Good morning. I hope you are all having a great time here at the Festival in Paignton. I’m not one for visual aids because you can’t see them if you are listening on line, but as I have one with me which is relevant I thought I’d use it. Maybe someone can take a photo of it for the website. Could my volunteers please lift my visual aid onto the stage. [Kayak lifted onto the stage] Thanks.
If you are wondering where I’m coming from, and where I’m going with the kayak, it’s done it’s job.
One thing we find when we go for a paddle in the kayaks is that you get a completely different perspective from the sea compared to that from the land. It’s no point trying to describe this to you in words, so by introduction, I’ve got a powerpoint slide show I’d like to show you to illustrate the point. I’ve asked if this can be uploaded so anyone listening online can see it too. If anyone would like a copy please give me your email address and I’ll get it to you later.
The slides are of a very Welsh sounding place called Swan Lake Bay in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. We paddled there from the equally Welsh sounding bay called Fresh Water East which is west of Tenby. I’ve put a big arrow on each one so you know what you are looking at. Let’s first of all look at it from the Wales Coastal Path which is where most people would view it. That gives you an idea of the distance we paddled. It doesn’t look that far, but now look at it from the top of the beach at Freshwater East, now let’s look at it from the water’s edge, now the water itself from a few points along the way. Notice you get a completely different perspective from the sea. So lets have a look at Swan Lake Bay itself – what looks tiny from a distance is actually quite a big beach surrounded by cliffs and rocks like a horseshoe. Next is the view from the beach itself, and some of the rocks. Now lets see what it looks like from the land - Same bay, different day. Now let’s have another look at the same bay from Stackpole Quay and then Barafundle which is further West. You can see the same bay in the distance through the rocks. Finally, let’s look back at where we started from. There’s a photo from the entrance to Swan Lake looking back at Freshwater and finally one from the next bay, Manobier where you are the other side of the headland you can see in other photos, so you can’t see Swan Lake at this point, but you can see where we started.
The title of the sermon is “Perspectives”.
What we’ve seen with these photos is the same place, but from different perspectives. Swan Lake Bay is Swan Lake Bay wherever you view it from – the place does not change, only our view and perspective of it. It’s a bit like looking at the bible, we can see different things when we look at it from different angles and perspectives, and what we think we see is dependant on where we are and where we’ve come from, so it is sometimes hard to accept other views. At the end of the day, reality is, what reality is, and it is us who see it in a particular way.
This morning I would like to look at the topic of perspective and draw out a number of lessons we can learn by thinking about the journey that we are on. It’s easy to drift through life aimlessly, so wherever we are on our individual journey, it’s good to refocus on some of the fundamental principles of our faith.
The sermon is split into three sections. On every journey you need to know where you are going so we are going to look first at where we are heading. To get there you need to know where you have started from so you can navigate from a to b, so I’ll look at where we’ve come from. Finally I’m going to look at the journey itself.
Before we set off, in case you don’t know me, and for you to know where I’m coming from, my personal journey is from a WCG background having been brought up in the Church, so I understand where many of you are coming from in terms of church background. However, outside of the church context we all have had to face different issues along the way so my journey is not the same as anyone else’s. In a church context I struggled to get my head around the changes in theology and the way the church does things. I’m sure others struggle too, but I can honestly say that having done so, the message of hope we have for the world fills me with excitement and I am privileged so serve GCI as an Elder in Wales. In Wales we have a word called Hwyl – it is a buzz, an excitement or passion for something. One website I found defines it as a “complex and intangible quality of passion and sense of belonging” – nowadays mostly commonly used in the context of Rugby. Growing up in the church there was definitely a hwyl for the World Tomorrow, however we had issues about the present and what we should do on the way. I pray that we can recapture that hwyl, but focus it on Jesus and the job he has for us on our journey. Anyway, enough about me.
The key scripture of the Festival this year is from Luke 2v30 “MY EYES HAVE SEEN YOUR SALVATION” As you’ve heard already this was about Jesus being brought to the Temple and meeting a man called Simeon. It says in verse 26 that the Holy Spirit had revealed that he would not die until he’d seen the Lord’s Christ. Luke 2v25-32.
God had a Plan for humanity which he’d revealed by His Spirit to Simeon, that salvation was to be for both the Jews and Gentiles, and that he was going to send a Saviour, the Christ in Simeon’s lifetime. Simeon was given a new perspective on life and had waited patiently until he met Jesus, before being content that his revelation had been fulfilled.
History shows that the Jews were under Roman rule so expected the Christ to be a strong Messiah to break them free from the Romans. The reality was that God had a greater plan, to free not only the Jews but the whole of humanity from sin. Simeon had this perspective so when he met Jesus as a baby he held him and praised God that the plan was in action. God’s plans were much greater that the Jews expectations. The Jews were expecting their physical deliverance, while God was interested in their spiritual deliverance, and not just the Jews but everyone else as well. This is the reality of life whether we believe it or not. This is the good news we have to share with all who we come into contact with on our life’s journey.
Life is a journey, it has a beginning and an end, and we experience many things in between. Everyone has a personal journey, so we should not worry about what anyone else is doing or saying as everyone is in a different place. However, we are all heading towards the same destination.
So let’s have a look at the reality that we look forward to, let’s have a look at the far shore that seems so distant at times, then we’ll look at where we’ve come from and what we face on the journey between here and there.
Growing up in the Church, the Festival was a time of looking forward to the Millennium, the World Tomorrow, the kingdom of God or whatever you choose to call it. It was full of excitement and speculation as to what it would be like and what we’d be doing. Let’s have a look at some key scriptures that were widely quoted.
Let’s turn to Isa 11v6-9
Now let’s look at Rev 21v1-5
I’m not going to speculate as to when or how any of this is going to happen, to me the bible gives us a glimpse of the future, a very tiny glimpse of the reality that Jesus has gone to prepare for us. The reality is that God had a plan – Jesus - and what will happen, will happen.
What we do know is that it will be great, and that Jesus, out of space and time as we know it, has gone to prepare it.
Lets have a look at John 14v2-3. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us, and one day He will return. This is the reality of what lies ahead. We’ll read Eph 2 later which reveals this reality has already occurred on a spiritual level but today we are talking about our physical journeys.
So who is going to be there? Again the bible is clear that Jesus died for everyone, all sin has been paid for, whether people know it or not.
There are scriptures like John 3v16 which are clear that God loved the world, the whole world, not just a select few. Whoever believes is saved. This does not narrow it down to any particular group. God does not want anyone to perish please turn to Matt 18v11-14 This is the parable of the lost sheep.
This is the reality that we just have a glimpse of, and people have been speculating about over the past 2000 years. People can get bogged down in what Joe Tkach calls “prediction addiction” and live with their heads in the future and miss the present, so we need to avoid this pitfall. It doesn’t matter what view of the future we have, our views will not change what’s going to happen. What we must remember is that God is love and we have a message of love, hope and grace for those around us.
So that’s the future, that’s a glimpse of what we can see ahead, but what about the past and present?
Our lives are a result of where we’ve come from, and the way we look at the present and future is shaped by where we’ve been. One of the photos is looking from the entrance of Swan Lake Bay back to Fresh Water East, another is a view from Manobier where you can see Fresh Water East in the distance.
When we look back on our lives with hindsight we see that there have been ups and downs as the waves of life throw us around. We may feel battered and bruised, but we see that God has got us through to this point. When we look back to where we started, we realise how far we’ve come. We must however be careful not to focus our lives in the past either. I’d like to give you a quote
“If you focus on what you’ve left behind you’ll never see what lies ahead”
Believe it or not this is not from a theologian or a preacher – it’s from Disney Pixar, it’s part of a conversation between a dead chef and a rat, but don’t let that put you off - as you can tell I have two small children and I take inspiration from all manner of sources!! Anyhow, I’ll quote it again…
“If you focus on what you’ve left behind you’ll never see what lies ahead”
If we live in the future or the past, we’ll miss the opportunities and adventures that God gives us along the way. We therefore need to have balance. We need to learn from the past, seek God’s will for the present and look forward to our glorious future.
So lets have a look at the journey we are on right here right now.
How we see our present reality, will depend on our perspective - where we are at, and where we have come from. As I showed you with the photos, Swan Lake Bay looks different depending on where you look at it from. Phil, can you please run the powerpoint once through again while I carry on speaking, don’t forget the arrow is what we’re looking at. Swan Lake Bay doesn’t change – apart from the tide - it is always the same, it’s only our view of it that changes, and so too is the good news set out in the bible. The Gospel doesn’t change – only our view of it.
For example: if we come from a legalistic perspective we’d expect to have to paddle hard to get there. We’d try to live as perfectly as we could in order to gain God’s approval. This would give us a particular view which would make it very difficult to believe that Jesus alone has done all that’s necessary for salvation. It’s like being asked to jump into a kayak without a paddle! Would we trust God or grab a paddle just in case? The legalistic viewpoint is a bit like this, people keep the law as best as they can just in case it matters. The problem is, when we are too busy trying to do the right thing, we may miss Jesus love, grace and mercy because our focus is wrong, and I know people who went to their grave wondering whether they were good enough. Guess what? No one is good enough – which is why we need Jesus.
On the other hand we can look at the present from an extreme universalist perspective, which says that everyone’s already there anyway so who cares what happens along the way. If misunderstood, and misapplied, this would potentially lead to a wake of destruction behind us, but God loves those who believe this, too.
What about a calvanist perspective, those who are predestined are already saved, but they believe that those who are not are doomed, so where is the love and hope, there is no scope for evangelism because people are either one or the other. Ok these are extremes on the spectrum of Christianity and there are many views between. But, God loves us wherever we are.
Many people add to the Gospel and therefore add to the load they are carrying, as their view of the future and how to get there may be skewed by where they are at. The question is, does God’s love extend to people who are carrying extra ballast – of course it does, even though their boat will feel heavier.
What about people of other faiths? They have been blinded to the reality by their own religion or culture. But, where do we have the greatest growth in Christianity today? In countries which are dominated by other faiths – when people’s eyes are opened to the love of God they not only believe but they share this love with others.
In my opinion, however, the biggest problem in our society today is apathy, people just don’t care, so their lives are a “free for all” with no consideration for anyone else or the future. They are so busy in their day to day lives that they don’t think of God at all, so don’t have any moral guidance.
2 Cor 4v4 says that people who don’t believe are blinded by the god of this world so they just don’t see it. For those of no faith or other faith, they may be around the headland so they can’t see the final destination. But. Does God love those who don’t know or love Him – absolutely! And so should we. God does not want any of them to perish either and we’ll come back to this later.
The present reality is that Jesus has done everything necessary for our salvation, so no matter what our perspective is, our future is secure if we believe in Jesus.
Notice, that salvation is a gift. Lets look at Eph 2v4-7 this shows the present reality of our place in heaven 8-9 reveals this is a gift. This is confirmed by Rom 5v15-17 which also says that salvation is a gift. Rom 6v23 says the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
How are we supposed to live our lives on our journey?
Day to day, we are on a journey. It’s sometimes smooth and sometimes rough, just like being on the sea. Our lives have ups and downs. There are both good times and bad. Many people are suffering health problems, money problems, relationship problems, work problem, housing problems as they go thought life. There are some Christians who preach health and wealth for obedience, so when things go wrong, people can get discouraged and blame God. However, God does not promise a smooth ride, on the contrary it says in Rom 12v1 that we are to be living sacrifices, in Gal 2v20 says that we are crucified with Christ and it’s no longer us to live, and in Rom 8v17 that we suffer with Christ.
However, no matter what we face in life, no matter how fierce the storms and gales, no matter how high the waves are around us, don’t forget one thing. Jesus is bigger than them all. Jesus walked on water, He calmed the storm and He’s with us every inch of the way. Let’s have a quick look at Matt 8v23-27
Let’s look at Heb 13v5-6 READ It says that God will never leave us or forsake us, so when life gets rough we need to stick with it, be content and stay in the boat.
We are totally dependant on Jesus to get us to our final destination. Imagine trying to do the journey on open water without a Kayak, you’d paddle and splash around for a while but wouldn’t get very far.
The bible is stacked with good advice – it sets out sound principles of living, which, if followed would keep us out of a lot of trouble, but without Jesus it would be like paddling without your Kayak.
So does that mean that we can do what we like? Actually, yes it does, but what we like changes if we are living in the Spirit. I love the way Steve McVey puts it. Steve McVey is not one of our GCI pastors but he points people to our statement of beliefs on his website Gracewalk Ministries. He said the following, and yes I do have permission to use the quote. He said…
“Greasy grace is a term used by those who say that grace is a slippery slope towards just doing whatever we want to do. They miss the point that authentic grace does allow us to do what we want to do. The secret is that authentic grace changes our wants.”
If we are in Christ, our wants and actions change, we’re not perfect, at the end of the day we are flawed humans, however over time, we’ll become ever more Christ like as we let Jesus live through us.
Thankfully, we are not alone in a Kayak, we are in Christ and He is in us by His Spirit. So we see that our journey in Christ gives us a new perspective on day to day life. Let’s have a look at 1 John 4v12-18. This has a huge bearing on the way we live. God is love and we are commanded to love God and love each other. The fruit of the Spirit, fruit of God’s very presence in our lives becomes evident if we are in step with God. Lets turn to Gal 5v 22-25.
The bible does however have warnings. There are plenty of currents that try to pull us off course. When you see a pleasure boat with people eating, drinking and being merry, the temptation is there to jump out of the kayak and swim after it – however – if you do that, you’d be heading in the wrong direction and unless you turn back to God you’ll end up drowning.
Rejecting Jesus means that we reject the source of our life. It is not God’s will for anyone to perish, and he’ll never leave us, but those who choose to jump out of the boat and swim the other way can not be helped. That’s not to say we don’t make mistakes and fall out now and again, but God wants us to get back in and learn from it. When we make mistakes, we get wet and have to live with the consequences, however if we repent and believe in God’s grace and mercy, he pulls us back into the boat.
God’s love and grace has paid for our mistakes, however it’s a gift that can be rejected.
For those who don’t believe, and reject the gift, they won’t experience the reality that’s there for them. In my opinion, and there are other views on this, if you reject the one who gives and sustains life as it says in Col 1v15-17 the consequence is that you cease to exist.
If, when the blind fold is removed and they are faced with the reality of God’s love and presence, people reject it, and swim off in the opposite direction, there is no hope for them. But, that does not mean that God wants them or anyone else to perish, so it’s not God’s choice if anyone chooses not to accept the gift of life.
Ok, but what about the millions who don’t believe in this life? Are they doomed? Again people’s views on this subject are determined by their perspective and there are many views of this. Calvanists for example would say that unless you are predestined to be saved now, you are predestined to be lost. Others say that people can choose, but unless they believe in this life they are doomed. This is a widely held view. From our church background however we have a different view, which hasn’t really changed in my opinion. As we’ve read, the god of this world has blinded people, so the unbelievers don’t see the truth. However, Jesus is greater. We no longer speculate as to how it will work out and when, but the bible shows that God has a plan and has this issue covered.
John 5 shows that death is no barrier to Jesus. READ v 24-30. Notice that the dead will hear his voice and will live. Does this contradict v 29? No. What it shows is that Jesus is the judge, but guess what, He’s already served the death penalty for us. He came to save not condemn, and the sin has gone as far as east is from the west. As someone said in Cardiff a couple of weeks ago, if you said as far as north is from the south you would have two fixed points so you can measure it. But, when you go from the east to the west you keep going round in circles indefinitely. Rev talks about resurrections with the small and the great and all that, so when they stand before God with their eyes open and the reality before them, having been ministered to by Jesus himself, how many will believe and receive the gift of life and how many will continue in their unbelief and reject that gift? I’m not going to speculate, but we will find out at some point in the future.
I’m sure there are many other points that can be made but I have to stop somewhere – so the last point I want to make today is that we are not alone. The sea has many other people heading towards the final destination. One of the photos is of Deborah in her Kayak. Normally when we go out there are many other people paddling along within the same bay or stretch of the coast.
There are many other people in Christ not just ourselves as individuals or us as a church. GCI has been on a particular journey, which many of us have lived through, so the course of our journeys will be very similar, but other churches and individuals are approaching from other directions. The common denominator is Jesus. As long as we’re all focussed on Jesus, we’re heading in the right direction. We can not judge others if they have different views from us. Look at Romans 14. On disputable matters it says don’t judge and don’t put a stumbling block in people’s way. Other people are on their own particular journeys with their own perspectives. We are to show love and help those we meet along the way, and not put perilous rocks in front of people. I’ve been going through Galatians in Cardiff which has a stark warning not to add to the Gospel and lead others away from Jesus. You can download the sermons on the gciwales.org website if anyone’s interested.
So to conclude, we’ve been on a journey this morning. We’ve been exploring some of the realities of life. Realities we have only a glimpse of, which were revealed to people like Simeon in visions and recorded in the bible. What we know is that God loves us, and not only us, but His love extends to everyone. The finished work of Jesus has paid the penalty for the sins of all. Salvation is therefore a gift, however, in order to experience this reality we must believe it to be true. Those who don’t believe are blinded by the god of this world, but Jesus is greater and whether in life or death He will reveal the truth to all. When faced with this truth, those who reject it will be swimming away from the life and love that God has for them, so they will perish. For those who believe, Jesus has gone to prepare a place - a final destination, a new heaven and new earth, the world tomorrow, the kingdom, or whatever you want to call it.
As we see from the photos, the destination looks different when viewed from different perspectives, but the reality is the same, the difference is us. Some people are in the storms of life, others in the calm, some are in the waves about to surf in at the end of their life’s journey, others are in the shallows on a distant shore, behind the headland and haven’t really started the journey yet.
What we see and our view of it depends on where we are and where we’ve come from. It’s easy to get distracted so we need to keep our eyes on Jesus, as the only way to get there is through Him. In John 14v16, Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
We are totally dependant on Jesus so we should be eternally grateful for his love and his grace.
I’d like to finish by playing one of the songs from Deborah’s album – it’s called “I want to do right” written by Deborah and sung by Amy Sinha, which summarises the reality we’ve been thinking about this morning.
Thanks for listening.
The song referred to can be downloaded from Amazon or iTunes.
