Rules or Relationship?

My son, Lochie, is a cricketer.

He's just over here, and he plays on Saturday afternoon with men of various ages.

Afternoon cricket, he happens to be the captain of his cricket, so I go, Lock.

Last year, he started playing with a new bunch of guys, and I remember hearing him talk about these new guys, and there were two men in their 20s, maybe one of them, a brother, might have been in the early 30s, and they had a father that was praying as well, playing as well, and he would have been late 50s.

I knew the name, and I grew up in French's Forest, and here we are at Hornsby in this region cricket comp, and I said, I bet you that's that guy, the 50-something-year-old guy, I bet you he's the older brother of my mate from school.

Are you with me?

Yeah, it's not that hard.

Look, I'm just trying to confuse you.

Anyway, he was, right?

He was, so here he is playing with my mate Fred's older brother and his two sons, and they're mad keen cricketers.

And so they get chatting about it, and then it comes out that the guy in his 50s, later 50s, married, I didn't know this, but he married the older sister of one of my really good mates at school.

Are you still with me?

So this guy, I'm trying not to say names, the father says to Locke, oh, I spoke to my brother-in-law, your dad's old mate, and said about the connection and he had fond memories and all that.

And then he said, he's a very religious man.

Most of us who are Christians don't really warm to being remembered or referred to as religious, do we?

It's like, oh, religion, it's more about relationship.

I'm into relationship with God, not religion, because we want to be known for being loving, for being servant-hearted, for being kind, and a little courageous and even wise, because we know the teachings of the Bible, but religious.

It sounds like they've said my name and he goes, I remember, Jonathan Shanks, he was a Pharisee.

That's right, he was a Pharisee back in year seven.

No, religion has a lot of things to be held accountable for.

It's done a lot of wrong.

But we're gonna talk a little bit about religion or relationship from Mark chapter 2, 23 to 28.

Is it rules or relationship?

That's the name, the title of the sermon.

And so I wanna work through the text and then come back and dig into some application about our lives.

And a little warning, there is a little bit of work to be done.

So verse 23, one Sabbath, Jesus is going through the grain fields as we're wandering through the Gospel of Mark telling his story.

And as his disciples walk along, they begin to pick some heads of grain.

The Pharisees, they said to him, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?

The Sabbath, Sabbath means to cease the very important day, to stop working for Israel.

Keeping the Sabbath is a commandment.

It's a very important commandment.

And I've got some of the commandments up here just really quickly.

So these are the 10 commandments.

You have no other God to perform.

It starts off as the first commandments, obviously very significant.

Don't make any image of something to worship.

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

Look at how long these commandments are.

Then we go to the Sabbath, the fourth command.

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

And then it sort of explains a whole stack about the Sabbath.

And if you go to the next slide, it's to say that God took time out, and it's all linked to creation.

And then you look at honor your father and mother, don't murder, don't commit adultery, shall not steal, don't give false testimony, you shall not covet.

I think you could add up the other nine, and it's probably about equal with what God chose to put in the Ten Commandments about the Sabbath.

So we might think it's sort of an old school idea, but I think it's helpful to look at it in the Ten Commandments, and it puts Sabbath into context, doesn't it?

For a Jew, Sabbath or Shabbat, as it's called, is observed from a few minutes before the sun sets on Friday in the evening until the appearance of the first three stars in the sky on Saturday night, or if it's overcast, an hour after sundown.

So it's Friday night to Saturday night is Shabbat, this very important day of rest.

And there's a stack of rules, and if Trinity can keep up, I'll race through some of these things, that you're not allowed to do, carrying, burning, extinguishing, finishing, and if you can keep moving, seven, cooking, washing, sewing, tearing, knotting, shaping, plowing.

It goes on and on, selecting, tanning, skinning, slaughtering.

Harvesting is one of them.

So you get the idea.

This day of rest has a whole stack of laws built around it for the Jewish people in their religion.

And harvesting is one of the things you're not meant to do.

Jesus did that as his disciples walked along.

They began to pick some heads of grain.

Now if a rabbi's disciples do something, then people look to who they get their teaching from.

So they look at the teacher, the rabbi, and they basically say, which is fair enough, the Pharisees are like, what's the idea?

Why are your followers doing what is wrong?

So who are these Pharisees anyway?

Well, we know the name.

Pharisees often are associated with the idea of hypocrites.

Certainly Matthew's Gospel, Jesus calls them hypocrites many times.

They seem to be like the moral policeman.

What's interesting is in the Gospel of Mark, they are less presented as hypocritical and more hypercritical.

There's not so much that they're fakes, but they are hypercritical.

They are concerned with taking the ritual purity laws that are normally associated with the priest and making it for everybody, especially of the Torah, the teachings of the first five books of the Old Testament.

They're driving motivation, and it's not a bad thing, is to fulfill God's command.

Be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

The Pharisees, if you look them up in history, they arrive after the exile, 587 BC.

Israel's taken off to Babylon, and then they finally get back into Jerusalem.

They rebuild the wall and all that stuff and rebuild a version of the temple.

And out of all of this comes a group called the Pharisees.

And in fact, there's a couple of factions that are known together as the Pharisees in the couple of hundred years leading up to the time of Jesus.

So they want to take God's laws seriously.

God judged the people of Itrof for not doing that.

So these guys, they have sort of good intentions, but their rules have become their God.

I wonder if you've met a Christian who reminds you of a Pharisee.

Maybe you're one.

Maybe you're one yourself.

I think of people that remind me of this idea of rules becoming God.

They love God's word often.

They don't mow their lawns on Sundays, like good Sabbath keepers.

And they're right into good things, like prayer, often very into fasting, but gee, they're judgmental.

Does anyone know people in your life who've experienced this?

You know, no one's giving me any nods.

Okay, it's just I'm the judgmental one.

Pharisee, Pharisee.

No, they just are.

Over my life as a Christian, I've seen it many times, and it's sad because they seem to have a blind spot.

They're just quick to point out that which is wrong in God's eyes.

But in my experience, there has been often a very significant lack of mercy and love.

They typically are hypercritical.

We can all go into those places if we get hurt and we don't find ways to get healed.

The Pharisees said, verse 24, said to Jesus, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?

And again, as we say, they've got a point.

And he answers, have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?

In the days of Abbeatha, the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat.

And he also gave some to his companions.

It's an interesting quote because it wasn't...

it was in the time of Abbeatha, but it doesn't matter so much.

But what Jesus said is true.

It's just not exactly Abbeatha who was doing the job.

But what happened was David was on a mission with a small group of men and they were hungry.

And in 1 Samuel 21, 1 to 6, we can read about it, David did eat the consecrated bread known as the bread of the presence held in the tabernacle.

I don't know if you guys remember, we looked at the tabernacle a couple of months ago and like the bread of the presence is fully significant.

It's like wholly, no one should be going and eating that bread.

And one does think of a little bit later on, 2 Samuel 6, remember Uzza, what he did?

Uzza lent out and touched the Ark of the Covenant, which is the whole worship component linked with the bread of the presence.

He touched the Ark of the Covenant in an unholy way.

He was the wrong person to touch it, and he got zapped.

He was killed for touching the Ark of the Covenant.

So David ate the bread, and Jesus, what he's saying is, David had authority because he was the Lord's anointed to eat the bread because they needed it for nourishment with his men.

And yet now, what he's saying is, the King of Kings, Jesus, the bringer of the kingdom of God, which is at hand now, King Jesus, has even more authority to reshape the laws of Sabbath.

So Jesus is saying, there's a reason why my men are doing this, because the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

So the Son of Man is Lord, even Lord of the Sabbath.

When the Sabbath was first instituted by God, I don't know if you've thought about this, but if you read the Book of Exodus, Egypt were fully harsh towards Israel.

They treated them disgustingly, terribly.

They didn't have a day off for 400 years.

They didn't have a day off.

They were just worked, building cities, maybe pyramids.

They never had a day off.

They were tools for production for the people of Egypt.

They were doing machines, no stopping their human beings, but there wasn't much being.

So God rescues them from Egypt, and what does he do?

He gives them a gift.

You don't have to work all the time.

I don't work all the time.

Look at Genesis.

Six days I worked and I took a break.

I want you to have a break.

Can you see that the Sabbath is a gift?

It's not a way to earn points, religious points of God.

It's God's mercy and goodness.

It's a gift, not a burden.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

It's a gift.

So I just want to unpack this idea of rules or relationships because I think it comes directly out of the text that we've been looking at.

I just ask for a bit of feedback from the floor.

What is the purpose of rules?

Order.

Thank you, Miss Lawyer.

First cab off the rank.

Sorry, what was the next one?

Safety.

Safety, yeah.

Why do we have rules?

What's the purpose of them?

Guidance.

Great one.

Boundaries.

Fairness.

Fairness.

There's lots of good reasons why we have rules.

I had stuff like establish order, protect the good of the community, promote the achievement of agreed goals.

Can I just ask who loves to obey the rules as a personality type?

Okay, we're not that righteous.

Who likes to disobey the rules?

The rebels on Survivor.

This is a really interesting question.

Who doesn't worry so much about obeying them or rejecting them?

Who wants to police them?

Jasmine, well done.

Police them rules.

What is the problem with rules?

What do you think?

What's the problem with rules?

One at a time, say it.

The rule maker, yeah.

Who is it?

Who gets to make them?

Not all situations are the same.

What are some of the other problems with rules?

Not always the right rules.

It's restrictive.

It's like that family feud or something.

I said rules can be wooden, rigid, one size fits all, lacking nuance, overly restrictive, life sapping.

In a state it can be a nanny state, patronising, harsh, inhumane.

It causes us to keep people like refugees who are legitimately refugees at arm's length.

Often rules are kept in a very subjective way.

They can produce hypocrisy.

Rules sound like religion and no one likes a Pharisee.

No one wants to be too much caught up with rules.

This is what we love.

What's the purpose of relationships?

Anybody?

Happiness?

You guys love rules way more than relationships.

What's the purpose of relationship?

Fulfilment?

Growth.

Cooperation?

Relationship?

Fellowship.

Completeness.

Now we're on a run.

Accountability.

So these are some of the purposes I've thought of.

Human flourishing, community, a facilitator of friendship, love, worth, belonging, acceptance, accomplishment, through team, mirrors the Godhead, the Trinity, who are eternal relationship.

What are the problems with relationship?

Other people.

People.

Yeah, people are the main problem.

We all know that, yeah.

Relationships are awesome without people.

What are some of the problems?

Misunderstanding, selfishness, differences.

Yeah, we're not all the same.

Communication.

Losing yourself in them, great stuff.

I said free will is a problem.

Agency, chaos, people getting hurt, people not receiving all they hoped for as an outcome of the relationships.

Relationships create the context and foundation for betrayal.

Betrayal is yucky, but only can happen when you have loved.

Relationship is the context for words, and when you think about it, violence happens in relationships, but normally not without words.

There's often words that have been said that are a precursor to violence.

Relationships, let's face it, are profoundly messy.

So if we would have this question, rules or relationships?

The Sabbath was born out of relationship.

It was birthed out of God's relationship with himself.

Isn't that interesting?

It was self-care originally and also with his creation.

And out of that relationship with himself and creation, he rested.

And because God loves his people, he gives them a rule to limit the work week, and he gives them this gift called Sabbath for them to stop.

Tools down, cease.

And in community, be grateful to delight in the Creator.

And in so doing, experience a type of recalibrating, spiritual recalibration, physical and relational.

So rules or relationship, what do you pick?

As I think about it, I think it just needs an F.

That's the key.

Rules for relationship.

Relationships need rules.

Because they're complex, messy, fully dangerous, but so filled with potential, they need boundaries.

I think people said that.

The rules, by God, are given for the sake of amazing relationship, not instead of it.

So here you find the Pharisees have taken a rule of life, in other words, like a rhythm of life, Sabbath, Shabbat, and they've stripped the rule of relational context.

Amen?

That's the problem, making it simply a rule to be kept rather than a rhythm to enjoy for the life on the other side of the rhythm.

Rules for relationship.

Something to think about.

Rules for relationship.

What are your rules for relationship that you live by?

Spiritual formation teacher Pete Scazzaro or Scazzero, if you've come to the end of a season of growth and you're looking for some well to throw a bucket down and draw out some stuff that might challenge you, Pete Scazzaro and what he calls the emotionally healthy sort of discipleship world of teaching.

It's emotionally healthy discipleship, emotionally healthy spirituality, emotionally healthy something else.

Just look up Pete Scazzaro.

It's challenging, challenging stuff.

So if you're in need of some fresh water in your spiritual formation, good guy to check out.

He wrote this.

He said, nurturing a growing spirituality with depth in our present day culture, nurturing a growing spirituality with depth will require a thoughtful, conscious, intentional plan for our spiritual lives, i.e.

some rules.

You won't get there without some guidelines, without some rules.

Of course, Romans 12 is this classic chapter that says offer your body as a living sacrifice.

This is your pleasing worship to God.

Don't be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

That's a plan.

It's intentionality for me to be transformed into the likeness of Christ.

I guess I'm talking to you probably if you are already a Christian and you're thinking about what am I meant to do with my faith?

How much am I meant to see change?

John Ortberg, another guy who's written a lot about spiritual formation and transformation, he wrote, You must arrange your days so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy and confidence in your everyday life with God.

In other words, we must arrange our days, our morning routines, our daily habits, our evenings, our schedules and budgets and relationships, the entire web of our lives so that we are deeply enjoying everyday life with God.

And Sabbath is part of that, part of the rhythm.

What these wise teachers of the Christian faith are alluding to is, we need rules for relationship.

We need, maybe you take the S off and call it a rule of relationship.

I'm sure many of us who have done a bit of reading around these ideas would be familiar with a rule of life.

A rule of life is basically what the Bible talks about, the way, the way of the master, is the rule of the master.

The earliest apprentices, they wanted to work out, how do we get amongst the transformation that you have offered, Lord Jesus?

We know that faith in Christ, his blood covers our sin.

We believe that he died for us and rose again.

We will be saved.

There is a transaction.

The gavel comes down, God's the father.

When I put my faith in Christ, it says, you are saved, you are not guilty, you're coming to heaven.

But the purpose of life is getting heaven into us before we die and get us into heaven.

So old school Gospel is like you say the prayer and then you know, you get the ticket, I'm going to heaven when I die, put it in your back pocket and then just keep cashing in your forgiveness chips.

But what we want to do at church, at this church, is actually do what people have done for 2,000 years and ask the question, okay, thank you, Lord, by your grace, by faith in Christ, I know I'm going to live forever.

But I want to get some heaven, I'm going to heaven when I die, but I want to get heaven into me.

I want to become like you, Jesus, filled with your spirit and doing the good works you've prepared in advance for me to do.

So what about rule for relationship?

Take the S off.

What would that be for us?

The original Latin word, and if someone's a Latin master, you can help me how to pronounce it, but regular.

Regular is a Latin word from which we get regular and regulation as well as ruler and rule.

Regular means a straight piece of wood.

What's cool about regular is it's also the word used in the ancient Mediterranean for a trellis, a straight piece of wood, the trellis that you put a vine on so that it will grow and become fruitful.

So imagine a vineyard.

For a vine to bear much fruit, which of course is what Jesus says about his disciples, us, we've got to abide in the vine that we might bear much fruit.

What does it need?

It needs a trellis, a support structure to lift it off the ground and shape it toward the light, to give it room to breathe and to grow, and under its guidance, it moves towards the desired direction of the person growing the fruit.

Without the support of a trellis, even though we feel like rules restrict us, right?

Someone said that.

We don't want rules because they restrict us.

But what if the vine said, I hate that idea of a regular.

I hate the idea of a trellis.

I feel sort of constrained.

But that vine will sit on the ground and get eaten by predators.

It won't breathe.

It won't actually produce the fruit that it's called to produce.

No, vines are meant to be on the rule of life which comes from a trellis.

So in the same way, an apprentice of Jesus, that's us who have faith in Christ, we want to abide in the vine on the trellis in a support structure to make space for life with God.

And the Sabbath, getting back to our text, is a great example of a God-given rule for relationship.

Does that make sense?

It's a grace-filled support structure for human flourishing.

One of the younger guys in the spiritual formation community, John Mark Comer, he wrote, a rule of life is a schedule and set of practices and relational rhythms.

That's a great line, don't you reckon?

Relational rhythms that create space for us to be with Jesus become like him and do as he did.

That is transformed into his likeness.

As we live in alignment with our deepest desires, it's a way, the rule of life is a way of intentionally organising our lives around what matters most, God.

So can you see that the reason Jesus wasn't fussed about his disciples eating grain on the Sabbath, which the Pharisees were, but it wasn't a fussing, a big thing for him, is because he knew the Sabbath is a structure for health, for growth, for rest, for restoration.

He knew that the rule of Sabbath is for life flourishing, not point scoring.

That's why he didn't have a problem.

Sabbath is one of many aspects of a healthy rule of life.

I wonder if you've experienced taking Sabbath.

Did you know that you have a rule of life?

I'm not going to ask you to put your hand up if you've got a well thought out rule of life.

But even if you don't, you do.

Because a rule of life is a way of life that you and I abide by.

It's how you got to be you.

Your life system is perfectly designed to produce who?

You.

You didn't just go here by accident.

There's a system of automated habits in my life and your life that's perfectly designed to make the sort of person who looks like you.

That's not all bad.

That's a wonderful thing, because you've been made in the image of God.

But it's our world view, our rule of life.

It's our set of habits, rhythms and automated behaviours which turn us into the type of people we become.

So this rule of life is the Jesus way.

Same thing, way of Jesus, rule of Jesus.

And it's a set of practices.

To be a fruitful Christian, that is to do the things...

I thought, what does it mean to be a fruitful Christian?

I'm going to read this.

To do things with our life, which consistently glorify God and help others, which involve sharing the Gospel in word and deed.

To be fruitful Christians, we need a trellis.

You and I need a trellis.

Or we won't be as fruitful as we could be.

A structure for life which will, two things, guard and guide.

If you're taking notes or just storing them away, those two words are really helpful.

We need, as Christians, a rule of life that will guard and guide.

It's what the trellis does for the vine.

And I don't know if you've got a good spot in the Bible you could go to to define for you in a challenging way what this fruitful life should look like.

There are a few places that come to mind, but this one I reckon is hard to beat, Romans 12, 1-21.

And if you want to have your phone out and just take snaps of this, or if you want, go to the website and have a look to the video and just snap them.

Because I reckon these 22 are really, really amazing.

I've found them somewhere.

I don't know where.

It's a paraphrasing of Romans 12.

This is the sort of life we're shooting for, right?

Letting love be completely real.

This is what I want to get to when I'm living the life in Christ by the Spirit on the trellis, guarding and guiding in the Word.

Abhorring what is evil.

As a community, we need some rules that go, we abhor what's evil.

We're not Pharisees, far from it.

But we love the rule of life God has given us.

And He says this in His Word, abhor evil.

How are we going to do that?

What sort of habits are we going to have to help us get amongst the grace of God that's there for us, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in familial love?

We're going to need a rule that will help us outdo one another in giving honor.

Interesting.

That's the sort of life we're meant to live.

We are honor givers, serving the Lord with ardent spirit and all diligence.

We rejoice in hope and we are patient in troubles.

We're being devoted constantly to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints.

We pursue, we run after hospitality.

That's the type of people we are.

We bless our persecutors, we don't curse them.

We're becoming people on this trellis who are rejoicing with those who rejoice and sorrowing with those who sorrow.

We live in harmony with each other.

You know, like you're one, the triad of a chord.

It's not dissonant, it works.

Our lives create something beautiful.

We're people who are not haughty, but fit right in with the lowly.

Romans 12 says, You don't avoid associating with people of low standing.

We don't see ourselves as wise.

That's that fruitful life.

We never, somehow we're accessing the grace of God, like Mr.

Miyagi, wax on, wax off.

We're learning as a habit not to repay evil for evil.

Habit not to pay evil for evil, by God's grace.

We have due regard for what everyone understands to be right, because we're into being guarded and guided.

We do everything we can to be at peace with everyone so far as it depends on us.

We've decided that we're going to come up with a rule of community of how we live, of how we practice the way where we never take revenge, but we leave that to God.

What would you need as a rule of life, as a habit, to help us become those types of people?

We've decided that we're going to be people who follow the Word of God, Romans 12, we provide for needy enemies.

Needy enemies.

Are you feeling graduate Christianity coming through?

This is not like kindergarten.

This is challenging stuff.

Now again, in doing any of this, do you earn your salvation?

In no way.

You can't earn your salvation.

But this is what you do when you receive the justification that comes by the grace of God, and you see with an open heart and eyes what God has before us.

This is how they outside will know we're Christians by our love.

Amen.

This is like a way of describing, not completely, but quite adequately, quite comprehensively, the type of people that overwhelm the world's evil.

And that's the last one.

We are not overwhelmed by evil, but we return good instead.

It's not a bad list, is it?

So practising Sabbath after being filled with the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ, Sabbath is something which is beneficial in the appropriating of these behaviours into our life.

So Sabbath as a part of a rule of life might look like this.

Stopping from work, it won't necessarily be a full day.

Good luck with that.

If you can do it, it's great.

But it's about stopping from work.

It's about resting because God rested.

Resting from things like work, physical exhaustion, hurriedness, multitasking, competitiveness, worry, decision making, talking technology.

Sabbath is this is a cool part that I've been working on.

It's about delighting.

Take some time in every week to just delight in God, His grace, the unfathomable wonder that He says, I'm not guilty.

I'm right.

I'm right with God.

Sabbath is also about contemplation.

It is a recalibrating of the mind and heart about what is true.

So that's just one part, Sabbath.

People have done a stack of work on a rule of life, and it's really worth considering what would be in our rule of life.

And you know, I would love to work harder on this.

I don't have one that's set, but when I reflect on the place after 30-something years of my marriage, I'm still married to the same person, I'm still a pastor, I'm still in a relationship with key people in my life, I still get on well with my adult children.

Like, I'm not bragging, but when I look back, I could tell you a stack of things in my rule of life, in our rule of life, about what is important to us.

But I'm just being transparent.

I don't have a list, but I want to work on that.

I want to work on that.

What matters to me and what has worked, and what has been the helpful parts of community in that?

That's the key.

A rule of life is meant to be lived out in community.

Some of you are familiar with this stuff, John Mark Comer.

Practicing The Way is a new website that John Mark Comer has put out, and it's got a whole lot of free, great content that they're putting together.

It's completely fresh.

It's not finished.

But I love this.

Just have a check out this.

Practicing The Way, A Rule of Life.

This is an example that they do in community.

So every week, he meets with a small group of people, and they have a Sabbath meal every single week in community.

That's a cool way to build community, isn't it?

So I'm just going to read it out.

So they've decided together, and this is all about, as Christians, not just what I believe, but how I'm going to live it out.

Theology, doctrine, so important, but that's not the essence alone of Christianity.

It's like, how do we live it out?

This is the rule of life, rule for relationship, relationship with God, myself, and others.

So here's some thoughts, nine aspects of a rule of life.

We want to be a community of rest in a culture of hurry and exhaustion through the practice of Sabbath.

Can you see why that would build rhythms?

Counteracting.

Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, Romans 12, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind and the establishment of habits that are godly.

Number two, a community of peace and quiet in a culture of anxiety and noise through the practice of solitude.

A community of communion with God in a culture of distraction and escapism.

Do you reckon we have that?

Through the practice of prayer.

A community of love and depth in a culture of individualism and superficiality through the practice of community.

A community of courageous fidelity to orthodoxy in a culture of ideological compromise through the practice of scripture.

It's coming under God's word and not just deleting stuff.

A community of holiness in a culture of indulgence and immorality through the practice of fasting.

A community of contentment in a culture of consumerism through the practice of generosity.

A community of justice, mercy, and reconciliation in a culture of injustice division through the practice of service.

A community of hospitality in a culture of hostility through the practice of witness.

Anyone else like that?

I'm just challenged by it.

I'm like, have you guys really taken this stuff that seriously?

I'm looking at younger people.

You've got this before you.

Do it.

Do it.

Like, get together and think, how are we going to be different to the pattern of this world?

How would we do it together?

And what I think you realise with this rule of relationship stuff is there's no way you can live out the calling you have without something like this to help.

Because at the core of the Christian life is self-denial.

I don't know if you've locked that one in, but the doorway into life with God is I die to myself, baptism.

I'm dying to myself.

I'm only getting life on the other side of you.

Give me life back.

Amen?

But self-denial is I don't earn it, but I die to myself and I give it over and go through the door, and then I find all this life on the other side of self-denial.

So there's this, at the core of Christianity, there's this idea of a rule, a challenge.

I am dying to my way, my will, and I'm going to follow your will, which is Psalm 1, blessed is the one who stays and delights in God's law.

Blessed is the one who takes on the trellis.

So we're nearly finished.

I'm sorry, this has gone much longer than I sort of thought.

But I said at the start, there's a bit of work to be done.

I just want to share this, this is really worth it.

So the trellis is about a rule of life.

The Sabbath, Jesus didn't throw out the Sabbath.

He reinterpreted and said it's a rule for relationship.

The rule is not to be thrown away.

We're not one or the other.

Rules are awesome in relationship, for relationship.

So it's not about our will being the paramount thing that we're on about in our life.

Because if we're going to be living our life in a trellis, we're going to have some surrendering of our will.

In 1904, English occultist Alastair Crowley, anyone heard of him?

Alastair Crowley, he visits Cairo, Egypt, where he claims to have been visited by a supernatural entity.

Alastair Crowley comes back to England, and he says that he's been given this vision, and he starts the Book of the Law, which became the basis of a religion called Thelema.

Is that how you say it?

Anyone know?

Thelema or Thelema?

For Crowley, Thelema was a mystic spirituality that could perhaps be best described in this quote, Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law.

Do what thou wilt.

So that's 1904.

That's where that phrase came from.

Do what thou wilt.

Some of us might have heard of Anton Lavey, who wrote the Satanic Bible in 1969, and the first commandment of the Satanic Bible, he didn't come up with, he nicked off from Aleister Crowley, and that is, do what thou wilt.

Do you remember what the first commandment of our Bible is?

There's no other god but God.

People think that Satanism was about worshipping the devil.

It was not about worshipping the devil.

Who is it about worshipping?

Self.

Christianity is about a trellis, where we have rules from the one who is above self.

Amen?

This is the whole point.

It's not rules for restriction in the Bible.

It's rules for life.

It's rules for relationship.

The Sabbath was made for man.

It's for our good.

So you have 1969 Anton LaVey, and in the early 90s pop culture boogeyman Marilyn Manson.

Anyone remember him?

Spitting blood and all this stuff.

You'd think he tried to normalise Satanism.

But he said Satanism was never about worshipping the devil.

This is Marilyn Manson.

It's about man being his own god on earth.

You don't worship anything except yourself.

In more recent years, does anyone know Jennifer Lopez's famous quote?

My heart is the ruler of all my being.

My heart is the ruler of all my being.

Famous person.

She didn't say do what thou wilt, but it's exactly what it says.

My heart is the ruler, my supreme ruler.

That's no different to do whatever you want.

There are no rules other than your rules.

That's the world view of the world.

Is that fair to say?

Be true to yourself is a new version of do what thou wilt.

Follow your heart.

Live by your own rules.

Rules for relationship.

We have been given rules by our good God for our good.

We began with the Ten Commandments on this epic journey that there aren't many people, I'm looking out, there aren't many people still awake, so if you're awake, well done.

You're awake.

Who else is awake?

Sorry, it's very long.

But we began with the Ten Commandments, but they were given the writings of the prophets, the Christians of the New Testament.

The whole Old Testament, the Gospels, the Epistles, the New Testament, it's all been about rules, a trellis, a bunch of guidelines.

If you look back to the very beginning, God said, if you obey me fully, then you shall be my holy people, and I will bless you abundantly.

But you can't receive the blessing unless you let me show you how to garden guide the life I want to give you on the trellis.

So we have rules for relationship.

And I hope, as a church, we would receive the challenge, and it's a challenge to all of us.

Would you be willing to get together with some people you trust and think about what the Spirit is saying to you about your context?

What does a rule of life look like for you in your season of life?

And we don't earn his favour by looking at that stuff, but we just think, what's a trellis?

Lord God, that's a genuine request that you would help us as a church.

Have the right rule of relationship.

Live under, with great passion and great mercy and grace for one another, the rules for relationship that you have established.

Help us, Lord, fall in love with the Spirit of God, who points out the heart's affection to Jesus.

And to do that, help us fall in love with your Word.

And as we are transformed, help us fall in love with the world that needs the Gospel.

Amen.

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