my joy face, in harajuku

So, in case people were starting to think I’d backslidden because I haven’t been at church for so long, its ok, I’m just still in Japan. If you want to see some photos, check out my facebook. Everything’s going really well, and im still learning a lot – heaps of stuff for us to try and do! It’s Golden Week here (basically a week long public holiday!) which has been great, because it’s given me some time to think about what I’ve got from being here. I don’t want to spoil my messages when I get back, but one think I’ve been seeing a lot in JLH, and thinking about, is joy. How we are called to live in joy, regardless of circumstance, and how amazing life is with Jesus. Nehemiah 8:10 says “the joy of God is your strength” (MSG) It’s not our circumstance, but God’s joy inside of us.

Honestly, I’m in Tokyo! Probably the coolest city on the planet (at least that I’ve been to) and I’m here because I’m serving God with my life. Who knows where I’d be if I wasn’t, probably at work somewhere not going overseas, learning, growing, having heaps of fun. I was riding around where we live today on a friend’s bike (not a cool fixie – a sketchy fold up thing, but still fun) and it’s a beautiful day, and im in Japan! How good is God?!

I love David’s joy in Psalm 139 (MSG) “Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; 
you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking! 
Body and soul, I am marvelously made! 
I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, 
you know every bone in my body; 
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, 
how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; 
all the stages of my life were spread out before you, 
The days of my life all prepared 
before I’d even lived one day. Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful! 
God, I’ll never comprehend them! I couldn’t even begin to count them— 
any more than I could count the sand of the sea. 
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!”

So I guess my post today is just an encouragement. Don’t take for granted how amazing your life is! Even when circumstances don’t look good, you’ve got this incredible grace and favour from God, the creator of the universe loves you and calls you by name! that’s a huge thing, and something worth remembering everyday. It’ll change the way you look at what’s going on, and for me, help you to learn to have joy in every situation. Im not talking about being fake, there are times when we don’t feel happy. But I think joy is different to that, it’s something you choose to put deep inside of you, and is replenished by God.

Lewis, one of the guys here, made up a Japanese word last week, so I’m gonna steal it. ‘sugenki’. It’s a combination of sugoi (great, fantastic) and genki (happy, good – it’s like what you say when someone ask’s how you are going) So he was talking about being the most ‘sugenki’ people around, because of the joy we have inside of us. I don’t want to go into to much detail, because I think this is my explosion message when I get back. You’ll just have to come and listen for yourself

Much love to everyone,

Andrew

P.S. if you just read the youth site, Japan number 1 and 2 are on the main church site blog..

Hey everyone! Mitch makes amazing coffee every Sunday morning here at Citylife. (I think the best in Wollongong!) So, just for fun, we made a short video of him explaining how to do some latte art. If you want to see more, just come to church, how easy is that?!

Stuff that describes how i see us as a group of people, committed to Christ’s commission and set apart. In 1 Peter 2, we are called a “royal priesthood, a chosen people…” and that’s how we can live. We dont need to be caught up in the culture of the world around us, but can engage with the culture of heaven, and see God impact our lives, and the lives of those around us.

So, i took those words, and scriptures that describe them, and made them a desktop background if you want to stick on your computer.

enjoy.

It’s about blessing. How we can live a blessed life. But it’s not blessing that the crowd will understand. It’s blessing for people who follow Christ, who have given him their lives. So when Jesus talks about blessing, it’s not how to get rich quick or find a wife in three easy steps or anything like that. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite of that. The blessing that Jesus talks about is how to live your life to the full, and do everything that God has called you to do, be everything he planned you to be. Jesus has got his disciples, this group of people who will do incredible things for God, and he wants to sow into their lives, plant something in them that will take them everywhere God leads them, and no where else.

The first blessing is found in Matthew 5 verse 3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, 
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (NIV) The Message puts it like this. “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there’s more of God and his rule.” This is definitely not your typical idea of a blessing! Usually, it would read, “You’re blessed when you’ve got everything you want, it’s all about you”. But that’s not what Jesus is saying. He says, you’re blessed when theres nothing left, when you’re right at the edge of what you can handle, because when you’re there you realise it’s not all about you, but that it’s all about God, and the incredible plan he has for you. God has stuff for each of us that goes beyond what we can do on our own, in our own strength. So, sometimes, he needs us to get right to the end of our rope, where we feel like there’s nothing left, so that he can step in. I’m not going to pretend that’s easy. There are not many worse feelings than being right on the edge, with nothing but God to stop you. But, that’s also the best possible place in the world to be, because in that place, you can do what God has for you, go beyond what you ever would have if life had just been all about yourself.

We need to learn to embrace the end of the rope. Instead of complaining to God that everything’s going wrong, understand how blessed you are that God wants to do something incredible with your life.

Have you ever gone off and wondered why you got frustrated with the situation, why you became angry at the person or people you were conversing with?

Quite often if we go away and reflect we will come to the realisation that it was something within us, within our character that caused us to live disagreeable in that moment something within who we are or who were were before Christ came in that caused us to react and think that we are right. This is something that i have a daily challenge with.

We need to live in Christ daily and we need to live lives that are agreeable. This doesn’t mean we just give into the situation or the person like giving in to peer pressure but it means talking and coming to a place that’s agreeable to all.

To do this we need to look at James 1:19-27

¹⁹ Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. ²⁰ Human anger^[a] does not produce the righteousness^[b] God desires. ²¹ So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.

²² But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. ²³ For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. ²⁴²⁵ But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.

²⁶ If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. ²⁷ Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. (biblegateway.com)

If we are to make an impact in this world we need to stand out, to do the opposite, so in situations when the stress levels rise, when things aren’t going right we are slow to speak and quick to listen. For me its the slow to anger that comes first because i generally speak after i’m angry and that’s when my words become dangerous and life destroying and like a sword that stab people and rob them of a part of their destiny and when we do this to people it does not bring about God’s righteousness. Our words need to be loving and life giving and up lifting.

I’ve been meditating on James 1 lately and I have written a list of all the things that are not of God (or the filth and evil) and i have given them to Him and with Him I am working through them to rid them from my life to create space for Him to plant the His word and life vision in my heart and i want to encourage you to do the same.

To do this we need to meditate on the word and do the next part of James 1:22. Don’t just listen to the word but do what it says. I’m sure we all meditate on our looks every morning after the shower, well why cant we meditate on God’s word and be more wrapped up in Him and His word then ourselves.

Let go of ourselves and let God take control and watch Him move and help those in need through us and see life be blessed.

I’ll finish with, we’re not perfect but God is so let him take control of your life, your words and your tongue and speak life into those you love (and your enemies too)

But one thing I think is really important is that we realise our gifts weren’t made for isolation. We’ve been designed for relationship, in every part of our lives, and this is true for gifts as well. One person using their gift by themselves is great, and God uses that, but all of us doing what God’s called us to do in our gifting, makes something significant.

On Sunday night, I got the band to help me with this (thanks Adrian..) Think about a band. It’s a really easy example of a group of people using their gifts together to make something bigger and better than they could on their own. When one person is playing, they can make a nice sound, but that’s all. If everyone’s doing their own thing, it sounds awful! It’s just a horrible noise. Which is interesting, because all of the band members might be great musicians, and living in their gifting, but it still makes a mess.

It’s only when the whole band come together and use their gifts together, that they play music. That’s when you hear a song, and can be moved by it. We need to be the same in our lives. Maybe your gifting isn’t to be a musician, but that doesn’t make it less important to play together, to be in time with each other. We’ve all been given incredible gifts, but we need to use them together. Otherwise, our gifts just clash and make a bad noise.

So let us know if you want to come by email, or if you’re at Explosion of NEON this weekend, just tell us you want a spot. Also, make sure you check out the facebook event, it has all the details.

CYA there!

my fixie

Why would I want a bike like that? ‘Cos it’s what all the cool kids are riding these days. No, not really… I like it because it’s simple; I never really got the hang of gears on bikes (or cars, my family would probably say), so just one gear is pretty perfect for me. Also, it relies on you continuously moving your legs, so its good exercise. You don’t get to sit back and cruise, you’ve gotta keep on pushing. After riding for half an hour, I can feel it doing me good, even if it hurts.

This is pretty similar to how we live life. There are times when we get too comfortable, and we just stop pedalling. We coast along, letting our momentum carry us. But the problem with this is that momentum can only carry you so far. Eventually friction takes over, and you stop moving. We let ourselves do this so often, and I think I do it all the time. I start out strong, pedalling with everything I’ve got. Then you start to get tired, and you see all the stuff you’ve accomplished, so you sit back and roll for a while. But then things start to slow down, friction starts to work, and you’re not seeing the same growth and fruit that you were back at the start, while you were pedalling.

I’d rather ride my life fixed. Keep pedalling and moving forward, and not be happy to sit back and coast through anything. Keep on stretching my faith and exercising it, so that when I get to a big hill, I don’t just shift down gears, but I stand up in my saddle and push harder. I’m not saying I’m there yet, and just like on my fixie, if I push hard for too long I can start to see how unfit I am. But that doesn’t mean I want to go back to a geared bike, it just motivates me to get fitter. I hope you’re catching the metaphor here.

So try riding fixed! If you want to do it on an actual bike, I’d be keen for some riding companions. But I really it on a metaphoric level, I think you know what I’m saying.