Bridge of Sighs, Oxford
Dale: I am thrilled to be joined by Justyn Terry. Justyn is the Vice Principal at Wycliffe Hall Oxford. He and I have met on a lark before here in Southern California. We have some overlap of friends and comrades. Justin, welcome. Thank you so very much.
Justyn: Thank you for having me. It's great to be with you.
Dale: Tell us about Wycliffe Hall.
Justyn: Wycliffe Hall is a unique institution, so it is a theological college or seminary in the evangelical tradition of the Anglican Church, the church of England. It's also an integral part of the University of Oxford, partly because of the history of the university training clergy from its earliest days. This provision is given for something they call a permanent private hall, which means we can be a distinctive Christian tradition.
And here we are, Evangelical Anglicans, and we are allowed to recruit tutors who are evangelicals. Obviously, they have to be at the right academic standard to meet the demands of Oxford University. Still, we have permission to be a distinctive evangelical college in the heart of Oxford. So, that is a rare and wonderful privilege.
Obviously, we have to treat that with great respect and make sure we are producing a high-quality scholarship and teaching and doing the kind of things you'd expect the University of Oxford to be doing. But we can do it in a distinctively evangelical way, and that to us is a great privilege and a great treat.
So we are, on the one hand, training up people who will be in ordained ministry in the Church of England and people who are going to be in ministry in other places, in other countries. It also means you can come to Witcliff even if you don't hold a Christian view; you want to just go and study theology with a group of people who take it very seriously and feel passionately about it and want to get to grips with it.
Yes, there'll be chapel each day. You don't have to come. So it is a faith-fueled organization—lots of very serious people thinking about their faith and trying to live it out. But we're not saying it's only for evangelical Christians to come. Anyone can come. They know who we are.
They know what we're doing. So we are in this remarkable, unique, and special place, part of the University of Oxford and a seminary evangelical seminary—the evangelical tradition of Anglicanism.
Dale: And coming up on 700 years of, Wycliffe.
Justyn: Well, that's right. We've got an anniversary to celebrate. We can't claim that Wycliffe Hall itself goes quite that far back. We are inspired by somebody who was in this university that many years ago. We began in 1877, so we've still got a bit of pedigree, but we do recognize the great work that John Witcliff did in Bible translation and in seeking to get the Christian faith on a more clearly biblical footing than he felt it was in his day.
Dale: Great. Great, great, great. And I'm excited to see... share with us about the Renaissance Project.
Justyn: Yes. Well, I have the great joy of working with a man called Michael Lloyd. He's the principal of Witcliff Hall. He has been cultivating a vision that just crystallized in the last year or so to say, look, we don't want just to be doing theology to speak to other theologians. We want to do theology at the highest level and engage in all the great debates, but we want to do something bigger than that.
And we feel called to do something bigger than that, an attempt to get back on the front foot, as we like to say. So, rather than Christianity reacting to what's going on in our culture, seek to do the scholarship so that we have exciting, fresh ideas because of the revelation of Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit and seeking ways to communicate that in our culture.
And that is going to include music and the arts. And film and all sorts of different ways we can engage with our culture in a way that is contemporary and exciting and makes people think I want in. Those Christians are taking us into a brighter future, and we want to be part of it. So that's a vision, and I've watched it quietly germinate since I've been working with Michael these last seven or eight years, but it kind of came together in the last year or so.
We've now recruited someone to direct the project. We are beginning a fundraising campaign to really put this thing on the map. And have that impact, which we believe is a call of God. And again, we'll have to wait and see. If he decides not to bless it, that's fine. We think this is our call and will try to live into it, but we've got people beginning to emerge, people saying we want to be part of that.
We've got students and others already arriving, researchers saying we want to be part of that. People involved in the cultural engagement saying we want to be part of that. We've got friends who are seeking to help us already, and we think others are gonna rally. As the word gets out. So that's the Renaissance project.
We're very excited about it. We hope it's gonna get Christianity on the front foot again.
Dale: You should be. Yeah. And I love that. I read a quote by Michael Lloyd. He said, "people are desperate for beauty."
Justyn: Yes. Yes. Well, it's part of our culture that has this strange emptiness and hollowness, and it's not my task as well to unpack the current culture and all its difficulties. But one of the things that is itself,, being reevaluated is what does it mean to be beautiful?
More recently, some artists are rethinking what it means to be beautiful. But also, I think there is a sense in which, sometimes, it's seen as kind of peripheral or just for those who've got a particular interest. It's a little niche, perhaps. But part of what I think Marco is trying to say is, look, we must remember God is a creator of beauty and we would expect the Christian faith when fully embodied and lived out.
It should be a beautiful thing. People whose lives are becoming beautiful, whatever they may look like, but essentially there's something beautiful about it and the aroma of Christ. So he's trying to capture something of that beauty that will reflect in how we worship when we come together.
But it's also about our whole life together. How do we capture something of the beauty of God, who created beauty in the first place?
Dale: Amen. Before we leave that, can you tell people how they can find out more about the Renaissance project?
Justyn: I would suggest you simply come to the Witcliff Hall website, you put in Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. You're gonna find yourself very quickly at the website. There's a nice video featuring our own, Michael Lloyd who just gives you a little bit of a sense of the vision, and draws you into it, and you'll also see things there about summer school.
If you wanna find out, come over and have a little closer look. You'd be very welcome to come.
Dale: Awesome. You and I have been chatting back and forth through email, and then just before we pushed the record button--my last episode was on some of the data, a scintilla of the data, about the historic decline in both church attendance as well as the number of practicing Christians. Turns out, they are not the same thing.
More than two-thirds say yes to orthodox ideas like the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the death and resurrection, and the authority of the Bible. But they have become disenchanted with the church.
According to one study that I read, 40 million persons have left in the last 25 years. It is the most significant and rapid shift in American religious history. You spent a number of years here near--very near where I grew up. What are your thoughts about this trend, this data?
Justyn: Well, it is very painful to hear it. As someone who has throughout my life been so blessed by the life of the church, hearing about people who don't feel blessed by the life of the church to the point that they're leaving makes me sad on so many levels. It makes me wonder what's the church doing wrong?
What is our cultural message? What is going on in our current situation? It raises all sorts of questions, but it certainly was notable to me when I arrived in Pittsburgh in 2005. I was amazed at how many people, even on my own street, were going to church and how normal church going was.
And even in the ten or eleven years I was there, I noticed things beginning to shift before my very eyes. And some of these things, no doubt, are related to public debates and the church's own engagement with those public debates. Not always covering itself in glory, one might say, as it does. But I think what I'm noticing coming back to England, I don't think it's quite so dramatic.
But, frankly, we are starting from a lower starting point. Our church attendance here is rather lower. And again, it fluctuates a little bit, depending on how you count it. But when the kind of 5% of the population kind of number somewhere around there, depending how you count it,
I'm glad to tell you that, last I heard, it was going up, which I prefer to the going down figures. But it is certainly the case that part of the challenge we've been facing is that we've become stuck in a bit of a celebrity culture. There are certain Christian leaders who have become very effective communicators, and they do draw you to them.
There is a charisma about them. And you think, oh, I wanna be involved with this. But we've had a number of our key celebrity figures get into difficulty in a very public way. People think, we thought so-and-so was kind of a model Christian, and they were seeking to draw others into this serious Christian life.
They were doing these things that we think no Christian should be doing, let alone a Christian leader. So, I do wonder whether part of our challenge is we've got caught up in a kind of a celebrity culture and when a celebrity does fall and as a phobia, several have are here.
And I know also in the states there are quite a number of knock on effects and also what we're feeling in this country. within my own lifetime. And I have to admit, I'm in my fifties now. I grew up in a culture, even at school. People who didn't go to church kind of thought maybe they should, and if they don't themselves hold a Christian faith.
They kind of looked at the Christians and thought I probably should do what they're doing to a culture in which now a lot of people would think Christians are a bad example. They're holding onto bad ideas. They're holding up bad practices, and they're treating other people badly. Why would I wanna be one of those?
That's quite a dramatic shift in just a matter of a few decades. Part of what I'm thinking is how well are we doing as a Christian Church? I. How Christian are we? There is sort a danger that, we get caught up in the culture, whether that's celebrity culture or consumer culture, whatever else it might be.
And that kind of shapes the way we do our Christianity more than the Bible, more than the Holy Spirit, more than you know, the life of the church that goes before us. And my fear is that we've got caught up in things that are exciting and wonderful, and you kind of want to be drawn into it.
Christian discipleship can somehow get a little bit pushed to the back and something else kind of comes into the front that it's exciting and stimulating and you want in. But the question is, are we really on a journey of Christian discipleship and the way we should be?
Dale: Thank you for that. And that's a very thoughtful overview. There are some parallels to what you just shared, the celebrity culture. One of the watch words in exit interviews with those who have left is hypocrisy, and that's what you're pointing to is high profile hypocrisy well as more general hypocrisy.
I think people have seen the rancor on social media from Christians and think, good Lord--and as you just said--they would conclude, why would I want to be part of that? I think in this country, just as you talked about how young people, decades ago, had a sense that the church was a good thing, whether they were part of it or not.
That has shifted here in this country. I can be confident to say that this is a moment in America's history when the church has the least influence on broader culture, at least in a positive sense. Doesn't shape the culture, doesn't shape its institutions. Not highly regarded as being a good thing.
People that are high profile persons, if they're also Christian, they probably want to keep that on the hush-hush. My concern, as I shared with you before we started recording, is we believe that God is good and faithful, if we believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts and minds of the faithful. If what we're seeing is a reaction to Christians behaving in a way that is unloving ha,teful, or judgmental, then something other than faith is growing because. Otherwise, we can't trust what we read in the pages of the New Testament about the way the whole thing works. Whether you go to First John, if you say you have faith and don't have love, then the truth lies nowhere within you. So what are we really seeing and are we really looking at
What are your thoughts about the way forward?
Justyn: Well, to put it in simple terms, I think the church itself has quite a bit of repenting to do of our own failures, our own wanting to look impressive in the eyes of the world rather than wanting to look impressive in the eyes of Jesus. So, I do think we have our own repenting to do. I do think there's a role for Christian leaders in particular, we have an influence, wide influence sometimes, and a college like this, trying to raise up leaders for the future.
We have a responsibility to seek to cultivate deeply Christian men and women whose first concern is to live the life of a Christian man or a woman in the contemporary culture, in the church's life in a deeply authentic and deeply attractive way. And I think that is about reading the Bible and praying and doing the things that Christians are normally expected to be doing in the life of the church with others getting engaged, getting out there, seeking to live out their Christian faith in their in their workplace.
And you'd hope you'd be looking forward to going to church. I think when I get to church, I'm gonna be with people who are seeking after the Lord. I'm gonna be there with people who will help me understand God's word better. I'm gonna get a chance to make my prayers, offer my praises, and come to the table of the Lord's Supper in all sorts of ways.
I'm gonna be fed, nurtured, watered, and leave the place a better man, better woman, better person, better family member. And that's gotta be good for everybody, and we should look forward to it. It doesn't mean we'll just hear nothing but good and comforting words. We need to be challenged from time to time.
But there should be a sense in which there is excitement and a privilege and a joy. And if people just happen to pop in for whatever reason and see the Christian faith lived out, maybe over coffee, even after or over refreshment, try to say after the main service, they should think there's something about these people that I want.
Sometimes that happens and it's a beautiful thing, but it's not like it's not always happening. And I think part of my concern is particularly in our contemporary culture, where generally speaking membership of clubs and organizations is dropping off quite dramatically. And it's much more acceptable to be home, stay home, work from home, et cetera.
I'm not against working from home. It has its place, but there is a general shift away from engagement, involvement, commitment, which is also reflected in the church. And part of my concern is when you step away from the life of the church, you are lucky to spend more of your time hearing the world bombarding you with its message and its own, frankly, propaganda and
The danger is our hearts do become hardened. And if we do have the great blessing of the Holy Spirit with genuinely Christian people in every conceivable way, the danger is we're going to be quenching the Holy Spirit. We're not going to be following the Holy Spirit; we're not going to be stirring the spirit up.
We won't meet two or three, whether Jesus is there in our midst in some special way. We haven't got that sort of refurbishment, renewal, refreshment, and so we're kind of on our own a little bit vulnerable. And we're not getting that encouragement. And also at the same time, we're getting more and more of what the world has to say, which is awfully convenient.
You know, do whatever you want to do, and you're gonna be just fine. , that's, it's a very attractive message. I don't think it's true, but it's really very attractive. And,, if the alternative is to go to church, which you don't find very encouraging, uplifting, or maybe it's laying burdens on you, rather than really bringing you closer to Jesus, you can see why people might not be going to church in the way we wish they were.
Dale: What I love--within that, Justin--you painted a portrait of things like 'taste and see that the Lord is good'. And things like, having abundant life.
Justyn: Yes. Well, it seems like a slightly off the edge point, but I think it's actually right on the point. We had a videographer come in recently to do some video work for us. We've got a lovely new group of students come in as a life and vibrancy. We thought capture the moment, get some fresh video material up.
Well, the person who came in was not a man of faith. We normally have a Christian videographer. I guess he wasn't available. We got his person in the thing that was so thrilling to hear afterwards. It's, he'd never seen anything like it. Now, I'm sure if you or I'd been there, he thought, this looks like pretty normal Christian faith, but he'd never seen anything like it.
And apparently his girlfriend a few weeks ago said, well, I wouldn't mind going to church. He said, oh, I don't think so. But after a visit with a group of people taking their faith seriously here, he thought, I want to go to church. Well, that's how you want it to be. So. It's not that we have to come up with some clever formula, some clever package dazzle people in some sort of fresh form of celebrity culture.
It is the gospel itself and the power of the word, that cleanses of the news gives us wisdom, light on the path. Wisdom is, I think, a key word these days, particularly also, you have the power of the Holy Spirit. That is a special gift of God, the presence of God with us all the time. Well, when those things are going on, you would expect people to notice it.
If that's not part of their regular daily diet. Our main task as Christians is to try to be Christians. Obviously failing shortcoming, we know about those things too. But when we get together as church, we're trying to be church. We're trying to be a place where we are living out the gospel together in such a way that not only do we encourage each other, but we also help the rising generation think, I want some of this.
And we think, and we do it in such a way that the visitor comes and thinks, well, what's going on here? And it often is that people have to belong before they believe these days, as Grace Davey points out. So having a space where people can be there, be part of the community, get involved in things without them suddenly find themself in a leadership role before they've come to faith, because, that gets tricky, but allow them space to calm and get involved and think, wow, something going on here.
I want in, and that's where we want to try to get to.
So beautiful. You asked me before we started recording about my thoughts about the way forward and, by the way, as a parentheses, my podcast and website are called Dear Christianity because, well, it came out of a story I wrote about a young widow who, in her grieving, tried to find God and meaning in the Christian Church and couldn't find either one.
And she got on an airplane and happened to sit by a frequent business traveler who's been very thoughtful about faith. And they talk and he shares the gospel with her, and she is struck by how radical it is and how radically different it is than anything she had heard. He shows her in the pages where it says it. And she's just shocked. And he's rejuvenated.
I've been fooling around with that fictional story and never did anything with it. And then finally I took that character and wrote as if it were a fictional op-ed in the Philadelphia Enquirer, the city she was from and a full page and, and it's Dear Christianity, I.
And I wrote a good bit of it. And then I thought, well, this is silly. It's out of context. I'll just write it from me, not my fictional character. And so now, here we are with a podcast and a website. My feeling is that everybody could write their own Dear Christianity letter and they would have some things to say about what's on their heart and mind about contemporary Christianity.
So, I have built this thing on three pillars. One is the data, the problem, the crisis you and I have been discussing. Two, the cause of the problem is a widespread and fundamental misunderstanding about the essence of the Christian religion. I believe that Christianity has been reduced to a lifestyle that has more to do with the follower and has less to do with Christ.
As a result, I'm painting with a broom, in contrast to something you just shared a few moments ago, I think many people leave church on Sundays carrying more burdens than when they got there. And that's one reason people are fleeing for safety. And, I say the third pillar is that the solution is quite simple and extravagantly good. I believe the church should beg God daily for wisdom--wisdom as defined by some reformers as comprised of two essential ingredients: knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves, and one cannot have one without the other.
And if Christian preachers had a deep understanding of themselves and God, that would come out, no matter what the topic was for thus and such a sermon. It would be some version of Romans seven, bleeding into the beginning of chapter eight.
Hmm. Yeah. (Justyn)
I'm not who I want to be. I see this war going on inside of me. This causes me to realize I need rescuing. I'm the guy that, for whatever reason, God chose to write more than half the New Testament, and I need rescuing from this thing--and it's not going away.
This is the reality, and rhetorically, who will rescue me. Thanks be to God. There's no condemnation.
Justyn: Yeah, well. It's the gospel that we need to hear and not, here are the 10 more things you're supposed to be doing,
But here's what Jesus has already done for you. Are you living in the light of it? Have you received forgiveness? Is the Holy Spirit at work in you? Are you seeking his wisdom, and are you trying to follow it?
But with him, not apart from him, not here's what you're gonna do now, get on with it. Here's what you're gonna do. Let's go do it together. So we're called into his mission to the world he loves. And that suddenly makes life a whole lot more interesting. So I do remember for me, growing up in the church, I'm very grateful for that background, but I still remember quite distinctively one of my teachers in the Sunday school class explaining that Jesus was offering to come into my life and guide me through it through my life.
And I remember that was the thing I got really excited about. Yes, you need to clean up my life so you could come and be in it. I could see the need for that. But as a prospect of being guided through my life, even as a 7-year-old, I was imagining that life is gonna get quite complicated. And if God's offering to come and lead me through, I'm gonna take the offer up.
And so that was, for me, a crucial part of it. So the idea that God is coming to us in the now and the power of the Holy Spirit to guide us through our lives in such a way that we are caught up in his purposes, on his mission, seeking to live in a way that is full of love and joy and peace and the beautiful things.
Read about in terms of the fruit of the spirit. I want in, I want in.
Dale: Justin. I heard you give an anecdote of Charles Simeon when he heard he was required to go to communion.
Justyn: Yes. Well, it's one of those very striking moments. So Charles Simian was a director of a church in Cambridge. But. Back in his student days, he was by no means following the Christian faith in a way he would later do. And at that time, part of the requirement of being part of that college, was he had to go to communion at least once a year.
Times have changed, by the way; we no longer require that in Oxford or Cambridge. We do have chapels, but we don't require regular communion. But for him, he was thinking, me going to communion. And he began to become jealous of dogs, thinking no one's ever going to ask for a dog to take communion.
At least they're not put in that terrible bind where you're asking them to decide about going to communion. So, for him, it was just so shocking to feel he, as a person who was becoming well aware of his sin, was required to go to communion to carry on as a student in Cambridge.
That was a burdensome thing. So that, though, was part of the whole process of conviction. And he met up with a more senior evangelical, toman. He was able to help him gain a definite knowledge and love of Jesus and the freedom and joy that he brought. So after that, he could have communion quite gladly, but he realized it wasn't because he was doing well and deserved it but because Jesus had done everything necessary to make him a person who could receive such an extraordinary gift.
And that's the message he went on to preach. And he goes on to train other preachers, has an enormous impact, and inspires people to this day. In terms of biblical preaching, he was seeking to be faithful to the Lord, and seeking to live out the Christian faith day by day. But for him, it was that requirement to go to communion that made him realize, I can't go to communion and I'm, I need someone's help in order to do so his whole life.
Dale: I know a lot of Christians have done various things with Les Miserables. When I first saw the stage play, particularly when I saw the candlestick scene, I was just in shock because of what of what I was seeing.
I thought it was the most profound thing that, when the gendarmes drag Valjean to the bishop's threshold by the collar, pound on the door, still in the in the dark hours of the morning because they found Valjean padding through town with a sack full of clanking silver.
The bishop opens the door and the first words out of his mouth is, "I am so glad to see you. I couldn't figure out where you went, and I was so sorry that, you must have left without taking these." And he walks over to the mantle and gets his most valuable silver pieces, the candlesticks, and he shoves them into Valjean's sack.
And he says, "and by the way, my friend, the door is unlocked, day and night. Come and go as you please." For me, it's not is merely , an anecdote of forgiveness. If it was forgiveness, he could have said that to the gendarmes. "I'm not gonna press charges," but he lavished his last earthly wealth on the beggar thief.
Now, that's one part of the story, and it's profound. I see that as a human rendering of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. That you'll, that's just extravagant in every way. I've never seen a human demonstration like that. I know that wasn't Hugo's purpose, but it's my takeaway.
So, but that didn't change his life. And so, the way this ties together with what you just shared is what changed his life is when he went off, and this is played out in the novel, much better than the play. A coin rolls down the stony streets in Digne, which is in Provence. And Valjean, this giant of a person, stomps his boot on it. The coin belongs to Petite Gervais, who's a little chimney sweep boy. And they get into a back and forth. The child is begging Valjean to take his boot off the coin. And Valjean resists at every turn. The child runs away crying.
Jean Valjean is struck to the core about being so profoundly selfish. That moment changed him. Again, this is not Victor Hugo's point, but it's just like Charles Simeon struck to the core with who he really is.
Justyn: Yeah. So again, I notice the contrast between what the bishop had done to him and what he'd done to the boy. It's like the Bible parable that Jesus tells. You know, the king's gonna forgive you 10,000 talents. And your mate comes offering you says, I want to have a little bit of time for my small amount of borrowing.
You can't say thank you for the big forgiveness, but I won't forgive you. It does bring up within us. There is something wrong going on in here if I think that's okay for them to do. It's not all right for me to do this for them. It does bring the whole picture into your very faith, and think, what sort of situation am I in?
And that's a sobering moment.
Dale: Thank you! In closing, Justyn, the listeners may not know that you have done a lot of research and writing about the doctrine of the atonement and how to preach about the atonement. So I was hoping you could play the role of the preacher and, on this particular morning, the eyeballs that are staring at you belong to a baker, a lawyer, a teacher, a bus driver, a dentist, a divorcee, a widow, someone who's just gotten a bad prognosis for their medical condition, and someone who's been unemployed for a very long time and is having a hard time getting out of it. You are preaching to these people. What kinds of things will you tell them, Justin?
Justyn: Well that's very pointed, and it does bring home the fact you are, as a preacher, speaking to people in many different states and situations of life, and it's difficult to feel, you're gonna tailor it to each person. You see, you're trusting the spirit of God to do the work that you couldn't possibly do as a preacher.
But one of the things that I have found helpful in explaining the gospel message is even just using my hands in a very simple way. We like to think that the standard that God requires is there, and then we have to decide where we think we are in relation to it.
Well, God requires that. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbors yourself. There's a demand of the law. And I'm, I don't know down here you're certainly not up here. Somewhere down there. And again, we may assess ourselves differently, and we're not talking about where we think other people are, because that's another question for another day.
But you've got three basic options. God says you need to do this, and I must acknowledge when I'm not doing it. What, what happens? Well, option one is we try harder. Let's close the gap a bit. I'm going to really, tomorrow I'm not going to lose my temper with anyone.
I will be astonishingly loving, kind, and generous, and we will close the gap. Well, give it a go. not in the lose, but while she may reduce the gap, I would be very surprised and do drop down a note if you do it. I'll be very surprised if you close the gap. I think you know what I achieved, what gold has been wanting all along.
Option two, and I'm slightly more controversial. One is we say, well, surely God cannot demand that when he knows we can only do that. So surely that must be down here somewhere, ideally, below where I am self-justification. Surely, that must be what God was. He knows that we are limited, so surely it must be possible to do enough to please God, otherwise this thing just doesn't work.
So the second option is he sort of bring this standard down to just a little bit below where I am apart. Some other people I could name, mind you, but just a little bit below where I am. And that's the sort of thing, frankly, I think most of us tend to do instinctively. I think I'm okay. Until the spirit of God and the word of God gets to work on us, you think, you know what?
We're doing fine. Sobering reality. That really is the one, we are way down here and the only way that will be dealt with is if someone else comes to the rescue, see it as a debt. We can't pay the debt. Someone else has paid it. And that's the message that Jesus is proclaiming to us. He comes to pay the debt.
He knows that is what's required all the time. And we are told in the Bible, he fulfilled the law. He actually did it all the time, every day. He loved the Lord his God with all his hearts or mind and strength, and he loved his neighbors himself.
Yeah.
But what he's also done to our complete astonishment, and no way could we have seen this coming particularly through his life, but particularly heading towards his passion and his death.
He says, I'm not gonna defend myself from the accusation that I'm a blasphemer, and I'm not gonna defend myself. From the accusation that I've led some insurrection, I'm not the real king. I'm just gonna let them pin those things on me. It turns out I really am God, and I really am the king, but I'm not gonna defend myself so that when I die, I'm not dying for my shortcomings.
I'm dying for the sin of the world. All these people who bless fem by the way, they live their life, not loving God as they ought, and all these people who live as if they are the king or the queen, all how that hurts them and other people, I'm gonna die for that problem 'cause that's where this stuff leads.
Sin does not lead to contentment and happiness as people can to sin suggest to us. It leads to suffering and sickness and sadness and death, and what we find in Jesus is that I'm going to enter into that suffering and death. I'll let it work itself out on me so that my own judgment will judge me, and I will die in your place.
I will go down to death where your life is leading so that I can go there on your behalf. I'll be there in your place.
As a result, we can be set free. We can be standing as forgiven sinners in the presence of our God, not pretending that, you know, not as, as if we're forgiven, sinners. It's because we are forgiven sinners.
God's the one who we've been sinning against. And if he says, I forgive you, then forgiven we are. And that's the gift. And we received this astonishing gift of the Holy Spirit, the presence of God all day, every day for the rest of our lives. and then we've put into this astonishing international family of the church, famously famous full of shortcomings.
We know that. But he puts us into this so that we can day by day, week by week, year by year, live out what it means to be the children of God adopted into his family ' cause he's bought us at that price. All the more crazy when he realized he made us in the first place. Yeah. So he owes, he owns us completely Anyway.
And now we've got ourselves into all kinds of difficulty. Sin, sickness, sadness, suffering, death, all the different things. And under the power of the evil one, and caught up in powers more powerful than we are. He says, I'm gonna come, and I'm gonna rescue you from all those things, and I'm gonna set you back in the place that you fell from.
And I'm gonna bring you into my family, into my kingdom, and I'm gonna give you an extraordinary inheritance in the future. So we've got forgiveness for the past, we've got purpose in the present to serve him, be part of his mission, whatever that might be. And that we've got a hope for the future. That what we've got at the moment, it's just a forte of what's to come.
So it is an extraordinary thing to be loved like that. But we are called into the presence to, to know that this is the love that is directed towards us, and we are invited to receive what Jesus has won for us. When he died on the cross, he died for you and me. He died to take our sin to death where it belongs, so we can be restored and forgiven and so that our death can be, overwhelmed if you like.
They've been subdued by his death and the power, the evil forces over us. The devil is defeated. We don't work for him anymore.
We are called into this new life. And, that's a place to live and to live out this Christian life in a deeply transformative and beautiful way.
Dale: Justin Terry, my brand new friend. What an exquisite way to close this out. What a glorious thing. And, you prefaced it with the comment that there's, it's hard to target, a sermon to any, one particular type of person. Those people are all the same. They're all human.
What you just said is what they would need to hear.
What a glorious, wonderful thing. Thank you so much. That was a sermon. Thank you so much for your kindness and your generosity to be here. It's lovely to see you again and to meet you like this. And thanks for sharing your heart and your mind with me and the listeners.
Justyn: Well, Dale, I appreciate the invitation. It's a joy to be with you. Thank you for helping us to face into some difficult truth. We want to see the church do better. The spirit of God is here. The word of the Lord is powerful, and we must recognize there are things we need to get right in our own lives and our churches so that the gospel will go forward in power once again,
Dale: Amen. Grace and peace to you. Thank you so much.
Justyn: And to you. Blessings.
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