Talk: Big Picture, Small Actions

Finally got round to cleaning up the audio of a recording of a talk given for Carmathen Church on 3rd July (sorry about the audio quality, it's the best I can manage).
Key text:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
1 John 3:16-24

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Listen on posterous
*Audio updated on new blog post

Links:
'Story of Stuff' - http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Rob Lacey and the 2 min. Bible

Welcome to my section of the AG website (we're not sure where we're headed, just praying that Jesus is leading the way). If you're new to Christianity, don't know anything about Jesus or have become disullusioned by your own 'religious' experiences, I hope we can share the amazinlgy simple and powerful truths that we're learning on our journey.
There was this amazing perfomer, writer and broadcaster from the valleys by the name of Rob Lacey. He had an amazing story to share on his path to use his wonderful creative skills to tell Jesus's story and lessons in a modern setting. Rob sadly passed away in 2006 but not before he managed to finish the radically relevant interpretation of the Bible called 'Word on the Street'. I only just found out today that the website of the publisher that detailed some his work has been removed, but luckily I saved this brilliant excerpt from the back of the book to share with you today*. I guess we're all trying to be part of Jesus's 'Liberation movement'! :)

The 2 Minute Bible, Rob Lacey

1st off,
nothing… but God
and off,
God
starts it all up and
WHAP!
Stuff everywhere.
The snake does some word twisting
Adam and eve fall for it
God
Kicks them out of heaven on earth
Death strolls in
They make babies
But the evil/good ratio goes through the roof
God
Turns the flood taps on
“waterworld!”
Only noah’s family and the animals survive
To see the rainbow
“Never again” quote God
More babies
Then Abraham –
The 1st jew
And his boys
Isaac, Jacob and Joseph
400 years on
the Jews are a nation
but just slave labour for Pharoah
Then God waves them out of Egypt through the red sea into the dessert via 10 plagues
Moses downloads the contract –
The big ten rules
The Jews break them all
Grumbling round the desert
for 40 years
once Joshua gets them into a land with milk and honey on draught
king David sorts out the giant goliath between recording his great compilation
Solomon comes out with some wise one-liners
then naff king after naff king
Messing up the people
Elijah and the other couriers can’t stop the rot
So God lets the Babylon army
Trash Jerusalem
And the Jews are carted off
As slave labour
Again
Daniel gets to sleep
with the lions
Isaiah predicts a liberator
Esther stops a holocaust attempt
and, 70 years on,
the jews trek back to do construction work in Jerusalem
But no shift in attitude:
More idol promises
wind God up.
So he stops
talking to them for 400 years.
dot
dot
dot
Enter Jesus the Liberator
good with hammer and nails
but he takes a career change at 30
and kicks off a 3 year
“heaven on earth” tour
with his mobile miracle clinic
and loads of stories
and questions
his team 12 love it
the religious suits don’t!
Dodgy trial
punishment beatings
public execution
-more hammers and nails
2 days later he’s back
having sorted out death
He’s launching the
Jesus Liberation movement
via Paul Benson
His foreign rep.
who’s sending out loads of emails
updating people on what it means that
Jesus came back to do
The sequel:
‘With God in us
We can bring heaven on earth
bit by bit’
all ending up with Jonno’s general memo
on how things are going to get
wrapped up:
The snake gets bbQd
The Jesus liberation movement get limitless life
Heaven on earth
Absolutley!

*I don't want to break any copyright issues, just trying to share some of Rob's effort to de-mystify the Bible. Please buy the book by Zonderman if you're interested, I don't have the rights for this excerpt.