Anna: Good evening everyone, and welcome to Crowd Church. I'm really excited to be
Anna: here tonight. I'm one of your hosts for this evening's livestream. I'm joined by
Anna: Sharon. Sharon, do you want to say hi?
Sharon: Hi everybody, great to be here. Glad you could join us.
Anna: And we're also going to be hearing from your lovely husband Matt in a minute,
Anna: who's going to be sharing with us tonight. Lovely husband.
Matt: Yeah, well, he's all right, isn't he?
Sharon: It's pretty good.
Anna: I mean, yeah. So tonight we're excited to be starting a brand new series. For
Anna: anyone who's been with us a while, you'll know that we've been looking at Easter
Anna: stories the last few weeks, but tonight we're kicking off a brand new series and
Anna: we're going to be talking about Jesus — the life of Jesus — and the theme is
Anna: *Jesus the Revolutionary*. So it's all about the Jesus that maybe you've grown
Anna: up learning about, or maybe you don't know very much about; some of those
Anna: conceptions, misconceptions that we have. Who's the Jesus that we think we know?
Anna: Who's the real Jesus that the Bible tells us about? I think it's going to be a
Anna: good series, and it's going to be rolling for the best part of this year, we
Anna: think. So stick with us for that. Matt's going to be sharing the introduction
Anna: tonight, so rather than me guess what he's going to talk about any more, I'll
Anna: pass over to him and he can tell us a little bit more. Then we'll come back to
Anna: Conversation Street afterwards, which is just a chance to post your questions
Anna: while he's talking, and we'll try and answer them and unpick them at the end. So
Anna: be posting, be thinking while he's talking. Matt, over to you. --- ## Talk — The
Anna: Jesus Nobody Warned You About
Matt: Well, hello, good evening, welcome. It's good to be with you guys. We get to
Matt: kick off a brand new teaching series tonight, all about Jesus the Revolutionary.
Matt: I've been looking forward to this, actually. It's fair to say this is going to
Matt: be epic. So make sure you stick with us as we go through this series. I'm going
Matt: to start, I think, with a confession, if I may. We're in church. One of regret.
Matt: You see, when I was at school, I used to walk the perimeter during break — just
Matt: doing laps around the school. I'd be with friends, and I remember we were
Matt: chatting and we were coming around the corner and seeing this guy sat there on
Matt: his own. I didn't really know him, but I did know that he was a Christian. And
Matt: so I absolutely tore into him. I made fun of everything about him — the way he
Matt: dressed, the fact he didn't swear, the fact he never seemed to have any fun. I
Matt: couldn't understand why anyone would choose that. In my thinking, Jesus was a
Matt: killjoy. He was like the fun police. And maybe you're like me walking around my
Matt: old school. You have a version of Jesus in your mind that you can't shift past.
Matt: So what if the Jesus you think you know is not the Jesus who actually showed up?
Matt: What if Jesus is way, way bigger than our notion of him? There's a hymn — some
Matt: of you may know it — an old, old hymn called *Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild*. It
Matt: was actually written in 1742. I get why the idea of this is appealing, because
Matt: who doesn't want a gentle God? I definitely don't want a mean and angry God. But
Matt: it can lead you to the idea of a God who's basically a cosmic therapist with a
Matt: beard and sandals — someone who pats you on the head and says, "There, there,
Matt: it's all going to be fine." Of course, Jesus is gentle. He is kind. But
Matt: somewhere along the way we took those qualities and we built this entire Jesus
Matt: ecosystem out of them. We edited out everything else. We kept the bits that made
Matt: us comfortable and quietly deleted the rest. We've been doing a bit of clearing
Matt: at the house recently and came across an old children's Bible. Beautiful
Matt: illustrations. You know the kind of thing I mean — the one with white Jesus on
Matt: the front looking like a friendly primary school teacher in a white tunic with a
Matt: blue sash, everything in pastel colours. Jesus is smiling, it's calm, and he's
Matt: surrounded by lambs. And I think, well, maybe this is the Jesus that people are
Matt: rejecting. Honestly, I wouldn't blame them, because that Jesus is way too small
Matt: for the world we actually live in. We do this to radical people, by the way,
Matt: don't we? Take Martin Luther King. Most of us know the "I Have a Dream" speech.
Matt: It's on posters, it's on mugs. But the same man said the evils of capitalism are
Matt: as real as the evils of militarism or of racism. He called for radical
Matt: redistribution of wealth, and in his lifetime the FBI called him the most
Matt: dangerous man in America. Now he's on a postage stamp. We killed, as a society,
Matt: the majority of his ideas and celebrated the bits we liked. Then we used his
Matt: sanitised words to resist the very changes he was actually demanding. And I just
Matt: wonder if we've done exactly the same thing with Jesus in many ways. The problem
Matt: with cardboard Jesus is that he can't actually do anything. He can't challenge
Matt: you, because that's not gentle. He can't disagree with your culture, because
Matt: that's not meek. He can't say something that makes you deeply uncomfortable,
Matt: because that's not mild. So you end up with a Jesus who agrees with everything
Matt: you already believe, which is remarkably convenient, isn't it? Here's the thing:
Matt: a Jesus who never disrupts you is a Jesus who can never transform you. So if
Matt: that's the Jesus we've invented, what was the actual Jesus like, and how did he
Matt: describe himself in his lifetime and in his ministry? That's something we're
Matt: going to get into in this series. But I want to start at Luke chapter 4, because
Matt: Luke chapter 4 gives us this front-row seat right at the moment Jesus kicks off
Matt: his ministry — him announcing to the world what's going to happen. And let me
Matt: tell you, it does not go well at all. I'm going to take you to the synagogue in
Matt: Jesus's hometown of Nazareth. Maybe 400-ish people live there. Everyone knows
Matt: everyone. It's warm. It's that kind of dry heat where the dust hangs in the air
Matt: and the stone walls hold the cool from the night before. People are shuffling
Matt: around on these carved benches, the kids are fidgeting, and there's the low hum
Matt: of neighbours catching up before things start. These people have known Jesus his
Matt: whole life. They've known his mum. They've bought furniture from his workshop,
Matt: and some of them probably taught him to read in the very room in which they were
Matt: sat. It's at this moment Jesus announces himself to the world, and he chose to
Matt: do it here in this small stone building that is the centre of this really
Matt: insignificant community. The Bible tells us that he stands up to read, and he's
Matt: handed the scroll of Isaiah, one of the Old Testament prophets. It's a heavy
Matt: thing — not like a Bible that we have now; it's made from animal skin and wooden
Matt: rollers. He unrolls it to a prophecy about freedom and starts to read. So if
Matt: you've got your Bibles, turn to Luke chapter 4. We're going to read verses 18
Matt: and 19, where he says: > "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has
Matt: anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
Matt: liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
Matt: those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." Then he
Matt: rolls up the scroll, gives it back to the chap that handed it to him, and he
Matt: sits down — which is a bit like this, I suppose, a posture of a teacher about to
Matt: say something important. Jesus turns to the crowd after he sits down, leans
Matt: forward, and goes: "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." I wonder
Matt: if you can feel the weight of that. He didn't say, "You know what, chaps, this
Matt: is a really nice aspiration." He didn't say, "One day someone will do this." He
Matt: said, "Today. Right now. In this room. Through me." This is not a sermon, this
Matt: is a declaration. The word *freedom* in this passage that Jesus refers to in the
Matt: original language basically means "everything's been reset", which is a great
Matt: phrase. It has echoes of this ancient Jubilee tradition where every 50 years all
Matt: the debts were cancelled, all the slaves were freed, and all the land was
Matt: returned. It was this huge economic and social reset. Imagine someone walking
Matt: into Parliament today, or the House of Representatives, or wherever you are in
Matt: the world, and they stand up and announce to the whole world that all debt is
Matt: cancelled. So for you, your student loans, your mortgages, your credit cards —
Matt: all of them cancelled today, right now. This is the scale of the disruption I
Matt: think Jesus is announcing, except he was talking about stuff way more than
Matt: money. He was talking about everything. Now, this ancient prophecy Jesus reads
Matt: from goes on to speak of God's vengeance and payback. If you read it in Isaiah,
Matt: it's got this whole thing about retribution. But Luke records that Jesus talked
Matt: about the grace but left out all the stuff about vengeance. Whether Jesus made a
Matt: deliberate choice to stop reading at that point, or whether Luke is just
Matt: highlighting what maybe mattered most, the message that comes back is the same:
Matt: Jesus came leading with grace, not with payback; with freedom, not with
Matt: punishment. I read that and go, "That's amazing." But for the audience at the
Matt: time in this small stone synagogue, they were deeply troubled by this. They were
Matt: very, very uncomfortable. They wanted a Messiah who would destroy their enemies,
Matt: take them out, and at every form of injustice they would have had their
Matt: retribution and their enemies would have suffered. They wanted a conquering
Matt: Messiah — a God to intervene, someone to intervene in their fate, take control.
Matt: I think we still want that today, don't we, from Jesus? And Jesus offers them,
Matt: and us, a Messiah who would free them. He would free all the oppressed — but
Matt: Jesus is including, it turns out, the Romans, their enemy, in his decision to
Matt: free people. He's not going to conquer them, he's going to free them. Then
Matt: Jesus, when he's talking to these chaps still sat there, does something really
Matt: extraordinary. He brings up two old stories from the Old Testament, and the
Matt: commonality in these two stories is that God bypasses Israel entirely and sent
Matt: help to outsiders, to foreigners, to their enemies. He reminded them of the
Matt: stories of Elijah, who was sent to a foreign widow, and Elisha, who was sent to
Matt: heal a Syrian general. The Jesus they thought they knew is definitely the Jesus
Matt: who is not showing up right now. The room erupts. They surge towards Jesus and
Matt: grab hold of him. They push him out, and they push him to the edge of the cliff.
Matt: So the people that were speaking well of him 30 minutes ago — his friends, his
Matt: neighbours, the people he grew up with — now want to throw him off a cliff.
Matt: Literally throw him off a cliff. In their minds, he is worthy now of only one
Matt: thing: being put to death. And then Luke, the way he puts it, is just
Matt: remarkable. It just says that Jesus walked right through them and went on his
Matt: way. That's a pretty significant miracle, isn't it? It's just one of those
Matt: things. I try and picture it in my head — he just walks on through. But why were
Matt: they so angry? Why would they throw, or try and throw, Jesus off a cliff?
Matt: Because the bottom line is Jesus is not their perceived version of Messiah.
Matt: Because Jesus just told them that God's revolution wasn't exclusively for them —
Matt: his revolution was for everyone. A Jesus who is for everyone is deeply
Matt: threatening to people who thought he was only for them. That alone, I think,
Matt: pretty much obliterates and destroys the myth of cardboard Jesus. Now, I'm not
Matt: saying familiarity with Jesus is the problem. Of course it isn't. The crowd knew
Matt: Jesus. They knew who he was. But there's a difference between deep familiarity
Matt: and closed familiarity. Deep familiarity keeps expecting him to surprise you,
Matt: but closed familiarity thinks you've finished knowing him. One draws you closer,
Matt: the other builds a wall. And any of us can drift from one to the other, I think,
Matt: without really noticing, as soon as we think we've got it all figured out. So
Matt: what does it look like when you encounter this Jesus — the one who turns up with
Matt: freedom in one hand and disruption in the other? I don't think the real Jesus is
Matt: meek and mild, but I also don't think he's angry Jesus, harsh and wild. He's
Matt: something far more interesting. I think he's a Jesus who is lovingly fierce. He
Matt: is fierce against everything that holds you captive, and he's relentlessly
Matt: tender towards you as well. It's a really interesting tension. A Jesus who loves
Matt: you too much to leave you where you are, and loves the world too much to leave
Matt: it as it is. The same Jesus who provoked a riot in Nazareth is the same Jesus
Matt: who wept at a friend's grave and welcomed children onto his lap. He's not one or
Matt: the other, he's both. If you've experienced a version of Christianity that felt
Matt: aggressive or controlling, that is not what I am talking about. The fierceness
Matt: of Jesus is always aimed at what's hurting you, never at you. And that freedom
Matt: he announced, it's not abstract — it is very specific. It's free from the guilt
Matt: you carry. It's free from the story that you're not enough. But when Jesus read
Matt: those verses in that dusty old synagogue, he meant all of it — economic, social,
Matt: spiritual freedom. We've tended, certainly in the modern church, to define it
Matt: just as the spiritual bit, because it brings spiritual freedom. It does. But
Matt: it's a bit vague, isn't it? And it doesn't really demand anything from us. I
Matt: wonder if this is the sanitisation Jesus is warning us about in these verses.
Matt: Jesus delivers that freedom not through violence but through sacrifice.
Matt: Christians haven't always followed that idea, have they? But Jesus did. He
Matt: understood that violence may change circumstance, but sacrifice transforms life.
Matt: That changes hearts. So it wasn't through a sword, but through a cross.
Matt: Everything Jesus announces in that dusty synagogue in Nazareth, he delivers on
Matt: the cross. And when he came back from the dead, he proved that freedom was real.
Matt: This is something we are definitely going to get into in the coming weeks. So
Matt: the Jesus you think you know might not be the Jesus who actually showed up all
Matt: those years ago. It might not be the same Jesus that comes now. The one who
Matt: actually shows up, I think, is far more dangerous to your comfort but far more
Matt: devoted to your freedom than you ever imagined. So back to my opening
Matt: confession, the one of regret. Remember the lad at school, the one I made fun of
Matt: or ripped into for being a Christian? If you'd asked me at the time, "Was I a
Matt: Christian?", I probably would have said in some way yes. I was a cultural
Matt: Christian. I believed in God because I was born in England. Never really thought
Matt: about it, though. But I did know enough to know that following Jesus meant
Matt: becoming boring, joyless, a killjoy. Why would I not swear? Why would I not have
Matt: fun with my girlfriend? Why would I live this straight-laced, boring life? I
Matt: thought he was the freak. But it turned out I was the one that was the fool. A
Matt: few years later, I came head to head with this idea that Jesus was a killjoy. I
Matt: found myself sat in a church listening to a preacher, and I prayed, "Jesus, you
Matt: can have my life, just don't ask me to give up the fun." I remember praying that
Matt: prayer in church. Even then, when I was prepared to become a Christian, I still
Matt: had this belief, this idea, that Jesus was out to stop me having fun. I
Matt: continued to wrestle with this idea for about a year. In that time, I discovered
Matt: that I was the one who was not actually having fun. I was the one who was
Matt: missing out on what abundant life was. Not the kid at school — me. That's my
Matt: regret, and it's my shame, because the way I dealt with my own ignorance was to
Matt: be aggressively mean to him. Because I could. Because I was the stronger one.
Matt: Because I was with my friends and he was sat there alone. I had become the very
Matt: thing that I personally despised — I had become the bully. But thank God for his
Matt: mercy on me, because I found out that Jesus was nothing like the killjoy I
Matt: invented. That challenged everything for me. So the Jesus you think you know
Matt: might not be the Jesus who actually shows up. Over the coming weeks, we're going
Matt: to meet the one who did. We're going to watch him do things that do not make any
Matt: sense. We're going to listen to him say things that offended the wrong people.
Matt: We're going to see him love the people everyone else gave up on. He picks fights
Matt: with systems everybody else accepts. And he died in a way that nobody expected,
Matt: and he comes back in a way that changes the entire trajectory of human history.
Matt: If you've given up on Jesus because the version you were offered was too small,
Matt: I get it, genuinely. But who wants a small God? I don't. If you've never
Matt: actually met this Jesus — not the idea of him, but actually met him — I think
Matt: this series is a great place to start. And if you've already met him, if you're
Matt: already a Christ-follower but you've lost the wonder and the awe, I wonder if
Matt: this is a good place to start again. So my challenge to you this week is to try
Matt: one thing: simply read Luke chapter 4, the verses we went through. Just read
Matt: that over and over again — just that one chapter — and ask yourself one simple
Matt: question: does this Jesus I'm reading about match the one I've been carrying
Matt: around? It's a really great question. Anyway, that's it from me. Back to you,
Matt: ladies. --- ## Conversation Street
Anna: Brilliant. Thanks, Matt. That was just a great introduction. I really enjoyed
Anna: it. I think it was personally very challenging. Even though some of us sat
Anna: around this table have been Christians for a long time, I think that's actually
Anna: a really interesting question to think about. What do you actually think of when
Anna: you think of Jesus? Who do you think of? How do you think of him? What do you
Anna: think about him? And how much does that marry up to scripture, or just kind of
Anna: your cultural conditioning? What did you think, Sharon?
Sharon: Well, earlier this afternoon, I was just looking through and thinking, "Okay,
Sharon: what are the different types of Jesus that we can get into?" So I've made a note
Sharon: of a few. Matt kind of mentioned a little bit as well. There's the therapeutic
Sharon: life-coach Jesus, where we take the nice sayings to enhance our life but leave
Sharon: the rest of it. There's the political or cultural Jesus, where we take the bits
Sharon: where he aligns with our political views and assign him to our political party.
Sharon: There's nice Jesus, where we take away the hard teachings and keep just the nice
Sharon: ones — the ones that make us feel good. There's the convenient saviour, where we
Sharon: like the forgiveness-of-sins bit but we don't actually like the submitting to
Sharon: him as our king. And I was thinking again about how, in different religions, he
Sharon: might be seen as a prophet but not the Son of God, where people might believe
Sharon: that he didn't really die on the cross but it was some sort of illusion. So many
Sharon: different types. But I also relate to the people who had their expectations
Sharon: turned upside down and didn't really get it, because the amount of times where
Sharon: I've been like that, where I've not really got it.
Anna: I loved what Matt had to say about that whole thing of, you can't really put
Anna: Jesus in a box. He isn't one thing. He's both fierce and loving — he's fiercely
Anna: loving. And the two things are sort of in tension. You see that time and again
Anna: when you get to know Jesus: this idea that he's both forgiving, but also he has
Anna: this strong thing of justice, and he doesn't let evil go unpunished. All through
Anna: the Bible there are all these tensions about the character of Jesus. He's not
Anna: one thing, but these tensions make him this incredibly dynamic character that's
Anna: quite counter-cultural. And yeah, I just think Matt's talk tonight really summed
Anna: it up well. You see in culture at the moment, don't you, and in the news, you
Anna: see it played out all the time — this idea that when somebody does make Jesus
Anna: smaller, or make him fit their own ideology or politics, that that can get you
Anna: into all kinds of horrible mess. You see it in Christian nationalism and a lot
Anna: of what's happening in America at the moment. It kind of gets used as a
Anna: justification to start wars on other nations, and yet Jesus doesn't take sides.
Anna: He doesn't side with our nation. There's so much we can get into, but it's just
Anna: so challenging, isn't it, to be like, "Who do I think Jesus is?" I think that's
Anna: a really good question to sit with this week, and just kind of start picking at
Anna: — at home as well.
Sharon: Yeah. I sometimes find that my brain is so small that I can only really grasp
Sharon: bits of who God is at any one time. Trying to hold the whole thing together can
Sharon: be a bit of a challenge, because God is so big. Like you say, you've got the
Sharon: completely loving, but also the God of justice, and God manages to hold those
Sharon: things in tension. But sometimes it's difficult to keep all of God. The times
Sharon: when I feel like I'm more able to do that is when I have a really powerful
Sharon: experience of his presence, and then it seems easier to hold all of those things
Sharon: in tension. Other times that can be quite tricky.
Anna: I liked that whole idea of what he was saying about how we can make this
Anna: cardboard cut-out Jesus, which is just like a nice guy. He's nice. I'm not
Anna: saying Jesus wasn't nice, but he was so much more than that, wasn't he? When we
Anna: have that idea of nice Jesus, he's not that disruptive Jesus who turns systems
Anna: and things upside down and really challenges your life. That quote that Matt
Anna: said — a Jesus who never disrupts you can never transform you — I think that is
Anna: something I will take away and ponder this week. I don't want a God that's so
Anna: small that he doesn't disrupt or transform or change my life. What's the point
Anna: of a religion or faith, of anything really, what's the point of doing it if it
Anna: doesn't make your life different, better, transformed? That's what we're here
Anna: for: transformation. Not just something that's nice, comfortable.
Sharon: I was going to ask both of you whether you've got examples of when God has — not
Sharon: slapped you in the face, that's the wrong phrase —
Matt: I've got examples of when he slapped me in the face.
Sharon: Maybe it's kind... They were accidents, all of them. But anyway — so, in fact,
Sharon: I've got an eyewitness tonight. I'm going to have to explain this one now, okay,
Sharon: just so you know that I'm not a husband-beater. So there was an example — we're
Sharon: all in the hall: me, Matt, our daughter Zoe. We were going to say goodbye, and I
Sharon: had this heavy bag on my shoulder and it slipped off. So I went to pull my arm
Sharon: back to pull it on. In the process, my arm flipped up and smacked Matt in the
Sharon: face. It really was an accident. But anyway, back to my question —
Matt: So hang on — hands up who believes Sharon that this was an accident. Yeah,
Matt: no-one's putting their hands up in the room. Come on, guys.
Sharon: Yeah, anyway. So my question is, have you got examples in your own life of where
Sharon: you've been confronted by God in a way that you weren't really expecting, or
Sharon: maybe didn't even necessarily like?
Matt: Yeah, I think many. I remember one time I was really not happy with life in
Matt: church. Church was really frustrating me at the time, and I was getting more and
Matt: more heated about this, more and more angry, more and more annoyed. It was going
Matt: around in my head — that sort of emotion. I think I was probably giving into it
Matt: quite a bit. I just remember praying one day, going, "God, I am really not
Matt: happy." I'm a big believer that you can express and vent to God in your
Matt: emotions. But I think every now and again, most of the time I think it's fine,
Matt: but there are some times where God just challenges, and I just felt God
Matt: challenge me at this point and say, "Okay, what is it you are not happy about?"
Matt: And I'm like, "Well, I'm not happy about this, this, and this." And I just felt
Matt: God at this point say, "You know what, Matt, I can listen to you all day long,
Matt: but you go ahead and find me chapter and verse in the Bible where church is
Matt: about you — and what you get out of it versus what you give to it. I'm all
Matt: ears." I was like, "Okay." I just remember having this internal argument with
Matt: God, and I was deeply challenged that I had this really lousy attitude. As they
Matt: used to say in North Carolina, he got on me like a chicken on a bug. That's what
Matt: I felt at that point. What about you, Anna?
Anna: I think one of the things that has really changed in how I think about Jesus is
Anna: not thinking he's there to bless me and make my life better. For a long time I
Anna: thought about Jesus as this person I pray to, and he's there to make my life —
Anna: like a life-enhancement thing. A little bit like the therapist, really, but more
Anna: like showering gifts from heaven on me. "Oh Lord, I want this meeting to go well
Anna: at work. Oh Lord, I want a slightly nicer car." Whatever it was that day.
Anna: Actually realising that the main point of relationship with Jesus is not just
Anna: about enhancing or making my life more comfortable — I think that is a trap you
Anna: can really get into. If you spend any time around certain Christians, it's just
Anna: really not that healthy. There are a few good comments actually that have come
Anna: through on the feed that I'll pull out as well. Alicia said: "I learned to see
Anna: Jesus as a revolutionary from my dad and a comforter from my mum, which I think
Anna: reflects their personalities and life experiences more than anything else,
Anna: really." I think that's a really great point, Alicia. The idea that quite often
Anna: we make Jesus in our own image, or to suit our own personalities. Maybe it's
Anna: human nature, but we tend to lean into the parts of Jesus's character that
Anna: resonate with us and who we are and how we're wired a lot, don't we?
Sharon: I think that can be both a positive and a negative, in terms of — I think we can
Sharon: see different parts of God's character modelled in different people and the
Sharon: strengths that they've got. Some people do model that fatherliness or the love;
Sharon: other people might model the challenge. Together, as a body, we get more of a
Sharon: whole picture of who God is, because he talks about us being the church, being
Sharon: his body, doesn't he? So I think it can work both ways a little bit.
Anna: Yeah, I think you're right. That's why it's so important to be in some kind of
Anna: relationship and friendship with other believers, because you're not going to
Anna: get the whole picture on your own, are you? Maybe this is just skewing off on a
Anna: bit of a tangent — but if you've got other people that lean into other elements
Anna: of Jesus more, then maybe it brings some of that balance and challenge.
Sharon: And I think that challenge from God can come through other people. One of the
Sharon: times that I first remember that — "Oh, I'm not sure about this" — was when I
Sharon: first came up to Liverpool to do the Year Team, discipleship Year Team, and I
Sharon: was a real mess. My mind was a mess. Everything was a mess. And somebody —
Matt: I hasten to add, she'd not met me at this point. I just want to point that out.
Sharon: We hadn't met, but you know.
Matt: Well, from a distance.
Anna: You're just saying it wasn't to do with the eCommerce Podcast. I just want to be
Anna: really clear.
Sharon: Nothing to do.
Matt: Not your fault. It's obviously important for my ego that I'm not associated with
Matt: your life being a mess.
Sharon: So anyway — I was struggling. One of the leaders of the team really challenged
Sharon: me that actually I needed to repent of stuff, and I needed to forgive people. It
Sharon: doesn't sound like much now, but at the time I was just like, "What? How can you
Sharon: tell me that I need to deal with this? It's their fault that I'm like this." I
Sharon: had this real reaction to it. I was angry, because I didn't want to be
Sharon: confronted about my own sin, or about the people that I needed to forgive. I
Sharon: didn't want to forgive because I'm like, "If I do that, I'm going to take
Sharon: responsibility for the way I am." I didn't want to do that. So it just felt like
Sharon: God in my face. It came through another person, but I think I recognised that
Sharon: what they were saying was true. I didn't like it. I think God does do that with
Sharon: us. Years before that, when I would try and get close to God, I'd feel like my
Sharon: mind was going completely crazy, and I'd get angry with God and say, "Why are
Sharon: you making this hard for me?" But actually, it was God revealing the stuff in my
Sharon: life that needed to change. I didn't want that. I just wanted the nice cuddly
Sharon: Jesus who would soothe me and make everything better. But actually it was like,
Sharon: "No, there's stuff that you need to do within your life."
Anna: And that sort of goes back to that point that Matt was making about Jesus being
Anna: both fierce as well as loving and kind. It's his loving kindness that makes him
Anna: fiercely pursue you. And push you into a corner sometimes, to know you need to
Anna: deal with this stuff in your life that's holding you back. You need freedom, you
Anna: need healing. The path of least resistance doesn't always take you to that
Anna: point, does it?
Sharon: We do like our comfort, don't we? I just want to give that as an encouragement
Sharon: to anyone out there watching: if you are trying to get close to God, and
Sharon: actually life is becoming more difficult, lean into it. Find out what God is
Sharon: revealing in your life that needs to change. It might be that life gets more
Sharon: uncomfortable for a while, while God's dealing with that, while you're having to
Sharon: process that stuff with him. But keep leaning in.
Anna: There are some really nice comments here on the feed coming through. Zoe said,
Anna: "I've only just started to learn about Jesus recently, and I've been surprised
Anna: about how fierce he can be. I thought he was just quiet and calm." That's
Anna: interesting, because that is that perception map that you were talking about.
Anna: Alicia said, "I love that the Lord can embody all these contrasts, because it
Anna: helps me embrace coming to him on very different levels." I think that's a
Anna: really good point as well. Jesus is such a multifaceted individual. There's been
Anna: no-one else like him. There are so many different elements of his character. You
Anna: can't just say he's one thing. That's why we're going to be unpacking this for
Anna: most of the year, isn't it?
Matt: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack. I think in some respects that's the beauty of it,
Matt: because you've got Jesus, who is God, who's created the universe, who is this
Matt: awesome being who existed pre-time and exists outside of time, and is awesome
Matt: and cosmic and all-powerful and omnipresent and omniscient and all these big
Matt: fancy words we use. At the same time, he's the same God who knows about the
Matt: sparrows and the lilies in the field. You're like, "This is a massive contrast."
Matt: When you need comfort, he's the comforter. When you need picking up, he picks
Matt: you up. When you need challenge, he challenges you. When you need that sense of
Matt: security, that's what he brings. He's incredible. He brings you what you need,
Matt: not always what you want — but certainly what you need. I think this is a really
Matt: cool juxtaposition of faith, isn't it? The danger with that — and we are going
Matt: to be unpacking some of these things, like we've mentioned — is you just get
Matt: connected to the one bit you like. Jesus is a healer, and I've seen Jesus do
Matt: miraculous healings with people — cancers and all kinds of stuff — and it's
Matt: brilliant and it's awesome. So I just wanted to latch onto that for a long time.
Matt: But it's not a complete story, and so you kind of have to understand the breadth
Matt: and width of Jesus in so many ways. It's remarkable.
Anna: That comes with time, doesn't it? I feel like you go through different seasons
Anna: of life, and there are maybe different aspects of Jesus's character that you get
Anna: to know. I guess it's a little bit like any relationship. There are seasons of
Anna: life where you lean more into one thing — like healing — or, "I'm really
Anna: learning a lot about how Jesus is the healer at the moment." Then you might go
Anna: through a season of life where you really don't see any of Jesus's healing in
Anna: your life, or in anyone else's that you pray for, and then maybe he's
Anna: highlighting something else a little bit more. It's a bit like any relationship,
Anna: isn't it? When you and Sharon first met, you were getting to know deeper and
Anna: deeper layers of who each other were. You're probably still, decades into
Anna: marriage, learning — there are new layers and new aspects of each other, or
Anna: parts of each other, that are untapped that you don't fully know yet. I think
Anna: that's the beauty of a relationship, rather than it just being a faith or a
Anna: religion. It's a relationship, so you're always learning more.
Matt: Yeah, no, that's totally right. The other thing I've noticed a lot — and I
Matt: mentioned it in the talk slightly, and it'll be interesting to see where this
Matt: goes over the next few weeks — is that the phrase "God is love" is in the Bible,
Matt: right? We know that Jesus is the very definition of love. But in our heads,
Matt: that's love how we understand it. Which is why I like the word *fierce*, because
Matt: I think love is fierce. It's very, very fierce. You try taking a baby off a
Matt: mother and you'll see how fierce that love can be. Using phrases like "God is
Matt: love" is obviously biblical, but I think if you stop there, you fall into this
Matt: trap that I mentioned right at the start: that Jesus, because he loves me,
Matt: agrees with everything that I feel, that I want to do, that I want to believe.
Matt: He can't disrupt that, he can't challenge that, because then it stops being
Matt: loving, it starts being controlling. I've seen Christians the other way as well,
Matt: who are all law — you know, you hold the pickets up outside abortion clinics and
Matt: all that sort of stuff, and it's all condemnation. You're just like, neither is
Matt: correct on its own. The thing I really wanted to bring out today that we really
Matt: need to challenge is this Jesus, meek and mild, who just accepts everything
Matt: about my life, who accepts everything about my lifestyle, how I view culture,
Matt: how I speak, how I behave, how I feel, how I live. That is not the Jesus of the
Matt: New Testament. The Jesus of the New Testament is fiercely loving towards you,
Matt: but at the same time fiercely challenging over things which he perceives to be
Matt: not the best for you — where you're not living in a way that is going to bring
Matt: the fruit of the Holy Spirit into your life. The Apostle Paul puts it this way —
Matt: excuse me — he talks about how our desire is to walk lives pleasing to him,
Matt: walking worthy of the call of God on our lives. So there's this really
Matt: interesting — we've talked about it before — the challenge between grace and
Matt: truth, between mercy and justice, and these tensions that God seems to be able
Matt: to walk and unpack. But I think there is a danger in Western Christianity, which
Matt: is: Jesus loves me, therefore Jesus accepts me, therefore Jesus agrees with me —
Matt: which I think is probably slightly dangerous theology.
Sharon: Yeah, I do think within culture generally, but also within the church, there is
Sharon: less acceptance of people challenging you on anything. What you've just said
Sharon: about, "You can't challenge me because that's not loving" — whereas the Bible
Sharon: defines what love is, and talks about that if you see your brother in sin, the
Sharon: loving thing to do is to go and confront them about that, but speaking the truth
Sharon: in love. Again, it's having those two things together. Not just truth, but not
Sharon: just wishy-washy love. But together, just to go, "Hang on, the way you're
Sharon: walking now is leading to death. You need to turn back. Come on, turn back." I
Sharon: do see a lot more resistance to that.
Anna: It's interesting. There's another good point coming through here on the feed,
Anna: and it says, "It's a fascinating point, the idea that Jesus transforms through
Anna: challenge. Maybe it attracts resistance because so many of us have come to
Anna: attach negatives towards challenge." That's a really great point. That's the
Anna: key, isn't it? Why does Jesus challenge us? Why are some of his teachings
Anna: challenging? And what is the fruit of that? If you know that at core, God is
Anna: love, and he's for you, and he wants the very best for your life, then you
Anna: understand that his challenge, his discipline, his correction of some things in
Anna: your life is actually only to bring you greater wholeness, freedom, healing,
Anna: good things. So it's about trusting God's character, isn't it, in order to be
Anna: open to that challenge. Challenge isn't a bad thing when it's not challenge from
Anna: a mean, evil parent. It's challenge from a loving Father who wants the best for
Anna: you and wants you to live the fullest possible life. So again, it's having that
Anna: right understanding of God — that's key to being open to it, really.
Sharon: Yeah. And I think that does really challenge the culture we have here in the
Sharon: West at the minute, which is very much "you make your own truth, you decide
Sharon: what's right". If anyone challenges you, they're not just challenging what you
Sharon: believe, they're challenging you as a person. Whereas I don't think the Bible
Sharon: sees it like that. I think it would separate those out. So it's just very much a
Sharon: culture clash on that.
Matt: It is. And again, it's something we're going to get into a lot more, I think.
Matt: But fundamentally, I think we have to be open to the idea that Jesus will
Matt: challenge us, because if he can't challenge us, if he can't disrupt us, like I
Matt: said, he can't transform us. I think about the guys in the synagogue that tried
Matt: to throw him off a cliff. That's not going well. You might not stay on YouTube
Matt: much longer, but you're not going to come here, hopefully, and try and throw me
Matt: off a cliff if you don't like what I've said. But it's one of those where they
Matt: had this expectation, this perception of Jesus, to act and do and be a certain
Matt: way. When Jesus didn't fit that mould, they tried to throw him off a cliff. It's
Matt: that idea that we're going to have certain ideas and certain notions about
Matt: Christ — and we have to be willing to go, "God, if you need to challenge that in
Matt: me, go for it. I'm happy to be challenged, not just because these guys from a
Matt: studio in England have said it, but because your word says it, because I've
Matt: understood something about you." I think that's going to be a really critical
Matt: thing coming up over the weeks. Are you looking at the comments?
Sharon: I'm looking at a few comments. We've got Ellis, who's put, "Yes, I've seen
Sharon: multiple people misunderstand and mischaracterise what love is. I'm sure I do it
Sharon: too." I think it's like having the humility, isn't it, to go, "This is what my
Sharon: current understanding is — but God, teach me." He's also put, "Even when I pray
Sharon: and pray for things, I know — 'not my will but your will be done'. Because at
Sharon: the end of the day, nowhere does the Bible say 'I'll give you exactly what you
Sharon: want'. But sometimes it can be hard to accept." Absolutely — I'm with you on
Sharon: that one.
Matt: Yeah, it'd be a lot easier maybe if it — yeah, that's for sure. Maybe. What else
Matt: have we got going on in the comments?
Sharon: Sonia has — I think this is a reply to Ellis — "That's true, Ellis. I try to
Sharon: view it as, we don't have the full picture that God has for us, but it doesn't
Sharon: always make it easier to accept." Yeah, I can totally relate to these comments.
Anna: That whole thing of "not my will but your will" is just a really hard pill to
Anna: swallow sometimes, isn't it?
Matt: It has this presupposition, doesn't it, that my will and your will aren't always
Matt: going to be the same thing. Which comes back to our point, right: that for Jesus
Matt: to transform you, sometimes he has to disrupt you. Submission and obedience —
Matt: the things that we don't really like to talk about in Christianity — that is
Matt: saying, "This is not about me, this is about you", which means there has to be a
Matt: difference in those two things. Everything you read, that God's ways are higher
Matt: than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts — that's okay. That's
Matt: the joy of it. I think it's when you get into this place of, "Yeah, I've nailed
Matt: this. God totally accepts everything I'm doing. Me and God", I just think that's
Matt: dangerous thinking in many ways. Saying that — we were talking on Alpha the
Matt: other night. By the way, love Alpha. We're going to start a new Alpha in a
Matt: couple of weeks. If you're interested about the Christian faith and want to come
Matt: join us in Alpha, go to crowd.church — the website, www.crowd.church. Just fill
Matt: out the little registration form for Alpha on the website, and we'll get you on
Matt: the course in a couple of weeks. We were talking on Alpha — obviously there are
Matt: some people who are very new to the Christian faith, some people aren't
Matt: Christians yet, and they have some really interesting ideas about Jesus. They
Matt: don't necessarily always marry up to the ideas and thoughts that I have, but
Matt: it's not my job on Alpha to convince them to think the way that I think, or to
Matt: see Jesus the way that I see it, because I've been walking with Christ for 30
Matt: years. This is something that has happened over a period of time, and I've been
Matt: transformed, I think, by my walk with him. So it's not like you need to get
Matt: there tomorrow. This is back to your point about relationships — you get to know
Matt: people. But I think it's a daily challenge to say, "Not my will, but your will
Matt: be done." Thirty years later, it's still a challenge.
Sharon: And that prayer was originally prayed by Jesus, wasn't it, in the garden just
Sharon: before he was going to get crucified? He knew he was going to be crucified, and
Sharon: he was saying, "God, this is not what I want, but if this is what you want, then
Sharon: I will do it."
Anna: Isn't it reassuring though, to know that even Jesus, who was God in human form,
Anna: also struggled with some of this stuff? As a human being, I find it really
Anna: reassuring. Of course we're going to struggle with this. Even Jesus found it
Anna: hard to submit to God's will when it was painful in his life, but he chose to do
Anna: it anyway because he knew there was a greater good that followed out of it.
Sharon: But yeah, it's not easy. So following God's way is not always the easiest, most
Sharon: comfortable way, is it? I wanted to contrast that with something you said,
Sharon: because at the beginning of the talk you were talking about how your view of
Sharon: Christianity was that it wasn't fun. God wasn't fun.
Matt: Jesus, the fun police. Yeah.
Sharon: Obviously you've changed your mind now. So what's your view on that?
Matt: Oh, it's radical fun. I mean, I wouldn't do this if it wasn't fun. I don't know
Matt: if that's true — but I positively enjoy everything about my — I positively enjoy
Matt: most things about my walk with God. I must clarify. What I perceived as Jesus
Matt: robbing my fun, a lot of people think about, right? It's like, basically, you're
Matt: not allowed to sin as a Christian. Well, you're not allowed to sin as any
Matt: person, but anyway. You're not allowed to sin as a Christian, so you have to
Matt: give up all the sins. And all the sins are the things that you want to do —
Matt: they're all the things that are bad for you, but they're all the things that you
Matt: enjoy. I had this conception that because I wasn't allowed to do those things as
Matt: a Christian, therefore there would be no fun, because these were the things that
Matt: I enjoyed doing. The reality of life is, whilst there is an element of truth to
Matt: that — I'm not going to deny that. It's not like God said, "Oh, you can keep
Matt: doing all of that, man." No, no, no, no, no. There were some things I definitely
Matt: couldn't keep doing. But in place of that, what you get is so much bigger than
Matt: what you give up. There is a choice where you say, "Not my will but your will be
Matt: done. I will lay these things at your feet." But what he gives you is infinitely
Matt: more. I might not always feel that, I might not always experience that, I might
Matt: not even always think that's true, but the reality of it is, it is. What lies
Matt: before us is greater than what lies behind us — all those sort of sentences. So
Matt: what we give is nothing in terms of what we get. Jesus says in John 10:10, "I
Matt: have come that you may have life, and have life in all its abundance." That
Matt: Greek word there is *zoe*. It means this divine life — life as God has it. "I
Matt: have come that you may have this life to the full" — life as God has it, this
Matt: divine life, this abundant life. That doesn't mean everything you ever wanted in
Matt: life. It doesn't mean an abundant bank account. It doesn't mean driving around
Matt: in Ferraris. I mean, maybe for you it does, but for most people, it doesn't. It
Matt: means life to the — life as God has. That is a goal worth chasing, right? "Do I
Matt: have this life, this abundant life, that is full of" — and the Bible uses these
Matt: words over and over again — "joy and peace and contentment and godliness and
Matt: faith and hope and love and all of those things?" Are they growing in me? If
Matt: they are, that's a remarkable thing, isn't it? So whatever you give up is
Matt: nothing in relation to what you get.
Sharon: I think sometimes we chase after those things because they do look attractive,
Sharon: but it's to fill that hole in us that actually only God can fill. So the things
Sharon: that we chase can be a bit more superficial. But when you reorientate to God's
Sharon: way, actually he fulfils those deepest desires that we have. Not necessarily
Sharon: always instantly. It's definitely been a process for me — and some harder times,
Sharon: working through stuff, and digging up, you know, getting rid of all the dirt out
Sharon: of my life. But worth it, though.
Matt: Definitely. Absolutely worth it.
Anna: I think you're absolutely right that a lot of the time, what we do — the
Anna: behaviours that we sometimes cling to that aren't good for us, the sin patterns
Anna: in our lives — it is just about trying to find those places that God gives us
Anna: freely. Those things like joy and peace and security and a sense of worth and
Anna: identity and "who am I?" and all of those things. It looks like just finding
Anna: them in superficial, human, man-made ways that are so much more inferior than
Anna: what God can give. People go try to find that in sex and relationships and
Anna: money, or power, or alcohol or drugs — whatever you're doing that is quite
Anna: short-term. But actually God's got the real thing, the real deal. It's like,
Anna: yeah, sort of inferior. So when we cling to that — our sin — it strikes me that
Anna: it's just like the inferior version of what God gives us perfectly. The
Anna: trade-off, actually, once you've tried it, is not that difficult. Such a good
Anna: point to let go of, because the real deal is so much better than the human
Anna: inferior version.
Matt: Yeah. Very good point. Very well said. I'm aware of time.
Anna: Yeah, what's ticking off? Totally not.
Sharon: Oh yeah, it's getting late, isn't it?
Matt: So we just go to Live Land, doesn't it? Just cracking on. We should probably say
Matt: — I'm sorry, you crack on, I'm not hosting tonight.
Anna: I mean, I'm hosting tonight, but I'm not entirely sure what's happening next
Anna: week. We've got the next episode next week, haven't we, of this series?
Sharon: Tell us who's on. We've got Dave Connolly speaking to us next week, carrying on
Sharon: in the series. And in theory, we have Will and Mike hosting. In theory. Because
Sharon: sometimes it changes, doesn't it?
Matt: It does. It can change. But I think they'll be okay. I'm just pulling up the
Matt: rota for next week so I can tell you what Dave's going to talk about.
Sharon: And while he's looking for that — we're going to finish the livestream any
Sharon: moment, but we're going to carry on in — is it Google Meet? Yes, it is. And
Sharon: hopefully the link will appear in the comments. So come and join us.
Matt: If Dan's doing his job, the comments — is it in there? Well done. Is he doing
Matt: his job?
Sharon: So yeah, just come and join us. We're very informal. Just chat, say hi, see how
Sharon: you are.
Matt: Yeah, it'd be good to see you. Next week, Dave is talking about the woman at the
Matt: well — John chapter 4, the story of the woman at the well, one of the very
Matt: famous stories in the Gospels. So do come join us for that. It's going to be
Matt: epic.
Anna: Awesome. That's it from us tonight. Come and join us in the Meet afterwards. If
Anna: you don't, get in touch with us in the week, have a look at the Alpha course,
Anna: drop us a line if you've got any prayer or any questions, any requests. Find all
Anna: our details on the website. Keep in touch, and have a great week.