Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Right. Well, good morning, everybody.
[00:00:07] It's really, really good to see you. My name is Graham and part of the congregation here, and it's a great joy to be speaking on the next part of Luke. So if you have a Bible with you this morning, if you'd like to turn to Luke chapter six, we are going to be reading verses 12:12 through to verse 26. And I'd encourage us, as we read this together, to come with a posture of inquisitiveness and curiosity. What is it that Jesus wants to say to me today through these words? Whether I've been a Christian for years and years and years, or whether just for a few weeks or maybe I'm not sure about what this Christianity lark is all about. That doesn't matter. Come to these words with an inquiring mind. So let me read Luke, chapter 6, verse starting at verse 12.
[00:01:03] One day soon afterwards, Jesus went to a mountain to pray. And he prayed to God all night.
[00:01:12] At daybreak, he called together all his disciples and chose 12, 12 of them to be apostles. And here are their names. Simon. He also called him Peter. Andrew. Peter's brother James. John. Philip. Bartholomew. Matthew. Thomas. James, son of Alphaeus. Simon the Zealot. Judas, son of James. Judas Iscariot, who later betrayed him.
[00:01:37] When they came down the slopes of the mountain, the disciples stood with Jesus on a large level area, surrounded by many of his followers and by the crowds. There were people from all over Judea and from Jerusalem and from as far north as the sea coasts of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed. And Jesus cast out many evil spirits. Everyone was trying to touch him because healing power went out from him and they were all cured.
[00:02:08] They Then Jesus turned to his disciples and said, God blesses you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is given to you.
[00:02:17] God blesses you who are hungry now for you will be satisfied. God blesses you who weep now, for the time will come when you will laugh with joy.
[00:02:26] God blesses you who are hated and excluded and mocked and cursed because you are identified with Me, the Son of Man.
[00:02:34] When that happens, rejoice, yes, leap for joy, for great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember the great. The ancient prophets were also treated that way. For your ancestors, woe to you who are rich, for you have only your happiness now.
[00:02:54] Woe to you who are satisfied and well fed and prosperous now, for a time of awful hunger is before you.
[00:03:01] Woe to you who laugh carelessly, for your laughing will soon turn to mourning and sorrow. Woe to you who are praised by the crowds for their ancestors also praised false prophets.
[00:03:16] Shall we pray, Father? There are some challenging and maybe even puzzling words in this pass.
[00:03:26] And we come to you and we offer you our hearts and our minds and our lives.
[00:03:34] And we invite you by the power of your Holy Spirit to speak into each one. Help us be receptive and curious and engaged this morning with your word. Empower it by your spirit in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:03:50] Amen. Well, it is really great to be working our way through the book of Luke. We're in chapter six and a couple of weeks ago, aid spoke to us about the first 11 verses in this chapter around the Sabbath. And what Jesus is doing in the whole of this chapter and a little bit beyond is he's engaging people in what's called a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift is where you take something you thought you knew and it's turned on its head and makes you think of things in a completely different way.
[00:04:21] If you're a Star wars fan and you watch Star wars films, the end of the second film in the original trilogy, there's a moment, I won't spoil it in case there's anyone who hasn't watched it, even though it's about 20 years old, there's a moment where the baddie Darth Vader is having a fight with the goody Luke Skywalker and they're engaged in this lightsaber duel and something happens that completely changes the dynamics between them and the rest of the film saga. It's a paradigm shift. Or at the end of the film, the original film of the Planet of the Apes, you could. You can tell what kind of films I watch, can't you? The end of the Planet of the Apes. There's another iconic moment that's gone down in film history that makes you re evaluate the whole of the film that you've just watched. And that's what Jesus is doing in Luke chapter six. He's saying to people what you thought you knew about faith, what you thought you knew about the Sabbath, what you thought you knew about the people of God, what you thought you knew about how to live life as a follower of Jesus. I'm turning it on its head. I'm turning it all around. So in 1 to 11, he redefines the Sabbath. He challenges us to see it as a time of rest and worship and as a talked about. It's a time to see and follow the priorities of Jesus and not settle just for mere religious observance. And Today, in verses 12 to 19, we'll see him appointing 12 apostles, 12 people who are going to redefine what it means to be the people of God. And then in verses 20 and through to 49, he goes on even further and reinterprets the law and shows people how they are expected to live. So this morning we'll look at the people of God and then we'll have a look at what it means to be to live a blessed life.
[00:06:12] As we look at all the different people in those verses 12 to 19, I was surprised at how many different people there are. I don't know if you noticed that. Let's have a look at the people if you've got it in front of you. First of all, in verse 12, there's Jesus at the top of this mountain. He goes up this mountain to pray because he's got an important decision to make. And did you notice he prays all night.
[00:06:36] I'm so delighted that Jesus prays all night for us when he's got an important decision to make. He prays all night.
[00:06:46] And he is the head of the church, isn't He? He is the one who is in charge. He is the one who forms and founds the church. And then he calls his disciples. Now, in those days they didn't have mobile phones. So I'm imagining the disciples must have been reasonably nearby. He couldn't just phone them up and say, hi guys, I finished praying, can you come up now? A quick chat. They must have been kind of reasonably nearby. And so this group of disciples comes up the rest of the mountain to join him. And disciples are learners. They're people who have said, I want to apprentice myself to Jesus, I want to learn from Jesus, as John Mark Comer says. He says they want to spend. They want to be with Jesus, they want to be like Jesus and they want to do the things that Jesus did. Did. They're people who have intentionally and publicly said, I am Jesus'and. This afternoon we are going to hear from people and see people who have done exactly that, aren't we? We're going to see people getting baptized, which is so exciting. Really, really great stuff. I don't know. Has anyone watched the program Pilgrimage 1 or 2? This is one, if you haven't seen it. It's this great program on BBC. They show every Easter and it's seven celebrities who go on a walk, a long 300 kilometer walk in different parts of the world. This year they were in Austria and Switzerland. And as they walk, they're people of some of all Sorts of different faiths. And as they walk, they talk about faith. And this year as they were walking, there was one lady, a Paralympian, I've forgotten her name, who was a Christian. She was a strong Christian and she was a disciple of Jesus Christ. She very publicly talked about what her faith meant and how it helped her live her life and give her hope and joy even in the face of suffering. It's a really good recommend it if you want some thought provoking television. So there's the disciples. And then from these disciples, Jesus takes out 12 apostles. He extracts them. They're not any more worthy, they're not any more important, they're not any better than the disciples. But they've got a different function, function. And an apostle is someone who sent a messenger, somebody who has been tasked. We're taking the message of the kingdom of God first of all to the Jewish community and then later on to the whole wide world. That is their job. And Jesus very pointedly appoints 12 apostles.
[00:09:17] They are 12 apostles representing the 12 tribes of Israel. Back in Genesis 35, the sons of Jacob. Jesus is saying, there's something new here. What's gone before isn't invalid, it's not unimportant. But I'm doing a new thing, I'm creating a new thing. Now these 12 people that we've got here, we won't go into them in detail today, but they're a really mixed bag. I reckon none of them would get into the final five on the Apprentice nowadays.
[00:09:47] They've got different personalities, they've got different backgrounds, they've got different political persuasions, all sorts of things. But God sees this, Jesus sees something in them and says, I'm going to give you this leadership role of taking my kingdom into the world.
[00:10:05] So can you see there's this kind of embryonic church on top of this mountain got Jesus, we've got our disciples and we've got our apostles. And that's a sort of embryonic pre Pentecost image of the church. Church.
[00:10:19] But they don't stay up on the mountain, they come down the mountain onto the plain. Now some commentators think that this passage we're about to look at is the same as the Sermon on the Mount that we find in Matthew. And Luke has just condensed it a little bit. Other commentators think it's a different sermon. Some people think it happened on a mountain, some people think it happened on a plane. I have no idea where it was, but I do know the teaching of Jesus is correct and right and we should listen to it. So they come down onto this plane and there's a whole group of other people on this plane. There are followers, and that's different from a disciple. A follower is maybe someone who is interested in Jesus, who comes along to church, maybe every so often listens in to what's going on, but hasn't actually committed to be a disciple and to say, yeah, I'm going to learn from Jesus. I'm going to apprentice myself under Jesus. And then there's a crowd, maybe the curious people, people who have heard about Jesus and want to find out a little bit more. They don't really know what's going on. You'll notice in the passage, they come from Jerusalem, which is 70 miles to the south of where they are, and Tyre and Sidon, which is about 80 miles to the north of where they are. So they've come from quite a long way. I don't know how far has anyone come from a long way? They King Satan, Newton Abbott, Chudley, you know, I don't know where we've come from, but here people are coming from far and wide to hear about Jesus. There's the crowd.
[00:11:55] Church is a place Newton Abbot rediscover Newton Abbott is a place where we can come of all sorts of people and we can learn about Jesus. We may be disciples, we may be followers, we may be. We may be all sorts of people, but we have the opportunity to explore the claims of Jesus and find out what we think about him for ourselves. That's encouraging, isn't it? But in addition to that, there's even more people. There's not just those people, there's also. It tells us there are the diseased and there are the people who are troubled by evil spirits. The troubled in mind. People have come to listen, to see and hear what Jesus is saying. But some people want to touch him and get really, really close to him. So there's all sorts of things going on on this planet. I think it's interesting that Jesus doesn't say to the people who want to be healed, okay, you want to be healed, but you need to go through these hoops first. You need to work your way through from being crowd to follower to disciple. And then I will heal you doesn't say that. It just says he heals people.
[00:13:02] So Jesus is creating something radically new. The Pharisees were people who thought that only a certain type of person could belong to the people of God. They had a very narrow set of criteria. Jesus is comprehensively rewriting it.
[00:13:18] And as we move on from this little section, I wonder, can I just invite us to ask ourselves the question, what kind of people do I identify with in this passage?
[00:13:29] Do I identify with the disciples? Am I a disciple? Am I someone who has made a commitment and a conscious decision to follow Jesus and to seek to live a life that reflects him? Am I a disciple? Maybe I'm part of the crowd this morning. Maybe I'm here out of curiosity. Maybe someone's dragged me here this morning and I'm here because someone's brought me.
[00:13:54] Maybe I'm here because I'm in desperate need of healing, or I need some release in my mind.
[00:14:02] Maybe we're here because God has placed a leadership calling in us.
[00:14:06] Maybe we're here because we want to listen and reflect. Maybe we're here because we want to reach out and touch.
[00:14:13] Maybe we're here because we're a follower and we aren't quite at that point of becoming a discernment. But we're so close.
[00:14:23] Who are you this morning? Who do you identify? But the key thing is, on that plane, all are welcome. You are all welcome here, whatever you think of Jesus.
[00:14:36] And so Jesus takes this crowd and he turns to them and he says something quite remarkable.
[00:14:49] Imagine the crowd that we've just portrayed. Disciples, newly minted Apostles, followers, diseased, troubled.
[00:14:59] And all of these people sitting on this plane will have at least one significant question in their head. And the question in their head will be, how do I live a good life?
[00:15:10] How do I live a life that is blessed by God? Or in some versions, what does happiness look like? What does the good life look like? That will be in their heads as a question. And I don't think it's too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that. That is a question that rests on many people's minds today as well. What does the good life look like? What does a happy life look like? I typed that question into my search engine, what do I need to do to be happy? And it told me it had 173 million answers. So I'm just going to summarize each one. This morning, the first American billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, was asked, how much money is enough? And his answer was, just a little bit more.
[00:16:02] In the World happiness survey in 2013, it tried to show the distribution of happiness around the world. I don't know if we've got the image there. And they asked people to rate their levels of happiness on a score of naught, which was not very happy, to 10. And you can see the world distribution of happiness but you can see the problem with that. It's a very subjective question, isn't it? What makes you happy? What is that? And there was one sentence in the report that I found very telling. It said one of the things it found was that rich people tend to be happier than poor people.
[00:16:36] So you can see the priorities, you can see the way in which this survey was geared to how it thought about happiness. Is it to do with what we have in Jesus day? The question of blessedness or happiness was also inextricably linked with the sense of does God approve of me? Does God approve like me? And the thinking in those days was if I'm rich and if I'm well fed and if I'm successful, then I have got God's favour. God's looking with favour upon me. And if I'm ill or if I'm suffering or if I'm failing or if I'm poor, then God doesn't care. That was the thinking around the people in Jesus's day.
[00:17:22] And so we have this plane of people. Let's go back to our group of people, our diseased, our troubled, our crowd, our followers, our disciples. And all of them would be oppressed by Rome. All of them no doubt would have some financial pressures because of the taxes that Rome would be exacting on them.
[00:17:45] And Jesus comes to them and he says, God blesses you who are poor.
[00:17:51] Can you just imagine, let that sink in for a minute. All of these people thinking, how do I get to a place where God will look on me with favour? How do I get to this place of being blessed by God? And Jesus says to them, God blesses you who are poor exactly where you are right now. God blesses you. The word blessed is makarios. It means to experience the undeserved favour of God.
[00:18:20] So Jesus is saying, the undeserved favour of God is resting upon you. For Luke, the poor is not a. Is predominantly a material state.
[00:18:33] It's the people who are considered dishonourable, the people who receive miserable treatment located at the edge of acceptable society, the lowest on the stepladder of success.
[00:18:45] And notice Jesus doesn't say, become poor and then I will bless you.
[00:18:51] He just says, God blesses you who are poor.
[00:18:56] And then he goes on in those verses to list three other areas of blessing, hunger, weeping, persecution, each of them. Jesus is saying, you can know the favour of God right now where you are sitting in front of me right now. To this crowd of people who have been wondering whether they could ever experience the kingdom of God. Jesus says, the kingdom of God is yours. To this band of followers who are questioning if they will ever have enough, Jesus says, you will be satisfied. To the diseased and the troubled who doubt they will ever know joy again, he says, in due time you will laugh.
[00:19:38] And to those experiencing persecution, rejection and hatred because of their faith and wonder if it's all worthwhile, Jesus says, you will receive your reward.
[00:19:49] Jesus isn't calling people to be poor or hungry or a lifetime of weeping or persecution, but he is recognizing that that's a state that the people in front of him were in and that many of us find ourselves in. In the course of our lives, we find ourselves in those positions.
[00:20:09] But it isn't just material, because many commentators quite rightly expand it into a spiritual dimension as well. And so I'll just go through those very quickly. If we expand them a little bit. We see the poor or the poor in spirit are the people who feel as though they have come to the end of their rope. They can't contribute to their own salvation. Without God in their lives, they are impoverished.
[00:20:34] Those who hunger or hungry for thirst and righteousness are those who long for justice. For those who want to see the victory of God in the world, it's for those who are not satisfied. For a world where human trafficking can thrive, for a world where those in authority can behave corruptly, where spatula houses can be abused, or where life is regarded as disposable, it is for those who weep or mourn, but not just for the pain of what happens to us, but the pain of what happens around us and to others and the pain of what happens in us. The sin and the disobedience that rises up in my heart, unwanted and unneeded and undesired. But it's there to weep for that and to experience pain in that, to lament and be authentic in expressing our pain. One of the things we've been looking at in our Kintsuke Hope group is the importance of being authentic in our pain and in our feelings and saying, yes, this is how I feel.
[00:21:39] And for those who experience violence or hatred or mockery as a result of their commitment to justice and following the way of Jesus. For those who come against the spiritual forces of darkness, there is reward in heaven.
[00:21:55] So can I come back to that question we asked earlier about who do you identify with on the plane? Can I ask a similar question? Is there anyone you identify with in this list of people, spiritually or materially? Do you identify with the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, or the persecuted hear the words of Jesus. He says, God's favour rests upon you right now. You don't have to do anything, you don't have to change anything. God's favour rests upon you right now. He sees you, he knows you, he loves you, and he's so, so glad that you're here thinking about him.
[00:22:41] So that is how to live the Blessed life, part one.
[00:22:47] But Jesus goes on to talk about how not to be blessed. Now, if you're new to the Christian life and maybe less familiar with the Bible, these next verses might seem a trifle alarming to you.
[00:23:01] Is Jesus really having a pop at having money?
[00:23:05] Is he saying you shouldn't enjoy a good meal? Is he saying that you can't share a joke or be appreciated by other people?
[00:23:14] Has Jesus suddenly turned into the biggest killjoy ever?
[00:23:19] Is Jesus telling us that the only way we can experience God's favour is to put ourselves into poverty, to reduce ourselves, to not eat, to cry all the time and make sure that people hate us?
[00:23:32] Do you think he's saying that? No, I don't think. That doesn't sound like good news, does it?
[00:23:37] So we can't be saying that. So we need to think about that. Because the Bible is full of people who are wealthy. It's full of people who enjoy a good meal and a feast. It's full of people who laugh and it's full of people who appreciate one another and speak well of each other. So it can't mean exactly what it seems to mean.
[00:23:55] On the face of it, the word for woe is tricky to translate. It carries with it a sense of anger and judgment, but also a sense of sorrow and pity. So it's a big word in the New Testament. It almost always brings a sense of impending judgment. And as with the blessings, the blessings Jesus says isn't a subjective feeling. It's not about feeling happy. It's about the state that you are, the way in which God sees you. And so too is this one.
[00:24:27] It's the heart of God towards these people. And the woe is the, is the anguish and the pain that God feels when people want to live a life apart from him, when people want to live a self sufficient life and not recognize their need of him.
[00:24:47] And Jesus is using contrasts which often happens in the Bible. They'll contrast two extremes in order to make the point. So Jesus is contrasting the blessing with the woes that in order to make the point he wants to make. So having spoken into the lived experiences of those sitting before him, he describes the situation of people who want to go it alone.
[00:25:09] So if the poor are those who recognize their inability to save themselves, the rich here are the people who trust in themselves and their own resources.
[00:25:19] I've got enough. I'll just keep what I have to myself and that should be enough that will get me through my good deeds, will get me through to heaven.
[00:25:30] If the poor are those who recognize the hungry, sorry are those who are looking for justice in the world, the well fed are those who just make sure they have got enough and they want to make sure they have what they need. If those who weep are those who experience and process the pain in and around them, those who laugh are the ones who lock themselves away in their bubble and ignore the plight of others. And if those who are mocked and ridiculed are those who openly seek to become more like Jesus, then those who are praised by the crowd seek affirmation and approval from others with no thought as to how God views them. So these words are not a condemnation of wealth, food, joy and encouragement, but they are challenging words. Jesus is laying out the barriers to blessing the things that will prevent us from from having the favour of God. A life of self sufficiency, a life that ignores injustice, a life that prioritises self, and most of all a life that rejects Jesus.
[00:26:35] Jesus has redefined the Sabbath, he's redefined the people of God, and now he's radically redefining the law or the way in which people should live in relation to him and to others. He's steering people away from from self indulgence and appearance and advocating for a life of submission and authenticity.
[00:26:56] If you remember back in the beginning of Luke, Mary, his mother, sings a song when she finds out that she's about to have Jesus. And some of the words she says is he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.
[00:27:12] When Jesus says, you who are rich, you who are poor, you who are well fed, you who are hungry, he's inviting us to bring our experiences to him and our attitudes. He's inviting us to think, what is my attitude to money? What is my attitude to food? What is my attitude to my emotions? What is my attitude towards the way other people see me? Am I relying on those things for my satisfaction? Or do I recognize that those things in themselves will never bring me complete happiness? Only a relationship with God through Jesus will do that.
[00:27:50] I don't know if you've ever heard Jesus talked a little bit or some people say that Jesus came to present an upside down Kingdom. Don't you ever heard that expression? And I'm not sure about that. Dallas Willard tells a story in his book the Divine Conspiracy about a jet pilot.
[00:28:08] Now, for the benefit of the tape, this is a. This is not a jet. This is a Star wars piece of Lego. It was the only thing I could find in my house.
[00:28:18] And the story was of this jet pilot who was flying maneuvers in the dark.
[00:28:25] And they were flying and they were flying and they had their control panels in front of them and they wanted to move into a steep ascent. They wanted to go upwards. And so they pressed the buttons or turned the dials or whatever. I don't know how jet planes work, but they did this thing and they crashed into the ground.
[00:28:46] And the investigation showed that because it was dark, the pilot had been flying upside down.
[00:28:54] And they didn't know.
[00:28:56] And everything they were reading told them they were flying normally.
[00:29:00] But when they thought they were going to go up, they went down.
[00:29:07] What they needed was to turn the plane the right way up and then they would be able to go up.
[00:29:16] When Jesus comes into our lives, it's not that he's turning things upside down, he's putting them the right way up.
[00:29:26] Some of you may have seen my visual aid this morning.
[00:29:31] Some of you may have thought, why is there a vase on a chair upside down? Vases aren't made to be put on a chair upside down. But maybe you got used to it. Maybe you thought, he's ignoring it. Maybe you thought, it's just a quirk of Newton Abbott, rediscover Newton Abbott, that they don't do flowers, so we'll have upside down vases instead.
[00:29:53] You get used to flying upside down. You get used to things being how they shouldn't be. You get used to the world that says success and prestige and public applause and all of those things. That's the way to go. That's the way to have your life as a success. But Jesus comes and he says, no, I've not come for that. I didn't come to identify with the rich. I came to identify with the poor. Jesus was one of the poorest people his society. He didn't come to identify with the well fed. He went for 40 days in the wilderness without food. Jesus didn't come to identify specifically with those who laugh. He wept over Jerusalem and he wept over his friend Lazarus who had died. And Jesus didn't come, first and foremost, to get public applause. He came and was rejected and crucified and died and mocked. And in doing so, he took all of the darkness and all of the pain. And he said, I have come to turn the world the right way up.
[00:31:03] We may have in our lives things that we've got so used to that we're flying upside down. Attitudes, values, situations, illnesses, relationships that are not right.
[00:31:14] And we've got so used to them being the way that they are that we've forgotten that we're flying upside down. Jesus says, I want to turn it the right way up.
[00:31:26] And if you follow him, he will come and he will fill you with his Holy Spirit.
[00:31:37] I hope this is going to stay.
[00:31:40] Could be a dodgy, dodgy, dodgy illustration. If that falls over, I'll put it down there.
[00:31:49] Wouldn't have the desired effect.
[00:31:51] And then Jesus says, I didn't intend for you to be upside down. I didn't intend for you to be empty. I intended for you to flourish.
[00:32:02] I intended. You have a purpose. You have a point. You have a reason for being here.
[00:32:12] Is to reflect me in the world.
[00:32:15] Is to show people who I am. It's to lead them to a relationship with the loving Heavenly Father.
[00:32:23] It is to flourish.
[00:32:30] Drew, I don't know if you're able to come and play, Dan. I'll leave it over to you in a minute, but shall we pray?
[00:32:41] I was really struck earlier when both Dan and Drew and Ellie both talked about the clouds lifting and those feelings of anxiety and pain and difficulty that we might be going through. And so I haven't got anything to add to that today.
[00:33:01] I hope that the word of God has come, confirmed those pictures that were spoken earlier on in the service.
[00:33:09] But I do want to just read to you the words of a hymn and a song and then encourage you to respond. Because I believe this morning that God and the Holy Spirit wants every single person here to respond to the Word. That doesn't mean you're all going to come up the front. We're not doing a call up the front this morning.
[00:33:33] It doesn't mean you have to put your hand up.
[00:33:36] It doesn't mean you have to stand up.
[00:33:38] But I would encourage you to, in your own heart, answer that question. Who do I identify with on the plane? Am I a disciple? A follower? Am I diseased? Am I troubled?
[00:33:52] Am I curious?
[00:33:54] Am I interested?
[00:33:57] Am I. Am I identifying with the poor or the hungry? Those who mourn and those who are in troubled situations, persecution?
[00:34:07] Am I someone who has put their trust in wealth or possessions?
[00:34:16] Am I someone who maybe needs to review my relationship with money and look at my bank account and see where my Priorities are, what about food? What about my emotions?
[00:34:29] What about how I relate to other people? Do I seek other people's approval?
[00:34:36] And most of all, maybe is my life. Are there any areas in my life that at the moment I've got used to flying upside down and I want to ask Jesus, come and put me the right way up.
[00:34:49] Help me to flourish and thrive and bloom and grow and be the person that you intended me to be.
[00:35:01] And it may be that as part of that response, you want to ask someone to pray with you while we're singing our final song.
[00:35:08] Maybe that you want to offer a prayer to God. It may be that you want to decide to come and be baptized this afternoon and say, yes, I am a disciple of Jesus.
[00:35:19] It may be you want to give your life to Jesus for the first time.
[00:35:25] Maybe you want to recommit your life to Jesus or offer Him a part of your life that you know has been outside of his control and his rule.
[00:35:37] Or your response might be to say, lord, thank youk for your Word this morning. I'm quite content where I am and that's not a bad thing. That's okay.
[00:35:49] Just to say to the Lord, I've listened, I've heard, and at this precise moment, I'm okay, let me just read these words of this song from George Beverly Shea, who was an American evangelist and he read these words and I'd invite you to maybe keep your eyes closed and just listen to these words and answer this question. What would you rather have?
[00:36:12] What is the blessed life? What is the good life?
[00:36:15] He has said this.
[00:36:18] I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold I'd rather be his than have riches I'm told I'd rather have Jesus than houses or land I'd rather be led by his nail pierced hand Than to be the King of a vast domain and to be held in sin's dread sway I'd rather have Jesus than anything the world affords today I'd rather have Jesus than worldly applause I'd rather be faithful to his dear cause I'd rather have Jesus than worldwide fame I'd rather be true to his holy name Than to be the King of a vast domain and to be held in sin's dread sway I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.
