Podcast Summaries

Amen. Thank you very much. All right. I thought we'd just start with a little icebreaker-y question. We were talking about this a bit in home group this week. And so I would like to know, if anyone's brave enough to shout out, what your favourite food is. So not a meal, like a specific ingredient food. Anyone gonna shout? Potatoes. Any particular type? All the potatoes. Favourite food, potatoes. Anyone else? Chocolate. Anyone else on a chocolate...? Yeah, absolutely. Fabulous. Chorizo. Niche. Just could keep, just eat it all day, every day. Chorizo. Nice. Cheese. Parsnips. You guys, what is this? I was expecting chocolate, was not expecting parsnips or chorizo. Hot sauce. Is that a food? Yes. OK, there we go. It's a food. My favourite food, I consider it to be an entire food group in itself, is ice cream. Yeah. Yeah, OK, getting some nods. I love ice cream with quite a passion. I just think it's one of the most wonderful, delicious experiences of my life. When I experience ice cream, I experience joy. The creamy, silky, refreshing, versatile nature, any flavour, anywhere, at any time. I almost feel like I have, like, a different stomach for ice cream that I would happily, like, it's just, there's always space. Science, exactly. Speaking of science, I have learnt how to make ice cream. So over the years, I was given an ice cream maker, so I've been learning what ingredients go into ice cream to make it good, what churn and, like, temperatures and all of that kind of stuff. I also discovered that there is a website called the Science of Ice Cream. I know. And I'm going to read you a quote from it, which may seem a bit melodramatic, but I think sums up how I feel about ice cream anyway. It says, if you think about it, ice cream is actually quite a complex and multifaceted composition. It should be solid, yet also soft, and should preferably stay that way while melting slowly. If you would simply put a batch of cream in the freezer, you would not end up with ice cream, but with a block of hard, frozen, solid cream. The reasons for the delicate and mesmerising nature of ice cream is ultimately a matter of food chemistry. And then it goes on to talk about emulsifiers and the importance of air regulation and the importance of fat for stability and richness. I could go on. This learning about ice cream has actually enhanced my appreciation for the experience of eating ice cream, which was already top notch. Understanding of what it is that makes the experience so special. Daniel, my husband, has also learned over the years of being with me in all circumstances and situations that ice cream is always appropriate. And we now live in the reality of that. So we always ensure that ice cream will always make things better. Ice cream is always worthy of any celebration. We always make sure that there's some in stock for our day of rest because it's not Sabbath without ice cream. And even one year, he asked my friends who came over for my birthday to bring ice cream instead of presents. It was the best birthday ever. So all that is to say is that we now live differently from our, from my experience and my understanding of ice cream. And we live in the reality of that. And that's what we're looking at today. Not ice cream, obviously, but the notion that we can be living from and making choices from a reality of experiencing and learning about Jesus. There we go. And in doing so, we can follow him as well. Today, we're going to be looking at a couple of chapters of the book of Luke. If this is your first time or your first time this year, then we are going through the Gospel of Luke. So the biography of Jesus written by a guy called Luke. Between Christmas and Easter, we're taking the whole term to look at it a couple of chapters at a time. We'll look at all aspects of the book. And this week, we're looking at chapters 5 and 6. And in these two chapters, we read this narrative of Jesus performing miracles of people experiencing Jesus. So he heals a man with leprosy. He heals a paralysed man. He heals a man's hand on the Sabbath. So we see, read this narrative of Jesus performing miracles. We also read about Jesus teaching people. He teaches to crowds in various locations. He responds to people's challenges on different aspects of religious life, like fasting and Sabbath. And then there's also a big chunk of Jesus' teaching, perhaps his most famous teaching or well-known teaching, looking at what's called the Beatitudes, which we'll come to later. And then we also see people experiencing Jesus, people learning from Jesus, and then we see people following Jesus. So again, in these two chapters, we see crowds following Jesus. We see fishermen. We see tax collectors following him. This is a moment where Jesus chooses his 12 disciples who will follow him and learn under him. And so, yes, we see people experiencing Jesus, learning from Jesus, and following Jesus. And it's worth noting that this series that we're doing this term is called Being Empowered by the Holy Spirit. A couple of weeks ago, Daniel kicked us off and ended with the encouragement to go through the first couple of chapters in Luke and just highlight every time the word Holy Spirit comes up or, like, anything to do with the Holy Spirit comes up. And I just want to be clear that I now have two chapters to look at where Holy Spirit is not mentioned a single time. Cheers, Daniel. But if you were here last week, you will have heard Ben looking at how Jesus was filled with, empowered by, and led by Holy Spirit. So I just want us to be under no illusion here that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit. And if we add to that the whole Trinity, three-in-one nature of God, which I'm not the person and we don't have the time to go into the complexities of that today, but all that is to say is that when we see Jesus living and breathing and acting and doing and being and speaking, when we see Jesus healing and teaching and calling and empowering, we see Holy Spirit at work through Jesus. Some might say the Spirit of Jesus is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. And so I just want us to take that and to consider that as we look at Jesus this week and we consider what it means to be empowered by Holy Spirit, or dare I say, empowered by Jesus. And so we're going to start by taking the very first section of chapter 5 for a minute. I don't have any slides because the internet was a bit sucky. So you just get my lovely face to look at the whole time. We're going to be looking at the first chapter, first bit of chapter 5. And I would like you to come with me on this because we're going to do something we've not done before, or not many times maybe. We're going to do a bit of an imaginative exercise whilst we read this. So I really want us to engage with this story, to interact with the characters of this story and the situations that's happening. And so I'm going to guide us through and I'd really love you to imaginatively engage with this. So if you want to grab pens and paper, now is the time to do that. Equally, I would encourage you, if you feel comfortable and safe to do so, to close your eyes, simply as I guide you through this, to take away the distraction of what we're seeing in front of us and try and imagine ourselves in this story. So, one day, as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. So we've got the Sea of Galilee. What can we hear? What can we smell? There's crowds pressing around. What's the noise level like? Are people touching you? Are people coming up, pressing against you? Where is Jesus in relation to the crowds? Jesus notices two empty boats at the water's edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. So on the edge of this crowd, there are these fishermen. These guys live and breathe fish and boats, and they're washing their nets. They're at the end of their shift of fishing. They're putting their boats away. They're rounding up their working day. How might they be feeling? Are they hungry? Are they tired? They're washing their nets. What's the state of their hands?

Are they cracked? Are they dry? Are their backs aching from hauling the nets in? Are they wondering about what their next thing to do is after they've washed their nets, how they're going to provide for their family that day? Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. This guy has just walked up to them, stepped into their boat that they have finished with for the day, and asked to be pushed back out into the Sea of Galilee. How might you feel about that? You're tired, hungry, aching, you're finished. And so Jesus sat in the boat and taught the crowds from out there in the water. Okay, so they clearly did push the boat out. Why? Was it the pressure of the crowds that were around them? Had they already heard Jesus speaking to them or about Jesus? Had they been listening whilst they were washing their nets? What would it have been like to be in the boat with Jesus as he speaks? I wonder what he taught about. I wonder how loud his voice was to carry over the water to the crowds. When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon, now go out where it is deeper and let down your nets to catch some fish. Well, Jesus was a carpenter, not a fisherman. How would he know where to put their nets? They're the ones who've just finished their shift of fishing. Maybe they're in disbelief at the bold suggestion that someone would come into their boat and tell them how to fish. Maybe they're cynical. Master, Simon replied, we worked hard all night last night and we didn't catch a thing. Well, here's some new perspective on how those fishermen might be feeling. They're not just tired or hungry. They're not just ready for bed. Are they disappointed? Are they feeling despondent? Are they worried for their family? Are they embarrassed? But if you say so, Simon said, I will let down the nets again. This is an interesting response, given all the above. I think it begs the question, what did they hear Jesus teaching on that they would say yes in this moment? What was Jesus like that they wanted to follow his instruction? And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear. A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking. Suddenly the story has changed. There's the drama of this provision, of this miraculous provision. The adrenaline rush of hauling, the excitement of getting other people involved. Are they aware now of their rough dry hands, their tired eyes, their hungry stomachs? They've suddenly got this strength at the end of a long fishless night of fishing. Okay, you can open your eyes if you would like to. But do you feel this, this kind of vitality of experiencing Jesus up close and personal? The change that he can bring about? These guys had gone from somberly washing their nets after a really rubbish shift out on the sea. And they went from that to excitedly clamouring for more help to haul in the catch of their life. They are experiencing Jesus right here and now. They allowed Jesus into their boat. They travelled with him a while, even if it was just out into the sea. They listened to his teaching and were emboldened by his voice. They followed his instruction. They experienced the magnitude of his authority. And it changed their life forever. I've had a few conversations recently with people about how Jesus seems kind of fairly unrelatable because he's like a Middle Eastern male carpenter from 2,000 years ago. Like, how would he know how to be, for example, a white female European mother nurse? But I love this story about the fishermen because I think it addresses an element of that. It highlights our misunderstanding of Jesus' handle on life and creation and humanity. Because we see a carpenter instruct fishermen and lead them to the haul of their life. That's just a little side thing that was in my brain. And this is just the first bit of what it can look like to experience Jesus outlined in these chapters. We see people experiencing Jesus' healing power, hearing his words spoken with authority. People stirred to experience more. Now, to bring it back to ice cream, because I know you were all on tenterhooks about it. If any of you have tried my mother-in-law's homemade vanilla ice cream, you'll know it's the best in the world. And it's genuinely beautiful ice cream until you then discover and experience her homemade salted caramel ice cream, which is genuinely out of this world. But when we experience something good, we are drawn to it. We are drawn to seek out more, to learn more, and to experience more and to learn more. And so Jesus knows that experience or events alone is not enough to sustain people. We read that Jesus is constantly teaching the crowds. He goes round, he shows people who he is, and he teaches them about his way of life. He's teaching the crowds. He's responding to challenges on religious rules. And we then see in chapter 6, Luke, the author of this biography, relays the specifics of Jesus with this big chunk of teaching. It's entitled in the Bible, The Beatitudes. It's sometimes known as the Sermon on the Mount or on the Plain. This is Jesus' teaching about what it looks like, what it means to follow him and live the Jesus way. It's the main bit of teaching that would have been passed from person to person in the early church. In some places, likely the only bit of teaching that some early Christians would have heard. And so this is the bit where we learn about what Jesus and the good news and the kingdom of God is really about. And so I thought we would take a little look at it together this afternoon. So we're going to get into groups. Yay! Everyone loves group work. So I've got three different sections. And I was thinking, let's split each side into three sections. So we'll have the first three rows, the middle three-ish rows, the back three-ish rows. You can all be groups on each side. I'm going to give you a little segment of this teaching. So there are three segments. There's blessings and sorrows, love for enemies, and do not judge others. Those are the three different sections. And I just want you to read it and then chat amongst yourselves. We're going to have five minutes to do this. What strikes you? What scares you? What intimidates you? Does this seem reasonable? Does it seem possible? What other things that trip you up? What other things that invite you in? So what strikes you? What trips you up? What invites you in? Is it reasonable? Okie dokie. All right. Let's wrap that up. If I could see your lovely faces, that would be helpful for me at least. Wonderful. So we're going to have a little moment of feedback. So the front rows were looking at blessings and sorrows. So the idea of the hungry and the poor being blessed. Please talk to me. Did anything particularly rise up as, is that possible? Does that seem reasonable? What struck you? What invites you in? Anyone want to feedback? Just one or two things. Yes, come on, Danny. Okay. Feels a bit weird. No, that's fine. So I'm going to say it back into the microphone. So it feels a bit weird when there are things that are like, what sorrow awaits those who laugh now. So you're like, I don't get it. How does this work? Absolutely. Anyone else want to feedback from the front group? Yes, so it feels like madness to say that the poor and the hungry are blessed without the perspective of God and actually the perspective of this world. Absolutely. Fab. Middle row, love for your enemies. Anything bubble up? You've got to interact with me, otherwise this is going to be a dull talk. Go for it, Andrew. Yeah, so the risk of loving your enemies is that you could be taken advantage of. I certainly hear that. Fab. Let's skip to the back as well. So you guys were looking at do not judge others. So it's looking at judgment and forgiveness. And there's like, take the plank out.

of your own eye before you accuse others. So hypocrisy as well. Anyone want to feedback on what struck you? Yeah, an amusing image to have a log sticking out your eye. So it's really easy to get caught into how our society now kind of churns out judgment and affectations and stuff. So yes, thank you very much. I appreciate that. What I will, we haven't obviously got time to unpack everything today, but I would really encourage you to grapple with this, to read it all in its entirety, read it within the context of the couple of chapters. Go and have a little nosy at Bible Project. They've got stuff all about this sort of stuff. So it's worth having a look because what we're learning is that we're struggling with it, that actually Jesus's teaching, Jesus's way of life seems counter-cultural. It doesn't seem to align maybe with our value systems or our experiences at that time and certainly not at this time as well. And it requires, I guess, for things like loving and forgiveness and judgment. It requires this kind of self-reflection, a self-sacrifice, a humility. It requires effort. It pushes against our ideas, whether we're aware of them or not, of innate human worth and who we believe to have value or not, or who we believe to have a good life or not. It's nothing like the living of this world. And yet I wonder if this is the type of teaching that those fishermen heard in the boat. So radical that it may just have changed their opinion of Jesus, their understanding of how life could be lived and influenced their desire to follow his lead by casting out their net deeper. And so that brings us back to the beginning of chapter five with the fishermen because the astute of you may have noticed that when we looked at the fishermen earlier, we stopped just shy of the fishermen's response to Jesus. And so to recap, they were weary from a night of fishless fishing. They were putting their boats and their nets away. Jesus commands the boat, teaches from the lake, and then tells them to cast their nets deeper where they then haul two boatfuls of fish. Now, I don't know about you, but I think my response pumped with that adrenaline of the catch would have been celebration. Absolutely. Praise, quite literally, praise the Lord. Thinking about how this could change our lives so much income, like two boatfuls of fish. I could provide comfortably for my family now. I'd probably cry a bit because that's my default response to most things. I would thank Jesus. I'd probably invite Jesus to my house for dinner to say thank you. Be like, come on over. Could I take your contact details? I'll keep you up to date on the fishing business and how I'm getting on after you have so wonderfully set it up for me. Because those that seem reasonable responses, right? Well, let's look at how they responded, shall we? So, soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking. When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and he said, oh Lord, please leave me. I am too much of a sinner to be around you. For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught, as were the others with him. His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed. Jesus replied to Simon, don't be afraid. From now on, you'll be fishing for people. And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus. That was their response. These guys had experienced the real spirit-filled Jesus. They had learned from him. Their fortunes had been turned on their head by his provision from this weary night of no catch to two boatfuls of fish. And their response is to recognize their own weakness, to drop everything, including the epic provision just given to them and follow Jesus. Their response was to recognize their weakness, drop everything and follow Jesus. Chapter 6 ends with, I will show you what it's like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching and then follows it. It's like a person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against that house, it stands firm because it is well built. This seems to be what the fishermen already seem to have understood. They had experienced Jesus. They had listened to his teachings. And now they were laying their solid foundation by following him. And I know that bit says, listens to my teaching and then follows it. And I say, follow him because Jesus demonstrates this way of living. He followed his own teachings through spirit filled, spirit led, spirit empowered Jesus. We see enemies loved. We see people being saved from unfair judgment. We see the poor and the hungry satisfied. We see the greatest haul of your life. And so if we follow him, we experience him. We learn from him and we do as the Beatitudes and the Jesus teachings say. When the waters rise, when we face our enemies or when we find ourselves poor and hungry or when people hurt us and judge us, we can stand firm. We can stand empowered by our experience of Jesus. We can stand empowered by our understanding of his way of life. We can stand empowered by Holy Spirit with us. And so we're going to take some time to reflect on that. But also I get the sense that we've talked about experiencing Jesus, learning from Jesus and then following him. And I get the impression that today some people would really like to experience Jesus. That actually they're like, I've learned some stuff. I understand that ice cream has fat in it and blah, blah, blah, blah. But I haven't tasted the goodness for a long time or I haven't tasted goodness this week or I haven't experienced the goodness of ice cream, Jesus, this week. And I'd really like to because it is through experiencing him, through learning from him that we can follow him truly and build our solid foundation. So if we've got just a few minutes until the kiddos come in, but if that's not enough time for you to be like, I'm going to experience Jesus, then we are absolutely going to make space after communion for prayer and for ministry time as well. So if you are able to and happy to, please would you stand because I think that it's sometimes helpful to move our bodies in response to our desire to experience Jesus. And so I say, let's experience Jesus. We're talking about being empowered by Holy Spirit as well today. And so if you feel comfortable, feel free to close your eyes. If you would like to experience Jesus today, maybe it's time to open up your hands as if you're receiving a gift. That can often be, again, quite a helpful way of us acknowledging our desire to receive from Jesus. And I'm just going to pray. Holy Spirit, would you come? Jesus, may we experience you in all of your goodness, in all of your power and your authority today. Holy Spirit, would you come? Holy Spirit, would you come and would you empower us today for the difficult people, for the difficult circumstances, for the challenges to us and to our situations? Would you come and would you empower us today? Jesus is really keen to meet us. Jesus is really keen to come to where we are and for us to experience his goodness. And that doesn't stop because the kids have come back. And I mean that, not tongue in cheek. The kids help us to engage with Jesus and to experience his goodness as well. So the kids are going to come back in slowly. Thank you very much, kids. And we are going to stay engaged in this space because I believe Holy Spirit does want to meet us where we're at today.