Andrew Heard begins this section of our conference by reflecting on how our gatherings reflect and encourage people to love God.
CREDITS:
The Reach Australia Podcast is brought to you by Reach Australia
To pray for Reach Australia, join our WhatsApp Group.
For ideas or questions please email [email protected]
To support the Reach Australia Online Library head here.
TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
G Day, I’m Pete Hughes.You clicked on the Reach Australia podcast.Welcome.We have a great short talk for you today.It’s another talk from our national conference from 2024.Andrew Hurd is introducing us and transitioning us from loving God with our hearts to helping our church to love God as well.
Now this is an introductory talk.There will be more talk and more information given from a following talk from Rob Smith.But this is such a great talk just to introduce us to the idea and ask the right questions about what does it mean for churches to love God.
Who got the book?How thrilled are you to get that right answer?That’s good.Have you noticed in each of these occasions someone gets up to speak that they’re always asked what’s your favorite coast?
Part of the coast coastline.You notice no one’s asked me.Is there a reason for that?You know what your answer would be?Yeah, Right.Unfair advantage is what I understood, too, because it is the most beautiful part in the world.So that’s right.Well friends, I’m, I’m like your tour guide.
That’s why I’m here.These are quick 15 minute shots about offering insights into where we’re going and why we are here globally.Big picture for the whole conference to stir one another to be more effective at reaching Australia for Christ.
But what are we reaching Australia for Christ for?To what?To what end?What’s what is that to reach Australia for Christ?What are what are we seeking to do?Well, we’re, we’re seeking to pursue this cause with the gospel word by the power of the Spirit to bring people to a life of full salvation, full salvation where they’re saved from the penalty and the power of sin that God is at work.
He with his intention to remake those that are saved, not just to have bums on sea.This is not just about numbers.This is about lives completely transformed, reoriented, rescinded, changed into the image of the Son.That he would be our Lord, that we would be like him, that we would more and more love God, that we would love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.
And until we’ve moved people to that kind of conversion, they’ve not really been converted.Until people come to actually see that it’s about the first commandment being fulfilled in our lives and the 2nd commandment that we be people who love our neighbours, do all good in all possible ways, especially the way of bringing them to know the Lord Jesus themselves, to be saved from eternity without Christ.
Love God is our big concern.And that’s the conference to love the Lord our God and not just serve him like the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son.Have you noticed in that parable how the repentant son uses the word father three times in his short speech?
I’ll go back to the father.I’ll say to my father.The elder brother in his short speech uses every possible way to avoid ever saying the word Father.Have you noticed that nonetheless he served the Father of the Son who went away?He served him in every possible way.
The salvation we bring by the gospel word is into adoption, into relationship with God.Not just as servants, but as children of the Father.We are adopted that we might now live for His glory, that his praise might be our delight.
That His purposes might now be our greatest desire.That’s what salvation’s about.That He would be at the centre again, as He intended and created us for.That we would know Him as our Father, live for Him, live for His desires.Not crucifer, dead to self, no longer living for our interests, ambitions and what we want in life, but could live for Him and His purpose.
That that would be our heartbeat.We are never after a crowd, big or small.This is not just a numbers game.It is about growth.It’s a bad growth that churches might grow, that we might add more churches and see people, men, women and children truly saved, fully saved from the penalty and power of sin.
And in this we play a crucial role.We are fellow workers with the Lord God.He and his Sovereign in scribble ways has given to us the task of proclaiming this message.We make a difference to the cause of the gospel.
It’s extraordinary that He’s laid upon us such a privilege now.Yesterday was about us and our heart.Are we ones as pastors, leaders, lay leaders?Are we ones who love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength?
Today we have chosen to focus our attention on the life of our church gatherings, the life of the Christian community assembled, and the issues and challenges as we move into this piece today are far more complex in our estimation and more contentious.
I’m not going to seek to solve them all in these few minutes.We’re past that hot potato to Rob Smith, who’s going to solve it all for he’s gone.He’s not even here now.He’s just disappeared on us.It is a challenging thing, but I do want to offer some thoughts.
Here’s here’s the kind of key thought for this moment.Is it possible we have a problem in our public gatherings that potentially grows out of the problem of their own hearts that Murray identified yesterday?
If it’s true that we as a group of people tend to be more prone towards believe and do and not be convicted and passionate, if we tend in that direction to those two faculties, is it possible that our public gatherings reflect something of that same shape?Is it news to you?
Is this is?Is this news to you that our gatherings, our services are not known for their enthusiasm?Hands up if you’re shocked.Now, should that concern us now?
For many it does concern them, but for others, they feel like there’s nothing here to see what’s the issue?Sure, they don’t inspire compared to other people in the way they report, but is that a problem really?And the fact that we have that difference amongst us might actually reflect an even deeper issue is that we’re we’re unclear on what our services are for, what our public gatherings are for.
What is it that makes a public gathering of God’s people on a weekend, on a Sunday, let’s say?What is it that makes them good?What is it?What does success look like when we gather together as God’s people?Now the answer to that question depends on having a clear purpose for our gatherings.
What are our gatherings for now?Yes, they’re for edification.I, I think that’s a, that’s a well embraced, understood concept amongst us.They’re for edification.I trust it is for you.But is that all they’re for?Is that a sufficient understanding of what it is that we gather together as God’s people?
There’s some questions to wrestle with, and they particularly are shown in terms of the way we sing, which Rob’s going to deal with today.But I want to offer another couple of thoughts.One is that culture is not neutral.Culture is not neutral.
There are great problems with various church cultures that have emerged over the centuries.There are dangers that have occurred and you’ll be alert to them.I trust there’s the great danger of private mystical experience, not only in the charismatic movement but also in high church liberalism, where people come to church to have a private experience in the context of others.
They come to have a private experience that is a consequence of us doing our works to ascend into the heavens, to pursue the moment, the experience, the numinous through the right kind of words, the chanting, the smells, the sliding, the sounds, the music being just so.
And we are right to correct that and rebuke it and encourage people in a different direction.Mysticism is a subtle and dangerous blight on true Christian experience, and there’s a new form of this arriving on our shores in recent days, a return to the teachings of medieval Mystics.
And we need to be alert to this.It’s not our works that unite us to our living God, or bring us closer to God.It’s grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone by Scripture alone, by the Word of God, that we are brought into a living relationship with God.
We come as worshippers who rest in the finished work of Christ, the finished work of the great worshipper who was entered into the holy of holies for us and takes us with him there.So we are now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven by virtue of merely putting our faith in the finished work of Christ and His merits on our behalf.
It’s not by our efforts and works that we come into that relationship, but it is possible.We have spent so many years reacti