Future Church Brisbane
Join Luke Kennedy and friends at Future Church in Brisbane, Australia.
Talks from our gatherings as well as deeper discussions and Application panels around the practicals of Following Jesus.
Future Church Brisbane
Jesus is the Vision // Vision Series
Have you ever felt an unshakable restlessness in your soul, a yearning for something more that seems just out of reach? Our latest episode ventures into the depths of this universal human experience, with insights from spiritual thinkers Ron Rolheiser and Kurt Thompson, and a nod to Augustine's timeless wisdom. We dissect how our deepest desires are not just fleeting whims but indicators of our spiritual direction, pointing towards the ultimate fulfillment found in God's embrace. The candid conversation takes a turn into the millennial psyche, addressing the prevalent issues of anxiety and burnout exacerbated by society's push towards individualism. And yet, amidst these challenges, we discover Jesus's counter-cultural call to live a life rooted in community, love, and shared growth.
The journey doesn't stop at mere contemplation; it beckons us to a radical transformation that transcends intellectual assent to a set of beliefs. This episode extends a heartfelt invitation to embrace the practices of Jesus, to reorient our lives in a way that prioritizes His teachings above the clamor of societal expectations. It's a call to a discipleship that allows the Holy Spirit to shoulder the burdens we've been carrying, offering a lighter load and a more profound sense of purpose. As we wrap up, we take a moment of reflection, considering the shifts we might make to deepen our connection with the Divine, and we offer a prayer for those seeking a personal relationship with Jesus within the nurturing bounds of our church community. Join us on this transformative path toward a life of authentic faith and fellowship.
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We're going to jump into today and talk about Jesus. You ready, here we go. The vision is Jesus. Ron Rollhiser, in his book the Holy Longings, said it like this what you do with your longings is your spirituality. Meaning this underneath those day to day desires that we all have, there is a deep desire. There is deep longings of our hearts. They may be shoveled over by the disappointments of life or the busyness of the day, but we all have deep longings in our lives. Most of our lives lived unexamined, meaning we don't even know what those longings are. But if we took the time to uncover them, let me say it like this the expression of the deepest longings of our hearts becomes the practice of our theology. Meaning this the way that we deeply long and the way that we see God affect everything about the way that we live. Do you believe that God is good? Then the deepest longings that I have in my heart I can trust God with. I can be patient, to wait while God is working. Do you believe that God is harsh? Then the deepest longings of my heart can easily become a prison or maybe a vice that I pursue because I cannot trust that God will come through for me. What you do with your longings is very important and they're much more connected to the way that you see God.
Speaker 1:The psychologist and psychiatrist Kurt Thompson said it like this we are all born looking for someone, looking for us in love. I see this with my children. I see this with my little one. She's almost two years old. She follows me around the house recently just saying daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy. And I say yes, kayleigh. She says daddy, daddy. I say yes, what is it Kayleigh, daddy, daddy. She doesn't even know what she wants. I think all she wants is me just to look at her. She wants she's born looking for someone to be looking at her with eyes of love. We are all born with that Deep longings, wanting to be loved.
Speaker 1:And until we find that, we find our hearts restless and filling them with all kinds of other things, augustine, one of the most important figures in the Christian church history, said it like this in his prayer in his book Confessions you have made us for yourself, o Lord, and our heart is restless. Until we find our rest in you, there is nothing that will satisfy you like God. And this makes perfect sense because if I was to ask you this, see if I can stand. How much would it take for you to be satisfied? The answer is it would take everything. It would take the whole world. It would take every experience of every moment, of every resource. In fact, our longings are actually infinite. Why is that? Think about this, because the only person who can really fulfill your soul is God. He is infinite, and when you're searching and searching, and searching and feeling and feeling, what you're really searching for is an infinite source that can fill your infinite desire, and that is God. And God is so good, our good news for us today God is not far away from you. He's close. He's so close to you, no matter how far you feel from God. God is close, closer than the air that you breathe.
Speaker 1:When I look at my generation, I feel with anxiety, and millennials almost make burn out a rite of passage, something that we celebrate. You're not really living until you've had a burnout. As a millennial, this becomes so true. What we're searching for is God. We've been sold this steady diet of individualism, which was very obvious to me coming back from Asia into the West. Individual above all. It's no wonder that this Ideology of individualism, radical individualism, has delivered the most anxious generation ever and it's not even close. Are you enjoying my motivational talk?
Speaker 1:And right in the middle of this is Jesus, jesus, wonderful Jesus, who doesn't offer you simply a new religion to join. He doesn't even offer you to become a Christian. Christian was not a word that they used in the Bible. It was a deogatory word used by other people about Christians, which they just embraced as maybe even a joke, or a more than a joke. We'll take it. Sure, we want to be like Jesus. The word means little Christ. It was a, it wasn't a compliment. But Jesus offers us not simply a new set of ideas or a book of theology. He offers us a brand new way to be human, a whole new way of living. That's what Jesus is offering us today. It's a beautiful way to live. It's not abstract, it's extremely practical. It's actually a way of life, not just an idea of life.
Speaker 1:And he doesn't just call you individually, he calls us together, as a family, to follow him. In fact, most of the disciples that he calls, he doesn't even call them one at a time, he calls them in groups and he says come together. It's not like Star Wars, where you have a padwan. You know when you take the padwan to become the Jedi. That's not Jesus, right? He calls a group together and this group is important because how do you learn how to love unless you're with people who are difficult to love? I'm so spiritual when I'm praying at home by myself until the kid is knocking the door and disturbed me. You know what I'm saying. I'm so spiritual until somebody offends me. Yet that is God's plan that I would learn to become a person of love through having opportunities to love difficult people. This is how it works.
Speaker 1:Mark chapter 1, verse 16, says as, passing along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, brother of Simon, casting in that there were fishermen and he said to them Follow me and I will make you fishes of man. I always found that a weird thing, right? Why are they just following him? Immediately they left the nets like this was some great deal, doesn't seem like a great deal. And then they. And then he saw Zebedee and John, his brother, who were within the boat mending the nets and immediately called them. And they left their father, zebedee, in the boat with the hired service and they also followed him. Jesus invitation come, follow me. I would have been thinking where to? Where are we going and can I drive? Who's running this ship? He didn't invite them to come and start a new religion or a Christian political group or to become a Christian.
Speaker 1:This phrase, come, follow me was the same phrase that all rabbis used to choose the best students of the best schools to come and learn how to be rabbis. Yet here, notice, jesus is not called going to the best school and called calling the best students. He's calling the guys who have dropped out of school and gone back to a tradie. He's calling the tradies because they've flopped out of school. Sound familiar? Maybe that's some of us here today.
Speaker 1:Jesus later goes on to call tax collectors, probably the most despised people. Think about you could think about what kind of jobs that would be today. I'll tell you who they are parking fine people, despised, not cool. There's no Christian job. I'm just saying take it or leave it. That's not a law, but that's my thinking and I will make you fishes of men. This is a common it sounds like a joke, but it's a common first century saying, and it means fishes of men means someone who's a really good teacher, someone who can draw people in, someone who can call people to come and follow. That's what a fisher of men that phrase meant, so it wasn't a random word. Jesus is saying I am a fisher of men. Come and follow me and I will make you also a fisher of men, that's what Jesus is saying Come and be a disciple.
Speaker 1:The word disciple simply means someone who's a learner. That's the literal definition a learner. Some of us have stopped learning because we have graduated learning. We have graduated being a disciple of Jesus. We need to come back to learning. Maybe through disappointment you have stopped learning. My invitation is come back to learning under Jesus. Come back to being a disciple. In the first century there was no distinction between Christian and disciple. In our culture today, we separate these things. We say Christians are those who believe in Jesus. Even the devil believes in Jesus. And then people who are disciples are like 2.0. They're like the really good ones. They're like the ones who actually live out this stuff. This was not the case in the first century. If you were called to follow Jesus, you were all in for following Jesus. I think we need to bring that back. Come and I will make you. All the Gen Z people are like having a little shudder right now. No one's making me, I'm making myself. I decide who I am.
Speaker 2:Yet yet.
Speaker 1:Come on, we're in church. Be honest, you are being made. You are being formed by everything around you, and so am I. When I came back to Australia. It's very, very easy to see how Australian culture is forming in Australia, just like it was overseas. We have been formed by the ideas and stories we believe. We have been formed by our media, by our schooling, by our friends, by what we celebrate, by the causes that we jump into. Something is forming you. It's not a Christian thing, it's a human thing. We are all being formed. But Jesus's invitation to us today is maybe you are being formed accidentally right now, but the invitation has come and be formed intentionally by Jesus. Let Jesus be the one who forms you into a person of love.
Speaker 1:Cs Lewis, in his book the Screwtape Letters, tells this story of a devil and his training. A little devil in the art of human deception and having this conversation in, a little devil is getting worried because people are converting to Christianity. And the older devil has a little chuckle and he says don't worry, this is quite common. And then he says this phrase never mind the habits of the patient in his mind and in his body are still all in our favor Meaning this as long as you give mental assent to Jesus and change nothing, we're all okay. That's what the devil is saying.
Speaker 1:The invitation of following Jesus is not to give mental assent to theology. It is to come and to have a changed life that actually results in living differently. How else will the kingdom of God come to us except through changed lives? Do you know the anti-vision for this church? It's not devil, I mean, devil is doing his thing, but the anti-vision for our church would be a Christianity with no Christ, a cultural Christianity that does not know Jesus, a kingdom with no king. The benefits our children will see the benefits of Jesus, but they will not know Jesus. Mental assent to morality with no heart change. To know about God but to never really know God, a conversion with no apprenticeship to a life change. I think we need to be careful that we don't become intellectually stimulated by the philosophy of Jesus and never really commit to following Him.
Speaker 1:Here's my invitation. This is going to get better, don't worry. The good news is coming. I see you're all thinking deeply. That's not a bad thing. How does this happen?
Speaker 1:Let me get really practical with you. You have a budget and then you decide to do what every good Australian does Over leverage by the biggest house I can afford, and maybe a little more Stretch to limit the margin for error is very small. This is called pressure. Then bring kids in the world and, amazing thing, in Australia we have free school. That's not the case in a lot of places, by the way. Amazing. But now that's not enough. They also need three or four extra school activities to do. Put them in three or four sports, a musical instrument and a couple more to compete with the neighbors.
Speaker 1:Now throw in some careerism and some secret coping mechanisms, let alone the online image that I've tried to curate to tell you how good I am, that I need to also manage. Now take all that. Come to church and the pastor gets up here and says to you please start tithing, find a small group and read your Bible and pray every day for 30 minutes. Can you see why this is not working? Adding Jesus to my unchanged life is simply a recipe for burnout. His invitation to you is not that he would be seasoning on your unchanged Australian culture driven life in mind, but he's inviting you to a whole new way of living that starts from the ground up, a reordering of our lives. Augustine said God doesn't just change our desires, he reorders our desires with him at the top, and then everything else makes sense when you follow Jesus, and not just the idea of Jesus but the ways of Jesus. It's amazing how life starts to reorder over time.
Speaker 1:If you've been burnout on Christianity, chances are you've added the idea of Christianity without the practice of it. Is this making sense as a church, together, as a community? Where are we going to? Has to be a life built around the teaching and practices of Jesus. It has to be, otherwise we have no future.
Speaker 1:Matthew, chapter 11, beautiful verse. Same book of the Bible says come to me all you who are labored and heavy, who are labor and are heavy laden or burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me and pray. I'm gentle and lonely and hard and you will find a rest for your soul from my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Why are you burdened today? Chances are because you're already wearing a yoke.
Speaker 1:What is a yoke? A yoke is a teaching about what is the good life. It's basically framing for you what the ancients would call the telos, the telescope. When you point your telescope. What is it? What's it pointing at? What is it that you're aiming for in your life? This is the yoke that you wear, meaning like I want to have a fit body. So the yoke that I put on is I'm going to train, I'm going to eat better, I'm going to stop eating that caramel fudge Sunday. On Sunday. That's the yoke that I'm wearing, because I have a vision for where I want to go. That's the yoke. You're already wearing a yoke, by the way. I'm wearing a yoke.
Speaker 1:Jesus is saying that he also has a yoke, but his yoke is not burdensome. His yoke is light. Why is that? Because God is doing most of the heavy work. God is the one actually changing our lives. It's not my trying so hard to change my life. It's actually the Holy Spirit working in my heart to actually re-order my desires and motivate me towards change. That's the difference between self-help and God-help is God is actually doing the heavy lifting in our lives when we surrender to him. So Jesus is saying simply my weight is better. The yoke of sin and shame is much heavier than the yoke of following Jesus. Come and follow me. It's a beautiful yoke. Most people's problem in the church is we're trying to wear two yokes. We're trying to maintain our lifestyle, change nothing in our lives, but also have a little bit of Jesus. No wonder we are tired. Come follow me.
Speaker 1:The way I got to know Mike he doesn't know what I'm talking about him the way I got to know Mike was we started walking together and Mike said this thing to me while walking. I remember this. He said you can learn a lot about people by the way that they walk. I have a little bit of a bungalow, so I'm not sure what you're learning about that, but you can learn a lot. You can learn a lot about their rhythm and their flow, their fitness level, but also just the way that they carry themselves, their mental state. You can learn a lot about someone while you're walking with them. We would walk through two ephorists together. So we became friends. I guess Walking with Jesus you will get to know him. And Jesus is so good. I'm going to tell you that. Guys, jesus is amazing.
Speaker 1:Lying in a hospital bed with all this stuff, tubes, like bionic men, you know, just tubes everywhere, can't talk, can't eat, can't walk, can't move. In those moments walking with Jesus, he's showed up in so much grace to me, showed me so much love. I remember God saying to me I'm gonna show you how much I love you through this process, and I was like God, I don't, how about we just skip the process? I don't, I believe you, I trust you, I you don't need to show me, it's okay and let me just skip this part. But Jesus has poured out his love onto my life. Through suffering, through the valleys and the highs. Jesus has loved me so much.
Speaker 1:I remember a couple months ago I was struggling a little bit was I couldn't really talk and when I drink, water sometimes comes out my nose so I have a big hole in my mouth. I couldn't really talk and I couldn't really eat and I couldn't focus. I couldn't really read the Bible because I couldn't focus. I couldn't retain any information. And I'm watching all of you people and I'm thinking I just want to be with you. This really sucks, because I just rather be with you guys, because I love you guys is where I like to be rather than be alone in this mess, and many of you guys supported us. So I'm very thankful for that and I'm feeling like I'm here, but I really wish that I was like down the track, like never felt like that.
Speaker 1:I know I should be better than I am, but I'm not. I'm in this mess right now that I have to deal with and it's hard. I feel guilty, maybe even don't really want to come around all this, because surely all these people have got it all together except for me. I've felt like that and I get this phone call from this angel of a man. There's been a real light in my life. Dr Van Chor is a theologian and has been just a great joy to me. Come, drove from the sunny coast several times to come pray for me and it's just been a great joy in my life. And he calls me and leaves a little voice message on my phone and really, when I was probably pretty down, I'll play it for you, my hero, all right here we see if we can see if we can.
Speaker 2:I keep hearing your heart saying I am here and I want to be there. I am here, I want to be there. God is saying I am with you where you are and that's where I want you to be with me, praying for you, luke, and loving you.
Speaker 1:And Azuni, hugo, kaylee and Lucy love you bye, bye, and I just started to cry because he said I can hear your heart saying I'm here, but I want to be there many times as we're following Jesus. This is the case. I feel guilty that I'm not better than I am and I just want to say to you we're about to go on a journey together, as a church, of learning how to implement the ways of Jesus into our lives together, but this should not be a guiltful process that Jesus loves you. This process is going to be a good process and it's going to take years, to be honest. It's going to take years. It's going to be extremely practical. We're going to go on a journey together about implementing the practices of God, our vision statement for our churches, making Jesus ways, our ways together. Year one was kind of like church plant 101 basics, like we're just trying to make it happen. Year two we're graduating, church planting and we're going on a journey together. Okay, here we go, but we're going to help you. There's lots of spiritual practices that can help you scripture, prayer, fasting, solitude, community vocation, sabbath, sharing the gospel, hospitality, simplicity none of these practices are the goal. The goal is to become more like Jesus. That's the goal. They're not rules in our church. They're invitational, which means we're inviting people to come and become like Jesus. You can come and sit in our church as long as you want, but the invitation is always going to be there come and practice being like Jesus, starting with two. So we can't do all this at once, but we are going to start with a couple of spiritual practices over the next six months that we're going to go through and hopefully implement in our church, and I believe it's going to make a big difference. The first one is Sabbath. Not as a rule, but as a beautiful invitation to come and rest with God.
Speaker 1:Sunday, for us, has been built around this concept of Sabbath. That's why we don't want people working hard on Sundays. That's why we want lots of people to do something sometimes, rather than a few people doing everything all the time. So that makes sense, because this worship should actually be part of resting with God. Sunday for most of us, it's going to be Sunday for me. I work Sunday, so it's going to be Saturday. Our family does that. We're going to talk about how to do that. You can't do that, though, from from a pulpit. You need to do it in a group. You need to work it out together, like what do you do with the kids? What do you do with everything else in our lives? How do we simplify our lives to actually rest? That's what we have our groups for. That's what our groups will be doing this year.
Speaker 1:The second one that we're going to do is around vocation, meaning careerism has made its imprint on our lives, but contribution is the way of Jesus. Vocation as contribution to the world, to the renewing of the world, is the heart of God. We need to learn how to work together, how to work like Jesus. We'd want us to work, how to rest and how to work. These are the two first practices that we're gonna focus on over this next six months or so. I hope that's encouraging to you. It's gonna be extremely practical.
Speaker 1:My invitation to you today, though, is just three questions, and I'm finished. This is to end. Think on this for a second. Number one how's the culture around me affected my vision of the good life? How has culture affected that? What can my life look like 12 months from now If I took steps to actually practice the way of Jesus rather than just the idea of Jesus? And three, maybe this is the most important for today. What is Jesus inviting me? To subtract rather than to add. Much of the church's teaching has been what to add to our lives. Maybe we should be more focused on what to actually subtract, to create more space for God to work.
Speaker 1:So homework for the week. There you go, class dismissed. Let's pray together. Thank you, jesus. We love you, god.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your beautiful invitation to each person here today, not to a religion or even to a brand name of a church, but thank you that you called us to yourself.
Speaker 1:Come, follow you as a family together. I pray God. The resistance in our heart, god, the hopeless road you would come and work in our lives, cause us to surrender to you the best way we know how, and go on a lifelong, long, long journey of becoming people of love. Now pray for these people here that don't really know you, god. They know about you but they don't really know you. But I pray today to come and show them your goodness, show them how much you love them. Give them grace, god, give them courage to say yes to you and come and follow. Thank you, god, for this beautiful church. So many gaps, so much work to do, but I'm thankful, god, for your blessing over the people as we go into this week, into this new year of year two of what we're doing, god, I pray you would lead us every step of the way. Thank you for God. Bless our children who are in your church right now. May they be full of you, may they become soft and own amen.