SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Beyond the Message, a midweek space where we continue the conversation from Sunday's sermon, unpacking context, exploring your questions, and growing as we listen, learn, and follow Jesus together.
SPEAKER_01: So Aidan and I have assumed the role of joint preachers.
SPEAKER_01: Aidan was present to hear the sermon on Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: I was actually over at Wahiki Island and preaching out of Acts chapter 11, so something entirely different.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll listen to it.
SPEAKER_01: And obviously Michaela delivered an excellent sermon.
SPEAKER_01: So here's a little bit of a summary that I took from it.
SPEAKER_01: Michaela took us as part of our Gospel of Luke series through Luke chapter 18 and took us through what has been a bit of a pattern actually in our series.
SPEAKER_01: A bunch of seemingly unrelated encounters.
SPEAKER_01: Looked at the Pharisee and the tax collector, looked at the little children passage, one that I often use, always use the fact when we dedicate children, the story of the rich ruler and the blind beggar.
SPEAKER_01: And she connected them all together with really the question to say, so how do we approach Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: And the surprising answer that she gave us as we worked through it was that the kingdom of God is not received by those who have the most to offer, but by those who recognize how much they need God's mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's a tax collector crying out for forgiveness, children receiving what they cannot earn, or the blind man calling out for mercy as he did.
SPEAKER_01: Each story points to the same reality.
SPEAKER_01: We never outgrow our dependence on Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And at the heart of the sermon was this powerful challenge to the common assumption that the Christian life begins with grace but is then sustained by our own effort, and we'll talk about that.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, Michaela argued that God's grace is not merely the starting point of faith, it's the foundation beneath every part of it.
SPEAKER_01: As she put it, it's grace all the way down.
SPEAKER_01: And she used that amazing example of the turtle.
SPEAKER_01: So today on the podcast, we're gonna unpack a little bit of that message, explore what it means to live a life of humble dependence on Jesus in a culture that prizes self-sufficiency.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a pretty good summary, Aidan.
SPEAKER_01: You were here.
SPEAKER_01: What what did you think?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's uh it's a great summary.
SPEAKER_00: It was a really clever message because it did cover a lot of biblical material that that you've said, but it uh it was so uh well themed around that idea of dependence on humility and how we approach God.
SPEAKER_00: And it it sort of even started and ended with the same kind of words, have mercy on me, which was the title.
SPEAKER_00: So it made it very easy to go, okay, this is the key point.
SPEAKER_00: But we've actually covered a lot of uh a lot of sections.
SPEAKER_00: So uh that was a great summary.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I really loved that point around you know the assumption that grace gets us started or gets us in the door, but then the rest is up to us.
SPEAKER_00: And we we would never say that, but it can be how we operate uh as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: I resonated with that and thought, oh yeah, I can totally be guilty of that.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought it'd be good to talk about why why do we think that?
SPEAKER_00: Like, why do so many Christians believe that it's grace that gets us started, but then after that it's our performance that keeps us going?
SPEAKER_00: You already indicated you know society.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: What other reasons do you think, or or maybe you can dial more into how society shapes us?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think that is the exact question how society shapes us.
SPEAKER_01: We're basically bred into a world in the Western world where performance is king.
SPEAKER_01: We think about going to school, we have to pass tests, we have to reach standards as we go through our education system, we're encouraged to grow into a career.
SPEAKER_01: It's all about performance.
SPEAKER_01: Our society prizes or values what success looks like.
SPEAKER_01: And let's be honest with ourselves, we live on the North Shore of Auckland.
SPEAKER_01: We live in one of the societies in New Zealand that most prizes that we're a high-performing society.
SPEAKER_01: We have all of those things that surround us.
SPEAKER_01: Those of you that have been to the high schools in this area, we all have big digital billboards outside of it, right next door to us.
SPEAKER_01: Celebrating, celebrating our success, celebrating achievement.
SPEAKER_01: And so we live in this achievement-based world where we feel like our success is based on the things that we do.
SPEAKER_01: And that just is kind of like a natural overflow into the church world for us or our Christian lives.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we have that message that's constantly surrounding us, it's only natural, really, that it comes into all parts of our life, which is the major rub when we become followers of Jesus, because the gospel message, as we've been saying in Luke consistently for so long now, it's not about that.
SPEAKER_01: It's about grace and that we don't need to achieve our salvation in effect.
SPEAKER_01: Now that works out in the way that we live ultimately, but as Michaela said, grace all the way down.
SPEAKER_01: So I think we live in a world, this is where the values of the kingdom rub so much against the values of you know who we are or or what our society says that we need to be.
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's a huge challenge for us in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, I've been there.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm I've been around when I was young, uh, you know, performance-based Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was in worship teams, I was a musician, um, that kind of striving to be amazing on stage and all of that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I got my self-worth out of that a lot, not so much out of the words that we were perhaps singing.
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I've been in that world and I understand it, and it's it is a challenge for us.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's in so many areas.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I really resonated.
SPEAKER_00: There was a metaphor that Michaela used around a child at some point, they you know, they need their father's hand to cross the road, and then at one point they get old enough that they they don't need that hand anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, and feeling like, you know, I've got a two less than two-year-old, he definitely needs to hold my hands, and sometimes he thinks that he knows better and he can come down the stairs without holding my hand.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but as a as a believer, it's easy to feel like we've graduated from that stage of needing God to hold our hand or sustain us by grace.
SPEAKER_00: And I've noticed that I guess five years now worked at the church.
SPEAKER_00: Um and it's probably easier to be dependent on God on day one versus now because when I started, I kind of didn't I had no idea what I was doing, and it was very obvious that I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas once you've preached so many times, or you've led this many Bible studies or done this many podcasts, or caught up with somebody in a pastoral situation, I feel like it's easy the first time to be very prayerful and very oh God, you need to help me and guide me in this, but when it's no longer new territory, it's easier for me to slip into self-dependence or self-reliance.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was a real challenge for me of going, it's not like a I'm not able to let go of God's hand.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Um well, let me give you a little insight into that.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, as you progress further in your career, I feel like I've been there.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I've come around full circle.
SPEAKER_01: And like when I preach now, I'm like, God, I really need you.
SPEAKER_01: Um I don't want to rely upon my own ability or my own knowledge or my own strength.
SPEAKER_01: I re I really need you because it's a bit of a hard gig preaching when you've been doing it for a while.
SPEAKER_01: Because those that know me kind of like, oh yeah, grant says the same things a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_01: Um, because that's inherently some of the stuff that I value and always want to talk about, but I'm always like seeking after God.
SPEAKER_01: All right, let this not be me.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, what's new and fresh?
SPEAKER_01: What do you want me to say to these people?
SPEAKER_01: Uh so you sort of come full circle sometimes a little bit in the lives that we uh sort of call to.
SPEAKER_01: And I guess I hope that that's the case for all of us as followers of Jesus, that we never ultimately rely on our own ability.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I often say, like I say, it's one of these repetitive things that I always say, we never arrive, we never get a certificate, we never know it all.
SPEAKER_01: And I think when we think we have, that's when we really need to sort of open up again.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: The spirit's got to challenge us to say, Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Just when you think you've got that sorted.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think the older we get, the more we're challenged in those areas.
SPEAKER_01: Like parenting, I think that's a great example.
SPEAKER_01: I often say when it comes to our ability and careers or when it comes to money and things like that, it's like, all right, God.
SPEAKER_01: What I have is not mine.
SPEAKER_01: Keep challenging me.
SPEAKER_01: I need to rely upon your grace for that, the way that I live my life.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it makes me think of uh driving licenses um and the idea of a restricted license where you you kind of need someone to supervise you and or something like that, or a learners and restricted.
SPEAKER_00: And as Christians, we sometimes I can feel like I've got a full license now.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, you got a full license for ministry, go and do your thing, but actually we're we're always dependent.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so sometimes need to check that impulse and remember to um that we are sustained by grace, that our own efforts are great when empowered by the spirit, because we do need to make effort and we obviously prepare, and that's I think that's one of the reasons why it's so hard because it feels like a tension of going, well, then do I just not try?
SPEAKER_00: Like, do I not try to get achievements or try to preach a good sermon or try to do well at work because I shouldn't be trying to perform?
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, how do we do both?
SPEAKER_00: Like give our best, but also be dependent.
SPEAKER_00: Um well, that's a good question.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we got an answer for it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh somebody said, I don't know who it was, was Spurgeon or someone.
SPEAKER_00: Was something like um act as though everything depends on you and pray as though everything depends on God?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I like that.
SPEAKER_00: That is so true.
SPEAKER_00: Um I asked you that answer because I'm like, whoa, it's a tough question.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it was Spurgeon, but someone said that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, credited to Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, credit for a lot of Baptist ends.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So that understanding around who you know what grace is and how it applies to us, such a challenge for us.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that was, you know, a key point that Michaela was really trying to communicate.
SPEAKER_01: She opened her message with a quote out of C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis's screw tape letters, and a lot of people are very familiar with them.
SPEAKER_01: They are kind of you know significant books for a lot of people, where the mature Christian is no longer making grand promises to God, but simply relying upon his grace one day at a time, kind of what we're I guess talking about.
SPEAKER_01: She concluded that maturity is not increasing confidence in ourselves, but increasing confidence in God's mercy and grace, just really what you were saying, um, out of that maybe Spurgeon sort of quote.
SPEAKER_01: Looking back on your life, Aiden, uh maybe thinking back to when you were 20, you can probably remember that.
SPEAKER_01: You know, that was more recent for you.
SPEAKER_01: How would you have thought that spiritual maturity kind of looked in your life at that point?
SPEAKER_01: And maybe how's that changed?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think um I I would resonate with what Michaela said about I think she talked about being a 20-year-old during COVID and making these big promises to God, and uh there's that simple kind of naivety of being that age and wholeheartedly, uh God, I give you my life and you know, have your way and I'll go wherever you call me.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I guess I I would have been quite similar.
SPEAKER_00: Um I also work with a lot of 20-year-olds, so um it's probably easier for me to think about where where they're at than actually to remember how I was when I was 20.
SPEAKER_00: But uh I find that spiritual maturity for young adults often feels like how am I going in my devotional life?
SPEAKER_00: So how how many times this week have I read my Bible?
SPEAKER_00: How how long have I spent in prayer?
SPEAKER_00: Have I been regularly at church and life group and in these spaces?
SPEAKER_00: And if I have you know doing well in all those things, then my spiritual maturity is good, and if I'm not, then I'm backsliding or yeah, um not I don't know, not thriving in my relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I I probably was pretty similar, which is kind of a performance-based metric, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's like how am I doing over all of these assessments, and that's my spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: Um coming to see that spiritual maturity is I guess recognizing our need for God all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm in the season where I if I assess myself based on those metrics, I'll be tanking, I'll be struggling because my life is very different and I can't tick the Christian boxes that I used to tick with a nice calm coffee in the morning and having a quiet time with God.
SPEAKER_00: So I've had to adapt how I do that, and a part of me does go, Oh, uh you know, am I less spiritually mature now because I'm not getting this time?
SPEAKER_00: Um but I've had to recognize that yeah, that God is still with me at different different seasons of life, and uh yeah, I've been encouraged to look at the quality of my time with God rather than the quantity.
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
SPEAKER_00: Um so that helped me reframe.
SPEAKER_00: What about you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you you remember what like you felt like who was spiritually mature when you were 20 or what like look like?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I often talk about music being a big part of my life, and it was a very big part of my life for for many years, really until I came to Windsor in some ways.
SPEAKER_01: Um and so music and lyrics of music were very formational to me.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, when I was 20, I mean the world was in black and white, it was the old days.
SPEAKER_01: Um but I remember through those years there was a couple of songs in particular, and one in particular that said, Jesus, I believe in you, and I would uh basically go to the ends of the earth for you.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember being very challenged by that thinking, well, I remember just God saying to me one day, would you?
SPEAKER_01: Really?
SPEAKER_01: And thinking, Oh, um, probably not, what are you saying?
SPEAKER_01: But being kind of a pivotal time in my life where I think he really challenged me around what lyrics I was singing and what impact that was having on my life.
SPEAKER_01: So there's that little line that we often say that the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think all of those things that you described that young adults think about Bible reading and prayer, I mean that's all part of our growing up.
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
SPEAKER_01: It's all part of the rhythms that we do need to put in place in our life.
SPEAKER_01: The challenge as we continue to mature and age is, well, are we actually listening to what it's saying and how are we putting those things into place?
SPEAKER_01: So for me, at my stage of life, it's not so much have I read the Bible this week.
SPEAKER_01: For me, it's like how are my actions and my attitudes reflecting decades of following Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: How does my interaction with the person on the street, in the supermarket, you know, as I often say to people, when we're driving on the on-ramps, when it's you know, we're erasing the person next to us?
SPEAKER_01: What's I often feel myself saying, What is Jesus saying to me in those situations?
SPEAKER_01: How is my spiritual maturity affecting the way that I see people on the street, um, deal with people in the ordinary, everyday events that I have to face?
SPEAKER_01: How am I loving them?
SPEAKER_01: What is my attitude to them?
SPEAKER_01: How am I dealing with the stewardship responsibilities that as I have matured and grown have become increasingly part of my life?
SPEAKER_01: Because in many ways that's a natural sort of growth thing for us as well, as a parent.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and now as a grandparent, uh, how am I loving my grandchildren?
SPEAKER_01: How am I trying to disciple them from a grandparent view?
SPEAKER_01: That's something that Joe and I are talking a lot about and learning a lot about at the moment, thinking around that for the future.
SPEAKER_01: So I think for those of us who have been around the traps for decades, and again, I often say this when I'm preaching, it's like we should be the champions of saying that's not about us anymore.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I often think to myself, worship and music because it's part of my life.
SPEAKER_01: If it's not my gig in church, who cares?
SPEAKER_01: I've been around for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm I'm worried about your generation, or I'm worried about so we get to choose the music.
SPEAKER_01: From my view, from my view, yes.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: But you're right, you say that and we laugh about it, but totally, because I don't need to get my spiritual fill out of 20 minutes of music on a Sunday now.
SPEAKER_01: Um now that was a part of my life when I was younger.
SPEAKER_01: I guess that's kind of the growth of maturity that I'm hoping for.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm kind of saying those of us who are older, and as I increasingly get older, you know, my maturity should be reflected in the ways that I'm giving back, the ways that I'm trying to mentor young people, the way that I'm loving people around me.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, I guess I hope that that's what maturity looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Um I mentioned at Wahiki Island last week that we have, you know, two gifts in the church, the gift of encouragement and and the gift of fault finding.
SPEAKER_01: Um I I would hope that I ingest.
SPEAKER_01: I would hope that those of us who are older don't have the gift of fault finding.
SPEAKER_01: We should be like the Barnabas, that's what I spoke about at Waiheki.
SPEAKER_01: We should be encouragers, we should be those that are leading by example what spiritual maturity looks like as we continue to grow and change and keep learning.
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
SPEAKER_01: Look, I take that challenge personally.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I guess when I preach, I try to make that real for us as well.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great um, I guess, second half of life answer.
SPEAKER_00: And that is a lot of spiritual writing around second half of life being about how do I give my life away rather than how do I build up my own ego and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a lot of books written about it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh in summary, it's like how do you move from success to significance?
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm 56, so I've still got a few years left, obviously.
SPEAKER_01: But increasingly we're living longer.
SPEAKER_01: And so there are some challenges around what that looks like as well.
SPEAKER_01: And actually, Holly Walton is just about to launch um, I guess a tool for us to use as a church for people that are transitioning towards retirement age as we are going through some of those changes, and really it's around saying, okay, God, after all these experiences that I've had in life, what do I do with them now?
SPEAKER_01: How do I give back?
SPEAKER_01: How do I find my purpose in new ways?
SPEAKER_01: As I'm still gonna live all things and equal for 20, perhaps 30 years.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so I think it is that there's a societal shift going on there, and in the church, we need to capture some of that maturity that we have got.
SPEAKER_01: Again, for those of us that have been Christians for for decades, um, we should be the leaders in giving back and mentoring and caring.
SPEAKER_01: You should be in kids' church on a Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: It's my challenge to some of you.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you you don't need to get everything that I can we give all the time.
SPEAKER_01: So I think that question of maturity and what it means for us is a huge question for us all to wrestle with, to wrestle with individually, but also to wrestle with as a church.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great uh application and kind of life course thing, and we talked about kind of young adults and young family stage and then like you know, um like further and sort of established career and then retirement.
SPEAKER_00: What does spiritual maturity and service look like?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's really good speaking about it on a podcast because I can't see anyone when I'm looking at right now.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Like on a Sunday, I gotta be careful, you know, not to look at my friends.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You're close to retirement.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You can look at the camera and it could be anyone, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it could be anyone right now.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're just talking to each other really.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, you can always retire early.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we took covered a lot of characters in this message.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Michaela talked about, you know, there's the initially the comparison between the Pharisee and a tax collector and how they kind of prayed to God.
SPEAKER_00: Um then we talked about the children, which is you know one of the classic passages that people know Jesus' interaction with children.
SPEAKER_00: There's the rich ruler, which is another classic kind of passage, especially uh um, you know, I it's in a North Shore context, it often gets brought up.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the blind beggar.
SPEAKER_00: So there was uh what's that five different characters at least.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and one question that people could think about that we could perhaps talk about is which one best describes us or which one do we most relate to.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Are you asking me that question?
SPEAKER_01: Am I a Pharisee or a tax collector?
SPEAKER_01: Or you can take it one or however you want.
SPEAKER_01: Michaela interestingly missed one story in the passage that we were looking at at the beginning of Luke chapter 18.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Lazarus, who saw Jesus uh, you know, on the road.
SPEAKER_01: Uh little Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: He was so little that he had to climb.
SPEAKER_01: Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Zacchaeus, sorry, yeah, we still got Lazarus in our head from uh from when I spoke on him recently.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_01: And that's right.
SPEAKER_01: I really love that story because I think Zacchaeus reflects a lot of people, perhaps.
SPEAKER_01: I think Zacchaeus was interested in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He was like, What's all this fuss about?
SPEAKER_01: He kind of reflects this sense of something's going on here.
SPEAKER_01: I don't quite know what it is, but I want to have a bit of a look.
SPEAKER_01: Climb a tree.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, climb a tree.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus sees him and says, you know, Zacchaeus, I I gotta eat with you.
SPEAKER_01: Um, which again, hospitality, huge part of Jesus' ministry, sitting around, chatting to people, revealing himself, you know, talking about the big issues.
SPEAKER_01: Love that.
SPEAKER_01: Love that we are so strong in our life groups these days, because I imagine that hopefully a lot of life groups sit around and eat, drink coffee and etc., maybe on a Friday night, other things, um, and talk about faith.
SPEAKER_01: And I love that.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus, you know, incredibly strong part of his ministry was doing that.
SPEAKER_01: And then when he sits down with Zacchaeus, he makes no demands on him, but Zacchaeus, out of his own response, says, you know, I'm gonna give away half my wealth, and to those that I've ripped off, I'm I'm gonna repay them.
SPEAKER_01: That kind of Self-reflection that Zacchaeus has, I think, is incredibly challenging.
SPEAKER_01: He recognizes who Jesus is, he recognizes that he needs to respond, and he follows that through.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's I find that deeply challenging for myself.
SPEAKER_01: I've always loved that story.
SPEAKER_01: I guess I've always pictured a little Zacchaeus climbing a tree.
SPEAKER_01: Um I think, in fact, someone told me that they're actually telling that story in preschool at the moment here at Windsor.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01: Um going through that story.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so that that's cool.
SPEAKER_01: Um but I love it because it I guess Michaela didn't cover it in that message, but it's in that block.
SPEAKER_01: But it is that reflection of his ultimate dependence upon Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And and then follow through.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I recognise who you are, I recognise my sin.
SPEAKER_01: I recognise you know how I have not lived kingdom values in my life, I'm gonna make it right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that's really powerfully challenging to us.
SPEAKER_01: The recognition in our own lives of who Jesus is and then what that means to me.
SPEAKER_01: So when we talk about doing life and faith together at Windsor, one of our little catch lines, I'm like, yeah, life and faith, they roll together.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is so much more than head knowledge, head knowledge has to transfer to our hearts, a recognition of who Jesus is, and that will always lead us to be challenged in the way that we live, in the words that we say, um, and the way that we live our lives wherever that might be.
SPEAKER_01: So I I find I find Zacchaeus, I guess part of that block of stories, really, really insightful for me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a it's a great story, and it le finishes with verse 10, which I think is the final verse before we get to where you're going to go this week.
SPEAKER_00: And that verse 10, 19, verse 10, is one of the key verses of Luke where it says, For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: I when we talked about names for the series, I played with the idea of seek and save because that's such a key verse to what we've been talking about is Jesus' mission to the outsider, to the lost, to the ones who are not welcomed, to the ones who are not expected.
SPEAKER_00: And he he says this in response to those accusations about eating with sinners and tax collectors.
SPEAKER_00: And it's another statement of like why Jesus came, for the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so a key part of Luke's Gospel and this Sunday we're reaching the end of our sort of third block in Luke, and you'll be preaching the final sermon of this part.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, can you tell us briefly uh what we're gonna be hearing on Sunday?
SPEAKER_00: Where are we in Luke's Gospel and what's it about?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so again, a little collection of three stories that ultimately ends where this whole block has been taking us through.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus on this journey towards Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: We end up at the the gates, effectively, of Jerusalem, with Jesus kind of arriving there, and there's a couple of stories before that that kind of lead us there.
SPEAKER_01: They really all link into, I guess, one of the meta-themes that we've been looking at through this whole block is who is Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: And do we recognize him and what does that mean to us?
SPEAKER_01: And we end up with a range of different people responding to Jesus in a range of different ways.
SPEAKER_01: And it's the sense it's a little bit, you know, we covered some last week around, I guess, the second coming of Jesus, and one of these stories is about the king went away and came back, and so we acknowledge that he is coming back, that there will be a second coming in effect.
SPEAKER_01: And will we recognise Jesus at that point?
SPEAKER_01: Um, and how do we go about growing that in ourselves and how do we go about helping others kind of recognize who Jesus is?
SPEAKER_01: So we kind of end this block at the at the the entrance to Jerusalem before we resume it in 2027, as Jesus purposely goes towards the cross.
SPEAKER_01: So we end the series um at Easter 2027, which is at the end of March this next year.
SPEAKER_00: So this Sunday you're taking us right up to the walls of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and Jesus is about to enter.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the journey.
SPEAKER_00: So this has been the journey this year.
SPEAKER_00: And Sunday before Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pre-Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: You got a lot of time to get them ready for 2027.
SPEAKER_00: So we'll be finishing the journey.
SPEAKER_00: Grant will be preaching that message.
SPEAKER_00: So we look forward to um hearing it and um, you know, uh your preparation and all that.
SPEAKER_00: I know you've obviously preached on Waihickey last Sunday, you've got this message to prepare, and then for future series, so it's a lot going on, but we know that um the spirit will be working with you as you kind of analyze and prepare to film in here, and we will bless like our congregation and those who listen.
SPEAKER_00: So I encourage everyone to tune in as we kind of wrap up this section of Luke's Gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and until then, may God continue to shape us as we listen, learn, and follow Jesus together.