Listening to Jesus (Mark 9 Transfiguration) youth talk

(This talk is very much based on my Mark 9 transfiguration talk, but has been shortened to 15 minutes and changed a little for a teenage/young adult audience)

Who do you listen to?

I'm not talking about music, or podcasts or whatever.  I mean who do you trust when they tell you a fact?  Who do you help when they say they need help?  Who do you obey when they tell you to do something?  See, when you listen to someone, you don't just hear what they say. You actually sit up and pay attention.

Tonight I'm here to talk about listening to Jesus. In the gospel of Mark in chapter 9, Jesus is transfigured in glory on a mountain top. Jesus glows dazzling white, Elijah and Moses appear, and a cloud appears and God speaks out of the cloud and says about Jesus, "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"  Jesus is visibly showing he is God, and God is audibly saying to listen to Jesus.  The transfiguration is the number 1 time in Jesus' life that we can point to and say with absolutely certainty that Jesus is God.

But only three people ever got to see it. And I know some people struggle with that. Some people don't want to believe that Jesus really is God without seeing it for themselves, without indisputable proof. They want God to prove himself to them in a specific way that makes it undeniable. They don't trust the testimony of witnesses. They want testable results, observable phenomena. That's how science works.

But that's not how history works, it's not how law works, it's not how philosophy works, and it's not how God works. The gospels are really, really trustworthy. You can trust what they say. Yes, what they say will challenge you to rethink what you believe, and what other people say about how the world works. But that shouldn't be a reason to ignore them.

We aren't the only ones who don't get to see Jesus as God for ourselves. Jesus had huge crowds of thousands of followers - none of them got to see it. He had hundreds of disciples. None of them got to see it. He had twelve special apostles, whom he especially selected to be with him. And of those twelve, nine of them were left behind. All they got was the story told by Peter, James and John, and even then not till after Jesus had been resurrected. That's all they got, and that's all we get - the same story retold to us in the Bible. That is what God gives us, and that is enough.

If you think eyewitness testimony is not a strong enough basis to believe in what Jesus said and did, then my advice to you would be to honestly think for yourself whether it's okay for God to reveal himself in a way other than how you want. Also think about what you personally require to believe something that changes how you live your life.

Because you see, even though God says, "This is my Son, whom I love, listen to him!", no-one is going to force you to listen.  God certainly doesn't force people to listen to him.  If he did, I wouldn't have to stand here telling you to listen to him, because we wouldn't have a choice.  God wouldn't even have had to say, "Listen to him!" because there wouldn't be another option.

But there is an option.  God does give you a choice.  And you should choose to listen to him.  If you want to listen to Jesus in your life, because Jesus is God, and because God says to, then there are four things you need to do.  It's a four step plan.  Step one is to hear what Jesus says. Step 2 is to talk to Jesus.  Step 3 is to think like Jesus, and step four is to do what he says.

Let's go through one at a time. So step one is hear what Jesus says. You can't listen to someone if you can't hear what they say. And how do we hear what Jesus has to say? It's in the Bible! In fact, Jesus adopts the whole Bible as being his message, so we can hear him by reading any of it.  Easy, right?

But I think we all know there's reading, and then there's reading.  How many of you have ever installed a piece of software, or signed up for a competition, or installed an app on your phone, and seen the words 'terms and conditions'? How many of you actually read those terms and conditions? How many just click "I have read the terms and conditions" without reading them? Yeah, that's not reading. Don't read the bible like "reading" terms and conditions.  Read it like an email from someone you care about. You don't just skim it to get the big picture - you actually want to know how they feel about it, and what's important to them becomes important to you.

This first step is so important, that the church does a lot to try and make it easier. They provide bible talks for you to listen to, to help explain what the Bible says. They run youth groups and Bible studies. There are even ways to memorise what Jesus says, so that it's sitting in your head all the time and you've always got it with you.  Hearing what Jesus says is really important.

So those are all ways we can hear what Jesus has to say.  Step 2 is what you do after you hear what someone says: you talk.  We need to talk to Jesus. How do we talk to Jesus? You pray. If you know how to talk, then you know how to pray. Choose a time when you can concentrate just on talking to Jesus, and do it. And when you talk to Jesus, talk to him like you talk to other people who are important to you. Talking to Jesus is as important as talking in any other relationship. Talking to Jesus doesn't make you a Christian any more than talking to your parents makes you their children. But you'd have a pretty miserable relationship with your parents if you never talked to them, or you only ever talked to them to ask them for money or to drive you somewhere. So prayer is not just about asking for stuff. Prayer opens our heart, so that we can accept what we've heard Jesus say.

So we're hearing Jesus, we're talking to Jesus.  The next step is to think like Jesus thinks. At first, this means filtering everything you think, and comparing it against what Jesus says we should say and do and think and feel. So you have to think, "Should I kiss my boyfriend/girlfriend? Should I say 'I don't feel well' when I really just don't feel like going out? Should I be deciding about what I want for Christmas when it's not even Easter yet? Should I feel jealous that someone is richer than me?" But filtering your thoughts gets tiring.  It's really hard, because you never stop thinking, and saying, and doing, and feeling. So here's the secret: build your thoughts on what Jesus says.

This makes a huge difference.  It's the thoughts that aren't built on Jesus that you have to filter. If we're honest, that's a lot of thoughts. The thoughts that say getting married is the most important thing, or money is the most important thing, or getting high marks, or being entertained, or feeling good, or being pretty or being popular, or even that family is the most important thing. These thoughts choke what Jesus says to us, shout it down so we can't hear it.

But thoughts built on Jesus, you don't need to filter - because God's ways are always right. Always. Even when the world makes them look wrong, they're still right. That's why it's so important to hear what Jesus says from the Bible, and to open your heart to accept it by praying. That's why I think memorising scripture is so awesome. Because the more of what Jesus says is in your head and heart, the more your thoughts will be built on Jesus, and the less you need to filter them.

The final step to listening is to actually do what Jesus says. We want to live the life Jesus wants us to live.  Not the life that makes us comfortable.  Not the life that makes us feel good.  Not the life that everyone else thinks we should live.  Step 4 is trying to live the life Jesus wants. Doing what Jesus says is not always easy, but it is always right.

It means having to give up on stuff that you know you shouldn't be doing. And that's hard. But it also means getting out there and doing things you aren't doing, and that can sometimes be even harder. Listening to Jesus means doing those things. Cutting out bad behaviour. Standing up for the people who get picked on. Donating money to church and to people who need it more than you. Telling people why you choose to listen to Jesus.  Those things are hard, right? There are so many times in all of our lives when we're too selfish or too scared to take this last step of listening to Jesus and doing what he says. It's really hard! But listening to Jesus means doing it anyway. James 1:22 says, "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

Listening to Jesus is a package deal - if you want to do it at all, you need to do it all.  You can't think about what Jesus says if you don't know what he says.  You won't accept what you hear Jesus say if you don't talk to him.  You won't do what he says if your thoughts aren't built on Jesus. If you want to listen to Jesus, then you need to know what he says.  You need to talk to him.  You need to think like him.  And you need to do what he says.

I want to ask you all to take these words of God seriously, because they are God's words: "This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to him!"  Don't just ask yourself if what you're doing is enough to cover this list. It's not a test.  Listening to Jesus is a choice you make. So first ask yourself if that's what you actually want to do. Do you really choose to listen to Jesus? If you do, then do it.

Prayer 08/03/15 - Trusting the King (Mark 9:14-32)

Lord of Heaven and Earth,

You are astounding. So many things make us stand in awe of your brilliance. We are surrounded by the beauty of your universe, which speaks to the creative genius of your power. We can wake up early and watch a sunrise turn the sky a myriad of fantastic colours; we can look at pictures from telescopes and see the infinite radiance of a million billion stars that make up our night sky and silently speak of your splendour. We can go for a bushwalk in the Blue Mountains and be surrounded by the beauty of your world in the endless vista of bushland and the majesty of the mountains; we can walk on sandy yellow beaches, with curling waves and crystal waters stretching out to the horizon; we can see the smiles on little children who are overwhelmed with wonder at the simplest joys; we can go to Christian conventions and sing your praises with fantastic songs, and our spirits can be lifted by the rejoicing of hundreds of fellow believers; we can take time in quiet prayer and reflection on your word, and commune with you, our maker and our sovereign.  At these times we feel so close to you, like we could almost reach out and touch you, our Lord and God.

But then we have to close our Bibles, and our prayers have to end with an Amen. Conventions end, the songs are over, and we return to our home lives and our own church meetings week after week. Smiling children grow up, and become teenagers, and then adults, and need lunches and allowances and textbooks and patience.  We switch from pictures of the universe to the daily news, and read about trouble, tragedy and temptation.  The sun goes on rising, and we have to go to work, to study, to look after our families. And we can so easily lose sight of you in the everyday of our lives. We can think of you only as the God of the good times.

Lord, help us to see you in everything. We thank you that Jesus Christ, your own son, did not only live for the good times, but came as a servant, to live and to die for your glory, and for our salvation. He denied himself, he carried his cross, he suffered mockings, beatings, rejections and pain for us, and he gave up his life for us. He walked, he worked, he faced all the world's troubles and temptations. You know what our lives are like, Father God.  You have lived them beside us, both the good and the bad. Help us to see Jesus in the face of every sick friend, every grieving mother, every suffering sister, every tired and stressed brother, every needy child. Help us to see your splendor all the more clearly in the squalor of sin and shame and suffering of this world. Let us feel close to you as we do what your word says, and carry our crosses alongside Christ, and suffer the scorn and disdain of being your disciple.

And fix our eyes on Christ, who has shown us that your Kingdom is breaking into this world. Give us a constant yearning to see all sicknesses healed, all demons cast out, all hunger fed, and all pain ended forever. Make us yearn for your kingdom to come, and give us hands and feet to help others see its coming as we take your message to the world.

Let your kingdom come, Amen