Bad Stuff Happens to Bad People?
Here’s a summary of this week’s sermon:
Have you ever pondered the age-old question: "Are we defined by our actions?" It's a query that strikes at the core of our beliefs about good, bad, and the complex tapestry of human morality. In a world where actions often speak louder than words, it's crucial to examine what truly shapes our identity and destiny.
The Grey Area of Morality
Morality isn't always black and white. What's considered 'good' in one culture or era may be viewed differently in another. This shifting landscape of ethical norms raises an intriguing question: If morality is so variable, can we really classify people as simply good or bad?
Consider the Ten Commandments, they delineate clear 'do's and don'ts.' Yet, when we delve into the nuances of human behaviour, we often find ourselves saying, "it depends." This isn't just a cop-out; it's a recognition of the complex factors that influence our decisions and actions.
The Evolution of Moral Standards
The debate about what constitutes good and bad behaviour isn't new. Philosophers and scientists alike have wrestled with this for centuries. When we remove divine instruction from the equation, we're left seeking a secular moral compass. Darwin himself, despite his theories on evolution, recognized the need for a common moral ground for societal survival. It's evident that despite our differences, humans have an innate desire for a harmonious existence where basic rights and safety are upheld.
The Universal Moral Code
In recent years, anthropologists have identified seven moral rules consistent across diverse cultures. These include helping family, group loyalty, reciprocity, bravery, respecting authority, fairness in resource division, and respecting property. Intriguingly, these 'good' behaviours seem to be wired into our survival instincts, supporting cooperation and, ultimately, our individual and collective thriving.
Good and Bad: A Christian Perspective
At CROWD Church, we approach this topic from a Christian perspective, which offers a refreshing viewpoint. The Christian ethos doesn't hinge on the conventional tit-for-tat morality. Instead, it's centred around the heart's condition and a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Consider the Apostle Paul's journey. His life was a testament to the Christian belief that our moral standing isn't solely determined by our circumstances or deeds. Despite enduring trials and persecutions, Paul's faith and identity in Christ remained unshaken. His story challenges the simplistic notion that "bad stuff happens to bad people" and invites us to look deeper.
Beyond Behaviour: The Heart Matters
In Christianity, it's not just about following a set of rules or engaging in good deeds for selfish gains. It's about an honest heart seeking to align with the goodness of God. This journey with Christ transforms us, not because we earn it through good behaviour, but because we are accepted and loved by the one who is the embodiment of goodness.
Conclusion: Rethinking Good and Bad
So, do our actions define us? Yes, but perhaps not in the way we've traditionally thought. In the quest to categorise ourselves and others as good or bad, we might miss the point. Jesus isn't searching for the 'good' people; He's looking for those who seek truth and grace. As followers of Christ, our actions should stem not from a desire to prove our goodness, but from the transformative power of His love and grace in our lives.
In a world obsessed with labelling and judging, let's challenge ourselves to look beyond actions alone and consider the deeper motives and meanings behind them. After all, it's in understanding the complexity of our humanity that we can truly begin to grasp the essence of what it means to be good.
RECENT EPISODES
RECENT LIVESTREAMS
More from this series
At Crowd Church, we are committed to creating a space for you to explore the Christian faith, regardless of where you are on your faith journey.
What happens at Crowd Church?
Every week we livestream our online church service and release a new story on What’s The Story Podcast. We have weekly online community groups that meet up and all of that good stuff. You can find out more about everything that goes on at Crowd by browsing through this site, and you can reach out to us via our contact page.
Come and Join In!
Are you interested in joining in with what is happening here at Crowd? We would love to meet you!
Join in with the Church Livestream
Subscribe to Crowd Church Podcast & What’s the Story Podcast
Follow us on Instagram
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel
New to church? If so - check out the New Here link.
Any questions? Please connect with us via our Contact Page, or via WhatsApp: +44 7984 530 429
-
Matt Edmundson: [00:00:00] We are a digital church on a quest to discover how Jesus helps us live a more meaningful life. We are a community, a space to explore the Christian faith and a place where you can contribute and grow. Our service will last about an hour and in a few seconds we will start with a time of worship after which you will meet Our hosts for our service who will introduce today's talk.
After the talk we head into Conversation Street where we look at your stories and questions that you've posted in the comments throughout the live stream. I want to invite you to connect with us here at Crowd Church and there are a few ways that you can do just that. Firstly, you can engage with Crowd from any device during our live stream.
And if you're up for it, Why not invite a few friends over and experience the service together? Church is all about connecting with God and [00:01:00] connecting with others, and one of the easiest ways for you to do that is to also join one of our midweek groups where we need online together to catch up and discover more about the amazingness of Christ.
You can also subscribe to our podcast called What's. It's the story where we deep dive into stories of faith and courage from everyday people. More information about all of these things that I've mentioned can be found on our website at www. crowd. church or you can reach us on social media at Crowd Church.
If you're new to Crowd or new to the Christian faith, And would like to know what your next steps to take are why not head over to our website crowd. church forward slash next for more details.
And now, the moment you've been waiting for is here, our online church [00:02:00] service starts. Right now. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Crowd Church. My name is Matt Edmundson and beside me is my beautiful wife. Greetings and salutations. Sorry, we're a little bit late. Sorry. We had a few technical issues.
We went live and then it all crashed and so hopefully if you were on the old live stream links that you'll find us. Sorry about that. Welcome to you. Hi, Miriam. Hi, Andy. Hey, Andy. How you doing, brother? Good to see you. Welcome to Crowd. Like I said, we are, like I said at the start, you, we were talking about this, weren't we, that,
this was pre bearded Matt recording. A little bit out of date, isn't it? So the whole video intro we created is a little bit out of date. And so I was saying we need to re record it.
Sharon Edmundson: Yeah, and I've just spent the last few minutes watching him frantically typing and doing stuff to try and get this back up.
Yeah. It'll look very impressive.
Matt Edmundson: Apparently apparently. [00:03:00] And do you know what the problem was? Do you know? Yeah, you won't know what the problem is. This whole issue was caused by somebody turning off a piece of equipment that should not have been turned off. Someone's in trouble. Yeah, I don't know who yet.
Definitely wasn't me. But when I find out, man alive is that going to be trouble. Anyway, we're with you now. So a warm welcome to you. We'll update all the thumbnails and all that sort of stuff. Probably tomorrow we'll get the video guys to do that. So yeah, we'll get all that stuff sorted out. But apologies and welcome if you're just joining us now.
There have been a few tech issues, but we are live. We are streaming it seems. And people are in the comments saying, how's it? Yeah, I'm just going to calm down a little bit now. So what have we got coming up today? We've
Sharon Edmundson: got a talk with Will Sopwith, who's continuing in our very long series of acts. I think we're almost at the end now though.
Yeah. So he's going to be talking about that. And then after that, we will be back to chat about it and take any questions.
Matt Edmundson: Yes, we are. I'm just getting people messaging [00:04:00] me going, are we live? I can't see you anywhere. So I'm going to sort out those texts. In fact, what I'm going to do is we're just going to go straight into the talk while I carry on sorting out the tech issues, unless you want to talk for a little bit while I sort them
Sharon Edmundson: out.
No, it's fine. And I'm definitely not talking out the tech issues.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I'll just carry on the show. You sort out the tech issues. So I'm just going to let everybody know what the new link is. If you're watching on Facebook or if you're watching on YouTube, just share it out on social media so that those people that do watch along with us can get ahold of the new link as well.
In the meantime, here is Will. We'll be back after
Will Sopwith: this. I wonder how you would define good and bad. I wonder whether you would consider yourself a good person or a bad person. And I wonder what difference you think following Christ. would make to your assessment, or anyone else's assessment,
of how good and bad you were. Now, good and bad [00:05:00] might seem obvious. If I gave you a survey asking you to classify a set of fairly obvious behaviours, I don't imagine there'd be much variation in view. The Jewish Ten Commandments cover some of these. Murder, theft, lying about someone. If I did the same survey in another cultural setting, however, the results might be different.
There might even be differences in a group of, say, 70 year olds compared to 20 year olds. And actually, when you start thinking about it, there are a lot of grey areas. You might start responding to some scenarios with, it depends. Does it matter? Is morality even a thing these days? Isn't it just a religious tool to make us feel guilty?
Isn't my truth the most important thing? Isn't moral behaviour just down to individual perspective? That is, as long as no one gets hurt. You might be surprised to know that this issue of good and bad has been a topic, a philosophical, [00:06:00] and at times scientific debate for hundreds of years. And the reason is this, if you take divine instruction or a faith code out of the equation, for example the Ten Commandments, what basis of morality Do you turn to?
And any thought experiment realises quite quickly that having some shared view of what is good or bad behaviour, or more precisely, acceptable or unacceptable behaviour is actually quite important in order for a society to function. Despite the logical conclusion of evolution that good or bad behaviour really shouldn't matter unless it increases your chance of survival.
Darwin himself recognised that some form of common morality was essential for the survival of social animals. Social experiments in anarchy, or lawless communities, and there have been a few, have never ended well. [00:07:00] Oh, not that I've heard anyway. It's obvious. Despite the apparent attraction of living entirely to meet.
your own selfish needs, I'd suggest that most people actually want to live in a good neighborhood where their house isn't broken into, where they're not either completely ignored or constantly on the defence from attack. On a macro level, how can you foster cooperation between countries on something as big as climate change, if there's no commonly understood acceptable way of acting?
And if behaviour is entirely down to us as individuals to decide. What is good? What is bad? How can you develop any sense of accountability? Or uphold law and order? How can you protect the rights of individuals in your community to live safely and freely? How can you uphold human rights where there's no agreement on what human duties are?
Now, of course, [00:08:00] Religion and faith supply this moral framework to an extent and fill this gap. But starting with Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, philosophers rejecting the existence of God have been musing on the need for an alternative, religion free set of common rules of behaviour. They recognise there needs to be some, but can't accept that God is the source.
A couple of years ago, an anthropology research group in Oxford did some really interesting research across 60 distinct cultures across multiple continents. And they identified seven moral rules that were consistently evident in all these different cultures, arguing this was the closest we've got yet to a universal, non religious, Moral Code.
These behaviours, these definitive badges of good people are these. Helping family, helping group, [00:09:00] reciprocating, by which I mean returning favours, paying back debts, but also taking revenge, being brave, respecting superiors, dividing resources so that everyone has enough, respecting property. And the theory goes that all these contribute to cooperation.
Especially with those closest to us, which therefore, in the end, benefits us as individuals. This fact that good behaviour actually increases our likelihood of survival neatly gets round the problem of why morality exists at all in the selfish survival theory of evolution. In a nutshell, good behaviour is counted good if, in the end, It helps me, and this is more or less the basis of game theory.
So it follows, [00:10:00] if there is a universal view of good and bad behaviours, there is also a universal judgement of whether someone is a good or a bad person. And this is usually as a result of someone's behaviour, how they stack up against the seven moral laws. But there's also an astonishing amount of self help wisdom on the internet claiming that the universe treats people according to their morals, etc.
i. e. your circumstance is somehow evidence of your moral standing. Now, being Crowd Church, you may be unsurprised to know that we will be looking at what the Christian worldview says about all this. And the passage we're looking at is a little scene to help us unpack it. And today's talk is called, Bad Stuff Happens.
To bad people. And I think we need to put a question mark on the end of that. So the passage is Acts 28, verse 1 to 10. [00:11:00] And this is it. Now when they had escaped, they then found out that the island was called Malta. And the natives showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and made us all welcome, because of the rain that was falling and because of the cold.
But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat. and fastened on his hand. So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped from the sea, yet justice does not allow to live.
But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. However, they were expecting that he would swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had looked for a long time and saw no harm come to him, They changed their minds and said that he was a God in that region. There was an estate of the leading citizen of the island whose name was Publius, [00:12:00] who received us and entertained us courteously for three days.
And it happened that the father of Publi, Publius lay sick of a fever and distant entry. Paul went into him and prayed, and he laid his hands on him and healed him. So when this was done, the rest of those on the island who had diseases also came and were healed. They also honoured us in many ways, and when we departed, they provided such things as were necessary.
Let's remind ourselves of the context. Paul is on what it turns out to be His last journey. He'd been arrested in Jerusalem several years before. The Jewish leaders had finally had enough of what they saw as his blasphemous views on Jesus. Paul had been knocking around under house arrest with no one taking any responsibility for what would happen to him and he was finally dispatched to Rome to make his case before Caesar himself.
On the way The ship gets caught in a storm, Paul persuades the Roman soldiers not to kill all the [00:13:00] prisoners, boldly proclaims no one will die, and they are washed ashore on the island of Malta. All alive, as predicted. And that's where we get to the passage today. So in the lead up to this episode on Malta, you could argue there was quite a bit of evidence on a simplistic level that Paul was securely in the bad camp, that the universe was clearly paying him back.
He'd been under arrest for years. He'd been within an inch of losing his life. He must have been at quite a low point, freezing, exhausted, perhaps losing hope for his future. He didn't even have a family, and he airs to continue the family name. Malta was not a dream summer holiday destination at the time, but a rather out of the way and random spot to end up.
On many counts, you might conclude he was an unfortunate person. Clear indication that he was also In fact, this episode wasn't even half of it. [00:14:00] In his letter to the church in Corinth, he describes his glorious life of ministry in this way. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.
Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was pelted with stones. Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I've been constantly on the move. I've been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, and in danger from false believers.
I have laboured
The Islanders didn't know all this. Seeing his misfortune of being bitten by a snake was enough for them to conclude he must be a bad person. Ironically, they were right. Paul was a [00:15:00] murderer. It probably falls in our helpful It Depends category, as he thought he was doing it in God's name, and he didn't throw the fatal stone, but Stephen was killed with Paul's full support.
Circumstance was not an uncommon approach to judging someone's morality. There's a story in Luke 13, where some people had been killed when a tower collapsed, and some others killed by the Romans and desecrated after their death, with their blood mixed with a Roman sacrifice. And the crowd was assuming these people must have been really bad to have that happen to them.
Again in John 9, his disciples asked Jesus whether the reason that a man was blind was because he was bad, i. e. it was his fault. Or whether it was because his parents had been bad. It's not unlike the idea of karma, where good and bad karma is accumulated through life, both affecting the future and, ultimately, the quality of your reincarnation.[00:16:00]
Or is the Islamic belief that God will weigh our good and bad deeds at the end of our lives and make a decision about how deserving we are of heaven? What comes around? There are scriptures about the consequence of good and bad, but Jesus more often talks about fruit. First off, in the scenarios above, Jesus said no, what happens is not about people's morality.
The guys that the tower fell on, it's nothing to do with whether they were bad or good. There's no karma at work. He says that the evidence of good or bad is not behaviour or consequence. But the heart, he accuses the ultra religious people with their meticulous attention to doing the right thing, keeping all the rules, he accuses them of being hypocrites.
He says it's what's inside a person that makes them right or wrong. Jesus even [00:17:00] calls out the world's accepted tit for tat view of morality as described in the Oxford research, the doing good so you get something. In Matthew 5, verse 38, he's recorded as saying, You've heard it said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
But I say, turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Do not resist anyone asking something from you. Further on in the same chapter, If you love those who love you, what reward do you get? If you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Even the unbelievers do that. And in Luke 14, he tells someone hosting him to a meal, Don't just invite your friends, they'll invite you back.
Invite the crippled, the poor, the blind, then you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you. You'll be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. [00:18:00] He also says, when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. In other words, don't show off your good deeds.
That's what Jesus said about it. We don't have in this story on Malta what Paul's response was to the islanders around the fire, but we do know he had spent the last years reflecting on and teaching the words of Jesus. We also have some examples of his writing and preaching, both here in Acts, but also in the letters in the New Testament.
In his letter to the church in Philippi, Philippians 3 verse 9. Paul describes actually that he was in Jewish terms pretty much the perfect soul. He was taught by the best teacher, he had a spotless record in terms of religious observance, he was from the right tribe. His conclusion? I count all of this as filthy rags compared with knowing Christ.
In his letter to the church in Rome he writes very [00:19:00] honestly, I have the desire to do what is good. But I cannot carry it out. I do not do the good that I want to do, but instead the evil I do not want to do. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me? Thanks be to God. I'm delivered through Jesus. Being good, and especially being considered good by others, didn't really register with Paul.
So being a Christian, following Jesus, does not automatically make you a good person. Just as not following Jesus does not automatically make you a bad person. And I have to confess here that in my early days, I was arrogant enough to think that. That my whole rationale for saying people should follow Jesus was that was the only way they could become good.
That the only way for any goodness to be in the world was if everyone followed Jesus. There are many Christian people that have brought a [00:20:00] lot of good things to the world. And sadly, many that are brought bad. The point is, you can't always judge the state of someone's heart by behaviour and definitely not by circumstance.
If your view of the Christian faith is that it represents good behaviour, that's quite a narrow view. So what is it about? What allowed Paul, in a fairly desperate situation, to continue faithfully bringing God's Word, serving people by praying for them, as we read in the passage, being a conduit of Jesus's power through healing.
I believe it was God's grace. Just as he wrote in the letter to Rome, Paul is very familiar with his shortcomings. He knows he's a murderer. He knows he's caused pain and distress to many undeserving people before [00:21:00] he met Jesus. He's under no illusion what his behavioural credentials mean, but he also knows that God has declared him good.
When he was honest before God what state his heart was in, he truly met with the one whose very nature is described. Paul's sense of being right with the world had nothing to do with his unenviable circumstance. It had nothing to do with his self interested helping others so he could get some benefit.
It had nothing to do with what anyone thought of him or his standing in society. It certainly had nothing to do with any wealth or possessions. He was a shipwrecked convict. Paul's peace came from the knowledge that he who is ultimately good accepted him. He who is ultimately wise [00:22:00] would see him through to the end of his service.
He who is ultimately gracious would provide for his basic needs. I don't imagine he had much pride left, and yet he comes across as the most grounded individual in the whole saga. To finish. Judging people as good or bad God is not really a worthwhile enterprise. It's likely to be wrong in any way, missing the point.
Jesus is not looking for good people to join his family, his church. He's looking for honest people that want to walk with him and learn. And if you are following Jesus, go beyond the norm and the expected. But remember, it's not some do gooder beauty contest. God Is good [00:23:00] hanging around him and his people will rub off.
Copying Jesus feels good and will bring good, but these are both happy byproducts of the joy and peace of knowing His grace and forgiveness. I don't believe they were meant to be the badge.
Matt Edmundson: So welcome back. Just adjusting my microphone there. . Thanks. What a great talk.
Sharon Edmundson: So many different bits in that, I've written so many bits. He's such a legend, isn't
Matt Edmundson: he Will?
Sharon Edmundson: I've got circling bits to go, oh, I could pick
Matt Edmundson: up on that, or that one. Yeah. No, he's great. I love how he, how he just chats away and is very clear in the way that he thinks.
So thanks, Will. Great talk. He was in a great looking studio as well when he was recording that talk. Amazing. It was a bit windy though. Did you hear the wind in the background? Okay. Maybe it was just me and my sensitive ears. I was very focused. So welcome back. If you've just joined us throughout the talk, warm welcome to Crowd Church.
We're an online church [00:24:00] beside me. Is my beautiful wife. My name is Matt. This is Sharon. Yeah. Yeah. And we're hosting tonight. We're going to get into Conversation Street. If you watched Will's talk, write your questions, write your comments, write your thoughts, your ideas, agree, disagree, and all that sort of good stuff in the comments, we're going to get through to those.
And for those of you who did join us through Freya put in the comments, she's a first time listener. Welcome. Freya, it's great to have you. Got a bit lost due to the tech issues. So did we all sorry, I'm not going to lie. I'm often lost because
Sharon Edmundson: of tech issues. I think I've said often I struggle with our TV, let alone anything like this.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it's it's great to have you. What actually happened is we went live for two seconds and then the computer went, I'm not going live anymore, just stopped, threw up, at least it told us, yeah. Said we're not live, we're not going live anymore, are we? No, we're not going to do that. We had to scramble and figure it all out.
And of course the problem with that is You'd already, we'd already given all the links out. I'm sorry that it took a little bit of time, but thanks for bearing with us. Thanks for [00:25:00] sticking with it and joining in. Morality. Yeah.
Sharon Edmundson: Good, bad. I was going to say, where do you want to start? Wrong.
But you've gone right in there.
Matt Edmundson: Deep end
Sharon Edmundson: and all that. Yeah, I find the whole issue of morality, I've just dropped my pen. He's just twiddled his pen and dropped it.
Matt Edmundson: I'll put it down, I'll stop playing.
Sharon Edmundson: Yeah, I just find the whole area of morality really interesting. In the past I've done a few courses around Christian apologetics, which is like being able to give a reason for your Christian faith, and it looks at many things, but morality is one of those things.
And it's just really interesting because I think all of us agree that right and wrong exists. Yes. We might not agree what is right and wrong, but we all agree in the concept. And it's then there's the question, where do you get your morality from? Is it every individual decides for themselves what that is, or is it more of a group thing with perhaps [00:26:00] some people deciding on behalf of the group, like with government, or is there something beyond people that decides as in Is there a God who decides what is right and wrong?
Yeah. And just looking at kind of the problems with those first two things I've mentioned. Yeah, it's just, I find it
Matt Edmundson: fascinating. And when she says she finds it fascinating, she really does.
Sharon Edmundson: Been two in his ear on the way here about it. And
Matt Edmundson: it was a great conversation and the kind of way we were like, we should totally save this for when we're on crowd because it was a great conversation.
But it is an interesting one, isn't it? Because you're right. I think if you. Where does morality come from? So if morality exists, and by morality, we mean the ability to choose between right and wrong. Or the
Sharon Edmundson: standard of right and
Matt Edmundson: wrong. Or the standard of right and wrong, to make a standard, which is right and wrong.
If that exists, then where does that come from? As in, who decides whether it's right or wrong? [00:27:00]
Sharon Edmundson: Because if it's like each individual person decides for themselves what's right and wrong, that actually doesn't work in the real world because I might decide that it's fine to Go to someone's house and steal all their stuff and they might be like hang on I don't agree with that, but it's it would be my word against theirs.
It's I've decided, yeah, and even if you say you can do what you like, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. It's but that's still your opinion that we shouldn't hurt anybody.
Matt Edmundson: So that's still morality coming from you, isn't it? Yeah.
Sharon Edmundson: And it just, I just don't think it's workable because.
Yeah, we're just going to butt heads on a lot of
Matt Edmundson: things. Which is what we're doing right now, really, on a global scale, isn't it? It's that kind of, no we've decided that democracy is right. And other people go no, democracy is not right. And there's a clash then of opinions of what is right.
And so if morality is from self, then it can only ever be based on opinion. And that opinion then is subjective, isn't it? [00:28:00] It's not objective. And it all becomes then a case of, like you say it's my opinion versus your opinion.
Sharon Edmundson: And I think that even works in a group scenario. Say if in this country we, like we have agreed that we elect a government and they make all the laws that we can input into.
But it's still, it's the opinion of that group of people and we find the situation, don't we, where these laws get made and then other people are like hang on a minute, that's not right, not, and I don't think it's, sometimes it's people will think that's not right by my opinion, but other times it's that is just not right, not my opinion objectively not right.
Yeah. But to have objective morality. You really need God. Yeah. So I personally, I think the existence of the fact that we know that there is such a thing as right and wrong points towards the existence of God. Yeah. I don't think it necessarily proves it, [00:29:00] but it points in that direction. It points to the existence of God.
One of the many bits of the puzzle that all work together, I think, to make a case for God. Yeah, absolutely. And there are, sorry, I was going to say there are people who explain this whole thing. Far better than me, who's spent A lot of time thinking and mulling it over and discussing. And yeah, there's lots of discussion and debate on that.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, there really isn't it? The whole morality thing, and Will made reference to the fact, didn't he, that the best philosophers came up with some standards like you help family, you help the group, you reciprocate, which also means revenge. You be brave you respect superiors, you respect property and you divide resources, um, and then he summed it all up, basically saying behavior is good as long as it benefits me, which I thought was really fascinating.
So the best minds, the best philosophical minds have come up with these rules, which [00:30:00] says we should help family, but again, where does that belief come from? Because. That's a really interesting question, isn't it? Like we should help the group. Where does that come from? And again, if that comes from an individual, then it's all on the basis of opinion.
If it comes from a group there's group opinion, and we were talking about this on the way down, weren't we? That actually, if we're going to say that morality is based on the general consensus, so as a country So we're in the UK. I don't know whereabouts in the world you are watching this, but we're in the UK.
So in the UK, there is a law which says, well, you basically shouldn't, go and kill people willy nilly, right? I don't think that's the exact wording of the law. But you get the point and so that's a really interesting thing, isn't it? And we say well that's enshrined in law because Collectively, as a group of people, we've gone, yeah, that's right, you shouldn't kill [00:31:00] people willy nilly.
But if collective opinion is the basis for morality, then what about those nations that make rules and laws which are different to my personal opinion? And you can take this to extremes, can't you, to illustrate the point. So we were talking about things like, I probably shouldn't say it on air, actually, just thinking it through what we were talking about in the car.
But there are certain things that certain nations will do to their people. But that's okay, because it's collective opinion, therefore it's collective morality. Whereas I look at that and go, No, in fact, I will campaign against things like that. And I will probably financially support institutions that stop things like that.
Again, we fall under the same problem, don't we? That actually objective morality is just the same as a sorry, collective morality is in effect a collective opinion, but it's still an opinion and it's still subjective. It's still based on what you think and what I think, and if we think differently to each other, then who's to say who's right and who's wrong?
So going [00:32:00] back to your example, if I, if we break into your house, who's to say that we're wrong? There's laws, yeah, but that doesn't mean that they're moral or, even if they are moral, where's that come from, so it's, it becomes quite a complex question, doesn't it it is, Andy put in the comments that morality can make people think that they're not that bad when all of us have missed the mark.
Agree or disagree?
Sharon Edmundson: Yeah, I guess it. Sorry, say that
Matt Edmundson: again. Listen, are you listening now? I am listening now. Morality can make people think that they're not that bad when all of us have missed the mark. I can put it on there. There we go, I can do that.
Sharon Edmundson: Yeah, I think it can be very easy to compare ourselves to other people or to like the broader laws like I've not murdered anyone.
Yeah. I've not stolen anyone. I've not ended up in prison, therefore, I'm a good person. I'm not as bad as that person that I see over there. So yeah, I think it can [00:33:00] make us think like that, but it's it's what do we use as our standard, isn't it? If we use God and his awesomeness as our standard, then I think we start to see ourselves in a different light.
I've definitely had that experience where. Specific times over the years where I've gotten closer to God and it's that's a good thing, but at the same time, it shines a light on your motives and those little things which wouldn't really get picked up anywhere. Like you can look from the outside and go, Oh, doing the right thing.
But actually it's like Will touched on, it's about the heart and where our hearts are, why we're doing those things. Because you can have two people doing the same thing. So you could have maybe two people raising money for a charity. One of them, it can be purely to make themselves look good in front of other people and to make themselves feel like they are a good person.[00:34:00]
Someone else, it might be because they genuinely love the people they're trying to raise the money for. So it's like the same action, but a completely different heart
Matt Edmundson: place. So you can do the right thing for the wrong reason. Yeah, I think so. And you can, do the wrong thing for the right reason.
But again, this comes, we're now starting to get into philosophical arguments again, aren't we? In the sense that I think you're right, Andy. Coming back to what you said, I think it's right that it's easy for because I think it's hard to define morality without God. I don't know if it's impossible.
I think it's quite difficult. I've, I have thought about it and I'm not quite sure how I would get to a morality argument. So what tends to happen that if you think about morality in the absence of God, then you start to think about morality in terms of a sliding scale. You're relatively moral.
So I might not be totally pure. We've all done bad things. [00:35:00] We've all done things that we regret. We all done things we shouldn't have done. We've all said things we shouldn't have done. None of us are perfect. We'll all agree and attest to that. But like you said, you start to think about it. I'm not as bad as that person over there because I'm I've not killed anybody.
I've not done this. I'm not as bad as Putin, because I'm not, evil. I'm not as bad as this person over here, because I'm not, whatever. And so we then start to measure our morality against people that inevitably are worse than us to make ourselves feel better. Yeah. We don't tend to like to get around people that are more moral people than we are, I don't think, because we then start to feel a little bit better about our own behaviour.
But we're very good at judging our behaviour against people who we deem to be less moral than us, I think. And we look to them to justify how we're living life. And so the classic example of this is the guy and you see it in the movies all the time, [00:36:00] don't you? There's a guy zooming down the road. He gets pulled over by the policeman for speeding.
And the guy says to the policeman, why are you stopping me? I'm a law abiding citizen. Surely you should be spending your time tracking down the murderers in the city. In other words, not acknowledging. It's acknowledged, yeah, chaos speeding, but surely there's more important things for you to worry about than me, because this is a very minor crime versus the very major crimes over there.
You need to think about that, right? And so again, morality becomes relative. And so I agree with you, Andy, and I think in the absence of God, it's a slippery slope downward.
Sharon Edmundson: I just want to say here, what we're not saying is that if people don't have faith that they can't be moral, because yes, as Christians, we believe that everybody has that sense of right and wrong.
And yeah, body. Will said, actually, didn't he? Yeah, there are some people who don't believe [00:37:00] in God who do amazingly fabulous things. And there are some people who claim to follow God who do awful things. Yeah. Yeah, we've still got that choice into
Matt Edmundson: whether we do that. Yeah, again, that's something we were talking about, wasn't it?
So if we would say that morality points to the existence of God, which we would argue it probably does, then why is it people that proclaim the name of God are some of the most immoral people on the planet, and do the most horrendous, atrocious acts to groups of people, to individuals, to Gender.
It's just, and it's a fascinating question, isn't it? But again, you come back to the fact that I suppose, just because God is a true and moral God, but nobody else is, including the people that proclaim his name and do horrific acts in them. I don't think the Christian, we're not saying that Christians or other religions have the monopoly on [00:38:00] morality.
I think probably where the Christian faith thinks a little bit differently here, to say the Muslim faith, which we'll touch on, is that I think as Christians we go, there is a morality, there is a law, which is from God, there is right, there is wrong, there is good, there is bad. We have all broken it, so we're all collectively responsible, none of us have perfect for the exception of one person, which we would say was Christ.
And so therefore we all have to come to God. And I love what Will was saying about that in terms of when he was talking about Paul, how when Paul came to God, he was a religious fanatic who had taken the word of God, twisted it to mean something that it wasn't. and made him a murderer. Sounds familiar, right?
Made him a murderer and he bought that and all his shame and everything before God.[00:39:00] And yet God in the midst of all of that issued forgiveness which then made him good and righteous. Yeah, I think we'd
Sharon Edmundson: probably use the word righteous, wouldn't we, in terms of he, as in right with God. It's like God that he forgives.
All the stuff that we've done when we come to Him and gives us a good clean up.
Matt Edmundson: A bit like my car needs in the MOT. We're going to talk more about righteousness, actually, not next week, but the week after. So we're going to get into this topic a little bit because we are beginning our series on becoming whole.
What does it mean to become whole? And actually, this is a good little segue because like Paul, who had to come to Christ to get the forgiveness. As we all do, because again of this morality thing, so he had to come to Christ to get forgiveness as we all do, one of the things that happens in that whole conversation is this idea of righteousness that actually in the midst of that, When [00:40:00] we come to God, he makes us righteous, which as you said, means to be in right standing with God.
That's the foundation of wholeness. So if we want to be whole as people, and what does it mean to become whole as Christians? We have to first start with righteousness. So we're going to touch on that in two weeks time when we kickstart our new
Sharon Edmundson: series. We're also in that covering Fruits of the Spirit, which Will also touched on when he talks about Jesus, talks about fruit rather than looking at the circumstances of our life too.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, and that's another interesting point, actually, in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, you have in ancient times, when there was less knowledge, whatever that means, when they didn't have the scientific enlightenment, I suppose that we would say we have now, they would say that if something bad happened, it's because maybe God was mad at you, or there was sin, or there was some reason for it.
Fast forward 2000 years, when something bad happens to us, We don't automatically say, Oh, that's because God's mad at you. But I [00:41:00] still think there's that thinking which says, Oh, I, this has happened to me. What did I do to cause that to happen? Why does that happen to me? There's almost I live a good life.
Why would this happen to me? Why would a bad thing happen to a morally good person, whatever that means? And even though I think we are We have a lot more education, a lot more knowledge now. There is still this sort of default thinking which says, Actually, because I'm okay, I'm a good person, good things inherently should happen to me.
Sharon Edmundson: Yeah, I think if we look at the Bible, that bad things happen for different reasons. Sometimes bad things happen, do happen because we've made silly choices. For example, If I decide to eat junk all day, every day, and not do any exercise I'm going to get ill, that's because of my poor choices. And then there are other times like we've seen with that massive list that Will gave of all the things that happened to Paul.
What a great [00:42:00] advert for ministry.
Matt Edmundson: Those
Sharon Edmundson: things didn't happen to Paul because of bad choices. They happened because he was actually following God, doing what God asked him to do. And it was just like The Bible does talk about how we're in a spiritual battle. So if we're following God, we are going to have these forces that come against us from time to time.
With Paul, it sounded like it was on a fairly regular basis. And other times stuff just bad stuff just happens because we're in a broken world. And it's not necessarily because we're completely in the right place or because we've done stuff wrong. It's just.
Matt Edmundson: And I think it's quite hard to accept that because quite often we're looking for somebody to blame.
And we're looking we're looking for a reason, usually because we want to blame somebody. And I remember when I had my accident on my hand, do you remember this? And I decided to cut three of my fingers off because, yeah, they've seen this before. A little [00:43:00] stumpy one. A little stump.
So what, 20 years ago now, 19, 20 years ago I decided to cut three of my fingers off with a table saw because frankly, I had nothing better to do that afternoon, obviously, but I won't, but I won't go into the gory details because I'm aware it's pre watershed but I remember going into hospital, I remember saying to the doctor as I went in Listen, guys, I don't want you to take any of my fingers off without my permission.
This was when you were going into surgery? This would be pre surgery. Yeah. And bearing in mind, I cut them off and I was just expecting them to sew them all on and to fix it all up and work their magic because, I was a Christian. I prayed and good things happen to Christians. Without being too flippant, obviously, and I remember waking up and obviously part of my finger was missing.
And I could look at that and I could go, I wanted to blame the surgeon for that because I told him not to do that. I told him not to take any part of my [00:44:00] fingers off without my consent, without my permission. And they were just going in for an exploratory surgery. They, I didn't give them permission to do it and they did it anyway.
And so for a little while I had to wrestle with that because. I wanted to blame somebody. I wanted to blame that surgeon. I didn't want to thank him for saving the other two and a half fingers. I wanted to be mad and angry and I wanted my pound of flesh. And I think sometimes or quite often, actually, we want to blame people.
We want to blame something. When actually there's not necessarily anyone to blame it, just it is what it is. I could look at that and go, actually the reason I was in hospital because I was stupid because I took the guard off the saw. It was a stupid action, but I was doing something good. I was volunteering to build a kitchen for a friend of mine.
And I could go back and forth. I was, there's reasons why it happened and it happened because it happened. Do you know what I mean? And trying to blame somebody. Key decision
Sharon Edmundson: to take the guard [00:45:00] off. Yeah, that was a bit stupid. I was not impressed.
Matt Edmundson: No, I had to get into trouble. I did have to ask forgiveness for this little thing.
But I guess my point here is, sometimes when things happen, they just happen. And I think it's one of the hardest things to get your head around, because we want to blame something or somebody, even if it's ourself, people get diagnosed with cancer, we start to look inwards. I didn't smoke.
Transcribed I didn't drink. I drank a little bit. Is that what caused it? And we're always, we're looking for answers, which we don't necessarily have the ability to find. But I think in the midst of those things, what Paul teaches is bad things happen to good people. But God's still God in the middle of it.
And we can still trust him, even when we don't have the answers. I think that would be a fair thing to say. Yeah. Anything else on your little note? I was just
Sharon Edmundson: looking to see.
We've covered it a little bit, but the whole issue of the heart, I did think was [00:46:00] interesting. We have covered that, haven't we? Okay.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. What's going on in the comments? Crew's in the comments. Tech issues are part and parcel of crowd. Yes, they are. He chops his hand into bits because he's a, I think you're trying to say plonker there, Matt.
I'm not entirely sure. Dan's in the comments. Hey, Dan, Freya says, I'm so thankful that God doesn't shine a light on all of our failings. At the same time, he shows us bits and pieces, or bite sized pieces. Sorry. So we have a chance to fix the issues.
Sharon Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree. I think the Bible talks so much about God being for us and not against us.
I think quite often people have got this image of God just waiting for them to trip up so they can like yeah, like just have a go at us and whatever, but the Bible paints a very different picture to that. Obviously he does want us to live right. He wants our hearts to be for him. He wants us to treat other people right.
But it's not because. [00:47:00] He's horrible and wants to spoil our fun. It's because he's made us to thrive in a certain way. Yeah, his kingdom. It's about love and goodness. And so all the things that he says, it's it. It is for our good, but it's out of that love. And I think like Freya says, when he does show us stuff, he shows us what.
He wants us to deal with at that point to bring us to wholeness and bring us into more relationship with him, not so that he can punish us and stick us in a corner somewhere. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I totally agree. Totally agree Was the storm caused by Sharon's gust of anger? Oh, this must be referring to when I cut my fingers off.
I didn't know maybe there wasn't a storm back then I don't know
Sharon Edmundson: video from Will,
Matt Edmundson: not sure. Or maybe, who knows? I don't think so. I think the answer is no, Matt, to your question.[00:48:00]
But thanks for asking, dude. Appreciate it. So yes, morality, one of those fascinating questions around Christianity, around faith around the existence of God, that it's a very complex question. And I love it. I love talking about it because it's For us, like we say, it points to God and morality is one of those things.
I, if God doesn't exist, I don't understand how there is morality, especially given, Darwinism. Objective morality. Objective morality. Yeah. Especially given Darwinism, which would be at odds, I feel. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe someone's going to tell me I'm wrong. But I, anyway, what do you think about it?
Morality. Get involved in the discussion. It's been a great conversation. What's happening next week is, the question, Crew is back, so I'm going to keep up with this now. So next week, are we finally at the end of Acts? He says, for those of you like Freya, who's just joining us we have been working our way through the book of Acts [00:49:00] for, what was it Pete said last week?
17 years. Not quite that long. This is a very long time. We've been working our way through the book of Acts. And next week is the very final chapter, the very final set of verses coming into the book of, or coming outta the book of Acts, is the very last chapter. So next week will be our very final look.
I say very final. We, it's not gonna be our very final is it? But it's the end of this series. . It's the finale, the big end to this series on the book of Acts. So we have. Yeah, we've got it, make sure you're subscribed because you're not going to want to miss the ending. Next week is me and I think Ellie Light is, I'm not sure why I'm looking at you.
Sharon Edmundson: I did ask him the question earlier of what's happening next week and that was when all the tech failed. Yeah, it never got
Matt Edmundson: answered. Yeah, it never got answered. So next week, John Harding is doing the final chapter of the Book of Acts. I'm hosting with Ellie again, answering your questions, [00:50:00] just having a conversation because we love the conversations.
Do come join us for that. Make sure you're subscribed. To all things Crowd Church, if you haven't done so already, sign up to the email and we will email you out the links and hopefully next week it will work without any issues or hassles. We can but pray for these things. There's always something, but bless you, we always make it.
So thanks for sticking with us. And then, like I said, the week after that, so in two weeks time, we start our brand new series. We are going to spend probably the best part, I'm thinking, no, but it's going to be a good few months. So we're going to be looking at wholeness, what that means on five different levels for us.
I'll explain more in a couple of weeks as we go through it, but we're going to be looking at wholeness. What does it mean to be whole people? There's a lot of conversation around that. Lots and lots to think about wholeness and what that means. So we are going to have rock and roll. So how do we become whole as people?
Matt said here [00:51:00] Zoom. Yes, midweek we have an online Zoom meetups. If you would like to come join us in those calls, then we would love to hear from you. It'd be great to see you in there. Chris, if you're still watching, looking forward to meeting you or seeing you in the group on Wednesday, Chris come join us for the first time next week.
If you want to come join Chris and the rest of us in Zoom, we would love to hear from you. Just message in. I think if I press that button there. Yes, look at that. It's a beautiful thing. The website comes up on the screen. www. crowd. church. Chris is still here. Legend. Welcome, Chris. Good to have you on the live stream, man.
And come meet Chris in the Wednesday night Zoom groups, like I say, more information at Crowd Church, or you can find out more on social media at Crowd Church. But if you reach out to us either through the website or through social media we will just, we'll send you the links. It'd be good to see you in there.
Absolutely. Yeah, anything else from you?
Sharon Edmundson: Yeah, you can include prayer requests as well. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. We pray in the week for you.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Ah, close your ear, . You can [00:52:00] also WhatsApp them in the number for the WhatsApp is on the website. You can WhatsApp your prayer requests in. We would love to hear from you.
We do pray whenever people send prayer requests in. So yeah, do send them in. We'd love to, we'd love to pray for you guys because we just, God answers prayer. What can I say, especially when we pray because we are his favorites. Just pointing that out. Just joking. Just joking. I'm just joking.
We're all his favorites. But I'm his most favourite. So if Nicola was watching now Where's Nicola in the comments? I need Nicola. Giving me grief. So that's it from us. If, like I say, any questions do reach out to us. We'd love to answer them for you. Yeah, Hardlines LFC. Yeah, thanks for that. Spoiler alert, Liverpool did not win today.
And played really badly from the little bits that I saw. And it's so disappointing. Yeah, I'm gonna go away and cry now. It is what it is. Jack Mariner will be happy. Jack's the new[00:53:00] guy he's going to become the new pastor at Frontline, so he's going to be really happy, isn't he? Let's go give him some grief because, we can.
Listen, thank you so much for joining. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. I will see you next week. You'll see them, in a couple of weeks. A few weeks time, maybe. A few weeks time. So thank you for joining us. Thanks for bearing with us. God bless you. We'll see you. Bye for now.
Thank you so much for joining us here on Crowd Church. Now if you are watching on YouTube make sure you hit the subscribe button as well as that little tiny bell notification to get notified the next time we are live. And of course If you are listening to the podcast the live stream podcast, make sure you also hit the follow button.
Now, by smashing the like button on YouTube or writing a review on your podcast platform, it helps us reach more people with the message. that Jesus really does help us live a more meaningful and purposeful [00:54:00] life. So if you haven't done so already, be sure to check out our website www. crowd. church where you can learn more about us as a church, more about the Christian faith, and also how to connect into our church community.
It has been Awesome to connect with you and you are awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear and hopefully we'll see you next time. That's it from us. God bless you.