Podcasts about Deep Creek

Beck explores the practice of silence and solitude, why God longs to speak, how Jesus modeled withdrawal, and simple ways to find stillness in a noisy world. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

Rachel unpacks Luke 12 and 2 Corinthians 8, showing how greed and fear can block generosity and how Jesus grace frees us to live the true good life, rich toward God, joyful in giving, and confident in the Fathers provision. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

Best-selling author and former cop Eric Tansey takes viewers inside newly released bodycam footage from Charlotte County, Florida — where Deputy Timothy Poole shot and killed unarmed Deep Creek resident Daniel Scott Burch. Tansey's law enforcement experience brings clarity to the split-second decisions and emotional chaos that ended in tragedy. In this episode, bodycam video showing the fatal encounter between and an unarmed Deep Creek man shot and killed after saying “Let's do it.” Tansey dissects use of force rules, tactics, body language, escalation, and officer decision-making under pressure that decides life and death. Was deadly force justified? Did the deputy have other options? What does the video reveal about modern policing, community tension, and how split-second choices define lives? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this exciting episode of Fishing the DMV, host Thomas Arens sits down with Tom Van Atta, a passionate multi-species angler who specializes in chasing Northern Pike and Musky across the Mid-Atlantic. Together they dive deep into the thriving Pike fishery at Deep Creek Lake, Maryland — a hidden gem nestled in the Appalachian Mountains and one of the few lakes in the region where anglers can target these toothy predators year-round.Tom shares how Deep Creek's cool, clear waters and abundant forage create the perfect environment for trophy-sized pike. He breaks down his favorite seasonal patterns, lure choices, and key structure to focus on, while also offering insight into how this fishery has evolved through Maryland DNR's management efforts.Tom Van Atta bait Company: https://www.saddletrampbaitco.com/?fbclid=IwAR2jGiM2YwJyx_yfPBR_o1BDioDj-fh94so830FZzrmLttXbM36e6Ge3r7k Tom van Atta on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tom_vanatta?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw== Pennsylvania Monsters YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_DeUx3vKAw Please support Fishing the DMV on Patreon!!!https://patreon.com/FishingtheDMVPodcast If you are interested in being on the show or a sponsorship opportunity, please reach out to me at fishingtheDMV@gmail.comJake's bait & Tackle website: http://www.jakesbaitandtackle.com/ Places you can listen to Fishing the DMV audio version: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1893009 Fishing the DMV YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/n3c-CFvmpFg Fishing the DMV Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/fishingthedmv/?utm_medium=copy_link#fishing #fishingreport #fishingtheDMVSupport the show

What is church for? Walking through 1 Corinthians 14, this message explores why intelligible, loving worship builds up believers and helps seekers encounter God. Expect a practical call to sing louder for their sake and to order our gifts so others draw closer to Jesus. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

In an attention-hungry world, this message unpacks 1 Corinthians 13 to show how giving attention, rather than getting it, forms a community of patient, kind, co-agency love. Hear how reordered loves free us from control and approval seeking, making space for others and revealing that God is really among you. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul resets our expectations: the Spirit truly gives diverse gifts, but their purpose is unity and lifting up Jesus, not spiritual showreels. This message invites us to trade a consumer mindset for mutual service, honour the weaker parts, and ask a new question: How can I bless others with what Gods put in my hands? Listen in and be encouraged to be the gift you already are, for the good of all. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

In John 8:3136, we explore how Jesus words expose the lies that enslave us and point to the only freedom that lasts. Abiding in his teaching unmasks false masters and welcomes us as sons and daughters. If the Son sets you free, youre free indeed. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

Jesus declares, I am the light of the world. In this message from John 8, we explore what it means to walk in the light of Christwhere darkness is banished, life is given, and forgiveness is real. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

In Galatians 6, we meet a community of the free: people yoked to Christs easy burden, carrying one anothers loads, and sowing to the Spirit. Hear how boasting only in the cross forms a church that rises, serves, and does good without growing weary. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

Freedom isnt just freedom from, its freedom for. In Galatians 5, we explore how faith expressing itself through love becomes visible as the Spirit grows real fruit in us. Hear how serving one another, resisting the flesh, and walking by the Spirit makes freedom unmistakable in everyday life. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

If you love Pixar, this one's for you.This epic episode of RGI, we are joined by two very special guests: her sister Jailyn (a self-declared Pixar expert) and Jackson, Brooke's boyfriend and cohost of the Two Tickets Please Podcast.Together, the four of us dive into the colorful world of Pixar—sharing our Top 5 Pixar movies of all time, favorite characters, and the most underrated villains in the Pixar universe.Oh, and don't miss the hilarious segment: “Who Knows Brooke Better—Sister or Boyfriend?”

Are you living like a slave or a son? In Galatians 4 we unpack how Jesus not only redeems but adopts usso we cry Abba, live free from fear, and inherit with Christ. Hear why going back to old chains makes no sense when everything the light touches is ours in Him. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

Only faith brings freedom. In this message on Galatians 3, Megan traces Gods promise to Abraham, why the law cant make us right, and how Christ became a curse to redeem us. She closes with ten quick, practical ways we slip into law livingand how grace sets us free. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

From the school cafeteria to the Lords tablewhy fear shrinks our circles and grace blows them wide open. In Galatians 2:1121, discover what it means to be justified by faith, clothed in Christ, and seated at freedoms table. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

What are you carrying? In Galatians 1, Paul shows how Jesus frees us from people-pleasing, striving, and guilt. Come hear how the cross lifts the weight. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

In this compelling episode of The Articulate Fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash teams up with renowned guide and instructor Mac Brown for another insightful Casting Angles segment focused on high water fishing strategies in the Great Smoky Mountains. Mac, who lives on Deep Creek in Bryson City and has been guiding Appalachian waters since the 1980s, reveals why experienced anglers should flip conventional wisdom during big rain events and head to lower elevations rather than seeking high mountain streams. Learn how massive brown trout emerge from hiding during flash flood conditions, creating feeding frenzies that represent some of the best fishing opportunities in Appalachia. Mac shares specific streamer fishing techniques including his go-to Black Ghost pattern, the importance of color contrast in turbid water and why upsizing flies becomes critical during high water events. Discover proven bank fishing tactics using jig hooks for fast-moving water, plus Mac's upcoming fall instructional offerings including his September advanced casting school, October guide school and a special wet fly fishing workshop with legendary angler Davy Wotton on Arkansas' White River - where Mac first learned to fly fish as a child.All Things Social MediaFollow Mac on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.Support the Show Shop on AmazonBecome a Patreon PatronSubscribe to the PodcastSubscribe to the podcast in the podcatcher of your choice.Advertise on the PodcastIs our community a good fit for your brand? Advertise with us.In the Industry and Need Help Getting Unstuck?Check out our consulting options!

From coffee aroma to Christs presence, Nick shares how a simple morning ritual became a cue to behold God, moving from performance to intimacy. Anchored in Mark 8:2226, Matthew 6, and Luke 9:23, this talk invites you to seek the kingdom first and begin again after every distraction, one honest prayer at a time. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript Pursuing Gods Good Purposes Welcome Bible Reading (Mark 8:2226) Today's Bible reading comes from the book of Mark, and we're reading chapter eight, verses 22 to 26. If you have the Read Bible that is on page 1570. They came to Bethsaida, and some people bought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he put when he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, do you see anything? He looked up and said, I see people. They look like trees walking around. Once more, Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home, saying, don't even go into the village. This is the word of the Lord. Opening Coffee Illustration Morning church. How are we going? You all right? Okay. All right. Don't mind me. I'm just going to. While I kick things off for us. I'm just going to, make a coffee because I'm really thirsty, and I need one. No. Why am I making a coffee on stage? Well, I'm sure, like many of us, this is how our day starts. Maybe it's tea. Maybe it's coffee. Maybe it's something like this. But I think it's reasonable to assume that we're doing something fairly routine. So usually at home, actually, to confess, make an espresso machine. But I thought that would be a little bit difficult to try and bring down here. Then make that on stage would be a little bit more distracting, but that is okay. this is how my day starts, and in this space, I am intentionally wanting to invite God into my life as it's the first thing in my day. I make filter coffee. I make it all the time at church with the staff team. It's been really fun to share, you know, fun brews, really expensive beans, all these kinds of things. It's been a pleasure to show that to the staff team. Well, most of the staff team, I would like us maybe to take a moment to pray for Rachel at some particular point today. That would be great. No. In this space, I don't say the same thing every day, but what I do is say something along these lines. loving God, I welcome you in my life today. You are welcome in this place. I want to do what you have planned for me. I'm going to pray. Opening Prayer Church. As we get into our message today. Loving God, thanks for this time. Thanks that you are wonderful. That your works are wonderful. And. Yeah. Help us to seek you for your good purposes. Amen. Intentional Morning Practice So, as mentioned, this is my daily desire that I invite the Lord into my life through making coffee. you know, sometimes even say things like the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles Creed, all these kinds of things. I invite God to have his will in this place at the start of my day, and then to speak in for the rest of my day. so why am I preaching? Why am I talking about coffee today? Well, at the start of the year, the staff team we were talking about when we might like to preach and I really, really confidently stated that I would like to preach in the Stay Weird series and why I think it's just because I'm really happy to be associated with being weird. I feel like it's in my blood, in my DNA. No, not not just that. Also, because our October last year, Rachel, Mike, Nikki and I, we went to a conference called Renaissance where it was a really great weekend. We went in sort of like a ministry experience, and then we did a lot of things. So much of it was great, but I think the particular highlight was hearing from this man, this eyes, he's so gorgeous. I love this man. His name is Strawn Coleman. he's a musician. he's from he's from New Zealand. He's a beautiful man with a beautiful accent. but he actually didn't do any singing. He actually spoke on prayer and what it means to have an intimate prayer life with God. He's the founder and director of the Commoners Communion. It's called He's also involved with practicing the way, which is what a lot of our growth groups are going to be doing this term. So to be sure to get into that. Beholding Prayer (Strawn Coleman) this was his main message across the weekend. He wants prayer to be more than a mental dialogue, but as a way of existing with God in our everyday, ordinary lives. He calls this beholding, which is the title of one of his books, Beholding Prayer. So did I come out of this conference absolutely gushing on this man? Well, I'm not going to comment or deny that. is that weird to say? I don't know. I don't think it's weird. Maybe that's weird. I don't know who it is anyway, but I was inspired, right? I was inspired to read what he said. I came out of that weekend making a conscious effort to explore a deeper prayer life and all that comes with that. Intimacy, vulnerability, silence, prayer. And I set myself on the journey of seeking this. And I thought by the time, you know, maybe like six, eight months down the line, I thought, by the time I get to church today, I'd be like, great. I'm so excited to stand up here and share everything that I have learned. Well, that day is here, and I think it's fair to say the journey didn't go as planned, but I also think that is for the better. Taste and See Coffee as a Cue So morning starts. I make my coffee and as I said, the intention is to invite the Lord into this space. Psalm 34, verse eight. Taste and see that he is good. This is not me preaching a theology of coffee, by the way. although that sounds like a really good idea, someone should do that. This is me. What I love about coffee is mostly the smell, amongst the taste. Because. And actually, to do with my prayer life, I use the aroma, particularly. Filter coffee is particularly potent. I use that as kind of a way to connect back with God. I find in my prayers I'm deeply distracted all the time, and I use the aroma to function as an incense, and I want the smell to draw me back to the father. And then from there, my morning looks like hopefully some prayer, some Bible reading. At the moment I've been working through a podcast which just sort of does a little devotion on a particular part of the Bible each day. And yeah, that's been my intention to pray with God. And honestly, I don't I don't nail this every, every day. Habits, All-or-Nothing, and Grace And for my whole life for routines and habits. I've struggled with a bit of an all or nothing complex. And what I mean by that is I want to do a habit and I really want to do it well. And then I miss a couple of days, I slip up and then I just crash out of doing it. And it wasn't just for prayer and following God. It's kind of been for everything. To be honest, it's been for for trying to, like, practice a musical instrument, whether it's trying to do exercise. It's kind of just been with me and I don't really know why, but that's okay. It's been there. And in my journey of seeking Christ this year, he's actually shown me that. And God has shown me the lies in this thinking. In all of our shortcomings. God is ready to welcome us back with open arms like the prodigal son. You know, he looks down on us with so much grace. You know whether I'm coming back to God later that day. The next day. The day after. He simply just desires an intimate friendship with me. I love this quote from Rich Villegas. Also in practicing the way, as I learned from week one of our session just this Tuesday, a thousand distractions in prayer. A thousand reasons to come back to God. Seeing God in All Things So, through a single daily task, I invite the Lord into all of my life. And slowly and softly, I'm just seeing him more in in all things. So looking back now that looking back at October, it's clear when I set the goal of doing this, seeking God more. If I'm honest, I went in with my heart in the wrong place. I was seeking God, yes, but it kind of began with seeking him for my purpose. To learn to be better, to be more like Strawn. And I am relieved to say this did not go the way that I planned. You know, God, even in my wrong ideas, God kind of did. Just God in here is he's going to do. He got into my heart, my body and mind and and he showed me the ways of this, even in selfish pursuits. He can use your prayer and your life for good purposes. And Matthew chapter six teaches us this. Seek First His Kingdom (Matthew 6) So do not worry. Saying, what shall we eat? What shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things. And your heavenly father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you. To seek his kingdom and his righteousness is to seek first God for his good. Purposes. And this call from Jesus sets us apart. In our world, we're in one where we're encouraged to think for ourselves, whether it be for material gain, our own sense of purpose, power, influence, emotional gain, security. Even in my prayer life, I was using prayer for just gaining, you know, spiritual knowledge and and wisdom and thank the Lord that he showed me the errors of that. Deny Yourself Find Freedom (Luke 9:23) And what is Christ say about this? Well, he calls us to deny yourself, deny gain for your purposes. Luke 923 Jesus said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. This idea of of self gain is is not how we are supposed to be living. It's not how God intended. His. His good purposes are our gain and our path to victory and freedom. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. This call from Christ is for our benefit. This is for our good city alike are this amazing Christian song writing group and I love the music, particularly for their lyrics. And one song I've been adoring this year is called His Glory is My Good and I think I just love it for the title. I love saying that his glory is my good. There is. There is a precious freedom in wanting to live more like him and be more like him as we work towards holiness. Matthew six but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. You know, these verses encourage us to prioritize God and God's will go after his good purposes. And our other needs will be met. When Routine Becomes an Idol So last year, I convinced myself I had a thriving prayer life. In the mornings, I'd make my morning coffee. Please hold. Yeah, that was good. Make my morning coffee. And then I'd basically find a spot in my. In my room. In my living room. Sorry. In my living room. Rug on the ground. Particular cushion I'd sit on down on the floor and I'd be just doing some praying and meditating. I generally start about five minutes or so, and then slowly over time, I increased that timer, turned to ten minutes, turned into 15, turned into 20. And yeah, this was my prayer life and these are good things I was doing. But I realized my intentions were really unhealthy and my goal unintentionally became not spending time with God, but the amount of time. I was spending with God. I began to idolize routine and I honestly just lose sight of the true purpose I lost sight of of seeking God. I was seeking God for my good purpose. And it became became prideful. It was. It's a very worldly way of looking at spending time with God. It was it was consumerist. It was transactional. Transaction Culture Prayer Our world is is consumerist. And that, sadly, can affect the way we approach God. I mean, everything around us, we we pay for a service to happen. We work to get paid for our service. We use our screens as a transaction of distraction, escapism. We put things up on socials for often for a reaction, whether it be positive or negative, that is still a type of transaction. And we wanted to do this to receive something. In his book Beholding, Strawn, who I was talking about before, puts it like this the theology of consumerism subtly underlies much of the way we see the world experienced church, and sadly. How we pray. I'd go into prayer and meditation, seeking something, strength, hope or revelation. And I'd be just disappointed when that didn't happen. And and I wasn't disappointed in in God as much as myself, to be honest. I had this unhealthy assumption that I disappointed him, and I did make most of my time. I wasn't in tune, I was distracted. Sometimes I approached prayer for guilt, for lack of words or revelation. And with God there, there is not. There is no pressure for productivity or performance. You know, there is a worldly pressure in all our environments for productivity and performance, but not with God. That sets us apart. We can overanalyze and scrutinize our prayer lives. From a worldly perspective. But God is simply. Desires you just as you are. And this is from one of Strand's prayer books, which I just love. Saying these words, God, you're not a product to be consumed, but a wonder to behold. Father, make me your beholder. Psalm 34, verse eight. Taste and see that the Lord is good. His goodness is there for us to reach out and touch this creator. Overwhelmingly awesome. Magnificent. Worthy of our praise. God simply desires you. Mark 8: Intimacy Healing in Stages So our Bible reading today came from the gospel of Mark, and it points us towards God's desire for close relationship and intimacy with each of us. Mark eight, verse 22. They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. This man is brought to Jesus not by his own accord. And what is Jesus's first response? It's it's just to spend time with him. Away from the others. Intimacy, you know, to parallel Matthew chapter six, Jesus sought first an intimate friendship with the man as he does with you. We need to first seek Christ. Seek come from the Greek word. With few meanings, one of which is the desire to possess. We desperately need the desire to possess intimate friendship with God. I think this this space I'm talking about. Right? It's it's a pretty scary one because it talks about things like vulnerability and and intimacy. And I think that's really scary because it's often in these spaces right, where we. God reveals things about us that we actually don't want to admit about ourselves. It's those deep fears, those habits we need to change the things we are not ready to deny about ourselves. But it's a space. This is a space to be vulnerable with. The Lord is a space that overflows with beauty. And Mark 823 paints an incredible description of this. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Just think about that. If you couldn't see and you just your hand out. Jesus, take my hand. Lead the way. It's so beautiful. God is desiring you. The Power of Being With God And this is from Strawn. I was learning that the greatest power in prayer is just to be together with God, and that being with God is often as much the answer to the prayers we're praying as the answers we are seeking ourselves. Storm was an active touring musician for the first part of the 20 tens, and in about 2015 he became chronically ill, for which there wasn't any cure, and he stopped short of touring. Being on the road as a musician, and he didn't work in this time, and he spent extended stints at a Franciscan retreat. This is what his days looked like. He would journal, he would pray. He would look out the window, he would be silent and he would sleep, because that's actually all he was able to do at the time. And he documents in his book, he documents his anger about this, his lament in this space. He felt no answer to his prayers, no answer to his pain. And he writes how he gave up in praying for healing. He gave up. And he said instead a prayer of acceptance and everything. Changed. He thanked God for his life. And then he said this. Father, if this is it. If this is what my life will look like till the day I die. Financially strapped, vocationally stuffed, relationally strained and medically confused. Then it's okay. I have you. I have life. I have this beautiful world and my beautiful family. Let me be alive to enjoy and behold you. Whatever may come. That's awesome, isn't it? Prayer for strong became just sitting in front of the Lord. Just watching. Learning to discover that the beauty was just already present all around him, you know. He decided that his painting and this, this struggle was not going to affect his gazing at God. That's what he calls all this gazing at God. Reflection: What Would You Pray? Church. I wonder if I wonder if I had the prayer on the screen and put some empty spaces there, what would what would you put in there? Do you feel a weight of expectation to be dependable to those around you? Do you struggle to support those around you? Are you feeling pressure to provide? Do you? Do you fail to love yourself? Those deep parts of yourself? Do you feel held back by a lack of purpose? If I'm honest, church that is one. Being being held back by lack of purpose is something I am petrified about. I, I don't clearly know God's plan for me. I've never had a plan for me. I've never known what to do. And that is a deep. That's a deep fear that I carry. Right. Church. Well, we're set apart because these things, these burdens that we carry are insignificant compared to the wonder of Christ. You know, because Christ is so much bigger and better than these burdens that we carry. You know, we're invited to sit with him just as you are to be real with him in all my questions and challenges. I want to taste and see that the Lord is good. I will strive to do this. Psalms of Desire Praise Psalm 27. For one thing, I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord, and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 3423 I will extol the Lord at all times. His praise will be always on my lips. I will glory in the Lord. Let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. Approach the Throne with Confidence Church, you don't need to have it all together to sit with God. We can boldly approach him with confidence. God does not require perfection. He just requires you. Hebrews 416. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. My name is Nick and I am a hot mess. But I'm a hot mess with God. The Lord is is desperate to to take you by the hand and have an intimate. Intimate friendship with all of you. Jesus Persistence in Healing So we took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he'd spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, do you see anything? He looked up and said, I see people. They look like trees walking around. What I love about this particular healing is that it's not immediate. It is in it's in stages, and it's done quietly in intimate friendship with God. Verse 25, once more, Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus just simply continued his good work in this man for his good. Purposes. I love this quote from Alan Cole in his commentary on this passage. It's so simple and so beautiful. Jesus did not desist until the man was fully healed. And it's so, so reflective of his pursuit of us. Jesus will not desist in his pursuit of you. And finally, in verse 26, Jesus sent him home, saying, don't even go into the village. For God, this this miracle is. It's it's not about the people. It's not about the people in the village. This was just something intimate between God and the blind man. And it shows us the friendship that we need to seek with God. Your relationship with Christ is unique to you and is always. Always chasing after you. Beholding Like Oxygen Through our pursuit of God for his good purposes. We will come to see him more and more in our life. You know, often I. I don't feel a thrill in my prayers. If I'm honest, I don't. I don't get revelation sometimes. There's not really a sense of encounter or or even like a direct sense of your spirit. And you know that. That's fine. What has formed in this journey is something more softly. I think it's it's a comfort in his omnipotence, which just means, like I'm comfortable knowing that he's everywhere around me. Here's another strong quote for you. Beholding prayer is a dis position of openness to God in every moment. Whether we see or feel him there or not. He's there like oxygen. You know, my hope and prayer is is not about seeking answers. Seeking revelation because his good purposes exceed my ideas of greatest purposes. You know, taste and see that the Lord is good. Judge. I've. This is a very big topic, and I'm not an expert. I've. I've barely scratched the surface. Let's let's be real here, but please read the word. Please seek this. Seek an intimate friendship with him. Because it is what matters. Our burdens are insignificant compared to our pursuit of this. Make sure you get to a growth group if you're not in one already. Get along to practicing the way because it kind of talks all about this in more detail. spend time gazing at God. Here's a few of my own terminologies that I have made so strong. Calls it Gazing at God. Here are some of mine. being bored with the Lord. Be a mess with the Messiah. Time out with the Trinity. Reveling with the Redeemer. Opportunistic omnipotence. Or you could pick something that doesn't use alliteration. Whatever works for you but church. Seek first his kingdom for his good purposes, because he is worthy of all of our seeking. We as Christians, we have a blessed assurance that there is a prize waiting for us at the end, an eternity with the father, the son, and the spirit. But even, even if there wasn't an assurance, to be honest, I I'd still seek Jesus, because he's worthy of all of my seeking, and he's worthy of yours. To finish, I'm going to invite the band to come on up church. I'm going to lead us in a time of prayer. I'm going to lead us in some adapted prayers from from Strawn in his prayer book. And please let us be seeking him in our prayers, our church, please, whatever posture you like. Let's pray, shall we? Closing Prayer Loving God. One thing we ask from you this only. Do we want to seek. That we may dwell in the house of the Lord. All the days of our lives. To gaze on the beauty of you and to seek you in your temple. To see that you are everywhere. Your dwelling place is all across, all around us. Thank you, God, for for my life, for our lives. Father, if if this is it, if this is what our lives look like, if this is what my life looks like until the day we die, then. It's okay. Help us to see that it's okay. We have you. We have life. We have this beautiful world. And let us be alive to enjoy you and behold you. Whatever may come. Amen.

Why do we keep saying ancient creeds and prayers? In this message, we explore how set words teach us to pray, anchor our belief, unite our community, and help us witness to Jesuslike a melody line we improvise ondrawing from Exodus 34, 1 Corinthians 15 and Revelation 12:11. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript below Bible Readings Old Testament Exodus 34:18 Good morning church. This morning we are privileged to be having two or rather three readings, one from the Old Testament and two from the new. And I'm going to read from you from the Old Testament, Exodus 34, verses 1 to 8. The Lord said to Moses, chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. Be ready in the morning and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain. Not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain. So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and went up mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him, and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him, and proclaimed his name the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming the Lord the Lord. The compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. May we too, I think, be like Moses, worshiping this God who is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love and faithfulness. Amen. New Testament Readings 1 Corinthians 15; Revelation 12 And now Sam will bring us the two New Testament readings. Our New Testament readings for today are from one Corinthians chapter 15 and revelation chapter 12. Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved. If you hold firmly to the word I preach to you. Otherwise you have believed in vain. For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the 12. After that he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all, he appeared to me also as to one abnormally born are now for revelation. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, now I have come to the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of this Messiah of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters who accuses them before our God. Day and night has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of their testimony. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them. But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you. He is filled. He is filled with fury because he knows that his time is sure. This is the word of the Lord. Sermon Well. Good morning again. Thank you so much for the privilege of being with you. to be part of the Staying Weird series, finding the weirdest people around to come and talk about a weird and wonderful thing, which is Christian faith and and to listen to a sermon. A 'Creed' for Listening So I've prepared, just a brief, creed for listening to a sermon. And so I wonder whether we just might encourage each other as we begin with this, this morning, so you can respond in the, in the bold type. All Scripture is God breathed. Congregation replies: And is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness. We listen to sermons so that we might hear from God. I am really, really, looking forward to the sermon today! And even if it goes a bit too long, I wont mind at all. However, I do wonder, whats the point of reciting things that have been written for us by someone else? Wheres the authenticity in that? Which is a really great question. The 'Age of Authenticity' I'm glad you asked. We live in what sociologists call the age of authenticity, and that's what it means to be truly human, to make sure that you, you do you and you live your life in a way that aligns with with your heart, you, you, you don't just submit to what other people tell you to do, what other people say that you ought to be. You need to be authentic. Be true to yourself. Except, of course, when you come to the Anglican Church and what you do is what is in bold type on the screen. So what do you believe? Don't bother thinking. Just read these words off the screen. Would you like to confess your sins to Almighty God? No need to search your heart. Just repeat after me. would you like to, know what to say when you wake up in the morning? Well, open your prayer book and read Morning Prayer. As an advanced Anglican, there are prayers for the morning. The evening for the middle of the day, for before you go to bed, there is a special prayer to say every week of the year we've got you covered. No need to think. And is that perhaps the point of this? Adolf Hitler said, what luck for leaders that men do not think. But that's not the point, is it? Let me say very clearly that's not the point. All right, we come. We come to church so that we might think deeply about our faith. We come so that we might bring ourselves to this, that we might grow in an authentic, real Christian faith so that who we are would be what we confess to one another and to the world. And we do that joining with centuries of Christian people, theologians, philosophers, artists who have thought reflected deeply on what it means to be Christian, and many of them who also have said these prepared words of creeds and prayers. So how does this go together? How do we understand the significance, the value, the point of coming to church and saying things that someone else has written for us? Point 1 Saying what we dont know how to say I for four points as I as we go through today. The first is this why do we say prepared creeds and confessions and prayers, so that we are enabled to say what we don't know how to say? The Apostle's Creed that we said earlier that that was originally sort of from the earliest references around the fourth century, in wide use by the eighth century. These were a set of words that people would use when they are being baptised. So brand new Christians, what is the faith that you are confessing? And his. Here are the words to say it. It was a way of teaching new believers. How do we speak about God and so many of the creeds? They came out of controversy in the early years of the church. As Christians try to work out, how do we talk about God? What is God like? Where does Jesus fit? Who is the Holy Spirit? How do we answer those questions? Should we say that Jesus is created by the father? Or should we say that Jesus is sort of similar to the father? Is Jesus like a second God? That there's the father who's God? And then there's another God who's Jesus, and the Holy Spirit fits in somewhere. Like how? How should we answer? And they're deep questions, right? And so that the church elders, they got together and they thrashed this out over centuries, they worked this out. One of the great creeds of the church is having its birthday this year. The Nicene Creed was written in 425. 1700. I'm not good at maths, right? I'm employed to do different things. 1700 years ago. That's how long Christian believers have been answering the question, What is God's? What is God like? We say that God is the father, the Almighty creator of heaven and earth. God is the one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made of one, being with the father. There is a weight of theology and understanding in those tight words. And if only there was a college that you could go to. You could learn about what it all means. Talk to me afterwards. This sermon is not an advertorial, but there is so much to, to, to reflect on, to grasp. And that's been captured in these words for us so that we can say what we don't know how to say. And it's the same when we pray. The disciples came to Jesus and they said, Jesus, teach us to pray. And so he gave them words. In Luke's version, it's it's explicit. It says, when you pray, say this, here are the words to say when you pray. And as Anglicans, there are prayers that we have been given. Prayers that enable us to say what we don't know how to say. One of my favorites is the is the Thanksgiving. The general Thanksgiving. Megan has very helpfully printed out a number of the sort of the set prayers of the Anglican tradition. I think they'll be out in the foyer somewhere afterwards, or here at the corners of the stage. How do you say thank you to God? Well, the Anglican reformers, they knew that that English Christians weren't very good at being thankful. All right. So here are some words. Glorious, gracious God, we humbly thank you for life, for health, for safety, for freedom to work leisure, to rest, and for all that is beautiful in creation and in human life. They give me categories that I can feel goes on. But above all, we praise you for our Savior, Jesus Christ, for his death and resurrection, and for the gift of your spirit and for the hope of sharing in your glory. And I wonder of those theological phrases which ones are familiar and which ones do you tend to forget? Fill our hearts with all joy and peace in believing. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. What a gift that is. When I don't have the words, then these words written by others, written by our members of our family. They're a gift to us. Formwork, Scales Jazz Now I've lost where I'm up to in my notes. So we're unable to say what we don't know how to say. These words sort of become like formwork for faith. You know, formwork when you're. When you're laying cement. Pouring cement. You create the form that you can then pour the cement into. So it's like the framework that enables faith to sort of find its place. Right. But to shift metaphor, you could say maybe rather than just formwork, it's more like learning scales. And because we're actually doing something the, the, the creeds, the confessions, they're they actually are the expressions of faith. And but of course, nobody performs scales. You practice scales so that you can then perform faith. And really, there's something about saying these prayers, saying the creed which actually is our faith. So when we stood before and said, this is what we believe, we affirm the faith of the church. We weren't just practicing. We were confessing. We were doing what Christians do. And so, in a sense, the creed. It's like it's like the melody line in a jazz standard, right? My son is a jazz musician. And every time I go to see a jazz concert, it's like, I feel like there's an in-joke that I'm just not getting right. Have you ever been to that? So. And jazz musicians, they tell me that's exactly right. We know what we're doing. And the rest of you, you don't. And so I'm gradually learning. And I'm learning that jazz standards, they have a melody line. And then once once the band plays that melody line, then they sort of take turns at improvising, riffing on that melody line. And that's sort of what makes jazz interesting. It's the combination of head and improvisation. If it's just melody line, then it's all a bit same, same. And if it's just improvisation, then it's all a bit chaotic and but it's the improvisation on the melody line that's that's jazz. And what I've noticed when I go to see, John, I play, he goes to a, to an improv bar in, in Northcote. And it's really, it's fun. And they just get up and they'll, they'll call different people from the audience. It's like, Johnny, come play some drums with us, you know, Megan, come, come play some, some keys with us because that's what jazz people say, you know, and and then somebody says, what? What are we going to play? And somebody says, oh, you know, Watermelon Man and G. Okay. And so they just make it up and mind boggles and off they go. I've noticed that sometimes the band just gets a little bit out of hand. And they've, they've sort of lost it because I mean these are people who don't know each other. They've just sort of turned up. They haven't practiced this. And I see the bandleader tapping, tapping his head. And and I've learned that that means come back to the head, come back and play the melody line again. Again. We've all gone a little bit haywire. Let's come back to the head and just play that same thing that we know. Right? It's sort of like in the life of the church. Every now and then you'll see the vicar tapping ahead. Let's come on. Let's let's come back to the come back to the Creed. This is what we believe. Here is the anchor. These are the words that we say. This is the thing that holds us together. These are the words that we say that we don't know how to say. That's point one. Point 2 We say what we can all say Second point. We say what we can all say. I'm going to come back to those slides in a moment. Keep going. We get to the. There you go. We say what we can all say. Oh, no. No. That was the point. That was the end of the argument. Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah. Because I need to refer to the Bible reading the Bible reading Exodus 34. This is great, isn't it? It's jazz. It's jazz. Yeah. Yes. Moses asks God, what's your name? Okay. Because Moses doesn't know. How will we know what God is like unless God tells us? Moses asked God, what is your name? And God says, the Lord, the the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. There is God's name. That is what God is like. There's the. There's the head, there's the melody line. There's the creed. Now listen to the words of the people of Israel. When the psalmist prays in Psalm 86, you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. They've learned how to address God in prayer. When Joel calls God's people to repent, he says, return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love. And he relents from sending calamity, even when Jonah complains to God after the Ninevites repent, I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. In all these times. They're all improvisations. They're riffing on Exodus 34, on the Creed. That's that's the Christian life. We take these words that we've been given. And then we apply them in all the different aspects of our lives here in the creeds, in the confessions drawn from the words of Scripture. They give us a set of words that enables us to live this faith. Now we're on to my second point, which is that we say in the creeds what we can all say. I wonder if you're familiar with this song from Matt Redman. It's a beautiful song called The Heart of Worship. Matt Redman is essentially singing a confession. He is coming back to the heart of worship, to living all of life for Jesus, rather than just thinking that worship is all about singing a song. And this is a song that I find really difficult to sing. No, it's not because it's got a difficult melody or anything. It's hard to sing. It's easy to sing. It's a lovely song and it's just. It's just not my song. I'm really glad that Matt Redman has the opportunity to confess this change of understanding that he's moved from a position where he thought that where he had made worship all about a song, and now he's back to the point of recognizing no, actually, worship is all about Jesus. That's just not my story. There's lots of other things I have to confess. All right. So I could write lots of other songs about how Graham needs to confess sin. Okay, don't get me wrong, but this is just not one of them. So I find it hard to sing. I'm glad Matt can sing it. Contrast that with the words of the confession. Prayers. We have done what we ought not to have done. We have left undone what we ought to have done. Well, that's true of all of us. We have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, and in what we have failed to do. That's true of all of us. We have not loved you with our whole heart, and we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. That is true of all of us. These these are words that we can all say. We can say this together. In the second reading from one Corinthians 15, Paul uses the language of handing on a tradition is it there? Yeah. I passed on to you what I first received. He's using the language of a relay race. You get the baton from somebody else and you hand the baton onto the next person. That's the gospel. That's the message that he preaches. His point is, this isn't new. What I am bringing to you, Corinthians, this message of Jesus who died in accordance with the scriptures and then who was raised in accordance with the scriptures and then appeared. This isn't new. This is not Paul's gospel that he has just made up. This is the church's gospel. This is God's gospel. And so when you come to Deep Creek and you say the words of the the Creed, this is not what Deep Creek believes, not just what Deep Creek believes or not what only deep, Deep Creek believes. This is what churches across Melbourne believe. But not just Anglicans believe this. Not just Australians, but people across the world. People of all denominations. This is what Christians believe. We say these things together. Point 3 We say what our community says In the scriptures and through the creeds and confessions of the church. We're given to say what we can all say together, and therefore we say what our community says. Hey, can we, skip onto the next slide for me, please? Fabulous. We say what our community says. I think at the moment we might just have a musical interlude. and I wonder whether anybody would like to join me in the next song. We're going to have to click through. Here's the song. Who would like to sing this with me? Please stand boldly. I'm not getting any takers. Now, partly that might be because we're all blues fans, and we're also thoroughly disappointed and disgusted and let down. This is the Carlton team song. Blue baggers sing this with pride when we get the opportunity to. And. You know, like the football song. This is, this is a song which it binds a community together. I'm glad that not everybody chose to sing this song, because if you're not a blue bagger, you don't get to sing this song. All right. Because this is our song. It's not yours. And there are other songs that I will not sing. I'm not the proud that I'm not the the pride of Brisbane town. I am certainly not with the mighty Fighting Hawks. So let's move on. The Creed is like our team song. That's what we get from revelation chapter 12. Revelation 12 A loud voice from heaven comes in and interprets our world. It announces salvation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. It says, now have come the salvation and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Messiah, Jesus has conquered. The voice reminds us that though the devil has been defeated, he has been cast down. He is not yet destroyed. Verse ten, he has been hurled down, no longer able to accuse us before God in heaven, but able to wreak havoc on the earth. He is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short. And so how will God's people live? How do Christians function in this kind of world? Knowing the victory of Jesus. And yet so often looking around the world and it does not look like Jesus is ruling. Sometimes it looks like the exact opposite. How do we live in that, in that space? Well, the answer comes in verse 11, there in bold, in the middle, and in two parts they triumph. First by the blood of the lamb. That's the answer by Jesus death on our behalf. Satan's hold over us is broken and we are free. But there's a second part. They triumph over him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. It's true. The defeat of Satan is only established. It's only secured by the work of Jesus. But we take hold of that victory for ourselves by the word of our testimony. Whether this is sharing our faith with one another here in church, or as we proclaim our faith to the world around us, the word of our testimony takes hold of the victory of Christ. Whether we make our testimony under the threat of death, or as an ongoing work of perseverance all the way until death. We hold on to the victory of Christ by the word of our testimony. Revelation 12 verse 11 says that there is a power in the act of testifying. It's not that the power to defeat Satan comes from the strength of your conviction. In the same way that just singing where the team that never lets you down means that you're never going to be disappointed when you go to watch Carlton play football, right? I know that that's true. I can tell you about that more later, but I'll need to go into therapy. Just saying something doesn't make it make it true. But we take hold of Jesus victory. We take our place in the fellowship of the church. And we triumph, therefore, over the devil's schemes. In reciting creeds and confessions, we say what our community says. We find our place in this community, this community of triumph. In the Lord Jesus. The church historian Jaroslav Pelikan. It's got an excellent name, but he was asked once, why do you say the Creed? This was his answer. My faith life, like that of everyone else, fluctuates. There are ups and downs and hot spots and cold spots and boredom and ennui and all the rest can be their own way. If you've seen Inside Out too. You'll know what that means. A feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement. Yeah, that describes Christian life for me often. UPS and downs. And so I'm not asked on a Sunday morning as of 920. What do you believe? And then you sit down with a three by five index card saying, now let's see, what do I believe today? No, that's not what they're asking me. They are asking me, are you a member of a community which now and for a millennium and a half has said, we believe in one God. And that for me, is the great power in the Creed to share in this shared confession. This privilege of testimony. You know, when you think about it, there's an added privilege of being able to confess this creed on Sunday mornings in Australia because it's like there is this Mexican wave of praise and confession that is going around the globe in these next 24 hours. We didn't kick it off, but there's not many people in the Pacific or in New Zealand. So where, you know, this is this is the when the Mexican wave really takes off, right. And we stand and we say the creed. And then across the day, across the planet, our brothers and sisters will say the same words, confess the same truth. We are part of this community. What a privilege that is. We don't overcome Satan on our own. We don't have to do this on our own. We participate in this community of faith. And you know, the same is true when we pray. When we confess together, we are confessing that we are part of this community. Confession Community You know, often when it comes to the confession, prayer in the service. This is how I hear it introduced. We're going to make this prayer of confession. And so we're going to have a time of silence for you to think about all the ways that you've failed Jesus over the last week. And then we'll pray the prayer together. And then I've got 15 seconds to think, which either completely underestimates how much I'm able to disappoint and fail Jesus over the last seven days, right? Or overestimates my the speed at which I can process all of that sin? And then what happens if after that 15 seconds I can't think of anything? I actually, I'm good today. You guys go for it. But but, I'll I'll join you in a moment. That's not the point, is it? There are some times that you will come to the confession prayer, and your mind will be filled with all the different ways that your life has not measured up to what it is that Jesus has invited us into. And you can be so overwhelmed with failure. But then here are words that just find a way through that mess. And there'll be other days when you'll come thinking that you're sort of okay. And here are words that remind you. Thought, word, deed. What we have failed to do. Really? When we come to confession, the invitation is are you ready and willing to join this community? This is a community that says this to God, that we confess that we have wandered from his way. We confess that we have failed to do what is right. We confess that God alone can save us. We have not loved one another with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. This is what defines this community. Are you ready and willing to be part of that? To recognize that this is you? And that there is grace and salvation to be found in this community that holds on to the Lord Jesus. Increases in confessions. We say what we ought to say. We say what we can all say. We can say what our community says. And finally, finally take us to the next slide. We say what we want to be able to say with our last breath. Point 4 What we want to be able to say with our last breath In my early ministry, one of the very hardest things that I ever had to do was also one of the most privileged things that I ever got to do, and that was to go to minister at the bedside of people who were dying. And I had to go one day to visit Joan in palliative care. She was a member of our congregation not far from the kingdom. I was terrified. And I was I was given instructions. I said, go read the 23rd Psalm. And then take your prayer book and pray. Pray the confession. Pray the Lord's Prayer. Pray the general thanksgiving. pray the collect. And I read Psalm 23, and Joan was she. She was sort of unresponsive and labored breathing and thought, what the what am I doing here? And then as I opened the prayer book and began the prayer of confession. Her lips began to move, and and she prayed with me. And through the fog and all these years of praying just came out. It it was it was like muscle memory, but also it was it was soul memory. And her body had now remembered how to bring these words to God. And if I'm given the grace of knowing that I'm about to die. Then I want to build a habit of saying these creeds and confessions and liturgical prayers, so that I can declare my faith in the Lord Jesus when I'm dying, that I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting so I can confess my sins. As I wait to meet my Savior, I want to be able to thank God for life and health and safety. I want to be able to greet the morning, praying for my family and thanking God for bringing us safely to this new day. Asking that he would keep us by his mighty power. And grant that today we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger, but that he would lead in govern us in all things that we might always do. What is righteous in his sight? By reciting creeds and confessions, we are offered an invitation to build soul memory. And to say what we want to be able to say with our final breath. Conclusion So what's the point? What's the point of reciting things that have been written for us by someone else, or memorized words, remembered words, known words, familiar words. They can become rich practices of faith. Not just things that we do, but things we do that form us. We enlist our bodies as we. We stand or bow our heads. We use our voices. We declare, we pray, and we do it together. Not just me, but us. Together. And not just us, but together with believers across the globe and throughout the centuries. And so we see that these creeds and confessions, they they become for us like the good news of Jesus itself. Right? They're not my own invention. They're not the result of my creativity, my insight, or my spiritual fervor. These aren't originally my words, but they become my words when I receive them as a gift. And so, in the same way, the good news of Jesus, we didn't come up with this. We didn't create it ourselves. We don't need to construct this. We receive the good news. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and has risen that we might be saved. And that can be the gift to our hearts. We don't have to say these things in order to be Christian, but we get to say these things because we are Christian. What an amazing grace that is. Amen.

In this moving sermon, Richard Boonstra from Prison Fellowship shares stories of hope, redemption, and the radical love of Jesus for those society often overlooks. Reflecting on John 4 and his own experiences in prisons across Australia, Richard challenges us to stay weird by following Jesus into uncomfortable places, where the harvest is ripe and lives are being transformed. Tune in to hear how God is working in prisons, and how were all invited to partner in the Kingdom work of rescue, restoration, and redemption. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript Our Bible reading today comes from John chapter 4, verses 3442, just after Jesus has been speaking with the Samaritan woman. My food said, Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.Don't you have a saying? It's still four months until harvest?I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields.They are ripe for harvest.Even now, the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.Thus the saying one sows and another reaps is true.I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you've reaped the benefits of their labor.Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.He told me everything I ever did.So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with him.And he stayed two days.And because of his words, many more became believers.They said to the woman, we no longer believe just because of what you said.Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world. This is the word of the Lord. Introduction Good morning. Thank you for having me here this morning. my name is Richard Boonstra, and I'm the, the state manager for Victoria for Prison Fellowship. apologies to those who are here at the 8 a.m. service. You're going to hear the same things again, but, it's how it goes. I didn't come to the Ministry of Prison fellowship to work. it hasn't been part of my career. My career is, teaching. So I'm a school teacher and a school principal by trade, and I spent many years teaching and leading in Christian schools. However, in 2016 2017 we moved to Melbourne and I felt the need to just get out of Christian school, out of schooling and do something different. But my my passion for Christian ministry started when I was very young, newly married in in the 1980s, and it all started when I was at a small group, and it was a small group for newly married couples, and our small group leader said, hey, I'm a volunteer with Christian Fellowship, and we've got a workshop at Canning Vale Prison in a couple of months. We need some more volunteers. Who's interested? And I felt something in me just thought, yeah, let's do that. So I put my hand up, said, yeah, I'm interested. And my friend next to me, he said, yep, we'll do it. So we had to wait for a little while until the training day comes, because you don't go into a prison without training. By the time the training day came around and I could get the training done, my friend had dropped off. So it was just me. I still went ahead and did the training and, we completed the training. The day arrived of the workshop. I got in my car, drove down to Canning Vale Prison, which is about a half an hour of where I lived. Got out of the car in the car park, looked at the walls, the razor wire and I thought, what am I doing here? I had that moment where you sometimes have where you think if someone told me that they had to cancel it, I'd be okay with that? No worries. But they didn't. They still went ahead, so I thought. Stop it. Swallow it. Come on. So I went ahead. Went through the doors. Bang! No. Two doors in a prison opened at the same time. And they didn't just bang, bang, lock. Click. That was it. I was in, I couldn't get out if I wanted to. Anyway, I went through to the room where we had the workshop, and I'm sitting here thinking, oh, what am I doing? And, the guys came in and started coming in from the different units of the prison for the seminar, and it was like a fog that just the sun came out and disappeared. All that fear and apprehension just went and I thought, huh, I think this is where I should be. This is my happy place. And I just thought I had the greatest time. I had a great day just sharing with the guys. You know, one of the best things is to talk to them and treat them as people. Not to look at the greens that they were wearing, but to think of them as people and to treat them as people. From there, I straight away signed up to join a team and we went in to, Fremantle Prison. Fremantle Prison, if you don't know it, some of you may have been to Perth, may have been for a tour of Fremantle prison because now a museum and now that it's a museum, probably gives you an idea of what it was like. It was built in 1850s and nothing had changed. There were no toilets in the cell. There was just a bucket. And the cells were made for one two people per cell. It was pretty rough and spartan. We were a team of about 6 or 7 of us. There was myself and my friend from the Reform church. There was a Catholic nun who was with us as well, two salvo guys who probably looked like they came off the ark with Noah, a charismatic Baptist lady and a couple of Anglicans. And we worked so well together. And I thought, this is also what God wants to see people from different denominations working together, sharing the gospel. And that's what we did every Saturday afternoon for about five years. We ran a little chapel service in the prison. So that's my story. And that's why I became passionate about prison fellowship and reaching people in prison. So when we moved to Melbourne, the opportunity came up to work for it. I thought, yes, that would be good. So I did that. A Broken World: The Bad News First I'm going to start off with some bad news. There's good news and bad news. I'll start off with the bad news. We live in a broken world. That's the bad news that we know. And I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you already don't know. Both in and out of prisons, people are broken, and they don't treat each other as they should. They've lost sight of what it means to be truly human. To be living in peace with God and with themselves and with each other and with creation, to find that shalom. People have lost sight of it. But there is now I'm feeling, and we feel that in prisons too, the beginnings of a yearning. Dissatisfied with what the Western cultural mindset has led them to believe or has promised them, is not happening. And so they're looking for something different, looking for a different way of living. But first, I'll just show you some statistics from our prisons. As a slice, as a snapshot of the brokenness in our world, you can see that in the prisons at the moment, there are 6551 people in prison. A little bit up from what it was about a year ago. At the end of December last year, we were below 6000, which was really exciting. And I track these numbers, so I'm keen to see the numbers go down. And that's really because of the Victorian Government, the Department of Justice and Corrections Victoria and the prisons have a much more progressive attitude towards the people in prison. I just went on a tour of Western Plains Correctional Centre, which is a new one, opened up, and constantly the staff are talking about the people in our care. People in our care. They adopt a trauma informed and trauma based approach to caring for the people in prison. They're still there. They need to be there. They know that. But while they're there, let's see if we can help them. So that's really the attitude. But they're competing with the government policy. So the numbers are going up a little bit because of the recent controversies around bail and toughening the laws, the bail laws. So it means more people go to prison instead of go out on bail. So that's where we're at 6500 people in prison. 95% are men, a small proportion of women. But for a woman in prison, it's a lot harder. There's a lot more at stake for families and for kids when mum is in prison. So it's a very different kind of situation and scenario for volunteers going there. 40% are unsentenced. Now this is really interesting because we often think, oh, they're on remand. But when you're on remand, there's so much uncertainty and so much anxiety. What's going to happen? Where am I going to go? Because the remand centre that you're in won't be where you'll stay. You'll be shifted to another prison. Will I have a job when I finish my sentence? What's happening to my family? What about my kids and all this stuff? I've sat with a guy in Melbourne Assessment Prison and just I didn't have to say anything. I just sat with him and let him talk, because he needed to get a lot of stuff off his chest, stuff that was swirling around his mind. And just to have someone listen, who empathetically listened, was important for him. 14% of people in prison are Aboriginal. It's still an imbalance when you measure that against what the percentage of the Victorian population is 1% yet 14% of the prison population. So there's a big difference there. And that's multiplied when you look at places like Northern Territory and Western Australia and Queensland; there's a higher proportion of Aboriginal people. The prison I was visiting in Perth, Fremantle Prison, at one stage we were told there were 80% Aboriginal, and so many of them were Aboriginal people who came from way up north in the more cultural tribal areas, and they were in there for driving offences, which was crazy. But because of mandatory sentencing and things like that, they straightaway went to prison and it was nuts. So it was really great to minister to them, because they were lovely people to minister to and share with, and especially when we got Aboriginal volunteers to come in with us as well. That was fantastic. 60% that's gone up now 60% of people will return to prison within two years. So that's a statistic we want to hopefully drive down. If you measure that over ten years, it goes to 80%. 80% of people will return to prison. That's how hard it is, once you've been in prison, to shake that experience off and to make a life outside of prison. I met a guy in prison in Perth who was released, and about six months later he was back again. His name was Hynes. It was a long time ago, so it won't matter. But I said, Hynes, what happened? Why are you back? He said, where else can I go? He said, here I have a bed and three meals; out there, he had nothing. And that was sad that he could the only place he could go was just commit a crime and go back in again. A statistic that's not up there, but is 25% of people in prison come from 2% of Victorian postcodes. So there's a correlation. And the prison staff and the police call them prison collection areas. That's what they colloquially call them because they get so many people there. 66% of people in prison were in care or were adopted as kids. So that's where this whole idea of being trauma informed comes in. A high proportion of people and that's the same percentage of people have a mental health issue in prison as well, whether it be ADHD or all sorts of different stuff happening in their life. So there's trauma. Now, we say that doesn't absolve them of the responsibility for their actions. They still need to suffer the consequences for their crime and for what they've done. But at the same time, we help to understand them and help helps to understand their background, to help them to rehabilitate. So in all of this brokenness, we sense a yearning. We're sensing that more so now a yearning for something different. My life isn't going well the way it is. I want something different. And in a sense, it's the yearning for that shalom a yearning to be truly human again. To find that place where I'm free of guilt and maybe free of that endless cycle of offending and re-offending, offending and re-offending. But now for the good news. The Bible tells us that God was not happy with this situation. Back in Genesis 3, he already started that plan he took God took the initiative to sort it out, to fix it. He took the initiative and promised to restore all things. To restore our relationships with him. To restore our relationship with each other, and to restore our relationship with creation. This is the Kingdom of God. He stepped into our world himself in the person of Jesus. He entered our world, and through Jesus he initiated the Kingdom of God. Jesus initiated it. And at the end of Matthew you can read where he said, I'm going back, but I want you to keep going. I want you to keep growing it. The Kingdom of God was initiated by Jesus. Jesus entered our world and demonstrated showed us what a citizen of this new kingdom looked like. He deliberately reached out to the marginalized, the downtrodden, the oppressed and the imprisoned, the forgotten or invisible people. And then, through his death and resurrection, he opened up the way to restored relationships with God, with each other, and with creation. Jesus reached out to the ones that everyone else thought were weird. He went places where people thought, that's not it's weird to go there. He came to rescue, restore and redeem and then to call us to put our faith in him, to discover freedom the freedom of being released from sin and guilt and to find our true selves as God's children. One of the key things I say to people when I go into prison, when I sit down with guys in prison, is I am just as much a sinner as you are. Just because you're in prison and I'm not doesn't make me any worse or better than you. In fact, I don't use the word prisoner, because I don't define you by where you are. You're a person someone who God created. And so I see that. I see you that way. And I want you to know that I was in darkness, and I needed to find the light, and I did, and I found hope, and I found love, and I found what it means to be truly human. And I want to share that with you. So we approach people in prison with a sense of humility not coming in as the great white savior, but coming in as a humble person who has found hope and wants to share it. And so we see a little example of Jesus modeling that kind of way of reaching people. In John 4, we read from John 4 verses 34 to 42. But just a little bit of background about it where this happened was in Samaria. Wait, what is a good Jewish rabbi doing in Samaria? That was weird. He, Jesus led the way of being weird. He showed what it meant to be to be going to weird places. He and he deliberately did that. He chose to go that way. Now he's on his way from Jerusalem to go back to Galilee the place where he based his ministry in Galilee was strategic for him, but that's another story. But he diverted, and he went through Samaria. Wow. I'm sure his disciples must have thought, what are you doing? Why are we going this way? Do you know where you are? This is Samaria. But Jesus knew what he was doing. Jesus never did anything by accident nothing was a coincidence in Jesus' ministry. So he had a plan. He had an appointment. This was no coincidence. All along he planned to meet this woman at the well. That's just before this passage that we read it's the woman at the well passage. Who was she? A Samaritan that black mark; a woman black mark for the Jewish rabbis at least. Anyway, also she was regarded as a woman of ill repute. We don't know exactly what her story was, but chances are that a lot of that wasn't her own fault that she was a victim of a very patriarchal society where she was passed from man to man through no fault of her own, just because of that patriarchal mentality. Regardless of that, we know that she was one of the people that nobody wanted she was one of the weird ones, if you like, because she could only get water at midday. No one else was allowed to be with she wasn't allowed to be with anyone else. She could only get water from the well at midday. And so what does Jesus do? I love this. He comes up to this well. She probably sees him, but she just knows she better keep her head down and get on with what she's doing. And he speaks to her. And what does he say? Can I could you get me a drink of water? Whoa! She stops and looks said, did you just speak to me? What men don't talk to her, let alone Jewish men. And she just can't deal with it what's going on here? He asked for a drink of water. In one sentence, in a beautiful way, he reached out to her, treated her like a human being treated her normally and said, can you get me a drink of water? Well, it it worked, because it arrested her attention. She got him a drink of water, and then she engages in this long conversation with him during which he, in a beautiful way, teases out her life and gets down to the nitty-gritty of what's going on in her life. You can read the story for yourself later, but there's so much stuff that he's dealing with there. But needless short story short long story short, he loved her and she couldn't escape from it. She didn't want to escape from it. And he restores her gently so much so that she drops her water bottle and runs back to tell everyone in the town where she lives what has just happened. It's like suddenly she's been made new and she's been loved and cared for, and she sees a glimpse of what it means to be truly human. Why didn't she run away from him? I told the story in the first service in Brazil, in South America, and a few other countries now too, there are these prisons called humane prisons they're run on Christian principles. They're run by Christians. These prisons have no walls or fences. The inmates look after the keys and lock up the gates at night. It's amazing it's astounding. They have regularly Christian courses like Alpha running throughout the prison all different things happening. They have families come in families can come and visit and stay for the weekend with their loved one, like a conjugal visit. And they were interviewing one guy who was there, and he had been a notorious inmate he had escaped from lots of different prisons. And they got this guy and said we'll call him John John, you've escaped from all these other prisons. This one would be easy to escape from there's no walls, no fences. Why don't you escape? And you know what he said? Nobody escapes from love. Why would I want to leave there, he says. Here, in this prison, I'm loved. I'm cared for. Someone took the time to love me. And so why he's willing wants to stay there. Above the door going into one of the main prisons is, here enters the man; the crime stays outside. And I love that thought. So she, like this man, doesn't want to escape from him. She sits down and talks to Jesus, and then he opens her eyes. And incredibly, he does something towards the end of his conversation and I think this is significant. Here is this Samaritan woman so-to-say ill repute woman and Jesus says she says, who are you? He says, I am the Messiah. He discloses to her. And I believe for me, it's one of the first times he actually honestly, clearly says I am the Messiah I am he. And who does he do that to? A woman a Samaritan woman a woman who has a bad reputation. I think that's significant. That's weird in the eyes of the world that's weird. You know, if the Messiah was coming, you'd think he'd announce it to all the important rabbis and bishops or whatever. But no he chooses this woman, because many other times people sort of work it out are you the one? he says, don't tell anyone. But here he says it openly to her. Anyway, the disciples of which they come he's gone ahead, and they come and find him. And the disciples you've got to imagine, the disciples are just young; many of them are still in their teenage years and they come up to Jesus and Jesus, can we keep going? This is not a place for a good Jewish boy to be this is Samaria. They were thinking, if our parents saw us here right now, we'd be in so much trouble. But instead, they mutter amongst themselves and they finally work up the courage to go to Jesus and said, Jesus, you need some lunch. Should we go into the town and get you some food? I'm sure many times Jesus rolls his eyes. And then he says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me. And he says this sort of sort of a almost a bit of a cryptic way: my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Food the word food in Hebrew can also mean calling in life. So is he saying my calling in life? You're worried about food and bread and stuff like that, but I'm thinking, what is your calling in life? What are you here to do? He says, I'm here to do the will of my Father who sent me sent me to finish his work. And then he goes on and says, don't you have a saying, it's still four months until harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the harvest. Look at the fields it's there, ripe for the harvest. Even now, the one who who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you've reaped the benefits of their labor. What's he saying here? He's saying to his disciples, that's what we're here for we're here we're called to bring in the kingdom, to share the good news, to share hope, to rescue. Open your eyes, guys it's time for the harvest, it's right now, it's right in front of you. So he teaches his disciples, as a good rabbi would. Rabbis didn't have classrooms they wandered around the country and they looked at something and they said, see that tree over there? Let me tell you something about that, and then they drew a lesson from that. So now the disciples are saying, you want some food? Sit down I'm going to teach you about what this food thing is all about. And I'm going to teach you why we're here today. We came here for a reason I want you to see something. So he says, open your eyes I've come here because there is a harvest here; people are really keen to hear the good news, and we'll find that out in a minute. The time to get harvesting is now. But then the really cool bit of this bit I like as well is towards the end remember, it's not just up to you; it's a partnership. One sows, another reaps, another packs the harvest up, another fertilizes, another waters it's a teamwork thing. And that's very much so for the ministry that we have at Prison Fellowship it's a team thing, it's a partnership. Deep Creek Anglican is very much one of our partners we are incredibly thankful, incredibly thankful for this church, for the way that you partner with us and walk alongside us and help us to do the work the kingdom work of sharing the gospel in prisons. So thank you for the amazing work that you partner with us in doing. It's like you're going in with us even though you're not physically there, you're going with us into prison and we thank you for that. Jesus looked at this woman and saw someone who was ready to hear the gospel and to be redeemed and restored. The impact of her story and I think this is amazing if you look at verses 39 to 42, this woman has gone back and dropped her water bottle and ran into town. And that's no small thing I said to someone, and I said to the group in the earlier congregation, it's like leaving your phone at home and realizing you've got it it's that essential; it's like an important object. But she this was so important, she just forgot everything else and went and told the people in her village. Let's read the passage again. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.He told me everything I ever did.So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed two days.And because of his words, many more became believers.They said to the woman, we no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man is really, really is the Savior of the world. What a testimony. Have a think about what that would have been like she, being the woman she was, had to go back to her village. Now, that wouldn't have been easy to tell people about what has just happened to her. They've got a they've got an attitude towards her; they judge her. So she has persisted she's pushed through all of that attitude to finally get some to hear. And so they said, okay, we'll come and have a look. And when they come there, they're just amazed they're touched by him by Jesus as well. And Jesus stays for two days, and there's a two-day-long Bible college Bible study. They sit down wow that's like the first church planted in Samaria. That's weird that's weird. Think about it you grow up thinking that Samaria is one of those people, and that's where Jesus goes. I love it, I think it's amazing. And that's exactly what Jesus models for us to do to get out there into places where people think is weird. Jesus came to rescue, restore and and redeem the rejected, the marginalized, and the invisible people prisoners. To many in society, this is weird. I've gone a little bit behind here we are. Mark 2 verse 17 is one of my favorite verses in prison ministries as well. We use this in one of our programs. Here, Jesus clearly says who he's come for. He's talking to the Pharisees. He says he didn't come to those who think they're right.I've come for those who know that they're wrong.People that know they need to be restored and they need to be healed. But look at the word the favorite word in that passage for me, and I'll share this with the guys in prison when I share this passage with them is the word call. It doesn't say I have not come to force the righteous, but sinners, or I have not come to push the righteous, but sinners, or I have not come to drag all these words he says I've come to call a gentle but honest word, I've come to call the sinners. Jesus comes to call. And I say to the guys in prison, he came to call you. And what does call mean? That means a response is needed. So you need to think what you need to do with this are you going to respond to this call when Jesus calls you? Are you going to say, yes, I'm going to come in here because he's not going to force he's not going to push you or twist your arm or anything. He comes to gently but persistently call, and he'll keep calling. And we keep having an opportunity a choice to make a decision. Can you hear that call today? Many of us here today have have heard that call and have come to Jesus, experiencing his love and being constantly restored. Are you ready to go out and bring in the harvest? Remember the three points. The harvest is right in front of us. The harvest time is now. It's a partnership. We believe with Augustine, who first said, every saint has a past. Sorry every saint has a past; every sinner has a future. I read that again. Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future. We want to share that the call of Jesus that we first responded to, the love that conquered us. We want others to hear that call and to discover God's love, joy, hope, and his rest. We have a harvest field in our prisons it's right here. It's not overseas; it's right here in our town and our city, and it's calling for people to come to join the harvest. Caring for Prisoners: Ministry in Action I'm going to show you a little video now. It'll give you a bit of an idea of our ministry. In this cell. Your biggest enemy is time you drown in a sea of it. And you think? And think. In those first days, my mind drifted to what was happening outside. It's Wednesday. You know. I wonder what my wife is doing. What projects are the guys working on? Is anyone talking about me? Or have they all just moved on? Their remorse and regret are constant companions. Over and over again, you remember that you've stuffed your life up. Reputation, family, friends, colleagues all lost in the blink of an eye, and the guilt of the hurt you've caused is like a heavy weight that stays on your shoulders. I'll admit, there were days when I felt that all hope all reason to continue had gone. I'll never forget the first time I was visited by Greg. I remember thinking it was strange that someone I'd never met wanted to come and talk to me. Up until then, I'd gotten pretty used to people wanting to distance themselves from me. In prison, you do everything you can not to draw attention to yourself. Don't tell jokes. Don't tell your story. Don't look people in the eye. But here in these chairs I could talk, I could laugh. I could share my regrets and talk openly about my failures. And it was met with kindness and friendship. Greg told me about himself. And in doing so, he told me about Jesus. I later learned that close to a thousand volunteers men and women are visiting prisoners, running programs, playing sports, and leading Bible studies through Prison Fellowship. Prisoners like me have been profoundly impacted by this ministry. Through it, we've grown in character. We've taken responsibility. We've built self-control, and we've expressed repentance. We've come to understand grace and forgiveness. And hope is powerful it brings life and light to your soul. I found hope here, and it grew within me. I learned dependence. I learned to pray really pray. I found myself with a peace that was totally at odds with my harsh and miserable situation. The gap between prison and the real world beyond the gates can be very daunting. You're asking the big questions again: how can I stay out for good this time? Is there anyone who can help me? Will I get a job? Can I restore those relationships? To have Greg and the others from Prison Fellowship to be there to help me bridge that gap was everything. All. Inmates are just like everyone else. They need purpose. They need grace. They need healing. They need someone to offer hope. That gives you a bit of an idea of what we do as a ministry. (It) covers most of the activities that our volunteers do in prison. The prison itself is not an active prison anymore the one in the film but it's a little bit like Fremantle Prison was like, very rough; lots of sandstone walls and barbed wire and bars. It wasn't a very pleasant place. This year has been going well for us as a ministry, in that we've had lots of good opportunities to get into prisons. There's still some prisons we've struggled to get into, but we're working on that. We've been able to serve, sharing love and friendship and ultimately the good news of the gospel and God's gracious love with people in prison. We also serve families who have a parent in prison or children who have a parent in prison, and often the families serve a social sentence themselves, which is very hard for them. So our key thing is visiting in prison. We have our volunteers go in and just be a presence we call it sometimes a ministry of presence just sitting there with guys and being prepared to share the hope that they have with people in prison when that opportunity comes up. But many times it's just someone to chat to to develop a friendship with. We have The Prisoner's Journey, which is an eight-week gospel course based on Christianity Explored but written from a prison perspective. So it's very successful and very well received by the prisons and by the men themselves. We have another course called Change on the Inside, which is not Christian-based, but it's on developing positive character. We also have our annual Easter Biscuit Bake, which I'm I'm told Deep Creek is a part of as well. So thank you for sharing in that and enabling people in prison to get a bag of home-baked biscuits with a gospel card at Easter, telling them the true meaning of Easter. And the impact of a biscuit on a person's life is amazing I've given them out to people in prison, and I've looked a guy in the eye who said, are these for me? I said, yeah. He said, I can't believe people would do this for me. So it has such a deep impact you'd think, just a biscuit but it certainly has a deep impact. A little thing goes a long way. We have a children's ministry or families ministry we call it Extraordinary Lives and in Victoria we do three things. We engage in one-on-one mentoring. Children with a parent in prison are six times more likely to go to prison themselves. So if we can have a mentor for them a younger person, a young adult who could walk with them, commit to spending time with them and share with them then we hope to change that statistic. I spoke with a grandmother on the phone who said, it's really hard she's a grandma, she's looking after the kids because mum can't have them and dad's in jail (or sometimes it's both mum and dad are in jail). He can't talk to anyone at school about it. He can't talk to his teachers about it. Just me. He needs someone to talk to. And so that's where a mentor comes in and can be that person he can talk to. We also have camps. We're running one residential camp, but also we have some day camps some day-outs. Churches host families, and the kids have a day together just doing some fun things like a Lego day, or we've taken them to Bounce or to the zoo or something like that and just help them have a good time and hope. The idea is to develop relationships and ultimately to get a mentor relationship happening. And then we do the Angel Tree campaign, which I'm told Deep Creek was a part of a few years ago. But you're more than welcome to join us this year in our Angel Tree campaign. This is a program where we facilitate the giving of Christmas gifts to children who have a parent in prison on behalf of their parent. So the person in prison fills a form in, writes down the name of their child and what they like and their age. We then send it out to churches who purchase the gifts and deliver them to the families. And again, like the biscuits, it's the little thing it's not so much about the gift, but it's all about connecting keeping families connected. So we get every year messages back saying, I can't believe my dad didn't forget about me that's great! Or my mum still remembered me and got me a present for Christmas and that's significant, that's special. So Angel Tree is a really good program it's a big program; it takes a lot of work, but we look for lots of churches to support us in that. We do a little bit of work in post-release as well. As people come out of prison I'd love to develop that further we do pick up people on the day of release and walk with them a little bit just in that first day, but we'd like to expand that if we can. People coming out of jail need at least two years of mentoring, and a home. They need a job, and they need mentoring. God is very active in our prisons and wants us to join him in furthering the work that he has started. But we can't do this on our own we know that. And just like Jesus shared in that passage we read, it is a partnership. We walk together with others with individuals and with churches. Churches like Deep Creek Anglican that walk with us in this journey and help us to achieve the things we can to spread the kingdom into prisons. Partnering in the Harvest So my challenge to you is, will you partner with us in that individually as well? And there's three things that you can do for that. Pray. Prayer is foundational for us. We have a prayer meeting every Monday morning on Zoom, and I put out a weekly prayer diary. We need people to pray for the ministry on a regular basis. Someone said to me once, Richard, the kingdom of God moves at the speed of prayer. And so please sign up if you want to get a prayer diary. There's a sheet on the back table there that I've got there that you can sign up to get a prayer door if you'd like to join us. Each week we put some prayer needs in there. Support Us Financially. Perhaps you're willing to support us financially. Maybe you're willing to make that sacrifice and to give as Deep Creek Anglican do that so well support us. But maybe as an individual, you want to support us by providing financial support. We offer everything we offer to the prisoners for free. We don't get any money back from our government funding it's all based on donations. Go as a Volunteer. To go and see that harvest field, to go and be one of the harvesters, to bring in that harvest in partnership with with many people from other different churches. One of the things we're initiating as well, in Victoria and across the country, is to have restoration hubs. We often have people come out of prison who have become Christians in prison, but need to be discipled when they come out. When they come out, one of the many challenges they face besides getting into society is to find a church that will be open and receptive. So we're looking to establish a network of churches across the country who would be willing to take in and look after someone from prison. It's a challenge, and it takes a lot of extra work. There's a lot of thinking that needs to go around that how do we handle that, with all the policies and child-safe policies and everything that goes with that? But it's still a commitment for a church to commit to us and to join with us as one of our restoration hub churches to support us. Deep Creek are already an amazing supporter for us. And so in many senses of the word, there is a restoration hub here already and we are thankful to Deep Creek for that. I'll be available at the end of the service, and if you want to come and chat with me more about the ministry, please feel free to ask any questions there. Prison Fellowship is a faith-based, for-impact organization seeking to grow the Kingdom of God that Jesus initiated 2000 years ago. Thanks for having me today.

Professor Kuruvilla George from MST explores Jesus parables of the sower and the weeds to reflect on the inner thorns of anxiety and stress, and the outer tests of difficult relationships. With warmth and insight, this message invites us to be honest about our mental health, find hope in Gods grace, and learn practical ways to grow in faith amid lifes challenges. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript I feel like it's a bit weird to people limping on and off the stage. Good morning.This morning I'm reading from Matthew chapter 13, verses 1 to 17. That same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore.Then he told them many things in parables, saying, A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it.Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow.But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.Other seed fell among thorns which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop 160 or 30 times what was sown.Whoever has ears, let them hear.The disciples came to him and asked, why do you speak to the people in parables?He replied, because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have even what they have will be taken from them.This is why I speak to them in parables, though seeing they do not see, though hearing they do not hear or understand.In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.For this people's hearts have become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you for reading that, and it's a pleasure to be with all of you.thank Megan for inviting me to come and be with you today. And also, Lisa Jacob is the one who made the first introduction so I could meet Megan and have some time with her. So it's good to be with you.So, let's pray, and then I will look further into the word of God. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for your goodness, your mercy, your love.You're a good God, Father. We just want to reiterate that you're a good God.Father, I just thank you for your word and pray that you will open our eyes our eyes to understand.Listen, Father, and also be Father. We ask this today in Jesus name. Amen. Now, I you heard a bit of my story but I retired from public service. I never did any private psychiatry. Public sector psychiatry.I was working for Eastern Health for many years before I retired. And following my retirement in 2020, just before Covid. God's timing.And I then have been working on an honorary basis with the Melbourne School of Theology, where we started five years ago. Exactly. We started a Centre for Theology and Psychology, integrating theology and psychology. So that's where I do some work. And always open for ministry in churches and other groups in this area.So because, as you're well aware, there's still a lot of stigma and lack of understanding about mental health in the faith community. Now, many have told me, well, in the West it's so much better. Certainly it is compared to Eastern and developing countries. You know, the Western nations are much better in the area of awareness and reducing stigma, but it's still there. And I give my own example to show that things may not have changed as much as we think they have. I say, well, just after I retired in 2020 in 2021 I had cancer of my bladder. And I said, well, I can share that with anyone in the faith community, in the church. I've got cancer. Please pray for me. But if I was suffering from schizophrenia or bipolar affective disorder or an anxiety disorder, would I be as free to share that with anyone? even in the faith community, to say that that's what's happening? So the question that I often have is why not? Why not?Why do we make that distinction between a mental illness and a physical illness? And we have still quite a bit of stigma, even though we think there isn't. And so my passion since retirement has been to try and break that down bring that down as much as I can. So wherever there are opportunities, I will say a bit more about the Center for Theology and Psychology at the end, and some of the resources that we have. But going to the passage that we just read from Matthew chapter 13 it's a well-known passage, we all have, I'm sure, read it many a time. But I just wanted to share a few things with you from that. So from Matthew 13, the part that we read. This is the parable of the sower. And then if you go on from verse 18 onwards, Jesus explains the parable to his disciples because they wanted to know a bit more. In verse 18 it says: a man hears the message of the kingdom and does not grasp it. The evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. This is like the seed sown by the roadside. The seed sown on stony patches represents the man who hears the message and eagerly accepts it, but it has not taken root in him and does not last long. The moment trouble or persecution arises though through the message he gives up his faith at once. And the seed sown among the thorns... This is what I want to concentrate a bit on today. The seed that is sown among the thorns represents the man who hears the message. And when the worries of this life and the illusions of wealth choke it to that, so that it produces no crop in his life, there's no fruitfulness because of the worries of this life and the illusions of this life that cause the problem. So the message that I have today is really about what's called thorns and tests. Thorns and tests. I'm looking for my notes here, and I will go on to the next... see in this chapter. There are a few things about agriculture a few parables that Jesus mentions about agriculture. The next one is also about agriculture. And he says in verse 24, Then he put another parable before them. The kingdom of heaven, he said, is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.When the crop came up and ripened, the weeds appeared as well.Then the owner's servants came to him and said, Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where did all these weeds come from?Some blackguard has done this to spite me, he replied.Do you want us then to go and pull them all up? said the servants.No, he answered. If you pull up the weeds now, you will pull up the wheat with them. Let them both grow together till the harvest, and at harvest time I shall tell the reapers: collect all the weeds first and tie them up in bundles ready to burn. But collect the wheat and store it in my barn. So we see two parables. Wheat about what you call weeds. One is thorns and the other is tares. Now, as we all know when we do gardening in this country (I was just sharing in the first service) I just came back from the UK after two and a half weeks, visiting my wife's family and some of our good friends. And yesterday I spent most of the afternoon gardening, and what was most of the time spent on? Weeding, isn't it?When we say we are going to do gardening, most of the time we spend on weeding. So Jesus, when you read these two parables, it looks as though there's a discrepancy. In one parable, Jesus is saying the weeds will cause you to be stifled and you won't be fruitful so we think Jesus is saying you need to get the weeds out if you want to be fruitful. But in the second parable, Jesus is saying, leave the weeds alone. I will take care of that. So it looks as though Jesus is giving two contradictory you know, come on two contradictory teachings to his disciples. But then when we look more closely, there is a difference. One is thorns and the other are tares. So thorns are a special kind of weed which is very difficult to pull out. We all know when we are weeding how difficult it is. It takes a lot of effort and needs to be done regularly if we don't do it, weeds take over. (As we all know from our gardens, it's amazing: when we have got fruitful flowers or plants that we've put in our garden, we have to put in the effort to produce the flowers. We have to water them, feed them, look after them, tend them. But weeds we don't have to do any of that! It just seems to grow, isn't it amazing? Its amazing how you don't have to care for them; it just grows.) But in the second parable, tares are weeds called darnel, and darnel has a similar appearance to wheat. It is often difficult to make out, during the time of growth, whether it is wheat or darnel. And that's why Jesus said in the parable, No, leave it, because if you pull out the darnel, you might be pulling out the wheat. Let it grow together, and at the end then I (or God, the farmer) will take care of it pull out the weeds and burn them while the wheat is gathered to feed us. So what does it mean? What lessons can we take from these two parables today? Thorns in the first parable (which choke fruitfulness, choke our life and make us unfruitful) are within us things within us. I would call them psychological pressures: worries and anxieties. These include: worries about our future worries about our finance worried about retirement worried about our children (if we have got children, about our children's education and about their wellbeing) worries about our health worries about world peace (as you can see, with all the things happening in the world these days and how it's going to impact us here or our loved ones overseas) worries about climate change ...all kinds of worries things that we are all aware of and often battle with. Jesus also said something else: not only worries, but illusions. What are these? Illusions of money. Illusions of materialism. Illusions of positions in our life which we put so much energy into. And Jesus is saying that these are the things that cause stress in our lives. Is that true? All these things worries, anxieties, illusions cause stress in our life. That's what causes stress in our life. Now, stress by itself is not harmful. We all have stress; there is no human being that does not have stress. If we don't have stress, something is abnormal yeah, stress is normal, and stress can be good. For example (I gave this example in the morning service): if we didn't have stress while we were students, would we sit down and study for our exams? It's because we have stress that we do that. If we did not have stress in our normal life to come to church or go to work on time and do what is expected of us we wouldn't be doing it the way that is expected of us. So stress is normal. But if we do not take stress and cope with it in a healthy way if we don't take control of the stress in a healthy way (take control so that it remains productive and not unproductive) then it becomes distress. And if we let distress go on, it becomes disease (dis-ease), right? Sorry, I should be showing all this You should have done that They're doing it? Okay, right, excellent. So stress becomes distress and distress becomes disease. Now we use this term disease very often, don't we? We all know the term disease. But do you know where it has come from? The root word is lack of ease. Lack of ease. That's what disease is lack of ease. We use it, but normally we don't think about it. So that's what disease is: lack of ease. Stress is normal we all have it and it can make us productive and help us live life much better, that little stress that we have. But if we don't control it, if we don't take care of it, it becomes distress. When distress happens, that is a sign for us that we need to do something about it. And if we don't take care of it, then it becomes disease: anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, phobic disorders and so on and so on depression, all kinds of disorders that begin to impact on us, not only mental but also physical. Now, let me give you an example. You have all heard of the fight-and-flight response I'm sure these days everybody knows fight and flight but God has created us in a way that when we are challenged, we produce chemicals in our body (mainly adrenaline and corticosteroids) which help blood go to our brains and other important areas so that we can function better. So when we are stressed when we have a challenge our heart pumps faster so that blood goes more to the brain and to the muscles, so that we can either fight the situation or flee from that situation. Humans and animals both do this. Corticosteroids are also produced in our body, which then work on our liver to produce more glucose so that our muscles will have more energy either to fight or to flee. Any animals (like the cat) and human beings all have that internal reaction involving corticosteroids. Think about it: if you have cats, you will have seen what happens when a cat faces a dog. The back arches, hairs stand on end, pupils dilate, the claws protrude. Why? The cat is either getting ready to fight the dog or to fly (run) away from the dog. Am I right? You've noticed that. But my question is, if the cat is not facing the dog, does it lie on your couch all the time thinking, What am I going to do when the dog comes? Does it ever do that? It doesn't. Only human beings do that. Animals don't do that. We all have the fight-and-flight reaction, but only human beings are constantly worrying: What am I going to do about my children's education? What am I going to do when I'm retiring? What am I going to do about buying a house? What am I going to do about this? What am I going to do about that? And what are we doing whenever this is happening? We are throwing adrenaline and corticosteroids into our body creating high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks; the corticosteroids producing more and more glucose (diabetes); from head to toe we are being diseased because of this anticipatory stress and our throwing chemicals into our system which was not meant to be. Animals don't do that only human beings do that. And you know what? These days they are even saying one of the theories is that Alzheimer's dementia is probably due to constant stress chemicals affecting the brain. Okay, so that's what we are doing to ourselves (not meant to be!). Now, so that is weeds yes, we need to take care of it. Tests. Tests are outside agents, mainly people and relationships. Remember what we talked about God said, Let them grow together; not up to you to pull it out. Many people and relationships test us. It could be a difficult colleague at work (when we are working together, somebody makes our life difficult an unreasonable boss expecting things from us).It could be colleagues who are bullying us.It could be an irritating neighbour, constantly irritating us.It could be even a challenging church member (does that happen in this church? I'm sure it doesn't. But many churches you know, the number of churches in India which have ended up in court cases and divisions and breakdowns because people can't live together, right?)It could be a nagging wife (I'm sure none of the wives here are nagging, right?)Or a domineering husband (does that happen? If you don't have any of these, please talk to me later I would like to know some secrets for a perfect marriage!) So it could be any of these. And these are the tests in our life, okay? These are the bait of Satan. You know about baiting when you go fishing, you put out bait (a worm, whatever it is) and you put it out. Only if the fish bites it is it hooked; if it doesn't, the bait just lies there. So these things (the tests the domineering husband or the nagging wife, etc.) they are baits of Satan. The bait of Satan is offense. And when we take the bait, we get offended. As long as it lies there, it's just an offense but when we bite it, then we become offended. We have the power not to take the bait, and these people and relationships can then strengthen our faith and life. That's why God puts people like that to test us so that our faith can grow, our life can become stronger. Let God deal with them. That's what it says in the parable: I will deal with them at the end of time. I will pull them out and burn them if necessary. He is the judge and not us. See the difference between the weeds and the tests? Weeds: it's up to us to take care of them if we don't, we're not going to be fruitful; we're going to become distressed and diseased. Tests: leave it (let God handle it). Now, when we are challenged by people like that whether it be a nagging wife or a domineering husband or somebody in the church we can use what is called cognitive distancing (another term for it is psychological distancing). We have all heard of social distancing (I never heard of it until Covid now everybody, even in the developing world, knows what social distancing is). What is cognitive distancing? Before responding here is an example from my own life. My wife says something to me; I immediately get offended, retaliate and say something else; then she becomes more angry and it becomes a vicious cycle. Instead of doing that, cognitive distancing means before responding with anger (followed by destructive words and actions), step back. Step back. Pause. Pause maybe for a minute and then act. It will prevent so much pain and heartache in our life and relationships if we can do that. Pause before judging. We're constantly doing that, and we should pause before doing that. Pause before assuming what is going on in that person's life we don't know what's going on in that person's life. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing somebody. Pause whenever you are about to act harshly, and you will avoid doing and saying things that you will later regret. If you can just take that principle today pause I would be happy. Pause. You know, I also said at the end of the service (as in the morning service), walking is the best exercise of all. As we get old, walking is the best. Walk away from arguments that lead to anger. Walk away from thoughts that steal your happiness. The more we learn to walk away from things that destroy our soul, the happier our life will be. Our life will be okay. Now I hope these few thoughts will be of help to you. I was talking about CTP, so I'll just end there by talking about what we do there. Seminars, Webinars, Workshops: We do a lot of sort of seminars, webinars, workshops. Actually, two months ago I just did a workshop which was well received I was talking to Megan about whether it could be done here on A Christian perspective on dementia, which is becoming an increasingly hot topic in how Christians and the church respond to that. Programs and Resources: We have degree programs, training, and research you can look up the website to see what is going on. (I've got a few leaflets about the Centre if some of you want one.) Directory of Professionals: The other thing is that we have a directory of Christian mental health practitioners (very often Christians who have mental health problems say, Oh, can I see a Christian? Do you know a Christian psychologist or a Christian counselor or a Christian psychiatrist?). So we've got a directory I'm happy to pass it on to you for your private use (not for publication). We can give it to anyone who needs it. Personal Advice: I'm available personally I'm retired now (I don't practice, so I'm not registered) but I'm available to give advice. If anybody wants advice, say you're having a problem and wondering what next step you can take or what might be the way forward (do you need a psychologist? very often people are confused do you need a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a counselor?) I'm happy to help with that. Free Booklets: I've got a few copies of some little booklets I wrote for the faith community (not for professionals). One is A Christian Perspective on Stress and Grief and another is A Christian Perspective on Mental Illness and Suicide. I don't sell them as I said, I don't have many but if you want a copy, it's first come, first served. You can have those books (the copies that I have). Any other questions? Please come and see me afterwards I'm happy to talk to you or even take your email address and we can keep in touch. Thank you very much, and God bless you.

In this final sermon from our Job: The Mystery of Suffering series, we explore God's unexpected response to Jobs criesa revelation not of condemnation, but of connection. Through vivid imagery, ancient wisdom, and modern reflections, we see how Job moves from despair to restoration. Can we be humbled and honored at the same time? What does it mean to suffer yet remain secure in God's love? Join us as we consider how revelation, repentance, and restoration still shape our stories today. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript Good morning. Today's Bible reading is Job 42:117 (page 838 in the red Bibles). Scripture Reading: Job 42:117 Then job replied to the Lord: I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.You asked, Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.You said, Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.After the Lord had said these things to job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, Im angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant job has.So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted jobs prayer.After job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.The Lord blessed the latter part of jobs life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemima, the second Kezia, and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as jobs daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this, job lived 140 years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so job died, an old man and full of years. This is the word of the Lord. Now. Thanks for those beautiful prayers, Bridget, and the Bible reading, Sarah. My name is Megan. If you haven't met me before. I'm the senior minister here at Deep Creek, and if you haven't been here during this series (and I didn't want to look around to see who had or hadn't), that's okay. It's okay. You don't need to know the entirety of the book of Job to hear from the Lord this morning. Revelation Well, two days before I was born, something that has shaped my life was released for the first time. It was the radio play of Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A year later, it was published as a book. It's been extremely popular to the point that these are all the different covers as it's been republished in new editions over and over again over the past 47 years. Its a sci-fi satire comedy, and it explores ideas about infinity and leadership and just high jinks around the galaxy. And it connects me always to the book of Job. I'll tell you why. In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, someone invents something called the Total Perspective Vortex. The purpose of this invention was to prove to the inventors wife that the most important thing for a human being was to never have a sense of proportion about themselves in the midst of the vast universe. So, extrapolating from the atoms in a piece of fairy cake, he invents this device which when a being is plugged into one end of it shows them as they truly are in the vast infinitude of all creation. It says that when you are put into the Vortex, you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation. And somewhere in it, a tiny little marker a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot says, You are here. Now, in the Hitchhiker's Guide universe, this invention becomes a torture device, because any being who actually experiences their smallness their minuscule insignificance in the vastness of all that exists well, they are exploded. Their brains just cannot handle it; they are destroyed as a person. The only person in the book who is not destroyed is someone described as having an ego the size of a planet. The only way to combat seeing yourself as you really are this tiny, infinitely small speck in the universe is to puff your ego up as big as it can possibly be, so that you know you really have a place. When it comes to the end of the Book of Job, I've often wondered: is God plugging Job into the Total Perspective Vortex when He comes to respond to Job? Job has been suffering unjustly, and he has these interactions with his friends who say, This is how God's world works if you're suffering, you must be a bad person. And Job is saying, I'm not! I'm a righteous person. I've always followed God. Why is this happening to me? Hes calling out to God throughout the book for God to answer his case to prove that God is a just God. Why is this happening? When God answers Job, He speaks of the vastness of all creation. Job sees this, and he replies: I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?Surely I spoke of things I did not understand things too wonderful for me to know. Its as if God has shown him the entire cosmos everything in reality and Jobs part in it: a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot with a little marker saying You are here. Will Job be destroyed by this revelation of God? Jobs worries are part of a much grander scheme. The text speaks of God coming to Job and speaking to him out of a whirlwind. (This is a picture of a place in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, that had a cyclone go through you can see it's recognizable as a house and a car and an orchard, but it's basically destroyed by the whirlwind that came through.) So when Job replies to God, we're wondering: is this what has happened? God has revealed Himself to Job will Job be utterly destroyed? Well, the first thing to say is that there is a difference between the Total Perspective Vortex and God's revelation, because against all odds the revelation has come with connection. Andy Prideaux, who was with us a couple of times through this series, has written a commentary he's been working on the Book of Job for a long time. This is from one of his articles (published in the Reformed Theological Review in 2011). He said: Before such a God, Job can only acknowledge his smallness before the majesty of his Creator who, against all odds, has reached out and spoken to his creature. The Total Perspective Vortex put someone in the midst of a vast universe isolated, insignificant, unconnected no personality at the heart of reality, just cosmos after cosmos and you. But against all odds, the Creator of the vastness that there is the being at the heart of reality has reached out here and connected with Job. Now, centuries before I was born, someone else had an experience of the total perspective of the universe. Julian of Norwich, a great saint and mystic in the 14th century, was praying and received a vision from God. I'm going to read to you what she wrote: He showed a little thing, the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand (as it seemed to me), and it was as round as any ball. I looked therein with the eye of my understanding and thought, What may this be? (Very normal, if you have a vision from God, to say, God, what is this about?) And I was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marveled how it might last, for it seemed to me it might suddenly have fallen into nought (nothing) for its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: it lasteth and ever shall, because God loveth it. And so hath all things being by the love of God. It lasts and ever will because God loves it, and all things do so by the love of God. Julian of Norwich had an opportunity to see the total perspective of creation, and in God's vision it was as tiny as a hazelnut, and yet it was not isolated or insignificant. It was loved. It was held together by a Creator who is personally connected to it, who values it, and gives it such dignity that He would hold all things together, even small though they be. So when God reveals Himself to Job, He doesn't simply reveal Himself as so much higher (you could never understand). He reveals Himself as the One who desires to connect, who also holds all things together with great love and tenderness. At the start of chapter 38, God had just talked about all the stars in the sky He holds the storehouses of the hail and all those incredible things that humans have no power over whatsoever. He keeps going: Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens? Big. And then He says: Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? This God who created all that is the infinite creation loves and cares for all things and is intimately involved in the lives of all things, even those that have nothing to do with human beings. And so the first step at the end of this story is revelation. The restoration at the end of the story the hundreds and thousands of sheep and, and all of that comes after this first gift of revelation to Job. And he responds: I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You. Against all odds, the Creator has connected and revealed Himself as (what the psalmist says) both powerful and good. Repentance Job's response to this is important for us to explore. So the response that he gives to revelation is translated as repentance: Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know... Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. I want us to explore the context of this repentance, which means turning around changing your mind, going the other way. Is it humility, or is it shame? Now, in the ancient Near East, honor and shame were basically the foundation for the way humans interacted and societies were formed. Someone who did well or looked good was honored in the community, and someone who had done wrong who had violated the rules of society was shamed. We see this today still: the way we speak about people, exclude people (particularly pile-ons on the internet). Canceling is a type of shaming. So when Job has lost his honored state because everything has been taken from him (including his health), we find him sitting in the dust and ashes of the rubbish heap outside of the town. He's moved from a place of honor into very obvious symbols of shame. And then his friends come and do the pile-on, and they say to him, You were honored, but actually you need to be ashamed. See how the Lord has punished you? You are not a good person. You are now debased, humiliated. You should be ashamed. Turn back to God and He will restore your honor. And so I want to ask the question: when I come to this revelation of God and Job's response, has God done this too? Has God said to this man who was honored and then living in this place of shame (which he was arguing against) is God shaming him too? Now, shame really messes us up. It can be entirely appropriate to feel shame when you have done wrong. But what we do when we feel shame is we hide, or we isolate, we shrink, or we fight. And if the response to God's revelation is to feel deep shame, that seems to me to lead nowhere. Nowhere good. That's what Adam and Eve did in the garden when God came to them, they hid. I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid, says Adam. So is that what's happening here? Well, it's important that we have the entire chapter, because otherwise we may not know: is God honoring Job or shaming him? We can see from verses 7 onwards that we need to read verse 6 in light of God honoring Job. You can be humbled and honored at the same time. And actually, if there's anything I would want us to leave with from today, it's that you can be humble you can be humbled and honored at the same time. Is that not the right way for humans to understand themselves? Humbled yet honored. And that's exactly what's happening here with Job. Because Job is repenting, but it's actually the friends with whom God is angry. After the Lord had said these things to Job, He said to Eliphaz the Temanite (hes the one that kind of kicked it off), I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. Now, Job is responding with repentance of some kind, but he's not being shamed by God. Actually, we have three options for what is happening when Job responds in this way (these come down to how we interpret some sparse Hebrew sentences and I dont claim great knowledge of Hebrew (I learned it but forgot most of it!), but people who do know these things tell me that the word translated despise in Job 42:6 doesnt actually have the reflexive pronoun myself. It means refuse or reject. So it could mean I reject myself, or it could mean I reject something else. Weve interpreted it and added the English myself. And repent is that word that means turn around, change your mind. It can mean repent from being a sinner, or it can mean change your mind about something youve been doing the word repent is even used of God (whos not sinning) in the Old Testament, when He changes His mind in response to the peoples response to Him. We love that about Him.) So, what are the three reasonable readings of Jobs repentance here? The first is that Job is saying, Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. In other words, God's answer (His revelation) has shown Job his place in the world, and Job turns away from his sin which at most might be questioning God with pride, or judging God based on a very flat worldview of retributive justice (reward and punishment). Second, it could be Job meaning, I retract my case. Not himself, but his call for justice. (You see a lot of courtroom drama in Job, so it's like Job is saying, "I'm retracting or resting my case. I change my mind about my situation in light of God's ways in His world.") Thirdly (Andy Prideaux's preferred reading), Job is saying, I reject and turn away from these dust and ashes. Job has been sitting outside the town in the rubbish heap a place of shame and mourning but now that he has received God's revelation, he is changing his position. He is consoled by God and is no longer in this place. (If you were here last week, you'll know I've got a preference for the "law and order" reading of Job so number two is probably my preference. But actually all of them have some truth backed up in the Book of Job. It is possible for Job to have spoken rightly about God, but also to have said some things that overstepped and God is big enough to hold that. But it doesn't mean that Job shouldn't repent of those things. That's okay; actually that happens to us all the time. I might speak rightly about God to a point, and yet there will be things that I need to change my mind about, or actually repent of. Even from up here especially from up here.) The second interpretation (retracting his case) means Job is now changing his mind about his place in the world and his reading of what's happened to him. His previously flat worldview has been opened up God is bigger, and His ways are bigger. And I trust His justice and His good purposes. But it is also true that he's now going to turn away from this place of shame and mourning. Restoration And so we see that next. So there's restoration happening for Job at each point. But the pattern of revelation, repentance and restoration happens for the friends as well. So God, in speaking to the friends, basically says: I am angry with you. You didn't speak rightly. You shamed him, and that was not right. And you attributed to Me things that were not true. So now... now you repent. See, this is a different kind of repenting they are actually using the mechanism given in the Old Testament for dealing with sin: sacrifice. And God says, Take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job. (So their repenting is actually contributing to the honoring of this man they are making up for it; they are participating in restitution at this point. Not just dealing with God, but coming to the person that they've actually wronged.) And so they are honoring Job by enabling Job to act as a high priest for them. We know that Job had functioned in that way for his family members at the start of the book. God says, My servant Job will pray for you a great honor and I will accept his prayer. (Job has spoken very strong words to God very strong and yet God honors him.) He has been in the dust heap; he has suffered and lost; he has looked like someone who should have no place in society. And yet God honors him: I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You will be restored. So the restoration for Job begins with his friends making restitution and honoring him. That reverses his place in society and his sense of honor but not by forgetting what's happened. You get nervous in verse 10, because it says, After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. And you're like, But he's just been through this whole thing it's awful. He lost his children! This is terrible how do you just turn it around? Is this a fairy tale? (You had to put that there so that he could go home for this moment.) All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. (His house had been destroyed, but now it is there.) They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. Everything that he had been through was real and acknowledged. Nothing actually had been restored to him at this point in terms of family. In other words, this is an acknowledgment that you can be honoured in the midst of your suffering. He is scarred, and they come and comfort and console him exactly what should have happened in the first place. And they gave him these symbols of honor. And now the restoration (the reversal) is completed. The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the former part. And we see he gets all the sheep and the cows and the things and the sons, and then the excellent daughters. (I'm smiling at Jemima in the foyer now.) This, too, is a picture of honor. In Ancient Near Eastern culture, it's already an honor to have a son; but to have daughters that are not only beautiful, but in your abundance and honoring of them you include them in the inheritance, is a full picture of true and ultimate honor. The whole family, from generation to generation, are held with dignity and respect by God and the community. Lessons from Job's Story I want us to finish with four things to learn from this story of Job: The first is that we can suffer with confidence in the good purposes of God. This has been Job's question the entire time, and when God reveals Himself to Job as both powerful and good, it starts to change that confidence it grows his faith, even though the suffering has not yet been reversed. Ultimately, of course, we have the promise of God that our perseverance will be rewarded. Let me read to you from James chapter 5, beginning at verse 7: Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. Don't grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. The writers in the New Testament knew that the picture of Job's restoration was not a promise to every Christian person that things would ultimately turn out for their physical and financial well-being. James himself, who wrote that, was martyred killed for his faith. They followed the most honored Son of God, who died on a cross before His resurrection. We've just heard of the Christian girls camp in Texas, where many girls have died because of flash flooding. And we think of the parents who will have wondered how sending your child to a camp like that could result in such tragedy. But the promise of God is that you can suffer even the most terrible loss (and I am a fraud to speak of it, not having suffered in that way) but you can suffer with confidence in the good purposes of God and His promise of restoration at the resurrection. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. Job is a picture of the promise of restoration when the Lord Jesus returns, and we can suffer (when that comes) with confidence in the good purposes of a powerful and loving God. And we can be humble without fear of being lost or destroyed. If the answer to the Total Perspective Vortex was to puff up your ego to get self-esteem as big as you possibly could so that you could have a place in this universe that was not insignificant well, perhaps we too have wondered if that is the way we ought to live in this world. That if someone says that we are wrong, if God calls us to change our ways, if we need to serve, if people do not recognize us or elect us as something, we will not be destroyed. Actually, we can be humble truly humble and sacrifice, knowing that we are held in love. We can be wrong and say that to a friend or family member, and we will not lose ourselves. God holds us. You can be humbled and honored at the same time. And we can do small things with great dignity. We never have to think we are a minuscule dot on a minuscule dot "you are here," isolated and insignificant. We are held, just as all things are, in love. And it is all small in relation to God. And so the smallest thing that He calls you or me to do has great dignity, as He holds all small things in His power and love. And finally, we can do risky things with freedom and courage. Pain and suffering shrinks your world. It shrinks what you're willing to do; it shrinks what you can do; it shrinks what you're willing to risk because you need as much control as possible. But with a God who says, I am wild and free and vast and transcendent, and yet I connect with you, and My good purposes cannot be thwarted, then even in suffering, even in pain, you can have courage and freedom to do risky, big things for Him. Maybe you have found that something has started to shrink your world, and maybe you felt the only way out of it is for you to be elevated or built up in your self-esteem or in your recognition. Job is calling you to let go to turn away from your self-focused and flat reading and shrunken, painful world and to allow the great God, full of freedom and full of wildness (like the Holy Spirit that blows and moves wherever it will) to give you courage to try things, to step out, to be wrong, to repent, because no purposes of the good and loving God can be thwarted. Amen.

When Job demands answers from God, hes met not with explanations, but with awe. In this powerful sermon, we explore how God responds from the storm, lifting Jobs eyes from suffering to the wonder, wisdom, and wildness of creation. Discover how Gods care is both cosmic and personal, and why we are never alone, even in the chaos. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript The word of the Lord is being read from the Book of Job, Chapter 38, verses 1 to 21. Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said,Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know. Who stretched a measuring line across it?On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstonewhile the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness;when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,when I said, This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?Have you ever given orders to the morning or shown the dawn its place,that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment.The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years. Good morning everyone. We could probably have some light, I think. It might help you. I don't know if it'll make you go to sleep or not, but anyway. We are looking at, actually, four chapters in Job today, although we just had the start read. If you've got a Bible or something on your phone, you're welcome to follow along. But a lot of the material I'll have up on the screen or read out for us. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the richness of your word. And we thank you, Lord, that your kindness to us is in revealing who you are, who we are, and our place in this creation. We thank you, Lord, for your goodness to us this morning and every day, in providing all that we need for life and showing us the way to salvation through Your Son, Jesus Christ. We pray that you'd open our hearts today to all that you would say to us in Your Word by Your Holy Spirit. Amen. Left on Read with God Well, the young people have an expression: to be left on read. It means that you've sent a message to someone and they have clearly seen it. A read receipt has come through. It says delivered and read in whatever, you know, WhatsApp or Messenger or whatever. But they have not responded. So it's not like, you know, they haven't seen the message. Oh, they've seen it. But something about their life your message, your priority in their life means that you've been left on read. Well, at this point in the book of Job, Job is feeling like he is left on read with God. We've had speeches back and forth. We've had lots of human words. But in all the chapters between chapter 3 and 37, we've not had a word from God. Job has been crying out to God because of his suffering. All that he has lost, the changes in his life. Everything good that he had seems to have been taken away. And he believes that God is in charge of the world, and so he cannot understand the justice behind a righteous man such as himself receiving such terrible treatment at the hands of a good God. He had done good. Why had he not experienced good in his life? And he knew that he did not deserve this suffering, this change in his fortunes. So why was God doing it? He cries out to God. In fact, more than just sending God a message, he's actually longing to take God to court, if you like. He's kind of moving from just messages between friends to an episode of Law and Order. He is in the courtroom and he is crying out for God the defendant and the judge to answer him. So you actually see lots of courtroom imagery throughout the whole book of Job. We see at the beginning God, the heavenly Judge on the throne, and the angels coming before Him. The accuser comes and says, What is the justice in this man's life? You are saying he is worshiping you and being righteous, and yet he has so much. It's unjust. He doesn't really love you for you; it's because of all the stuff he's got. And so the whole scenario of Job's change in life and his suffering is set up in this sort of courtroom assembly. But Job himself then starts to style himself as a plaintiff in a court case, calling out to God to take his case and also to answer him as his opposition. He longs for there to be someone a witness, an arbiter, a mediator in the courtroom between him and God. And actually, when he calls for a Redeemer and says, I know there must be someone, he's still using this picture. I want someone to stand on my side, to be my legal advocate. To provide what I need. As I stand before God the Judge. God Speaks from the Storm So when we come to God speaking in chapter 38, we actually see God begin His own cross-examination of Job. God speaks. And yes, He will engage in this courtroom scene and these questions of justice. Now, what He says in answer to Job's complaints may be very unexpected. But when we see the beginning of chapter 38, we can imagine exactly a defense attorney standing there saying, Brace yourself. Are you ready for my questions? So God answers Job. In our NIV translation, we just have, Then the Lord spoke to Job. That's appropriate. I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but what I do know is that there's a difference between the way that God speaks here and the way God has spoken the only other times we've seen Him speak (in chapters 1 and 2). In chapters 1 and 2, God speaks to the Satan the accuser, the adversary and He does not... (the Hebrew doesn't use the normal everyday sort of reply form of the word). It's not like this is a dialogue between God and Satan. Satan says something and God speaks, but He doesn't "reply" in the sense that they are equals. Here, however, the language is back to normal. God answers Job, as you and I would answer or reply to one another in conversation. He has now brought Himself into dialogue with Job. Not that either one's character or essence has changed, but that God is willing to have a conversation with this human being. Face to face. But it's not really face to face. It's not equal. God speaks to Job out of the storm. Throughout the book of Job, Job has been using this imagery of God Himself. You might have heard that we are expecting a "weather bomb" off the east coast of Australia this coming week. And you think to yourself, Ah, do you need to just really escalate this imagery? It'll probably be quite rainy and windy. However, the picture of God speaking out of the storm is that escalated "weather bomb" language. This is power. This is threat. And Job knows this about God, because Job has used this language of Him before. In that first courtroom scene in chapter 9, when he's saying, You're the Judge I want to bring my case before You. But I feel so powerless. If He does come to me, He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason. And then, towards the end of the speeches, just before the final human arbiter (Elihu) speaks, Job says to God, You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; You toss me about in the storm. Elihu, in his speeches (before God finally speaks in answer), says this too about God: His thunder announces the coming storm. All the threat that you experience when a weather bomb is on its way... This is the power and holiness and otherness of the great God of the universe. But God, out of His great power and otherness, does not destroy Job when He speaks to him out of the storm. He says, Who is this that obscures My plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man. Like a warrior. I will question you, and you shall answer Me. And so we wonder, what will God say in response to Job's suffering and his request for justice? Will He go into the explanation of Satan coming before God in chapters 1 and 2? Will He say, Actually, you werent as righteous as you thought. Everybody gets tough times? What is He going to say? The Vastness of Creation Well, God begins His answer to Job by lifting his eyes to the vastness of creation. He lifts Jobs eyes above Jobs own human story, and He tells Job just how vast and indescribable how unfathomable and transcendent God really is. He begins by saying, Were you there when I laid the earths foundation? He pictures Himself as a builder and an architect. He says, Were you there? Who marked off its dimensions? Who stretched a measuring line across it? Did you lay the concrete footings? No, I did that. And more than just doing a building for you humans. This was set in a vast heavenly realm: ...the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy. God doesn't give a lot of insights into the heavenly realm in these chapters, but it's always there God's ways are ancient, transcendent. There were beings around before you, and they are truly beyond our comprehension. Have you ever given orders to the morning? Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea and walked in the recesses of the deep? (Maybe the Mariana Trench, or whatever it's called something I learned from Octonauts.) What is the way to the abode of light? Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or seen the storehouses of hail, which I reserve for times of trouble? Does the rain have a father? From whose womb comes the ice? Can you bind the chains of Pleiades or loosen Orion's belt? (He's talking about the stars.) Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons and lead out the Bear with its cubs? (That's referring to a constellation.) Can you raise your voice to the clouds? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? God's ways are ancient and transcendent and truly beyond our comprehension. Science may get us so far, but a lot of what we observe, we still not we are still not able to say why or how and for what purpose. But God knows. And God has been in this business for an awfully long time. God's Intricate Care for Creation But He also then says moving from this large picture down to an intricate care picture. He says: Who gives the ibis wisdom? Who gives the rooster understanding? Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? God knows. God's knowledge of creation is far greater than human knowledge, and it's intricate and caring. And you might notice that these animals and birds mentioned are not ones that humans domesticate or find useful. They aren't God speaking about the cattle and the sheep grazing (there are parts in the Psalms where He does that, to make a different point: See what I can do to care for you.). But this is not that. This is, See all the strange and unconnected-to-human-life parts of creation that I know, that I love. My knowledge is intricate. You say I haven't seen your suffering. I see all. And I care for all. Wild and Playful Creatures And then related, and starting to move on from here He starts to have this really kind of strange, wild and playful description of creation. Who let the wild donkey go free? I gave it the wasteland as its home; it laughs at the commotion in the town. Will the wild ox consent to serve you? Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness? Will you rely on it for its great strength? (The answer being no not a chance.) Then this long excursus on the ostrich: The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, though they cannot compare with the wings and feathers of the stork. She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush them or that some wild animal may trample them. She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers. She cares not that her labor was in vain, for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense. Yet when she spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider. The ostrich is a nonsense creature. God says it's got this big body and a long neck and a funny tiny head. It lays its eggs in the sand rather than putting them in a nest or sitting on them. It makes these foolish decisions. It looks ridiculous. And yet when it runs, God says, I delight in it. It is fast and crazy and wild and stupid, and I love it. This creation that I have made. Look around. It is full of wildness and nonsense and play. And it is not always centered on you. An ostrich goes its own way. A horse, a hawk. An eagle. An ox. A mountain goat, a donkey. All of these wild, free creatures. I made them. I love them. I delight in them. And they're not really part of your story. Behemoth and Leviathan: Chaos Contained He goes on then into chapter 40 and 41, and He moves into these animals that seem to be mythological. And the point here is that God's power contains and holds in check all that seems out of control, including chaos and injustice. So we've got wildness, we've got nonsense, we've got play. But now we've got two creatures called Behemoth and Leviathan. Now, in my household, we have conversations about whether Behemoth (which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox; what strength it has in its loins, what power in the muscles of its belly, its tail is like a cedar, etc., etc.) is a hippo, a rhino, or a dinosaur because its tail is like a cedar and hippos have, like, tiny little tails. What is this creature? The Leviathan. Similarly, it's in the sea. Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook? Tie down its tongue with a rope? Can you make a pet of it or put it on a leash for the young women in your house? No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against Me? Everything under heaven belongs to Me. These creatures Behemoth (this kind of mythological, dinosaur-like, big, scary chaos creature on land) and Leviathan (the Kraken, if you like, in the ocean) are mythological beasts, terrifying to all the sailors and the pirates and everybody in the Psalms. Leviathan stands for all the forces of chaos and opposition to God. There are creatures, of course, on the earth that God could say, "I control this," but these ones seem to be imbued with this kind of symbolic chaos meaning, and even a dark and evil meaning. The great beast on land and the great beast in the sea. But God contains and holds in check all that seems out of control, all that seems terrifying, all that seems chaotic and even unjust. There is chaos in God's world, and yet it is not out of God's ultimate control. God's Justice Is Bigger Than Ours Finally, in chapter 40 at the beginning, He teaches us this. God's story is bigger than our story. God's justice is bigger than our justice. But its not in opposition to our story and our justice. I don't know if you've ever heard preachers or teachers say, "Well, you know, I appreciate that your heart is for the vulnerable. I appreciate that you don't feel that that is right. But God's justice God's rightness is beyond ours." And it sort of undercuts that feeling that sometimes we have, that things aren't right and that we're supposed to live with this very, very significant cognitive dissonance that, you know, God doesn't actually care about the things we care about. No, God's justice is bigger. God's ways are higher. He does care about human right and wrong. He does care about the treatment of the vulnerable and the marginalized. He does care when people do wicked things. So in chapter 40, He says again to Job, Brace yourself like a man. Would you discredit My justice? Would you condemn Me to justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God's? Can your voice thunder like His? Unleash the fury of your wrath; look at all who are proud and bring them low. Look at all who are proud and humble them. Crush the wicked where they stand. Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave. "Then I Myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you." God cares about the behavior of human beings, and He knows when the proud are being wicked. He knows when human beings who have abused and hurt other human beings deserve justice, and He will bring it ultimately, of course, in the death and the condemnation of the wicked. But God's justice is not in opposition to the justice that you and I desire, even though He is so far above our ways. Job's Humble Response So Job responds, and he responds twice. (If you were at Andy Prado's talk on Wednesday night, you'll know that the first response is one of humility, and we'll look at the next one next week.) He knows, actually, you're right: my story is small. Humans are small in light of God's wisdom and power. Job answered the Lord, I am unworthy how can I reply to You? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer twice, but I will say no more. "I am humbled. You have shown me the vastness of Your creation. You have lifted my eyes to the intricacy of Your plans, and I know that they are beyond my own story." Humans Are Small, But Not Worthless or Alone But God would not want Job to stop there. He knows that Job needs to hear more than just "humans are small." (So really, is that why He's come to him?) Humans are small. God is big. But humans are not worthless. When God came to us in Jesus Christ, He did the same. He looked around. Creation. He saw what was there. He saw the sparrows rising and falling. And He said to the people around Him, Look at this creation. God cares for these. He could be quoting Job about these sparrows. But Jesus said, Are you not worth more than many sparrows? Does not God care for you so much more than even these utterly gorgeous little creatures? Psalm 8 says that God deserves all the praise and glory. And yet what is humankind? That you care for them? That you raise them up? That you love them? Humans are small, but they are not worthless. And humans are small. But they are not alone in this world with its chaos and sufferings. The God who is big is also personal. God came to Job to answer him. God answers him as a friend a very high, transcendent, complex, holy-other friend. God says, Look around at this creation. It is made personally by Me, and I am with you in it. In its chaos, in its dark, in its light. You are not alone in this world. A New Way of Looking at Things From C.S. Lewis I learnt something new a new way of looking at things from C.S. Lewis this week. I'm going to read to you from one of his essays, from a book called God in the Dock. He says: There is an activity of God displayed throughout creation a wholesale activity, let us say which people refuse to recognize. The miracles done by God Incarnate, Jesus, living as a man in Palestine, perform the very same things as this wholesale activity, but at a different speed and on a smaller scale. So think about the things that we've looked at in Job chapters 38 to 41: the seas being in God's control. Jesus calming the storm. Jesus walking on water. God feeding the the ravens. God taking great delight in His creation. Jesus feeding the 5000. Jesus bringing healing and restoration. Jesus having meals. Jesus turning water into wine. One of the chief purposes of these miracles is that people, having seen a thing done by a personal power on the small scale, may recognize, when they see the same thing done on the large scale, that the power behind it is also personal indeed the very same Person who lived among us 2000 years ago. The miracles, in fact, are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. Of that larger script, part is already visible and part is still unsolved the script of God's plan. In other words, some of the miracles of Jesus do locally what God has already done universally (provide calm, be over all the chaos). Others do locally what He has not yet done but will do (healing, restoration, resurrection). In that sense, and from our human point of view, some are reminders and others prophecies. God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and, with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus, every year from Noah's time till ours, God turns water into wine. But when Christ at Cana makes water into wine, the mask is off. But the miracle has only half its effect if it only convinces us that Christ is God (obviously essential, and we always preach it like that). It will have its full effect if whenever we see a vineyard or drink a glass of wine or juice, we remember that here works He who sat at the wedding party in Cana. God's entire creation is personal. God knows it. God loves it. The other transcendent, powerful God is the God who walked among us in Jesus, but who has never been far from us in every circumstance. Amen.

In this sermonRev. Pedram Shirmast explores Job 19 and the bold hope found in the words, I know that my Redeemer lives. Amid personal and global suffering, we're reminded that God doesnt give us tidy answers. He gives us Himself. Tune in for a message of honest faith, deep lament, and unshakable hope. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript His pain is on full display, but so is his faith. His cry takes us on a journey from desperation to declaration. Here's a quick breakdown of the structure of the chapter: Verses 16: We see that Job rebukes his friends. He's wounded not just by his suffering, but by his friends' words and accusations. He pleads for empathy and understanding. Verses 712: Job expresses his deep sense of God's silence. He turns his attention to God and expresses how he feels abandoned and attacked. He's confused since he believes God is just, yet he feels like he's being punished unjustly. Verses 1322: He lists his total isolation. He paints a picture of complete relational breakdownfamily, friends, servants, everyone, even his wife. Everyone has turned away from him and his social and emotional world has collapsed. Verses 2324: He longs for his words to be remembered and wishes his defense could be recorded forever. He wants future generations to know that his suffering wasn't because of guilt, that there is more to his story than what people can see on the surface. Verses 2527: He declares his hope in a living Redeemer. In one of the most beautiful and faithful passages of this book, Job lifts his eyes and proclaims, I know that my Redeemer lives, and one day he will stand on the earth. Even if he dies, he believes he will see God personally with his own eyes. Verses 2829: He closes by warning his friends not to continue down the path of judgment and condemnation, reminding them that justice ultimately belongs to God, not to humans. As we see, he doesn't sugarcoat his pain. He doesn't offer an easy answer. But somewhere deep inside there is a flame that hasn't gone out. A trust in a God that he cannot see yet, but whom he refuses to stop believing in. There is a crucial reality in our life. The way we understand and interpret God and His character shapes the way we respond to suffering, and the way we experience suffering often reshapes how we think about God. There is a direct and powerful relationship between theology and experience, between who we believe God is and how we live in a valley of sorrow or suffering. So all human societies, even those who are not Christian, have known suffering and evil. I believe we can group people into three major categories based on how they respond to suffering and what they believe about God. The First Category: Those who interpret the existence of suffering as evidence against God This group looks at the world, see all the pain and all the suffering, injustice and grief, and they conclude that there cannot possibly be a good God. Their conclusion is based on two assumptions: If God is all-powerful, He could end suffering. If God is all-loving, He would want to. But the fact is, suffering exists. And the conclusion: Therefore, an all-powerful, all-loving God does not exist. This view is deeply influenced by the visible reality of suffering around them. It makes sense emotionally, but it doesn't account for the unseen dimensions of God's character, His love, His redemptive plan, and His eternal timeline. While this category doesn't so much wrestle with God as it rejects Him, often behind that rejection there is still a deep pain, disappointment, and a yearning for a world that makes sensea yearning for justice that they never experience. The Second Category: Those who believe in God, but whose experience of suffering distorts their view of Him This group does not reject God altogether, but suffering changes how they see Him. Their thinking often goes like this: The first assumption is God exists and He is in control. The second assumption is suffering is a sign of divine displeasure or punishment. And the fact is, suffering exists. They conclude that God must not be good or loving. He must be angry; He must be punishing me or punishing others. Maybe I have to work harder to earn His approval. This is where Job's friends stand. This is their theology. And this view is common in even some other religions for example, in parts of Islamic teaching (where I am from), people are taught that suffering is a sign of punishment from God, a sign of God's wrath and justice. This mindset can be found among some Christians too, especially those from another religious background or others who have grown up with a transactional view of God. They may still carry the idea that if something goes wrong in their life, it must be because God is punishing them. In moments of suffering, they begin to wonder: Maybe I haven't prayed enough. Maybe I haven't served the Lord enough. Maybe I haven't been on the Deep Creek roster enough. Maybe I haven't gone to church enough. Maybe God is angry with me because of all these things. Maybe I failed Him. Maybe I'm facing the consequences of my response to God. Even though they believe in Jesus, the picture of God hasn't fully transformed. They still relate to Him more as a judge than as a loving Father. But the truth is, in Christ, our punishment has already been paid. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What they need is not more religious effort, but a clearer view of the Redeemer who carried all our guilt and shame on the cross and offers us rest instead of wrath. In this system, people live their lives trying to satisfy God, but the gospel tells us a different story. Jesus came not to pass shame on us, but to carry it. God's response to sin and suffering is not revenge, but redemption. He doesn't demand more sacrifice He becomes the sacrifice Himself. Jesus said on the cross, "It is finished." It is finished. The redemptive work of God it is finished. If we view God primarily as an angry judge, we will live in constant fear, interpreting every trial as punishment. But when we see God's character revealed through Jesus as deeply loving, compassionate, and faithful a suffering God here with us our point of view changes. We see God as a Father: loving, guiding, and refining us even through life's challenges and suffering. The Third Category: Those who trust God even in suffering This group stands in the tension. They know God is all-powerful, they believe God is all-loving, and they also see the undeniable reality of suffering in this world. But instead of rejecting God or reshaping Him into something more manageable, they hold onto Him. An all-powerful God exists, and an all-loving God exists, and the fact is, suffering exists. The conclusion is that God must have a loving reason (which He is able to achieve) for allowing suffering. Let's be honest this is not an easy place to stand. Actually, it's the hardest. It's far simpler to reject God or reshape Him into something easier to accept. But this third way the way of faith requires trust. Even Job is wrestling with that. Job stands on that point of view and struggles. In Job 19:20 he says, "I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth." He laments, "My relatives have gone away; my close friends have forgotten me." The tears are evident from this deep experience he is having. This is not an easy place to stay. Those who stand here don't have all the answers. Like Job, like you and I, like millions of people, they struggle with the same "Why, God?" questions: Why, God why is this happening? They feel the same confusion and frustration. They fail, they grieve, they get angry. But beneath all that, there is a foundation of trust that says, even when I don't understand, I know that my Redeemer lives. Even when I don't see the end of the story, I believe the Author is good. They trust that God is not only sovereign over suffering, but also present in it that He is working all things, yes even the worst things, for the good of those who love Him. They believe in a Redeemer whose redemptive work extends beyond the grave. They live with the hope that one day God will wipe every tear, right every wrong, and renew all things. But let's be honest: standing in this place does not erase the pain and suffering. Not at all. It doesn't give us a tidy answer. The real questions are not "Can God and suffering coexist?" but "Why does God allow it?" and "What has God done about it?" The answer to those questions is not a formula it's a person. That person is Jesus. God did not remain distant from the suffering world. He stepped into it. He suffered with us and for us. He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and by His wounds we are healed. So faith doesn't always solve the problem of suffering, but what it offers is an anchor. It reminds us that our Redeemer is alive and He lives and that one day He will stand upon the earth. One day we will see Him face to face. And until then we live not with all the answers, but with a living hope. With all the escalating conflict and pain around us right now, like Job we feel isolated, helpless, and unheard. In that raw place of despair, Job gives voice to the same question we are asking today: Where is God in this? Where is He? His cry echoes our own hearts as we fear for our families, grieve for innocent lives, and wait in silence for news from home. We have moments of helplessness a midnight phone call bearing the worst news, days of no contact with loved ones due to communication cutoffs and we don't know if we'll ever see or hear them again. It's heartbreaking. Around the world in Russia, Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, everywhere every day we hear of new suffering. We understand the pain that Job is dealing with. And you know what? It's utterly wrong for us to stand here and pretend we have all the answers, because we don't. This is what Job is living through he doesn't have all the answers. We are looking at Job's story from the future, but he was living it in the moment. He didn't know anything about the behind-the-scenes (the prologue where Satan asks God for permission) or the ending where everything is restored. He knew none of that. He's living in the present. And God doesn't want us to pretend we have all the answers either. In the middle of these painful moments, God gives us permission to grieve, to lament. He gives us, through Job, a language of honest faith honest faith. The Bible never asks us to ignore suffering or sugarcoat it or say everything is fine. God invites us to bring our pain, our questions, our confusion to Him. We see this cry from Psalm 22: "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" And Jesus Himself echoed those words from the cross: "Why have You forsaken Me?" The Scripture shows us that wrestling with suffering is not a sign of weak faith. Sometimes people might even say, "Why are you sad or disappointed? Don't you go to church on Sunday? Aren't you a Christian?" Of course we are but that doesn't mean we have all the answers, or that we never feel disappointment, terror, or grief. This is who we are, and God loves us in our honest state. A faith that trusts God enough to bring Him our most broken, angry, and confused prayers is a strong faith. In Job's story just like in the life and death of Jesus Christ we see that God doesn't remain distant from our suffering. He steps into it. He enters the pain. He's not only the God who reigns from heaven, but the God who bleeds with us on earth. And yet, even in the pit of sorrow, Job dares to say something we need to hear now more than ever: "I know that my Redeemer lives." He doesn't know anything else, but he knows that his Redeemer lives. He doesn't say, "I feel that my Redeemer lives," or "I think maybe He does." No he says, "I know, I believe." You may still be asking, "Why, God? Why me? Why does suffering exist at all?" And that's a fair question a good question. The truth is, we are not living in the perfect world that God originally created. He created it and said, "This is good," because God is good and whatever He creates is good. Then, in the very next chapter, sin entered this beautiful world humanity and everything broke. Everything. Our relationships, our bodies, even creation itself. So much of the pain we experience isn't because God is punishing us or taking revenge on us it's because we live in a fallen world. But (and this is important) even in this brokenness, God is not absent. He didn't leave us alone. We caused this, but God didn't let us go. He uses suffering even to grow us, to shape us, and to remind us that this world is not our final home. One day our Redeemer will return and make all things new. In the Book of Job, it turns out the main character is not Job at all it's God. And what Job does is anchor himself to the One he cannot see, but will not stop believing in that his Redeemer is alive, and one day God will make it right. Maybe today that's the only thing some of us can hold on to not answers, not peace, not even resolution, but just the truth that our Redeemer is alive. The One who sees what we cannot see, who knows what we do not know, is still on the throne. Even if this world is breaking, even if our hearts are breaking, our Redeemer has not abandoned us. That's what Job 19 gives us not an explanation, but a declaration. And today, as we sit in grief and tension and uncertainty and complexity, that declaration still stands. Each of us knows how much easier it is to worship God when life is smooth, right? But Job's statement "I know that my Redeemer lives, and He will stand on the earth one day" is one of the most powerful cries and acts of worship in the midst of suffering. Because He lives, we hold on. Because He lives, we cry out. Because He lives, we believe that one day we will stand with Him, and we will be with Him forever. Every war, every missile, every injustice, every tear everything will be answered with His peace, His justice, and His healing. What Do We Do With All These Things? God invites our question. Like Job, like the psalmist, like the Son of God Jesus Christ on the cross, we are invited to bring our hardest questions to God. We don't need to hide them. We don't need to protect God from our honesty. We don't He's big enough to handle our doubts, our grief, and our tears. In fact, our honest cries before God may be one of the purest forms of worship and praise. God understands our pain. He is not far from us. The Christian story is not about a distant, unfeeling deity it is about a suffering God, a crucified Savior. Jesus didn't stay away from our pain; He entered into it completely. He was betrayed, mocked, beaten, and finally killed. He knows what it feels like to cry out and hear silence. When we weep, we weep with a God who has wept too. When we bleed, we bleed in the arms of a God who has scars. This is our hope: God understands truly and personally. God offers hope that goes beyond this life. As John said, the resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything. It tells us that suffering, death, pain all those things do not get the final word. They may have a chapter in our life, but not the conclusion. As Job declares in the middle of his darkness: "I know that my Redeemer lives." We remember that the cross is not only where God suffers with us, it's where He saves us. Jesus took the punishment we deserve so that we could be forgiven and made whole. That means suffering is not punishment from God in our lives. It may be part of the broken world and its consequences. It may be something God uses to grow us, but it is never, never ever His wrath toward His children because in Christ there is no condemnation. Yes, suffering is real. It's hard. It breaks us open. But it does not mean God has abandoned us. It means we are living in a world that is not yet made new but one day will be. We may not have all the answers to the why, but we know the answer to the Who. His name is Jesus, and He's with us. He's for us, and He will redeem it all. If you take away one thing from this sermon today, it is this: "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ." Amen.

In this sermon from our Job: The Mystery of Suffering series, we explore what happens when well-meaning words miss the mark. As Job's friends try to explain his pain through a rigid lens of retribution and reward, were invited to reflect on our own assumptions about suffering, faith, and Gods justice. Join us as we wrestle with tough questions and discover the hope found in the innocent suffering of Christ. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript This morning's reading is from Job chapter 22, verses 2 to 30, and can be found on page 811 of the red pew Bibles, if you have those. Can a man be of benefit to God? Can even a wise person benefit him?What pleasure would it give the Almighty if you were righteous? What would he gain if your ways were blameless?Is it for your piety that he rebukes you and brings charges against you?Is not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless?You demanded security from your relatives for no reason; you stripped people of their clothing, leaving them naked.You gave no water to the weary, and you withheld food from the hungry.Though you were a powerful man, owning land, and an honored man living on it, you sent widows away empty-handed and broke the strength of the fatherless.That is why snares are all around you, why sudden peril terrifies you, why it is so dark you cannot see, and why a flood of water covers you.Is not God in the heights of heaven? And see how lofty are the highest stars?Yet you say, What does God know? Does he judge through such darkness?Thick clouds veil him so he does not see us, as he goes about in the vaulted heavens.Will you keep to the old path that the wicked have trod?They were carried off before their time, their foundations washed away by a flood.They said to God, Leave us alone! What can the Almighty do to us?Yet it was he who filled their houses with good things.So I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.The righteous see their ruin and rejoice; the innocent mock them, saying,Surely our foes are destroyed, and fire devours their wealth.Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you.Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his words in your heart.If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored.If you remove wickedness far from your tent and assign your nuggets to the dust, your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines,then the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you.Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty and will lift up your face to God.You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows.What you decide on will be done, and light will shine on your ways.When people are brought low and you say, Lift them up! then he will save the downcast.He will deliver even one who is not innocent, who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands. Thank you, Angie. Well, I lost my voice during the week, so I might sound a little bit unusual today. My thanks to Chantelle, who's leading the singing, despite me choosing all the songs and making all the plans to be the person. So thank you very much. And thank you to the staff who've managed while I've been working from home this week. We particularly want to acknowledge that for those who have come from Iran, this is a very difficult time. On Friday, you might be aware that Israel began to send artillery to bomb Iran. That has been reciprocated, and we certainly fear a significant escalation. So we want to say to all of our congregation members who are from Iran and who have friends and family there that we're with you and we're praying for you. Of course, we know that many in Israel also have no control over what their leaders choose to do, and their leaders are making decisions based on all kinds of bad things that have been done on all sides. And so it's a very complex and dark and difficult situation. So, we love you and we're praying for you and for the people of Iran and Israel. Job's Friends We are continuing in our series on the Book of Job, and they tell me that having a raspy voice is kind of good for today because we're looking at some serious challenges in the way that people have spoken to each other and related, particularly around how friends have been together. Now, I didn't invent thissomeone else (awesome) on the internet did. This is an original painting featuring Job and his friends. And for those listening to the podcast, it has the word Friends, which we could say you know, So no one told you life was gonna be this way? (That Friends.) Thank you very much. So, the show Friends, of course, was one of the most successful sitcoms of all time. It started in 1994, and I was really busy doing Year 11 at that time, so I never got into Friends (I know that's horrifying to some of you). But of course, you can't help but know that the teaching and the story of Friends is not really about an overarching arc; it's about how these relationships unfold and how they navigate life together. These friends, living in the US (on the sofa at Central Perk), had 236 episodes of just friends interacting with each other. The way in which human relationshipsand indeed some of the changes that were happening in our society, particularly around intimacy and how we considered moral choiceswere shown through friendships. And you could see that being a friend didn't always mean you were a good one. Sometimes you said things that indicated you had a really different perspective. Sometimes you wounded each other through how you spoke, through how you cared (or didn't). And that's exactly what we find in the Book of Job. The bulk of the Book of Job actually revolves around a dialogue between friends. They go back and forth and back and forth, and it's not so much about getting somewhere; it's about how they speak about life from their perspectives and how they teach one another about what it means to live through the mess. Now, Job's friends here are dressed very finely, and they match how Job would have looked before all the suffering and disaster came upon him and his family. So Job was a great man and a good man. Job was wealthy. Job was prosperous. Job was wise. He had very substantial holdings, with lots of flocks and herds, and a large family with lots of kids. He was well respected, and I suspect this was his crew. This is Job and the boys. (I can say that because we've got the youth in today, and Phoebe's not here, so she can't just die.) And these fellows represent the whole of the ancient Near East. They're not from Israel or Jerusalem; this is a really multicultural crew. I imagine them meeting at the Qantas Club or the RACV Club, or maybe the Melbourne Clubthese are the boys. And we've got Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar: Eliphaz a Temanite (Teman was an Edomite region known for its wisdom). When Eliphaz speaks, he is the most respected, and he comes in quite pastorally. He probably has the highest EQ (emotional intelligence) as he begins. He is kind of a mystical personhe talks about having a vision, and a spirit came past him and he learned some thingsbut he's really representing the broad wisdom tradition in the ancient Near East. Bildad a Shuhite (Shuah was a descendant of Abraham). He is the one who refers to the ancestors: "Don't you know the history of the worldview that we have?" He says no one has ever broken these traditional teachings. Think about what your ancestors taught you. As he says in Job 8, "Ask the former generation Will they not instruct you?" Zophar (we're not exactly sure where Naamah is). He is probably the most impulsive or abrasive of the friends. Everyone's got someone like that in the crew: when they're good, they're very, very good, and when they're grumpy When Zophar speaks to Job, he has the least pastoral sensitivity. He even says to Job, "I think Gods even forgotten some of your sin. I think you're getting a discount on the way you are suffering." So these men come to visit Job, and in chapter 2 we see that they bring with them a full Middle Eastern obligation to mourn with their suffering friend. They set out from their homes and come to him, and they sit in the dust with him. They weep aloud and tear their robesexpressions of shared mourning and griefand they sprinkle dust on their heads. They sit with Job on the ground for seven days and seven nights. This is exactly what you want from your friends. They had lived a life together that was wealthy, prosperous, wise, and high-powered, well respected. But now one of their number has fallenfallen he has. Job was wealthy, prosperous, wise, well respected, and now everything is gone. His children are dead. His flocks and herds have been killed. His servants have been killed. His homes have been destroyed. And now his health is also gone. When one of their friends has fallen, they come to be with him. No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was. But after a week, the dialogues begin. They approach Job's suffering with a desire to fix it, and their solution comes from their worldview and their wisdom. And so they bring these "wise" words, and we see cycles where Eliphaz speaks and Job replies; Bildad speaks and Job replies; Zophar speaks and Job replies. This happens three times. Towards the end of the third cycle, there's a discourse on wisdom (it might be Job replying, or it might just be an indication that the cycle is about to change). Then there is a young fellow who's not part of the boys. His name's Elihu (or Elihu), and he also has a long block of teaching. We're not exactly sure how he fits into the picture; we think probably he's someone from the community who's been listening to this. There is a lot of poetry in the text, so whether they were actually composing these speeches as they sat in the dust probably not. But Elihu comes in and says, "You guys, you old guys, you haven't managed to convince him. Let me have a go." (We all know someone like that.) He pretty much says the same sort of stuff, but he claims, "I know this from experience, not just from wisdom." He, like a few of them, does talk not just about suffering as retribution and reward, but also about discipline. But for the most part, he doesn't add anything. So we're not going to look at his words today. Retribution and Reward So, as I just said, what happens in these cycles is the friends applying a worldview to Job's suffering to try and fix it, and the worldview that they apply I've called retribution and reward. So if you do bad, you get bad. If you do good, you get good. This formula applies both to how you act among human beings and to how you interact with God in His world as Judge. If you do wicked things, God will punish you. If you are righteous, then God will reward you. And the boys and Job were pretty sure that this was how life had worked for them for decades, because they had done good by each other and in their community. They had been wise, they had been righteous, and they had prospered. We see at the beginning of the book that Job is not just a great man; he's a good man. So when someone looked at him with everything that he had, they would say, "Yes, this absolutely matches up. The equation makes sense." Again, you do good, you get good; you do bad, you get bad. Now, the Scriptures are permeated with this type of teaching, particularly if you look at the book of Deuteronomy, where God laid out how He intends humankind to liveand more specifically how He intended Israel to live as His people. He gave them the Law through Moses, worked out in great detail. Then at the end of Deuteronomy, you see God's promises: a list of consequences and rewards (or blessings) for disobedience or obedience to the Law. So, Israel, if you keep My law, if you follow Me, if you worship Me, if you are humble before Meif you live in the way that I have outlined for youthen you will flourish. You will thrive; you'll be in a land of milk and honey. But if you don't, then consequences will come: like exile, losing your land, drought and plague, and all the things that you might have hoped would happen to your enemies. This could happen to you. Then as you come into the prophets and the Psalms, you see the prophets saying to Israel, "The way that you've behaved has brought you into this place. Go back and look at Deuteronomy 29 and 30that's what's happening to you right now." Yet throughout the Psalms, there are laments like, "Why is this happening? Is it always that we did bad and got bad? We did good and we get good?" The questions are starting to come up. You might know that one of the Psalms says, "I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread." So still, underneath it: if you do good, you'll get good. Your kids will be prosperous and happy and healthy and all the things we want. When you come to the Wisdom literature (which Job is part of), you see that wisdom itself is considered a way of living where good gets you good and bad gets you bad. And so it's really smart: God says to live His way because you will actually end up successful. However, there's always exceptions, and the entire Old Testament is nuanced. There is teaching that says, "Hang on a second. Someone who is righteous is sufferingwhy?" Or, "Israel is trying to return to the Lord, and yet something bad is happeningwhat is going on?" But the friends have flattened the nuance and the larger picture into just the wisdom of the vending machine. So when they come to speak to Job in his sufferingafter they've done the right thingthey basically try to fix the situation with a vending-machine wisdom transaction. You do good: you put your money in, you press your button, and you get your Mars bar or your can of Coke. And if you don't, well, it's not because the vending machine is broken or needs a kick; it's because you put the wrong thing in. Or if you get a cup of muddy water out of the vending machineor if you wanted a Mars bar and got a box of sultanas (especially one that's been in the bottom of a school bag for three years)then it's because that's what you deserved. You must have pressed that button. And so the friends come to Job and they begin by saying, "Oh, look, can I venture a word with you?" (This is Eliphaz in chapter 4.) "Can I saylook, if you're suffering now but you're really righteous, it's only going to be temporary. Just hold on. Don't make too much of a mess of this. It's only going to be temporary, because we know if you've put good things in, good stuff's going to come out of it." I think Eliphaz is probably looking at Job's face while saying this, and Job's like, "Ah" So Eliphaz starts to get a little bit stronger. Then the other friends come in and they're like, "Look, your kids are deadit's really awfuland so they were definitely worse than you. But you've got a little bit of hope, because clearly you weren't as bad as them." And then it really starts to escalate to where we had our reading today, where they say, "Well, if you're getting muddy water and three-year-old sultanas, it's because you're actually a terrible secret sinner." And so in chapter 22 that Angie read for us, Eliphazwho started off saying, "Don't worry, it's only going to be temporary"now says, "Oh, actually, I think you've been ripping off your workers. I think that you actually are not as wise and wonderful as you thought. You gave no water to the weary. You withheld food from the hungry." He's deciding that he has to find some fault here, because if Job is continuing to suffer, then he must be far more wicked than anyone knew. They have flattened the teaching of Proverbs (which says, "If you keep the commands of God, they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity") and they've turned it into a vending machine. You put in righteousness, you get blessing; you put in foolishness and you get shame. Now, it might be easy for us to point fingers at the friends, but we have a tendency to flatten the teachings of Scripture and who God is when we're faced with very challenging circumstancesparticularly in other people's lives. Because, like the friends, if you've lived with a formula and it doesn't seem to be working for someone else, you've got two options: you can either force their situation into the formula, or you can have your entire life start to unravel. Now, we (the church and Christians) might do something similar when we say things like: If you give a large tithe to the church, you'll get a large breakthrough in your life. If you have enough faith, you will be healed. If you stay pure as a young person, God will give you a great spouse. If your church is growing in number, the preacher must be saying all the true things. Everything happens for a reason. God won't give you more than you can handle. Hashtag blessed. And of course, when we have testimonies with a nice victorious finish to a part of someone's life, we don't really acknowledge that God is at work in the boring and the unsuccessfuland the "Oh wait, I thought I had a testimony three years ago and then everything went to heck." We can do this ourselves. And then, of course, when we sit with someone whose grief and pain is not resolved quickly, we become quite tired, and we might move to things like: "Well, what sin has opened the door that this has happened to you?" "What are you not doing right in life that you still haven't got enough money?" "Why are you not as clean and shiny as the rest of us?" "Is God really with you and at work in your life?" Now, of course, if you go to Job's responses, you can see that exactly what happens to him is what happens to us. When people say these things, you start to feel very isolated. You're isolated from the community of God's friends, from your own friends. And then you start to wonder, "Am I isolated from God, actually?" You feel shame. I must be doing something wrong. I'm not trying hard enough to be healed. I haven't got enough faith. I gave, but nothing came back. Maybe I shouldn't have given. Maybe I didn't give enough. What's going on? And so we get a distorted view of ourselves. We get a distorted view of God. And it's no wonder that someone who sits with pain or a very significant challenge in their life could find it really hard to be part of a community where we flatten things out to retribution and reward. So today we have an opportunity for a halfway-through learning. We've got three more weeks of this series, and we're actually going to learn some deep, deep theology about the way God works and what the real solutionif we can call it thatto Job's situation is (and was). But today I just want us to unlearn some things from the friends. I think we've heard the challenge and the rebuke of what we can do when we flatten things out and talk about God as a vending machine. But let's also see these three things. And I've got my gratitude to an author from New Zealand, William H. C., who runs a Chinese church over there, for these particular points. Three Things the Friends Didn't Take into Account The first thing that the friends didn't take into account was that there is a spiritual realm and spiritual evil at work in human circumstances. For them, they had shrunk good and bad, wisdom and foolishness, reward and punishment to the human realm alone. And we know in chapters 1 and 2 of Job that whatever was going on between God in the heavenly realm and the accuser (Satan) was saying to God, "Oh, look at this guy. He does not love you for you; he loves you because of the stuff he's got." And that interplay is hard for us to understand. But what we need to know is that there is a spiritual realm that is hard for us to understand, and it is mysterious, and it is in operation over what human beings experience in life. Secondly, the friends didn't consider that God's judgment of good and badof righteousness and wickedness, reward and retributionwas never promised to be fully experienced in one life. In fact, God's promise is that even when the wicked prosper (and they do on the earth), God's justice will happen at the end of human history. Outside of human history, there is a good Judge, and those who have sought to live His way, even if they suffer, will find that their tears are wiped away. Thirdly, there is actually innocent suffering. Now, if you're a theologian you might ask, "Well, how could Job ever be sure that he was truly innocent?" I think that's a great question, and it's answered by the fact that the suffering he undergoes is outrageous. And so he is always justified in a retributionreward world because the quantum doesn't match. If he had (and he would acknowledge if he had) done things that were wrong, he had not done them to the extent that warranted this ginormous disaster. But of course, we know that when humans relate to a holy God, there is never true innocence on our part. But it is God's grace that enables us to have all that we havethe rain falls on the wicked and the righteous, we have every breath, and of course, we have His deep love. But there was one who suffered entirely innocently. And when there is one who does that for us, then we can find true healing. So let me read to you from 1 Peter as we close. This is 1 Peter, chapter 2: Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. The death of the innocent Savior means that mysterious spiritual evilthat battle we don't understand and sometimes have no ability to changeis dealt with. And the death of the innocent Savior means that judgment outside of human history won't only fall to retribution, but instead brings great grace and forgiveness and flourishing and thriving forever. When the innocent Savior suffered, then we got more than wisdom. Job is interacting with God and challenging our flat ideas of who God is. But Jesus shows us God's heart and heals us. Amen.

In this sermon we explore Jobs story of faith in the midst of deep pain with empathy and honesty. This message speaks to anyone who has felt their faith falter amid suffering and unanswered questions. It reminds us that even when our faith weeps, God hears our cries and never leaves our side. Listen in for comfort, hope, and the assurance that you are not alone in your suffering. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript It's from Job chapter 3, verses 110 and 2026 (page 786 in the red pew Bibles). If you're following along, Job speaks: After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. He said, "May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said a boy is conceived. That daymay it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine upon it. May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more; may a cloud settle over it; may blackness overwhelm it. That nightmay thick darkness seize it; may it not be included among the days of the year, nor be entered in any of the months. May that night be barren; may no shout of joy be heard in it. May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan. May its morning stars become dark; may it wait for daylight in vain and not see the first rays of dawn, for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes. Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure, who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave? Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water. What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil." Good morning, my name is Leili if we haven't met before. And what a privilege it is to be together on this Pentecost day listening to God's Word. There is a side of faith we don't often talk about It's the kind that doesn't always feel strong or cheerful. It's when we still believe, but we're tired, confused, or hurting. Many of us have been in that place, and maybe some of us are there right now. In 1856, Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers in church history, collapsed into depression after a tragedy struck during one of his sermons. A prankster shouted "Fire!" in a packed venue and the resulting panic killed several people. Though he was not physically harmed, Spurgeon was never the same emotionally. Years later he wrote, "I have been brought very low. My spirits have been depressed so long that I could weep by the hour like a child." He also said, "I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages." That wave is grief. It is fear. It is despair. But even when faith is bruised, it can still cling. This sermon is for those of us who know what it's like to feel that wave crash over our heads and still believe. And while we weep, it's about what happens when we fall on our kneesnot in worship, but in despair. And yet God is still there. Job was blameless and upright The first two chapters of Job tell us that Job was blameless and upright. He feared God and turned away from evil. He had a large family, great wealth, and respect in the community. Then suddenly the bottom falls outone by one, his livestock are destroyed, his servants killed, and his children found dead. Then he's afflicted with painful sores from head to toe. Job ends up sitting in ashes, scraping himself with broken pottery. For seven days, he and his friends sit in silence. Then in chapter 3, Job finally speaks. What comes out is not a prayer, but a cry of anguish: "May the day of my birth perish." It's important to understand that Job doesnt curse God; he curses his own existence. He wishes he had never been born. Let's pause here. Job's words are dark. They are disturbing, but they are honest. And that honesty is faith. Because real faith does not always look like singing praise songs with a smile. Sometimes it sounds like groaning. It sounds like someone saying, "God, where are you?" Sometimes there is a space for anger, even when it's messy or not fully justified. Have we been there? Not doubting God's existence, but feeling lost in His silence. Job asks, "Why did I not perish at birth? Why is light given to those in misery? What I feared has come upon me." Job doesn't pretend to be strong. He doesn't clean up his grief. In our churches and even among pastors and mature Christians, there's often an expectation to stay positive, to give spiritual answers quickly, or to hide our pain. You may have heard things like, "Where is your faith? Aren't you a Christian? You shouldn't feel like this." Or, "As a pastor, aren't you supposed to have peace?" I've heard things like that myself. People have said to me, "Why are you feeling this way? Don't you trust God more than others? You're a leaderyou help people. How can you be in this place?" Well, Job reminds us that even the faithful can feel broken. Longevity as a Christian, and even leadership, does not make us immune to pain. Sometimes it deepens it. Lament is not a lack of faith Job reminds us that lament is not a lack of faith. It is true faithdeep, honest faith experiencing itself in the midst of pain. It's the kind of faith that stays near enough to God to cry out in confusion. Biblical lament is not complaining without direction; it is pain expressed in the presence of God. Over a third of the Psalms are laments. Lament says, "God, I still believe You're there, so I'm bringing You my sorrow." The question "why" is deeply human. Sometimes it comes from curiosity, like when a child wants to understand the world. Other times it grows out of doubt or protest. In Job's case, it arises from the pain of a world that no longer makes sensewhere suffering doesn't match what we thought we knew of God. And sometimes those "why" questions go unanswered. Not every question gets a resolution. Faith doesn't always mean certainty. It often means learning to live with mystery, trusting God in the silence between questions and answers. I remember a few years ago I was in a season of deep uncertainty. In 2016, while we were in Turkey waiting to be sent to another country, Pedram and I were finally supposed to go to the United States after three long years. But just after receiving the good news and waiting for the next step, the door to the US was suddenly shut to Iranians. Once again, I found myself stuck in a place of waiting and uncertainty. I didn't know what the future held and felt unsettled and exposed at different moments. I found myself asking God why. Why am I in this situation? Why did You allow this? Why don't I feel safe? Why am I not where I thought I would be? These weren't questions born out of unbelief. They came from a place of wrestling and pain. Like Job, I wasn't trying to rebel against God; I was trying to find Him in the midst of confusion. I was searching for understanding in a season that felt completely out of control. But something sacred happened through those questions. The Spirit did not immediately answer them, but He led me to pause, to be still, to sit in silence. And then He gently led me into prayer, not always with words, but with a quiet trust forming deep inside me. It was in that silence that I began to sense God's nearnessnot in explanations, but in presence. The Spirit met me in the questions and gave me the courage to stay close to God, even without answers. Job didn't run from God. He stayed near enough to cry out. His questions didn't disqualify his faith; they were his faith. And like Job, I'm learning that the Spirit often leads us through the questions, not around them. We are not alone in our weakness and our confusion. The Spirit meets us there not with quick fixes but with communionsitting in the dust with us and turning our pain into prayer. Throughout Scripture, we see faithful people who wrestled with despair: Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth. Elijah, exhausted and afraid, cried out, "I've had enough. Lord, take my life." Even Moses and Jonah asked God to let them die. These weren't moments of rebellion; they were moments of deep honesty in the presence of God. And just like with Job, God didn't reject them. He met them in their pain. It's worth noting that Job's theology here is not perfect. He sees death as a relief and escape. But this is not the complete truth we now know through Christ. Death is not rest for all; it is a doorway to either eternal life or judgment (Hebrews 9:27). Still, God does not rebuke Job here. Why? Because Job isn't writing a theological essay. He's breaking under the weight of grief, and God receives that grief. Martin Luther once wrote during a time of intense spiritual darkness, "I spent more than a week in death and hell. I was utterly abandoned by Christ." Even spiritual giants have walked through the valley of shadows. And as Paul says in 2 Corinthians, "When I am weak, then I am strong." True faith wrestles; it doesn't walk away Job loses his wealth, his children, his health, his wife's support, his friends' compassion. He is emotionally, physically, relationally, and spiritually crushed. Job stands in every sense naked before God, and still he does not curse God. This is vital. His words are raw; his grief is real. But he speaks it out not in rebellion, but in relationship. He hasn't walked away from God; he just doesn't understand Him. That's a key difference. Job asks, "Why is life given to the bitter of soul? Why is life given to a man whom God has hedged in?" These aren't rhetorical questions; they are personal. He wants answers. And we've been there too. Even Jesus cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" God is not offended by our honest questions. In fact, they may be the most honest worship we offer. Jesus chose suffering And Job doesn't stay stuck. His questions point forward to One greater than Job. Unlike Job, Jesus chose suffering. He stepped into pain for our sake. He too was innocent. He too was misunderstood, betrayed, and abandoned. In Gethsemane, He said, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." But Jesus didn't run from the cross. He said, "Not My will, but Yours." On the cross, Jesus bore not just sin, but sorrow. And because He rose again, our sorrow and suffering are no longer pointless; they are being transformed. This means that in our suffering, we are not abandoned. Jesus has gone before us. He is the Man of Sorrows who understands firsthand. We don't need to fake joy when our hearts are broken. God values authenticity. He gave us the Psalms of lament for a reason. Lord, You see my pain, but I feel alone. My tears are my food day and night. I want to trust You, but my heart is broken. Speak, Lord, even through the silence. Restore to me the hope I've lost. Lament is a form of worship. It keeps the conversation going when we feel like giving up. If Job, Jeremiah, Elijah, Moses, and even Jesus poured out their sorrow before God, then surely we are invited to do the same. Job's friends eventually failed him (and we'll hear more about that next week). But their silence in the beginning was beautiful. Sometimes just sitting with someone is enough. Carry each other's burdens We are called to carry each other's burdens (Galatians 6). Let's be that kind of churcha place where people can bring their sorrow without fear or judgment, where grief is not silenced but embraced with compassion. Sometimes healing begins when suffering is shared, and often sharing starts with a simple act of love. Get to know one another. Ask deep questions. Take time for a coffee. Listen without rushing to fix. Pray with and for one another. Remind each other of God's love, especially when it's hard to feel. Sometimes it's just a text message that says, "I see you. I'm here. You are not alone." This is how we carry each other's burdens: not by having all the answers, but by showing up with presence, kindness, and grace. When we stand with one another, we reflect the heart of Christ. Suffering will not have the final word The cross shows us that God doesn't avoid suffering; He enters it. And the resurrection promises that suffering will not have the final word. Job saw shadows. We see the light, and we know one day all tears will be wiped away. Friends, faith does weep. But it also waits.It clings. It groans and it grows even in silence. If all we can say today is "Why, God?" then let that be our offering. Let our tears be our prayers. God may not always give us full answers in this life, but He gives us something greater. He gives us Himself. Last Monday at our Encounter Night, we reflected on Psalm23. Verse 4 reminds us: Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4) That's the assurance we hold onto: even in despair, we are not alone. And as Job's story unfolds, he doesn't get all the answers he wants, but he meets God. So maybe in our silence, in our tears, in our questions, and in our darkest valley, we may just find a Redeemer who still lives and who walks with us. We are not groaning alone Here is the wonder of Pentecost: the Spirit has been poured out not to erase our pain, but to accompany us in it. In that place where words run outwhere all we have are sighs or silenceRomans8 reminds us: In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:2627) Romans 8 doesn't say, "Stop groaning." It says, "You groan." Creation groans. And the Spirit groans too. He doesn't just help us pray; He becomes our prayer. Our groans are met with His groans. Our vulnerability is not a barrier to God. It's where the Spirit goes to work most intimately. We are caught up in a divine solidaritya holy, Trinitarian response to suffering. The Spirit doesn't stand at a distance. He comes close. He joins us. He prays within us even when we have no words. God is not just above us or beside us, but within us. And even in our weeping, He is working. Before we close, I want to give us a moment to breathe. To let our soul be still. To let the Holy Spirit gently surface what's buried beneath the surface. What laments do I carry today that feel too deep for words? Can I sit in silence and trust that the Spirit is praying within me? How does knowing the Spirit groans with me change how I see my suffering? Faith doesn't silence our sorrow; it brings it to God. And in the groaning, the Spirit groans with us. Let us pray. God of all comfort. You see our tears. You hear our cries. Even when we don't have the words, You understand. Meet us in our suffering. Thank You for the Spirit who prays within us when words fail and hope feels distant. Teach us to trust You in the silence. Help us to draw near, not because we have the answers, but because You are near to the brokenhearted. Remind us today that we are never alone, even in our deepest sorrow. You are with us. Amen.

What happens when the "great Australian dream" turns into a nightmare? This sermon tackles the age-old question of suffering, not from a philosophical standpoint, but through the raw and practical lens of the Book of Job. Join us as speaker Andy Prideaux unpacks the opening chapters of Job, exploring how a man who was "blameless and upright" faced unimaginable loss. Discover the heavenly drama behind Job's trials and Satan's cynical challenge: "Does Job fear God for nothing?". Learn from Job's profound initial responses of worship amidst devastation and his unwavering integrity even when urged to "curse God and die". This message encourages us to consider how we respond to suffering and reminds us that even in our darkest moments, we can move towards God, who is in control and working for our ultimate good. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Transcription Bible Reading: Job 1:1 - 2:10 Bible reading today comes from Job chapter one, verse one through to chapter two, verse ten. In the land of us there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright. He feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of fasting or feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning, he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them. Thinking perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. This was Job's regular custom. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered. Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright. A man who fears God and shuns evil. Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied, have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well then, everything he has is in your power. But on the man himself do not lay a finger. Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. One day, when Job's sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said the oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabines attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, the fire of God fell from heaven, and burnt up the sheep and the servants. And I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said that the Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels, and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them, and they are dead. And I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. At this Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said, naked, I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised. In all this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. On another day, the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. And the Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright. A man who fears God and shuns evil, and he still maintains his integrity. Though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason. Skin for skin. Satan replied, A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well, then, he is in your hands, but you must spare his life. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die. He replied, you're talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? In all this Job did not sin in what he said. This is the word of the Lord. Introduction to the Sermon and the Book of Job If someone else is going to do the clicking. If I did it, we'd end up. I'd be putting the news on or something. It'd be. It'd be very awkward. my name is Andy Prideaux. And thank you for your invitation. Or at least for Megan's invitation to come and begin the series that you're going to be doing on the Book of Job. This really challenging, confronting, but I think ultimately encouraging and helpful book in the Old Testament. it's so wonderful to be able to share with you today. I'm really encouraged seeing the reading up in three different languages. I work with international students at Melbourne Uni, with the Christian Union, and, I they would be if they were here now, they'd be very excited to see their language, up on the screen as, as the scriptures are read. I went to a wedding recently. One of the women in our team, a Chinese woman, I said, oh, will there be any translation in the service? And she said, yes, it will be translated from Mandarin into Cantonese, which neither of which helped me. But the English was up on the screen. But it was a good reminder that that's what it feels like for a lot of the students coming along. You know, I got to feel what it's like for my language not to be the main one. I think that was a really good thing. but I'm always encouraged because God is bringing people from every tribe, language and nation into his family. And, just it's like a small reminder of that, I think, which is great. one of the reasons, or maybe the reason that Megan invited me to come and speak is because I recently had a commentary published on The Book of Job. It's my latest book. It's my only book, actually. and I'll be coming back at the end of the series to do a QA on Job after you've heard Megan and other people teaching. and I'll bring some books there to sell. So hopefully you'll have so many questions. You want to buy a copy? If on the off chance you have to be a salesman, if on the off chance you want to buy one today, I can give you one for the special discounted price of $25. They're usually $30. So yeah, what can you do? anyway, I won't be offended if you don't buy today because it's early days. But just put a little planting the seed, planting the seed. but more importantly, let's actually come to God's word, to Job and the opening section of this book. I'll pray as we do that. Father God, we thank you for your amazing love for us in Jesus that we've already been reminded of today, in our prayers and in the reading and in the songs, in everything that's happened. I thank you, Lord God, that the Lord Jesus has been glorified, that he has been lifted up. Father, as we grapple with your Word today in a very challenging part of your word, help us to learn more of your all sufficient love for us so that when we struggle and when people around us struggle, we keep going. We keep looking to to you, holding on to you, knowing that you are the one who holds on to us. And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. The Great Australian Dream vs. Life's Realities Well in the not so recent federal elections, not the other election. the made both of the major parties promised to deliver us from our worst nightmares, didn't they? And deliver the great Australian dream. What is what is at the heart of the great Australian dream? Home ownership. But I wonder what is. What is living the dream look like in our lucky country? Maybe we could take a, like a progressive sort of look at that. Maybe it starts with the right birth plan, then the right preschool or kinder, then the the right school, then the right course after school, then the right job, then you find the right spouse, and then you get the right car and you get the home, and then you get the better car, that new car smell. Maybe you even get to enjoy that. You experience overseas travel. You improve your health. Like me. You get to middle age. You realize you haven't done any exercise in the last 20 years. Maybe I should have a look at that. Then you get the better car, then you get the super. Then you got to improve the health again. Then you get the final car. Maybe then you get the retirement, then maybe some more travel, then protect the health. Then you get the right burial plot. That last one, I believe it or not, I was reminded of almost every day when I came into Melbourne Uni because you got on College Crescent, as it's called, you got all the residential colleges and then literally on the other side you've got the Melbourne Cemetery and there was this big fancy sign at one stage up near the sort of gatehouse of the cemetery. what did it say? It said premium spaces available. Reserve your spot now. That's what it said. I kid you not. It was like my FOMO was being fed even as I thought about my own mortality. Now there's nothing inherently wrong, I think, with the great Australian Dream as I've described it there. We actually need education. Having good health is a good thing. Holidays refresh us. Most of us are going to need a car. All of us are going to need somewhere to live. And if we live long enough, yes, we're going to need some kind of plan for retirement. Of course. And as Christians, we actually have something good to say about these things we can say, because it's true that we receive all of them with thanksgiving from God. They all come from the hand of God. We can receive them with an open hand, rather than sort of just clutching them to ourselves and to our families. We can receive them with thanksgiving rather than turning them into helpless little idols like our lifestyle TV shows do. We can worship God with the whole of our life and in every stage of our life. When Plans Are Interrupted: The Question of Suffering But as God's children. What will we do when some of those plans, or maybe even all of those plans, are interrupted in some way? No one plans for suffering in their five year outlook. Maybe we do in terms of insurance, but I certainly did it when I had a very difficult year in terms of mental illness. I didn't sort of say, well, I'm going to work for a couple of years, then I'll have some holidays, and then in about six months I'll have a mental health crisis and spend some time in hospital. I did sort of plan for that to happen. What do we do when God doesn't give us the gifts that I choose, or the gifts that other people around me seem to be enjoying? What about when God chooses to bring other things into our life? Maybe an old car to drive. Maybe a place to rent instead of to own. Maybe a different job to my dream job. Maybe singleness, maybe childlessness, maybe a broken marriage, maybe chronic illness. The philosopher asks if there is a good God and an all powerful God. Why is there suffering in the world? That's the question of theodicy, and it's a good question to ponder. But the question the book of Job asks is actually a practical one. The question the Book of Job asks is, what will I do when I suffer? And how will I respond to the suffering of other people around me? The short answer to that question is that we will either move towards God or away from him. Job's Story: An Unfolding Narrative of Pain and Faith Now, Job was a man who suffered greatly throughout his life. That's probably a little bit of an understatement. And in the prologue, that is the opening two chapters that have just been read. We see him at the beginning of his pain, I guess, and as the narrative, as the story unfolds, Job's words are going to get more and more emotional. They're going to get more and more passionate, more and more confused, more and more raw. Sometimes you're going to wonder, why on earth did God choose to preserve these words? In the Bible, there should be like a Netflix censorship label sort of warning you for what's what you're about to read. But all of these words, these words of lament are words of faith. They're words of hope in God. They're prayers, actually, that God does answer in Job's lifetime, but ultimately he answers them, like with the lament Psalms, if you like in The Suffering Servant, when the Lord Jesus comes into the world. Job is a poetry sandwich. So the meat in the middle. Most of the book is written in a poetic style. Takes a while to get used to that. You sort of got to go with the flow of it. But like reading the Psalms and the bread on either side is written in prose, which just means normal sentence style narrative kind of a thing. So the prologue that we've just heard and which sets up the story and the epilogue which brings it to a close, is written in prose, and the prologue unfolds in five scenes. And we're going to be looking at the first four of those, because the fifth one is a bit like a hinge into the rest of the book. Scene 1: Job Living the Dream And the first scene, I think. Yes. Megan's on the clicker. Thank you. The first scene is we see Job living the dream. and it makes, I think, the great Australian dream look a bit pale compared to Job's life at this point. Interestingly, this guy is a Gentile. He wasn't a member of Israel, and yet he lives a life that is spiritually described here as blameless and upright. He fears God. He shuns evil. That is, his life was consistent in the way that he loved God and loved his neighbor. Maybe we'd we'd sort of describe it in that way. He was a complete man. He was like the whole package. And he lived a complete life. So the number ten or or or multiples of ten keep coming up. That's the number of wholeness. He had ten children, which it was good to have lots of children back then. Ten children. Thumbs up. He had tens of thousands of livestock. He had a great reputation that seemed to be earned when when people looked at him, they said, here is the greatest man in all the East. Great in wisdom, great in faith, great in wealth, great in life. He was concerned for the spiritual health of his family. He offered sacrifices on their behalf. Like like the patriarchs of old. A kind of a priestly thing. He was. He was concerned not just for appearances being religious, but they might have sinned in their hearts. We need to talk to God about this. He lived consistently. Everyone who looked at him would say he is the blessed person. And and we. We read later on, if you read chapter 29 of Job, it fills out the picture that we just get a glimpse of in the first five verses. So if you want to flesh it out a bit over lunch today, you could read chapter 29. And, it was clear that, yeah, everyone sought out his counsel. they they saw him as a wise man, a compassionate man, a godly man who looked after those people who were in need. But how would these same people, how would his friends view him when all these outward blessings were taken away? Will they stick with him? Will they sit with him? Will they pray for him? Will they care for him? Now this picture, this ideal picture is really important for reading the rest of the book, because you're going to hear in the chapters that follow the his friends who come to comfort him. At first, they're like that song you say at best when you say nothing at all. As soon as they open their mouths, it all goes downhill and they're going to see his suffering as evidence of God's judgment. He must have done something wrong. Nobody suffers that much. If they're a good person, he must have sinned. He suffers because he sins. And then they're going to say. And when he complains he's singing his speech, he's still sinning in the way that he speaks to us about God. But that's not true. The narrator says, the Lord says, we'll hear it again. No, he suffers because he is good, because he is righteous. At the end of the book. In chapter 42, the Lord will say his words, unlike the friends, were words of faith. Even his laments, even his angry outbursts, had faith running through them. Back to the prologue. Scene 2: The Lord's Boast and Satan's Lies We're into season two now. The Lord's boast and Satan's lies. Have a look. Let's have a look at verse six. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered, sorry. Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Now we need to remember. And I mean, this is going to become very clear as the book unfolds and certainly in the last few chapters, but it comes up again and again that God is a creator and sustainer of all that is, he is the sovereign ruler, the King over all that he is. And what we discover here is that that includes even the unseen spiritual realm, the realm of angels and demons. Nothing happens that is outside God's direction and control, and that includes even the actions of Satan. So you have this throne room scene. The angels report to him. Satan also comes into their midst. God asks Satan, what have you been doing? And he gives an evasive answer, going to and fro throughout the earth. More accurately, what he's been doing is what we hear in one Peter five and verse eight, your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Satan is prowling around and Job is on the menu on this occasion. And the Lord does something that seems strange at first. In verse eight, he draws Satan's attention to Job. The Lord instigates the action of this chapter. He said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There's no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. There's that description again. But then Satan replies, Does Jo fear God for nothing? Haven't you put a hedge around him in his household? Everything he has. You've blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. It's important to see here the Lord's initiative and the Lord's ultimate control. He brings up the question of Job. Whatever will happen to Job, whatever Satan thinks that he can achieve. It's caught up into God's larger plan, and it has to do with something to do with God proving the reality of Job's faith. The devil cannot escape God's sovereign will. And I want you to hear how much the Lord loves Job. He's. He's gushing over Job. There's no one like him in all the earth, he says. Which is what God does with his people before heavenly beings. Before the universe, if you like. The Lord boasts of his people. He celebrates his church. He writes their names in his book of life. So that so that anyone in the universe can can see it. When one sinner repents. Jesus says he throws a heavenly party. And Zephaniah tells us that God sings over his people. It's extraordinary. We've been singing to God this morning. Listen to Zephaniah 317. The Lord your God will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. That's extraordinary. The kind of love that God has for his people. We need to remember that whatever happens to Job and whatever happens to us, we are actually in the palm of God's hand. Suffering will happen, but it will not be the last word. But of course, Satan is the ultimate cynic. He sees through it all. God, you're deluded. And Job. He's a phony. He's only in it for the money. Come on. He's only in it for the health, the wealth, the blessing. Take all that away. He'll spit in your face. He'll curse you. See, Satan's not only confronting Job at this point, he's confronting God. He's calling into question the possibility that God and a human being could actually have a relationship like this. Satan's deluded, though, isn't he? We know that he's defeated. God will vindicate himself. And his servant and their relationship before these lies. But a key question in Satan's challenge is raised in verse nine of chapter one. Does Job fear God for nothing? Well, the law will allow Job's many blessings to be taken away so that nothing is left. Because he's confident that what will be left is his faith in God by God. Let me say it again will remain entirely in control. Satan only acts with God's permission. Verse 12, the Lord said to Satan, very well, then, everything he has is in your power. But on the man himself do not lay a finger. Scene 3: Job's Life Interrupted Scene three Job's life interrupted. Well, we've heard of. We've seen Job live in the dream. But now we see Job's life painfully, I guess. Dismantled. Pulled apart piece by piece. Each of the material blessings he enjoyed are taken away from him. These foreign invaders have come in and decimated his property, his livestock, everything that he owns. There's a sole survivor left after each disaster, but it's almost like they're only spared so that they can bring more bad news until the worst news of all. Verse 18, when he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine in the oldest brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them, and they are dead. And I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. Job woke up that morning, as he always did. To pray to offer sacrifices on behalf of his children. Completely unaware of the tragedy awaiting him and his wife. By the end of that same day, their seven sons and three daughters were dead. I think it's easy to get used to stories and descriptions in the Bible, so we get used to knowing them really well. Like when people encounter Jesus and their lives are changed around. We're so used to, you know, we don't sort of think about what it would mean to be blind from birth and then be healed. Like, yeah, Jesus healed the blind man. Okay, what's the next thing? Kind of a thing? I think it's the same thing with the weight of what's going on here. And it came back to me at least about a week ago. I was watching the news and more bad news from Gaza. There was a family, a husband and wife, both doctors, ten children, just like Joe and his wife. The wife was working at the hospital at the time. A bomb struck the building where the family was. The building came down and nine of the ten children died, and the husband and the remaining child were in a critical condition. Bodies were taken to the hospital, and it was the mother who was one of the first people attending. Who. These are my. These are my kids. What do you do? What can you do? How do you make sense of it? How do you respond? We need to remember. The Job knows nothing of the conversation. And the heavenly throne room. Stuff's happening on Earth that's affected by what happens in heaven. But he doesn't get to overhear that. And we don't get to overhear those conversations either, do we? We have more information than Joe because Jesus has come into the world. But still we don't. We're not privy to. We don't sort of have God explaining, okay, now all these things are happening, but don't worry, because tomorrow it doesn't work like that. And it didn't work like that for Joe. All he knows is that one day everything was going well, the next day. It's like everything's turned upside down. How do you respond? Well, how did Job respond? Well, the rest of the book will continue to unpack that response, but this is the initial response in verse 20. He got up, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground in worship, and said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised, literally blessed. In all, this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. What does he do? He mourns. Of course he mourns. He tears his robe. He shaves his head. He falls to the ground. And he worships God by acknowledging the reality of who God is and what his life is. No one chooses to be born. Not one person in this room chose to be born. Life is a gift given by God, and God chooses when our life will end, which seems obvious. But in practice, I think even as believers, we sometimes act as if we make ourselves that we answer to ourselves, that we're in control. You know, if I get this situation sorted out and avoid that person and have this experience and adopt this exercise regime, then things, everything should work out. We're in denial of our fragility, our utter dependence upon God, and we're shocked when death interrupts. He'd only just retired. He was going to travel the world. But Job is right. His words are words of faith. Whoever we think we are, whatever we have achieved, whatever others think of us. The truest thing about us is that all that we are and all that we have, and all that we will be, lies in the hands of our maker. It's a famous verse, isn't it? We bring nothing into the world. You take nothing with you naked little screaming, fragile, wrinkly little babies coming into the world, dusty, frail, naked human beings going out of the world. We are really like little babies screaming out into the darkness of the universe in the hands of our maker, who is free. But as the rest of this book will show ultimately, and the rest of the Bible will show is also good, and we owe him our complete worship the Lord gave. The Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised. Scene 4: Suffering Intensifies - "Skin for Skin" Well, the optimists amongst us, I'm afraid to say I'm a pessimist a lot of the time, but the optimists amongst us might be saying, well, as long as you've got your health, dear, that's the main thing. Well, suffering came down on Job's wealth, even his children. But now it hits his health. It hits his body, it hits his mind. Opening verses of chapter two. It's familiar territory. The heavenly court is again in session. Angelic beings report to God. Satan intrudes. God questions him. Once again, the Lord draws Satan's attention to Job. Once again, the Lord delights in Job and here exposes the failure of Satan's plans. Job still holds fast his integrity. Although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. What a Job! Say blessed be the name of the Lord. He didn't curse God. He blessed God. But Satan's never satisfied. He's always despising God's good word about his servants. Skin for skin. It's one thing to lose your staff, even your loved ones. But what happens if you feel trapped in the pain of your own mind and body, when your experience is so painful? You just want it to end. Well again, Job's faith will be proven. God's purposes will be vindicated. God allows this terrible interruption to Job's life. The most painful test. But again, notice he's in control. Satan has to answer to God. Verse six of chapter two. Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life. And then we hear something of Job's experience. Verse seven Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it. As he sat among the ashes. The ash heap, the rubbish dump. It's some kind of terrible skin disease that covers his body. He's in constant pain and discomfort. He smells. Even his wife finds it hard to be near him again. Others around him increasingly see him as unclean and cursed. Even children make fun of him. A huge thing in that culture. He has insomnia. His mind, his emotions are in turmoil. And I'm getting that from other little snippets where he describes his situation. So chapter seven, verse five. My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt. My skin hardens, then breaks out of fresh. Chapter 19, verse 17. My breath is offensive to my wife. I'm a stench to the children of my own mother. Chapter 30, verse 17. The night racks my bones. The pain that gnaws me takes no rest. Chapter 30, verse 30. My skin turns black and falls from me. And my bones burn with heat. And spiritually in his relationship to God. It feels like God's just moved further and further away, so we don't hear Job's voice from after the prologue until we get to the to the theophany, the appearance of God in chapter 38. And it's a very long book. That's a very long silence. So Job's going to keep calling out. He's going to keep saying, I can't, I can't feel you. Please speak to me. Why can't I hear your voice? Please show me that you love me. Almost the worst pain for Job, actually, than his physical pain is actually his pain in relationship with God. Because he knows that if he doesn't have God, in the end he doesn't have anything. What he wants most of all is to know that God is for him. Understandably, Job's wife is deeply upset, and I think we need to sit with Job's wife. We don't hear a lot about her, but I think we need to understand that it's her life that's been destroyed as well, isn't it? She bore these children that have died, and this is her husband that she has to watch powerless going through this suffering. And later, as she sits and listens to everyone, just continually throw these, shoot these arrows at Job, she has to hear her, the name of her husband denigrated, and all these terrible things being said about him. I think he or she is speaking out of her pain. She wants it to be over. It's just too much. But we also need to recognize that without knowing it, because she hasn't heard the conversation either. She's echoing the words of Satan when in verse nine she says, are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die. How does Joy respond this time? The last verse we're looking at, you're talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? In all this Job did not see in him what he said. Behind the word accept. There shall we not accept the good and the bad is the meaning. Shall we not make use of? Shall we not profit from not just the good stuff, but shall we not make use of the hard stuff as well? He's trusting in God. He recognizes the good things, and the hard things come from God's hand. They might not fit into our plans, our five year plans, but thankfully everything fits into God's plans for his people. Personal Reflection: God is For You So my illness meant that I was not working for a year I wasn't able to see. People did church online. and I was very grateful for, a handful of Christian friends who were very careful in the way that they rang up to to pray for me or just listen to me, or just sort of to be there. And I remember very clearly a much older mentor who rang up on one occasion and he said, after a very long conversation, said very carefully. He said, do you know, Andy, that, if if God thought that what was happening to you would lead to your eternal damage, he would not let it happen? Andy, God is for you. And that's not just for me, is it? That's for all of us. What does Romans 828 say in all things? Not just the good things, not just the happy things, but the difficult things, the things that other people around us don't understand and aren't sure what to say. In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose, not my purpose. My purpose is often interruption, interrupted and frustrated, which I think is probably a good thing. But God's purpose is not frustrated by these things. God doesn't say, well, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with Andy. I guess just taking too long. Is this too. It's just too complicated. His life's too messy. No, he never did that. He never does that. In God's hands, our suffering is not meaningless. In God's hands, nothing is wasted. God is good. Moving Towards God in Suffering When Job suffered and he starts doing it here and he'll keep doing it through the book. Even as he's screaming out of God, he's moving towards God like a little child screaming out in the supermarket. Their parents aren't there. They're doing the right thing. Everyone else is a bit embarrassed how that little child screaming like that in the supermarket had never happened with my children. Rubbish. But anyway. But God, God, he's the best parent, isn't he? He's the perfect father. And Job knew that all, all the thing to do was to run to him. And his words weren't pretty or polite. It's like the kid just screams out. They don't sort of work out this script of how I can be polite to my mum in the supermarket, you know what I mean? His words are passionate. They're angry, they're confused. But in all these prayers, he's crying out to the right person because he's crying out to the one who's in control. He's crying out to the one whose purpose for Job and for his world is good. And we know now. Something the Job didn't know that all those prayers were ultimately going to be answered in Jesus. That in Jesus we see the suffering servant and we discover that in Jesus God has entered into our suffering with us, not metaphorically, but literally. Sharing our tears, sharing our pain. God moves towards us in our suffering. That's the thing that underlies our faith. Before we make any kind of movement towards God, God has already made the first move. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. In Christ. God forgives us all our sins. He takes away all our guilt, all our shame, and will finally heal and transform and restore us when Jesus comes again. But right now, maybe for a long time, it won't feel like it. But we need to remember that God is good and he's working for your good, and he's working for the glory of his name in all the earth. Closing Prayer So my prayer for you and for myself, actually, is that as we hold on to Jesus, as we cry out to our loving Heavenly Father who's not embarrassed, not embarrassed even when we can't say anything at all. Actually, when there are only tears that as we do that we know that he is the one who is holding on to us. And whatever happens, he will never let us go. And when we look to the Lord Jesus and what he has done for us and who he is for us, now we know, don't we, that that is true. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we do thank you that you are the most perfect and patient and kind and holy and loving. Heavenly father, we thank you that you did so loved the world that you gave your son, that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life. We thank you that you do walk beside us in our suffering, and that you do catch our suffering up into your purposes for our lives and for your world. We thank you that nothing is wasted in your hands. Lord God, please help us to keep keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, remembering that your eternal hands hold us up now and forever. That we have nothing to fear because your love is true and strong and good. Please sustain us. Please strengthen us. Please help us just to keep going. And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

Who do people say Jesus is? And more importantly, who do you say He is? This sermon by Richard Bruce dives deep into the most crucial question of faith, exploring the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and the profound power held within His name. Discover how an encounter with Jesus can be a life-transforming choice, just like it was for a beggar at the temple gate. Are you ready to consider what it means to call Jesus your Lord, Savior, and Friend? Tune in to explore the step of faith. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Transcription Taken from Mark chapter eight, verses 27 to 38, Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, who do people say I am? They replied, some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah, and still others one of the prophets. But what about you? He asked, who do you say I am? Peter answered, you are the Messiah. Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. Get behind me, Satan, he said, you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his father's glory with the holy angels. This is the word of the Lord. Sermon: Richard Bruce Well. Good morning. It's good to be with you. My name is Richard Bruce, and, I'm feeling very old today because, the last time I spoke at Deep Creek, Bob Brown invited me, and I looked this up. It was a men's breakfast out there in 2006. So, that was some time ago. And I'm also feeling, old, but also encouraged because, I've known Megan for a very long time. I was her first youth group leader, and, I was there the night that she made a commitment of faith. So it's been wonderful to journey, along with her over many years. I do want to encourage you to continue to keep all of the candidates, that had their names put forward for the archbishop in your prayers. It's a pretty tortuous process that they go through and very vulnerable. There's not too many jobs that you have. Nearly 800 people, considering you for, but that is that is the Anglican way that we do it, in Melbourne. But, encourage you to keep the candidates in your prayers. My role, currently, I am the archdeacon for Diocesan and Parish partnerships, working centrally, in the diocese. And what that looks like on a day to day basis is, I work with our prison chaplains, our hospital chaplains, op shops. And then there's a whole range of, individual church programs that work with Anglicare Victoria, Brotherhood of Saint Lawrence Benitez and other Anglican agencies. So I'm I'm kind of like the go to guy, for those things. If a parish wants to investigate doing a program like a. A breakfast program for homeless people or an op shop or something like that. I'm the person that they come to. I go and meet with the parish, talk about it, and then we work out who are the organizations or agencies that they might connect with to partner with in doing that. So I live locally in Warren, and I normally do come along and sit over quietly with my two boys. Over on the side we come in. Just the service begins and then we sneak out just as it finishes. Previously been on staff at a number of churches, but it's, It's good to be with you this morning as we finish, this, series of together. And I get to start my timer now for the sermon. So. Yeah. There we go. Megan said we had to be very careful about our timing. So there we go. Yeah, it was very encouraged that, she made it very clear that as a senior minister, the timing does not apply to her. But anyway, here we. Here we go. Who Do You Say I Am? I love this. This is. This is perhaps my favorite passage of scripture. If if someone said you could talk about any passage of scripture, what would it be? This. This would be it. I love the fact that as Jesus is walking along with his disciples, he asked that question who do people say that I am? And then he asks them, but who do you say that I am? I wonder if we we went down to the ponds this morning or we went to your favorite cafe this morning, perhaps to your workplace, to your social club, whatever it might be to to the people that you engage with. If we ask them, who do you say Jesus is? I wonder what the responses would be. I think they would be quite varied, wouldn't they? Quite varied. For the disciples, we see that when they first interact with Jesus, when they first start walking along with him, they ask that question, who? Who is this man? Who is this guy? When Jesus calms the waters. When? When they're out in the boat, what's their response? Who is this man that even the waters obey him? All the way through to this point in Jesus life and ministry, where the disciples have been walking with him for nearly three years, they've been living with him 24 over seven. Where Peter declares, you are the Messiah, you're the one that we have been waiting for. You're the one that's going to save us. Jesus shows his identity to his disciples, to those that are closest to him. And if you read the gospel of Mark and Matthew, you will see this come through clearly, where Jesus shows his authority and shows the power of God working through him in these five areas to teach his authority over sickness, over nature, over death, and the authority to forgive sins. So for the disciples, the people that are living with him. Where if there was anyone that would have said, this guy is a fraud. This guy is not real. There is. There is weakness. There is inconsistency. It would be the disciples, wouldn't it? So this is the power of Jesus asking this question of the disciples. The other people who are not living with him every day they say, well, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still some others. One of the prophets. They're all good things. But when Peter says, you are the Messiah, this is a declaration that the disciples see him in his true identity, in the fullness of his glory, in his purpose living out. This is powerful. That's why he says, don't go telling people because he knows what the implications would be. For Jesus to fulfill 300 to 500. Old Testament prophecies about who the Messiah is. In just a few years is powerful. This is part of the proof of who Jesus is. To the disciples, as they are looking for the Messiah to come. They see it living out before them in an undeniable way. It is not insignificant that Peter says you are the Messiah. You are the one that we are looking for. The Name of Jesus Now we hear the name of Jesus many times a day. If you like me in all kinds of circumstances. We hear the name of Jesus. It is one of the most used swear words in our society, isn't it? All you've got to do is watch a movie. Hear people talking. Jesus. Jesus Christ, Lord almighty. Or as one of my bosses used to say, Jesus wept. It is used all the time as a profanity in movies, TV shows, sporting fields, whatever it might be. People use the name of Jesus, don't they? But predominantly it is a swear word. Now I find it amazing that it is socially acceptable to use Jesus name as a swear word, but yet as a Christian, as a as I like to call myself as a professional Christian, being an Anglican minister, most people know that instantly when I say I'm an Anglican minister, that I'm a Christian. If I was to use the name of Jesus and start to talk to people about Jesus, they'd get all offended and upset and I'd be told to shut up. But no one predominantly tells people if they use the Lord's name in vain, to be quiet. Not to do that. That's not inappropriate. That's not appropriate. We don't see other people's names being used as a swear word, do we? People don't go, oh, Richard. But Jesus socially acceptable? It's the norm. The third of the Ten Commandments is you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for your Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. There are consequences to speaking the name Jesus, and if you misuse it, that is sinful. That is against what God wants us to do. So if you've ever misused the name of Jesus, you have sinned. But the good news is that we are all sinners, and it is in fact by the name of Jesus that we can be saved. Romans 623 says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now the other thing that I find amazing and I've discovered over the years. Is that people are happy to talk about God. But when you start talking about Jesus, you get a reaction. You see, it's it's kind of easy to talk about God because God's this, this thing, this power, this thing which is up there and out there that isn't really tangible. And so people are happy to talk about God. But as soon as you start talking about Jesus, I get a response. Sometimes a reaction from people, particularly for those of us who have grown up in Western culture, most of us would know about Jesus. We know about the Easter story that this guy, Jesus, died on a cross and apparently rose from the dead. But the confronting thing about Jesus is that Jesus died for me. Jesus died for you. We we have this reaction, this personal response to what someone says they have done for us. I think we see that in Anzac Day, don't we? There is this response that even though it was so long ago, there are people who laid down their life for you and I today. And there's a there's a reaction, there's a personal response. A bit of a who am I that someone who doesn't even know me, laid down their life, went to war to sacrifice themselves? That I can live the life that I live today. And I think that's part of why the name of Jesus commands such a response in us, where it's nice and easy to talk about God, but talking about Jesus, well, that's personal. That's personal. The Power in the Name of Jesus Now, the Bible has a lot to say about Jesus, and we could spend hours here just going through the Bible passages which reference his name and the power of that. But I'm just going to go through a number of Bible passages. I'm going to read them out. And as I do, I want you to just take on board the name of Jesus, the person of Jesus. And I want you to ask yourself this question if if what is being said about Jesus is true? If what is being said about Jesus is right, then what are the implications for me? Where do I stand? What is? What does this mean for me? If this is the truth? How am I going to respond to it? So let's let's have this. Bible passages: Matthew 121. He was given the name Jesus because he would save his people from their sins. John 112 to 13 yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God. John 129. The next stage on the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him and said, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John 318. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only son. John 2031 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Acts 221. Talking about the Day of Judgment, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Romans ten 9 to 13 that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Philippians two 910 Therefore God exalted him, Jesus to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and under and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. They're pretty confronting passages, aren't they? Pretty daunting to think the power and authority of the name of Jesus, that everything in all of creation at his name should bow and give honor to Jesus? The name that is used as a profanity as a swear word. Is the name by which the whole of creation ought to be bowing in honor, the name by which every person can be saved. Is Jesus Christ more than a swear word? You'd better believe it. If what the Bible says is true. Then that impacts how we live our lives. For when we acknowledge that something is the truth, we either have to live by that truth or we ignore it, don't we? We all live by the truth that we believe that gravity is real, don't we? No one came in walking around wearing really heavy shoes with because we don't believe in gravity. And if we don't have really heavy shoes, we might, you know, float away. A little while ago on my social media feed. For some strange reason, I started getting all these video clips about flat earthers. I don't I don't know what I did to for it to happen, but I started getting all these clips about people trying to convince me that the earth is flat. And I was absolutely intrigued at the flat earthers. They are 100% convinced that it is the truth. I remember watching one clip where this guy started out to prove to people who believed that the earth was round, that it was actually flat. And as he did this experiment where he had a flat bit of paper and he had a light and he started to to to curve the bit of paper and talked about angles and everything. You could see that he'd suddenly convinced himself that the earth wasn't flat. So as he was trying to convince people that it was flat through this experiment, you could see the look on his face as he suddenly was like, oh, hang on a second. Hang on a second. I've. I've just just proven what I was trying to prove. And you could see him starting to think about all the consequences of this truth that he had just come to realize. That's what happens to us as we start to explore Jesus. We start to say, is this is this real? What if what are the consequences? How has my life going to change? For most people, coming to faith is a journey rather than an individual one off event. The Crippled Beggar Healed I'm going to read to us from acts and I'm a visual person, so I like to whenever there's a Bible story or something like I close my eyes and I try to visualize and and put the people into place and, and see what it's like so that I get the, the kind of full experience. So I want to invite you if you feel comfortable to close your eyes. As I read this story from acts three 1 to 16. And then I'll, I'll bring us back into the room at the end of it. But I want to encourage you to to try to picture what's occurring in this interaction. One day, Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer. 3:00 in the afternoon. Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, look at us, said the man gave them his attention, expecting that he was going to get something from them. Then Peter said, silver or gold? I do not have but what I have, I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk. Taking him by the right hand. He helped him up and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called beautiful. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished, and came running to them in the place called Solomon's Colonnade. When Peter saw this, he said to them, Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness? We had made this man walk. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in the name of Jesus. This man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus name and the faith that comes through him that has given his complete healing to him. As you can all see. Isn't that a powerful story? Here is a man from birth. A cripple. As these disciples, as these followers of Jesus go in. They offer him Jesus healing. Can you imagine what's going through this cripples mind. He's sitting there thinking, this is. This is my life. This is how I make money. This is my identity. I'm the cripple that sits at the gates and gets money. So when Peter reaches out, his hand says, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, get up and walk. Here's a choice, doesn't he? He can sit there and go, dude, I'm a cripple. I don't walk. This is. This is who I am. This is how I am. Nothing's going to change. No. Jesus of Nazareth. This. This is it. So here's a choice to make. Do I keep living the way that I've been living? Or do I accept? Do I reach out my hand in faith? And say, well, maybe this Jesus can transform my life. Maybe Jesus can perform a miracle and heal me. But what are going to be the consequences if I'm healed? What am I going to do? Don't have a job I've been begging my whole life. I'm going to be the former beggar. Everyone's going to know. Everyone's going to ask me questions. Oh, you're the guy that used to beg and Jesus healed you. What? Tell me about that. His decision to reach out his hand wasn't just a simple thing. It was a transformation of his life. It was an incredible act of faith. That would mean he was never going to be the same again. For him, for whoever his family was, for his community, for the people in the temple that day I was there the day that miracle occurred. I was there, I saw him when I went in. He was a beggar inside. He was walking around. Unbelievable. When we come and we engage with Jesus, there is a transformation that occurs. We see that throughout the Gospels. We see that from the apostles, from the disciples, even after Jesus ascension. And there are many people in this room today that could give testimony of Jesus transformation in their lives. Maybe not as miraculous as being born a cripple and being healed, but we could. All who are Christians give our testimony of what it was that caused us to give our lives to follow Jesus. How miraculous or mundane that may be. Just like the disciples, we have a testimony of a relationship with the living Jesus that has transformed our lives, that continues to transform our lives. What Good Is It? The last part of that Bible passage that we read talks about what good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet to forfeit their soul? It's a great question, isn't it? I love Jesus questions. He kind of just. Really puts it to us. So many people in our world are trying to gain the whole world. I've known people who have acknowledged who Jesus is. I've been using these Bible passages since Meghan was a teenager. This is who Jesus is. Are you going to acknowledge who he is and accept him or reject him? Because they're the only two options. And there's going to be consequences to that decision. What are you going to do today? What are you going to do tomorrow? Next week? It's a daily decision to pick up our cross. For those who are Christians, to pick up our cross and to follow Jesus. So whether you are a person of faith or not. Jesus is who he is. He is the Messiah. He is the Christ for me. And for many people, this is the undeniable truth. Who do you say Jesus is? Who do you say Jesus is? For me, when someone asks me that question, I often get asked, why are you a minister? Or why are you a Christian? I go to a local gym in Doncaster and we were meant to be. I was meant to be going with a group of them to the football game yesterday afternoon to watch Carlton lose again. And I said, so I started to help arrange this social activity, and I ended up saying, I can't go. I've I've got to go to an Archbishop selection. And for some of those people, they were kind of like, oh, you know, it's great conversation about being an Anglican minister and conversations of, of faith. And, I was I was sitting at the archbishop's election with my daughter Bella on the, the phone here. she's she's saying I'm talking with the people from the gym, and they're I'm trying to explain what an archbishop's election is. And so I'm sitting there typing away as people are asking her questions, and I'm thinking, what a great witness. My daughter's there explaining to a bunch of people what it is about a faith and an election. I'm expecting over the next few weeks, as I'm at different gym sessions for people to to come and ask me questions of faith. Who did you elect? What was the process? Why are you a Christian? Who is Jesus? My response is always Jesus is my Lord, my Savior and my friend. The characteristic that always gets people is that last one friend. Jesus is your friend, isn't he? Like 2000 years ago. And I say, well, no, he's alive and well and I have a living relationship with my Lord and my Savior today. Just as real as the disciples had 2000 years ago as Jesus walked this planet. So what words? If you're a Christian, what words would you describe Jesus as to people? If you're not a Christian sitting here today, what words would you have used to describe Jesus? Called to be Friends One of my other favorite passages is I come to to land this message. John 1512 to 15 if we could have that up on the screen. John 15 says, my command is this love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than they lay down their life for their friends. You are my friends. If you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends. That everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you. Throughout this series you. If you've been coming along each week, you have heard testimonies. If you've been invited along by someone this morning for the first time, or maybe the 10th time. Ask them for their testimony. Ask them, why are you a Christian? Or maybe you are someone who has been a Christian for a while and you've been struggling, and there's a sense there of, I just need to recommit my life to Jesus afresh. there's nothing wrong with doing that. I've probably done that a hundred times. But today is one of those days where you have the choice. Like that beggar. Am I going to reach out my hand to Jesus? Or am I just going to sit there and say. I am a sinner. I'm a cripple. I'm not worthy. You, Jesus can't do anything. You have that choice to make. when you came in today, you will have got a bit of paper, a little bit smaller than this, but a bit of paper on the one side of it. Is a prayer of commitment or recommitment. I imagine. During the service or during the sermon, you've had a chance to read through that. On the back is what are some next steps that you can take in your journey? Like the disciples going from who is this guy? Jesus? Maybe you're not at the point of like Peter declaring that Jesus is the Messiah. But I want to encourage you with you. You've been a Christian for five minutes or for 50 years, or you're not a person of faith yet to look at. What are those next steps, particularly to do the Alpha course? I've seen so many mature Christians, faith, become alive and fresh, and have a new confidence in being a Christian in their world. From doing the Alpha course and inviting people from their world along. So if you're a Christian, I encourage you to to do the Alpha course, but during the next two songs. Want to encourage you to to privately or if you've been invited along by someone, if you want to pray. Pray this prayer of commitment to pray that prayer. Maybe you're someone that likes to do things physically. there's plenty of space down the front, down the back. If you don't. If you don't want to be seen by people, you know, go down the back, kneel, stand, do something physical in your response to Jesus. But I want to challenge you to have an encounter with the living Jesus today, here, now, that will transform your life. Closing Prayer I'm going to pray, just quickly. And then I'm going to I'm going to sit down the front just in case anyone doesn't want to come down the front. You're not alone. I'll be sitting down here, but let me pray for us. And then, the band is going to lead us in our final two songs. Heavenly father, we thank you for this day. We thank you that you call us friends, that you know each person, you know every person here. You know our hearts. You know our minds. You know how we view ourselves. You know, you know our relationship with you. You know our fears and our struggles and our joys. And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would speak to each and every person here today to let us know that you know us, that we are loved by you no matter how much we love ourselves or how we value ourselves, no matter how distant we think we are from you. And I pray that we may this day have the faith to reach out to you, to ask you afresh or the for the first time to be our Lord, our Savior and our friend. That we may either begin that journey with you or strengthen that journey with you. But speak to us. Open our hearts, our minds, and our ears as spirits to hear from you this day. We pray this in your mighty and precious name, Jesus. Amen.

What does it mean to live out your faith in a postmodern world? In this sermon from Romans 10, we explore how the gospel is not just a messagebut the message. Discover why confessing Jesus is Lord changes everything, and how your everyday words and actions can carry the good news to others. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Transcription Scripture Reading: Romans 10:515 Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law. The person who does these things will live by them. But the righteousness that is by faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down), or who will descend into the deep? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? The word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart. That is the message concerning faith that we proclaim. If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. (Romans 10:515, NIV) Thanks, Ange. And good morning and welcome to Deep Creek. My name is Pedram. Please let me know if you would like to be a part of the things on the screen or if you're not, then, well, we find a way to well, we are exploring Finding Faith. And as Leili said, next week is the last session of this Finding Faith series as we explore the faith that we have in this worldnot just at the church, but outside the churchhow we live out our faith as Christians and believers and followers of Jesus Christ. So today, we will explore what it means to live out our faith in the 21st century in a postmodern world, how faith begins, and why sharing the gospel matters to us. I will change. Yeah. All right, so let's pray together. Gracious God, as we open Your Word today, we ask for open hearts and attentive ears. Speak to us through the Scriptures and by Your Spirit. Help us to hear the message of faith, to receive it with trust, and to respond with obedience. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. The Power of Words and the Gospel How the words we hear shape what we do in our daily life. We all have moments when words shape our decisions. In our postmodern world, videos and voices and comments from people in social media and politics, ads and friends, influencers everywherethey influence people (and us) more than we realize. So you scroll through Instagram or Facebook and see an influencer talking about a new smart vacuum, and you weren't planning to buy any. Suddenly you find that the vacuum machine is in your cart. Or during the federal election last year, constant messaging from the candidates begins to shape our thinking and decision through repeated promises of hope and change for the future. Even when shopping, it is often the reviews that we readnot just the product description, but the opinions of othersthat guide our choices. Words shape what we do. Why does this happen? Well, because words carry power. They shape our perception of reality, often without us even realizing it. We believe the words we hear, and belief leads to action and decision. That's exactly the dynamic that Paul is talking about here in Romans chapter 10. He says, How are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? So the gospel is not just another message among all those messages that we hear from the world. It is the message. It is the message that calls for belief and transformation. And just as we act on the words we trust in everyday life, we act eternally on the words of Christ when we hear them and believe. So what's the difference? The words of an advertiser, influencer, or politician all offer temporary benefits, but the words of Christ offer eternal life to each of us who believes in Jesus. Righteousness by Law vs. Righteousness by Faith In verses 5 to 8, Paul shows us a contrast between law and faith, showing that faith has always been central to a right relationship with God. The laws righteousness is based on doing, but none of us can do it perfectly, right? So the law isn't the problemwe should know that the law is pure and speaks of the holiness of God, and it's not the problem. We are the problem, right? The law reveals God's standard, but it doesn't have the power to fix us. It doesn't matter what age we live in, whether 3,000 years ago or now in the 21st century, the root issue remains the same: our sinful nature. Like an X-ray that shows a broken bone but can't fix it, the law exposes our sin, but can't heal or cleanse it. It tells the truth, but it doesn't change us. Paul points to a better waya righteousness by faith. We don't need to reach up to heaven or down into the grave to find God, because Christ has already come and risen from the dead. The work is done not by humans, but by God Himself. And the good news: The word is near you. You don't need to climb up a ladder to get to God or to somehow become righteous in His eyes. But the gospel is right herein your mouth and in your heartready to be received and to be proclaimed. Belief and Confession So then, in verses 9 to 10, Paul tells us exactly what this message contains. These two verses are among the clearest summaries of the gospel in all of Scriptureif you need a short summary of what the gospel is, here it is. Faith involves both believing and confession. If you look closely, youll notice something fascinating: verse 9 says, If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. It begins with the mouth and then mentions the heart. But in verse 10 the order is reversed: For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. Why this change? Is it just a stylistic quirk from Paul? I dont think so. I believe it's very intentional, because God wants us to see that true confession is never just about saying the words. It's not about empty repetition or external performance; it's a confession that comes from a deep well of belief in our hearts. The mouth simply gives voice to what the heart holds dear. Jesus Himself said in Luke chapter 6, Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. In other words, if you truly believe deeply and inwardly that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead, your mouth will declare it. And that declaration will not be superficial or performativeit will be genuine, it will be worship, it will be a true testimony of a life lived with Jesus. Last Saturday we had a great baptism service at the cathedral, and an Iranian grandmother of four stood publicly to declare her faith in Christ in the liturgy. From the prayer book, there is a part where the priest asks the candidates to make a personal response. He asks her, Do you turn to Christ? And her response was simply, I turn to Christ. I do. It was a short responsejust two wordsbut they were full of meaning. They were the outflow of a heart that had been awakened by grace, transformed by truth, and brought into living faith. It was the visible moment of a mouth declaring what the heart already believed. Jesus Is Lord: A Radical Declaration Well, faith is not only internal trust, nor is it just external words. It is the union of both. To confess Jesus is Lord is to acknowledge His divine authorityHis rightful rule over our lives. Back in the olden days in the Roman Empire, where Caesar was hailed as Lord, to say Jesus is Lord was a bold and radical declaration. Similarly, in our 21st century, declaring Jesus as Lord is still a bold and radical declaration, especially in societies where personal eternity autonomy, success, or political ideologies are treated as ultimate authorities. In a culture where personal autonomy is prized, submitting to the lordship of Christ challenges our self-centeredness and calls us to a life of obedience and trust. To confess Christ as Lord is to say that no one else has the final word over our lives. Only Jesus does. Faith is not private. It's personal, yes, but not hidden. We are all called not only to trust Jesus inwardly, but to declare Him outwardly as well. No One Is Beyond God's Grace Verses 11 to 13 tell us that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Everyonefrom every nation, every language, every social classeveryone. There is no second-class citizen in the Kingdom of God. No one is beyond the reach of the grace of God. Our performance, our past sins, our present failures or whatever may come in the futurenone of these things can exclude us from the offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. All thats required is this: call on the name of the Lord. That's it. Believe in His name. Depend on His mercy. Confess His lordship in your life. But someone might ask: Do I really need faith in God in the 21st century, in this postmodern world? Well, the simple and short answer is yesperhaps now more than ever. We all witnessed during the pandemic how modern advancementsthe technology and knowledge that humans havecannot fill the deepest gaps. And the problem is our sinful nature, and the gap between us and our Creator God. So faith in God speaks directly into those gaps and empty places. It tells the business person that their worth is not based on performance, but on being a beloved child of God. It tells the anxious parents that they are not alone, that there is a faithful Father who sees and cares. It tells the exhausted Nikki nurse on a night shift that she's not carrying the weight by herself. She's not alone. Jesus is present beside every hospital bed, even with her sleeping colleagues. Faith in God in the 21st century is not about rejecting science or hiding from hard questions and complexity in this world. It is about knowing where your true foundation lies. Its about trusting that when everything else feels uncertain, God is still steady. Its about opening our life to the One who brings peace in chaos, hope in sorrow, and purpose in the middle of confusion. It means following Jesus not just in belief, but in everyday actionat work, at home, and in our relationships. It means letting the gospel shape our decisions, our relationships, and how we respond to the challenges of this modern world. The Beautiful Chain of the Gospel Then we see in verses 14 to 15, Paul brings a series of rhetorical questions: to call on Christ, you must believe; to believe, you must hear; to hear, someone must preach; to preach, someone must be sent. Its a beautiful chaina divine sequence that shows how God brings people to faith through the proclamation of the good news (the gospel). This is why the Word of God matters to us in our churches, homes, and neighborhoods. People can't believe in a message they've never heard, can they? And they won't hear unless someone tells them. This is why sharing our faith isn't optional. It's essential. A few years ago, one of my friends was preparing to travel to Iran, and his desire was to carry Bibles with him to share God's Word with friends and family in Iran. But as you know, this is incredibly risky. We searched for a safe way to do it, but every option seemed too dangerous or impossible. Then one of the team members said, Instead of carrying Bibles into the country, why don't you become a living Bible yourself to carry the good news of Jesus? So we paused and prayed for that brotherthat God would protect him, empower him, and bear fruit through him. And God did exactly what we prayed. When he returned, he shared that during that trip he was able to share the gospel with 25 individuals, talking about Jesus and testifying how Jesus had shaped his life. We are the ones who are sent. We are the ones called to speak. And Paul concludes with this: As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. Well, feet might not be the most glamorous part of our body, but in God's plan, the ones that carry the gospel are beautiful because they bring life and real hope. (The Bible says the gospel brings a living hopeits not a superficial hope.) They bring peace, and they bring change to people's lives. The Word of God will change peoples lives. Living and Sharing the Word So what does this mean for us at Deep Creek, as followers of Jesus? This passage reminds us that the gospel is not just for unbelievers. Yes, it must be preached to those who havent heard, but it remains near to us who believeactive and living in our lives as well. The word that brought us to life is also the word that sustains us and transforms us every day. Faith is not just a private conviction or a one-time decision. It's a daily rhythm of hearing, trusting, confessing, and proclaiming. If the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, then our entire life becomes a space where the gospel lives and people can witness that. So let me offer three simple but challenging invitations based on these truths: Faith comes by hearing. That doesn't mean just listening to a sermon on Sunday or going to church once a week. It means creating space daily in our life to hear the Word of Christ. This could be setting aside ten minutes each morning to read Scripture slowly and reflectively. It could mean listening to a podcast that shapes your spiritual life while you're traveling or driving. Or it could be memorizing a passage of Scripture that you carry with you during the week. If we are not hearing the Word, our hearts will start to listen to other messagesthe messages spread everywhere, the ones that form us without us even noticing. It's a good moment to ask ourselves: What am I filling my ears and heart with? Speak the gospel where you are. When we say Jesus is Lord, we are making a claim that confronts every other claim to authoritywhether it's success, family expectations, national identity, or personal autonomy. To confess Christ as Lord is to resist the subtle pull of idols, not just the obvious ones, but even respectable ones like careerism, security, self-actualization, or even ministry success. The challenge for Christians today is not just to preach the gospel from the pulpit, but to speak it in kitchens and on commutes, in cafes, at work, or at the gymflowing from lives shaped by the gospel and submitted to the lordship of Christ. There is a challenge here for many of us: You don't need to be a theologian to share the gospel. Its good to have a solid knowledge of the Word of God, but you just need to be honest and available. Some Christians hesitate to speak because they feel unqualified. I don't have a Master of Divinity or a theology degree, so I don't know how to answer the hard questions. But the people around you don't need perfect answers. They need your real storyyour story of what Jesus has done for you. And you know what? Everyone has a story. Like our services start with every week, everyone has a story, and each story is unique in how God has shaped us through our journey. People love to hear these stories. So when it comes time for a discussion or even a normal conversation, you can talk about your hope, your struggles, your transformation. It gives others permission to wonder, to ask, and to speak. This is a great opportunity for the Holy Spirit to open space for them to explore what Christianity means. Paul doesnt say, How can they hear unless someone perfect speaks or perfect preaches? He says, unless someone is sent. In other words, the qualification is not perfectionit's willingness. God does not choose people because of their ability, but because of their availability. (Are we available for God and ready to share the story we have?) We are all sentnot as experts or theologians, but as witnesses. You may not have all the answers, but you do have a story. As I often say, you are a living testimony to the grace of God. Proclaiming the gospel is not about status or training or having perfect theology; it's just being you and talking about your faith. You can start with very small steps. Offer to pray for someone during the weekif someone shares something with you, say, Can I pray for you about that? Or mention Jesus in your conversations naturally. Share how Scripture encouraged you this week, or how a sermon or a podcast spoke to you. And never underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will open the way through all those conversations in our daily lifeat our workplaces, in our families and relationships. Let confession shape our whole life. When Paul says we are to confess Jesus is Lord, he doesn't mean doing it only once at conversion or when we get baptized. He means that our whole life is to be shaped by that confession. The more we confess Christ with our mouth, the more our hearts are aligned to His lordship. And the more our hearts are rooted in Him, the more naturally our mouth will proclaim His goodness. Our whole life is to be shaped by that confession. It will change how we handle money, how we forgive others, how we prioritize our time, how we treat others, how we speak to our children, and how we endure suffering. In practice, it could look like this: Choosing integrity at the workplace, even when it costs you. Serving at church or in your neighborhood without recognition. Staying faithful in a hard relationship. Speaking truth when it's unpopular. This kind of life is not loud, but it is powerful. And it begins with the daily decision to saynot just with your mouth, but with your whole lifethat Jesus is Lord. The word is near us not only when we first believed, but today, in the 21st centuryin this season, in your questions, in your complexities at work, in your family, in your relationships, in your fears. God has placed His Word in our hearts to anchor us. He has placed it on our lips so that others may know Him too. When we embody the Word we have believed, we become the beautiful feet that Paul speaks ofthe ones who carry good news wherever we go. And we carry the testimony and the story that we each have.

Join Nathan Oliver as he delves into John chapter 4the story of Jesus and the woman at the wellto explore a faith that truly impacts our daily lives. Discover how faith is thinking, deeply personal, and actively lived out. If you're seeking a faith that goes beyond Sunday and meets you where you are, this message offers refreshing insights. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Transcription Bible Reading: John 4:4-45 This morning's reading is taken from the Gospel of John, beginning at verse chapter four, verse four. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Saco, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. And Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water, so that I won't get thirsty, and have to keep coming here to draw water. He told her, go call your husband and come back. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, you are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true. Sir, the woman said, I can see you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. But the Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Woman Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in the spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that the Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, we will explain everything to us. Then Jesus said, I, the one speaking to you, I am he. Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, what do you want? Or why are you talking with her? When leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other, could someone have brought him food? My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don't you have a saying? It's still four months until harvest, I tell you. Open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for the harvest. Even now, the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life. So that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying one sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed two days. And because of this words, many more became believers. They said to the woman, we no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world. This is the Word of God. Opening Remarks Happy Mother's Day, I suppose. I don't know if that's a good introduction. It's too much of me. That's the first thing. But, And I'm here again. You know, Amy said a quiet life, not on a stage. I'm sorry about that. Thank you. That was. Pedram, you made us look way better than we are. That was good. I'm proud of Amy. and I love hearing her share her heart, too. So it's good. And, you know, before I begin, I'm going to pray. Father, thank you for your Grace. And free love. I love that line. That, you are greater. then, then our failures. So, God, I pray now that we would see your goodness this morning by your Holy Spirit. Would you make that clear to us? In your name we pray. Amen. So, Yeah. Like, I don't know how many people, would have known us before the video on the screen just now. we have been part of Deep Creek for about 12 months or so. you might know us. You might know us as, the family with the noisiest baby. Or you might know us as the family that's always late. which is fair. I didn't know there was music at the start until today. So this is the earliest we've turned up on a Sunday, so it was a good habit for us to begin. It's good. it's really good to be here and a good opportunity. Thank you for having me share with you this morning. My background is in church leadership, and, but it's been a couple of years since I've preached the until 8:00 this morning, and it was okay. so, you know, appreciate you, Grace and me having lots of nerves. I'm more nervous after the video than I was before. but I'm also nervous just just through the week. Thinking about this passage. I appreciate the Bible reading this morning. That was a long one. I'm sorry. and we're not going to go through it verse by verse if you wanted, though. open a Bible or have it in front of you. The text is going to jump around a little bit. but I'm nervous because, thinking about this passage and just actually applying it to my own heart. It's a big thing. there's a lot. There's a lot for us to think about. We're talking about everyday faith and how our faith makes a difference for us on the daily. Right. That's a big thing. And I think in my reflections this week, I'm feeling that very personally. And there's a there's a bunch that we can take out from this interaction that Jesus has, with the woman at the well. And so, what I want to look at, are three things about, I think, what this lady learned and definitely what we can learn about faith in everyday life. I want to look at how, our faith is a thinking faith, a personal faith and an act of faith. Just also want to clarify that when I. When I say faith, I mean faith in God. We're going to shorthand that today. we often in today's day and age, we talk about faith quite broad and quite generally, faith can mean that I just have general hope. have faith in myself. I have faith that we can get through. But definitely what we're talking about this morning is faith in everyday life is faith in God. The difference that he makes when we put our hope and trust in him? Okay, so thinking faith, personal faith and living faith. Faith in God is a Thinking Faith So the first one. Faith in God is a thinking faith. Okay, now, we read the passage, and one of the things that you'll notice at the start, or maybe I'll give words to you for that is there's six verses of context, six, six verses, just to set the story up. Now, the reason that's interesting to me is because you don't get that in every passage. I wish we did, but we don't. Often you'll get maybe one line, maybe one word, maybe just a really brief intro to what's happening. Maybe sometimes there's none. But here we get six whole verses on context, and so we need to learn from that and take well, the setting actually must be quite important. And it is. We need to know that the setting is significant to the people of Samaria. This is a Samaritan woman at the well. The setting where they are in Samaria is important. I like the way that the the passage was read this morning for us. It said Jesus had to go through this place, and it's sort of like, well, why else would he if he didn't have to? He probably wouldn't. And that's the case. Jews and Samaritans were not the best of friends. This was a time where where you came from determined significantly. What you believed today might not be that different, but it was very much the case in this time. Judea and sorry, Judea and Samaria were at this stage politically the same. They were both under the same Roman rule, technically within the same sort of like, country, I suppose. But historically, Samaria stood out. If you go back to one Kings, you'll see that there was a point in Israel's history where Samaria was made the capital of the northern Kingdom. Why that's significant is because when the Assyrian empire came in and took over Israel, they went for Samaria. They went for that city. It was strategically the smartest thing to do. And one of the ways that they defeated that city was to take all of the prominent Israelites out of it and put their own people in. Right. And so the people who influenced culture the most were now gone, and it was mixed in with the new Assyrian flavor. It became this sort of dual culture. And they changed. They mingled everything. They, they, they, they shared each other. They learned new recipes from each other and their background and their cultures. They they whatever. They watched each other's movies. I don't know how you learn someone else's culture, but they they sort of mixed everything up, including intermarrying and including borrowing from each other's religious perspective. So much so that Samaria kind of adapted this alt alt alternative version of the Hebrew faith. It's it's alt Jew Judaism, that's what it is. And, They sort of during this phase, they sort of like only focused in on the first five books of the Bible of the law. That's how they interpreted everything in Samaria. And so, the Jews actually had a further breadth to draw from, to understand God's Word, but it was just reduced. And because it was reduced to those five chapters or, sorry, five books of the Bible, the literal implications of that meant that they thought that the place where you worshiped God was in this specific setting on Mount Gerizim. And it was so important to them that they actually built a rival temple there. And that's. Does that make sense? Now, as you think about the conversation Jesus was having with this woman. And and he's saying, you believe this. And she's saying, well, we believe this. And you. And what about where you worship, right? That's why it's because of this, this background. And it was such a rivalry that was built between the two 200 years after that temple was built. There was an uprising by certain, Jewish people, and they destroyed their temple, the Samaritan temple. And that was 200 years before this story took place. This is a rivalry that is both historical and religious, and it's centered at the location where we're reading this story. Add something to the text. It adds something. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus finds himself there, and there's no one else there except this one lady, the Samaritan woman. And here we have a Jew and a Samaritan, and they begin to talk. If you need further confirmation of the rivalry, just look at verse nine where it says, the Samaritan woman said to him, You're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? And here it is, just there for you. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Clear as day. And yet they did associate. And it doesn't seem heated either. There is a reasonable exchange. And in the end, the woman Jesus is speaking with seemingly expresses faith in God the way that Jesus was talking about it. And by the end of the passage, we see she's a believer. Through this conversation. This is a powerful conversation. A reasonable exchange of thoughts and ideas took place, and it led to something very significant happening. It's not a normal conversation because Jesus uses all sorts of vivid imagery about water and, you know, water that doesn't run out. It's very metaphorical, right? I don't know. I don't know if you would if you would find that frustrating or not. Talking with someone who's speaking in metaphors and hey, the wind is a bit of, I don't know, I don't even want to pretend like I can do that. But she doesn't know what Jesus means. But that's kind of the point. He says something, she clarifies. Jesus doubles down on his claims. She questions, how does that fit with my beliefs? Even the part Jesus miraculously knows her family history. She changes the topic and Jesus lets her, doesn't pull it back and say no, no, no, no. It's a very even conversation. Jesus gives room for the penny to drop. Because, you know, she needs to think this through. Even when the location question is brought up in verse 20, she says, but what about where you worship and where we worship? It's different. Jesus says, believe me. A time is coming when you will worship the father, neither on this mountain or in Jerusalem. A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth. In other words, Jesus says to her, where? Think about it. Think about it. Think about who God is and what he's like. Maybe think about how big he is, how great he is. Do you really think he cares which side of the hill you worship on? There is a coming time where none of that will matter. Not from your side or from my side. No, no, no. He cares about your heart. And you might say, well, why bother with all of that, right? We saw in the passage there was a moment he pulled the husband trick out, and he. And like, that was pretty impressive. Like like he pulled out the thing. He had no knowledge of that beforehand. He just says it like, why bother with all the interaction? Just do that again. She was on the ropes. Get her over the line now. Right. You could even say, why are we even reading this at all? If Jesus is like this, that people like do the the miracle trick on me, you know, and I'll believe 100% no gaps at all. Right? And the reason why he doesn't just zap us into faith is because faith requires thinking. I don't think you can have faith without thinking. Is that good news for you this morning? You can't have faith without thinking. Which I think that's good news, because I think there is a perception out there that Christians are people who have switched their brains off, and the people who think would never believe what we believe or what a Christian believes. But I don't think it can work like that to have faith in God who we can't see. We have to acknowledge that you can't prove God's existence, and at the same time, you can't disprove his existence either. So that puts the whole thing in a bit of a dilemma. Either side of that equation, you are going to have to stand on faith one way or the other. I do believe it or I don't believe it. Both are faith standpoints. You can't prove it either way. So the question becomes you have to what? What can you live with from that position of faith that you take? Whichever one is what has the least issues for you? And so you have to think about that. What am I content to live with? One person says God can't be real because there's so much pain and suffering. Another person says the pain and suffering led me to God. Do you see what I'm saying? This week, as I was hanging out with a friend at the pub, we were talking about politics because I'm a boring person now and have grown up conversations. We were talking about politics and everything that's wrong in the world. And he got really agitated about one specific thing. I'm not going to say it's too divisive. Don't even ask me about it. but, it was. Are you Team Naga or Brookie? Which one? And we said, I'm not going to go into it. No no, no. Three people are on social media. Okay, okay. No no, no, it was something else more global than that. And, and he he was super agitated. Right. And I was thinking to myself, how do I even help my friend? What's my role here? And so I had this strange idea to ask him a question. Okay, that's fair enough. I agree with you. It's bad. But where do you get peace from now? But what will bring you peace? How are you going to live with that? And what I really want to say was, because if you intellectualize issues and push them aside because they're too much, then you have to acknowledge that the only way to do that by is by faith that nothing matters ultimately. If if you intellectualize it and then say, well, I can't deal with it, I just have to push it aside. Well, then the only way to do that, really is the faith that nothing really matters in the end. But it does matter to my friend. It does, obviously it does. See, faith comes from thinking, and thinking leads to faith. Don't just leave it there. Think. Be a thoughtful person. Think. Think about what? Why is it that when you see a beautiful sunset, it does something in you? But why? Why so much art based on the things around the world that we would describe as beautiful? Why do photographers take pictures of things that's done? Why? Why do we like it when we see it? Think about these things. What is it? And then what's the next question after that? You got to think. Remember Jesus on the road to Emmaus talking with the disciples. And he said, guys, remember, this is what the Bible said, this and this and this. Put it together. Think about it. Remember Jesus when he taught on worry and he's lying to the people he was speaking to. He was you of little faith. Why? Because. Just think about it. Look at the lilies of the field. Look at the sparrows. They eat their feel right. Don't worry. Think about that. Think this faith is a thinking faith. Faith in God requires thinking. Faith in God is also Personal Faith in God is also personal. We need to accept faith in God, which means we need to let it in. Sometimes that's hard because the personal stuff we feel can run pretty deep and it's real stuff. And actually, that's what I want to talk about, the real stuff, where it is personal. It was very personal for this lady, at least in three ways. She had three. She she had she had hurdles to get over. Firstly, she was a Samaritan. Secondly, she was female. And thirdly, she had a personal history that was difficult. The fact that she's a Samaritan, I've already covered a bunch of that. It wasn't just a racial division, it was a religious division. Certain associations with the Samaritan would have made a Jew ritually unclean. In fact, the verse is in so verse nine where it says, For Jews don't associate with Samaritans. The Greek is a bit dubious there, and is often used to sort of like translate a different way, which would say for Jews and Samaritans don't share, don't share the same dish. Right. And yet Jesus pursues her. He jumps that hurdle. Secondly, she's female. Everything of note in regard to a Samaritan background of the woman would be intensified by the fact of her being female. There's a bit of a pause in the story when the disciples catch up with Jesus and see him chatting with a woman, right? Remember that bit at the end? And I think it says they were surprised. Huh? What are you doing? Jesus is you at a lady? And it says. But no one said anything. The implication being, normally they might write. She wasn't supposed to be chatting with him. In fact, there was a traditional law created in the oral tradition that declared all Samaritan women were unclean from birth. It just really shouldn't have been doing this. And yet, if you flick back just one chapter to John three, you know, for God so loved the world that he gave. Right? That and this chapter are eerily similar. It's Jesus speaking with one person, having a deep and meaningful about all the big things of life. Except in that instance, it was a man, a powerful, educated, religious Jewish man. And he treats what's what. What is so stark about the two passages is he treats them both identically. Jesus shows this lady the same dignity and respect as anyone else. He jumps that hurdle. And then it's the private life that Jesus is talking about needs. Using water as a metaphor, anyone who would drink the water that I could offer them, they'll never be thirsty again. And she hasn't really got it right. And so Jesus changes the topic and addresses something in her life. Go tell your husband. Go tell your husband. Which she says, well, I don't have a husband. Jesus knew that. But what she said wasn't entirely true. Jesus clarifies that he knew that too. Now, it's not the whole picture. You've had five husbands. The man you're with now currently is not your husband. And yet, here's the key. Jesus doesn't rub it in her face. He commends her honest answer. And then he reveals the full story. There's no doubt this woman would have experienced stigma in her day. And at no point does Jesus embarrass her. Tease her. Mock her. Look down on her. And neither does he condone her situation. But he doesn't treat her unfairly. Instead, the offer to her is the same to you. And I have faith in God from exactly where you are, exactly where you are. I don't know about you, but like, so often I think I'm like, in order to even have faith in God, I'm supposed to be at a certain standard, even when I pray. I'm not honest all the time because I'm. And I pretend like like God. Like I could schmooze him over to think that I'm actually worthy. You know what I'm saying? Do you relate to that at all? But it's it's the gaps in our life that are that show us where we need God. It's personal, it's deep, it's real. But it has to come from those gaps. I've been getting into, becoming cultured in the last couple of years and learning about art history. I'm grown up now, and I can have conversations with other grown ups, too. And so I'm just I just want to impress people that I know stuff about art. That's all it really is. No, but I find it fascinating. I've loved this guy's writing called Russ Ramsey. he tells the most beautiful stories about famous, art, events throughout history. Right. And as I was reading the passage this week, it made me think of one particular story about Van Gogh. van Gogh. here he is. Vincent van Gogh. People would know him mainly for two things. The starry night painting. And let me test the second thing. How else? What's famous about Van Gogh? It's not. He cut his ear off. All right. There you go. It's exactly what I thought. So that's true, except the lead up to the event where he cut his ear off. Lots of people don't know that. And it's pretty, pretty powerful, actually. maybe you be the judge. Anyway. so the reason that came to be. Let me tell you the story. Right? It's a true story. Van Gogh was desperate as an artist to be in community with other people. he was he was a very, passionate guy, I suppose is a good way of saying it. And he was desperate to be in a community of artists and, always wanted to, like, do art and better himself, become the greatest artist he could ever be. Right? never really had it. Never really found that community. his brother was an art dealer. And so through the work that he did, he connected with some other artists, including, Paul Gauguin, who was like someone that Van Gogh looked up to. Right. And so, through that connection with his brother, they actually got to know each other a little bit, and he slipped the invitation and say, would you ever consider coming and living in France with me? Go again? After some deliberation, said I will on a trial period. Right. But we won't know each other. We don't know each other. How are we going to get to know each other? We can't find each other on Facebook yet, so I don't even know what you look like, right? So through their letter exchanges, they said, well, let's paint a self-portrait of ourselves as a way of introduction and mail it in the mail. I like this better than social media. And and then they said, how about we also attach like, like a literary thing, like a, like expression to it so that we can get each other where we're at. Right? And so they did. and so can we have the next slide up. This is Gauguin painted a picture of himself. He painted himself in the image like he presented himself as Jean Valjean from, Les Mis. Which I think is pretty bold. so he's a hero. He's what he's saying, right? And this is what he wrote in the letter. It is the face of an outlaw, ill clad and powerful, like Jean Valjean. That's fun to say. With an inner nobility and gentleness. The faces flush, the eyes accented, and the surrounding colors of a furnace fire. This is to represent the volcanic flames that animate the soul of the artist. The girlish background, with its childlike flowers, is there to attest to our artistic purity. As for this Jean Valjean, whom society has oppressed, cast out, is he not equally the symbol of contemporary Impressionist painters and endowing him with my features? I offer you as well an image of myself, a portrait of all the wretched victims of society. So he writes and says, I'm a hero. I'm representing all the all the outcasts out there and. And that's that's why I do what I do. Van Gogh presented himself in the sort of like nature of a Japanese monk. Right. He was really influenced by Japanese culture. He loved that. You'veseen some of his famous paintings. You can see that. and, so he got his idea from the, you know, the book that became Madame Butterfly, right? The opera, which is about French soldiers stationed off the coast of Japan. He was, you know, sort of like that. He was into that. And this is what he wrote in his letter. If we study Japanese art, we see a man who's undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what he studies a single blade of grass, but the blade of grass leads him to draw every plant. And then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure. Come now. Isn't it almost a true religion which these simple Japanese people teach us, who live in nature as though they themselves were flowers? Now, here's the thing. Like, he's he's like none of these. Neither of the guys were like, what? They said they were right. They weren't. Came from a super broken. He'd just been kicked out by his family. He couldn't make any money. He was a failed stockbroker, and he really just needed a place to live. And he cast himself as his hero. And then, like, sorry, it's troubling history of Van Gogh, but he was he was a troubled man. He was deeply anxious. Deeply. He struggled with self-doubt significantly. And yet they present each other as like, hey, this is this. It sounds like it's going to be a great community. And they did produce some good work, but they could only stick it out for 63 days. They argued bitterly every day. They were so like they had such different views. And so. And it actually ended in one boozy beef up one night when they were drinking in a cafe, discussing where art should come from in the artist's eyes. Right. And it says, the cafe owner said, like Van Gogh threw his absinthe across the room, and then he went up to his apartment. He got a razor to come back, and his intention was to kill Gauguin. He got a few steps away from him and then freaked out when Gauguin turned around and he just ran off and he ran up to his apartment, which is where the next thing he did was cut his ear off. What a tragic tale. What? What a tragic story. And the thing is about that Russ Ramsey, who I mentioned before, who writes about these things, what he says in this particular section is that to truly know someone. To truly know someone is to know their pain, is to know the gaps in their life, to know their area of need. That's how you know someone, not by their aspirational self, but by their actual self, when maybe even no one's looking. And then he points out that when you look at Jesus's ministry, that's in fact how you know anyone that Jesus related to. Think about all the people that Jesus ministered to. That we know them by their deficit. That's how we know them. Blind Bartimaeus. We know that the woman who was bleeding, we know the child who, like, was only sleeping like, you know what I'm saying? Like everyone that Jesus ministered to. It was at the point of need. It was the gaps in their life that actually made Jesus good news for them. And look at what Jesus is saying in this passage, verse 13 and 14. It says, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I given will be coming them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The gaps in your life, in other words, the things you ache for, the things that have hurt you, the things that make you broken, the things that put you at a distance from God do not preclude you from faith in God. In fact, it's the opposite. The prerequisite for faith is thirst. Jesus isn't saying it's bad to want things, or to desire things, or to to be broken or anything like that. He's saying that if you put your faith in those things, though, that if only my job was better, if only I had more money, if only I had if whatever. Your if only statement is that if you put your faith in those things, you will be left wanting. There is nothing big enough to contain the dreams of your heart, the daily lives that you live. There is nothing big enough to contain it other than the one who made you. That's what he's saying. Because he knows he's the only one he can hold us. Our hopes and dreams, our hearts hurts and our fears. He's the only one big enough who can handle that. He's the only one. Therefore, he's the only one who we could really, truly have faith in that can meet us where we're at. Do you see Jesus at the cross and what he's doing? He he goes to the cross for our sin, right? And he pays the penalty. He gets rid of the gap between us and God. The things that cause the hurt, the things that cause the act. He he deals with that. But do you notice what happens that kind of like the climactic moment, the moment where Jesus breathed his last, everything goes black. And then what happened in the temple? The holy place, the place where God resided. The place where he dwelt, the place that was the most special dwelling of him in earth at all, was protected by a thick curtain. And at the moment Jesus died and passed cross that thorn for us. It tore into, because nothing could keep his holiness away from our own holiness. Nothing could keep his love away from us. And so he says, no, it's not. You show me how good you are and then you earn it. I'm coming to you in love so that you can respond to me in faith. It's your thirst for all things is the prerequisite for faith in Jesus. And in doing these things, Jesus validates those aches. He validates the hurts. He validates the gaps in your life and says, yes, it was intended to be different. And one day all those things will be realized in him. If faith is not personal, I don't think it's worth it. So, friends, I ask you in love today. Where are the gaps in your life? These are the spaces where God wants to have wants us to have hope and trust and faith in him. This is what this is the conversation he's having at the well with this woman. And he is the very gift himself that he offers for it to happen. It's good news. So where are the gaps in your life? These are the spaces where our faith comes from, needs to come from, not the bits where you got to work out. Faith in God is a Living Faith The third thing leads from that, and it's that faith in God is a living faith. Once we have faith in God, then what? I'm going to be short here, so don't worry. So it's going along well. Let's look at the woman at the well. Can we read verse 28 to 30? It's like she hears and then she goes. She receives that. She leaves her jar there. People like talk symbolically like that. She's she's given up her mechanism to keep drawing from the physical water because she's received from Jesus. I don't know if that's what is actually going on or not. She just might have forgotten a jar, I don't know, but either way, like, she's gone and she's like, she's acting. She's like and telling people, guys, you'll never believe I just spoke to this. Man. He knew everything. He's. He's got to be the one. He's got to be. She did something. She acted. I love it, I love it how it says at the end. We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves. You see, they're going through the process. We're thinking. We're applying it to ourselves. And now we believe. And so now we are in response. Yeah. There's two ways you need to respond to God in faith. If you believe it's true. Faith. I've been thinking about what faith is and you can sum it up as belief. You can sum it up as just what you think. I don't know, but one thing I think the Bible describes faith as is responding to what you know is true about who God is. Right. Which then helps us identify how we need to have faith in him. What do you know is true about God? Do you know that God is the most generous being in all the universe? Well, then, what does that say about how you use your resources, your finances, your time, your energy, keeping to yourself? Like, how could you if you know what God's like? What about how God welcomes strangers? Well, then who gets to eat at your table? How many times? This is for me too. How many times do people get to sit at your table who don't share the same surname as you? What does it mean to make new friends? Isn't that what God's like? I'm not saying you have to do it that way. But what do you know about God to be true? And then how do you live? What about that? That he will return one day to judge the living and the dead? Okay, so where do you cut corners? What are the small gaps in your life that you can offer to him in faith and trust him in those spaces? The second thing that we can see here is that faith is for ourselves to to live out. But then it's for the benefit of others, too. That's what happened. A whole community of people came to faith in Jesus because one woman responded. In my role, I raised money for churches during the week. That's what I do. and it means I get to go and speak with lots of wonderful people. And I had a meeting not long ago with, with a big, foundation that is not from a Christian or any sort of religious background, and they'd never worked with an organization that was a faith organization. And I didn't know that until we met. And but I just approached it the same way I normally would. and so we just met for coffee and had a really good time, and it was just lovely. It was so, so much fun. And we kind of got carried away and just having a good time having coffee together. That's sort of my life. But, And then she sort of caught herself unnoticed. She caught herself and went, oh yeah, I've got to ask that question. And she, I could tell, like her face dropped a bit and she said it was like she had this important question that she needed to check before we passed the test, you know, and she said, but what do you say about the fact that, churches already have loads of money, that churches are rich? I said, you should see my church. No, I said, that joke worked better this morning. and I said, well, yeah, institutionally, I can see that's true. But the reality is, every church that I know, they're in it because they believe it and nothing else, that they're writing off their own steam. They're pushing as hard as they can with every resource that they've got. And I just had happened to have come from a meeting where I met with someone who was leading a church, and in their congregation, they told me that there's a number of instances, serious instances, and one of them was domestic violence. And so he had actually invited a woman to come live with his family. And that's what had happened. And so I relayed that to this person. I said he's not doing it because he has to. This is out of hours work. He believes this is what to do. This is how to live by faith, because this is the way that God has treated him. And then it looks like that. And she said, I need to figure out how I can tell this to the people at my work, because we need to figure out how to make that more common. And then she indicated that she wanted to just to talk more about how this was real. Do you see? Do you see how it works? Faith that you think through then becomes real for you personally and you live out is compelling. It's beautiful. It's just like the good news that Jesus shared with us. Would you consider what it might look like to be a person of faith in God? And what that would look like for your life? Think it through. Personalize it. Let it get in the gaps and then live it. Concluding Prayer Let me pray. Father God, thank you for your grace. May we live humbly in response to it. Amen.

Ever wondered, "How can I find faith for myself?" In this sermon, Megan, Vicar of Saint Philip's Deep Creek, explores this very question. Discover how we're all people of faith already, trusting in things we can't always see, from the air we breathe to the reliability of a chair. But how does this relate to faith in God, who is unseen? To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. Transcription I am Megan and I am the current vicar of Saint Philip's Deep Creek. but I stand in a long line of terrific leaders who have worked in partnership with a terrific bunch of people. Now we're here today asking a question. We're in a series called finding Faith. And we're starting today with our question. How can I find faith for myself? Believing in the Invisible And I wanted to go looking for something. I wanted to go looking for something in here. That's invisible. All right. What in here is invisible. Anyone? What can't I see? But that is definitely here. Don't overthink it. Yeah, okay. Faith is here. Thank you. You did overthink it, but I appreciate it. Yes. God is here. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Nikki. The Holy Spirit is here. Wow. You guys are all amazing. But there's some other things here that I can't see right now. Oh, yes. There's air. I can't see, but there's air. Does anyone know what's in the air? There's oxygen. Anything else? I mean, oxygen is my favorite, but there's nitrogen. Yes, there's there's argon. There is some carbon dioxide. Yes. There's all kinds of things. There's some water vapor. There's some, Trace elements of krypton. And there's methane, and I promise it wasn't me. So there are things that we can't see that are here. Is there anything else that we can't see that is here? Correct? Yes. I can't see your heart. That is good. That is a very good thing. but in terms of your thoughts, I can't see your thoughts. I can't see your feelings. But they're here. Your fight? Yeah. What you've been through. Absolutely. That is so good. Well, what about you? Some of the things that are very important to you. There's electromagnetic radiation which goes between your devices. That's here, right? There's radio waves and all those things that make our phones tell us amazing things. Yes, mommy and daddy. Yes. Well, I can see them, but do you know what? You're right in that I can't necessarily see that they're your mommy and daddy. I could do a blood test, and I could work that out. But you're right. Everyone is a Person of Faith There are many things here that we can't see. And sometimes when people say to us, well, I don't have faith because I just believe in things that I can see. We could say, actually, everybody here is a person of faith already, because being a person of faith is just about believing and trusting in things. So. I've got a chair here, and I can trust that if I sit on it, I'll be safe. I wasn't 100% sure, but I, you know, I had faith that I could sit down on it and it wouldn't break. You never know. If I put a couple of chairs together and decided to stand on them. That would be a bigger step of faith. It might not be very sensible at all, but there are other things that you and I have faith in that we can't see. So if I said to my daughter, we're going to have ice cream after church today. Now she and my husband says yes. She has to decide. Do I believe that? Do I have faith in what mum said? And there's been things that throughout our life have built up a trust in her that, if I've said it, probably will do it. I've said it in front of 100 people, so it's even more likely if I said, we're going to go to my favorite restaurant, Meat and Wine Co, and we're going to order the most expensive steak on the menu. What is like 400? I don't know, it's I've never, then she might think, no, I don't think that's going to happen, but an ice cream, we've done that before. And she can trust. So let's imagine that we are all in some way people of faith, and that there are things that we always take on trust. Sometimes if we put the effort into it, we could find out a scientific reason, for example, that Nick and Tam are a mom and dad. But sometimes there are things that we can't see at all. And we do believe. Pin the Tail on the Donkey: Faith vs. Guessing Right now, I've got a game here, and I'm going to need at least six little people to play this game. It's called pin the tail on the donkey. I'm going to put it up here. All right. So what happens in pin the tail on the donkey is you need to add to the donkey's rear end the tail. You're going to be blindfolded. And we're going to spin you around a little bit. And you're not allowed to give a good feel to this piece of paper. So you need to just have a look, okay. You're going to have a blindfold on. We're going to spin you around. You're going to trust that we're going to put you in front of it, and then you're on your own. Okay. You're ready for it. Okay. There we go. I do, I think you are the closest. Well done. Congratulations. We do have a little prize for you. Well done. All right. All right. What the Bible Says About Faith We're going to have some Bible readings now. And it's going to help us to understand more about faith. Two Corinthians four verse 13 to 18. It is written, I believe, therefore I have spoken. Since we have that same spirit of faith. We also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore, we do not lose heart, though through outward we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Now. Faith is confidence in Hebrews 11 verses 1 to 2. Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. Perfect. Thank you so much. So the Bible tells us that faith is assurance of what we hope for, but it's about what we cannot see. So the two readings that we had today talked about faith, particularly in the future. So when I sat down on the chair, that was me trusting that my future sitting would be safe. But it was something that you could see. It was over and done with. When I say to Phoebe, we're going to have ice cream. She has to trust because it's in the future. It's unseen, but it relies on what she knows about me. The availability of ice cream and possibly what's in my bank account. So when the Bible tells us that we are to put our trust, our belief, our faith in God who we cannot see, and in the promises about our future which we cannot see. We have to know that it's not the same as pin the tail on the donkey in. Pin the tail on the donkey. You have a blindfold and you are turned around, and you're not allowed to touch the outside of the page. Now, these guys had a pretty good idea where the tail might end up. This is pretty good, although I think the best one was on Nick's nose. Well done. But in general, it's a bit of a guess. The thing about faith in God is that it's not a blind guess. Reasons for Faith: More Than a Blind Guess We've got lots of reasons why we can know where we're aiming. So you're right. We can't see. And the Bible admits that we can't see God. Everyone said God's here, but we can't see God here. But the Bible tells us to trust not because it just tells us to trust. But because there are lots of reasons. So it tells us a few different things. Number one, it tells us that we've got a whole written record. If kids you've got a Bible, it might not look like this. It might have way more pictures, which is good. But we've got a written record so that we're not entirely turned around in looking for God. This tells us how. But the Bible also tells us, and you and I know that we can look around the world, and there are many things that we can see that point us to evidence of God. Now, has anyone seen any Marvel movies lately? Kids that the littlest ones know. But, well, one of the things that Marvel has been getting into is a thing called the multiverse. Does that ring any bells with anyone? That means that, you know, you might have an infinite number of spider-mans because there's an infinite number of universes. And in the sci fi world of Marvel, you might be able to move through those universes, and one day all the spiders will end up all together. Now we actually have no evidence at all. For anything other than the universe that we have. There is no evidence. Nothing. Entirely zero evidence for multiverses. But the reason it's an attractive idea. Is because it it gives us some sort of reason. Outside of a creator for this incredible experience called life. So if you look at our experience called life, if you look at our earth, actually it's quite hard to reason away that there is a creator. The only thing you can do is say, well, all the odds that have come together to cause humans right now. Everything that could have happened at any point will happen everywhere. We must have multiverses. It'll all. It's all happened somewhere. And so an infinite number of things have come together and it's totally random. But as fun as that is in Marvel. Actually, on Earth, in our universe, there's so much evidence that a good creator made us. So there's the skies, the earth, everything telling us that this didn't happen by chance. Then we have the Bible, and then we have the way in which we experience the love of each other. And sometimes that sense that something outside us really loves and cares for us. Different Ways of Knowing There are lots of ways of knowing things. So you might think, well, I, I know things because of science. Well, there are plenty of things that we know that cannot be proved by science, because science requires something to be able to be done over and over again. So if you do an experiment, you need to be able to do it again and again and again in order to be sure that the result you get is the truth. But when it comes to something in history, for example, you will have a good trust that a certain event happened, but you can't make it happen again. You can't apply the scientific method to historical knowledge. That's a different way of knowing. So you look for different things eyewitness accounts. You look for archaeology, archaeological evidence. You dig things up. You look for sources that are trustworthy. And then there are things like, how do we know that Avery and Maisie have a mum and dad? Well, we can see that in the way that they treat each other. How do we know that we have friendship? We can see that in the way that we treat each other, and in the way that we feel about one another, and how someone else makes us feel. There are lots of different ways of knowing things. And we have to go forward in our lives. Never letting anyone tell us that there's only one way of knowing things. The truth. We actually come at it all the time from lots of different ways. Trusting the Skateboard: Knowledge vs. Action Now I've got up here a skateboard. Okay, so I know this is a skateboard for a few reasons. I grew up in the 80s and 90s and, I used to sit on one and go down the hill. Right? That's. That's about as good as it was. I can work it out from a book or online. I can take a picture of it now and something will tell us. Now, how do I know? then, so I can work out what it is. How do I know that it's trustworthy for me to stand on it? Okay. All right, well, I know this one was, especially ordered by Phil, and he's a bit heavier than me. and he got the really the really good one, right? Especially asked, can this 50 year old man trust this particular skateboard? It didn't come from Kmart. Okay. All right, so I can I can have a look at it. I can trust I know the backstory. I know the history. I know that the company doesn't want to be sued. And so I have to trust that they're interested in safety. Okay. Now. That is all very well and good. You'll have lots of ways of knowing that God is worth trusting. You'll have lots of ways of knowing that Jesus is who he says he is. Lots of ways there really are, and it's trustworthy. But that's a bit different than. Getting on it right? It's a bit different knowing that there's a God out there. Believing that Jesus is the Son of God and actually putting your trust. Now, Philip, could you come up here, please? The suspense. Okay. Now, first of all, for me to really know I'm going to I'm going to put someone else on this right before I go on it. What do you got? Okay. You can stand on it. Good. Oh, that sounds interesting. Okay. Yeah. All right. Now, can can it. Can it do anything? Okay. All right. It can do a few things. What about anything else? Whoa! All right, that seems. That seems okay. All right, so what I've done there is I've had a look around. Is someone else able to trust? Is someone that I love and trust able to trust this thing? Yes. All right. Now, could you help me, please? Thank you. Right. I think maybe two hands. Right. Great. Together. Okay, so I've got someone here helping me, holding me and telling me, don't do that. telling me. Yeah, if you are, if you put your feet too close together, it's going to go out the back from you. All of these things. All right. Now. Okay. All right. Now. 00000. Hang on. It's stuck in the little thing now. And that's going to be really problematic okay I'm going to get this way. All right. So I'm not going to go down the stairs right now. Taking the Step of Faith But what what we've done is gone through a whole process. How can I have faith? I can work out whether the object that I am thinking about is trustworthy. Lots of different ways. Then I have to decide, can I take that step for myself? What I did was check out whether someone I love and trust can do that. He could. Then I said, can you help me? And he did. And then eventually I took my hands away and I moved a little bit. Now I only do this on carpet because otherwise I would absolutely it's going to fall off. But eventually, with that sort of help and the right protective gear, I'd be able to ride that for myself. So I want to say, can you have faith? Well, you absolutely can, because you're already a person who believes and trusts things. You absolutely can. Because there are all kinds of ways of knowing things to be true. And all of those ways can be brought to bear on the Bible and the truth about Jesus. But eventually you will have to take a risk. You will have to say, I'm going to get on this thing for myself. But you don't do that on your own. So what we're going to do now is one of the things that we don't do on our own, and that is to share communion together. This is a way in which we see other people who can get on that skateboard, and we stand with them and they show us, and Jesus shows us that he is trustworthy. Learning from Saint Philip: Ask, Follow, Invite Well, today is the day that we celebrate Saint Philip. And this church is named after Saint Philip, but we mostly just call ourselves Deep Creek Anglican. but Philip was a great follower of Jesus who really wanted to know how he could have faith for himself. So he asked lots of questions and he followed Jesus around wherever he went so he could find out as much as possible, even really early in his following Jesus around what we sometimes call being a disciple or an apostle. he was convinced that Jesus was someone very special. And so in John's Gospel we read these words. The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, follow me, Philip, like Andrew and Peter was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip, after following Jesus for a bit, found Nathaniel and told him, we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and about whom the prophets also wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathaniel, also someone who took a little while to get some faith, said Nazareth, can anything good come from there? Come and see, said Philip. We've got an opportunity over these next couple of weeks to be like our namesake, Philip, and, well, ask questions, follow Jesus around. When Jesus says, follow me to maybe take that step of faith with the help of others. But we've also got one more thing that we can do. We can say to other people, come and see. Faith is about having enough confidence that you think it would be good for someone else to find out more about Jesus. Faith is not simply saying this is good for me, but saying this is good for the world. An Opportunity to "Come and See" And so over the next three weeks, the kids will be doing their special program, and the adults also have a chance to invite friends to think about who they would like to pray for, and maybe at work, or at home, or at family gatherings or at the footy to say, why don't you come and see? Doesn't have to be come and see here it could be come and see, read something, could be come and see. Search online. Could be. Come and see. Talk to my friends from my growth group. Or let's go out with a few of us and have pizza. But in three weeks time on the 25th of May, we will particularly be having an opportunity for people who are here in this gathering to say yes to Jesus. So Richard Bruce, who some of you may know, some of you might not know, who's a member of our congregation is going to be preaching, and he will give us all an opportunity to say, Will I take that step of faith for myself? And if you have someone that you know, it would be great to have them there. Then why not invite them along? We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting.

This sermon explores what it truly means to have faith, especially when faced with everyday realities and doubt. Journey through the story of a desperate father in Mark 9 and discover how faith isn't about perfect certainty but about recognizing our need and the "clues" pointing to Jesus. Learn how embracing questions can strengthen belief, and why ultimately, faith is about trusting in Jesus Himself, even amidst unbelief. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Transcription Bible Reading: Mark Chapter 9, Verses 14-29 Our reading this morning is from Mark chapter nine, beginning at the 14th verse. When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. What are you arguing with them about? He asked. A man in the crowd answered. Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, Nash's his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not. You unbelieving generation. Jesus replied, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me. So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell on the ground, rolling around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy's father, how long has he been like this? From childhood, he answered. It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us if you can. Said Jesus. Everything is possible for one who believes. Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. When Jesus saw that the crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. You deaf and mute spirit, he said, I command you. Come out of him and never enter him again. The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently, and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said he is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. After Jesus had gone indoors, the disciples asked him privately, why couldn't we drive it out? He replied, this kind can only come out by prayer. Hear the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Sermon Good morning everyone. My name is Megan and I'm really pleased that we're able to do this series called finding Faith. as we celebrate Easter and as the church celebrates Easter around the world. We celebrate these events that are really powerful, but they're so outside of our everyday experience. And so when we consider can I be a Christian? We're faced with what we might feel is an enormous hurdle to jump over that we have to go from everyday life, our eating and drinking Monday to Sunday, life, to believing in things that seem almost impossible. And so this morning, I want to step us into what it might be to put your trust in something that you cannot see, and whether that hurdle is actually as high as you might think. Faith Beyond Sight: Learning from Thomas The great thing about the shape of the scriptures is that straight after Easter, we get some experiences of deep doubt. Now this is Thomas, and he's really digging in there, just really getting in there because he said, I won't. This is a Caravaggio painting. This isn't actually a photo. Just letting you know because he said to Jesus or he said to the disciples, I'm not going to believe in a risen Jesus until I get to see him and touch him, see the wound, touch it. Really get in there. That's the paraphrase. Dig around. And he does get the opportunity to do that. But Jesus says something that speaks not so much to Thomas, but to those of us who will come after. He says to Thomas, because you have seen me. You've believed that really? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. At the very start of the Christian church, the resurrection of Jesus, people really seeing him. Jesus looks to you and I, who will need to live by something called faith. We will need to believe in things that we do not get a chance to fully dig around in. And Jesus says that those of us who are able to put our trust, whether it be faltering early or strongly without having seen, will be blessed. So I want to ask the question today. What does it look like to have a little faith? Sometimes when people say, just have a little faith. They are telling us off. Don't you trust me? Don't you think I can do it or be more optimistic? Stop being so negative. Come on. Live in hope. Wouldn't you rather believe that something good would happen? But when it comes to faith in Jesus, well, we have the opportunity to admit that it can be quite hard. If someone says, just have a little faith. We look at the scriptures and we say, actually, it's way easier said than done. Life rarely makes faith easy. So we have this story. It's an amazing story and I just am privileged to share it with you today from Mark chapter nine. From Mountaintop Revelation to Valley of Despair And the context is when it says when the disciples joined the others, they'd actually been up the mountain with Jesus and they had experienced Jesus transfiguration. Again, not a photo. Different Caravaggio person painted this one. The picture of Jesus with Moses and Elijah in clothes that were dazzling white. And in Mark's Gospel we hear at the Transfiguration. A voice comes from the cloud saying to the disciples, Peter, James, and John, this is my son, whom I love. Listen to him. This is the most incredible revelation of Jesus. And you would think then this is going to sustain them this moment. Just have a little faith. I've got a lot of faith. I've just seen this person absolutely transfigured in front of my eyes. I can see that he is the king. And I've heard the father tell me it is his son and to listen to him. But as soon as they come down off the mountain, they find themselves in, well, the same existence that you and I find ourselves in every day. A life of confusion, disappointment, pain, suffering, argument, helplessness. They come down and they find that they're arguing. The teachers of the law and the disciples are arguing. And Jesus says, what are you arguing about? And a man says, teacher, I brought you my son. Bringing him to the disciples is, the same as bringing him to Jesus. They were his emissaries who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, Nash's his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not, from the top of the mountain, right down to some of the most painful things that. Maybe if you're like me. Become barriers to faith. Powerless disciples. People arguing about theological matters. No one can agree. Pain in a family member. And of course, seemingly very unjust suffering. But more than that, this child not only seems to have what we might call epilepsy or something today. Actually, no, it's not just a neurological condition. Not that. It's just just. But here we see that there is great destructiveness in what is happening. That there is evil involved in this boy's condition, because not only is he suffering these convulsions and fits, but the father says from childhood it has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. Come down the mountain and you find arguing, you find powerless disciples, you find pain in a family, you find unjust suffering, and you find evil, deep evil that is trying to destroy human life. And so faith is not easy. But to overcome those barriers, there is need. The father is in the midst of all of those challenging things, and yet his need drives him toward Jesus. Still, he is desperate. He is willing to take whatever step it requires to have his child cared for, healed, and saved. The Five Thresholds to Finding Faith in Jesus We sometimes think that putting our faith in Jesus. And you may not feel that that's you yet, go is just a matter of being undecided to a follower of Jesus, right? I have to move from being undecided about him to saying, yes, I'm going to follow him. But actually what? People have discovered that in this day and age, people have to cross five different thresholds in order to find faith in Jesus. You might see yourself in one of these thresholds. You might think of people that you know, people that you love. The first one is moving from distrust to trust. And that might look exactly like undecided to follower of Jesus. But it's not talking about Jesus. It's talking about distrust of Christian people too trusting a Christian person. So it is not possible, or really possible for a person in our post-modern, particularly in the West, to encounter more about Jesus if they entirely distrust Christian people. So a relationship of trust, a friendship, a colleague, whatever it is with a Christian person is the first threshold to cross. The second is going from indifferent to curious. So you can trust a Christian person, but you can be quite indifferent to why they are a Christian. What it means for them to have faith. but it if you cross the threshold of becoming curious about why they embrace this particular spirituality, then that's the second step. But the third and the fourth steps, they require need. They require a recognition. That there is something that could be better. So, in step three, a person needs to move from being closed to change in their life. This is how it is. I'm comfortable with how it is. I don't, you know, that's great for you. But here is my bounded set of life two. Hmm. Maybe there could be something. Maybe I could change. Maybe. Maybe there is a better way. Maybe I have needs that are not being met or not being met in the way that I think they were designed to be met, a need. Suddenly you can be open to change. And then the fourth threshold is moving from wandering. I'm kind of I'm open to change, but I'm not focused on where I'm going to find that change to seeking. And it's this threshold, I think, that we see the man with his son. Crossing in the story in Mark nine, he has heard about Jesus. He is now open to change. He has a need. So great. And now he is seeking out the one focused thing that he believes will help him to meet that need. Blaise Pascal, philosopher, said, in faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. In this world of pain and arguments and hypocrisy, it is hard to believe. But when we know we have a need, we can find, even in the unseen, enough light to move forward, to seek. Faith, Reason, and the Clues Around Us But you might think a quote like that really is just about wishful thinking. Or do you have faith just because you want to believe? Just because it's it's better for you and your mind that you believe in a God. And it's not based on any rational decision. Well, no, we have to know that faith is not the opposite of reason, of rationality, of evidence. There's a there's one of the reasons why I think we see it, in the New Testament, that Thomas is allowed to experience the risen Jesus because there is no need to deny that this can be built on historical evidence. But it isn't easy for us to find absolutely certain proof. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with admitting that. But what we will find are many, many clues to the existence of God and the trustworthiness that Jesus was who he said he was, and that he did rise from the dead. Now, Matt and Eunice talked about some of the clues that they see in their life. Matt talked about the beauty of creation. Eunice talked about seeing the need of her clients and people around her, and knowing that there is something that could meet that need in Jesus. Both of those are clues that they experience. They might not be proof to everybody, but they are clues. Here in this story, we actually see plenty of the clues that you and I work with all the time. Now, the first one, of course, is that mountaintop experience. Beauty, the sense of transcendence, the experience of are something far bigger than us. It could be beauty, as in a natural mountaintop. But here there's this spiritual experience that the disciples have had. And when they come down, actually that spiritual experience is, shared just a little bit. I don't know if you caught verse 15, it says, as soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. We don't actually see that very often, that reaction. But the great spiritual experience that had happened on the mountaintop, just like when Moses would come out of the presence of God and the people would see him shining. The people looked at Jesus with wonder, and they were compelled to come to him. So there are clues in life when we have these spiritual experiences, when we find ourselves drawn to the person of Jesus, when we see beauty, majesty and vastness that is just so beyond what we can imagine would have come from nothing. But we also see a few other clues here. There are people who are arguing. Now, that doesn't really sound like a clue. Maybe. but the presence, in human beings of rational thought, of the attempt to see patterns, analyze things, and engage with one another on things that are really important. In fact, things that are not just what we can see or touch. Actually, that is a clue to us being something more than just another animal in the animal kingdom and an ordered universe in which you feel you can put together some rational set of beliefs and you can compare it to another one. Actually, that also is a clue, because science comes out of a universe that we believe can be predicted, that is ordered, that we trust, that the results that we get from our experiments are actually trustworthy. And the the final clue is the deep love and compassion that the father has for his child. Now we know that, the natural world wants to look after its young so that there is a propagation of the species. And you could say that that has nothing to do with God. But in the natural world, when there is a child, an offspring of an animal that is so unwell, you don't invest every resource that you have to care for it and love it. You don't see in the destruction that is coming, threatening it at every moment, the work of evil, because life itself is so precious. There is a clue here, in the great sense of unjust suffering and the pain that the father is feeling, that we were not simply made as animals that were a collection of random whatevers. But there is something deep within. There is unseen love and need and hope and compassion and sacrifice. That makes no sense. So we may not see proof, but boy, do we see a lot of clues. For me too, I find that, this book and there are parts of it that I still have questions about, but this book helps me to understand what I see everywhere in the world. C.S. Lewis said, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen not only because I see it and I think this is trustworthy, but because by it I see everything else. When I look around a world that is selfish and in pain and yet hopeful and has love and wants to see a future and really just wants to have money and is, you know, full of comfort and yet deep injustice. This makes sense of that for me. So faith is not easy, but our faith can be formed. Looking at the clues and feeling our need and faith can handle doubt. Faith and Doubt: Building Spiritual Antibodies For me, I have always allowed myself to feel, and maybe I shouldn't say aloud myself as though I had some control over it. I have faced many crises and I have felt them deeply. I don't know whether I've allowed myself to do it or not, but boy, has it happened when something has challenged my faith. I have been so privileged to not really have deep, deep loss or suffering to challenge my faith. A lot of my crises of faith have been around my own sense of God's presence, whether he is at work, and then they have been intellectual and academic. So how do I know that Christianity is the one true religion? That has been a big thing for me throughout. Because I think spirituality is important. But how do I know Christianity had people turn up at the door to tell me about, you know, being witnesses of Jehovah? And I have felt that crisis and I've I've done a lot of looking into world religions and I have felt that crisis. I've looked at the way in which the Bible seems to be out of step with some of the things that we think are human rights. The quality of the of of the sexes. And I have felt that crisis. But what I have done and I didn't, put these words to it at the time. But what I have done is push into each one of those crises. Learn more. Never given up until what that crisis has done has created in me antibodies that have made my faith stronger and healthier. So Tim Keller says, a faith without some doubt is like a human body without antibodies. People who blindly follow their religion without questioning it are extremely vulnerable to crises. And so every time a crisis of faith has come and I expect them to continue to come, you might be in one right now. It is so useful to me. To think that God. God says that doubt will make my faith stronger if I use it. If I do what a healthy body does and recognize the pathogen full on and explore it and whatever I have to do, you know, whatever protein needs to, show itself on the surface of my T-cell. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I do that, and it might take some time, and then I can move forward to the next exposure to some pathogen. You might remember when. I don't know if it was a it was because there was a new technology, but suddenly you could buy these massive packets of Dettol wipes, you know, the terrible for the environment. And I feel like there was a time as an adult when that wasn't a thing. And then suddenly the supermarket was full of these disposable, sanitizing wipes, and it was way before Covid. And so you'd be thinking, I got to get my whole house. And this is perfect, you know? Free to air TV where you always see ads that'd be of that movie. My house is going to be so clean. And then, of course, the backlash. Well, if your house is too clean, your child's going to die because it'll never be exposed to anything and its immune system will be so, and you will have wrecked it. And you have to let it play in mud. Well. Let us feel that backlash for our faith. Feel the uncertainty. Feel the questions. Talk about them. Name them. Articulate them. Touch the mud and see how your faith can be strengthened. So we come towards the end of this story. "I Do Believe; Help Me Overcome My Unbelief!" And, so he he sees the boy. Jesus says, how long has he been like this? From childhood. If you can do anything. Take pity on us and help us if you can. Said Jesus, everything is possible for one who believes. Now, in some context, we read this story about needing to wind up our faith so that we can see answers to our prayer, especially healing. Everything is possible for one who believes. But what we find in this story, actually in the man's response and in Jesus response to the disciples at the end, is that that's probably not the right way to read it. What we need to read it as is everything is possible by Jesus, and you need to put your trust in him. Because what happened with the disciples? Well, they'd been sent out earlier. They'd been empowered to heal and to cast out demons, and they'd been quite successful at that. And so what we see in Mark's gospel is this kind of ramping up of the powers of darkness and the brokenness in the world as it stands against Jesus. And here and one of the people I was listening to talked about it as a Mario boss battle. Like, you've kind of gone through a whole lot of stuff. And then here, that's for the youth. here at the end, what do you call. These. Bowser. Bowser. That's the thing. Yeah. Bowser. Thank you. Phoebe. Right. You've hit this boss battle. And all the confidence that the disciples have in themselves. And they've seen that their their ministry being successful, means nothing. And when they say, why couldn't we do it? And Jesus says, this kind can only come out by prayer. It's like, you can't do it. I can do it. You can't do it. But I can do it. If you can, said Jesus, everything is possible. For one who believes in me. Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. Yesterday we were in the Alpha Saturday, and it was such a special day for me to be part of just a little, part of that course with those women who were doing it together at the moment. And we were talking about belief and unbelief. And and maybe the sense is for you like it was for some that they are opposites, but we have to admit that each one of us actually carries both. Even Christian people who are trusting in Jesus have all kinds of beliefs. And Jesus does not say that that stops his work for this man. He says, I do believe help me overcome my unbelief. And in that, in that prayer, Jesus rebukes the impure spirit. The spirit shrieks, convulsed, comes out. The boy looks so much like a corpse that many said he's dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. Faith is not easy. But for the disciples they'd seen this kind of ability in the name of Jesus to break through some of the brokenness and the evil in the world. And yet here no. But Jesus. Not only can conquer illness, but here he conquers evil and death. And the man had some belief and some unbelief. Doubt is not the rejection of belief, but holding a belief with hesitation and uncertainty. This man had doubts and he had reason to. But he had followed his need and the many clues, and decided to trust with what he could. Doubt involves believing something with questions about whether it is really true or not. So as we conclude. Faith is Trusting Jesus Faith is not about being 100% certain. Being sure that there is 100% proof for everything that you want to trust. Faith is not even something in yourself that you have to wind up so that God will give you a healing. No, faith is trusting Jesus. Not yourself, not your faith, not your belief. Sometimes we look at something like Romans five and we think that faith really is about us. Since we've been made right in God's sight by faith and because of our faith, Christ has done this. But actually, faith is just this internal spiritual mechanism by which we receive the work of Jesus for us. It is the reaching out in heart and mind and strength and soul. And the text really is telling us that it's all about Jesus. We've been made right in God's sight by faith, but it's because of what Jesus Christ, our Lord, has done for us. Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege, and faith is simply the way in which we move into that that Jesus has done for the man in this story. His belief was mixed. Maybe yours is too. But really, he took the first step to Jesus, not the first step to transforming his life, not the first step to filling his faith tank. He took a step to Jesus. He didn't see the rest of the picture. But faith as we begin this series is about Jesus. The band are going to come up. I'm already up here, so that's useful. And we're going to take this moment. The next couple of songs are just to allow some of that. To speak to where we are. There'll be opportunities throughout this series for you to take a step. And I want to encourage you to take a step. Heart, mind. Will, what do you need to do? Are there antibodies that need to be built up? Are there doubts that you need to talk about, or do you need to know that it's about Jesus? So let's stand and sing. And this is about worshiping Jesus. But it tells us that it's about Jesus nonetheless.

Tune in to Deep Creek Anglican Church as Megan explores the journey from the "fog of despair" to the "dawn of new life" this Easter. Discover how the disciples, lost in confusion after Good Friday, encounter the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus. This sermon unpacks the story of redemption, revealing how Jesus opens our minds to the scriptures, our wills to seek His presence, and our hearts to recognize Him in the breaking of bread a journey for us every single day. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript How wonderful. Thank you so much. My name is Megan. If you haven't met me before. I'm one of the ministry team here at Deep Creek. And what an incredible privilege it is to be together on this day. Might not be shining outside, but, that's kind of a good thing, actually. We definitely need the weather to cool down. but we are here on this most brightest of days where we celebrate the dawn, the dawn of resurrection, the dawn of new life. The Beginning of the Story: Redemption So, this morning, we begin with a story. And every story begins somewhere. This one appeared to begin on a morning very early in the morning on the first day of the week. We hear that echoed in all the Gospels, but actually this story began a lot earlier. This story began with the birth of a baby. And at the beginning of this same Gospel of Luke, there is a woman who has been waiting, who has been waiting for this baby. And she says, that this is the one who would bring the redemption of Jerusalem. There was a prophet, Anna. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day fasting and praying. And when Mary and Joseph brought the baby Jesus to the temple, she sees the baby. And she gives thanks to God and speaks about the child to all who are looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. This is the beginning of the story. The story of redemption. Now, redemption is not a word we use very often today. It means setting free by the payment of a price. In the Old Testament, it was used to refer to the buying back of slaves. It was used of God acting to free his people from their enemies and from oppression. But when Anna, at the beginning of this story, looks at this baby, she is thinking of far more than just the buying back of a slave or the redeeming of Israel. She is seeing the setting free of the whole world. How then do we get from this? Baby. From Hope to Despair: The Fog of Disappointment To two people walking along. In the fog. The fog of despair. The fog of confusion, sadness and disappointment. The story began like so many stories do, with great hope and potential. Like when you and I might see a baby. Or the cutest ones are here and you know there is so much hope. And you see the child as such a gift. And yet as life goes on, hard things happen, unexpected things come. And maybe the potential and the great hope that you had when you looked at that child seems very hidden indeed. And so that's what we find when we have these two disciples walking along after Good Friday. The story that began with the great potential of a baby, the one who would be the redeemer of Israel and the whole world. Seems to have ended in not victory, but defeat. There was a glimmer of light and now, because of Good Friday, they walked in the long shadows of disappointment, the potential, everything that they'd seen in this man who had healed, who had blessed, who had welcomed, who had seemed to hold within himself the very power of God, had died on a cross. And they use the same words as Anna. They say about this one. We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. In the Gospel of Luke. You actually only get the words redemption twice in the beginning, in the kind of infancy parts of the story. And then here. Here, when the story seems to have come to an abrupt end. We had hoped, like the prophet Anna, that this was the one to redeem Jerusalem. And yet it's been three days, and our hearts are broken. They started off on a journey with Jesus. And they've heard that there's an empty tomb. But it was not simply a matter of hearing that the body was no longer there. They have to put a great deal together because they have been through so much. The traumatic events of Jesus arrest and execution. They'd heard prophecies concerning the Messiah Jesus had said. What would come and they had experienced and learnt so much, but this had not yet come together in their understanding. The journey had begun, but it seemed to have become very clouded indeed. Jesus Journeys With Us in Confusion But the risen Lord Jesus never, ever leaves us in our doubt and confusion. As they talked and discussed these things with each other. Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing him. We have this strange collection of stories about the resurrection of Jesus, and I tell you, if you were making it up, you would not have these. Strange. Did we recognize him? What was he doing? Was it him? Was it a gardener? Where were we? Where were they? What was going on? We didn't believe them. We thought it sounded like nonsense. You wouldn't make this up. But what you would do is tell the stories of exactly the confusing moments that you had, where resurrection life broke through into your normal, everyday existence, where someone who was dead was suddenly alive again and you did not recognize them because they were now both alive and a heavenly being ready for eternity. You would not have said, ah! We were standing together and we were really sad. And then suddenly we. Someone walked through a wall and there he was in our midst. All of these stories, the disciples trying to make sense. Of the spiritual, of the eternal, of heaven's life breaking into this one. But we also suspect that God was doing what God always does. Go on the journey with us. God knows that you and I need time to come to understand who he really is. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about how in Luke's gospel, he moves us from the mind to the will to the heart. That you see the evidence of who Jesus is, and you ponder it and you say, yeah, okay, I could believe. And then you see the call and the compelling nature of who he is, and you say, I want to. I want to believe, I want to be near him. But then finally, you see his heart. You see what it meant for him to weep over Jerusalem, to die on the cross, and to come and meet his disciples in the midst of their grief. And you say. I could believe. I want to believe. And now I believe and love this one. So, Luke, throughout his whole gospel does this mind, will and heart. But here, here in the journey to Emmaus, he does the same thing. Jesus takes the two disciples on that journey. The confusion of resurrection becomes the dawn of the mind, the dawn of the will, and the dawn of the heart. The Dawn of the Mind So we begin with the dawn of the mind. Jesus speaks to them and says, How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. There was so much to put together. And only the risen Lord Jesus could make sense of it all. So he speaks to them, and he tells them about this suffering and glory that the Messiah must undergo. And I wonder whether you've ever thought about where that might be in Moses, the prophets, and all the scriptures or the writings is how we sometimes call them. I sat with them for a while. I didn't go through with a highlighter the entire Old Testament. that's the good thing about having computers these days. But I sat with it for a while and I wondered what would he have been explaining to them? Well, from the very start of the story in Genesis, death enters the world because of sin. And the promise is that the offspring of the woman will be bruised, but he will crush the serpent's head. There is suffering and glory, and only arisen Messiah can make sense of it. Abraham with his only son Isaac, or the son of promise, I should say, is there ready to sacrifice him. And yet God says, no. I will provide I will provide the sacrifice. And of course, the gift of that sacrifice would lead to the blessing of Abraham and the whole world, suffering and glory. Exodus 12. The Passover Lamb, the blood on the door before the Exodus into freedom, suffering, and glory in the prophets. Isaiah 53. The suffering servant pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. And yet remains obedient, confident that God would bring a victory. In Zechariah, God says, they will look on me, the one they have pierced before the promised last days, or the new covenant will come suffering and glory. In Psalm 118, which is used throughout the New Testament. There's a picture of a stone that the builders rejected, becoming the cornerstone. Jesus wants his disciples to know that this picture of suffering, rejection, the one who would take death and sin on himself, was necessary, always necessary before glory. The only way for life to come to the whole world would be suffering. Followed by glory. It isn't a detour. It is the plan. It is the map. The cross wasn't a mistake. It was the fulfillment of the pattern that had always been foretold. For God to redeem a people who were stuck in slavery to death and sin and darkness. He had to enter into it and then break it open from the inside. So only a risen Messiah can make sense of it all. And so he explains to them, and he uses this Greek word day, and it means it is necessary. It must. It had to happen. And so he, of course, has showed that it had to happen from the Old Testament, from Moses or the the Torah, the prophets and the writings, the Psalms especially. But throughout Luke's Gospel, he's used that language already. He's said. Didn't you know I had to be in my father's house? Didn't you know that it was necessary for the Messiah to die? And on the third day rise again? I must go to Jerusalem, because that's where prophets face their suffering. I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God. The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and be killed, and on the third day be raised to life. There is a divine necessity in this, and only the risen Jesus can explain it to us in the midst of the mystery. The Dawning of the Will And so as they travel along this road, perhaps the fog is starting to lift. They realize they'd heard this before. They'd heard it must. It is necessary. They'd heard Jesus say that before. He's explained to them why he would say that they've seen the Old Testament in a new light. And so I think here is the dawning of the will. They want to be near him. They want to understand. So as they approach the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. I don't know if he was or he was like, come on, guys, come on. Where's that will? But they urged him strongly, Stay with us, for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over. So he went in to stay with them. Only a living Jesus can make us seek his presence even in the fog. I don't know if that's your experience even today. It's kind of perfect that we're sitting in this very gray moment, because it can be that life never looks as shiny as we want Easter Sunday to look. Easter Sunday never looks as shiny as we want Easter Sunday to look. But there's something about Jesus that makes us hunger and thirst for him. I know that when I became a Christian at age 14, I really had no idea who this Jesus was. But there was something about him. There was something about this one who would love me and call me to himself. That made me want to be near him. When I go to my professional supervision and I, say, this is so hard, this thing has happened. It's so hard. Ultimately, where I end up is wanting to be near Jesus. I don't have an answer all the time. Sometimes I'm still in the mystery and the fog of hard things that happen in life, including the life of faith. But there's something in my will that knows that if I could just be in a room with Jesus, if I could just take another step closer to him, then that would be part of what would make it okay. And I don't think that a dead messiah could compel that in our hearts. Only a living Jesus, only the one who was starting to lift that fog for those disciples, could make them say hi. Stay with us. We want you to be near us. We want to be near you. And so if if you're feeling in the grayness today, if it was a rush to get here, if you think, where's the light of Easter? Perhaps this is the message for you. Stay with us. We want to stay near you. The Dawn of the Heart But finally, there was the dawn of the heart. When he was at the table with them. He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. Of course, when we see and hear these words, that Jesus was at the table with them, and he took bread and gave thanks, and broke it, and began to give it to them. There are two places in the gospel account that we go to. We go to the time when Jesus fed 4000 5000 people with just a few loaves and fishes. We know that he is the one who provides all we need and this desire that we had to be near him because we didn't know why. But we think I just have to suddenly make sense. He's the one who can feed our very souls. But of course, also it reminds us of the table of the Lord that Last Supper, the Lord's Supper, where he sat with his disciples and he said, this is what I do for you. I give my body, I give my blood, and we will share this meal again in my kingdom. Suddenly, the crucified one is sharing this meal with them again in his kingdom. And they realize that the new has come, that the dawn of God's kingdom, where they can be welcomed, has come. And as soon as they recognize him, he disappeared from their sight. Why? Well, I suspect that he had more announcing to go. And do I suspect that when we get to the end of this story and it says he's appeared to Simon. that's what was happening. You guys have worked it out. Here I go to make sure the rest, because only the resurrected Lord can open our eyes and hearts to the dawn of the new creation. Now, the breaking of the bread takes us to those two places. But I was reading, and I don't know if Luke meant this, connection, but I think it's powerful. Right back at the start of the story. There was another time when humans ate food and their eyes were opened. In the Garden of Eden, and that first moment of turning away from the leadership of God, the kingship of God. There's the picture of rebellion and eating fruit. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom. She took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves at the beginning of the story. Food was taken. Food was given. Food was eaten and eyes were opened. And what those eyes opened, discovered. Was shame exposure. A desire to hide and cover up. Was an unwelcome opening of the eyes to a middle of the story, which would be exile from the presence of God. But. And it was not right that did this connection for me in my reading. And he says, but this, this breaking of bread, this giving of food, this taking of it and eating it, this eyes opening is the ultimate redemption. This is the meal which signifies that the long exile of the human race, not just of Israel, is over at last. This is the start of the new creation. If the creation, which had so much potential, so much promise, like a newborn baby. Fell into this fog of sin and death. Then, now, as Jesus gives this meal and they take and eat and their eyes are opened, they see that the new creation has come. This is why right says repentance and forgiveness of sins are to be announced to all nations. The impact is not simply for the people of Israel who had a Passover meal. The impact is not simply for all the people who gathered and who had that meal on the hillside with the 4000 or the 5000. This is worldwide. This is creation wide. This is cosmic. And of course, in Luke's gospel, we've already seen Jesus say, if you don't praise me, if you don't love me, the whole creation will cry out. The rocks will cry out because this is the beginning of the new creation. The kingdom that I promised that I would share this meal with you is the restarting, the restoration of human hope and eternal life. The Journey Back: Hearts Burning And so they say, well, we're not going to stay here in this town where maybe was their Airbnb, where they'd, you know, had their lodgings for the night. We're not going to stay here. We have to go back. So they start their journey back again. And they say to each other, Were not our hearts burning within us as he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us , the intention of Jesus opening and the dawn of our realization of who he is. The intention of Jesus opening our will. And the dawn of us desiring to be near him. The intention of Jesus in opening our heart are all connected. He always intended, and his word is never separate from his intention to create in us hearts that love him. That we would enjoy him. That we would know him. We don't need to have an Easter day that's shining because we know him in every moment, in the fog, in the darkness, in the brightness, in the potential. And so they got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the 11 and those with them assembled together and saying, It is true, the Lord has risen, and has appeared to Simon, Simon, Peter. In Luke's gospel we'd only seen Peter see an empty tomb. But Jesus has done that work with him as well. And so the two told them what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. This is Easter Sunday, but it is a journey for us every single day, every single moment. Because Jesus is not content to leave us in the fog of our journey. Whatever your disappointment, whatever the greyness that you bring today, Jesus comes alongside to make sure his light opens your mind, opens your will, and opens your heart.

Join us this Good Friday as we reflect on the silence of Jesus before Herod, the weight of the cross, and the hope that rises with the dawn. A powerful reminder that even in the darkest hour, God is at work. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript The reading is taken from Luke chapter23, beginning at verse3: So Pilate asked Jesus, Are you the King of the Jews?You have said so, Jesus replied. Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, I find no basis for a charge against this man.But they insisted, He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. When he learned that Jesus was under Herods jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time. When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort. He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him, dressing him in an elegant robe. They sent him back to Pilate. That day, Herod and Pilate became friends; before this, they had been enemies. Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers and the people, and said to them, You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. As you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death. Therefore, I will punish him and then release him. But the whole crowd shouted, Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us! (Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.) Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again, but they kept shouting, Crucify him! Crucify him! For the third time he spoke to them: Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore, I will have him punished and then release him. But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. So Pilate decided to grant their demand. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder the one they had asked for and surrendered Jesus to their will. This is the word of the Lord. The Darkest Day in History Well, good morning and welcome to Good Friday a day that sits heavy in the heart of the Christian calendar. A day marked by silence, shadow, and sorrow. It is a day when the world felt dark really dark. And because Jesus, the Son of God, was put on a cross and died, it was the darkest day in history. It was the darkest day in history. Now, kids, I want you to listen closely to this part. Imagine youre walking in a very dark cave no lights, no phone, no torch. It would feel a little bit scary, wouldnt it? But then someone turns on a light a little light and suddenly everything looks different. Thats kind of what happened on the very first Good Friday. But do you know whats amazing? Even in that deep darkness, God was at work. Something beautiful was happening, even though it didnt look like it. Just like a seed that grows in the dark soil, something new was happening a way for us to be close to God. Because the cross is not the end of this story. The Silence of Good Friday In our reading, we see that Jesus stands before Herod questioned, mocked, dressed up like a joke. Herod plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. No answer. Nothing. Just silence. And its surprising, because all through the gospel weve seen Jesus engaging with people, having conversations people asking Jesus questions and Jesus giving them many answers, answers that heal, challenge, unsettle, or awaken. But not now. Not here. This week began with waving palms and cries of Hosanna! a king riding not a war horse, but a donkey. And now the week has turned. The crowd that once shouted Hosanna! now cries, Crucify him! Crucify him! So this silence is heavy, because during Jesus ministry, Jesus always spoke with people and asked deep questions and spoke words that touched the heart. But now, before Herod, there is no question. There is no reply. Jesus stands there, beaten, bound, exposed and says nothing. And friends, here is one of the greatest mysteries of Good Friday: God is silent. Why? Is it because Herod doesnt want to hear the truth? Is it because no answer would be heard in a heart thats already closed? Or is it because in this moment, silence says more than words ever could? Jesus silence speaks of the weight he is carrying to fulfill his Fathers plan for humanity. It speaks of the heart of the only Son of God, who knows what must happen next. Earlier this week, people laid cloaks before him in welcome, but their hearts held out hope for revolution or a political savior a restorer of national pride, a Messiah who would drive out the Romans, not carry a cross. They wanted the crown, but not the cost. They wanted the dawn, but not the darkness. This is the tension of Good Friday: darkness and dawn. Jesus silence before Herod is not a sign of weakness. It is the strength of one who knows the weight of the moment. Hes carrying the darkness of a world that still cannot see the dawn that has come into it. And perhaps this silence speaks more than any word could. Well, the world we are living in has grown allergic to silence. It wants noise, answers, solutions, content, and resolutions. But the cross does not work like that. The cross begins with silence with a King who says nothing, a God who enters darkness without explanation. And yet this silence holds promise, a great promise, because the dawn is coming. This is love: refusing to shout but willing to suffer. The same Jesus who said nothing to Herod will soon say, Father, forgive them. The same Jesus who was rejected by the crowd will open Paradise to a criminal. The same Jesus who wept over a city that would not receive him still weeps over our broken hearts today. So on this Good Friday, let us sit with this silence. Let it speak. Let it name the darkness we carry, and the illusion we must let die. For only then can we see the first glimmer of the dawn of the light that God shows us. An Invitation to Surrender Our Darkness Friends, both children and adults, I want to invite you into that space not just with your mind, but with all your hearts. Leyla and Rachel will be here at the front with some black ribbons, which represent the darkness, the pain, the sin, and the burden that we all carry. These ribbons are an invitation to bring what is hidden into the light of the cross. Take a moment. Sit in silence. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you, to show you what darkness it is he is inviting you to surrender today. Maybe its something that weve done wrong. Maybe its a burden you have carried for too long. Maybe its something thats made us sad or scared. Maybe its something we see in the world that hurts our hearts. Im gonna invite the band up, and they are going to sing an item for us. And when youre ready, come forward, take a ribbon and tie it onto this wooden cross at the front. In doing so, youre not just making a gesture; you are making a prayer a prayer that says, Jesus, I give this to you. I trust you to carry it. I lay it down where you laid down your life at the cross. No one will ask you what it represents. No one. This is between you and the Lord. And let this moment be your prayer. You carry on this Good Friday maybe you carry a lot and this could be your offering of trust, your act of surrender. Let this moment, this Good Friday, be a renewal in your relationship with the God who so loves you that he gave his one and only Son, that you may not perish but have eternal life. And as you tie that ribbon to the cross, remember the story does not end in darkness. This is Good Friday not because the pain is good, but because love is greater and the dawn is coming. Amen. Luke 23:3243 Two of the men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there along with the criminals one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, He saved others; let him save himself if he is Gods Messiah, the Chosen One. The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself! There was a written notice above him, which read: This is the King of the Jews. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: Arent you the Messiah? Save yourself and us! But the other criminal rebuked him: Dont you fear God, he said, since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus answered him, Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise. Here ends the reading. This reading is also from the Gospel of Luke. Its from Luke23:4449: It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. When he had said this, he breathed his last. The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, Surely this was a righteous man. When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things. Here ends the reading. The Beauty and Mystery of the Cross This cross might look dark, but it is beautiful. You know why? Because whatever is hung on this cross is already forgiven and carried by Jesus for his precious blood. Imagine that you are in Jerusalem today. Its Passover, and hope is in the air. People are talking about a coming king to end their suffering. But all of a sudden, you see three men condemned to carry crosses. One collapses, and a bystander is forced to help. Finally, they make it up the hill... But one of them is marked more than the rest. Wasnt this man someone special? People say he was a carpenter a carpenter hung on a cross shaped by his own hands. But why is a carpenter being crucified? Others say he was a teacher a man who taught with unusual authority. But surely thats not a crime worthy of death. Still, some claim he made strange statements, like saying he could forgive sins (everyone knows that only God can forgive sins). Perhaps he claimed to be God. Years ago, when I was just a teenager, I watched a movie about Jesus. And at the very end of that movie, that very question came to my mind a question that perhaps many of us have asked or are still asking today: If this man was God, what is he doing on a cross? Couldnt he save himself? Its a staggering question. And yet the answer does not come to us by logic alone, or by looking hard enough at the suffering. The truth of the cross is something God himself must reveal. It is not just a tragic death to be pitied; it is a divine mystery to be unveiled. In the gospels, it is often the unexpected people the blind, the poor, the outsiders whose eyes are opened to see who Jesus truly is. And the same is true with the cross: we cannot see its true meaning unless God opens our hearts. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Foolishness to some. Power to others. What makes the difference? Well, it is Gods grace the Spirit of God, opening blind eyes. Jesus does not fight. He does not argue. He does not resist. He absorbs the judgment the wrath of God. He drinks the cup. He carries the sin not just of the crowd before him, but of all of us today. So here we are at Deep Creek, standing before that cross today the place where God confronts the depth of our darkness with the even deeper mercy of his love. Lukes gospel tells us that it was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining heaven itself refused to shine while the Son of God hung dying. It tells us what sin truly deserves, doesnt it? The Light of the world was being snuffed out, and the darkness that covered the land was a symbol of the judgment being poured out. But notice something else: And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. That curtain had hung for centuries in the temple. It was thick and tall a visible barrier between a holy God and sinful people. No one could go beyond it except the high priest, once a year. And now, at the moment of Jesus death, that curtain was torn from top to bottom not by human hands, but by God. The death of Jesus is not just a tragedy; it is a transaction. Hes not a victim; hes the Lamb of God the perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world. And just as the Passover in Egypt marked the beginning of freedom for Israel, this Passover at the cross marks the beginning of true freedom for all people for you and me, from every nation. His blood is not wasted; its poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. The sun stopped shining, but God was not absent. He was at work in the darkest hour. The greatest light was about to break. Because this death does not end in death: It ends in the tearing of the curtain. It ends in the opening of the way. It ends in the beginning of something new. It ends in dawn. This is the beauty and the mystery of the cross that even in death there is victory. And Jesus said, It is finished. Not you are finished. Not hope is finished. It is finished. The work, the striving, the separation, the shame, the guilt, the sin its all finished by what Jesus achieved on the cross for us. In a moment we are going to sing another song together. And as we stand in the shadow of the cross, we do not rush past it. We do not rush past the sorrow. We feel the weight. We acknowledge the cost. We let the darkness speak. But we do not despair, because there in the deepest night we hear the first note of morning. And now we will sing together. It was finished not just a slogan, not just a clich but the truth spoken from the mouth of the crucified Son of God, the truth that changes everything. The cross was the end of sins reign, but it was also the beginning of redemptions song. Its all finished. So let us stand to sing this song together.

Commanders DL coach, and former Deep Creek player, Darryl Tapp joins the Scott Jackson Show on "Football at Four". Plus more on this weekends NFL Playoff games and coaching changes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Deep Creek: Part 2

Episode 401- "Christmas Edition Deep Creek Pt. 1" by Jerome

Thelma “Polly” Melton, 58, disappeared on September 25, 1981, while hiking the Deep Creek Trail in North Carolina with friends Trula Gudger and Pauline "Red" Cannon. Born February 26, 1923, in Alabama, Polly was known for her friendly and intelligent demeanor and had lived with her husband, Robert Melton, in an Airstream trailer near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park each fall. On the day of her disappearance, Polly, a heavy smoker with health issues, walked ahead of her friends, vanished over a hill, and was never seen again. Search efforts revealed no signs of a struggle, though her scent was detected briefly on a tree. Authorities speculated she may have left the park voluntarily by vehicle, as her personal belongings, including ID, medication, and money, were left behind. Months later, a check made out to Polly was cashed in Alabama, fueling theories she started a new life. Despite reported sightings, her fate remains a mystery.Ossuary 6 - Air Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Contact us at: weeknightmysteries@gmail.comInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/weeknightmysteriesTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@weeknightmysteries

Due to some unexpected circumstances, I was unable to get an episode out this week. However, our friends, Lori and Jen at Dealing Justice have just dropped a new season and they were gracious enough to share their first episode from Season 3 with us! Fourteen-year-old Anthony Lamar Peterson went missing during the summer of 2005 while visiting family in Palatka, Florida.  Days later, his unrecognizable body was found floating in Deep Creek, just miles from where he was last seen. In a bizarre twist, Anthony's remains would go unidentified for months, leaving his mother to search the small rural town in vain for her only son. Want more Dealing Justice? Listen on Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dealing-justice/id1504742935 On Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/5O1nosWMRJcNMaFGIex5GQ?si=5aec44f5a7664bd0 Or Search Dealing Justice wherever you get your podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill is back from his family trip to Deep Creek where his daughter lost her phone to the waters and a bridesmaid trip was in dire straights after the bride also lost her engagement ring to the lake.

Bill's wild trip to Deep Creek, Raiding the Algorithm, Alan Saunders, and more.

Pam Houston is the author of the memoir, Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, as well as two novels and a collection of essays. We revisit our conversation from September 2021.

The world's woods are filled with innumerable dangers: from ravenous carnivores and rabid animals to snake bites, ticks, falling rocks, hidden cliffs or plain old getting lost and dying of thirst… the list goes on and on. But for all of the familiar ways the forest and its denizens can do us harm, it seems there are ominous unknown things that dwell in the shadows of the deep woods that are capable of doing so much worse than we ever imagined. The Cryptonaut Podcast Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/cryptonautpodcast  The Cryptonaut Podcast Merch Stores:Cryptonautmerch.com - Hellorspace.com  Stay Connected with the Cryptonaut Podcast: Website - Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - YouTube  

Come join us on this intimate trip to DEEP CREEK, its some of our first times out here and for some we frequent this small little town tucked away in Maryland. On this particular occasion Pootie put together a trip for his wife Tynisha who lost her voice during our stay, due to drinking and yelling (all in fun). We sit down and discuss our our time out there as well relationships with one another. its a really great episode where we get in touch with our emotions and (possible water works). Tune and let us know what you think and dont forget to subscribe to all things Unprivileged Drinkers!!!!! Drink --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/unprivileged-drinkers/support

HAPPY 30th Episode!Well, if you count all of our bonus episodes, it's 38 episodes total.We started this little side project in October of 2021 to share the spirit of Deep Creek and Garrett County, MD and our love for this far western Maryland area that we call "home." We sat on living room couches and interviewed friends. We talked about local events, the four seasons, hunting, kids, farming, slowing down, and we even recorded ourselves indulging in microgreens!Along with all the fun and joy we experienced while making this podcast, there was also a lot of time, work and money required to make it happen. We both have other things we need to focus on - family, jobs, time with friends, other projects, maybe even other podcasts.  So it's time to pause. For now, this is our last episode. We've so very much enjoyed bringing this project to Deep Creek and Garrett County, MD and beyond. THANK YOU for these past 2+ years. Thank you for saying hi to us when we were out and about. Thank you for sending in voice memos. Thank you for interviewing with us and sitting on those couches. Thank you for listening!And an extra special THANK YOU goes out to those who financially supported us through sponsorship: Appalachian Print StudioCashmere Clothing CoDeep Creek Lavender FarmGarrett County Celtic FestivalMeadow Mountain HempNarrows Hill - Ultimate Maps of Deep Creek Lake and Garrett CountyRailey Design Furniture and Home DecorSilver Tree MarineTraders Coffee HouseThe episodes will stay active for a short time, so we hope you'll continue enjoying them. Some of our favorites? The farmer series from spring of 2022, interview with Maryland Governor candidate Laura Neuman, and talking careers, COVID and kids with Terah Crawford all the way back in fall of 2021.For more information about us, the Mountain Maryland Mamas: Instagram: @mtnmarylandmamasFacebook: www.facebook.com/mountainmarylandmamasWe launched our podcast using Buzzsprout and the community has been amazing.  If you're curious about starting your own podcast, Buzzsprout is definitely the way to go!

 Laws talks of dogs that were white with brindle spots, he talks of the most famous of the Plott family hunters, Von Plott, keeping Airedales and he speaks of a hunter that was afraid of bears. In this episode Laws gives advice on how to kill bears over dogs, talks about senility in hounds using his own favorite best hound he ever followed, the infamous Troop of his daddy's. The tenacity of the Smoky Mountain bear hunter comes to the front in this episode as James relates a story of hunters that chose to follow the hounds as opposed to manning a “stand” to kill the bear as was the popular method of the day.  There's a story of a big bear that took eight shots to kill on Deep Creek, another of the drainages along with Hazel, Noland and Fourney that drained the North Carolina side of the Great Smoky Mountains.The tale of the death of two outstanding bear dogs by their owners while attempting to kill their bear is a strong lesson for anyone that aspires to hunt bears with hounds.Enough writing about it.  Give this episode a listen and you will agree with Stewart Biesecker that it would have indeed been grand to have lived and hunted in the days James Oliver Laws remembered so very well. 

Today's show opens with Arica's recent hunting expenditures. It's been a little slow go but on a recent hunt for the first time ever she heard a buck grunting coming through the woods. Heart pounding excitement kicked in as she heard him coming closer through the woods. A doe walked right past her so she's super excited waiting on this buck to come right through where the doe did. The buck grunting edges closer through the woods and finally comes to light – unfortunately it's a button buck!! She sat for a while longer when she heard some more rustling coming through the woods, make sure to tune into this episode sponsored by GunBroker.com! Next up Brayden talks about his recent hunting trip with Phil on a private farm that really just wants them to take some deer off of it. After tree hopping for a while he finally got settled in when not long after he got a text from Phil that a buck was coming across the field. Brayden drug some Tink's 69 on the way in and Phil's buck came in right on a line following the trail. Phil let an arrow fly on this buck and got a good blood trail to start with. Unfortunately, it started to dry up as the trail went on, all the way up to a neighboring property. He let it set overnight and after connecting with the land owner next door he continued his search but unfortunately came up empty handed. Jacob covers a whole week of outdoor stories that he's had the pleasure to collect here lately. His first story goes in depth of him chasing whitetail during bow season. The absolute perfect scenario comes to fruition with a really nice 8-point working a scrape line directly up to him. He drew back and…you'll have to tune in to this episode to hear exactly what happened! He also spent some time in North Carolina on a fishing trip at Deep Creek in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. They had some awesome success starting with a nice brown trout and a few smaller ones as well. Fishing clear water creeks, he got some awesome fishing knocked out on this trip with some real trophy fish being reeled in. Circling back to whitetail he goes over his exciting weekend back chasing whitetail during rifle opener. Closing out Derek dives into his recent hunting expenditures chasing whitetail. He let a really solid buck walk on opening day that he's hoping he doesn't regret later in the season. He gives a great description of his hunting spot to set the scene on just how close he let this deer walk for a second time a few days later! After spending some time watching a small forky chasing a doe back and forth a real nice buck makes his appearance. Make sure to tune in to this episode to hear how his hunt turned out!  If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a rate and review!!  [UNCENSORED] by GoWild kicks off your week with shameful nonsense, inappropriate convictions, and unfiltered tales from the woods, waters and whatevers. [UNCENSORED] is a behind the scenes look at our adventures, failures, wins, embarrassing moments at trade shows, hilarious tales from the warehouse, and a good rant or three about the most recent tyranny from the Dark Lord of the Sith himself. The show launches every Monday morning. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. JOIN GOWILD AND GET $10: http://downloadgowild.com Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's show opens with Arica's recent hunting expenditures. It's been a little slow go but on a recent hunt for the first time ever she heard a buck grunting coming through the woods. Heart pounding excitement kicked in as she heard him coming closer through the woods. A doe walked right past her so she's super excited waiting on this buck to come right through where the doe did. The buck grunting edges closer through the woods and finally comes to light – unfortunately it's a button buck!! She sat for a while longer when she heard some more rustling coming through the woods, make sure to tune into this episode sponsored by GunBroker.com!Next up Brayden talks about his recent hunting trip with Phil on a private farm that really just wants them to take some deer off of it. After tree hopping for a while he finally got settled in when not long after he got a text from Phil that a buck was coming across the field. Brayden drug some Tink's 69 on the way in and Phil's buck came in right on a line following the trail. Phil let an arrow fly on this buck and got a good blood trail to start with. Unfortunately, it started to dry up as the trail went on, all the way up to a neighboring property. He let it set overnight and after connecting with the land owner next door he continued his search but unfortunately came up empty handed.Jacob covers a whole week of outdoor stories that he's had the pleasure to collect here lately. His first story goes in depth of him chasing whitetail during bow season. The absolute perfect scenario comes to fruition with a really nice 8-point working a scrape line directly up to him. He drew back and…you'll have to tune in to this episode to hear exactly what happened! He also spent some time in North Carolina on a fishing trip at Deep Creek in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. They had some awesome success starting with a nice brown trout and a few smaller ones as well. Fishing clear water creeks, he got some awesome fishing knocked out on this trip with some real trophy fish being reeled in. Circling back to whitetail he goes over his exciting weekend back chasing whitetail during rifle opener.Closing out Derek dives into his recent hunting expenditures chasing whitetail. He let a really solid buck walk on opening day that he's hoping he doesn't regret later in the season. He gives a great description of his hunting spot to set the scene on just how close he let this deer walk for a second time a few days later! After spending some time watching a small forky chasing a doe back and forth a real nice buck makes his appearance. Make sure to tune in to this episode to hear how his hunt turned out! If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a rate and review!! [UNCENSORED] by GoWild kicks off your week with shameful nonsense, inappropriate convictions, and unfiltered tales from the woods, waters and whatevers. [UNCENSORED] is a behind the scenes look at our adventures, failures, wins, embarrassing moments at trade shows, hilarious tales from the warehouse, and a good rant or three about the most recent tyranny from the Dark Lord of the Sith himself.The show launches every Monday morning. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.JOIN GOWILD AND GET $10:http://downloadgowild.comCheck out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content!