uh I'll have to leave the blazing sunshine and head up to Yorkshire again. Take your snow boots. Take my snow boots, and uh going to uh City Evangelical Church in Leeds, a great church up there, and they're gonna have uh just a a really evangelistic Easter. So Thursday evening, sort of Maundy Thursday, they're having an evangelistic event called Broken. Um there's a broken world, we've got broken lives. What does God have to say into the midst of that? So on on the night in which Jesus broke bread and said, This is my body, and come and feast on me. What does Jesus have to say into the midst of our broken lives? Actually, he says uh a whole heck of a lot. So we're gonna uh have that event really about sort of God and suffering, and uh they'll invite their friends. So uh looking forward to that. And then uh Friday morning, uh Good Friday service that I'll be speaking at, uh Friday evening a couple of youth clubs I'm gonna speak at. Uh Saturday there's a church fair, and uh Sunday big Easter service, and there'll be a big drive to sort of invite friends and I'll I'll speak at that.
SPEAKER_02I guess there's a big opportunity at Easter because people give out Easter eggs and they consider, you know, it to be a festival. But uh I can hear, perhaps in my imagination, a lot of young people particularly saying, Well, you know, what what is Easter all about? You know, why why are we doing this? I mean, I remember one um young person speaking to a very old elderly lady and saying, uh, have you heard about this thing at Easter where this man Jesus died or something?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I saw that even yesterday. There was an article in The Guardian where the writer, I think quite rightly, took um a press release from the Church of England to task because I I I think the press release uh didn't represent the data correctly and you know the article was was good as far as that goes, but then he said the Church of England can't even get their press releases right at Easter when they celebrate the birth of Jesus. Which um interestingly, you know, later in the day the website made the correction, but uh but you know, even even in this sort of journalist who was wanting to, you know, take the Church of England to task on this on this thing, that there you know, there was that level of ignorance on what actually is is Easter. And if that's true of someone who you know writes in a national newspaper about about the subject, uh yeah, the ignorance more broadly is is staggering really. So you know, there's an opportunity here.
SPEAKER_02And one of the things you do, Glenn, uh you've been on video on UCB TV um doing uh sort of a a short one minute or so thought just a basic Christian truth about something or other. And uh I thought it'd be good if we could um listen to one. I think I obviously can't see one. Yeah. But uh perhaps we could listen to that now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Uh an Easter themed one. Imagine the throne of God. What are you imagining? Well, it's a picture in the Bible of the control, the authority, the power of God Himself. And yet in Revelation chapter five and in chapter seven, there's an intriguing phrase about the throne. It says, the Lamb is at the center of the throne. Think of all the power, control, and authority of the throne. Now think of the suffering, bleeding victim, the Lord Jesus. And the Bible says he is at the center of the throne. At the heart of what it means to be God is Jesus Christ bleeding and dying for his people, pushed through to the deepest depths of deity, and what do you find? You don't just find raw power, you find a bleeding victim, the Lord Jesus, who shed his blood for you. When you picture God, what do you imagine? Just power, just sovereignty? Imagine Jesus at the center of the throne.
SPEAKER_02Isn't that amazing that uh in the Bible, Jesus, who we consider to be all powerful and almighty, is portrayed as a simple lamb.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And you know, in in the news at the moment there are there are so many lambs who are dying in the blizzards, in the in the bad weather, and uh that's a little bit quite appropriate in in terms of this is Passover, when the lambs do die. And yet this sort of biblical picture of Jesus coming forth, he is our Passover lamb who was killed, and the and the hyssop plant would would daub the blood on the on the door frames and and judgment would pass over you because the lamb had died in your place. And then in the Bible's terms, you sort of fast forward another sort of five hundred years, and you've got David in Psalm 51. He's sinned in terrible ways, but he says, God, cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. He sort of seems to be harking back to the Passover lamb, you know, God, you you have a Passover lamb. You've got hyssop, you've got the Passover lamb. Would you apply that blood to me, says David, in about a thousand BC. And then fast forward again around five hundred years, and you've got Isaiah talking about uh you know the Messiah when he comes, he'll be led like a lamb to the slaughter. And then again, fast forward about a five hundred years, and you've got uh John the Baptist in John chapter one saying, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And fast forward to the end of the Bible, Revelation five, you've got worthy is the lamb who was slain. Um so right at the centre of our understanding, not only of salvation, but even our understanding of God, right at the centre is the Lamb, the Passover lamb, the sacrificial lamb, who dies in our place, who who bleeds for us, who who loves us to death. This Easter, you know, the real challenge as we look to the cross is to see, well, there is what our God looks like, actually. There is the deepest depth of deity. The deepest depth of deity is the Lamb who is bleeding and dying for you, because that's his omnipotent love. That's his power being used, uh drained to the last drop for you. Um it's always a fearful thing, isn't it? You come to Good Friday and you and you think about Jesus the Lamb. Um but I think the the the Bible wants us to know we're looking at the very deepest truths about God when we look at the cross.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, thanks very much for that, Glenn. And uh you know, we trust that everything will go well over this this weekend, and uh look forward to getting uh another update in a week or so's time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, after Easter. That'd be great. But uh yeah, let's be let's be praying for leads.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for listening to the Evangelist Podcast. You can connect with us on our website, revivalmedia.org, and you can get to this episode and show notes directly where you can see that video from UCB. Just go to revivalmedia.org slash TEP2.