Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: So the passage is Luke, chapter nine, verses 28 to 50.
But I'm actually going to read verse 27 beforehand as well to give a bit of context.
We should understand from the first verse, verse 28.
So from verse 27, what's happened is that Jesus has been teaching.
And he ends that teaching by saying, truly, I tell you, some of you disciples who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.
Verse 28.
After eight days, about eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto the mountain to pray.
As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.
Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.
They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment. At Jerusalem, Peter and his companions were very sleepy. But when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.
As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shouters. One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. They did not know what he was saying.
While he was speaking. A cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid. As they entered the cloud, a voice came from the cloud saying, this is my son, whom I have chosen.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Listen to him.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone.
The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.
The next day when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. A man in the crowd called out, teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child.
A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams. It throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth.
It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him. I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.
You unbelieving and perverse generation. Jesus replied, how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.
Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in a convulsion.
But Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, healed the boy and gave him back to his father.
And they were all amazed at the greatness of God.
While everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did, he said to his disciples, listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. The Son of Man is going to be delivered over to human hands. But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them so that they could not grasp it and they were afraid to ask him about it.
An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.
Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and made him stand beside him.
Then he said to them, whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me. Whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For whoever is least among you is all. Sorry. Whoever's listening on you all in the greatest.
Master said John, we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he is not one of us.
Do not stop him. Jesus said, for whoever is not against you is for you.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Thank you, Johnny. Thank you, Jacob. Can you just go back to the start of that? Yes.
Cool.
Right, so we're coming towards the end of Jesus ministry now on Earth. We are coming towards the end of year three. There's little bits all the way through the scriptures that give a timeline and you can study into this. So as Asta shared last week when she was talking, they were about two years into this. We're now coming up to the end of the third year of Jesus time with the disciples. Just to set a bit of context why he said some things. He's been with everybody three years. He's. Yeah. At this point. So are we enjoying looking at the book of Luke?
Isn't it amazing going through the life of Jesus and what he did when he was here. But imagine being Peter, James and John that day on the mountain while Jonny was reading it. It's kind of hard to grasp unless you think if you were there, like how it must have been on that mountain when God spoke out of the cloud. Imagine what it was like for those three. Remember God. Still, Jesus has not died on the cross yet, so they've got a human with him that they've seen doing miracles. They're thinking there's something amazing about this guy. They're starting to believe who he probably is, but don't fully know because he's just a man next to him, like you and I. But then God speaks through the cloud. It must have been amazing. For me, it was like an all time biblical great, like an all time footballers, stars meet up. It was like you've got Pele, Maradona and Messi all together walking up a mountain because you've got Moses, Elijah and Jesus coming to this story. But this is way better than Pelle, Maradona and Messi getting together.
This is what they call the transfiguration of Jesus. It's an amazing passage. It's so excited. But before I go into that passage, which is there's a big chunk of scripture we've got there and I do really want to home in on this, this transfiguration time, because it's amazing, I like it. But we're just going to drop down further on. So Jacob, you've just moved to the next slide.
Just here, verse 41. Just want to pull out of this. So Jesus is going to heal a demon possessed boy. Imagine coming down the mountain and you just go off and do that. Imagine being Jesus the day of life of Jesus. Just wow. Imagine being disciples walking around with him about this amazing experience and he just goes straight away to heal this boy. But what does it say here? Church in verse 41, this is in the NIV, he says, you unbelieving and perverse generation, right?
He's actually talking to disciples here, but he's talking to the greater us as well, that you through me can heal this little boy. You through me can have this demon removed, right? The NLT said, Jesus said, you faithless.
You faithless and corrupt people.
How long must I be with you? And how long must I put up with you? Wow. He kind of smacks us on the chin sometimes, Jesus, when he preaches, doesn't he? So it must have been amazing being a disciple with Jesus. But look what he's saying to him. You unbelieving and perverse generation. You faithless and corrupt people. How long must I be with you? He's been with him three years now. @ this point, seeing all that he's done, the message Bible says, what a generation.
No sense of God.
No sense of God. You've no sense of who I am. You've just been up the mountain with me and my father has said, this is my son. We're going to look at it in a minute. You know, obey him, yield to him, Listen to him. This is my son. He actually says, my beloved son. You know, we think we can love a husband or a wife or a kid or a granddad or a grandma. There's no love ever closer than God the Father to his Son, Jesus. Do you remember in the grave, you know, when they were separated for the weekend? Imagine the agony of God the Father. But he did that for you and he did that for me. So there's been no greater love. And he says, my beloved son, this is who he is. So they've come down the mountain and he's saying to them in the message, Jesus said, what a generation. You've no sense of God. You've no sense of who I am. He says, you've no focus to your lives. How many times do I have to go over these things?
He's almost getting a bit cross with them. He's almost saying, come on. So he'd been with these disciples three years at this point. They'd witnessed many miracles and then they've just witnessed what's happened on the mountain. And he says, have you no faith? Have you no faith? So that's what I wanted to look into this morning. So I wanted to bring it back to us now, here in 2025 in Newton Abbott.
What if a demon possessed boy came to our church?
I know at the last church Esther and I were at, I was on the doors. Actually. Esther shared this story a few weeks ago and I was on the doors on the team that used to welcome people. It was a big 6 or 700 strong church in widerness. God was doing great things up there.
And suddenly this Sunday morning, this lady came with a scrunched up face, I guess about mid-50s.
And she was screaming at me, like screaming at me. I'd never met anybody that was possessed really, and she was screaming and then in the end she was smashing the bonnet of this car and me and this little old guy called Jack on the doors. And I went, jack, just hold the fort. I'm off to get Esther's mum. Because if you knew Esther, her mum's a real prayer warrior. And I thought, I need Esther's mum. I used to actually be scared, dating Esther, that her mum could read my mind because she just, she seemed to work everything out. I thought, I hope she didn't know what I'm thinking. But she was a lovely lady. She is a lovely lady. She's a powerful prayer warrior and God really used to speak through her life.
And Anne was with her for a good hour. This lady. And I could cry. This lady came to church, she came into church with the scales coming off her face, gave her life to Jesus and this aggressive person that came in full of a demon, right, went out full of Jesus and it was amazing to watch. Yeah. So don't think these stories are just for then, they're for us now. Healing's for now to see God moving our time. He works through who, you and me, and he says to them, you unbelieving and perverse generation. He's saying it to us. Why? Because he wants us to live in faith that through him we can witness God do great things in our time here in Newton Abbot, through him, through God, who his Father said, this is my son. Believe in him, obey him, yield to him. We can do that now. And I was trying to think of something to share with you that would really help us in this. And it's not a formula, it's not a magic formula, how to be or how to pray, because I understand church. There's the mysteries of God. I want to tell you I've prayed for things sometimes and it hasn't come to pass, but I tell you what, I've prayed for some things and it has.
Rather than going through all the. Why, why God? Why?
I want to leave that to God, if I'm honest. I want to leave that to God and I want to trust him with all my life. And I want to grow as a Christian, and I want you to grow as a Christian. So I just want to share one little story on that. Esther and I were leading a life group back at this church up north and we had a couple in our church and they'd been trying for a baby for about two years. They were married.
She was the eldest out of three kids. It would have been the first grandchild. All really exciting and they couldn't have children. And it's quite a. We always talk, don't we, as life groups. You can share some things quite intimate in your life group that the wider church should always need to know about. Why? Because you've got to know that little body of eight or ten believers around you. You have a cup of tea with them, you meet up, you share life with them, and if there's a bit of a one going on like that, share it with them, church and ask them to keep. Keep it private and let them pray for you. Right. So that's what they did that night. And that's what we used to say in life groups, if you've got something to bring. So they brought it to the life group. Esther and I were life group leaders.
And I just felt inside, I just thought, let's pray for them now. I've got this real.
The Holy Spirit will speak to you. I get like a warmth in my stomach.
I've got to trust that feeling, that over the years, as you do history with God, which I encourage you to do church. And I just thought, we need to pray for them now. And I need to believe that God's going to do this, because it's quite a biggie, isn't it? It's people's lives and it's something they brought to us.
But I've always heard, taught to me as a younger Christian. There's something special about the twinning of faith. And that's what I want to say in this passage here. For us now, in our generation, if we're going to pray with people, what I want to call the twinning of faith. So if you're going to pray for somebody and listen to this, they don't have to be a Christian.
You could be out on the street and see a situation and you can say, do you believe? Tell them you're going to pray for them. Tell them you're a Christian and just say, do you believe Jesus can heal you? The devil believes in Jesus. You know he does.
So you can say to a situation now, if there's something going on in them at that time, we don't know God's moment in people's lives, they might think, okay, I've no other hope. I'm going to believe. I'm going to believe in Jesus, that twinning of faith. But here you'll often hear, if you come to the front and if I pray with somebody, I'll say, do you believe Jesus can do this? Because I want them to utter, yes, I do.
Right? So it's not all on me, but in any situation, it's not all on them either. Do you know what I mean? There's that twinning of faith. So if somebody's coming for prayer or wherever you are in your workplace or with somebody or in a life group, if you say together, do you believe Jesus can do this? So I looked those couple in the eye and I said, do you believe Jesus can do this?
And it was the husband, actually. Do you remember S. He was quite a quiet man. He's quite softly spoken. He didn't speak much. And he went, yeah, I do. And I went, come on. And we prayed. We put them round in a circle and we prayed for them. And honestly, it was one of the most iconic moments in the time I've ever prayed for anyone in my life. The hairs on the back of my neck stuck up and I was, wow. I just really felt it was a powerful moment. I didn't know what was going to happen. I just felt there was a twinning of faith that he was believing and I were believing. So we just committed it to God and kind of that was that. It was a sort of two or three minutes and we carried on with the night.
Three months later, in that life group, they came up and said, we've got so much to show you. They showed us a little picture of a baby in a womb at the hospital.
It was amazing. I thought, wow, God. And I went back to that night. And that's how you build history with God Church. When you feel something inside because you haven't seen the outworking of what God's going to do. And let me tell you, there's been plenty of times I've prayed for things and it hasn't come to pass. But don't let that stop you.
You run to God church. But this twinning of faith, I'm telling you now, it's not a magic formula, but I believe there's power. You know that when two or three are gathered. But when two Christians come together and both of you are in faith over a situation, I believe there's power there.
So is that cool?
And I believe Jesus is. I think Jesus loves it when we pray in faith. In fact, I know he does. He loves it when we pray in faith to him. Right. He loves it.
I just felt to say that, that earnestly we need to pray in faith when we pray. Right. Let's go back to this great passage. If you go back up, Jacob, this transfiguration, I think outside of a virgin birth and when Jesus died on the cross and what we all know as a believer to be the most special moment to us, that if we give our lives to him, that we become a Christian and that through Jesus dying on the cross we receive salvation, our sins are forgiven and we go and spend eternity with Jesus. That is amazing. And maybe you're here this morning, you don't know Jesus as you, your personal saviour. Come and see me afterwards. It's the best decision you will ever make. But outside of Jesus being born through a virgin, you know, the lady had never had sex with her husband yet she has a baby in a womb. That is Jesus. Yeah, by God the Father, you know, she's then birthed, she births the baby Jesus into the world that one day becomes our saviour. Those are the two significant moments I think outside of this, this has got to be up there as the next best.
Why? Because suddenly after Jesus, he's lived for 30 years, right? Then he comes into his time of ministry for three years. He walks across the earth seeing healings, seeing miracles. People are really getting to know there's something special about this guy. But he's still a human in front of him. He's fully God, yet fully man. They've seen all that for three years. And then Peter, James and John go up the mountain, right?
Suddenly there's a voice from heaven in the cloud church. I just wish we were there. Don't you think it's amazing? And it says this, doesn't it? It says this. He said in the nlt, this is my son, my chosen son. Listen to him.
You're going to love this. Remember King James, my brethren grandparents would have loved this.
They said in King James, it says, here is my beloved son. Hear him go on King James. I like that. My beloved son. Just to get a picture of who it actually is. This is God's chosen son, his beloved son, Jesus. Then finally, in the Amplified, listen to this church. This is God in a cloud.
A cloud speaking. We don't often do that, do we, driving along. Oh, there's a cloud. It could be raining. Oh, there's a bit of bad weather coming in now. Suddenly, this is my son comes out of a cloud.
Kind of a big moment if you're Peter, James and John up a mountain, isn't it? But this is what it says in the Amplified. This is my beloved son, my chosen one. Get this church.
Listen and obey and yield to him.
Now, he wasn't just speaking to Peter, James and John, was he? He was speaking to you and me. He was speaking to all mankind. What a moment. That was up the mountain. Wow. Do we do that church?
Do we listen, obey and yield to Christ?
A bit more on that later. But I love here how he calls him his beloved son. This perfect love that the Father has for a son.
How do we come into that picture? It's almost a bit like, is God the Father and his Son Jesus? This perfect love. We know about the cross, but listen to what Jesus says here. It's in the famous passage, the vine of the branches. But John 15, nine, I love this.
Listen, it says, as the Father has loved me. Remember, this is my son, my beloved son, my chosen son. Jesus says to us, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.
Now remain in my love.
What a passage of scripture. We're getting that.
Wow, that direct access to the Father God. It's just amazing in Jesus, Amazing, folks.
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love.
Wow. So back to this passage. This is a huge moment, I believe for all mankind. This is this moment, this such huge moment where Jesus is shown to be the one true way to God. The one true God himself is also Jesus. The Trinity, God the Father, God the Son and the God, the Holy Spirit.
But it's the one true faith. This is the one true God. I appreciate there's many other religions out there at the moment. There's Many times you turn your telly on and you've seen that played out across the world. I'm not getting into that.
But there is only one true way to God church, and that is through Jesus, God's own son.
I'll say that again. There is only one way to God the Father, through Jesus, God's own son.
I think you'll hear a lot of people talk in other faiths about their prophet, right.
As a way to God. Well, let me read this to you from our Bible application. My Bible application version, which I call it the, the Yorkshire version. At the bottom there's like the Bible. It's great because your book's a bit bigger so you feel like a bit of a hypocrite. So you've got a big Bible when you walk around. But under every passage there's a little explanation at the bottom. Makes it Yorkshireman friendly to me. I love it. If you read the passage, I'm not quite sure about that. And you go down at the bottom, there's the application here it says this in my application Bible it says Jesus took Peter, James and John to the top of the mountain to show his who God really was. Who he really was. Not merely a great prophet, but God's own son. I'll read that again. Jesus took Peter, James and John to the top of the mountain to show them who he really was, not merely a prophet, but God's own son. Let that sink in. And then obviously Moses and Elijah are there. Moses represented the law, Elijah represented the prophets, the great prophets of old.
But here Jesus.
Sorry, let me go back to it. Moses represented the law and Elijah represented the prophets. But both have appeared here with Jesus.
And then God's voice singled out Jesus as the long awaited Messiah. That's different to a prophet, isn't it? A messiah.
Jesus possessed get this divine authority and he would fulfil both the law and the prophets.
So I'm going to read that again because I stopped halfway through.
Jesus took Peter and James and John to the top of the mountain to show them who he really was.
Not merely a great prophet, but God's own son. Moses represented the law and Elijah represented the prophets.
Both appeared here with Jesus. Then God's voice singled out Jesus as the long awaited Messiah.
Jesus possessed divine authority and would fulfil both the law and the prophets. Are we getting that Church? Are we getting who Jesus really is? Are we getting how the only way to God the Father is through Jesus?
There is no other.
So if you have friends that say, are you Religious. I love this one. I know I'm a bit of a cheeky Yorkshireman if they say it. Phil's a bit religious. I say, no, I'm not.
I just believe in God. There's only one God and I believe in the only one true God. I'm not religious. It really makes them look at you and think, because they call religious, like a bit of anything, say, no, I believe in Jesus. He's the one true God.
I encourage you to do that. It's great for starting a conversation.
But imagine being Peter, James and John here, right? Imagine being Peter, James and John on that mountain, seeing Jesus right, in his brilliant. It says whiteness. I know this shirt's white, but it was nowhere near as white as Jesus was that day. This pure whiteness the Bible talks about and his radiant glory, right? They were actually seeing Church, who Jesus had always been.
How do you know? Jesus was there before the start of the world, wasn't he?
Yeah. So Jesus had always been Peter, James and John are going up with a mountain. They're seeing God the Father come out of the cloud and this voice saying, this is who he is. But they're also seeing who he'd always been. It gets a bit more exciting seeing who he's going to be again one day. More on that in a minute. Until the while, they'd walk around with Jesus as a human.
Just before, though, get this. As they've gone up the mountain just before the cloud, when they've seen Moses and Elijah. At this point, right, if you look in verse 33, right, Peter, you might think is a bit stupid. You think, hang on a minute, you've just seen Moses, Elijah.
What does Peter blurt out in verse 33?
Peter blurted out that the Master is wonderful. Wouldn't it be great to make three shelters as memorials? One for you, Moses, one for Elijah and one for Jesus.
It was Peter's way of saying, church, let's make a shrine, let's make a bit of a.
Let's celebrate this moment. There's Moses here, you know, the Mary, Messi, Maradona and Pele.
There's three of you here. There's you, Elijah and Moses. Great. Come on, let's build a bit of a shrine. Let's build a bit of an altar to remember this.
And it was Peter's way of saying, let's remember the moment. He calls it a shelter. Some say Peter was reminded the shelters to commemorate the Exodus, you know, when God delivered them from the Israelites and they built shelters. Similar thing, because they only Know the scriptures of old. They don't realize Jesus, who he is and what he's doing. But they certainly realise as you jump to verse, that's in verse 33, certainly realise when you jump to verse 34 and 35, when God speaks out of the cloud, doesn't he? After he said that, Peter might have felt a bit daft. Then he kind of went, this is my son. Yield to him. Believe in him.
Not just Pete, but Peter, James and John suddenly realise this is more than a nice moment with Elijah and Moses. This is changing humankind as we know it forever. This is a massive moment where Christ will one day become our saviour.
Peter grows so much in his understanding of Jesus over the next few weeks and months, in all he sees, till eventually Jesus goes back to be with his Father. And what does he write later on? So then when he said, shall we build some shelters and shrines? Nice little moment this. He sees him die on the cross, he sees him come back to life and he gets to realize who he is. Right. Later on in 1 Peter 2:6, he said, Christ is the cornerstone of the church.
That's quite a step forward from thinking, this is a nice little moment, the three of you meeting up, isn't it? He's now thinking, hang on a minute. Moses and Elijah were only here to be brought around. This one day was all about you and it was always going to be about you. The prophets foretold about you. Law came through Moses and the prophets Elijah were always foretelling the day that would come, that the grace of Jesus Christ through salvation in Jesus alone is the way to heaven.
So I was looking at that as sort of Jesus then.
That's for Jesus then, for when.
Obviously all the disciples were there on that day and all that they witnessed and when they went up the mountain. But what about Jesus now? What's this story? It's an amazing passage of scripture. Jesus goes up this mountain and God speaks through the clouds. Amazing. We've seen Peter, James and John grasp what it is. What about for us today, Church?
I want to take just a moment to try and imagine what it was like on that mountain up that day. The brilliance of God showing up, showing everyone who he truly is must have been incredible.
But as well as Jesus showing up what he was then, what's it going to mean to us now? I think it's all one day. There's going to be a glimpse of this glory, of what's to come, this great, this whiteness of Jesus. What's going to come again One day.
It's a huge moment for all the world. Church, Jesus. Now, Phil, what does it mean, the transfiguration? How does it affect me?
Most importantly, I'm hoping most of us as Christians have accepted Jesus as our Saviour. This morning, if you haven't, come see him at the end. But you know what this passage means. You know that Jesus died on the cross for you. But let's listen to what God said. He said, this is my son. Listen to him, yield to him and obey him. We needed a saviour, right? We all needed a saviour. Without Jesus as humans, we fail. You know that church, don't we? We're selfish. We live our lives for ourselves and we fail God. God is saying, this is my son. But I want us to ask now, from that amazing passage of scripture, how do we live for Jesus now?
How do we live for Jesus now? We've had a real build up now in the passages of Luke, looking at who Jesus was. How do we live for him now? And I was really trying to give you some practical points and I've been reading recently a book from Billy Graham.
So this is pulled from a book from Billy Graham that was written 50 years ago, actually. But I believe it's so relevant to us now. And he gives us 10 guidelines. Billy Graham. This is Billy Graham. Everybody know who Billy Graham is? He gives us 10 guidelines for Christian living. He calls it 10 guidelines for Christian Living. So as we think of that transfiguration, how's it going to affect us now? Well, I've got them here. I'm going to read them to you.
It's amazing, this. So simple.
Yeah, but do we all do it? Number one, 10 guidelines for Christian living now from Billy Graham. Number one, read your Bible daily.
We're all doing that church, right?
We're all doing that church, Yep. Read your Bible daily.
Do not be content to skim through a chapter and merely satisfy your conscience.
Hide the word of God in your heart. It comforts, guides, connects, encourages.
Everything we need for life is in the Bible.
Wow.
Read your Bible daily. Next one. Love this one. Learn the secret of prayer. Don't just say pray. Billy Graham says here, learn the secret of prayer.
Prayer is a way of communicating with God. He loves it when we have faith. It's. He loves it when we talk to him. He loves it when we pray. Every prayer we pray will always be answered. Billy Graham says it's quite powerful that, isn't it? Billy said sometimes we might get a yes from God. Sometimes we might Get a no, but he will always answer a prayer. That got me really thinking the mysteries of God, but he loves it when we pray. Jesus wants us to pray. Number three, rely constantly on the Holy Spirit. Not just rely on the Holy Spirit, rely constantly on the Holy Spirit. We know that the Holy Spirit prays for us. It tells us that in Romans 8.
And what a comfort that should be in our times of weakness.
Stand aside and let him take over all the choices and decisions in your life. That's massive. As I shared earlier on, I get a warmth in my stomach. I get a feeling when I think God's speaking to me. I've shared a few times in life where there's been a moment where God's done something. I've seen either a financial miracle or something else. Right. You build history with God, church. But start to rely on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will speak things to you. And often, you know, when God's speaking to church, he'll confirm it. He won't let you get confused. Okay? If God's speaking to you, something else will happen that will confirm what you felt was doing it. The Holy Spirit will speak to you. Get to rely on him in your lives. If you're making a big decision in life, you don't know what's going to unravel in the future and what's down the line. God does, you know, rely on him. Okay. This Jesus who we love, this Jesus who loves us.
Come on. Let's rely constantly on the Holy Spirit. Next one. You're all doing this, so it's good. Attend church regularly. Nice one, Billy. But it's true.
The visible church. This is what he says. The visible church is Christ's organization here on earth.
Christians need one another.
You might not all think that, but we do. Christians need one another. We need to gather to worship God.
And nothing can quite take the place of God's church. You've often heard me say this before, haven't you? There is no plan B, you know. God's church is plan A, plan A plus the whole lot. There is no other plan. He is coming back for his glorious bride. You've got to attend church, guys. Come on. Let's be part of God's great church.
Number five. Be a witnessing Christian. We witness in two ways. By life and by word. In word and in deed. Yeah. And the two, where possible, should go hand in hand. Let your light shine out before men.
Your life shines out before others without you realising it. As a Christian, do you know that you probably heard me Share a story before of my old boss, a guy called Malcolm Clark, who's with Jesus now, and I got the pleasure of baptizing him. He was a right rogue.
He was a gypsy as a young man, but he started up his own steel company at 15, and if there was a way of doing something dodgy in business, he would do it. He ram raided British Steel's works in the middle of the night and nicked a load of steel.
He was a boy about town, but it grew a great massive business in Manchester that I started for as a young salesman and I worked there 10 years. I loved him, he was grateful.
He was my big boss.
He looked like. Do you remember, Is it Frankie Rossi in Status Quo?
Yeah, you know, with a ponytail and a bit of a rocker. He looked like that. He'd have a pinstripe suit and he was sharp and he was on the ball. He was quite admired in the steel industry, but he was a bit of a boy about town. And there was a time, I think I've shared before, there was a time when he asked me to do something a bit dodgy in steel. And I said, malcolm, I'm a Christian now. You know that. I'm not doing that. If you want to do that. It was like grinding out some casters on some steel and basically falsifying what the steel was and changing the grade from one grade to another.
And I was like, what if an engineer's eyes go out or something happens or a bridge falls down? It's just not right. We're not doing it. And I said, if you want to do that, you do it. And God, I went into the yard and I was like, oh, no, I'm a young Christian. What am I going to do? And I prayed. And the steel that we needed, that they couldn't find in the yard, that he wanted to use something else to do, something dodgy turned up from the docks, literally, as I was praying, a lorry came in the yard and the transport manager was going, Marty went flipping heck. He said, we've ordered some 20 mil s355 to come. They've sent 15 mm s355. What did I need for my order? 15 mm s355. So the mistake the doctor had made was all divine, because God knew I was going to pray and the stealer needed. And I ran in the office, said, malcolm, there you go. God's answered my prayer. We don't have to do old dodging now. And he just smiled at me. And this went on for about Five years of me being a young Christian man, Malcolm being my boss, and one day he had a brain tumour, right? And he was in hospital for a year. And I went to see him and it was tragic. He had to sell his business. And when he came out of hospital, he was never quite as well as he was. He came back to work and I just really felt, as I said to you, that in his stomach, I thought, I want to ask him to come to church on Sunday.
It was the easiest witnessing I've ever done because I was a bit nervous. Malcolm, do you want to come to church on some. Yes, that went well. I was like, where are we going?
I hadn't thought that bit. I just thought I'd just ask you to come to church. And he lived in a place called Altrincham in Manchester, and we went to Altrincham Baptist Church, a great church there, and he loved it, right? But he had been witnessing my life for five years, and I think he admired. People don't tell you. You know that, don't they? But I think he admired God in this young man and that was able to stand up to his boss to do the right thing for Jesus. And he saw God shining through in my life. And the minute he'd gone through his trial, I later found out on his bed in hospital and he nearly lost his life. He said, if I get out of here, God, and you're real, I want you to speak to me. I want somebody to talk to me. So when I said to him, do you want to come to church? How do you know church? When you ask somebody that, there might be a moment that God's ordained in history for you to be used. Yeah. This point here. Number five. Be a witnessing Christian. Always be ready to tell of your story. Always be ready to ask people where they are with Jesus. Are you still with me?
Cool.
How much time have we got? 10 minutes.
Number six.
Let love be the ruling principle in your life.
Wow.
I want to say church. Sometimes it is very powerful through love to say, forgive me, I got that wrong.
Sometimes love might be. Let me pray for you in this situation.
Sometimes love says, I don't always have to be right. In this situation, it doesn't matter.
Billy Graham says here, he pulls out of John 3:35. It says, by this all men shall know that you are my disciples. If you love one another.
The greatest demonstration of love as Christians we have is to love one another.
Love one another, church. Number seven, be an obedient Christian.
Let Christ have first place in all the choices that you do.
Wow, that's amazing, isn't it?
God the Father, isn't he? He's there in heaven. Sorry, in the clouds. And he said, this is my son. Obey him. Yield to him. Billy Graham saying here, be an obedient Christian.
It's our first step in our relationship. To be involved with God is to start to obey him. Our life should change, you know, as we get saved, our lives should change. Some of the choices we make.
Yeah, be an obedient Christian.
Number eight, how to meet temptation.
Get this church, Especially men, for reasons I'm not going to go into, but, you know, men, what we look at, what we think about temptation. This is Billy Graham saying this. So I'll give you this one.
This is Billy Graham, an awesome man of God. And he said, temptation is not a sin, it's yielding to it. That is a sin.
Temptation is not a sin. It's yielding to it. That is a sin.
Let Christ the Holy Spirit fight for you. I told you that story the other week about that girl in Croatia when I could have made a real big mistake three months before, I met this girl who I loved to bits and married. And I had a moment to yield to a temptation that would have put me in a lot of trouble. And let me tell you, it was a tough choice. It was tough. I was a young man with hormones. I literally pulled the COVID over my bed, locked myself in a bedroom. But I want to tell you as well, when you don't give in to temptation, when you put God first in your lives, it is better than the sin itself. The fun of the sin, the attraction of the sin. When you honour God with all that you are, the next day you feel absolutely brilliant. I woke up that next morning, I felt so close to God. I hadn't done a stupid thing that I'd have regretted. I woke up and I felt clean and pure. It was the most amazing me and God time ever, right? So in our lives, don't yield to temptation, run from it. The Bible says, run from temptation. It's not a sin to yield to it, it's a sin when we go into it. Still with me. I know these are tough, but come on, how are we going to live for Jesus now that Jesus, this is my son.
This is my beloved son. Yield to him and obey him. How are we going to live for him now?
Okay, number nine, only two left.
Be a wholesome Christian. Be a wholesome Christian.
Our lives and appearance should commend the gospel and make it attractive to others.
Just Like Malcolm Clarke saw something in me. Our lives should be attractive to others for the gospel. Many times I used to be at staff do's at my old company when most of them were non Christians. Drinks flowing down, you know, the shoulder. They'd come and cry. And when somebody's had too much to drink was mine. I stood there sober and people would spill out all that's going on in their life because they respected God in me and said, what do you think, Phil? And they were thinking, he's a Christian. I wonder what he thinks. Our lives should reflect God. Be a wholesome Christian. Let our lives shine out before men. Lay your life down for Jesus, okay? And others are always going to watch. Others are always going to watch your life.
Finally. Are you ready for this one? It's a good one.
Number 10.
Live your life above circumstances.
Big one, this church.
Don't let circumstances get you down. Billy Graham says, learn to live graciously within them, realising the Lord himself is with you. I want to say, as a Yorkshire version, learn to live with God on the mountaintop. Because it's pretty easy, isn't it, when things are going well in life.
Learn to live with God there. Great. And thank him for it. But learn to live with God in the valley too. Learn to live with God in the tough times and don't question who he is. Say, come on, God will help me in this.
Yeah.
Learn to live above your circumstances. Matt, will you come out, please?
The Jesus who is to come band, will you come out? Whoever else is coming with Matt.
This transfiguration shows us of the hope we have in Jesus one day, because Jesus is going to come again. Are we going to be persecuted? Church, you just read Revelation. You want to bet your bottom dollar we are? We are going to be persecuted probably in this land one day for being a Christian. But those that stay true to the end will be saved. That's what your Bible tells you. I want us to get truly excited about who Jesus is now in our lives and when he's coming again.
Yeah, a few passages to get you excited about that.
Matthew 25:31. He says, when the Son of man comes again in glory. Come on. This is going to happen when the Son of Man comes again in glory and all the angels with him.
What a day this is going to be. He will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. Matthew 25:31. Revelation 1, verse 7 plainly spells it out. Remember the clouds that we spoke about?
Look. He is coming within the clouds and every eye will see him. The whole of earth will know that Jesus has come again. That is going to happen.
Last time, out of the clouds, what happened? God the Father said, this is my Son.
Believe in him, yield to him. Can we stand church? If you're able.
You know what? Church. For the last six months, we've been looking in Luke and we've heard a lot about this amazing Jesus.
I believe it's time we get on our knees and start changing how we live our lives. Me included. I believe it's time we start wholeheartedly living for Jesus. Wholeheartedly living these 10 points. Okay, we're gonna sing an absolute old classic now by Graham Kendrick. Shine, Jesus, shine.
Reason being is. Oh, Andrew's happy. That's good.
It says here in verse three.
Yes, well, listen to this. In verse three. Just remember what we've just spoke about this morning. In verse three, it says, as we gaze on your kingly brightness, remember that day, the whiteness and splendour of God. So our faces display your likeness. That's living for God now on earth. Isn't it ever changing from glory to glory mirrored here?
May our lives tell his story. Come on, let's worship him.
