Time out with Jesus

Transcript (Auto-generated)

Well, good morning everyone. Doug is up here, referred to a couple of Pastor Dave's. Don't get us confused, there's two who's referring to. Pastor Dave over here is the good looking one. And I'm the has been pastor, reached my use by date a few years ago, well a year or so ago and like all of us, in the back of our cupboards or in the back of our refrigerator we find a jar and we bring it out and we see the use by date was come and gone but we take the lid off and so long as it's not bad we'll use it again. And so that's the capacity that I'm in here this morning. So the good looking one, the has been one and so don't get us confused. It's a joy to be here to share from the word again today. Most people here know me but those who may not know that Ann and I were members of the church here and been attending for well quite a few years now in different capacities. Want us to pray together and then we'll open God's word together. Father our prayer is day by day three things we pray to see you more clearly, to love you more dearly, to follow you more nearly day by day. Amen. If you've got your Bibles here and I hope you do have your Bibles, it's really important that you bring your Bibles either the old-fashioned paper one or on your device. And if you haven't your Bibles here if you'd turn with me to Mark chapter 3 and we're going to read from verse 13. If I say about devices in the old paper thing this is just a bit of an extra. You don't have to pay any extra for this but a couple of weeks ago we had our daughter and grandson at our place and somehow my daughter and I got talking about a phone book and our grandson who's I can't remember how old nearly 13 just about to turn 30. So Sarah and I were talking about phone books and this little fellow said what's a phone book and so mum had to explain to him what a phone book was and thought wow really that's the younger generation and I said we actually might even have one out. This went out, grabbed one or found one and brought it in and he was just fascinated with the thing called a phone. Anyway we're not talking about phone books but we're wanting to get into the Word of God and hopefully you have yours with you today. The interesting thing is about this passage that when I was reading it it's this a new awareness came to me in all of this of some significance. By the way Mark's Gospel is the shortest of the four Gospels and it's noted as a book of action partly because of its only brief 16 chapters but there's a word in there immediately which is used again and again. So read about 42 times in the 16 chapters the word immediately is used that's it's this book of action. Christmas story is not in it just starts right off Jesus in ministry. But what I found interesting is that is this that I hadn't noticed before is that this passage which we're about to read is where Jesus appoints the 12th. But what I realized this as I was reading this is that the word disciple Jesus and his disciples actually occurs a few times before then. So in chapter 2 and verse 15 it talks about Jesus and his disciples. It does again in verse 16 and talks about John's disciples and so on as well. But verse 23 Jesus was going through gray fields as his disciples. So one saying about that is that it seems to me and I haven't gone into this significantly Doug's a senior pastor he would give you the right answer for this. But it just seems to me that Jesus was gathering a whole pile of disciples you know later on he sent out 72. We're going to mention that a bit later on. But he gets to this point and out of all the disciples he appoints just 12. And so this is how it goes. So even though Mark is full of this action there's this pause here in the life of Jesus because it says this in verse 7. Jesus withdrew with his disciples. So it's the disciples to the lake and I'll get to the right passage in just a minute. Then in verse 13 rather Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted and they came to him. So out of all the disciples he separates some out and he appointed 12. So out of all the disciples which may be many he just selects 12 designating them as apostles that they might be with him. Now if you underline your Bible or if you've got your digital one there whatever your tech one and your highlight, highlight or underline that phrase because this is what we're spending time on today. That they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and have to have authority to drive out demons. These are the 12 he gave the name these are the 12 he appointed Simon to him he gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John to whom he gave the name Bone Urges which means Sons of Thunder, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, Thaddeus, Simon the zealot and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. So there's this phrase here that they might be with him. Now just keep your finger there in there and then turn with me over to Acts and chapter 4. This story chapter 4 actually begins in chapter 3. So I've got Peter and John going up to the temple to pray. There's this cripple begging and and so asked of these guys can you give us give me some money please and the reply came silver and gold have I none. Some others who really old like when I was in my late teens just to sing that song remember that silver and gold have I none. I was just so sure as saying can I come up and sing it for you all. But silver and gold have I none and we're walking and leaping and praising God and so it began in like this this is the beginning of the story and out of that the sermons preached that all the religious authorities are getting all upset about it and so they call in Peter and John and we could and start questioning them and because the the concern is it's getting late in the afternoon they put them in the lock up overnight to appear before them the next morning. And then what we read in Acts chapter 4 and verse 13 so that hold before these authorities before these officials and it says in verse 13 Acts chapter 4 verse 30 when they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled you know what that means they'd never been to university they hadn't even been to Bible college. Just by the by when I was a young fella and headed for theological college so I would as early 20s at that time and it was known in our local church that that I said it for theological college one of the older men came up to me and said and older men don't talk like this when the older men said to me said um so I thought about going to college once but then I thought well when you go to college only learn man's wisdom and so I thought I won't bother going which is really a word of encouragement to somebody about to go to theological college well I ignore that but of course a hundred years later it's still in my mind that I remember that and I just want to say this to you today it's it's a responsibility of every one of us and particularly young people to develop and to go as far as we possibly can in our education because God will use every bit of it but they said these officials looking at Peter and John realized that they were unschooled ordinary men they were astonished and they took note that these men what what's the next phrase they had been with Jesus and um folk we just talked about this back in in Mark's gospel Jesus called these people these disciples that they might be with him and now a number of years later Peter and John unschooled no education formal but they had been with Jesus and that's a key thing that we need to be looking at it was quite a quite a significant moment this trial we hear a lot today about things like homophobia islamophobia and which is a wrong use of the word phobia by the way phobia is from the Greek phobos which means fear and so it talks about a fear and so what the society is trying to tell us if you oppose us if you don't agree with us it's because you're scared of us in fact you can not agree with people but not be afraid of them and we need to note that we have in our extended family a husband two husbands uh marriage homosexual relationship we went invited to the wedding and I guess they probably knew what our stance was but recently at a family function they were both there and um and so I hadn't met the husband and so I made a point of going up and introducing myself and engaging in conversation and just talking with them they'd know that I don't agree with them but do I fear them no I don't the bloke who cuts my hair is a hindu do I have hindu phobia no I don't just just as well we've got this cutthroat razor around my neck if I had hindu phobia I wouldn't be letting hear but there's one other thing which we don't hear about today and that's christian phobia using the modern language the folk we need to be aware of that that that more and more government is putting and people in society are doing all sorts of things about christian phobia because they and some of them are literally scared and we need to be aware of that and sometimes we as churches need to take a stand the time is coming you see they talk about the separation of church and state they talk about the separation of church and state so they do not want the church to be involved in government but more and more government is becoming involved in church talk to anybody who's involved in christian schooling they'll tell you about it anybody church age care and whatever and what we have here in the book of acts is this whole story of christian phobia and what stood these men these two guys what stood them in this position was not their education but what they had been with jesus now let me sort of digress a bit to drive a point home have you seen how when people they talk about how people start looking like their pets because they associate together so I dug out some of these photos so here's the first one go back one we skip one there so there's some I don't have no idea who that is but somebody looks like their dog next one next one the clicker's not working somebody else and the next one and then I thought I've got to be fair in this so the next one was this clicker's still not clicking and I thought I don't have a pet but I thought if I had a pet what would it look like and you know artificial intelligence can do all sorts of things artificial intelligence can do all sorts of things but I don't know how to use it so I just had to go looking for myself so if I had a pet what would it look like and that's what I came up with don't you reckon he's cute and so is the monkey by the way too so they say that association is then to start looking the same and now we get back to reality back to what we're really on about and there's this truism that I want us to be aware of if you've got your cameras you can take a photo of this next slide it's like we're having trouble with our clicker this morning and this is the truism that we need to take note of the more time both quality and quantity with we spend with someone who we love and respect the more we are likely to take on their values and imitate their lifestyle that is we become more like them and then obviously coming on from that is this it follows that the more quality and quality time we spend with God the more we become like him we are transformed now Doug just mentioned a while ago that one of our values is transformation information transformation and that the Bible makes it very clear that one of the goals of God in our lives is that we might be transformed that we might become more and more like the Lord Jesus and so this whole statement this whole awareness that Jesus called these disciples to be with him was a transformation process was a transformation process that he was going to spend the next three years or thereabouts with them in transforming them in discipling them that they might become more like him and so the evidence of this is seen in Peter and John a few years later when they stand before these officials because of what they are saying and they're forbidden to by the way to keep on talking about Jesus they said well who do you think we're going to obey we're going to obey you obey God and the the answer is obvious there but the outcome is very clear that after spending three years with Jesus now before the officials they're not dependent upon any education which they don't have anyway but because they've been with Jesus people recognize the difference and so today we want to be looking somewhat at what this actually means about spending time with Jesus and I want us to look a bit for a while at how Jesus spent time with his disciples now we could do a lot more than than what we are spending these next couple of minutes just on this one point about how Jesus spent time with his disciples and I chose this passage in in John chapter 15 because it's a very important passage to read to understand on the vine you the branches it's this this whole passage is the important part for us Christians to understand but I've picked out these four things about how Jesus spent time with his disciples the first one excuse me the first one is modeling living the life John 15 4 and 5 says this remain in me and I'll remain in you no branch can bear fruit by itself it must remain in the vine neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me so there's this modeling I am the vine you are the branches man remains in me and me and him he'll bear much fruit apart from me you can do nothing we don't really believe that do apart from me you can do nothing if we really believed it I wonder how different our lives might be anyway that's a sermon for another time but there's this this modeling about Jesus living with these these guys for these three years say this is how life is to be lived and the same for us is that if we read the gospels we learn this is what life is like how we are to live our lives I was recently listening to to a sermon to a preacher online and he was saying about how this this completely unchurched bloke came in to see him and and gave his heart to Jesus this guy knew nothing about church and so everything had to be explained to him so when he got to church there were these men sitting in the front row and the preacher said the church this happened a number of years ago the church where he was pastoring at that time all the deacons sat in the very front row they were on show to the rest of the congregation and so this guy said who are these guys so the pastor explained these are the deacons these are the leads of the church and they're on show for everybody to to be aware of and anyway so the bloke said oh so we're supposed to be like them we're just supposed to be whatever anyway the next sunday these guys are sitting there and this new guy came in tap one on the shoulder tap one of them on the shoulder said I saw you during the week you need to move back a few rows new people in church could get away with saying things like that but you get the point modelling is that we are always on show does that mean that we're going to be perfect well good on you if you are because I'm not actually none of us are but we live our lives in the presence of God as an example to others and this is what Jesus life was is that he was modelling this is what life is about this how to live your life so it was also time spent with these disciples that it was a relationship that he's built this strong relationship with them a relationship based on love as the father has loved me so I have loved you now remain in my love but it was also an investing at a personal cost john 15 13 says this greater love has no no one than this that he laid down his life for his friends jesus paid that ultimate cost but there's more than that in investing his life investing his life in in these 12 men and in others as well let me just give you an illustration here one of our daughters did six months at uni and then decided that she didn't want to continue came and saw us with fear and trepidation said I want us to take 12 month break from uni we said that's a good idea and she said she wanted to do some bible college for the 12 months he saw that's great and then she said to me she said which college should I go to and I said well that's between you and God you've got to pray about that and work out but I said here's a couple of choices and I said here's college A I said I said if you want a good academic qualification might be the college you want to think about but here's another college and I know the principle because he's been like my mentor for all my ministry time I said if you want somebody who is going to invest his life into you then you might want to choose that that that college and whatever she she chose that second that second college and she chose that because there's this the principal and his wife invested their lives into the students not just for the time when they're in college but afterwards as well so they've been out of college now for I'll see my husband there by the way they'd be married for I don't know how long the oldest kid is 15 so it's 17 18 20 years something like that they'd be married and I know that the principal of the college still keeps in contact with them after all that time investing his life into them and I seen in the army got right away from the Lord and they came back to Jesus and then started attending a church and and the pastor the church now in Victoria invested his life into me and and many years later in fact just like a while number of years ago 20 years ago or something like this I reconnected with him and he said this to me David I pray for you every Thursday morning that's a life investment he subsequently just passed away just a year or two ago but here is somebody who invested his life not just into me but into others as well and this is what Jesus did is that he invested his life he poured out his life into these these 12 characters and others as well and then there's the discipling the passing it on as well in John 15 and verse 15 where he says I know long ago you servants because a servant does not know his master's business said I've called your friends for everything I have learned from my father everything I've learned from my father I have made known to you pass on everything I know and then of course we know that later on who's to say to his disciples you had that responsibility now to pass it on to others and you know what we are the product of that a couple of thousand years later it's been passed on from one generation to the next down to you and to me and guess what it's now our responsibility to be involved in all of these things modeling relationship building investing and passing it on to others so how did Jesus do this in a bit more detail um there's a writer once again this writer um he's not very well known sadly but once again he's another guy passed away a few years ago by the name of Dallas Willard he's actually an ordained Southern Baptist minister but went into an academic field ended up being a professor of of philosophy at the University of Southern California but he's written a number of books on the spiritual life and I'd encourage you to to grab hold of one or to buy to read it one of the best the heavy going as one might expect but but very good but one of the things about Dallas Willard was this is that he said that the word discipling has become so religious this is my interpretation we say that we somehow have lost the meaning of it and instead he used to use this term he uses this term about instead of being a disciple of Jesus about being a an apprentice of Jesus now we generally understand that language today about apprentices I'm a tradie I've got a tradie background did my apprenticeship in radio in the army and so I understand what um what an apprentice is so we did our formal things in theory in the laboratory in the workshop then we got out into our units we were actually appointed to a more experienced a more experienced tradesman and so he was there so that everything that we knew in our heads and so on he was there to to watch over us and I know there are other tradies here this morning and that's probably been your experience as well and after a few years when I got my proficiency then I had apprentices given to me to to train them and to do that as well we have a granddaughter who's doing her apprenticeship in as an electrician with one of the energy companies out in Chinchilla and so she's recently done her TAFE and so it's not doing her TAFE in the sense of getting 99 percent for her exams but just proficiency can she do the job or not and so this is the whole area of Jesus how Jesus did his discipling it wasn't much a university training that he gave them but an apprenticeship type training and on the job learning and and so the technical words which we use it's the action reflection model where you go and you do the job and then you come back and reflect on it and so basically this action reflection model which Jesus used was like this I do and you watch Jesus did the disciples watch then we talk about this is what happened and then I do and you help me and then we talk about and then you do I help and we talk you do I watch and we talk you show others we watch we talk so this is the action reflection model of how Jesus discipled those around him let me give you by the way you read the Gospels you'll see this pattern parts of it time and time again let me just give you an illustration Luke chapter 10 is where Jesus sent out the 70 or some versions that have 70 to sent them out in evangelizing everywhere so they'd seen Jesus evangelizing introducing other people to God now it was their turn to go out on their own and to evangelize what did Jesus do while they were at evangelizing I don't think he sat back in the armchair with his feet up there a bit of a breather here it's like school holidays or something but no my sense is that he's probably deep in prayer and we know that he's deep in prayer because of all of this and so when the 70 came back he said let's gather together what did you learn and so they said we saw all these miraculous things happening demons responding and all sorts of things Jesus said I saw Satan falling and whatever so he was he was aware of all what was going on that then he brings in this correction but remember this the most important thing is remember what he says that your names are written down in the Lamb's book of life remember the most important thing you might see all these spectacular things but the most important thing is you saw people come to faith you see this action reflection you see me do it you go out and do it each time we talk about it and have to bring in a correction and then he lets them loose I'm going back to heaven he says spending sending another help with the Holy Spirit it's going to come and enjoy he's going to facilitate the whole pile of things Holy Spirit which is given to you and to me today to carry on that work as well so this is Jesus method of discipleship and so the question is it comes back to you and to me well it's all right for those disciples spending time with Jesus but what about you and me how do we spend time with Jesus let's talk about this for for a few minutes number one is that we need to commit to relationship we need to commit to relationship because that's what it's really about is this love relationship that we have with with Jesus and the most important thing by the way or foundation to lay in discipleship in all of this is the relationship and that's what comes first is it's important to build a relationship and so we need to be aware of our relationship with God and we need to commit to that commit to it not just in a airy fairy way but in a deep way say Lord God I'm committed to whatever it takes to have this deeper relationship with you to respond to his invitation Matthew 11 28 to 30 you know that you don't know what it says says I start saying it you will know we've got the yoke up there come to me or you who are weary and heavy laden and I'll give you rest by the way say respond to the invitation is is is actually wrong because it's not an invitation it's actually a command so that word is in the Greek is there is an imperative come I'm commanding you to come to me so this is what Jesus is saying Matthew 28 Matthew 11 28 to 30 come to me all you who wear it heavy laden and and I'll give you rest it's not putting your feet up it's operating on a different level take my yoke upon you so we know that it's not resting and learn from me and then we have this only description of God from gentle and meek and lowly and heart so have this description this is what we're to learn and this is what we are on about we need to spend time daily in the Bible we need to be involved in regular praying to God which remember praying is not only talking but listening as well but we need to learn to practice the presence of God do we know God is everywhere of course we do but we need to remember and to get into the habit of practicing knowing that God is with us the 17th century there's this yoke 18 years of age who gave his heart to God and and wanted to enter into a monastery and he wasn't able to till he was age 24 and he entered into the monastery and and but he didn't have any education and so the job that he was given in the monastery was in the kitchen washing dishes this is all he did it's a 24 year old because he didn't have the right education to become a monk but you know what he did there he practiced the presence of God and he said even in the meal tarts like washing dishes I know that God is with me his name the name that he took on in this monastery was Brother Lawrence you know here's this young man uneducated not even educated enough to become a monk but wrote down his reflection of practicing the presence of God 17th century and you know what you can still buy his book today you can go to Ku Rong or to Amazon to any of those things and say want to buy this book practicing the presence of God by Brother Lawrence and it's still available today isn't that interesting it's not because of education you didn't have that but what made the difference Jesus called him to be with him and he responded and he spent time with Jesus practicing his presence every day in the monastery and 400 or so years later people are still reading his reflections and his thoughts practicing the presence of God so how do we do it well there's a few ways we know that God is everywhere we might remind ourselves in our minds that God is everywhere God is here we know that God indwells us through the Spirit so we might read continually remind ourselves throughout the day that God is indwelling me the Spirit is indwelling me well sometimes we might even picture God in our minds as though walking with us as we go through life I've done that occasionally even in prayer I just walk through a park and just imagine in my mind that Jesus is walking beside me we have this conversation in prayer you probably have heard the practice of being involved in some places where we're in a small group you might have a dozen people but you'll have an extra chair there with nobody sitting in it and it's there not because God is sitting in the chair but just to remind you that Jesus is there and so which whatever way you choose it it won't be one all the time if like me from one to the other in some other way but to consciously remind you that there is nowhere I can go no time in my life where I'm ever alone where I can escape God's presence that is always with me to remember that that I might be with him and so learning to practice the presence of God so how can I apply the Jesus model be available to be used by God be aware of divine appointments sometimes you meet people it's never by accident but it's always a reason there we're talking with our daughter recently and she's been doing this thing about about being a chaplain community chaplain and say oh some things I can't do and just a session went out walking down the street and I can't do this can't do this and there's this other woman who she met who is obviously upset and say she sat with her and talked with her for I can't remember an hour or so about what the issues were that she was going through. I was talking with the pastor recently who today has gone through a very significant event that I'm glad it's him and not me but but it came out of this divine appointment some time ago now he's today facing in this most difficult situation but he'll be the Christ presence there it's you see these things are never by mistake but God just brings them into our lives build meaningful relationships for after church but always say g'day how you're going to move on but there are some people who you need to spend a bit more time there's some people I know who they say you know how you're going and I just say yeah I'm fine there are some people who in my life who I know David how you're going I know they're wanting an answer that's more than yeah doing doing all right they want to know how I'm going be that sort of a person where you'll invest in others lives invest in people not yourself or other things or anybody else and take on apprentices as well so let me just wrap this up very quickly how do we apply this spending time with Jesus is the most important aspect of your life we remember that we take native that spending time with Jesus is the most important aspect of your life and then this you can make a significant impact into someone else's life as you minister from this point the point of spending time with Jesus you know if I had the time this morning I was thinking about this in preparation I'd love to go to every individual here this morning every individual say you can make a difference in someone else's life you can make a difference in someone else's life you can make in someone else's life you can make a difference in someone else's life take this is what it's all about Jesus says to you and to me today come here I spend time with you and out of spending time with him who knows how he might use us in impacting other people's lives in significant ways let's pray wondering if you're hearing the voice of God the voice of Jesus saying to you come to me not a suggestion or an invitation but a command come to me learn from me be my apprentice spend time with me you're willing to make that commitment today and the quietness of just where you are do that maybe there's somebody here today who'll be doing this for the very first time in your life and if you're doing that make sure you talk with somebody after the service one of the leaders somebody who is a Christian who you know you can confide in just talk to them but for the rest of us who already belong to Jesus how will you respond to him will you commit and then will you be available say Lord use me however you wish however you desire with whoever you want just in the quietness this moment to pray that to the Lord God he's listening listening to you right now