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Last Sunday we were treated to an exceptional feast from our young adults. I say “exceptional” because what we heard from “rebellious” Rachel last Sunday was not typical Generation Z (“Gen Z”) thinking. Gen Z’ers are generally unsure whether there are objective moral standards. Rachel wasn’t. She was adamant that the GOD who created us is the Source and Standard for determining what is right and wrong (“morality”). Gen Z’ers are generally sure that sexuality and gender is self-determined, and — in what is a contradiction to this position, but believed to be equally true (this is called “cognitive dissonance”) — even predetermined. But Rachel refuted this, declaring that the Bible which Jesus Christ declared was “Scripture” which He also declared “could not be broken” (John 10:35) was very clear that GOD created mankind biologically male and female with bodies that corresponded to the sex (“gender”) and that sexuality was designed by GOD to only be expressed within the bond of holy marriage which Jesus said could only be between a man and a woman (Matt. 19:4-6). Gen Z’ers are generally unsure if life has any point or purpose. But Rachel was certain that it did, and was equally certain that it was grounded in following Christ and obeying GOD. No wonder she described herself as rebellious – because she is rebelling against the thinking/assumptions/values of most of her Gen Z contemporaries! Lest anyone think that we don’t care about this generation, I want present several reasons why we do, and why there is a spiritual crisis among most Gen Z’ers that we should all be very, very, concerned about.

What would the earth look like if the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray was answered? What would a world where God’s will was the only will that was enacted look like? The answer is the same for both questions: it would look like Heaven. John Lennon was wrong to encourage people to imagine there is no heaven. Imagining there is no Heaven comforts no-one. Imagining there is no Heaven robs people of a vision of what our earth could be. Imagining there is no Heaven denies people of a foundational reality of our universe and thus leaves them vulnerable to other and all sorts of nonsense. No John Lennon, we must imagine what Heaven is like and pray what Jesus, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the Chief Commander of the forces of Heaven, the One who could command 12-legions of Heaven’s mightiest angels to obliterate anyone who dared to defy Him (but chose not to), commanded us to pray — Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven! I want to challenge you to reimagine Heaven (not reinvent or reconstruct it) so that we might see what Christ wanted us to pray for and work toward being an answer to this sacred prayer.

As Jesus prepared to approach the Cross, He gathered His disciples in Jerusalem and addressed them over a sacred meal in a private, secluded, upstairs room. As He began to address them an enemy entered that room which only Jesus could see. This enemy whispered into the invisible ear of the one he had already lured into a love for money. Jesus recognised this dark voice. He had previously heard it in a wilderness exchange that He refused to succumb to. In a matter of minutes Jesus would dismiss His traitor and betrayer and talk only to His remaining terrified disciples. “You will all leave Me” He told them. Peter, who was always quick to speak, spoke up in response, “I will lay down my life for You.” Eventually he would. But not this night. This night, all but one would indeed flee from Jesus and leave Him friendless. Alone? No. Jesus said, “Yet I am not alone!” And even though you might feel alone, you too, are not. Here’s why.

I was required to write an assignment about pastoral time-management. This involved accounting for every 15-minute block of my work days over a period of a few weeks. I then had to examine the life of Christ to both observe how Jesus managed His time and what I could learn from this. This assignment was an important moment not just in my pastoral ministry but also in my life more generally as I discovered that Jesus prioritised His time around His Father’s mission for Him and how this incorporated “interruptions”. Jesus would often be on His way somewhere and someone would interrupt Him but rather than regarding this interruption as annoying set-back to His mission, He often turned it into a miraculous moment as He took time to minister to someone. And despite how interrupted Jesus was, He also prioritised time alone with His Father away from the crowds and even His disciples. These insights into our Saviour’s ability to stay focused on His mission while always treating interruptions as divine appointments for ministry transformed my attitude considerably. And this little explanation about how I now regard interruptions sets up how I handled what happened next on the day that I came in early to turn the heaters on for the MOPs ladies…

When was the last time someone said to you, “I was wrong and I am sorry”? For some people these words have never passed their lips. Some of these people may never have made a mistake, done anything wrong, or ever needlessly ever hurt someone so they may never had an occasion where they needed to say those words. But, if you have ever had someone tell you something that they knew was untrue as if it was true, or claimed that something was a fact that you later discovered was actually not a fact — and so did they — have they ever come back to you and said, “I was wrong and I am sorry”? If this has never been your experience, it’s about to be — because I’m going to say it to you. 

When the New Testament refers to “the cross of Christ” (1Cor. 1:17) it is also referring to His journey to the cross (known as His ‘passion’). This journey (Christ’s passion) began on earth with His incarnation in the womb of the virgin Mary. While the incarnation of the Word was the greatest miracle, His work on the cross was the greatest public miracle. It is also true that the death of Christ on the cross has now provided the means by which any repentant sinner can be forgiven of their sins and made right with God. But it is also true that the death of Christ on the cross means not just this, and, much more than this. This also involves understanding that not only does the New Testament use the expression the cross or the cross of Christ to include the events leading up to the cross, it also encompasses the events proceeding after the cross – including Christ’s resurrection, ascension and glorification.

Many people are attempting to create their own calm. Self-made calm is very difficult to create. The reasons for this are not only obvious but are also easily verified by everyone who has tried it. The peace and quiet sought from such a calm is too easily disrupted by the ordinary, everyday, pressures of life. Even those who seek the solace of calm by taking a vacation readily find that even there (on a beach, down a ski field, up a mountain, cruising around south Pacific islands) and then (summer, winter, autumn, spring) life’s uninvited surprises can be very disruptive. While mankind is generally unable to conjure the kind of calm that we each relish, there is a calm that comes from the knowledge that whatever may come our way there is One who knows us best and knows what’s best for each one despite our seemingly gravitational pull toward doubting it. Thus, while we long for a soul-enriching calm that dispels all of our anxieties, fears, uncertainties, and cravings for acceptance, there awaits each one of us a God-made calm that is offered freely because of the Eternal One who gave up His pleasure, comfort, riches, and divine acceptance, to make it possible when He was brutally spiked to a splintered Roman crucifix. What to many may just be a recollection of a moment which inspired much religious art was actually a Moment that defined a turning point in time itself. The time before this Moment is known as “BC” and the time after this Moment (when eternity intersected time itself) became known as “AD”. The result of this Moment was more profound than any one person has ever realised as evidenced by the tomes that are still be laboriously written elderly and learned theologians. But here is a glimpse of what they have come to realise happened as a result of this Moment and the infinite calm it now affords each of us. 

Everyone is searching for it and most people do not know what it is! Those who are searching for it do not know where to look and often look in all the wrong places. The ancient book of Ecclesiastes describes this search and how its main character looked for it vainly in religion, work, pleasure, sex, and even education. The quest for it is additionally hindered because most of those searching for it can not even describe what it looks like — yet, frustratingly, they have a sense that it is something very precious that they have now lost. This feeling is if they have a memory they can not recall. All that they are left with is this gnawing sense that it is now lost and they are now lost without it. What they are unaware of is that their thwarted search is a part of sinister scheme designed to keep them from ever recovering their lost memory and being reunited with it. Just like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth character, Gollum, their ever-present enemy has ensured that are befriended by several Gollum-like friends who continually assure them that nothing is missing, and there is no it. 

But when they sleep at night they dream about it. In their dreams they find it and their sadness turns to happiness; their loneliness turns to the warm friendship and intimate love; their sense of guilt and shame turns to the joy of being forgiven and accepted; their nagging feeling of enslavement to ignorance turns to unparalleled freedom; their awareness of being unclean gives way to an overwhelming delight of being washed and clean. But then they awake and renew their quest to find it.

The surprising conclusion to the story of God’s plan of redemption and the climax of each of the four Gospels, is that “the Lamb has conquered” (Rev. 17:14) — not by military might, but being killed and then conquering death itself!

I’m heading into a new season. Last Sunday marked the beginning of a new season for our church. I always knew this season was coming. I had just thought that it was still a few years off. When we arrived in Legana in 1995 it was love at first sight. We had lived in a high-density part of Melbourne, just ten minutes out of the city centre, where we had been pioneering a church in a very needy part of the city. When the Lord called us to Tasmania we were initially unsure where we were going to be called. Then it became obvious that the Holy Spirit was calling us to Launceston — where we would be based in Legana (ten minutes north of the city of Launceston). Whenever anyone asked, “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you really want to live?” My answer has always been the same: “Right here.” Yet, Kim and I always knew that the day would come when we would have to transition into a new season. As I was convalescing and physically battling with what appeared to be chronic fatigue, in my daily Bible reading I read the story of the turning-point in King David’s seasons. He had once been the young “giant-killing king of Israel” who was now the sixty-year-old weary king who was about to be killed by a giant named Ishi-benob. This became the moment when four very young men stepped-up and did what their previous generation thought was impossible: they each killed a giant!