SEP 17 2017

Sea Change Church · Brian Hardin · September 17, 2017
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Well, hey, we are really blessed to have the Hardens here, all of them, not just Brian, but all of them here. They've got the whole crew and clan here today in La Jolla visiting us. If you don't know who Brian is, you just kind of wandered in off the street today about 12 years ago or so. He decided to start a podcast where he would just read the Bible every day online.

I think I heard originally you got the word to do a podcast. You really didn't know what a podcast was at the time or something like that. Today, there are over a quarter million people that listen to it every single day, except for a few accidents and some travel days and maybe a sickness on occasion. But you've read with the flu many times. I don't know how you do it.

But Brian has read the Bible every single day for 12 years. I am in year six of my going through it. I've never done a full year. I've done 362 days is the best I've ever done. And the legalism bit in me, which there isn't much, trust me. But it does roil at that fact. The one thing I know how we got connected was I was listening to it. And I remember just praying.

And I just said, you know, instead of trying to reach out or try to make a connection, I said, God, if you want this connection to happen, I just pray that somehow supernaturally that you just allow us to connect. And it was probably about two months later or something like that. I get an email from one of Brian's minions, a friend of ours, Mike Greenberg.

And he says, hey, I just saw some of your things on Twitter and want to know how the Daily Audio Bible can serve you. And I was like, whoa, that is, wow, look at that. Just ends up, and they got a lot going on. They don't need to be reaching out to me. Ended up putting Praying for the Elephant, a book I wrote on prayer. Brian put it in the Christmas box.

It was exciting. We've become friends. And what I love about Brian is there's a bunch of values that go around the Daily Audio Bible. One of them is community. I have to say, this is not the most strategic church to come to in Southern California. Like, if you're going to go and try to build your platform, you know, sell 5,000 books today and the whole deal, this is not the most strategic place, perhaps from a marketing standpoint.

But God seems to have a different marketing strategy and plan. And Brian is very much about working according to the kingdom plan. And so he honors the small church. And the fact that the global community of those quarter of a million, now if there's a quarter million every day, there's millions that are a part of it. They don't all listen every day.

We get to lock shields with them. We get to hug their necks today. And Brian always says, we're going to take a log. Now, Spencer, one of my buddies, we listen to the Daily Audio Bible in our discipleship groups. He wanted to have a log for you with your name on it that said, you know, throw another log on the campfire and then try to force you to put it in, take it home.

Like, you know, it's like a white elephant. But nonetheless, Brian is here and with us today. Let's welcome Brian Hardin as he talks about his new book, Sneezing Jesus and the Gospel. It's all yours, buddy. The truth is the secret behind coming here to the Hoya is that where else can you go to a church in view of the ocean? You know, which is really, really good for the heart of Mrs. Hardin, which means it's pretty good for me.

Now, I love it. And I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me. Love the friendship. Love the community. How many dabbers are here? Ah-ha-ha. Ah-ha. So we're among peeps. This is good. And I'm excited. But I have a lot to say. So you got to buckle up. And stay with me for the next about half an hour. And we'll see where this goes. We're going to talk about Jesus.

We're not going to talk about sneezing Jesus. But one of the things that, you know, that I think is most compelling about Jesus is often one of the things that we most often overlook and suppress and diminish. I mean, when we're thinking about Jesus, a lot of the time our attention, our focus ends up somewhere in the vicinity of the last couple of days of his life.

And there's valid reasons for this. This is the story of Christ's passion, right? It's the story of Jesus' death and resurrection, which also happens to be the story of our salvation. So pretty good reason to focus our attention there. But we would have to acknowledge that focusing our attention on two days of anyone's life, right, whether it be the best two days of their lives or the last two days of their lives, is an incomplete picture of the whole story, right?

If we just randomly selected someone from this audience and said, tell us about the two best days of your life, we could learn a lot of details from that conversation, but we wouldn't have the essence and the weight of your entire story. So when we're focusing on a couple of days of Jesus' life primarily, we're missing quite a bit of the story.

And then even when we do go back into the Gospels and follow the path and read the stories of Jesus' life, usually what we're focusing on in those stories is Jesus' divinity in those stories, right? So Jesus' God status in those stories. And of course we would do this naturally. We're looking for all of the proof that he is who he said he was, and all of that is leading us on this path toward the last couple of days of his life.

But in the process we're missing what is deeply and probably most compelling about Jesus. His humanity. And as we kind of diminish and suppress that, I mean, we know it. We're all aware of it. The Bible tells us that Jesus is God. And so, and let me say very clearly, Jesus is God. Okay, so no matter what else we're going to talk about in the humanity of Jesus, nothing that I'm saying is an attempt to, like, dilute that.

Jesus is God. But what we dilute is what the other half of that, what the Bible tells us, that he is fully man. He was fully a human being. Just like we are. And it's important for us to focus on those pieces. And when we diminish Jesus' humanity, so when we suppress that in favor of the God status part of the story and not look at the whole thing holistically, we have to realize that we kind of do the same thing to ourselves when we come to faith.

Right? So we come to faith in Jesus, and then the question becomes, what do I do with my humanity? And then we start becoming at war with ourselves trying to be good. And we put ourselves in a narrow band and try to walk this line and endure our humanity so that one day we can escape it and enter into eternity with, where we have to deal with our humanity anymore.

There are some problems with living our lives that way. Several that I think are pretty, pretty critical. The first one would be that humans were created in the image of God. So, if we go back into the book of Genesis, Genesis, to the very beginning of the story, before the fall of man, we get a glimpse at what humanity was always supposed to experience, what it was always supposed to be like for us.

So we have Adam and Eve in the garden, and they are experiencing perfection, and they are perfect, and sin hasn't been invented yet. God is within them, and among them, and sustaining them. They are intertwined and collaborating in life on earth, created in his image. This is what it was always supposed to be like for us. This was never something we were supposed to endure and try to escape.

We were meant to be here as image bearers of God on this earth. But we know what happened. We get to Genesis chapter 3, and we know the story of the fall of man. So I don't need to retell that story other than this little piece of it. The serpent was talking to Adam and Eve and saying something to them that I find to be probably the most ironic thing in human history.

Maybe the biggest irony of all time is contained in that story. So the serpent is telling them, if you will eat this forbidden fruit. Right? So in other words, if you will do the one thing in all of the world that you were asked not to do, if you will do that, you will become like God. The deep irony in that is that somehow they had forgotten that they already were.

And so they ate. And as the juice of rebellion flowed into their bodies, a shattering happened. A fragmentation happened. Mankind created for itself a new reality. The trade was made. Perfect union with God in exchange for the knowledge of good and evil. Separated from God, mankind used the knowledge of evil, of good and evil, to try to recreate this state of wholeness, of shalom, to find its way back to God, only to realize how hopeless and helpless they were.

So by the time we get to the flood of Noah, just several chapters later in the book of Genesis, the Bible begins to describe humankind as vicious and vengeful and inhumane and animal-like. So we begin to see the effects of the fall right away, and it's not so hard to see them still. Because this fragmentation happened. This separation happened. No longer were humanity and divinity intertwined in a state of shalom.

That was broken apart. Nevertheless, we were created in the image of God. And so when we're trying to suppress our humanity and just move through and escape it, we're missing the point. We are image bearers of the almighty God on this planet, and it actually matters quite a bit that we're here. And the second problem with just kind of moving through life, trying to wait and endure and escape humanity, is Jesus.

Jesus is known as Emmanuel, right? God with us. So if we are a part of a sin-infested cesspool of a species that is hopeless and helpless, what would be the point of becoming one? Jesus incarnated himself into a human being and lived a full human life on this planet. And let's remember this. You remember that glimpse we just had of Adam and Eve in their perfect state as humanity was supposed to be?

Jesus was the first sinless human being to walk on this planet since Adam and Eve. So we have very little material on Adam and Eve's life, but we have quite a bit of material on Jesus' life, and it is the example of what life on earth was always supposed to be for us. His life reveals what our true state of creation was always supposed to be. If Jesus didn't care, what is the point?

If all we are here to do is come to faith and then endure so that we can escape this humanity, then what was the point? And what about the Bible? The Bible is a very human book. Now, I am not saying the Bible is not inspired by God. It is. What I am saying is if you take people out of the Bible, you are not left with a nice linear biography of God, you are left with something that has no context and makes no sense.

God gave us the scriptures, and what is the meta-narrative of the scriptures other than a God who is unwilling to be left out of the human story? Our humanity matters. And the third problem with this suppression and trying to kind of get through and escape into eternity is eternity. What is that? What are we talking about when we talk about eternity? We're talking about something that never, ever, ever ends.

Right? So like, if we were to think of the largest number of years in time that we could think of, let's say a hundred trillion years, like a number that is beyond our comprehension, that would not even be a blip on the radar of eternity. It never, ever ends. And so, eternity can't be described by time. time. It encompasses all of time. So when we think that we're trying to escape into this eternity, we have to realize something pretty profound.

We are already in it. We are already in eternity. The question is, are we in it in collaboration with God? God? So, this diminishment of the human side of Jesus and this subsequent diminishment of our own humanity has problems and leaves us confused about what we're actually supposed to be doing here. And what about this kingdom Jesus talked about all the time? Jesus' kingdom language set the hearts of his hearers on fire.

And there are really good reasons for this. He looked like exactly what they had been praying for. They had been asking God to send the Messiah. And they had a specific idea of what the Messiah was supposed to do and what the characteristics of the Messiah were supposed to be. He or she or they, they, the Messiah needed to be a devout, godly figure who was a good communicator and was charismatic enough to draw a crowd because ultimately the Messiah was to lead a revolt.

He was to lead them to rise up in a revolt against their oppressors and in this case the Roman Empire. So he was to rise up and defeat the Romans, kick them out of the land and restore Israel to God. That's what they were looking for. And Jesus checked off all those boxes. So they were curious about whether or not he could be the one. The funny thing about this is that we basically still do the same thing.

Right? So on a cosmic, ultimate reality perspective, we're waiting for Jesus to come riding in on a white horse. And beat up the bad guys and establish his kingdom where he will rule and reign forever. And man, amen to that. May it be today. But, where exactly is Jesus going to do this? If not on earth, among humans. Our humanity matters. But it's more than just ultimate cosmic reality.

all we have to do is look at the content of our last five prayers. If we just consider what we've talked to God about in the past week, there may have been beautiful moments of worship and adoration and fellowship. But, if we distill things down, we find that we are asking Jesus to beat up the bad guys and make our lives better. Beat up the bad guys in our family's lives and make it better.

Remove these obstacles from my path and make my life better. Ironically, this doesn't seem to be describing the kingdom Jesus was talking about at all. Jesus was asked straight up in the gospel of Luke about the kingdom he was talking about and when it would arrive. And his response was this, the kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed. No one will be able to say, look, here it is, or there, over there.

For the kingdom of God is within and among you. In other words, the kingdom Jesus was talking about is a very human thing. something that has already begun. Something that is happening right this minute. And yes, we have not reached the fullness of the kingdom, but we have a role to play in that story as human beings. We're not supposed to be trying to escape. We're supposed to be bringing this kingdom on this planet.

planet. That is the story of why we are here right now. So when we suppress ourselves, stay at war, that is the weirdest thing, I have never seen a cat inside of a church. I'm sorry. I love, I'm so sorry. That was amazing. I wish it would have just come rolling down the, that would be like, that's awesome. make sure you meet the cat, tip your cats, take care of your cats. Where was I?

So we are here to bring this kingdom. And so how do we do that? How do we access this? How do we access a kingdom that is within and among us and happening right now and going somewhere and leading us somewhere? How do we participate in that? I think the best way to look at this is apophatically. Now, I know that's a big word. Usually when we are describing something, we are affirming it for what it is.

It's like this, it's that, it's the other. We're saying affirmative things about what something is to describe it. To look at things apophatically is to describe what something is not in order to arrive at what it is. So if we were to say the kingdom of heaven is light and life and good news, then the opposite of that would be death and darkness and destruction. Those things are not the kingdom.

They are an adequate and good description of the kingdom of darkness in this world. Right? So how does that spread? How does darkness proliferate in this world? How does that keep perpetuating itself in this world? There are any number of places we could go to describe that, but let's talk about how pandemics get going. Okay? A human being comes into contact a virus or some other disease agent and they become infected and they begin to incubate this thing.

But humanity has no experience with it. Doesn't really know what to do with it. It's not immune to it naturally. And so this thing continues to incubate. But the person doesn't know they're sick. And so they cook dinner for their family. They're having dinner, maybe they sneeze. And the entire family becomes infected. And no one knows that by this time next week they will all be dead.

And so the kids go to school. And maybe they're not feeling so good. And they sneeze. And now you've got a couple of classrooms infected. And then they go home. And they infect their families. And just within a matter of a few days, an entire community is infected and they don't know it. And so maybe a few people get on planes and now this thing is airborne. Now this thing is traveling all around the world and nobody even knows there's a problem until people start dying.

The kingdom Jesus was describing is that in reverse. The kingdom of God is very infectious infectious because it brings light and life and good news. And the reason that it's infectious is because this is what we were created for. It's naturally what our state of being was always supposed to be. And so it spreads like a virus or a pandemic wherever we're paying attention enough to bring it.

This is how the kingdom works. This is how we operate in it. So there are no recipes for this. Like I wish I could give you like five steps if you'll just do these five principles. Boom! The kingdom will come. If you'll just follow these eight precepts it will work. But that's not how it works because it encompasses everything about you. Everything. Every thought, every word, every deed.

Everything. So let's just take words for example. Husband and wife are having a conversation. I probably should be like over on this side. Husband and wife are having a conversation. Something gets said with the wrong tone of voice. Something gets misunderstood. A few minutes later you have two people who love each other screaming things at each other that should never be said to another human being.

Several minutes later dishes are flying. Doors are slamming. People are leaving. An entire reality has been created out of words and it's dark and it's infectious and it spreads and where it will go no one knows. And there's a reason that we can create things out of our words. We are created in the image of God and when he speaks things happen. when we speak things happen and we can perpetuate the kingdom of darkness through our words.

Now if in that same example one of the partners said whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa wait I'm sorry I love you. that creates a completely different reality one of light and life and good news and it's infectious and it changes the entire paradigm in this situation. we get to choose which kingdom we're going to participate in at any given moment and it's not just words it's everything about us.

I mean that was just words. We could go on and on and on as you can see if you just begin to think about this this touches everything about you. It just requires vigilant awareness. You are bringing something every moment of every day and you get to choose what it's going to be. Jesus said we are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world. We're kind of holding things together here right now. We need to understand that this is not about escape.

This is about restoration. This is not about getting out of here. This is about reclaiming here. And we get to collaborate with God in the process. So of the many stories that we could go to in the gospels that would describe Jesus operating in a kingdom that is within and among us and happening now, maybe the events that happened in Bethany would be appropriate. there were two sisters. One was named Mary, one was named Martha.

They're kind of famous. They show up a couple of times in a couple of stories in the Bible. Big deal. Mary is the one that would sit at Jesus' feet and absorb his teachings while Martha was cooking and cleaning and getting aggravated about it. Those sisters. They sent a message to Jesus. our brother and your friend Lazarus is very sick. By the time word got to Jesus and he took a couple more days to head in that direction Lazarus had already died.

So when Jesus shows up on the path leading into the village and this is just a village this is kind of like a suburb of Jerusalem up on the Mount of Olives as word spreads that Jesus is coming into town it gets to the sisters and an interesting thing happens Mary the one that was sitting at Jesus feet and absorbing all of his teachings she didn't budge Martha got up and ran out to meet Jesus and when she found Jesus she fell at his feet and she said if you had just been here this wouldn't have happened all of the sudden we find ourselves in this story because how many times have we prayed or had a sentiment like that that we've carried around in our hearts Jesus if you had just been here my marriage wouldn't have fallen apart Jesus if you had just been here I wouldn't have lost my job right Jesus if you had just been here this wouldn't have happened Jesus responded to that sentiment Jesus spoke back to Martha and we should probably pay attention to what he had to say because we've all said these kinds of things with compassion Jesus looked at Martha and said Lazarus will rise again Martha basically dismissed the idea she said she knows that Lazarus will rise again one day in the resurrection right so one day we will escape into this eternity and things will be better this is kind of what she's saying and Jesus responded He said that he was the resurrection and the life and that which has died would live even though it has died an incredibly cryptic thing to say to a grieving woman what is that all about and then Mary does finally get up and comes out to Jesus and she falls before him and she says the same thing if you had just been here this wouldn't have happened and it's here that we encounter the shortest verse in the Bible Jesus wept okay of course he said of course he's grieving of course he's grieving for the loss but of course he's grieving for his friends too but I'm sure it goes even deeper than that because Jesus has an understanding that Lazarus is as an essence spirit soul embodied the person that he was is missing from the world and it was never supposed to be that way for us that wasn't how things were supposed to be and so the scriptures go beyond just Jesus wept and say that Jesus was troubled that Jesus was moved in his spirit so the original language Greek word is which means that Jesus was literally moved with anger what's that all about there's so many interesting little like what is going on here pieces to this story Jesus asks to be taken to the tomb the sisters lead him there the village is following behind a popular rabbi is in town this is a small village Lazarus was known people are grieving so everyone shows up and Jesus is at the tomb and then he says something essentially unthinkable open it up he tells them and everybody's looking at each other wondering what they're supposed to do and what's going on and it's Martha the one that ran out to meet him in the first place she runs to Jesus and she says listen Lord the thing is Lazarus has been dead for four days like he's decomposing he stinks it's here that we begin to get clues about why Jesus is so upset why his grief is also anger he says if you had just believed me didn't I tell you you would see the glory of God in all of this if you just believe me and then he clarified what he wanted done roll away the stone so probably a couple of guys you know put their arm over their nose and push the stone away but nobody knows like we have the benefit of understanding this story nobody knows what's going on here so they've just opened a tomb which is kind of a no no even today they've just opened a tomb what are they expecting the only thing they can be expecting is that Jesus wanted to go be near the body no matter the aroma that he wanted to show his love and devotion to his friend but instead of doing that Jesus said Lazarus come out now let's put ourselves in this story Jesus has just said Lazarus come out maybe 10 seconds go by maybe 15 maybe 20 what's everyone doing in that span of time right looking at the cave looking back to Jesus looking at each other wondering what's going to happen and what this is all about and when a linen wrapped figure shows up in the opening of the cave everyone gasps probably a few people say long loud expletives about human waste maybe with the word holy in front of it I mean what would you do what would you do if the corpse of Lazarus somehow became the essence of Lazarus and walked out of the tomb so think about your own heart how are things going how has this endurance project been working for you as you move your way toward eternity what if Jesus were here because he is and said to you open it up what would your response be Jesus I wasn't in company I haven't cleaned up in a while bit messy there's a lot of confusion in there I don't even know how to access it there's a lot of darkness there that I don't even want to revisit I I'm not sure how to do what you're asking me to do could that which has died in you live even though it has died what is rotting inside of you because you were abused or betrayed what is flattened because life has simply beaten to death the person you once were and taken all of your hopes and dreams along with it could that which has died in you live even though it has died what if Jesus called your name and said come out it's important that I'm not leading you to an emotional thing here it's important that that which has died in you lives even though it has died because that's the story of the gospel mankind shattered its reality and separated itself from God in the fall of man and like I said we can see this everywhere we created a completely different reality for ourselves but then Jesus came and his sacrifice closed the gap reunited God and man in intimacy and collaboration if we just put back on the screen the songs we sang at worship this morning that's what we were singing about make us one you in me we say this stuff all the time but we not paying attention to what we're saying to the good news isn't that you don't have to go to hell when you die the good news is you can be reunited with God in this world as humans were always intended to be intertwined and collaborated if this sounds like a bit of a stretch to you where is Jesus when you came to faith where would you say he is in your heart at the deepest depths of your identity this language of Christ within us is all over the New Testament the New Testament has the audacity to say it is the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwelling within you the divine and the human intertwined occupying the same space at the same time in the collaborative work in this world of bringing the kingdom and restoring this world that's a lot bigger story than trying to escape this sin infested cesspool of a species that we find ourselves a part of and escape into eternity to be with God we can already be with God fully right here right now and we have a vast role to play in bringing his kingdom so maybe you've been walking with Christ for 50 years maybe you met Jesus five years ago maybe you kind of know about Jesus but you've kind of been turned off by his people and you don't know how you would take the leap into that kind of culture kind of like his teachings he seems like a good dude you are invited into the restoration of your soul this is the good news you are invited into a collaboration with God in this life where you cannot be abandoned and you can never be alone because Christ is within you and wherever you go there he is you cannot be abandoned he is a part of who you are so if you don't know Jesus dude today is your day if you've been walking with Christ for a long time and you've just never thought of it in these terms and you've been trying to figure out the mystery of your humanity then start thinking about how it is you are spreading the kingdom how it is that you are sneezing Jesus into this world because it happens through every thought word and deed of our lives so I'm going to say a prayer we're going to close my gorgeous wife Jill is going to come and sing a song and close us down but what I'm praying for is that this does not escape you that you don't go to lunch and say that was good and especially that you don't go to lunch and say that was horrible that you don't go to lunch and say that was interesting and by tonight after the football games are over you don't even remember what happened I'm hoping that this will stick that you can't stop thinking about this that you will go to the scriptures that you will find out if what I'm saying is the truth that you will wrestle through what the weight and essence of your life is supposed to mean in this world in terms of bringing light and life and good news !

for that can actually happen I pray that you will ignite our hearts on fire and that in every thought word and deed we will be paying attention to the fact that we are bringing a kingdom we are participating in one or the other in everything that we do and I ask God that we be infectious with light and life and good news and for those of us who don't Maybe we will walk out of here, but I pray that we can't stop thinking about this.

I pray that we can't stop thinking about what life in collaboration with God might actually look like. Because at the end of the day, we come to the conclusion that what do I, this isn't working, what do I have to lose? Maybe this is all real. Let the Holy Spirit descend upon this place and fill us, we ask in the name of Jesus, the risen one. Amen.