Grace Haven Church

0:00 As Jules was saying, the theme for this year, it's not kind of like a bit of like of an Irish jig and yee-haw, let's deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Jesus.

0:09 However, that is what we've been asked to do.

0:13 And we're not being asked to do it in our own strength.

0:15 I'm so pleased you're on the front there, Andre.

0:18 We're not being asked to do it in our own strength.

0:20 We've been asked to do it with the backing of heaven and the Spirit of God Himself.

0:25 To deny ourselves, to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

0:29 And the encounter that we have been reading about is the story of the rich, young ruler.

0:37 This story is in the Synoptic Gospels, which is Matthew, Mark and Luke.

0:42 So three times this story has been shared.

0:46 And from these three different encounters, we know that he was rich, he was young, and he was a ruler.

0:54 He had authority.

0:55 Now, you would think just those three words, rich, young ruler, you would think this guy has got it all together.

1:02 He's got everything he needs.

1:04 What more does he need?

1:06 Well, you know what?

1:07 Obviously, it was not enough.

1:09 Obviously, it was not enough because this young man came searching.

1:16 He was yearning for more.

1:18 And that is why he came to Jesus.

1:20 So when we read the story, there's no judgment.

1:24 He came to Jesus.

1:25 At least he came.

1:27 He got up from where he was, his ruling and his richness and his wealth and his possessions.

1:31 He got up and he came to Jesus.

1:33 So the rich can come to Jesus.

1:35 The poor can come to Jesus.

1:37 The whole can come to Jesus.

1:38 We can all come to Jesus.

1:41 But what will we do with what Jesus says?

1:45 What will we do?

1:46 And we can learn so much from this young man's encounter with Jesus.

1:51 And we can take it and apply the good things, apply the learning into our lives and it will help us.

1:59 So today, I'm going to read this from the Amplified Bible.

2:03 And I'm warning you, the Amplified Bible has more words.

2:06 And I'm going to read it from the Matthew version.

2:08 So are you ready for it?

2:10 Because I'm going to be reading from verse 16 to verse 22.

2:13 But this is the word of the Lord.

2:16 Do you know how many people long to have the word of the Lord?

2:21 I saw a few years ago, a video of people in China being delivered Bibles.

2:29 And they literally, as they got them fell to their knees weeping because for the first they have the word of God in their hands.

2:38 So this is the word of God.

2:39 It is rich.

2:40 It is precious.

2:41 So though I'm going to read from verse 16 to verse 22, it is precious.

2:46 It is gold for our souls, for our spirits.

2:50 So here is the word of the Lord.

2:53 Verse 16.

3:05 Salvation in the Messiah's kingdom.

3:08 It's important to note here, he said teacher.

3:11 He only said teacher and we're going to pick that up a bit later.

3:14 Verse 17.

3:34 Verse 18.

3:35 He said to Jesus, which commandments?

3:38 And Jesus answered, you shall not commit murder.

3:41 You shall not commit adultery.

3:43 You shall not steal.

3:44 You shall not give false testimony.

3:46 Honor your father and mother and love your neighbor as yourself.

3:51 That is unselfishly seek the best or higher good for others.

3:58 Notice Jesus didn't bring all of the commandments to him.

4:03 He just mentioned six of them.

4:06 The young man said to him, I have kept all these things from my youth.

4:09 What do I still lack?

4:11 What do I still lack?

4:14 Self-sufficiency.

4:16 Verse 21.

4:17 Jesus answered, if you wish to be perfect, and let's see that the version of Jesus's perfection is very different to what we would think so in this day and age.

4:26 If you wish to be perfect, that is have the spiritual maturity, ouch, that accompanies godly character with no moral or ethical deficiencies, go and sell what you have and give the money to the poor.

4:42 And you will have treasure in heaven.

4:45 And then Jesus goes on to say, and come, follow me.

4:51 Becoming my disciple, believing and trusting in me and walking the same path of life that I walk.

5:00 But when the young man heard this, he left grieving and distressed.

5:06 Some translations say bent over double, groaning in distress.

5:11 For he owned much property and had many possessions.

5:16 And this is really, this is the crunch here, which he treasured more than his relationship with God.

5:28 He treasured it more than his relationship with God.

5:33 You know, to treasure something or someone means to prioritize that thing above everything else.

5:43 To treasure someone means to prioritize, prioritize that someone above everyone else.

5:54 And what we see from this young man is that he treasured what he had more than his relationship with God.

6:02 And you know, Jesus in Matthew, Matthew 6 verse 19 to 21, he instructs us very clearly in regards to treasure.

6:10 And this is what he says.

6:12 He says, do not store up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in nor steal.

6:31 And it goes on to say, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

6:39 Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

6:44 So we can see from this that what we treasure locates our heart.

6:54 What do you treasure?

6:56 What do I treasure?

6:58 Like Joel said, when she was MCing, this has actually caused a reaction in her.

7:04 And she's had to relook at areas in her life.

7:08 What does she treasure?

7:10 What is being treasured more than the promises of God or the word of God?

7:15 And I too have been taking stock and I was sharing it with Connie on Friday night, just some of the things that I have had to surrender to afresh.

7:26 What is it for you?

7:27 Because none of us are immune from this.

7:30 None of us are immune.

7:31 It doesn't matter whether you're your pastor, whether you're Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope, whatever, you know, none of us are immune from this.

7:41 Even up until the end, the disciples who had walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, seen so much, they still, up until the end, still had to decide to follow Jesus.

7:51 And you and I have been given an opportunity at the beginning of this year to take stock, to reset, to come before him going, hang on, that's the old, but what is the new?

8:04 Or what are the things that I had actually surrendered to you that I decided I would pick back up again?

8:09 Because I think you need help with this situation.

8:13 And I'm here to help you, Lord, to get this sorted.

8:18 I know it is laughable, isn't it?

8:21 But the fact is what we treasure locates our hearts and the condition of our heart determines the direction of our lives.

8:32 Should I say that again?

8:34 The condition of our heart determines the direction of our lives.

8:41 You know, we can see the condition of the rich young ruler's heart, it resulted in turning his face away from Jesus.

8:48 You know, in Luke it says that Jesus gazed upon him and loved him, loved him, unconditionally loved him.

8:57 He looked right into the depths of this searching soul and loved him.

9:01 And what this rich young ruler did because of where his heart was located, he turned his face from the gaze of unconditional love, the gaze of eternal life.

9:11 And he literally turned his back and walked in the opposite direction.

9:18 And like I say, no judgment.

9:20 Because hey ho, I think we've all done that.

9:22 And if we haven't, we certainly will have opportunity to.

9:26 But it doesn't matter how many times you fall down, it's whether you get back up again.

9:31 It's not whether we make mistakes, it's what are we going to do when we do it?

9:33 Who are we going to run to?

9:34 Are we going to go run to condemnation and hide from him like Adam and Eve did because that's what condemnation does?

9:40 Or are we going to run to him for forgiveness, for healing, for wholeness?

9:43 Amen?

9:45 Amen.

9:46 You see Proverbs 4 verse 23 says, Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life.

9:58 And you know, there's always been a fight for the heart of humanity.

10:03 Since Adam and Eve, there was a fight for their hearts.

10:06 There was a fight for the treasure.

10:08 And they chose what the serpent said.

10:10 They chose what the enemy said.

10:13 And they basically fell into the hands of the enemy, into the devil's words.

10:17 They believed him that maybe they could have more than what God had said.

10:21 Maybe there was a better way.

10:23 Maybe there was another way.

10:24 So there's always been a fight for our hearts since the beginning of time.

10:28 And you know why?

10:29 It's because the heart is the core of who we are.

10:33 When Jesus looked and gazed into that man, he looked and gazed into the core of who he was, his heart, his soul.

10:40 And you know why it is so important?

10:42 Because our hearts, the core of who we are, it actually affects our ability to receive from God, to hear from God, to see what God is saying, not just from God, but yes, God, but also from each other.

10:57 That's why the enemy wants to go after your heart, because he's here to still kill and destroy.

11:03 But Jesus said he's come to give us life and life more abundant, which we cannot expect to have outside of him.

11:10 Amen.

11:13 And this rich young ruler, bless him, he left grieving and distress because what he had, he treasured more than his relationship with God.

11:22 And you know, I've been thinking and pondering because I've read this story in all the different chapters and I actually went on Biblegateway .com and put follow me in and you won't believe how many times follow me.

11:34 Jesus is saying to follow him.

11:36 And he's still saying the same thing today.

11:41 He's still But what I've been mindful of is that Jesus wasn't asking the rich young ruler to do anything that Jesus himself had not yet done.

11:52 When the rescue plan for humanity was put into place, Jesus left everything.

11:59 He left heaven.

12:02 He left the worship of angels.

12:04 If anybody was a ruler, Jesus was, he spoke and the world came into being.

12:11 He was not asking the rich ruler to do anything that he had not done himself.

12:15 So not only did Jesus do it, but we also see there were disciples who took up their cross and followed Jesus.

12:22 I mean, Jesus literally took up the cross.

12:25 There were others, the disciples, they followed him.

12:29 You know, you read John and James, they're in the boat with their dad fishing and Jesus says, follow me.

12:35 They get out the boat, leave their dad there and they follow Jesus.

12:37 There was no like the pros and the cons.

12:40 It was just, I'm following Jesus.

12:44 They follow Jesus.

12:46 And yes, you know, doing what Jesus asked them to do does not mean that it was easy.

12:52 Not easy, necessarily easy for anybody around them either, for family, for friends.

12:56 But Jesus goes on in this portion of scripture to say, because Peter bless him, we love Peter.

13:01 He was like, we've left everything, you know, Jesus is saying all of this and then he's like, we've left everything, you know, tick for us.

13:10 And Jesus said, hey, those of you who've left everything, you will be rewarded.

13:16 You will be rewarded.

13:18 You know, I look here, I mean, this is nothing in comparison to what we're reading about, but I just look here and I look at all of you.

13:25 And I know that when this church started, it was five people, you know, Connie, Jules and Teenie came a bit later, just five people.

13:33 And so we left London and came here.

13:36 And I remember saying when we were asked to come, well, we'll go, we'll give it a go.

13:38 If it works, you know, great.

13:40 If not, we'll be back, you know.

13:42 But I am so grateful for the people whose lives have been impacted because there are people that said, let's go, let's go to Berlin.

13:50 Let's start a church there.

13:51 Let's lift up the name of Jesus.

13:53 Let's make his goodness known to the people of Berlin.

13:56 And that's why we're here.

13:57 So people have been impacted and affected in a positive way.

14:01 But you know what, if I may just say, and I shared this with Connie on Friday, that I've had to surrender to staying here.

14:07 You know what, I always thought I was going to live in the English countryside.

14:11 I was going to have my cottage with a fireplace and a white picket fence.

14:15 And I was open to having sheep in the back garden.

14:19 Do you know what I mean?

14:19 That was what I thought I would be doing with my life.

14:23 But hey ho, here we are.

14:25 And it's, you know, I can be in the English countryside on a plane.

14:32 Do you know what I mean?

14:32 It's fine.

14:33 So it's no major drama in comparison to what so many people have done.

14:37 But I do know that there are blessing for others on the other side of obedience to follow him.

14:46 Who is on the other side of your life?

14:50 Who could it be?

14:51 You may not see it now.

14:53 You may not see it now.

14:55 But when my grandfather gave his life to Jesus, a German missionary went to India and led him to the Lord 120 plus years ago.

15:03 I'm not sure he saw this.

15:05 I'm not sure he saw the fruit of, you know, five generations later on my father's side of followers of Christ.

15:12 There's always going to be somebody on the other side of our obedience when we say yes to following Jesus.

15:18 And you know what, we don't actually know what happened to the rich young ruler.

15:25 We actually don't know.

15:27 Like I know God is a God of second chances and my positive personality just kind of tells that he came back later and he put it all right and he followed Jesus and I'm going to meet him in heaven and it's going to be great.

15:38 We're going to chat about the whole thing, right?

15:41 But I wonder to myself, I wonder, did he go away and ponder?

15:45 Did he go away and think, hang on a minute, it's okay that he left.

15:48 It's okay sometimes when we don't understand, like Joel said, we kind of, oh, react, we recoil.

15:53 But I wonder, I wonder if he went away and he pondered.

15:57 I also wonder, did he have friends around him that went, I'm going to have a conversation with my friend, the rich young ruler, because he's just walked away from eternal life.

16:07 I'm just going to have a frank conversation with my friend.

16:11 I wonder if he had friends like that or was he too in his own bubble in his own world.

16:17 I wondered as I've been preparing, was somebody praying for him, that his heart would soften, that he would be open to following Jesus and that he would come aware that following Jesus would be so much better.

16:32 Following Jesus was eternal life.

16:35 And then it got me thinking, I wondered if I was that rich young ruler, would I allow a friend to speak to me?

16:42 If you were the rich young ruler, would you be humble enough to allow a good friend to come along and speak to you about where you are actually missing the mark, where you are putting something down and turning your back on the things of God?

17:01 And then I also wondered, how am I as a friend to people in my life?

17:08 How am I as a person in my life to those who I see are doing something like the rich young ruler did and walking away?

17:16 Do I have the boldness with love like Jesus looked at him with love to actually address it?

17:23 And I think we're actually living in a time where people don't like to address things because like Mark said last week, it's follow and unfollow.

17:30 Unfollow, block, delete.

17:35 But I wonder as a church community, now I'm talking to our church community, if you're visiting here, welcome.

17:41 I hope you're having a wonderful time with us, but I'm just wondering what can we do?

17:47 Will we be open to be spoken to?

17:52 And are we going to be brave enough to, in love, address things in others?

17:57 Now, this isn't licensed for everybody to go up to everybody and say, excuse me, I'm talking about good friends.

18:06 I'm talking about good friends.

18:09 Because some conversations, let's face it, they are hard.

18:12 Some conversations have you in a bit of hot sweat and like, oh gosh, you know, let's just brave this.

18:18 They do.

18:20 But are we willing to do it because we love people?

18:24 Are we willing to do it because we want to see them follow Jesus?

18:29 Are we willing to allow those conversations into our because somebody loves us and they want us to follow Jesus.

18:36 I just think it's a good thing to think about who we are surrounded by.

18:42 Because I've been thinking, I wonder who was surrounding this young man.

18:44 I wonder who was speaking into his life, but then also brought that to our context.

18:49 Who is surrounding us?

18:50 Who's surrounding you?

18:51 Who's surrounding me?

18:55 Yeah.

18:56 We know that God is a God of forgiveness and of second chances, but at the end of the day, we all need to make choices.

19:02 We need to make choices.

19:04 And you know, what you can see through scripture is that people, they either follow Jesus and love Jesus and honoured him or they did not.

19:12 You know, I do not read one story of people going, you know what, that Jesus of Nazareth, awfully nice chap, really says some strange things, but it's really sweet young man.

19:22 I don't read any of that.

19:24 Have you read it?

19:25 If you do, please let me know.

19:26 What I see is like they were either offended at him, completely furious with him, or they were loved him.

19:32 They wanted to follow him and lay down his life for him.

19:34 There didn't seem to be any of this lukewarm sweet child.

19:38 No, none of that.

19:40 And Jesus does that.

19:42 Jesus does that.

19:43 He gives us an opportunity to follow him or not.

19:46 He gives us an opportunity to honour him or not.

19:50 Some of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they were so infuriated with him, they had him killed.

19:55 I mean, Jesus gave up his life, but you know the story.

19:59 Others acknowledged that he was the Messiah and followed him, you know, and others like in this story that I just told you about, the Indian family, they chose Jesus.

20:08 They chose Jesus and they said they would follow Jesus.

20:13 I think what's interesting, and I pointed it out earlier, that the rich young ruler, he only called Jesus teacher.

20:20 He didn't call him Lord.

20:22 And this is significant because it shows that this rich young ruler had a limited perception of who Jesus was.

20:31 A limited perception.

20:33 And you know what?

20:35 What's our perception of Jesus?

20:38 Jules already alluded to it earlier.

20:40 I think it's exciting to know we can get a fresh perception of Jesus in all his goodness.

20:47 In all his glory and all his majesty and wonder if we will actually seek his face, if we will choose him, choose to come closer to him, choose to actually lean in to all that he has in store for us.

21:03 Those that honoured Jesus as Lord received from him.

21:08 Those that just saw him as somebody who could add something to their lives didn't.

21:13 And that's second thing I want to say really.

21:15 We receive from Jesus when we honour him as Lord.

21:20 As Lord.

21:21 We can see in two contrasting stories the condition of people's hearts and how it affected them receiving and not receiving.

21:31 In Mark 6, we're not going to look at this portion of scripture.

21:33 I'm just going to tell you the references, but in Mark 6 verses 1 to 6, we see Jesus' family and friends.

21:39 They were offended with him and because of their offence and lack of honour, Jesus was amazed, but not for a good reason.

21:48 He was amazed.

21:49 I would love to amaze Jesus, you know, but hey ho, they amazed him because of their lack of faith.

21:54 That is not something I want to amaze Jesus with.

21:57 He was amazed at their lack of faith and he could do nothing there because they were unable to receive from him because they did not honour him.

22:04 But then we see in Luke 7, verse 5 to 7, the centurion who honoured Jesus in his heart and basically said, you don't even need to come to my place, but just speak the word and my servant will be healed.

22:15 And the centurion was able to receive from Jesus because he honoured Jesus and in doing so, his community was blessed.

22:22 The people who dishonoured their community, Jesus was unable to do anything for them because they didn't honour.

22:29 So their community lacked, their lack of faith led to lack in their community.

22:34 This centurion, his great faith, again, Jesus was amazed and he said he great results.

22:44 Do you know what I mean?

22:44 As in the community were blessed, the centurion received the servant back to full health.

22:52 If we see Jesus just as a good advisor, just somebody to add some improvements to our lives, we are missing out on so much.

23:02 And we read this in the message translation.

23:05 There's a scripture it says here in Matthew 7, verse 24 to 25, Jesus is saying like, my words are not home improvements.

23:15 This is what he says, these words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living.

23:22 They are foundational words, words to build a life on.

23:27 If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock.

23:34 Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit, but nothing moved at that house.

23:40 It was fixed to the rock.

23:42 It was fixed to eternal life.

23:45 It was fixed to truth.

23:48 But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter.

23:56 That's what I'm not saying this.

23:57 The message is saying stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach.

24:03 And when a storm rolled in and the waves came in, it collapsed like a house of cards.

24:08 So one is solid roots going down.

24:14 Nothing is destroying that home, that life.

24:19 Attacks can come, challenges can come, but ultimately nothing can take eternal life away from us.

24:26 But the one who does not, actually like a house of cards.

24:32 So we can see here that following Jesus as saviour, yep, that's great.

24:36 He's our saviour, but is he our Lord?

24:39 Him being our Lord is when we honour him and we actually apply his teachings to our lives.

24:46 And that's the last thing I want to bring to us today, is that to follow Jesus is a call of action.

24:51 It's a call to action.

24:54 You know, maybe you have made a decision in the past, like I said earlier, and then you've just forgotten it and now you want to pick it back up.

25:02 You go 2026, this is the year I'm going to get water baptised.

25:07 This is the year I am going to forgive.

25:11 This is the year I'm actually going to be open to learn more about this, this, this, or this.

25:19 Are we going to be followers of Jesus Christ?

25:23 Are we?

25:24 It's a question, it's a choice.

25:26 Just like he asked this rich young ruler to follow him, to follow him.

25:33 Jesus is asking you and I today to follow him.

25:36 Follow him afresh into all that he has planned and prepared.

25:41 You know, my mother was young when she gave her life to Jesus.

25:45 She was already married to my dad, but she was young.

25:49 And she just woke up in the middle of the night thinking, she just heard this voice.

25:56 She knew it was Jesus.

25:56 You need to make me your Lord and Saviour.

25:59 So she made Jesus her Lord and Saviour.

26:03 But when it came to water baptism, her father who was a staunch Hindu,

26:09 basically her father and uncles and some of the other relatives were going to cause a riot when they heard that she was going to get baptised.

26:17 They were going to go down to the river in Ba, which in the Fiji Islands, which is where she was from and born.

26:23 They were going to go down there and cause a riot.

26:27 And she knew this.

26:28 My father knew this.

26:31 What they did was they put her in the back of a truck and they covered her over with Hessian cloth sacks and they smuggled her down to the river and they baptised her.

26:49 And what I'm saying here was that she decided to follow Jesus.

26:56 And I just know that there are things that are holding us back that others would look and go, they're looking from heaven saying, come on, that is so, you can do that.

27:11 We've got so many heroes of faith from the Bible, but also many of us here in our own personal lives.

27:19 Jules' grandmother was a woman of faith.

27:22 There are so many stories.

27:23 My grandmother was a woman of faith on my dad's side.

27:27 My mother herself, knowing that there was the possibility of her Hindu father and uncles and cousins coming to cause a riot and not let her get into the water, even though she was already married to my dad.

27:41 And you know what?

27:42 They didn't come.

27:43 They didn't cause a riot, but she was still prepared to go through with it if they did.

27:48 And I'm just wondering, I'm taking courage from my heritage.

27:53 I'm taking courage from the word of the Lord, that whatever is ahead, Christ is enough.

28:01 I'm taking courage that when I'm being asked to follow Jesus, I'm being asked to follow eternal life.

28:12 And that is the invitation for all of us here today.

28:16 In Jesus' name.

A Conversation With Jesus.

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Start with the teachings.