Dead Man Walking - Ward Lucas

Hey guys, Pastor James Murray here, and I want to welcome you to the Abide Sydney podcast. This whole podcast is designed to help you on the journey of discipleship, and our mission is to make disciples of the people of Sydney. But maybe you're not from Sydney. We hope this blesses you. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this podcast. Please remain standing. We're going to read the scriptures. But who loves our pastors, location pastors, Andy and Irina, they are absolutely phenomenal. I said in the 9am service, when I grow up, I want to be more like Pastor Andy, just so genuine, so loving, so caring, so encouraging. We are so blessed to have you guys leading this congregation. It's just awesome to be part of it. We're going to continue in a series that Pastor Andy started last week on one John called The Children of God. It's a 13-week journey through the book of one John. This is week two. And we're going to be looking at one John 1, 5 through to 2, 2. So we're going to read this together. One John 1. Let me just move out of the way. Thanks, Bailey. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you. God is light. Everyone say light. In him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him. Yet walk in darkness. We lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light. Everyone say light. He is in the light. We have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus. His son purifies us from all sin. Next screen. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just. He will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours, but for the sins of the whole world. That is the word of God. You may be seated. Thank you. Yeah, that's worth a clap. So the big idea, the big idea for this portion of scriptures, part of the series is the Christian life is not about sin management. It's about life enlargement. And every step we take toward the light enlarges our capacity to share in that life. So I've called this message, Dead Man Walking. I don't know if anyone's seen the movie. Anyone seen the movie, the 1995 movie, Susan Sarandon, a very, very young Sean Penn. Philip, you haven't seen it? Come on. You were born, man. Look, a great movie, a powerful movie. But Sean Penn plays a. He's a prisoner who's on death row, if you haven't seen it. And the title comes from the prison guard, or what the prison guards would say when they were taking an inmate who just got his final sentence from his cell to the execution chamber. And so they'd take him out of his cell in chains and they'd start walking and the prison guard would yell out, dead man walking, as they went towards his execution. It's a haunting phrase because it describes someone who is. Physically alive. But their future has been decided or determined. Every step he took on that final journey was taking him towards his predetermined end in that movie. And it got me thinking, is it possible that for some of us here today, although we're not on death row, obviously, but we may be living like we are. You say, in what way? In what way am I living like that? Well, deep down, maybe we believe our story's already been decided. It's already been predetermined by our upbringing, by our past, by our lack of education, maybe our failures. And so we're living in a way we think, well, my future's predetermined. It's already set out. I can't change it. The gospel changes that story for every single one of us. It turns the story around because through Jesus, the Christian may also be a dead man or a dead man walking. But the difference is, unlike the person who's going towards their execution, we are walking from our death into life. He's walking from life into death. We're walking. From our death into the life that God's promised. Romans 6, 3 to 4 says this. Or don't you know that all of us were baptised into Christ Jesus, were baptised into his death? We are therefore buried, dead, buried, strong language, with him through baptism into death. In order that. Just as Christ was raised from the dead. Through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life. Live a new life. Think about that. The Christian really is someone who's died. And yet is walking in newness of life. It's a powerful imagery. So John, I want to use that as the sort of. The imagery for this message. John shows us throughout these scriptures that we read before. Four movements. I want to use walking as the word through each of these. So walk in the light. Everyone say walk. Walk with honesty. Everyone say walk. Keep walking. Everyone say walking. And walk into God's future. Everyone say walk. So the first one, walk in the light. One John. One, five to six. God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. So why does John summarize all of John's, all of Jesus teaching in these words? I mean, is that all he had to say? This is the message. This is John. He was there when Jesus was preaching. He traveled with him. And he says, this is the message we heard. You go, is that all you heard in three years? What's his point? What's he trying to say? He's saying that. John's saying, God is light. He's saying the gospel doesn't begin with you. It doesn't begin with us. It doesn't begin with our sin. It doesn't begin with our problems. It begins with God. God is light. John begins with God before he talks about us. He tells us who God is before telling us what to do. Why is this important? Because if we don't make, this paradigm shift in our relationship with God from focusing on ourselves to focusing on him, we're going to struggle in our Christian walk because it's not about us. It's about him. John says everything starts and ends with God, but we want everything to end and start with ourselves. We like things revolving around ourselves. We think about ourselves constantly. Or is it just me? We're always thinking about our future, our plans, this, that, our health. It revolves around us. It's like the joke. People tell me I'm self-centered, but that's enough about them. I got a better laugh in the 11 than the nine. I almost took it out. Martin Lewin Jones, in his commentary on 1 John, says one of the great weaknesses of modern Christianity is that we define Christianity by what we do. I believe certain things. I don't do certain things. I pray. I read. I go to church. I do this. I do that. John starts somewhere completely different in these scriptures and in these verses and in this series that we're going to do. He starts with God. Everything starts and ends with God. That doesn't mean there's not sin. That doesn't mean we've got problems. But oftentimes where we focus is where we end up. When I got my motorbike license many, many years ago, I'm not sure if they still teach this when you're doing your course to get your motorbike license, but they told us when you're going around a corner, don't look at the corner. Look round the corner. And if there's a pothole on the road, don't look at the pothole. Look past the pothole. Why? Because where you focus is where you end up. if you're going around a corner on a motorbike you're going quite quick and you think oh I'm going too quick and you look at the corner guess what you're gonna hit you're gonna hit the rocks it's the same in cycling I do cycling as well if you're going around a corner going a bit quick the temptation is oh look here you've got to go no no I've got to keep looking around the corner because that's where you end up going and John is saying life is like that John's saying start with God I know you've got issues but let's start by focusing on the light don't focus on the problems don't focus on the issues don't focus on the sin put your focus on God first and foremost everything begins with God don't begin with your problems begin with God point two walk with honesty so the next part of this I'm going to be talking about is how to walk with God so the next part of this I'm going to be talking about is how to walk with God these verses we looked at if we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness we lie and do not live out the truth now it's important to note I believe John is primarily addressing Christians here in these verses not everyone agrees not every Bible commentator agrees it's all right they can be wrong it's it's a it's a letter it's a letter that's going out and going to be circulated to churches so I think it's written to Christians so therefore what does it mean for a Christian to walk in darkness he's not talking about salvation he's talking to Christians so what does it mean for a Christian if we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness we lie and do not live out the truth so what does that mean for a Christian walking in darkness doesn't simply mean committing blatant willful sin rather walking in darkness is trying to maintain fellowship with God while refusing to let his light shine in certain areas of our lives in certain areas of our lives at its heart it means to hide to hide the first response of Adam after sin after God exposed his sin was not confession was it it was concealment John 3 uh Genesis 3 10 Adam said I was afraid so I hid I hid so the fundamental human problem is not merely sin or wrongdoing making mistakes or these things that are in our life it's the fact that we try and hide them we want to hide them we don't want anyone to see them we don't want God to see them we hide it from God we will often not see them because we live in denial we deny it's there or if we can't deny it we shift the blame to someone else so that's exactly what Adam did when he said did you did you do it did you eat that fruit the woman you put here with me she gave me the fruit I gave her the fruit I gave her the fruit I gave her me some fruit and I ate it not my fault it's not my fault I'm a victim in this situation and we do this in varying degrees in every part of our life notice how we have 20 20 vision when it comes to other people's faults well we can pick them out from kilometers away particularly our partners and yet when it comes to our own we're legally blocked well I can't I can't see that I where what do you mean Adam said I was afraid so I hid point or truth I should call these truths anyway truth when we hide our brokenness we will not experience all his goodness or if we hide our brokenness we will not experience all his goodness why because grace meets us where honesty begins or grace works where honesty begins God cannot heal what we insist on hiding or what stays hidden stays unchanged Proverbs 28 13 says this whoever conceals their sins does not prosper but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy we when our kids were much younger then our youngest was probably four or five some of you know our boys we've got three boys the older two were maybe 10 or 11 somewhere around there so it was a long time ago but we went through Nicole and I my wife who was up here praying we went through a very difficult time at that point in our lives very very stressful financially stressful circumstantially stressful it was one of the most difficult times in our life under a lot of pressure and I was at home one day I'm not sure why but anyway we were having an argument that's what I remember we're arguing about something and the argument got heated and I just remember I was I was shouting at her in our lounge room might have been pointing can't remember but I remember shouting at her and I didn't realize that Ben who was four or five our youngest at the time was was in the room he must have been standing behind me anyway as I was as I was shouting at Nicole he sort of came out he looked up at me and he burst into tears and he ran over to the lounge and buried himself into the cushions on the lounge and in that moment I my heart just broke and I said to Nicole I said I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I apologize please forgive me that's wrong and then I went and grabbed Ben under all the cushions and I picked him up and I held him I looked him in the eye and I said I'm so sorry Ben please forgive me I've asked for forgiveness from your mother you will never ever hear me yell at your mother like that again and the other two boys were in their bedrooms at the time and I went into Sam's room and I got him up and I said Sam I want to apologize to you for what you just witnessed and experienced I've apologized to your mum I've apologized to Ben I'm apologizing to you you'll never ever hear me speak to your mother like that again and then I did the same for Bailey my greatest problem wasn't anger under pressure my greatest problem would have been either pretending it wasn't there or in the heat of the argument justifying the behavior saying well it's stress it's you know you you did it you caused this but the moment I brought it into the light God didn't simply change my behavior he changed my heart and as far as far as I'm aware I've never yelled at Nicole in front of the boys again I'll wait till they go out no no I made a vow that day I go out if I get angry if there's something go look you're gonna have argument if you get me if you're if you're engaged or if you look you are gonna have arguments it's it's how you handle those arguments how you deal with them in a godly way and Christianity is not becoming a better version of yourself you hear people say become the best but that's not Christianity Christianity is not about becoming a better version of yourself it's about dying to yourself it's about killing yourself you're not becoming a better version it isn't about self-improvement it starts with new creation a death takes place and God raises a person from the dead in newness of life that's Christianity that's what the Bible promises and that's why the greatest compliment your old friends can give you they don't mean as a compliment it's when they say geez you've changed wow what's happened to you and you can smile at them you can go you've got no idea how much I've changed you've got no idea I'm a different person so point three keep walking so we've had walk in the light walk with honesty keep walking remember the big idea I said at the start Christian life is not about sin management it's about life enlargement keep walking so John says as we go on in the verses we looked at the start if we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves Johnny's doing more than condemning hypocrisy he's demolishing spiritual elitism it's a warning against believing we've arrived that we have a special knowledge or insight or we're better than anyone else at the time Paul was writing this John was writing this letter there was a heresy starting to rise up amongst the Christians and amongst the churches called Gnosticism not word Gnosis means to know they believe they had a special knowledge special insight and therefore they made they made them more elite more special Christians and John's going there are no elite Christians there are no elite Christians take a look around this room everyone look over this side look at these people then look over this side at these people have a look up the back look up the back there are no elite Christians turn to the person next to you and say there are no elite Christians now turn to the person on the other side and say especially that bloke up the front it's true there are no elite Christians there are no graduates from grace you do not graduate from grace some may be further along the journey and that's that's awesome and that's great but no one's arrived no one has arrived to perfection you see some Christians you meet them every now and again walking around like they're spiritual black belts critical of other Christians yeah like this guy you know they're critical other Christians tell everyone what they need to do where they need to grow how they need to improve you come across them from time to time I like this picture because uh he thinks he's a black belt he's actually a white belt he's got no idea what he's doing the funny thing is real black belts never wear the belt and they never wear the gi for certain you would never know you would never know why because genuine maturity produces humility genuine maturity produces humility they know there's still more to know and more to grow they don't stand up for some pillar of righteousness or as my old pastor used to call them oaks of righteousness did you ever hear him say that oaks of righteousness uh so how do we do this how do we keep walking towards the light by being honest with ourselves starts there by accepting responsibility for our actions how through confession and repentance as John goes on to say if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will give us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness so what does confess mean um it means more than just telling someone you don't know something you've done there's church traditions that do that I'm not saying that's bad but it's more than that confession in the Greek is the word homologation which means to say the same thing if we confess if we say the same thing of our sins as God says so what does it mean it means to agree with God confession means to say what God says in his word is what I'm gonna agree with I'm gonna agree it means more than it means to agree with God to agree with the Bible to stop hiding to stop arguing with what God says to stop blaming other people and go you know what God I'm gonna agree with what you say about my circumstance about my situation about my life I say I'm just stressed and God says no you're angry and you need to deal with it God you're right you're right I will or that's just who I am and God says no that's the way you were you need to change you need to deal with it God you're right you're right you're right you're right I agree that's what confession means it doesn't just mean I yeah I did something wrong it's like I agree with what God says and then once we start with that agreeing with God it leads to repentance and so this is me channeling my Bible lecturing days so uh hold on uh homologation homo same word to say the same thing listen up class to say the same thing I agree with God confession means to agree it leads to repentance what is the Greek word for repentance matanoia or uh it's annoying matter needs to change now mind understanding perception confession to agree leads to turning to put it in simple language I agree with God that's step one it doesn't end there I turn towards God's ways that's what metanoia means I change my mind my understanding my perception my direction a radical reorientation towards God's direction I turn towards the light that's what it means and as we turn towards him towards the light towards the word we begin to see things differently why because there's more light the light begins to shine on our lives on areas of our lives we see differently because there's more light have you ever tried getting to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning the light on I have kicked our bed frame that many times of scars on my shins trying to oh but you turn the light on and your wife screams at you you turn the light on and you have no trouble right because there's light that's what John's saying here as you agree with God and you turn towards him you'll begin to see things differently begin to see where to go how to go repentance is turning towards God agree turn start walking in his direction and the word transformation which is his business metamorpho which means to change form our nature it's where we get the word metamorphosis God transforms us into the likeness of Christ that's his job we do not need to change ourselves we do not need to try harder to be a better person if we agree with what God says in his word and we turn towards him and his ways and begin to align them and start stepping that's the way I'm going to live that's what I'm going to do he changes us he changes our nature he transforms us more and more into the likeness of Christ to where your friends begin to say gee you've changed what's happened to you I didn't do anything God has changed me transformation is God working in us as we agree with his word and turn towards him and walk in the light he gradually begins to make us more like Christ that's the way it works it's that easy well it's not easy is it if it was easy we'd all do it the process is not always easy sometimes admitting we have an issue we're not always easy we're not an issue sometimes saying you're right I need to change letting go of the old self is painful it's not always easy if Christian transformation was an app we would all download it we would put it on our iPhone or our or our Samsung or whatever through the app store we'd yeah click on that yeah yep yep I want Christian transformation I want to be more like Jesus accept Jesus yep click confession uh maybe later skip repentance uh skip proceed to transformation and promises yes click we want to we want the end without the process right we just want to be like Christ it doesn't work like that God doesn't work through a skip button transformation comes through confession repentance and transformation it's a process and it's not just salvation it's not just when we come to Christ it's every step of the way I've been a Christian for decades long time I got saved at 17 years of age I'm 35 now I'm like it's a long time and God's still pointing out stuff in my life you'd think when you've been following the Lord a long period of time you'd arrive you don't arrive why because as you keep walking towards Jesus walking towards the light the light shines brighter and you see stuff that you didn't see before the graciousness of God it was there the whole time it's not like it's just appeared but when we get saved we got all this stuff and God so grace he doesn't go right you want to be a Christian okay do this today you got a thousand things you got to get right no he just goes just change this you go oh I can do that just be forgiving or just deal with your anger or deal with your insecurity or deal with this or deal with that and you go okay yes I'm walking and then okay now just work on this yeah okay I can do that and work on that and I'm going to do that and I'm yeah I can do that that's what sanctification is that's how we grow and become more like Christ and it doesn't end you don't become perfect in this life God will continue to point things out and show stuff as we keep walking towards him so confession and repentance are a necessary part of the process of sanctification they're not evidence of failure oftentimes we think oh it means I failed they're not evidence of failure they're not evidence of failure they're not evidence of failure they're evidence of progress because it means you're walking in the light and all of a sudden you see something you think i gotta i gotta deal with that i gotta fix uh lord i'm sorry i agree with you i agree i need to change i agree that attitude's wrong i agree that mindset's wrong i agree and it's not always just bad stuff sometimes god said you know you're saying oh i'm useless i'm hopeless and god's saying no you're made in the image of christ oh yeah but i make all these no what are you going to agree with you must agree with me and what i'm saying to grow so walking so it's not so confession and repentance are not evidence of failure they're evidence of progress and so therefore if we've been following christ for a while and we're there's nothing in our life that we're feeling we need to improve and we're feeling we need to improve or fix or get better then one or two possibilities let me highlight them for you as pastor james would say love you love you one is you're denying that it's there and you're not dealing with it and some christians will spend their whole life and though it doesn't mean they're not going to heaven they're beautiful christian people but they're still dealing with insecurity that they had when they're a child or some kind of mistrust issue that happened early on and they've just never really dealt with it never never brought it to christ never really allowed god to bring true transformation so it's either denial or we've stopped walking we've stopped walking we've sat down and that is always a temptation the longer we go in christ we think oh everything's lost god god's blessing leads us or causes us to come to Christ and we're going to complacency we get so blessed that we become complacent if you follow christ and you doing what he says your life will turn around things will turn around blessings will come and the temptation is oh well life's awesome now just i'll just sit out this is enough but god is infinite and therefore we never reach a point where we've arrived if we're following after him gregory of nyssa or gregory who was the bishop of nyssa in the fourth century one of the guys i i enjoy reading he he called this process epictasis and he got it from paul the apostle in philippians 3 13 if you may know this scripture where paul said forget what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead does anyone remember that scripture you read that scripture in philippians that same greek word we're straining forward is the is this sort of concept that gregory developed in philippians and he got it from paul the apostle and he got it from and it influenced not only the fourth century but all the way through the middle ages this whole idea of epictasis which means the stretching out beyond comfort to engage our heart our energy our lives towards the light toward christ and towards the coming kingdom it was a god orientated mindset concept lifestyle forgetting what lies behind and straining to what lies ahead and through gregory's writings the medieval church captured this same vision in a latin phrase extensio animi ad magna and um i love this verse i came across it maybe eight or ten months ago i put i made it my lock screen on my phone and the car wasn't happy because i took her picture off but but i just wanted to be constantly reminded that this is the this is the christian life to be constantly stretching out beyond where we are to more to know more to do more to be more extencio animi extensio extend animi your soul your spirit ad magna towards magnificent things or towards great things and the medieval church embodied this concept this idea and that's why we see during that period we see them building hospitals they attended church but they didn't just attend church they built hospitals to care for the sick and they built hospitals to care for the sick and they built hospitals to care for the sick they built schools to educate the poor built universities to pursue to pursue health they they they built orphanages for abandoned children hospices for the dying they look to transform the world why because transforming people transform the world transforming people transform the world that is why we're here it's not just about personal transformation that's important that's awesome that's great but it's more than that they didn't settle for comfortable lives they didn't settle for the status quo they didn't accept things the way they were but said why are they this way and work towards making them different that's why we're here that's why we're here and so my question is what might god do through a church community like us whose hearts are being enlarged as we stride towards the light what might god do through this group of people in this city all things are possible for those who believe god is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask think or imagine he does the transform we don't need to transform it he does the transforming what are we what's our part we got to agree god this is possible and we've got to turn towards his purpose and his vision and his desire for our lives for our church for our city and we just start walking we just start walking we keep walking when we get discouraged we keep walking when we get disappointed we keep walking when we get let down we keep walking when we get frustrated we keep walking we just we keep walking we keep walking we keep walking in the light and god brings transformation so what might god do through a person who refuses to give into fear or what people think of us and like isaiah and isaiah 6 8 if you know the verse isaiah heard the voice of the lord saying whom shall i send and who will go for us and isaiah said what did isaiah say he said here am i lord here am i send me send me is anyone else hearing that call this morning maybe you have sat down maybe you're thinking oh there's so much more there's more in the workplace or business or in church life or god's calling you into an area to bring transformation and change you know you know into one of the pillars of society could be education could be medicine could be arts sciences could be medicine could be arts sciences sport media god's saying i want you to go and i want you to bring transformation bring the gospel that's why we're here together we can change the world so the movie dead man walking it ends with a man whose life's been taken from him the gospel begins with a savior who gives us back our life gives it back what are we going to do with it when john says walk in the light he's not talking about an idea he's not talking about a concept he's talking about a person and that person is jesus christ and as a pastor i'm not a pastor anymore but i'm sure pastor andy feels this as well when you see people's lives transformed in church when you see people coming into church as some of you have and broken and bruised and and life's a mess and it's not always a mess but you don't know jesus and you're just trying to think and see people come to christ put up their hand receive jesus go through the process get water baptized you know get married or if they weren't already or or see see their see their circumstances turning around whether it be healing whether it be finances whether it be family situations when you see trans when you see god transforming people's lives there is nothing else like it it is what it's all about if you've ever led someone to christ or maybe someone in your family or whatever and you see them grow and you see them walk and over the years see their life transformed and see the blessings come that's what it's all about it's it's it is magnificent it is is beyond words to see that come about and that's why we're here that's what we want to see but it's a process right it's a process so the light is not a concept it's not an idea it's a person his name's jesus and jesus said this i am the light of the world whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but we'll have the light of life well we hope this podcast has inspired you on your journey of discipleship to jesus if you want to know more about our church just go to abide.sydney we'd love to get to know you if not you're from another place hey why don't you share this with someone else and hopefully it helps them as they continue to follow jesus have a great week