[0:00] Hello everyone. Do grab a seat and do grab one of these. It says forum on the front, one of your sheets. And do grab one of these as well, John's Gospels. There should be enough on the table for everyone. Those are free to take away with you. Please do grab that.
[0:21] It's really good to see you. Thank you very much for coming. My name's Mark Fossey. I'm the Assistant Minister of Grace Church, Dulwich, which meets in this beautiful church building every Sunday morning. And we do these forums once a month. There should be also on your table some grey flyers that just in nice big bold letters do have what we're looking at up to Christmas. So the three we're looking at are how can we know a God we can't see, what must I do to get to heaven, and isn't Christianity just for religious people? And if you've not been to forum before, the idea of these sessions is it's just a talk with discussion. And we really like it when people discuss. So middle class people are very good at sort of asking polite questions, but I much prefer it if people ask honest questions and real questions and discuss honestly. So as long as the debates are respectful and kind, that's a really good thing, okay? So please don't feel you're not allowed to ask a question or it's either too stupid or too rude. Please do ask it. It's a good thing to do. And whatever your view is, no one's going to tell you you're wrong to have that view. But we do have a view as
[1:34] Christians and we'd like to help you understand what we think as Christians to some of these questions. And I presume that's partly why you're here. Now, the format of this session is, in a moment we're going to read the bit that's on the front of this. If you look on the inside page there, on the left-hand side, there's just a little overview of what we're going to have. So there'll be an introduction, very short talkie bit that I'll give. And then we'll have discussion and you can see discussion one underneath. And then there'll be two more longer talkie bits, which I've put there. And you'll be able to follow through the discussion questions in the boxes. You'll be able to follow through what I'm saying on the other pages of the sheet. So you're following through, if that makes sense. Clear as mud. Everyone understand? Brilliant. Okay, I'm going to ask Kevin if you can just do it from there if you like. Come out the front, come out the front. And he's just going to read what it says on the front page and then I'll say a few things and we'll have a discussion.
[2:33] So in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him not anything made has been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave them the right to become children of God. Who were born, not of blood, nor of will of flesh, nor will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among them. And we have seen his glory. Glory is only the Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him, and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me, ranks before me, because he was before me. And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen
[4:06] God, the only God, who is at the Father's side. He has made him. Thank you very much. Now that, I didn't explain what it was. It says at the bottom there, John chapter 1. And that's the beginning, actually the first page of this, so you could have read it in here as well. This is John's Gospel. This is a book, it's not a very big book, but it's a book that a man called John wrote, who was a friend of Jesus, about Jesus' life.
[4:30] And this rather cryptic introduction to his book, which we've just read, is all about Jesus. It was quite complicated, and I'm not going to explain all of it, but it does help us with our question that we're looking at tonight. Before I show you how that is, let me just preface what we're thinking about tonight. I wonder when you look at this question, which we're looking at today, how can we know a God we can't see? I wonder how you ask that question. How can we know a God we can't see? Because it's interesting, I find when people ask questions, particularly spiritual questions, there's often the question behind the question.
[5:12] So for example, if someone said to me, why is there so much suffering in the world? Now that person might be a philosopher in a university, I did philosophy at university, and that's the sort of question that philosophers like to ask. Why is there suffering in the world? Or it could be someone who's in the midst of chemotherapy, suffering from cancer. Now when the philosopher asked that question, they're asking a very different question to the person with cancer, why is there suffering in the world? But it might be the same question, physically the same words, but the question behind the question would be very different, you see. What are they really asking when they're asking the question? And so with this question, how can we know a God we can't see? I think you can ask that question from different angles, and I'd like to show you, I think particularly, there's two different ways you might ask this question, and that's how we're going to sort of divide our time up, thinking about these two different angles. The first angle, I think, is from the person who would definitely, or more likely say, I'm really not religious, and I'm not a Christian, I'm really not religious, perhaps an atheist. And when they say, how can we know a God we can't see? They're more likely asking, well if there is a God, why doesn't he show himself? Does that make sense? The reason we can't see God is because there isn't a God.
[6:27] If there was a God, why doesn't he show himself to me? That's the sort of thing many of my friends would say. Why doesn't he make that chair hover above the ground, if there really is a God? The second way of asking the question, I think, is from a slightly less non-religious, perhaps atheistic position, and from more of a, I might believe in a God, I'm not sure, I think I do, maybe I don't, and it's more a question about how can we know a God that we can't see?
[6:55] So in other words, look, I think there's a God, or I'm not sure, I mean I'm open-minded to there being a God, but because we can't see him, how could I, I want to know what he's like, how could I know what he's like? How could I know if he's a he? How could I know if he's good or bad, if he's tall or short? How can I know what that God's like? So I think what we'd like to do in this session is, we'll have some discussion in between, is to look at both those two questions in turn.
[7:24] The first is, if there is a God, why doesn't he show himself? And then the second, well in fact, you can see it in your sheet, if you look on the inside, on the third page is the first of the questions. If God is really there, why doesn't he just show himself to us, you see? And then on the back page is the second part, which is, how can we know what the invisible God is like? Does that make sense of those, that's where we're going today? And just to preface actually, the answer to both of those are the same. And the answer actually is in the reading we had. So if you look back on the front page, I just want to draw you to the very, very last verse on that page, verse 18, right at the bottom.
[8:01] John says this, Now what John is saying there is that there is a God at the side of the Father. The Father he's talking about there is God, the supreme God, if you like. But there's another God at the Father's side.
[8:31] There's another God who's with the Father. And Christians believe that's Jesus. That's who John's referring to there. And he's saying this God, who's at God's side, if you like, has made this God known. So if you want to know what God's like, simply this, Jesus is the way you get to know God.
[8:53] So I'll give you a little illustration and we'll talk about this for a moment. I know a guy called Nigel, who has a twin brother. And I remember him telling me about his twin brother for many years. And one time I was, I can't remember, I was at a meeting somewhere and I saw Nigel and I went up to him to say hi. And there was something weird because when he looked back at me, when he talked to me, there wasn't a kind of smile or recognition in the eyes. It was just a kind of blankness. It was like, who's this bloke saying hello to me? And in an instant I realised it wasn't Nigel, it was his twin brother, Graham. And at that point I realised, look, he's exactly like him. It was actually slightly scary freaky. I don't know if you've ever done this with a twin. When you meet the other twin, it's like, wow, that's the same person in a different body or they've had a new brain put in there. It's very weird when you meet another twin. And if you like, Jesus is like that with God. You could meet Jesus and he's just like God. The other person is just like him. But it doesn't mean that
[9:54] God is five foot tall with a kind of beard and wears sandals. It's not so much physically what he's like, but more the person that he's like. And I'll come back to this later. But simply this, this is what we'll hear in both sides of this talk. If you want to know what God is like, Christians affirm that actually if you met Jesus and looked at Jesus and talked to Jesus and thought about what Jesus is like, Jesus, there's another verse in the Bible that says he's the image of the invisible God. You could look at God by looking at this guy, Jesus. But we'll come on to that in a moment. What I'd like you to do just for 10 minutes or so, just to preface and just to think about these ideas. I've put three quotes by three very different people. One's a scientist, one's an actor, sort of, and one is, no, he's a good actor actually, and one is an astronaut. And they just said different things about God, which I think are quite interesting. And I just wondered if you'd like to chat about it and think, which are the two questions are these guys asking? Are they asking the question,
[10:56] I don't really think there is a God because you can't see him? The sort of more atheist question, if that makes sense. Or are they asking the question underneath their question? Are they asking the question, well, I kind of believe in God, I think, but I'm not sure, but we can't really know what he's like. So have a think about what you think they're asking. And then just quickly, what do you agree?
[11:16] Do you disagree? What do you think of their views? What are your views? What do you think? And there's no right or wrong in this. It's just an open chat. So we'll do that for 10 minutes, and I'll call us to halt in a minute. Sorry to cut into those conversations. We'll have another chance to chat in a minute. Let me just spend 10 minutes or so trying to look at the first of those two questions. So if you've got your hand out, it's the right hand side on the inside there.
[11:46] Let me just spend 10 minutes just tackling this first question. And we'll have a chance to discuss and see what you think after it. So this question here is, I think, from the more, a bit more the sort of Stephen Hawking, Yuri Gagarin end of things, which is that there is no God and that you can't see him, so you can't really be there. Which, you know, is a common way of thinking, and I do understand that. So if God is really there, why did you show himself to us is the question. Let me try to answer it in two ways. There's many ways we can answer it, but do this. And the first is that there were eyewitnesses who said that Jesus, he was the image of the invisible God. That's the first heading under there.
[12:32] Back in your, on the front of your handout, just look at verse 14. John is using cryptic language, he's speaking about Jesus the whole way through his book and the whole way through this introduction. But he uses various titles to describe who Jesus is and what he's like.
[12:53] And one of them is, he describes him as the word of God. So God expresses himself in words, just as all we all express ourselves in words. And Jesus is the word of God. He is as if God expresses himself by Jesus, by a person, rather than just by words. He's even more so in a person.
[13:13] And so this idea of the word in capitals is Jesus. So let me read verse 14. The word became flesh, i.e. Jesus became a person, and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory.
[13:26] Glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. Now, what he's saying here is we saw Jesus, and he's definitely the only son of God. He's definitely the son of God. And we saw him.
[13:45] We saw his glory. That word glory just means how amazing, how magnificent, how godlike he was. And John is saying, we were there. So if you like, you might say, well, you know, if God is there, why doesn't he just show himself to us? Well, part of the answer is, he did. And you could have been there.
[14:07] If you were alive 2,000 years ago, living in Israel at the time, you could have eaten dinner with God. You could have touched him. You could have chatted to him. There was a bloke who was just like God.
[14:18] And they're saying, or John is saying, we've seen this bloke. And he's definitely the only son of God. We've seen the glorious things he's done and said. Absolutely, he's the one.
[14:30] So it's important that we understand that God in Jesus really has walked on the earth. And these people were saying, John, one of them, we've really seen it. We were eyewitnesses of this.
[14:41] Now, just because a bloke says, I've seen God, that doesn't obviously mean they've seen God. Lots of people have claimed, lots of mental people have said ridiculous things like that over the years.
[14:56] And for me, as a Christian, when I was struggling with this as a young Christian, thinking about, you know, lots of people saying to me, yeah, but they were mad. They were nutters. They made it up. They had some self-interest. They were lying, all these sorts of things.
[15:07] The piece of evidence that really struck me, that I think it gave me real confidence to believe what John and others say in books like this, is the lives they had to live in order to hold on to their eyewitness statements.
[15:24] Now, in any normal trial, okay, sometimes you have trials of like a mafia leader or some sort of serious hitman, okay, and they've got to keep these witnesses under extreme protection because they're in fear for their lives.
[15:39] And they'll come forward and they might give evidence in court against this mafia hitman or mafia godfather or whatever, but they're in fear for their lives. And for every one person that does that, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds who absolutely will not come forward.
[15:54] Even though they saw it with their own eyes and they know it's true, they're absolutely terrified and petrified of making an eyewitness statement. Do you know what's interesting about these men, the apostles of Jesus?
[16:07] There were 11 of them and a number of others, actually, who were there when they saw what Jesus did and heard what he said. Every one of them lived a miserable life. Every one of them were persecuted terribly.
[16:21] Every one of them suffered horribly. And of Jesus' 11 apostles, actually, all of them died horribly. Apart from John, but John actually, funnily enough, he, well, not funnily enough at all, he was boiled alive in oil but survived and spent the latter days of his life on an exile island.
[16:43] Now, why would you do that to someone? The only reason that they were persecuted so horribly was because they said, we saw this bloke Jesus, we saw what he did, and we saw him rise again from the dead.
[17:01] And that was so against what everyone in culture, in the different cultures they went to in those days, were so hostile to that, they tortured them and persecuted them, and some died at the hands of mobs, and some were executed by the state.
[17:15] Now, the thing is, the hard question that strikes me about that is, why would you, if you knew it was a lie, why would you stand up and say, yeah, yeah, it's right, you can kill me, because, you know, I know it's a lie, but it's right, I'll die for it.
[17:33] There might, just look, you might get one mental person that would do that, okay. But I tell you what, every one of these men did that. And there was no way, if they'd got together in a table like this, and gone, right, Jesus is dead, we've got to come up with some sort of concept, that he's God, and that he rose again from the dead, and tell everyone.
[17:53] We've got to do that, okay guys, let's go and tell everyone that, complete lie, made up. At some stage, when they're being tortured, or destroyed by mobs in riots, one of them might have gone, look, just honestly guys, the thing is, we got together and we made it up, please don't kill me.
[18:11] Please don't throw me to a live pack of lions to tear me apart. You'd have thought one of them would say that, if it was just a lie. And it strikes me that the fact that none of them did, meant that I am convinced, that they are absolutely convinced themselves, that when they say, we saw Jesus' glory, we think he's the only son of God, that they really believe that.
[18:34] And I am really convinced that they are. So I think their eyewitness testimony is really important and really valid. It would be great to chat about that, and you'll agree to see what you think about that. The second thing that I think really proves that Jesus really is from God, if you're in any doubt, is not just what people said of him, and their honesty, and I think their integrity in saying it, but the things they said about him.
[18:59] And particularly his miracles. I think Jesus proved it with his miracles. I've put on your sheet there, five different things about his miracles, that just blow me away, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that he really is from God.
[19:13] First is the range of the miracles that he did. Sometimes people have claimed to have done a miracle. To become a kind of saint in the Catholic Church, you need to have done a kind of miracle.
[19:25] You know, every so often you hear of a kind of Mary turning up in some Marmite on a toast, or you hear a sort of random miracle that you're never sure about. And maybe it happened, maybe it didn't, I don't know.
[19:37] But Jesus did an extraordinary range of miracles. This is not a one-off fluke in a particular area. He was able to heal every disease and sickness.
[19:50] I mean, HIV, you know, cancer, autism, anything you like. He literally would touch people, and they'd be instantly healed. Name the disease, and he was able to do it.
[20:02] Deaf people, blind people, people who had never been able to walk in their whole lives. People who were demon-possessed. They were so sectioned that they were absolute lunatics, and with a word, they were absolutely psychologically healed.
[20:21] He was able to control nature. He could say to a storm, stop, and it stopped. He was able to say to some fishermen, just put some nets there right now, and pull the net out, and it would be full of, how would you know that?
[20:35] It would be full of fish. He could do that. He could make that happen. And he was able to do miracles over death. He raised dead people from life. He was at a funeral once, in front of the family, in all the town that were there, and he said to, I say, little boy, get up, and this little boy got up.
[20:54] You've got to be pretty confident to do a thing like that at a funeral. He was so confident that he could do it. He just did it like that. He even brought himself back from the dead. I'd love to see Derren Brown do that.
[21:05] Derren Brown does some brilliant tricks, but I'd love to see him bring himself back from the dead. This guy, the range of miracles he did was extraordinary. And the magnitude of them, you've kind of, you know, every disease and sickness, he was able to heal people who weren't even there at the time.
[21:22] He was able to heal people in other districts. He was able to calm, not just, he wasn't able to just make a few precipitations of water come from the sky. He was able to calm a hurricane storm. He was able to feed 5,000 men, plus their wives and kids.
[21:38] I don't know if you've ever been to a football match or a massive gig where there are thousands and thousands of people. And you see all the catering and the massive involvement. How extraordinary is the catering. What a gift it is to be able to say, right, okay, and just make food appear for all these people.
[21:52] And they're all going, that was great, I've had a good meal. And that's amazing. They're massive, massive things. And raising the dead. You just can't do that sort of thing. Thirdly, they were public.
[22:05] Jesus did these things in front of crowds. They didn't have camera angles and mirrors in those days. Do you know what I mean? They couldn't do it with television tricks. Remember David Copperfield, I remember many years ago, did a thing where he made the Statue of Liberty disappear.
[22:20] You couldn't have done that in the second century because they didn't have the camera tricks. He always did these things in public. Like I said, the funeral. He did it in front of the whole crowd of people that were there. He was able to do these things frequently.
[22:34] So he fed the 5,000 at one time. But there was another occasion he fed 4,000 people. It wasn't just a one-off fluke. When he raised a dead girl, he raised a dead boy, he's raised a dead man.
[22:45] He's raised dead people lots of times. He often healed every disease and sickness. They weren't one-off, or that was a fluke, or it could have happened this certain way. He did it whenever he wanted to, often.
[22:57] And he did it whenever he wanted to, the spontaneity of it. It wasn't, okay, I'm going to do a miracle, but let me get everything ready first. Okay. He did it. There was a funeral walking along, and he went, oh, look, there's a funeral.
[23:11] Why didn't I? He just did it on the spot. You can't legislate for when a storm starts. It just starts when it does. And he was able to go, okay, well, let's stop this now. Stop.
[23:23] Now, I can't, how could anyone claim to do all those things without it being so ridiculous it's farcical? I mean, what children's story? You could read that story to a sick-year-old, and they'd go, but that's ridiculous.
[23:36] That's just a story that's made up. That couldn't happen. And John is saying, I was there. It really happened. I know this seems so extraordinary, you can't believe it's true, but I saw it with my own eyes.
[23:51] Now, when you're confronted with that, this man, Jesus Christ, when he then says, John says, you see, we really think he's the only son of God, you can see why he says that, can't you?
[24:03] It's so extraordinary. It really confronts me and makes me think, well, you can't just put Jesus in a box and think he was a nice bloke.
[24:13] If he could do that, he's easily the most unique man that's ever lived. Easily. So for me, it's very striking. So the answer to the first question, I think, is quite simply this.
[24:25] God has shown himself to people. Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God and he proved it by what he did. Now, I don't know what you think about that. Please do feel free to spend 10 minutes or so in our discussion.
[24:39] There's a couple of questions that you might want to ask or look at if you're bored or you haven't got anything to talk about or just talk however you feel led from what I've said and we'll bring you back in about 10 minutes. Okay, shall we come back together?
[24:53] We're sorry to cut into your conversations. We will have a bit more chance for discussion after this as well. So this will be the last part. You might be able to follow through what I'm saying as on the back page. So I think this angle of asking the question is slightly less, yeah, but prove to me a God if you can't see it and slightly more, look, okay, maybe there is a God, maybe there isn't.
[25:17] I don't know. I'm open-minded to it but if there is a God, how could you really know what he's like? And it is interesting when you look at the different world religions and not even just the big religions, some of them smaller religions and philosophies and spiritualities, there's a massive multiplicity of what they believe God is like.
[25:37] So the Buddhists don't even really believe there is a God but God really is everything. A bit like that film Avatar actually, if you ever saw that. God is nature and all that there is and it isn't really a person, he's everything.
[25:52] And the goal of life is to die and become one with everything, with the cosmos. Well then you go to the Hindu gods and Hindu gods in some senses have a similar idea of God but actually God manifests himself or herself in millions of ways.
[26:07] There are hundreds and thousands of Hindu gods. There's elephant gods and gods with various heads and lots of, I don't know, you see lots of these sort of statues everywhere in India.
[26:19] So there's lots of different ideas and visions and displays of God or then you've got the Jewish and the Christian and the Muslims all say there's one God but they say very different things about who that God is and what he's like.
[26:32] So it's interesting actually wherever you go wherever you're part of the world there's massive belief in God but there's a complete confusion about who God is and what he's like and I meet people all the time who sound a bit like Brad Pitt did in that quote earlier who kind of say look just to be honest it's a bit like going to a supermarket there's so many brands of tea and there's so many I just can't choose I'm just and it's the same with gods I just see so many gods in London these days there's so many different religions how are we supposed to know?
[27:05] And it's a really good question and it's an excellent question and I think the Christian answer which has always been the thing that's helped me answer that question is when you actually look at Jesus you're looking at something that's less guesswork and more concrete and real so you can really look at Jesus and go well let me make up for my own mind whether I really do think he is the image of the invisible God if I look at his life you know the classic way to do it is to take away John's gospel and read it these are free I reckon that will take you what an hour hour and a half to read it just take it and read it I think the best thing to do is read it with your mind open and just be reading and thinking now this bloke Jesus as it's been presented to me do I think he really is the image of the invisible God one illustration I heard put it like this I think it's a really helpful illustration imagine we were born in this room imagine this room is all we've ever known and in this room there are no windows there's one door over the back and it's locked so no one's ever come in or out of it and at some stage the room probably smells a little bit but we're having a conversation and someone on the table over here says do you know what
[28:16] I wonder what's outside that door it's a good question and someone over here goes well it's obvious what's outside that door it's a land of green giants and another person on the table over there goes green giants are you mad it's obviously a land of purple pygmies and someone over here goes you're both just talking you're making it up do you know what's behind that door you open that door and it's just a brick wall there's nothing there and the problem with that conversation is we're all just guessing I mean you can guess and really believe strongly about your guess but the truth is you've no idea and that's really what people are doing when they understand about God because unless they've met God they're just guessing and that's really what's going on in the world but imagine one day that we're all just sort of slumbering sitting around chatting and you hear a key turning the lock and the door opens and someone comes in and it's the most amazing thing wow and we all say what is outside and he says well actually this is part of a school and there's other buildings out house and there's a car park and there's a main road and there's Dulwich village and there's a pizza express that's what's outside out there okay we've got that's amazing now he wouldn't be being arrogant in telling us that because that's where he's just come from the Christian claim or Jesus' claim is that he has come from heaven now you don't get that very often and if you do most people that say that are mad but just for this one just for a suspend disbelief Jesus is saying I've come from God okay and I know what he's like let me tell you what he's like and let me show you what he's like in the way I live and the way I speak I'm going to embody God to you and I'm going to tell you what he's like now that wouldn't be arrogant if he really is from heaven and the
[30:09] Christian claim is and that's why you need to read it and think about it come on we do this Christianity Explored course actually which is mentioned at the bottom there which is a bit like this it's just looking at one of the books about who Jesus is and thinking for ourselves is Jesus this bloke or is he just another mad person from history because we really look at his life and think is this bloke the son of God and if he really is then I can know what God's like because he's not arrogant because he's coming from heaven he's coming through the door into our world to tell us what God's like to show us what God's like let me just give you very quickly four ways in which I think Jesus shows that he really is from heaven he really is from God and shows us what God's like and I've put them on on the back of your sheet there the first is this is that Jesus has the same power as God he has the same power as God well I don't really need to say much more than what I said earlier the miracles they show that I think they clearly show he's the image of the invisible God that he's the only only son of God he shows his glory no one can do those things no normal person could do that even superheroes in films and cartoons don't do the amazing things that Jesus did and they're figments of people's imagination it's absolutely extraordinary what he did and if someone really was from God and was God he would be able to do the most amazing things that God can do and I think Jesus proves that in his life so the miracles are really for me strong evidence the second thing are the words he says Jesus speaks the same words as God this is something Jesus says later on in the book that John wrote he says this do you not believe that I'm in the father and the father is in me so he's saying he's united or one with
[31:54] God the words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority but the father who dwells in me does his works Jesus claims that the things he says they're not even his own words they're God's very words when he speaks now again other people have claimed that but it's striking to me and maybe this isn't going to I think all of these things add up but but in his own life at his time people like John who wrote this book well he was a fisherman he was a wealthy fisherman actually he had his own business and then he just dropped his business and followed Jesus because when he heard Jesus speak and teach he was just amazed by it people just left their businesses I don't know what you do in life what your business is or imagine just up and leaving Dulwich and your job because you heard the guy who was so amazing in what he said and taught you just thought you know what sack this I'd love to follow this guy it was so powerful and in the world today there are literally billions of people who are bowled over by his teaching and they follow him because they think what he says is amazing even people who aren't Christians generally have this view of Jesus he said good things he talked about absolutely and when you read them they are striking and I find as I've been a
[33:16] Christian quite a few years now I'm still finding new things that I'm just get that is amazing this bloke you know he was a carpenter right he worked for Ikea in the first century and yet people 2,000 years later are still talking about what he said he said amazing things not many carpenters can do that I think he's the son of God the third thing is that Jesus had the same personality as God he had the same personality as God so I mean lots of different things but it's very striking Jesus is very much like the God of the Old Testament the Old Testament is the period several thousand years before Jesus lived and it's the story of God and his people Israel and when you look at what God is described like there Jesus is just like he embodies God as a person so he's really angry when wrongdoing happens he's absolutely livid at sin there's an incident where people are using God's temple for just to make money and he and he throws their temple their money changing tables on he gets really angry at wrong things he gets really angry when his friend dies but more than that he's he's extraordinarily kind he's the kind of guy that hangs out with drug dealers and he wants to include drug dealers he's the kind of guy that would actually be meeting with the people who were outcasts who were rejected by most of culture most of the middle class people wouldn't talk to that's where Jesus because he's such a lovely bloke he's just like God he's so lovely he's the kind of guy that would would stand up to hypocrisy he doesn't care what people think of him and he wasn't over he wasn't rude for the sake of being rude when there are wrong things he would stand up say no that's wrong doesn't care what the newspapers would say of him or the public would say about him because he was always standing up for and and yet he was so patient with he was even patient with the people that put him to death unreasonably and unfairly he was even kind to the people that put him to death who did it in ignorance and stupidity is he is just like God in the in the kind of person he was so you could actually read this and look at
[35:25] Jesus and the way he speaks and the way he acts and think well that's what God's like that's what he's trying to be that's who he is and lastly very similarly Jesus lived the same moral life as God do you know what's amazing about Jesus he never did or said or even thought anything that anyone could say that is out of order and that's wrong now that is amazing that alone proves to me that he's a God okay he never once was nasty in anything he thought or said unkindly or unreasonably he never once lied he never once gossipsed or hated unreasonably he was never once proud or self-righteous or arrogant things that we are constantly on a daily basis do you know what strikes me that I mean I know it sounds ridiculous that anyone could really be like that the disciples who lived with him you know they they followed him around they lived with him for three years constantly okay imagine living with someone if you live with me for three days constantly it wouldn't take you long to spot we watch big brother okay three days and you see how much that comes out of people what they're really like in their hearts okay these guys lived with him for three years et slept drank live with him the whole time and they died on the basis that they thought he never did or said or thought anything wrong even more than that do you know that Jesus's own blood brothers and mother believed that he was sinless and the son of God how many mothers here could say of their children never done thought said anything wrong doesn't that blow you away the people that were lived with him and knew him all said that he never ever did anything wrong he was morally wonderful he was the kind of guy that everyone would love he would easily have one big brother do you know what I mean because he was he was such a lovely guy just like God in an extraordinary unique way now those are just a few things that strike me and there are more things I could say I think those those and more are the reasons why we really can say this bloke is the guy who came through the door from the from heaven into our universe to tell us what
[37:48] God's like now I know that sounds mad it can never happen it's only happened once so it's a pretty rare thing but I think when you look at the guy I can't see how it it could be in any other way I don't know what you think I'd love to hear your thoughts why don't we just chat about that for a bit and I'll call us to halt in in in 10 minutes or so can I just then can I cut into your conversations I'm really sorry to do that because I can see people having great chats and I just want to say that it's the say it's the end of the formal time so feel free if you'd like to go you're very welcome to go if you'd like to carry staying around and chatting we haven't got a close-up so please feel free to stay around do take some of the forum flyers with you give them to friends neighbors whoever you like and and do invite them do come back yourself next month Sunday the 10th of October we'll look at what must I do to get to heaven and there is also if you're interested in coming to church we've got a guest service at church I'm sorry you haven't got any more of these flyers with me it's really annoying but that we're having an event on the 3rd of October so it's a few weeks time and called what is love and that's just normal church but it'd be for guests people who wouldn't call themselves Christians you'd be massively welcome to come to that and you can take I've only got one of these so you can do take that if you'd like someone please do come to that and there's also this course Christianity
[39:17] Explored which I've put on the sheet there which is we'll do it we're going to do a six-week course it's a bit like this we'll sit around tables discussion with a talk and really really look at Jesus and who he is and it's the same sort of thing same sort of format and whoever would like to do that it's a very popular course I've run it many times I think you'd really enjoy that please do let me know or stick me an email you'd be very very welcome to come to get that course please feel free to have some more coffee or more water carry on chatting or if you'd need to leave or go you're very welcome to go thanks very much for coming