Dealing with Injustice

foreign my so me well good afternoon welcome to crowd church this sunny sunday afternoon my name is matt edmondson i'm here with the amazing talented and all-around good egg which is sally birch sally how we're doing hi matt well great introduction thank you yeah i'm good hi everyone lovely to have you with us this sunday afternoon it feels lovely and bright and spring is in the air and yeah it's all good you've got to love it when spring is actually in the air still freezing cold outside but at least it's freezing cold still freezing cold but my lighting mat is almost as good as yours not quite not quite but you know nature today provided me with a little bit a little bit more lighting so that's good that's that is good that's important you know that kind of i've realized i've not done this let me there we go the subtle oh yes it's taken 20 years off you know it has that thanks i appreciate that hey listen welcome to crowd church uh if this is your first time here welcome uh we are a digital church for those that may not uh see the meaning of church or the point of church but are looking for answers to live a meaningful life you're welcome here regardless of who you are what you do or don't believe uh we're just here to have conversations and find out more about jesus and actually what is going on with this whole thing so a big warm welcome to you absolutely and we'd love you to get involved in what's going on this is a live interactive service so if you want to have your say if you want to ask questions or make comments then please do so we would love to discuss your questions too and we're going to have a brilliant speaker today aren't we matt we are we are sal as there's a good introduction uh we've got james sloan uh who's coming to share with us today he's talking uh about injustice that's going to be his topic uh which is the sort of the next part of the series that we're into uh you know it's a it's one of those light topics to talk about on a sunday afternoon sal but you know it's like yeah yeah it's going to be carefully crafted in the hands of james that much we do know james has been with us before uh he's a great speaker he is the ceo of imagine if trust which is um the charity that we connect with and they do some amazing work both here in liverpool and around the world so it's always good to hear from james looking forward to hearing what he's saying and he's joining us in the conversation after the talk so brilliant brilliant that'll be really good so you have the three of us in the conversation after the talk where we'll ask james some questions about his talk and you can ask any questions as well we would love to discuss your ideas so if you've got questions put them in the comments or we also have a whatsapp number don't mean that make it magically appear for that there we go brilliant so you can use the whatsapp number as well if you want to get in touch with us that way we would love to hear from you and hey if you want prayer or anything like that we believe in the power of prayer so if you'd like us to pray for you then please get in touch with us via that whatsapp number what else we got going on matt so after james's talk we are gonna have a time of worship and reflection uh which sal will introduce after the talk that will go on for about five minutes then like sal said we're gonna have a conversation with james after that we have got catch up uh where you know people from the community uh just let us know what's been going on we've got some really cool photos and videos this week i've seen it already so i know it's going to be good uh and this whole thing will last about 45 minutes to an hour um and so yeah that's that's crowd church this is that's this afternoon that's what we've got going on which is going to be great so yeah looking forward to this one really good so yeah it's lovely to have you with us this afternoon i'm just having a little look who's here nicholas here and matt's here we've got james is already here looking forward to your question so get some really tricky ones in for him there that would be brilliant i'm sure he'd love that on a sunday afternoon we've got trev and the crew that are down right down south in lox heath welcome along this afternoon lovely to have you with us so tell us where you're watching in the world we'd love to hear where you are we're basically this will be the best city in the world i don't know matt what do you think uh without a doubt some and i've you know i i've had the pleasure of seeing a few cities around the world and it's always good to get back home you know that kind of feeling when you come back home and go ah it's good to be back home so no liverpool is without a doubt one of the greatest cities in the world and that's where we're beaming from now which is just great it would be great actually let's not talk about football let's not go there anyway no let's not listen well we're feeling happy this week let's not never feel happy this week absolutely hey listen sal in the news we cannot escape um the passing of prince philip uh you cannot escape that uh and so it would it would you know be uh it would be nice to mention that it would be a miss as well if we don't mention the fact that prince philip has died after many years of serving have you seen right the crown the tv show the crown i have actually i found it really fascinating i wouldn't describe myself as a royalist i have to say but i found the whole backstory to the royal family and and um the sacrifice that it actually involves um to be one of those key members is is you know it's quite fascinating i think it really does take its toll um but what what kind of really got me my someone in my family shared a picture of prince philip and the queen having a sort of quiet joke together and and you this is a they've been married for 73 years so my kind of thoughts and my heart kind of goes out to her who's lost that partner of 73 years that that must be really hard yeah it must be and thoughts and prayers with the royal family at this time uh i would say i am the opposite i'm a bit of a royalist i do like the royal family i don't approve of everything that they do but then to be fair i don't approve of everything i do so it's not an entirely and you it's all right we can still be friendly put it in that kind of formula one kind of thing you know the things that you like and i'm not so sure about that yeah absolutely that's fine so yes thoughts and prayers are with the royal family at this time and um obviously you i watch things like the crown and you can't take it as gospel what's going on in there but it does make you think about yes there are privileges but they do go through a lot with public service and some of that's been coming out over recent days and um and so uh big thanks to obviously i mean and the lives that change through the duke of edinburgh award you know my kids well yeah yeah my kids have done that as well and that's yeah reading about the things that you know people have been able to do through that that is incredible so yeah there's definitely lots of good there there is okay so what we are going to do now is we are going to do james's talk so we're going to bring that in um nicholas says oh yeah it's very sad here he never got to his hundredth do you think question of the week would he have got a letter or a telegram from the queen on his 100th birthday oh yeah uh so nichola apparently has got an awesome question to ask later okay good diana's here very good james is here he's looking forward to the chat fantastic okay so james without further ado let's bring let's bring him on and let's listen to what he's got to say and then we'll be back after this hey so we're back in mark's gospel uh we're looking at mark 14 this week uh where jesus is before the sanhedrin he's been arrested and brought before these religious elite these high priests uh and called to give an account for his actions really his life is ministry um so let's have a quick look at the text and then we'll pick up um really what it tells us about injustice and how we manage that and what we can learn from jesus on trial so um if you've got a bible or follow along with the text on the screen it's mark 14 53-65 they took jesus to the high priest and all the chief priests elders and teachers of the law came together peter followed him a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest there he sat with the guards and warmed himself at the fire the chief priests and the whole sanhedrin were looking for evidence against jesus so that they could put him to death but they did not find any many testified falsely against him but their statements did not agree then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him we heard him say i will destroy this man-made temple and in three days we'll build another not made by man yet even then their testimony did not agree then the high priest stood up before them and asked jesus are you not going to answer what is this testimony that these men are bringing against you but jesus remained silent and gave no answer again the high priest asked him are you the christ the son of the blessed one i am said jesus and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven the high priest tore his clothes why do we need any more witnesses he asked you have heard the blasphemy what do you think they all condemned him as worthy of death then the son began to spit at him they blindfolded him struck him with their fists and said prophesy and the guards took him and beat him so what's happening here jesus has been arrested by a group of roman soldiers brought before the sanhedrin from what we understand it's probably at the high priest's house um the the the child is called kaifas um and there's a whole bunch of religious elite jewish elders and they reckon about 17 number who have gathered together to put jesus on trial now jesus was not um a fan of this group um they represented the the religiosity of the day well respected well-known well looked up to by mostly jewish figures but jesus saw them living out double standards and he called them out many times through scripture in mark 12 he says this but where are the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor of feasts who devour widows houses and for pretense make long prayers they will receive the greater condemnation so clearly they've got their backs up about jesus they don't like him they want him gone and this is part of their let's say scheming to get jesus put to death something that they couldn't actually um sentence unless a certain number of things were in place and this trial breaks many of the jewish rules it was conducted at night um jesus was misquoted not given a fair there were false testimonies against him we see it says um in verse 59 that testimonies did not they couldn't even find two or three people who had the same testament against jesus it's almost like they pulled people off the streets to to give a testimony against a minute and it didn't add up um and then finally they gave him a death sentence which again that they were not able to uh to condone only their own authorities um could do that so there are many things that are injustices that jesus is facing and yet he he remains silent and we'll come to that uh in a little bit but every time i watch these scenes there's a great um clip of this actually on um i think it's kingdom empire one of those netflix series um that shows jesus before the sanhedrin it shows i'm accusing him of all these wrongs and every time i watch that or i watch um where it's jesus or pilate um sorry barabbas to be released and i'm screaming saying come on jesus fight your case fight your corner stand up for yourself but yet we know don't we that jesus had to go to the cross to fulfill scripture he knew what he was called to do um but somehow there's this injustice inside i'm screaming out saying god come on this this isn't how it was meant to be but it was this is exactly how it was meant to be and jesus knew what he was on there to do and on his purpose but here we see the child of jesus that religious tradition was given precedence over divine truth the tradition of the day trying to maintain the status quo the order of the religious elite trumped what what divine truth there was in jesus himself and he suffered unjust treatment at the hands of the very people he came to save i imagine god the father looking down at his son being beaten being spat on being lied about and yet the wrath of god was was taken on by jesus the wrath of god that was meant for the people who were scorning his son who were beating him and accusing him falsely jesus took that on himself so that they could be saved it's the amazing um transition across the exchange that was made on our behalf of the cross but there's an injustice that we that we feel isn't there and we recognize um throughout many of the um the scriptures here jesus is put on trial and i don't know whether you read that and and identify with it anyway maybe you felt you've been wronged um you've experienced injustice experienced suffering um even experienced persecution um and i think for me what really stands out in a lot of this text is that we now have a god who can identify with us in all of those sufferings in those persecutions in that injustice we see jesus who has been through all of that and can identify with us it's it's god become man and that man um experience suffering in the same way that we can and we will i wonder what's your reaction being when you've experienced suffering what are the things that you've um felt or um reflected on observed as you've how do you react is have you um kind of walk through that season and grown from it maybe or maybe not maybe you're still in that season but it's a good moment to pause and to think what's god saying through it what can i learn from it how can i grow through these moments of trial and tribulation and testing because i do believe that god wants to work through every situation that we experience and wants us to come out stronger from it so maybe to read this be thinking um what can what can i be reflecting what can i be learning from the season that made all season that i may have been through so what's what's jesus's response in this trial uh he's been in ministry for three years he's gathered twelve disciples he's um worked miracles wonders um fed five thousand miraculous catches the fish um healed the the blind and the lame and the sick um and really you'd think by this point he'd have a fairly um major following and yet here he seems to be all alone peter has followed him in but he's sat in the the courtyard kind of waiting um and really we see jesus in this moment where he's in front of these jewish leaders being called into question and he's completely silent apart from universe 62. but why is he silent and i think as i was reading it a few times over i thought his identity is the only thing that he responds to so often um the accusations made against him are false um they don't add up they don't agree he knows he'd been called into this this court which is um illegal as we've mentioned before but he knows it has to happen um but he remains silent up until he's asked if he is the son of the blessed one are you the christ are you the messiah and that's his only response to say i am a well-known phrase that he uses throughout the book of john if you're familiar with the seven i am sayings and he goes and say you will see the son of man sitting in the right hands um and right hand of the mighty one coming on the clouds of heaven quoting scripture quoting um from the book of daniel um jewish the jewish um elite the religious leaders would have known these scriptures really well they know exactly what he's saying and jesus here is saying i am i am that messiah i am the one who has come to save the people to bring um god's kingdom into being and that to them was blasphemy um now i don't know who they were expecting because jesus fulfilled so many scriptures he filled scripture from isaiah and throughout the old testament almost word for word and yet somehow they missed it and they they call him uh a blasphemer but but there's a thing around identity that that made me think um how quick are we to jump to defend ourselves when we're accused of something how quick are we to um respond and get into arguments either on social media or in person when we feel that someone is saying something that is that is not correct that's not true that's a lie because jesus doesn't he lets all the lies go because he knows they're not true yet he confirmed his identity he's very quick to respond to the questions that ask him to affirm who he is um rather than deny who he isn't if that makes sense i don't know whether you've got examples of that you can think of where um you might have gotten to a bit of a tit-for-tat um a bit of a debate around people who are faulty accusing you um whereas i think from this we can learn that actually we don't need to do that necessarily we don't need to respond to to the lies and accusations if we are firmly rooted in who we are in god maybe we don't need to respond to those those accusers um who call us names or make up false claims or lie about us maybe all we need to do is to respond to the truth about who we are and be rooted be secure in who god has called each one of us to be because i do believe he has given us um identity in him and it says doesn't it when we when we um believe in jesus we become a new creation he has created us as a new being the oldest has gone the new has come and he wants to change us into his likeness to be more like his son jesus and as we read these scriptures ultimately we see that he is the messiah and all authorities under him and even um in death he had the victory that's what we celebrated last week at easter is that in jesus we can believe that he had victory over death so what's what's our response to all this we see jesus on trial we see him suffering injustice at the hand of the religiously how do we respond what can we take away from it i don't think um really that the christian life is meant to be easy or straightforward or even simple um i think we can often be led into thinking that we give our life to jesus and everything will be rosy and turn out for the best but i don't think that really is the case throughout scripture that many of the people that god chose faced trials tribulations persecution suffering and that's part of the walk that we that we face as christians but that's why we're called to do life together in community in church in fellowship and accountable relationships i think that's a massive part of walking the christian life together and you may have suffered um injustice or persecution or suffering because of your your religion your race um your your gender but whatever you've been through god sees it and in this kind of passage we see that that god sent jesus um to live a normal life um to experience the pain and the suffering in the heart that we do and we see here that jesus experiences injustice so that you know for me it encourages me that when we go through um times of trial or suffering or tribulation that we can know that god sees that and he he understands that he feels like he goes through with us in much of my kind of working life with imagine if we we fight for those who experience injustice um those who have experienced relational breakdown those who've been through drug and alcohol abuse and be looked down on a society those who want to resort to street sex work to make ends meet um they're not the ones in society that everyone wants to hang out with they are the least um amongst us in many ways the the outcast but yet that is who god came for that's who jesus came to earth to save he talks about um wanting to to military those people on the on the fringe of society and we see him spending his life doing that i work in the congo um focusing on those who have been raped sexually abused the orphans the widows even the last few weeks have been sent um stories and and pictures of a huge awful atrocities people being butchered with machetes and and shot at gunpoint it truly is horrific but yet somehow the pastors are are clean to god saying we trust god we believe in god to intervene in our situation and i think really my response from reading this passage a few times is that god calls us to play an active role with him in bringing about justice his kingdom is one um of of justice of of bringing about relief for those who've been oppressed and standing alongside them and we need to use godly wisdom to know when to speak we see that jesus remained silent and spoke only when he knew he needed to and often we need to know when we should speak up for those who've been marginalized and when we can fight their case and when if if at all we need to remain silent or use godly wisdom to know how to discern how to act um and there's some great scriptures that you can look up and and i'm going to just finish with this one which is probably one of my favorite scriptures um in isaiah 58 i'm going to read it from the message version this is the kind of fast day i'm after to break the chains of injustice get rid of exploitation the workplace free the oppressed cancel debts what i'm interested in seeing you do is sharing your food with the hungry inviting the homeless into your homes putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad being available to your own families do this and the lights will turn on and your lives will turn around at once your righteousness will pave your way the god of glory will secure your passage then when you pray god will answer you'll call out for help and i'll say here i am wow thank you james that was brilliant talk loads for us to unpack and think about there so do put your comments and questions in the comments so that we can have a chat through them in a little while i love that verse that james finished on there and that's really practical things isn't it that we can get into and discuss in just a little while so before we do that we're going to have a bit of a time of reflection um and we're going to listen to a song a worship song um that john and anna grace farrington have brilliantly put together for us so thank you to them and it's called grace alone and this song is real the words are really amazing so if you don't know it and you don't want to sing along that's fine just read the words just take in the truth of what this song is actually saying about you imagine that these words are actually talking about you and i shared a really brilliant definition of grace last week that i just want to kind of say again this week because i think it's really helpful imagine that grace is a love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return so we're going to go into this worship song now and then we'll be back for a discussion with james shortly i wasn't often i had no righteousness of my own and in love before you laid the world's foundation you predestined to adopt me as your own you have raised me up so high of my station i'm a child of god by grace alone you left your home to seek out the lost you knew the great and terrible cause the jesus your face once said i worked my fingers down to the bone nothing i did could ever atone jesus you paid my death by your blood i have redemption and salvation lord you die did i my free which you have so and you rose i was in darkness all of my life i never knew the day from the night spirits you made me see i swore i knew the way on my own a head full of rocks a heart made of stone spirits you move in me at your touch my sleeping spirit was awakened on my darkened heart and light in christ has shown called into a kingdom that cannot be shaken heaven's sins is yes i'll stand in faith by grace and grace enough i will run this race by grace heaven sits in my grace awesome love that song bye guys yeah grace grace alone it's nice and yeah brilliant it's a good sort of spring song i feel yeah i like it it's good good yeah thanks john and anna grace great job there yeah yeah absolutely right this is the part of the show where we have a chat a conversation conversation street is what we like to call it because we're totally ripping off um the grand tour um and we'd like to have a conversation about the talk what it means questions that maybe have come up as a result of it i've got a page full of them here in my notebook as i do like to take notes as we go along um so without further ado let us bring on the amazing james slime let me do that by clicking this link here and there he is oh it says let me get rid of that because you're not nick harding oh whoops oh hang on there we go uh oh where's he gone now there he is okay james there you go you've been promoted to nick harding yeah it said nick cardin on the screen and it clearly wasn't you so i was like oh that's definitely not nick harding i don't know why it's come up as nick calling but there you go oh james we can't hear you but you've got you it says here guest has muted himself oh no he's gone blank yeah i think he was probably singing so loudly during the worship that he muted himself so that we couldn't hear and oh it's now an extreme close-up i love it yeah ready no idea what happened there dude but uh welcome to the to the live stream yeah how are we doing yeah good how are am i right am i right we're just juggling a sunday roast in the middle of sunday crazy activities with three kids jumping around and swinging around on trapezes outside so uh a normal sunday it's fun that's fun so you've escaped you've escaped for five minutes peace have you yeah i've got ten minutes while the uh roasties are in the oven so we're good to go okay that's good what time are you expecting us what time should we be around for food going to come sit in the back garden because we want those roasties if you're watching this outside of the uk a roasty is a roast potato it's part of our traditional sunday lunch or dinner and it is without doubt the best way to have potatoes other than chips just you know want to put that out there so good hey james listen thanks for doing the talk bud how did you find that how did you find talking about that topic of injustice that very light topic for a sunday afternoon do you know what it threw up a whole lot of questions that i've not really thought about um i i deal with the justice a lot as i said through imagine if both in liverpool and in the congo we see a huge amount of injustice and that's what we're about is is getting alongside people and restoring them to to god's purpose and plan for their lives but but what i reflected on was that justice doesn't always look like what we think it will um and sometimes as christians as we battle for justice sometimes that's our own response and needing to actually forgive to let go and to be gracious i think sal touched on that a few weeks ago in a talk talk about her her dad and her response to that um so so i found myself quite um challenged really thinking about how justice actually is about what we do in our own response to our own actions um rather than pointing to the thing that someone else is so much that we can do ourselves to bring about justice in our own lives really yeah yeah that's that's really interesting i mean nicholas put in the comments they're pretty much the same thing about how um you know one injustice to one person can feel different to somebody else and that since she became a christian that her response to injustice has become different and so that's that's really interesting and kind of looking at it from your point of view rather than the other person so we've got a few questions for you james hopefully nothing too too tricky um no no let's go straight for tricky let's not give an easy life okay so let's just think about um can you give an example from your own life of where you've experienced injustice and how you've dealt with it do you know what i feel i've been um i've been quite fortunate really um to have been brought up in a christian home and being taught from an early age what what god's character is like and how how jesus died on the cross and what that's meant for me um and not really had that many situations where i felt massively um uh upset offended put out um but what i would say is that from any age we got alongside people we i went to south america um when i was 12 um on mission and very quickly realized what serious injustice looked like and i think from that age that something was planted in my heart of i've just wanted to respond and give my life to serve jesus and serve the marginalized and the poor and the um so i've probably spent more my life getting alongside people who've served or see you know experience injustice um then then experience it myself so i feel like i've been very fortunate but i feel like god has put me in a place where um i can give my life to to serve those who've been less fortunate yeah that's really cool i think that's really important too you know so often in the west don't we we get if if this is all we see and this is all we know our definition of injustice becomes slightly skewed and actually when you step out into the wider world and there are other communities in other countries where actually you really do see some horrific injustices and we it's easy to become blind to that if you just focus in on your own world so the fact that you stepped out of that so early on do you think that's like helped in in what you're doing now with imagine if yeah i think that was um life life transforming really character shaping um the things that happened on that three-week trip in guyana 1997 i think it was um including eating piranha by the way that was the highlight wow um i'm crocodile um yeah the things i have on that trip that really showed me what living a kingdom life looked like it wasn't just theory um it wasn't just what we saw in youth group um but i've seen it and seen miracles you know complete healings that you couldn't put down to anything other than the work of prayer and the transforming power of god so yeah that's completely shaped um my life's amazing do you think that's something you'll do with your own kids because i know you've you've got some young kids who are outside on the trapeze um you know do you do you guys plan on on with your kids wanting them to see you know life outside of the the west yeah i mean i think christian life has to have a sense of mission in it throughout um whether that's on your doorstep we took our kids prayer walking yesterday morning along alton road as part of our community and we just said why don't we pray for each of the shops as they reopen on monday pray for them to flourish pray for protection over them um my little girl bell wrote some notes and gave them to each of the shopkeepers to say god loves her um so we want to instill in them something of what it looks like to be missional um but i would love to send them overseas um i think as soon as i feel they're mature enough and it's safe enough i would take them uh to africa in a heartbeat maybe not to congo just yet but we've got the connections elsewhere in africa so um i'd love to take them over and just see what real poverty looks like um to me that kind of hashtag first world problems uh yeah yeah issue so yeah love to see my kids overseas but we can do mission on our doorstep as well that leads me really nicely to my question of of what we can do what can we do practically to bring about god's justice on our doorsteps in our city wherever we are i mean imagine if it's an incredible charity if you haven't we've talked about it several times on crowd church but if you haven't do have a look at the world but that matter is incredible people do practically well i think before i talk about kind of the action thing i think the first c for me it's it's about trusting god trusting god's nature um so i think when we see injustice it's it's looking at scripture what does god say he talks about being a god of justice but that might not happen in our lifetime ultimately jesus went to the cross to die in our place to bring about justice and that could be an eternal perspective that we need to you know maintain and the second is to pray to to lend men in prayer for what's happening to to seek god's heart and to um to pray about those situations that's what we're doing for congo right now is to pray for peace um as killings are becoming almost a daily occurrence and there's very little other than just to get on your knees and yeah pray but there is a sense of taking action um and i think we need to have real godly wisdom discernment about what that looks like um whether that's you know in this situation writing to an mp or trying to alert um the powers that be you know through the press or what not be um but sometimes it's just doing something very practical um whether it be like last year giving out food to people who were struggling and shielding um or like i say in the talk going out and serving drinks and uh sandwiches to street sex workers who are looked down on and often feel devalued by society so i think often it's it's really um listening to god and asking for him to speak so we know which which actions are taken and how to do that yeah it's really good one of the things you you brought up in the talk which i thought was uh is one of those things where you kind of go what you said is right uh how do we outwork that so you talked about the tension between jesus being silent but also the scripture you read about you know how we we need to stand up for those the oppressed the widows the orphans and and so on and so forth and and how as christians we need to stand up to injustice um but on the other hand there's a time when we need to be silent and and figuring that out and walking that line that tension is that straightforward or is that a little bit more complex it sounds it doesn't sound straightforward to me yeah it's totally straightforward but i mean as i as i was prepping that the person that came to mind was um dee walker anthony walker's mug yeah yeah yeah who who amazing sorry for those of you who don't know just explain anthony walker because if you're outside of liverpool you may not know who he is so anthony walker was i can't remember exactly the year but shot and killed at a young age and his mother d walker very prominent christian came out and said that she forgave those who who killed him um and that response is huge and the way that spoke to the world was with massive or at least a liverpool community anyway um sometimes there's a sense of you can still bring about justice whilst having a response that will be counterculture um and really speak of what god's done in your life and that's why i think identity is key if you know who you are and whose you are then your response is completely different yeah that's very good it's very wise yeah i think i think it is right because you know i think part of humanity is i wanna i wanna you you're saying when you're talking about jesus you wanna shout come on jesus you know get out of this talk for you so defend yourself this isn't right this is not the version of l.a law or suits jeremy and i'm expecting to see i i want to see justice going on here so i get that sort of that inner cry and that's part of humanity but it seems at the moment and whenever there's injustice the whole thing is just to shout really really loudly which is not a bad thing but it's not the only thing right and and sometimes god has a different response that we need to we need to take a different road we need to take yeah i think if you look at the whole story of jesus and how um his ministry of life panned out if you were writing the story of salvation for the world that's not how you would do it you wouldn't get 12 likely lives who are fishermen and tax collectors and took them all together for a couple of years watch them fail and then send the the leader to the cross to die it's just not exactly you know a hollywood blockbuster it's not a sound business strategy i'm not going to lie not but it's the key that jesus that god used really to unlock salvation for all of humanity and those people in that story who are scorning jesus setting up an illegal trial to condemn him to death um are the ones that jesus goes to cross to save and and us um and so what we don't expect to happen is exactly what god brings about for all of us um to experience salvation justice freedom you know in eternity with him so yeah very true and very wise very wise uh listen james um antoine hint going back to the roast potatoes which is you know going back to the deep theological stuff uh antoine here says he prefers a swiss in fact rusty i think that isn't that a rusty rusty is it's kind of got that over there yeah i want to try one of those he's antoine yeah definitely so james i think we need a showdown between your roast potatoes and antoine swiss rosters that's fine we'll bring it plenty of drips in there bring it bring it wow bring it on hey excellent uh so what's nicola's question here nicholas question yeah so we're you're ready for the we've done the kind of deep and meaningful bit now are you ready for the the really important question of the day okay so would you rather your only mode of transportation was a giraffe or a donkey do you know what i think riding around the streets of liverpool on a giraffe would just be too cool wow i was gonna go donkey because that's what jesus used yeah predictable okay yeah giraffe sounds way more fun i'm there so there you go there's your uh a giraffe it seems uh is the is the answer to your question thanks nick i appreciate that hey james listen appreciate you being with us but uh thanks for doing the talk and thanks for asking the questions it's it's i find injustice is one of those things that will it's a topic that's going to keep on giving in some respects we're going to keep talking about it and talking about it right yeah it's great to have a narrative about it isn't it it's no black or white it's just you need to have the discussions and um and kind of thrash it out sometimes yeah and keep talking about it i think is um is is critical and important so yeah james we've got catch-up coming up to put you on the spot do you want to introduce ketchup sure so we have some incredible catch-ups from this week brilliant thanks james hello and welcome to this week's i got you there didn't i for those of you who don't know me allow me to introduce myself my name is josh edmondson i am one of the members of the team here at crowd church and i am a student at the university of saint andrews studying physics if you have never watched the stream before welcome it's really great to have you here let me just quickly explain what catch up actually is every week we get in pictures and videos from members of the community that we put up in this catch-up segment just so that we get to see what everyone else is actually getting up to in usual fashion i will kick off with something that i've been up to this week if you are in england you will know that the restrictions have been lifting a little bit over the past few weeks as a result i've managed to meet up with small groups of friends at a time which has been really really wonderful on friday i went round to one of my friends houses and me and a few other people were in his garden just sat around a fire pit and we're just having a great time one of the other people that was there a really clever guy and he's also been at university and something that he's been studying recently has been philosophies and as a result of that we ended up having a very very long conversation about whether maths was discovered or created it's a very interesting discussion i'm i'm quite interested to see what everyone says do you think that maths is created or invented put your answer in in the comments below and give a reason why this is one of the things i love about having like an interactive chat is you do get to ask all these crazy questions and people can just respond i'm not holding out much hope that this question gets a lot of response it's it seems to deviate quite a lot from the normal question that we get in the chat think about it think about it it's a fun question anyway that's enough from me let's get on to the catch-up clips great thank you very much for sending those in we had a lot of stuff this week which is just awesome so thank you for everyone that sent stuff in that doesn't normally send it in keep doing it it's great to see what you're getting up to if you would like to see your stuff on catch up then you can send in pictures and videos either to the whatsapp number that you will have seen on the bottom of the screen or you can post them on instagram with the hashtag crowdcatchup and i will go through those posts and find them for the catch-up video each week that's all from me this week thank you very much for watching and i will catch you in next time well there you go that was ketchup that was great well done josh it's a very similar theme running through the catch up this week lots of walks it's basically all we've been able during lockdown i feel like we've become the walking nation now i know do you think that we'll there'll be less walks now that we're starting to kind of are we going to take hey we should send loads of catch-up pictures for next week of us going into shops tomorrow the shops open so let's see pictures of me are you uh are you scrambling down to the shops tomorrow so is that what you're gonna do um well i might do certainly sometime this week who knows uh i'm gonna try and avoid them because they're gonna be chaos this week yeah okay speaking of uh this week and what is happening this week it has to i have to say this seems to be the week uh where a lot of birthdays are happening so uh sharon my wife's birthday last week on monday um she had a let's just call it a significant milestone happy birthday sharon yeah so happy birthday let me play this oh yes there we go uh do you know who else's birthdays was yesterday was dan pryor that's right nicholas birthday was on wednesday happy birthday birthday on wednesday yes absolutely nichola in the comment asking the giraffe donkey question happy birthday do you know who else we have dan orange's birthday today uh he's also been on great livestream yeah happy birthday to everybody and on wednesday sal we have a really important birthday okay mine so oh yeah sorry it's really important sorry so i want a big present this year what's on your birthday list matt uh what's on my birthday list uh i've got some books coming uh some people bought me some books which is good always good to read some new novels i've got a beer thing which is cool you know hang on hang on it's your birthday this wednesday coming yeah yeah so how do you know what presents you've got uh normally i buy them and then give them to other people to give to that is me that's how you know what you're going to get and you're going to get what you want top tip no yeah wow do you not do that no no i mean i tell people i write lists and things i give james a comprehensive list a comprehensive list that's brilliant no that takes all the fun out of it if you know exactly what you're getting from every person i don't know exactly what i'm getting i just know some of the things that i'm getting so yeah it's uh it's an interesting one isn't it an interesting one so yes so happy birthday everybody i hope you have a fantastic day or had a fantastic day on your birthday uh coming up next week should we tell folks what's happening next week yes next week you are speaking matt so you can tell everybody whilst you're doing the talk all of the brilliant surprises yeah that'd be the challenge to see if i can wingle it in somehow to the talk's narrative yeah definitely yeah maybe um so yeah next week we're going to carry on our look at mark's gospel we are getting to that point like so this week james talked about when jesus was arrested by the jewish leaders now next week the jewish leaders take jesus before pilate the governor because they cannot sentence anyone's death they need the romans to do it and so we're going to have a look at that whole conversation there and we're going to get into this whole topic of people pleasing and addict uh approval addiction oh yes all right so that's going to be a bit of fun oh absolutely so make sure you come join us for that be great to see you um in the meantime uh as sal said it said let me bring the whatsapp number up on the screen uh he says why is it not working i don't know it's not working uh so you talk will i try and figure out why my what's happening hey well you can always get in touch with us via our website if you can't get in touch with us via the whatsapp number which hopefully will appear any minute there it is is it my magic i still can't point to it or i just i just can't do it it's just like there you go i can't just this is gonna be one of those new tests they give people for sobriety can you point to the whatsapp number on the screen first time look at that [Laughter] yeah never mind it does and that's again you do get in touch with us if you know we can pray for anything or you want to ask any questions about crowd church then do get in touch with us i can't speak now either teeth in get in touch with us via the whatsapp number we'd love to hear from you which is here on the bottom of the screen yes we would absolutely uh so brilliant trev wrote here in the comments what about when one person's actions damage attack or take a life and the resulting sentence is challenged as two lights on the question isn't my son's daughter's life only only valued that like so i'm guessing uh that's a really interesting question of injustice really isn't it that's talking about you know when you get away with your crime or you get a measly sentence for your crime i think one of the things that james said uh in i don't know what is in the talk or in his questions one of the things he said which is immensely true is that justice isn't always done here on earth and i think um for me one of the key things i like about the christian faith is there is an ultimate sense of justice because life is here but it's also eternal and so if it doesn't happen here we ultimately all have to stand before god um which is a terrifying thing in some respects and i i truly believe that there is an eternal sense of justice that we have to be aware of um and you know that is one of the great great i don't know if great's the right word but it's one of the things of the christian faith um but actually there is there is justice ultimately and you can't escape it so yeah sorry to get a bit deep there at the end uh right um i think that is everything thanks everyone for your comments thanks for your participation on facebook thanks again to james for doing the talk and joining us on our discussion i'm looking forward to trying those roast potatoes and i'm looking forward to trying antoine swiss rosties frosty oh yes yes bring on the potato sampling i'm up for that ah living the dream brilliant sal thanks very much uh thanks everyone for watching yeah been brilliant have a great week wherever you are and we'll be back again very soon make sure you like comment and subscribe to all the things that we do if you want to connect with crowd church head on over to our website crowd.church and have a look at stuff there fill out the form we'll email you when services are going live and all that sort of stuff be great to hear from you great connect in the meantime have a fantastic week bye for now absolutely have a great everyone bye now the darkness fades into new beginnings as we lift our eyes to a hoping or creation wait with an expectation to declare the reign of the lord our god we will not be moved when the earth gives way father is overcome and for everything there's an empty gray for there is overcome now the silence breaks in the name of jesus as the heavens cry let the earth respond all creation shouts with a voice of triumph to declare the reign of the lord our god we will not be when the earth gives way father is overcome he shall reign forever strongholds now surrender the lord our god has overcome who can be against us jesus our defender he is lord and he has overcome sure the lord our god has overcome who can be against us jesus i defended he is lord and he has overcome we will not be blue [Applause] there's an empty grave for there is a one that's overcome for there is someone who's overcome and for every fear there's an empty grave