Trinity Church

Going forward in God

2009-10-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar
God has been causing us to examine the foundation of our lives. But the message we are receiving over and over again is that we now need to turn away from those things which are behind, to give and receive forgiveness, and to go forward in His will for our lives.
Last weekend we looked at how God has been clearly speaking both through Charles Green and through David Matthews. It's a particular truth about what it means to forgive, to be forgiven, to move on, not to look back but to go forward.
Charles Green referred to "forgetting those things which are behind". David Matthews talked about not concentrating on the Poll of Bethesda, but on Jesus Christ Himself.
The end result of the ministry of Jesus was that He gave Himself for the sin of the world, and broke the power of sin. He did something which would allow Jan and her team to stand in front of soldiers, who have known nothing else by the power of a gun and a need to kill. If ever a situation had darkness brought light into it, that was one.
Maybe you think, "It's all very well reaching out across the nations. What about me?" This morning Jesus wants to speak to you.
Luke 9:57-58 (show/hide)
There's a place for foxes and birds to live, but the Son of Man ... where does He live?
Luke 9:59-60 (show/hide)
It's just as relevant to us, what God wants to do through your life in Brentwood as it is for other people who have gone to foreign countries. The bottom line is, "Whatever you want me to do, wherever you want me to go ..." I'm available for whatever you want to do in my life.
At this time, God is causing each one of us not only to examine the foundation of our life, but after that examination to move forward with what He wants us to do. The enemy of our souls wants to keep us so much in self-examination that we don't move forward. Jan says how now she sees that things in her past were a preparation.What has God done in your life to date?
For some of the people Jesus was talking to, they were attracted to Jesus – "I'll follow you wherever you go."
Luke 9:61-62 (show/hide)
"Family is where it's at. Let me sort this out, and then I'll follow you."
Once you've put your hand to the plough, and got underway, the only way you'll get a straight furrow is if you keep your eyes fixed on the destination. If you look back, you'll wander and go in different directions.
Last weekend and today we've heard God speaking to us. "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
This is what Jesus said. Let's remind ourselves of what He did.
John 12:26-27 (show/hide)
There's self examination if you want it! We tend to forget that when Jesus spoke of putting your hand to the plough, in His own life He worked it out. But His soul was troubled.
John 12:27 (show/hide)
There are some sitting here who think that their life is a treadmill, and they're trapped. The enemy is saying "All those years were wasted. It's time you got out of the treadmill." And the result is a paralysis.
Here we have Jesus talking about things. But by God's Holy Spirit, Jesus lives in us, and as a Christian I want to go forward fulfilling His purposes in my life.
The moment Jesus spoke these words, a voice came from heaven :-
John 12:27-33 (show/hide)
Lifted up on a cross, giving His life so that the power of forgiveness reigns supreme – forgiveness for anyone who lives contrary to God's way, for anyone who, by sin, has wronged the living God.
God who, "gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
Don't speak to me of a treadmill! It's a life going forward with joy to fulfil the works He has set before you. What is this idea of a treadmill, that the enemy of the soul has put in your minds?
Hebrews 12:1-2 (show/hide)
We've looked at what Jesus said and did. The resurrection powerfully dealt with all the power of sin, in such a way that we live a different life. Let us lay aside every weight – sin. Let us lay aside every weight.
What causes some to feel burdened, to feel shackled, to be people looking forward in such a way that you don't know how you're going cope – "What's happening to me?" The enemy causes you to swirl about in your thoughts, and the end result is you do nothing.
Come on! Let us lay aside every weight. I'm not going to think that way. If you're running in a race you make sure there are no encumbrances.
What's our destination? Who are we looking at? We're looking to Jesus in the sense that He's the author and finisher of our faith. What does Jesus have for you to do in your life in Brentwood at this time?
Jesus Christ is the one whom we serve, love, with whom we are open and transparent, and it's Father's will in our life that we do this.
Is doing Father's will a treadmill? The complete opposite. Doing Father's will simply means we're open and sensitive to what God wants to do through us to make an impact in this earth. And it's as real in Brentwood as in Dafur.
The enemy would make you think that the wonderful things we've heard about don't happen here. "I've been so caught up with self-examination that I don't know the way forward." But here is the way forward :-
Hebrews 12:1-2 (show/hide)
Later in chapter 12 we have this :-
Hebrews 12:25-27 (show/hide)
There's a shaking going on. And its purpose is to reveal the foundation of your life – Jesus Christ. I'm going to do what He thinks, fulfil His purpose. Things fall away until ...
Hebrews 12:28-29 (show/hide)
The challenge of this morning from Jan, and from what we've just read, and from what we heard last week ... is that in our shaking we wake up to what God wants to do through us. And we'll fulfil His purpose and do what He wants and think the way He wants us to think.
He's a wonderful saviour, and He's been faithful to each one of us.
If you just look ... just close your eyes. Look inside, and just think to yourself how faithful God has been to you. Think back just for this moment at how careful He's been to bring you to this point in time when we can be free to say, "How faithful You have been to me. There hasn't been a day when You haven't been there. There hasn't been a time, even when I've felt washed up on a beach ... You've been faithful."
We thank You that we can acknowledge how faithful You've been and will be. We thank You for Your goodness to each one of us. I thank You that by the power of Your Holy Spirit, it doesn't matter who is here ...

Forget those things that are behind

2009-10-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar
It doesn't matter what anyone says, we focus on Jesus Christ. We need to forget those things behind and press towards the mark of the high calling in Jesus and we don't go back.
As we go forward, and as we lift up his name, and as we get used to the openness of sharing our faith that God has given us, so it will be that others will discover the life of Jesus Christ and who he is, for themselves.
Without God, without his life inside by the power of his holy sprit, there's nothing. There's an attempt to get the answer for Christ. There's an attempt to fill up that emptiness inside but you haven't. Inside it is only Jesus inside, that sets them free.
Acts 3:1-11 (show/hide)

1 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.
2 And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;
3 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.
4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.
5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.
6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
7 And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.
8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God:
10 And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.
11 And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering.

It dawned on Peter that the holy spirit, the spirit of truth and power, to be a witness was inside him. And God in the way he worked things out, caused that man to be a living testimony.
Acts 4:13 (show/hide)
Acts 4:14-22 (show/hide)
If you're a Christian here tonight, we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.
Acts 5:17-18 (show/hide)
They had to act. There was no way they could shut these people up. And they thought right we'll put them in prison'. Don't think that only happened then. Jesus Christ is alive today; he's a miracle working God. It's the same God, the same father, the same holy spirit.
And they put them in prison.
Acts 5:19-20 (show/hide)
"All the words of this life". What are we talking about here? We're talking about the difference between life and death. "Tell them all the words of this life". In your life, what God is going to be doing more than you've ever seen before, is create those opportunities where you will share with someone or other, or someone will come to your mind. Why? Because God's alive. Because he's building his church because that's why he died and rose again. He died for the sin of the whole world.
The angel was definitive: "Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life."
Acts 5:21-33 (show/hide)
Acts 3:14-15 (show/hide)
The Jesus Christ who is inside you and caught your attention and made you stop going this way; he's shown you his salvation, and you're walking the other way; it's chalk and cheese. I think we sometimes underestimate what is going on in our lives.
Acts 5:33-39 (show/hide)
You can't overthrow what God does. You can't stand in the way of his purposes. You can't overthrow something which God has initiated. The work that God has started in your life, he's going to complete. He doesn't take you on and then just leave you. Not at all! That which he starts, he finishes. His whole life, 30 years, and then the 3 years, when he gave up his life on the cross, it was as if that was it; failure! Ah, but his mission was complete. And yet, when he rose from the dead, he conquered death and sin in your life, he conquered the power of death and by his holy spirit, the prince of life is alive, right here, tonight. And that which he begins he completes. If it be of God, Gamaliel said, you can't overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.
Acts 5:40 (show/hide)
Don't think "I've done my bit for God." Not at all.
Acts 5:41-42 (show/hide)
Who is it God is bringing across your path? God has given you the faith to give to others, anyone that God draws across your path. No way did they sit down and think "that's it". They didn't pray for the opposition to be silenced, they prayed for more boldness! What is that foundation? It's Him. Wow, so if he's my foundation, he has purposes for me to walk into. He has good things for me to walk into and I want to do what he wants in my life. And I want to be committed to his word.
They rejoiced, that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
No greater love hath no man than he who lays down his life for his friends.
He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He intercedes for us at the right hand of God and he always will do. There is coming a time that Jesus is coming for his people and his church.
What God has started in your life he is going to complete. And what God has placed in your life, life itself, he is going to use you to be the channel to reach out to others. Don't ever think "Well, he can't be saved." No! When he hung on the cross, he thought "You weren't too bad or an impossibility for him to reach to." He took into himself everything that would oppose your going forward in life. He took away everything that would thwart you from being a person that would outwork his purposes in his life.

My Spiritual GPS

2009-10-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Rev Charles Green

Through the years you get familiar with God and his word and there seems to be one defining portion of scripture that in the midst of trials and test, you find yourself wanting something short and snappy and fits all circumstances.

Colossians 1:19-22 (show/hide)

19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell,

20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled

22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

Tonight I stand in a position of grace bacause God loves me.

Paul the apostle changed his whole view about everything after he met Jesus Christ on the Damascus road. He was a man who was against God and the church. He went into people's houses and sent people to prison. He was on his way to persecute Christians. He was actively against what God is doing. But when he was n the road, he said he saw a light brighter than the noon day sun. He heard a voice saying "Saul, why do you persecute me" and he heard these words "I am Jesus, whom you persecute". This was one who had actively worked against God. It does not take him 6 hours or 6 days or 6 minutes. He instantly said "what will you have me do, Lord?" Instantly, everything was changed.

I believe that everyone of us at this moment, we need a touch from God that will instantly begin to change our life, our sense of direction, everything about us. I wake up early in the morning and I walk through the house and I start saying "God what would you have me do today?" It's like I'm asking for my instructions. I would have a spiritual GPS, "What am I going to do today".

I'm sitting on a plane and I say, "What will be my assignment today?" I get people saved sitting next to me.

You have an assignment every day you wake up. It's time for you to say "God, I'm read for duty."

Philippians 3:7-14 (show/hide)

Simply stated, Paul is saying "All of the things that I treasured before I met Christ, became absolutely like nothing. I counted them loss in order to have Christ in my life." We have many things that we count as valuable and we just stand on something that we think is right. "That's our right, that's our position". Paul had everything in the natural going for him but in one moment in time he was instantly willing to give that all alone. I was not only willing to call them loss but also for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Not just a casual knowing of Christ Jesus.

Paul said I pushed everything away for the excellency of the knowledge; not just a casual understanding. Whatever it takes he says...it takes my wealth, my human knowledge my reputation. Whatever it takes, I count it all as loss, if I can only have Christ in my life. He is saying to them but also to us, "What I really want in my life more than anything else, is the righteousness of God." If you have God's righteousness in your life, you are the luckiest person in all the ages.

My life has been a marvellous life, but the greatest thing in the world is that I have one Christ in my life. In my life, the most important thing, is I have found Christ. I found Christ just by believing him and trusting him.

It was so real to me when I met God. Even in my teenage years and when I put on my uniform for my country and went out to Texas, God was with me then. I witnessed to people when I was there, I helped people. I sang in the middle of the storm. I walked with God every step of the way. Every step of the way, everywhere I have gone, God has been in my life.

Paul wanted to know everything about God.

Philippians 3:10-13 (show/hide)

This one thing I do... I don't have to jump through any religious hoops... forgetting... and that's hard to do. Your only hope is in the ability to forget. It isn't easy to forget. WE have to forget the past and forget your mistakes, failures and sins and the stuff that nobody else knows about you, except God. But the most important thing that you and I have to forget is our bitterness. We have to forget the bitterness. And the only way in the world to get over bitterness is to tell God that we're willing to become like waste; we're willing to become absolutely nothing except what god wants us to be. But God I am willing to lay down the bitterness in my life.

When I was a young man, I belonged to a religious organisation which was the only one that I had ever known. I grew up with these people. I grew up knowing them like I know a lot of you but better. I grew up with them as children, and they suddenly began to say things about me which were only not true, but they were highly inflammatory.

If you want to change things in your life, it starts with you confessing that you're not doing everything right and you're not acting everything right. And the first thing you say is "God, forgive me. And I confess that I've acted in a way that is against you."

You can't pick out the ones that will be destroyed by bitterness. What do you do? You do what I did long ago. First of all you say "God I have been bitter. Forgive me." The very moment that I stopped saying those hateful things about those who had said horrible things about me, it was as if God Almighty blew a horn and told everyone, "Charles Green has repented. Stop talking about him." It was if there was a sign put in the heavens. From that moment until this, I have never heard of other words that they said about me.

You don't have to go back and act like you did before, but you do have to say God I'm not going to be bitter anymore. You won't ever be what you used to be, but whatever God wants you to be in the future, you will be. We can take our past and give it to Him. Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth to those things which are before.

When we reach forth, we must not do it casually. Paul said I am pressing towards the calling. When we reach out, let there be a push towards the future. The objective that God has for us is that prize, far more than that peace prize that Obama got.

Did you know that we have a higher calling?

God is a God of Judgdement

2009-10-11T02:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar

God is a God of judgement, but He is also a God of mercy. We must not have a heart like Jonah, harbouring bitterness and resentment against those who we feel God should have punished. God, by His Holy Spirit, is a faithful witness, and you know if you have bitterness inside. You need to hear God's call, forgive and repent. If you turn, as the Ninevites did when they heeded God's words, God will be merciful.

Peter Hall from Cancer Research

It is lovely to worship and share with you all at Trinity here. It is my first visit here and I was struck by the warmth. I'm here to share with you some really good news.

I want to share about my journey and why I am working about Cancer Research UK now. Who are Cancer Research UK? We are actually a relatively new organisation. We came out as a result of a merger between two cancer research organisations, who were doing a very good job but were actually working against each other. Through the merger we have an increased financial support system so that, this year, we were able to spend a lot of money on research. World class research makes a huge difference.

In the 50s, 60s and even 70s, if you were diagnosed with cancer, the prognosis was not good. I am pleased to say that now, the average 10 year survival rate has doubled in the last 30 years. And the number of people who die from cancer has fallen by 13% in the last ten years. Part of Cancer Research UK is to celebrate with those who have overcome cancer. Over 8 out of 10 children, diagnosed with leukaemia, now survive. The death rate from bowel cancer has fallen by over a fifth in the last decade, and the death rate from lung cancer in men has fallen by a quarter in the last ten years. All this is only made possible by Cancer Research UK. In short, there will be people walking around your community today, who are alive because of the research we have done.

But people ask why we have not completely cured the disease, if we are spending so much money on it? The problem is that there are over 200 different types of cancer. We are all living for longer these days, and thanks to the NHS, more cancers are being picked up earlier. The incidence of cancer is actually predicted to increase, but that is simply because cancer will be diagnosed more often.

I work full-time for the charity, and when I wake up in the morning, I think that I am going to save lives today. Although things are getting better, we can't be complacent.

Just to finish, I want to share with you how I survived cancer. I was diagnosed as terminally ill from 1999 – 2001. I received care at a Christian hospice near the end of my struggle. At that time, although I was aware of Jesus in my life, I didn't have a full experience with Him. But, although I didn't know it, He was near me, and I know that now. I very much believe in miracles. But while I'm here on earth I am going to do what I can to save lives and give people hope for the future.

Chibugo Okafor

I'm going to talk about what made me want to join Cancer Research UK. Prior to my joining, my family was affected by cancer, and this, although it was a great emotional blow for us, made me think about volunteering. So, I looked at the Cancer Research UK website and saw that I could volunteer as a public speaker. I love speaking to people, so this really attracted me, particularly since I wanted to help and give hope to people affected by cancer..

Cancer Research UK has shown me that there is actually hope for people with cancer. I think joining Cancer Research UK was actually one of the most fulfilling things I have done, so I would really encourage you to be a part of it.

Pastor Linnecar

For those who were here last weekend and on Friday, I think it has become apparent to you that the book of Jonah is entirely about the salvation of God. There are certain themes within this book which God wants us to think about today. There are only 48 verses in the book of Jonah, but throughout God is mentioned many times, it is one of the most 'God' referenced books in the Bible.

In chapters 1 and 2 it refers to the fact that Jonah was called by God to preach to Nineveh: "Arise, go to Nineveh and cry against it for their wickedness if come up before me." This is an historical book, these things happened. After Jonah was called, his reaction was that there was no way he was going to go there; instead, he was going to in the opposite direction. He opted to go down to the sea port of Joppa and set on his way to go as far as he could away from Nineveh.

Previously, there had been an occasion where Jonah had told a man called, jeroboam, what God had told him to say. But, in this situation with the Ninevites, he refused to do what God told him to. There was, from his decision to disobey, a sequence of going down and down. When the great storm came, the crew of the ship cried out to the their gods. They figured out that there was something wrong because the storm had come about too suddenly. So, the captain of the crew went down to Jonah and asked him to call upon his God. Lots were drawn to see who was the cause of the storm, and the lot fell upon Jonah. His reaction to this was interesting. Even though he refused to go to the Ninevites, he told the crew to throw him into the sea, in order to calm the sea. He knew that the tempest was to do with his disobedience to God. The crew threw Jonah into the sea, and the downward spiral continued as he went down into the depths of the sea

There is something about someone who decides that they have had enough. God organises things in such a way, for that person, so that they come to themselves, as Jonah did in the fish's belly, and call upon God. Throughout Jonah's prayer, when he was in the whale, we can see how he knows that, regardless of how far he went down, God was still with him.

However, in Jonah's heart, something was still not quite right. There are some sitting here this morning, where God in His mercy and His love and has kept bringing you back to square one. What is that question? The question to some of you is: "You can trust me." You may seem so confident in your life without God, but actually if you're honest in your heart, you know your only solution is God Himself. Why has He got you to that situation? Because He loves you. We are going to see in a moment about the judgement and holiness of God, but we are going to see more about the mercy of God. God wants us, as we go through our lives, to be mercy.

Jonah's prayer in chapter 2 shows that God answers in spite of how guilty we might feel. It shows how God answers to win our loyalty and thanks and He answers to make us merciful like Him.

Jon 3:1-3

I read on Friday about the experience of a sailor who was swallowed by a whale in 1891. He was swallowed by a whale for two days. He could easily breathe inside the whale, but the heat was terrible. He recovered fully however, although his skin became bleached from the enzymes in the whale.

In Nineveh at that time they worshipped a god who was half-man half-fish. There is no doubt in my mind that Jonah, now possibly bleached, came to the Ninevites in a form that the people already believed in. They believed in a half-man half-fish that came out of the sea, so the people would have taken heed of what Jonah said.

Jon 3:3

So Nineveh was a great city, excavations suggested that it was seven miles across. In fact, one reason why Jonah didn't want to go there, was because there another prophet, Amos, who had said that the Syrians were going to conquer the Israelites.

Jon 3:4

That was it. His appearance convinced them. The words that he said, yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown, were powerful. In this post-modern age you can forget that God is a God of judgement. I just want to read to you what Jesus said:

Jn 5:25-30

There is coming a day when we will be judged as to what we have done with our lives. God is a God of love and His judgement will be just. I want you to realise, particularly those of you in the age bracket of 15-30: you can't mess about with sin. There is a consequence to making choices in life and going the wrong way. There will come a day when we will be judged. When Jonah spoke these words to Nineveh, he knew that God was just and had every right to judge the Ninevites.

That cuts across someone who says that they have had enough of God. If I were to talk to you, in the night when you begin to think about things, you know that the way you are living is wrong. I am merely confirming what you already know in your heart because God is a faithful witness.

Jon 3:5-9

The King was someone who heard, directly from Jonah, that he had to change his ways. Once he did, all the people followed suit, determined to change.

Jon 3:10

It isn't that God is evil, that is simply phraseology to say that He had every right to judge them in that way. They repented and God, effectively, saved them. This is now something I would say: God is closer than you think, He hears your thoughts. If you were here with God alone, you would in all honesty, say that you know you have been going wrong and need to change. God is faithful in His voice to you, in speaking about the way you are living. This morning you can turn inside to God. it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, or what pride you might have in admitting you need to turn; you need to turn.

Jonah couldn't believe what God did.

Jon 4:1-3

He couldn't stand that God let people off and showed them mercy. Sometimes we can get so bound up with the wrong that someone has done, possibly against us, that we see everything in a negative way because we are angry at God for letting us down and now judging them.

Jon 4:4-5

What had happened to this guy? He was a prophet of God but was no completely paralysed with anger at God. He was waiting for God to deal with the people. He was resentful at the mercy God had showed.

It is interesting that when Peter asked Jesus: 'how often should I forgive my brother, seven times?' Jesus told him that it should not be seven times, but 490 times. Jesus then spoke a parable about the man who was forgiven, but then throttled another who owed him a debt. If you are sitting here with resentment at God for what He has not done to someone and refuse to forgive, the person who has done you wrong still has power over you. Jonah was gripped by that, and when Jesus spoke to the disciples about forgiveness, they could not believe it. When they witnessed the crucifixion, some were looking wondering why Jesus, who could with a word have freed Himself, kept silent.

God is trying to help Jonah now:

Jon 4:4-6

So he was up here waiting for the city to be bombed, and God prepared this gourd, which was some sort of plant, to come out of nowhere to shield him from the sun. He probably knew that this was a miracle and that God had provided it. I wonder if it made him think again? I don't think it did.

Jon 4:7-8

That is the second time in this chapter he has said this.

Jon 4:9-11

We are not told what Jonah then thought. Inside he knew it was God who had established the God, and that it was God who had taken it down. God asked him, 'don't you think these people deserve to be spared for their repentance?' It is possible to have the mindset of Jonah in our lives; it is not good. You know as well as I do that in Hebrews 12 it say: "Follow peace with all men. Because bitterness is a root that springs up and defiles many." If you let bitterness remain inside you, you are paralysed. Everything from then on will be viewed in a warped way, because of the way your mind is set without forgiveness in your heart. We have heard a lot about love lately. The key thing about love is that love involves forgiveness.

Lk 13:10-14

Why is that evidence of a Jonah spirit? Because the rule book overrules mercy, love and forgiveness. It got to Jesus because He said this now:

Lk 13:15-17

It is the same phraseology which God used when He spoke to Jonah. Here the ruler of the synagogue told Jesus that He could not heal on the Sabbath day. So the prioritisation was the ruler book, and the vindictiveness of the rule book overriding helping another.

Lk 11:29-32

That is quite something. There is a direct link from Jonah to Jesus. If you are a visitor here and you have wondered about Christianity. I want to confirm to you that God, by His Holy Spirit, is speaking to you because of His mercy and love. There is a way out of the darkness that you have tried and failed to overcome. You may think that that is it, but it is not. In due time Christ died for the ungodly, that there was answer for the darkness of sin. As far as Jonah was concerned, all he had to do was allow the workings of God to operate in His heart.

Today God has brought this word to us. It is for all of us to take heed. A greater than Jonah is here right now in this hall. It seems odd that everything revolves around Him, even our calendar. Jesus Christ is where is at as far as life is concerned. Everyone needs to be a right relationship with Him. We have to be honest with ourselves, if we have harboured bitterness in our heart; we will be paralysed going forward. A greater than Jonah is here, we need to hear His call.

Jonah and the Whale

2009-10-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar

As soon as Jonah decided to set his will against God he went down, as far as the depths of the sea. But, after he had been in the belly of the whale for three days and nights, he cried out to the Lord in his distress and the Lord heard him. God is a merciful God, He answers prayers. If you cry out to God and realise that you are totally dependent on Him, He will hear you and He will answer.

Jonah was a prophet, he had been faithful to deliver the word of God in the type of Jeroboam the 11. But when God spoke to him again, he did not obey but when in completely the opposite direction from Nineveh, where God had sent him.

Jon 4:2

Jonah knew the character of God and he didn't want to deliver God's message because he didn't think God would treat the Ninevites as he thought they should be treated. We saw last weekend how he had crossed the sea, in order to go the opposite way to Nineveh, but during their journey on the sea a storm had arisen, and it had only stopped when Jonah had been cast into the sea. When the lots were taken Jonah knew that he had to be thrown over the side for the sake of the sailors. It is strange that he was not willing to go to Nineveh, but he was willing to be thrown overboard and risk his life for the sailors.

It is interesting to note that since chapter 2 he went 'down', eventually going 'down' to the depths of the sea.

We are going to see how God answers the problems in our lives at the right time for His purposes to be fulfilled.

Jon 1:17

There are examples of other people who had been swallowed by a large fish. One species of fish, the Seadog, is found in all warm seas and in 1578 a sailor was swallowed by one. The captain of the vessel ordered a canon to be fired at the fish, once this was done the fish vomited up the sailor and he was unharmed. Again, another sailor was swallowed by another fish for 48 hours. The whale was harpooned and brought back to the ship and the sailor was retrieved from the whale; after two weeks he recovered fully. These are a few examples of what happened without God. We are talking about what happened to Jonah according to God's purposes.

I wanted to show these examples to make the point that this is a historical story, not just an allegory as some theologians argue. I want to look at what Jesus said about this:

Lk 11:29-36

There's Jesus specifically referring to the story of Jonah and to the fact that what happened to him with Nineveh were true. Elsewhere it refers to 'as he was three days and three nights in the great whale'. The last part of what I just read is to do with a lighted candle not being in a secret place. When Jonah was in the whale it was God that had caused the storm and that he prepared the whale. It was God all the way through who was preparing the way for His purposes to be fulfilled; His purposes were of mercy. God wanted to give Nineveh the chance to repent, even though they did not deserve it. Jonah was the man to go to Nineveh in order that they might repent, and so, God prepared the way for him.

Jesus says here that there is a greater than Jonah here, His name is Jesus. The three days from the cross to the resurrection is greater than the sign of Jonah. Don't be in a secret place as Christian, or someone who has a compromised position about the way you go about things as a Christian.

"No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light."

Some people have asked me this week 'what is God doing?'. He is shaking things so that we might all go together, growing in our relationship with God. You can't be a Christian in a dark room, you're a light, and a light it to provide the means for those who are in the darkness that they can be different. When Jesus died on the cross and three days later rose from the dead, the reason was because you can't keep a light in the grave. Death, where is your victory?

I just want to be briefly look at the prayer that Jonah prayed:

Jon 2:1-2

Everything had gone wrong for Jonah. It might be your sitting here thinking that you don't know how you're going to sort through the circumstances you are in. Jesus Christ is in control, God knows what He is doing in your life, even if you can't see the solution. What matters is the attitude you take to circumstances. Don't be bitter, just have complete dependency on God. God loves it when you realise that you have nothing else, only total dependency on Him.

Jon 2:3-4

It doesn't matter how guilty you might feel, God answers in spite of your guilt. It doesn't matter what judgement you think God should give you, if you cry out to God and turn to Him in your heart, He will answer. He has made a way for you. Why is it those things have happened to you? Because God wants to get hold of you, because He loves you. Each stage is carefully orchestrated. Jonah realised this. He had gone down to Joppa, down to the ship, down to the depths.

Jon 2:5-6

God answers in the most impossible of circumstances. If you don't respond to what God is speaking to you about He has every right not to continue with you. There is a day of judgement. So why aren't you responding? I know there are a few here to night to whom God is speaking specifically through this story. He went down, yet 'has thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.'

Jon 2:7

Rom 5:6

This sign of Jonah was nothing compared to Jesus. Those three days between Calvary and the resurrection was for you. This is not a theory, or some vague idea, it is for you. It is the difference between darkness and light.

Jon 2:8

If you trust in anything else but God you are forsaking the mercy that He has for you.

Jon 2:8-9

The moment Jonah said that, in verse 10, the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. God answers, in stages sometimes, but He answers. He answers to win our undivided loyalty and thanks. God helps us to make us become merciful like Him. Where are we at in our lives tonight? What are the circumstances of our lives like? The end result for each one of us is that God, a God of love and of grace, has a heart to redeem mankind; that is why Jesus came. We don't need to live in the hell of sin, we can live in the glory of the holiness, the righteousness, of Christ.

Jonah, why are you going to Tarshish? Well, actually I'm running away from God. But why would you want to do that? I can't be bothered, if He wants to do what He wants that is fine, but I have done my bit already. What a change when he says: "I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD."

Jon 3:1

A Prepared Walk

2009-10-04T02:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar

The foundation that God has made will result in things being done for his glory. This short story in the Old Testament about Jonah has so much in it that it could be placed in the New Testament. It's all to do with the power of God that can change a life. God's heart is for you and for me to come and be reconciled to him. There needs to be a change in an individual. It could be that you're in a Christian country, but you wouldn't say you were a Christian. You may have postponed your dealing with God. There are elements in this story that are completely relevant to you and me right now.

Jonah 1:1-3 (show/hide)

Nineveh was an evil place. I'm not sure what the modern equivalent would be, but I suppose it was the red light district of any major city. It was also the capital city of Assyria, the enemy of Israel. Jonah knew that God was asking him to go to the very place where he thought the people needed the judgment of God. In his heart, as far as Nineveh was concerned, they were going to get what they deserved under the law, and there was no way they were going to change. When God told him to go to Nineveh, he could not bring himself to do what God said.

It's imperative that we are open to who God wants to reach in his mercy and love. We must not write anybody off. As far as Jonah ws concerned, in his heart there was prejudice, racism, everything against the people of Nineveh. In this book we can see something of God's heart and how he views people.

Isaiah 42:1-10 (show/hide)

It wasn't just the Jewish nation, it was the Gentiles as well. He has a heart of love for mankind. He doesn't want us to be going nowhere, or to be gripped with sin inside. What God wants us to look at is something which will release you inside to be the person God wants you to be.

When Jonah was told to go to Nineveh, he knew that God's heart was to speak to the people of Nineveh, and he could not cope with it. It says that he went from the presence of the Lord; that's not a good thing to do. God sovereignly intervenes in people's lives. Jonah would rather have been a nobody in Tarshish than someone in God's ministry in Nineveh.

Do you know what God has spoken to you about? Are you pushing him away? Would you rather be a nobody?

Jonah 1:4-6 (show/hide)

Jonah thought that by going in the opposite way to God wanted, he could flee God's presence. What he didn't realise was that God by his spirit had spoken inside him, and he was taking that voice with him. It's not possible to hide from God, because his love is greater than you.

Psalm 89:9 (show/hide)

Matthew 8:23-27 (show/hide)

God controls everything. He has the power to organise things so that he will get your attention because of his love for you. As far as Jonah was concerned, he thought that he was just sailing away from what God wanted. There was a niggle inside even yet.

Are you asleep, spiritually? Did you get involved with God at the start, but have now stepped back? It's not good for any of us to be going away from what God wants us to do.

Jonah thought that once he was on the ship, he would be on his way to Tarshish and as far away from God as possible. But he didn't know what God was going to do out of his love not only for Jonah but also for the people of Nineveh.

Jonah 1:5-10 (show/hide)

He was open about the fact that he was running away from God. He thought he had done his bit in speaking to Jereboam, and that was it. When the lots were cast and sailor by sailor was eliminated, it narrowed down to Jonah. He knew that it was God who had nailed it.

Jonah 1:11-12 (show/hide)

Jonah didn't fully clock into the idea that he was going to fulfil God's will for him. He knew the only answer for these people was that he was thrown into the sea. He expected to die. He was prepared to die for the sailors in the ship because he wanted the ship to be saved. He knew the storm was because of him. He was prepared for them to be saved but he didn't want Nineveh to be saved. They were beyond being saved, in his mind.

We should never harbour things against someone or a group of people. We shouldn't resent people and think they should get what they deserve to get. That's not the way of God.

Jonah 1:13-15 (show/hide)

Sometimes the things in life that we experience is God trying to get our attention. He loves you. Sometimes we are so asleep and outside of things that it takes trials for God to get our attention.

When they threw him in the sea, they knew that was it.

Jonah 1:16 (show/hide)

Acts 27:22-25 (show/hide)

He was totally in communion with God. The storm was raging all around, but Paul related to the crew his faith in what God had told him. He knew that they would be safe.

What has God put his finger on in your life recently? Each one of us, if we look in the circumstances of life that we're in, behind them is a God of love and a God who communicates with us.

We need to reach out. When was the last time that you brought someone to church? God is changing our heart to reach out more than we have ever done before. For each person, we need to learn from the experience of Jonah. Stop running away from what you know is right. God has his hand on your life. What he wants to do is to reach through you to others. In our hearts, if we harbour bad attitudes towards people, we have blocked everything that God wants to do.

Ephesians 2:10 (show/hide)

Individually, and as a group, we need to be awake, alert and sensitive. Be open to people you work with. It could be that there is someone who needs the answer that you have in Jesus Christ. Are you open? Are you awake? Or are you in the depths of the ship being carried to goodness knows where? God has prepared good works for you and I to do. They are before ordained, that we should walk in them.

What we need to do

2009-10-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar

When Jesus was on earth, it was important for him to relay to us what we needed to do.

Mark 16:14-18 (show/hide)

We need to aim to witness God by his Holy Spirit draw people we know into his kingdom. We should see people as God sees them, not with our prejudices. When Jesus said this to his disciples at the end of his life, it was real.

Matthew 28:18-20 (show/hide)

This was a command from Jesus. He knew the Holy Spirit was about to be given, and he knew that those disciples would have the power inside to witness to others of Jesus Christ. And that includes you and me. During the years of Jesus' preaching, there were those who couldn't stomach what was going on.

Matthew 12:38 (show/hide)

They weren't sincere, but this was the question they threw out.

Matthew 12:39-50 (show/hide)

For you and I to be linked as brothers in Christ, the key part is to do the will of the father in our lives. God in his mercy wants you to hear this.

Here Jesus referred to the sign of Jonah. As I have looked at the book of Jonah it is as though it should be in the New Testament. It is all about forgiveness and grace. People look at things in a way that doesn't bring glory to Jesus Christ. There are people who insist on condemning others to a Christless eternity because they don't have forgiveness to those people, and don't think they could ever become a Christian. Jonah couldn't stomach it that God was going to forgive the people of Nineveh.

Jesus was very aware of who Jonah was. His birthplace was within two miles of Nazareth, and all that region knew about Jonah. Nineveh was the pits; it was too evil for God to forgive, so it was thought.

A greater than Jonah is here. Are you going to change? Is it going to be different for you?

Sometimes we don't understand what is happening. Things might be going wrong in our lives, but what God is doing, is fulfilling his purposes in his time, in his way, for his glory. That applies to you in your life.

Luke 11:29-32 (show/hide)

Jesus Christ lives inside you, and he's all-powerful, all-knowing. He has conquered death. He is alive. As we go forward as a church, I guarantee to you that you will witness the power of God keeping you. Our dependence is totally on him. salvation is of the Lord. I know that what's happening at the moment in your life is happening because God is revealing more of himself to you. There will come a time soon – it might even be happening tonight – when you will know that God is sorting everything out for good.

2 Kings 14:23-27 (show/hide)

Here is a man who knew the word of the Lord. At some point in his life, God speaks to him again.

Jonah 1:1-3 (show/hide)

Who is God speaking to you about tonight? It is God who initiates everything to his glory.

You can't get more opposite than Nineveh to Tarshish, 1,000 miles away. He was not going to do it. Nineveh was the enemy, they had been tormenting Israel.

When God speaks and you know that he's a true and faithful witness, we need to obey. When we think about other people who are in desperate need of a saviour, and who are in need to come to darkness into his glorious light, what we must not do is write off anyone. What we must not do is harbour in our hearts something that tells them they deserve what they get. That isn't God's heart. God's way is one where he will fulfil his purposes of grace, love and truth. He's the God of judgment, but there was a window of opportunity that came to the people of Nineveh that God wanted Jonah to deliver.

Psalm 23:6 (show/hide)

It's not time to flee from the presence of the Lord. It's not time for us to get out of focus. The time now is for us to be more focussed than we have ever been before on the Lord.

Love one another as I have loved you

2009-09-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

By Garold Anderson

Love one another as I have loved you. The world will know that we are Christians by the love that we show to one another. We have a hope and a future in Him.

Kent Hodge

It's been a very nice time. We are starting a school called Christian Faith Academy. It is for the preschool age. They interviewed yesterday and we have chosen two staff. It is great to be a part of what God is doing there.

Esther Hodge

Susie and I are medical students in London and as part of that year we spend a couple of months working in a hospital somewhere else in the world. So we decided to go to Jos. We went to a hospital called Faith Alive Foundation, which is in central Jos, pretty near to where the riots happened last November. It provides free services to Muslims and Christians. It was started by a Nigerian who trained in a prestigious hospital in America, but God told him to go back to Nigeria, and so He obeyed. He started a clinic and offered medicine and counselling for people with HIV. The main work they do there is fighting AIDS. Almost 10% of the population there have HIV. Only 3% of the people who have HIV actually get drugs to fight it and a lot of them are in Nigeria, because of this hospital. He treats people through the support of English churches and an American relief system set up by President Bush to provide AIDS relief for the people in Nigeria.

I used to think of AIDS as a bad disease because I thought it was their fault. But a lot of the people who came there were Muslim girls who were married at very young ages and had got AIDS either from their mothers or their husbands. So, it wasn't really their fault. This doctor is working so hard to help people. Every person he sees he treats as an individual and will pray for them regardless of whether they are a Christian or a Muslim. They treat them with medicine but also holistically.

Every morning at 8 o'clock they have a devotion and someone will preach to them for about half an hour from the Bible and then give a talk on how to stay healthy. One of the biggest problems out there is lack of education. Three ladies came up to me and told me that they couldn't sleep at night and they were really hot. Basically nobody had told them anything.

So first thing in the morning they preach to these people, Christians and Muslims alike. They tell them that God can heal them whether they are Christians or not. So they use the hospital to spread the Gospel as well as to treat people.

The second morning we were there I was sitting in the devotion, and Doctor Chris told me that I had to get up and preach, which I wasn't expecting at all. So I just had to get up and speak to them. I had to do that three times throughout the week. This has really taught me a lot and I am really grateful for the experience. What really struck me was the people because, regardless of what I 'd said, they'd all come up to me and encourage me. They are all so welcoming and friendly. English people I think sometimes tend to be quite judgemental, but the people there are so open and there is so much opportunity to grow there because you can get up and make a fool of yourself and they will still congratulate you afterwards.

Susie Liniker

The hospital started as a clincic. Basically it treats mostly HIV patients but there are also outpatient and pre-natal clinics. They also teach people how HIV is prevented. It was very interesting listening to the counselling sessions because the people don't know anything about their health. In one session I sat in with a lady who couldn't even read. She had the test done and it turned out negative, but the doctor had to explain what negative meant because she didn't understand it. There was another couple who had been tested a few months earlier, and it turned out that the husband was positive and she was negative. But she didn't believe it because there is period in which the virus for HIV cannot be detected. Anyway, the doctor reassured that she was negative, which was such a good thing for here because it meant that she would be able to have children free from HIV.

I haven't done anything with HIV in this country so it was good to see what they do over there. In the anti-natal sessions they encourage the husbands to get involved. They give the wife an invitation to bring the husband along because if you get the husband involved, he will be more interested in the children. The husband is very important over there because the wives actually have to ask their husbands if they can take the medicines given by the doctor. So having the doctors there means that the wives are more likely to take the medicine.

What really interested me was that this was a Christian hospital, but there were Christians there of all denominations, and they all worked together and prayed together. I think it was more a church than a hospital. They were Christians all with different backgrounds with a common goal: they wanted to reach out and help others. They come together, they have devotion and preaching in the morning, then Dr. Chris prays with his patients, then in the afternoon they pray together. So it is a church, they are group of Christians working together to help others.

We had the chance to go to other areas of the hospital, for example they have clinics outside the hospital. On the second week they had a conference for tribal leaders about preventing and treating HIV. This is very helpful because couples go to these leaders to ask if they should get married if the husband is possible, and they also ask them about using condoms. It was really interesting to see how the Christians discussed this issue.

Garold Anderson

Good morning. Well before I begin I would like to say again how wonderful it has been to be with and Laurie and I truly feel a part of this body of believer. So it's just exciting to be back again after so many years and then after our few visits with you in the last year or so.

I just want to make sure that the things I have said recently have been remembered. With the children at school, we looked at the story of the three little pigs and the building blocks of our lives. Because Jesus told a story that was like that with two people who built their houses on two different things.

I'm going to talk about a very strong building block of our lives, a strong foundation. With the Logos group we talked about a strong issue of foundation. I gave the challenge to think about these next months and take some time to pray. One of the ideas was, what is it that convinces us that God is real? And if not, what is standing in our way to be convinced? What is the foundation of our lives?

As I come to the end I will come into prayer. The building blocks of our lives is a part of what I want to talk about. I'm usually a creative person and I create many things. On Friday we did a play by someone else which was a modern day version of Adam and Eve and the breaking down of a relationship. It was a very painful story and it is at this point that I want to begin today.

The testimonies that we had from Nigeria were so fascinating and it's amazing how God really brings everything together for a Sunday service. We cannot do everything but our God can and we can work together with him.

A promise, a prayer and a command.

I want to begin with a simple prayer.

Ish and Isha, in the play that we did on Friday, it was the use of drama to convey the reality of what sin and brokeness really has done.We often read the story of Adam and Eve it often remains a story on the page. In this play, we really brought it painfully to life, with modern day people and circumstances. This is the beauty of knowing God and this is the beauty of Christianity that there is a way forward.

I want to begin with a promise.

I have been praying for this time with you and this is something God placed on my heart for us. And though this promise was spoken to the children of Israel many years agao but it can still play a part in our lives.

Jeremiah 29:11 (show/hide)

Years ago when I was much more wise than I am now, I would think about the words in scripture that were powerful: oo FAITH! And another powerful word would be LOVE. It's a soft word of God but it's love that brought Jesus to the cross. I thought hope was a weak word. I hope I can...

Listen to this, the promise: I know the plans he has for you, not for disaster..to give you a hope.

I have learnt that it is one of the strongest words in scripture.

There are things in life that happen to people; there are times when people find they have a disease in their body called HIV, Aids. And when people face these things, they lose all hope. There are times in relationships that people see no way forward and they lose all hope. There are times even in churches that we face difficulties together and we begin to lose perspective and we lose hope.

Before we can really come to the place of FAITH we've got to have hope. Hope. Ok, I want to a little theatrical exercise with you. I want you to say the word hope with me. I want you to repeat it the way I say it.

We need to know that we have a future. When we find ourselves hitting a wall and in difficult places, how do we know that we have a hope and a future. Because God is our God. God has a plan for your church and for your life. Even if you find that this church is not where you want to stay, there is a hope for me and a hope for everyone here; here is a future. We're not talking about some kind of social club, we're talking about the living body of Crhist. Whether we are here or in Nigeria or in London; the living body of Chrsit. We have a hope and a future. God knows the plans for you, for your welfare and that are not for disaster.

Jeremiah 29:12 (show/hide)

There are many things that are before you. There are many things. There are many decisions before you in the very close future of this church. Many important things that this church needs to decide and do. I think the cameras that you have...the facilities are amazing. That's a sideline. With your life, and with the relatiionshiops tha are here, things need to be accomplished.

You have to begin by asking why and what. God says, you will come and you will pray and I will listen.

Can you imagine if I came here to speak to you, and as I was speaking, my feet began to do what they wanted. You see it doesn't work if the body doesn't work together. Communiciation doesn't work if the body doesn't work together. Paul says such a powerful thing: 'How can the hand say to the foot, 'I don't need you'. Paul says, 'No, this is the beauty and the amazing thing about Christianity: it's a body.' Each part is needed. Each part has a very important thing to bring. You have a very important role and part to play within this body. You. But somehow within it, we've got to find a way to work together. So we begin with knowing that God says we have a future. God has plans for us to give us a hope and a future.

A command.

The thing that is on my heart to deposit here today is foundational. It's just solid rock. I really pray that we are able to take this seed because this is the heart of christinaty. I want you to imagine with me, from the gospel of john...

This takes place at the end of the ministry of Jesus. This is the end of his time with his disciples; those he has been mentorying. As he comes to the end, he's going to say, 'guys just remember brush your teeth everyday'. I think he would say something a bit more serious. 'Ok guys, always keep the other guys guessing.' No. What would you do if this was the last day with your family? You know this is the last moment, you would think real hard and say what is the most important seed thatI can plant into their life. And that's exactly what Jesus does.

We've been through a lot together and now it's coming to the end...

John 13:31-34 (show/hide)

'A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another'.That is a very powerful command and then He goes on and adds something else: 'That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.'

The Bible is really specific. We know love because love has been defined for us. While we were enemies of God, He extended his love through his Son to us. God proved his love in that way. This is how we know love; that Christ died for us. We don't just have some kind of idea of love. We have a real definition and that is the thing that transforms my life, is that I have a real solid definition of love in the one that I am following.

'Love one another, in the same way that I have loved you.' That brings us hopefully to a place that we heard in a song earlier. We can't love others without him. Remain in me and you can do this. Without him we cannot walk in that kind of love.

I want you to understand how important this was when he spoke these words to his disciples.

John 13:35 (show/hide)

He didn't say, 'if you can stop all conflict...' No. Love one another. We are different. We have different parts to play and it is within us, that Jesus gives us the command to love one another, as he has loved us. It is an amazing command and he expects that we can do it.

This is how people will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.

I just want to accent this by looking at John 15.

John 15:9-10 (show/hide)

John 15:12 (show/hide)

John 15:17 (show/hide)

It's a thing he keeps repeating to his disiples and something that needs to reverberate in the depths of our souls. Love one another as I have loved you. He says it again. Here's my command, love one another. And then he says it again.

Be so concenered about one another, even if you disagree. Because this is the power. God IS love. The power on this earth that created all things that are is love. God, the power that can stand against the fiery furnace, is love. Christ is about to go the cross, the absolute example of love, and he's talking to his disiples about love.

I want to leave us with a prayer. A promise that God has a future for us. God has spokem to use because God has plans for us. God loved the world so much that he sent his Son, and his own sons and daughters into the world. But this is how it's all going to happen: Love one another.

God gave his disciples a simple format of a prayer. He said 'Our father, who art in heaven, your name is holy. You are the name above all. You are the God who made all things. Holy is your name.' That's where Jesus begins in the prayer to focus on God. 'May your kingdom and your ways come on earth, just as they happened in heaven. May your ways come into my life, just as it happens in heaven. Jesus bring your love and your possibility of loving and giving into my life, just as your will is accomplished in heaven. Today, give me what I need, the depth of my soul and the strength to do what is before me today. And I ask in my own life, that your forgiveness would come. Forgive me. Have mercy on me. So I also say, forgive those who have done something against me. Give me the hope to be able to forgive. Help me to get past my weakness and to forgive those who have done things against me. And I would ask that you would lead us away from the paths of temptation and from the evil. Deliver us. And give us a hope and a future. For thine is the kingdom of love and forgiveness and hope a future. Thine is the power to accomplish these things in my life. And thine is the glory. And as we follow you, we proclaim that it is you who does these things. Amen.'

God first loved us

2009-09-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Garold Anderson

God loved us so much that, while we were yet His enemies, He sent His son to die for us. This means that we can receive and live in amazing grace. some people think that, when they get saved, they will be perfect, but the reality of our lives is that we all make mistakes. We have to bring these mistakes before the throne of God and ask for His mercy.

The use of communication, of creative expression, is powerful. There are so many things to creatively communicate. When we come into a church building and we think about drama we often think about 'something happens...and then there is the telling of the Gospel that Jesus loves a person and they get saved, and that's it. But the Bible is filled with many other ideas. I want to challenge you to think beyond what you've experienced before.

Me and Thea are going to be performing a piece today that has four movements called 'Ish and Isha'. When I have finished the piece I want us to use it as meditation. I grew up in a small church in Oklahoma and when I first heard the word meditation, I thought that it was some new age idea. I want to talk today a little bit about Biblical meditation; to take a moment and to consider something. How often do you stop and consider something? How often to you stop and really think about the words of the songs we sing?

So, as we perform this piece I want you to drink it in and then we will listen to a piece of music by a friend of mine. The piece will be from a well-known composer named Bach. As we listen to the music I want you to think back on what you've seen. I want you to consider your response and respond in your heart to what you see to God, to people you know and to people you don't know.

The reality of our lives is that we face situations that hurt us. Meditation is about taking the memories and the thoughts before the throne of God. Jesus said that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That is the past, He is also the God of the present and the future. All things are not forgotten, but they are brought into the heart of God.

It is a different way to look at theatre, to place something before us that is very real. I often say to people that when we open the Bible and read the stories they are sometimes very nice but they all seem to far away from us. With this dramatization we have tried to make the story of the fall very close. The reality does not just affect Adam and Eve, it affects me.

What is the reality of the life that we face? Isn't this how it? What you need to do is go and bring people to Jesus because when you get to know Jesus everything is just going to be ok. I don't think that's really Biblical. Everything gets better when we come back into a relationship with God. But that doesn't mean that everything will go fine. You and I know in the reality of our lives that we face relationships, in our marriages and families, that we need something that is beyond a one moment experience with God. Jesus help me! And now I'm saved. But now what? This is the question that we face every day. Christianity is not a magic potion that, once you've taken it, means everything will be fine. What is this thing we've entered into?

Romans 5:2 (show/hide)

Romans 5:6 (show/hide)

Romans 5:8-10 (show/hide)

Paul paints such a different picture. When I first read this chapter with eyes that really saw this it was actually shocking to me. I don't want to say that it is wrong to use the word saved, but Paul uses such a different terminology, he uses the word 'reconciled'. That means to be brought back together with someone. He says that the amazing thing about God's love is that while we were His enemies He allowed His Son to die for us. There's a real salvation that is presented but what Paul is saying is that the first thing that God did was bring us back home. To look at you as the enemy and to say 'let me do this for you'. He has so much more for us that He wants to do for us day by day, but the first God wants to get clear is that we are His sons and daughters and we are coming home.

Romans 5:9-10 (show/hide)

The Greek words are very strange words that we don't have in the English word. They are this ongoing idea of perpetual salvation, from faith to faith, from glory to glory. Why do need that? We prayed once, and now we're all perfect aren't we? Now all my problems are gone and every relationship I have is beautiful. No. There is a hope of that day of being with Him face to face, but now we face momentary difficulties and sometimes they are great difficulties. This is the truth. We are human beings and we are broken, we have come to know that our Father loves us. As much as we want to say by faith that we are righteous, we know that we make mistakes. We miss the mark of what we want to accomplish. We have relationships that we want to honour each in, but then something gets said and we start done a path of saying things that are so hurtful. And now we live in conflict and start thinking, am I not a child of God? I have missed the mark, and the Bible calls that sin. We know that we sin.

This is the mystery that there really is hope, strength, life and salvation for me on an ongoing basis. Here is another part of the mystery: the same applies for the others sitting next to you. We think our way is right because we sons of God, but grace is also in my wife's life. In the conflicts that we have there is also grace and hope for us because while we the enemy of God He gave His son for me. In that attitude I have to come back to my wife. In that attitude we can get past Ish and Isha. This is the amazing thing called Christianity. Not that Christ died for us and now we are all perfect, but that we now have the opportunity to extend the grace which we have received to others. We have the opportunity to reach up on high and ask God to have mercy on ourselves and others. We can be God's Kingdom in this earth, right in the midst of the brokenness of our lives.

This book I have in my hand is so fascinating; the imagery is just brilliant.

Proverbs 17:14 (show/hide)

Once you pour water out a cup you cannot get it back in. Sometimes we spill the water. At the beginning of a conflict, the releasing of our words is like the releasing of a great flood, so abandon a quarrel before it breaks out. Those are wise words but the reality of my life is that sometimes I let words out that I really wish I hadn't, and then I can't get them back. We know how to communicate well and often the communication is like the water poured out. We can't get it back but there is grace.

The reality of Christianity can go in two ways: it can be closing my eyes and saying everything is ok and ignoring the facts that I'm still filled with hurt and pain, or the reality is that I know my Redeemer lives and that in this day there is real amazing grace, and even though it hurts me very much to look at the mistakes in my own life, I am going to stop up to the plate and ask God to have mercy on me and to help me grow. I am going to ask God to help me receive the next part of the salvation you have given me, and help me to extend to my family and the people in my neighbourhood. Christianity is a day by day journey.

In a real quick way, through these dramatic pieces and through these verse, I've tried to bring us to the understanding of the reality of our lives and the journey we undertake with God. But I also believe that the words we speak can either bring life or death. We need to learn to go to the Bible and find blessings for one another. We have to meditated on God's power and ask Him to bring restoration in our lives as well as asking God that we might bless those in our lives.

I know that there are issues in life but we can speak blessings and curses; let us people who speak blessings. Let us live in the blessing of God.

Fulfil His will today

2009-09-13T02:00:00.000-07:00

Introduction by Andrew Love

It struck me this week that we have today, we don't know what tomorrow brings; we may not have tomorrow, but we have today. Today the call of God is to fulfil His will today, not next week.

I just want to introduce Apostle Odia again. There are some people in life that you just make a connection with and I think God orders all things and some of the connections you make will influence your future. I don't know what that connection is going but I do think a connection has been made between this church and his work in Ghana. I don't know where it is going but I'm thankful to God for Apostle Odia's encouragement and example.

By Pastor Francis Odia

I want to confess that London has not been part of my agenda this year. And so for me to get a Visa in ten days and to be standing before you today is a miracle.

This morning I want you to turn with me to Luke.

Luke 10:29-37

The Priests saw and they passed by but the Levite saw and had compassion. May your hearts and souls be filled with compassion.

In the story we just read, the lawyer asked Jesus who was his neighbour. Jesus answered that our neighbour is anyone we have the opportunity to help, regardless of whether they are a Christian or not. There are six things I want this house to take note of:

1. The lawyer saw the wounded man was a (something)

2. The robbers saw the wounded man as someone to exploit.

There is a difference between a thief and a robber. A thief can steal from you when you are not aware of it, but a robber can steal from you when you are. God said in Malachi, if you take my (something) you are a robber because God is watching you while you are stealing His money. But Jesus described these people as thieves.

3. The religious men saw the wounded man as a problem to be avoided.

4. The innkeeper saw the wounded man to serve for a fee.

I don't know where you find yourself today.

5. To the Samaritan the wounded man was a person worthy of his compassion.

I want to explain this: the Jews and the Samaritans don't agree because the Jews are the pure descendants of Abraham, whereas the Samaritans are not, they are the Jews who have intermarried with the Gentiles. So the pure Jews hate the Samaritans. But the Samaritan saw the wounded man worth being cared for and loved.

6. To Jesus all of them and all of us are worth dying for.

I want to encourage you here that we have been called to reach the dying world. The Bible says that when we were yet sinners He loved us and offered Himself, so that through His death, the Chinese, the English, the Canadians can be reconciled back to God. To Jesus the wounded man was worth dying for.

All around us, from Brentwood to London to Ghana there are people who have been wounded by thieves. Some of our children have been wounded by drugs, some of our husbands and wives have been wounded by the devil. Everyone that is wounded needs attention. No religion in this world has an answer for mankind's need, except through Jesus Christ. Men and women in Trinity we are God's people called by Him, washed by the blood for God's work to be accomplished on earth. The reason why God has allowed you to be here to hear this message is so you can reach the wounded world. Your wounded world begins from your Jerusalem. The devil is a liar; everyone that is wounded will be reached through Christ.

I want to say again that religious leaders don't have the answers. No religious organisation has the answers for wounded souls. No religious leaders have answers for the world that we live, in except Jesus. God will use people in each generation to help the wounded souls. If anyone will avail Himself unto God, He will use that person. You can be a Jew, a Gentile, a Samaritan, but if you say Lord 'use me', He will. Not all are called to preachers, but all are ministers of God. If you sweep a house in Ghana you use a broom but here you use a Hoover. When you turn the Hoover on in your house you are a minister in that house. All the singers here, all those who give out leaflets on the streets, you are ministers to the dying world. If God can find people who are willing to go the extra mile, the wounded world can be reached.

Christians everywhere tend to be so self-focused. The wounded man needed attention. The Samaritan was on his own journey, he had his own plans for the day. But because this man saw a need he allowed his programme to be disrupted. There is nothing wrong if your plan is disrupted by God for a divine course. I am here to announce to you that if you really want God to make use of your life, you must avail yourself. The Samaritan got down from his animal and bandaged the man. No one in this life can be rich without God using somebody.

I want to make two statements: God is sovereign. Sometimes He can visit somebody as He visited Saul, without any human involvement. God is still doing that in the Muslim world today, supernaturally giving them dreams they have no answers for. Anytime God won souls in the Bible, by revealing Himself to them, people became blind, for example, Saul. The moment Jesus said, 'I am He', he became blind. So God doesn't reveal Himself to people for soul-winning, He uses people.

There are two things I want to say today:

1. The world must be rich by us having oil in our hands. Oil stands for the anointing. The Bible said the Samaritan took the man to the inn and poured oil in his wounds.

Without the power of God what we have would be religion, but when we have the anointing yolks will be destroyed.

2. The Samaritan gave the man some wine, which stands for the blood of Jesus.

The Bible says there are three things that bear record in heaven and on earth: the spirit, the water and the blood. The three are one. Every child of God must have enough wine in his hands. You must carry the power of the blood in your life. You must also have the oil in your hands.

Revelation 6:6

When you read from verse 1 you see four horses: red, pale, black and white; each representative of something. This chapter is revealing the economical struggles in the last days that everything we see will be shaking except two things: the angels that will bring death, famine and economic hardship, have been commanded not to touch the oil and the wine. Everyone here who has the oil and the wine, Satan will try to bring down, but because of the oil and the wine, God will take the glory at the end.

The angels of God commanded the ones that sat on the horse that they could touch everything but the oil and the wine. You see when you become a Christian family, or a church, that respects the blood of Jesus and the oil so much, whatever the devil does, it will work for your good. In Judges it says that out of the strong came (sweetness?). The lion that was designed to kill, God made it to produce honey. Everything that had been designed by the devil to destroy you, will work for your God. God will cause the lion's carcass to produce honey for your enjoyment. Everything Satan has plotted to destroy: this church, your homes and this world, because of the workings of God everything will be turned around to produce good to His glory.

Abraham asked God whether He would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if He could find ten righteous men and God said no. I am here to tell you that there are more than ten righteous people in this church. By the Spirit of God I announce that every power that has conspired to destroy what God has begun, out of it shall flow honey and sweetness because you cannot destroy what God has established with the blood of His son. The church was purchased by the very blood of Jesus. The grave cannot hold His blood. The gates of hell cannot stand against the finished work of Christ. What God has put together, no man can pull asunder. Our lives are so precious in the sight of God. Why? Because it took the blood of His own Son to bring you this far. You are not here by chance; you are here because heaven has signed your presence to be here now. You are in the hands of God, and when you are there no enemy can snatch you out of the hands of God; it is impossible.

Today, God is looking for men and women with a compassionate heart. All God is looking for is people who know that this dying world needs attention. If you are hurt in any way in your life, this is the time to allow God to heal you because there are many people who are wounded and are ready to die, and how can you save a dying world if you too are dying? As God is speaking to you today I want to challenge you to start a revolution in this church. I want us to make a problem for the leadership. Before you give your family Christmas presents this year, give the family of God one soul. The Bible says that when one sinner comes to Christ heaven rejoices. So before you make your children rejoice, make heaven happy first. Then by Christmas time, there will be so many souls added to the family of God that this church will have to two services on Sunday.

If each one of you would say that my life on earth is meaningless unless I become like Jesus - a soul-winner, souls would be added to the church. Jesus is a teacher, preacher, healer, and soul-winner. The Bible says: as He is, so are we in this world. That's why I am convinced that as long as I live, this Gospel must be preached every day, everywhere.

I will close with two things: it is a mystery when you came into this world, you don't know the day or the hour, and when you leave this world it will be a mystery too. But there is one thing we can be sure of: you can prepare your home up there by what you do in this life. I want to encourage the family of God here so that everyone will not end this year without having added a soul to the church. People can't be saved unless they are preached to.

I want to end with a story. I was going to chase a woman and I found Jesus. I didn't find Jesus in a church, I found Jesus in a girl's aunt's room. I told you already that I wasn't from a Christian home but, when I was in polytechnics, I went to Nigeria by bus and supported myself with the business of trading between Ghana and Nigeria. In two months I met a lady many times on the same flight. So I thought she would be good for friendship. God can take the foolish things in this life and use it for His glory. This girl directed me to her house. So I went on 4th November 1983; I will never forget that day until I am laid to rest. When I went there the girl I was looking for was not there, but her aunt was. So for almost two hours this Holy Ghost-filled aunt had the opportunity of talking to this girl-chasing sinner. I did not go to church and I didn't even believe that God could bless.

After two hours this girl had not come back, but the aunt had talked to me about Jesus, His love and the plan of God until I yielded to her invitation of sanctimony. That day I went to church and when I heard the Gospel I surrendered to Jesus. Since that day I have not regretted giving my life to Jesus once. This woman was not a preacher, just a church-goer like us. But she found the opportunity, given by God, for her to minister to me. We have only 6 billion people in this world, you will not meet all of them, but you will meet some, and they are the people God wants you to touch with His Gospel. This woman saw that this boy, that had been sent to chase a girl, was a candidate for heaven. Today, here I am. If that woman had closed her mouth, would I be standing before you today? The more we close our mouths and don't reach out to the wounded souls, the more we allow people to die and go to hell.

Be His prisoner

2009-09-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Andrew Love

For me and my family going to Ghana was a reminder of what our Christian walk is really about. It refocused our attention on what God is doing. It has challenged all of us, including me, about the focus of our lives. So that song was appropriate because our lives are about being consumed with Jesus Christ. Our challenge is our daily walk with Him, with our focus solely on Him. When that happens so many things get put into the right perspective, and so many things that seem so problematic no longer are. When you are focused on what He wants and you align yourself on His work you begin to see things as He sees, and feel as He sees; that is a different way of living but I think it is the call on everyone of our lives, to turn our eyes upon Jesus. In that moment everything else fades into insignificance.

The challenge that I felt in Ghana was really inspired by God, and came through the life of another man. I met a man whose life is focused on Jesus Christ and for whom that chorus is a daily living reality. I know trying to pump his ego but there are brothers in the faith who are examples to us and, in the short time we were there, I learnt from the example of this man. I didn’t expect that within only a few weeks he would be sitting here, it has all come about very unexpectedly. But I delighted that he is here and I am looking forward to seeing what he is going to say.

Pastor Francis Odia

If this clapping is to me can you please direct it instead to Christ Jesus instead. I bring great things from Ghana here today and it is my prayer that the Lord will use me and His word to challenge and encourage you today.

Today I want to share my testimony with you and also what I do as a pastor in Ghana. I call myself a pastor missionary to my people, which is what I have been doing for the past thirteen years. My ministries began Sept 1996 and since then we have established 90 churches, but I am pastor of 74 churches with 104 pastors working with me.

I am not a typical pastor that stays in a church every week. My life has been reaching out to the unreached and I believe this is what Jesus will do.

Ephesians 4: 1-3

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

I consider myself not just a Christian, but a prisoner of the Lord, so that my life on earth will be for Him. Many are called and we must understand that each one of us is being called by God. As you see yourself in His hands so your life will be, but as for me, I see myself as a prisoner to Him, so that I will not be on my own. I want to be someone who pleases Him that has called me. Paul beseeches each one of us to bear with one another in love.

I was born 48 years ago to a father who had 27 children. I happened to be number 14 out of the 27. My father had eight wives. When I was growing up I saw four mothers in the house, including my mother. My father died with four mothers in the house. If you look to my background there is no Christianity there. When he was 60 years old he began attending the Presbyterian Church but I only believe he went so that he could be buried in the Presbyterian cemetery. That is the kind of family I was born into. Out of all my brothers and sisters no one attended university, apart from one who tried incredibly hard and managed it. Out of the 27 only one bought a car. But I can see that, though the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, my life as a Christian among my brothers looked quite different. I can own this to the faithfulness of God. I didn’t see anybody in my family become a pastor. Therefore I can claim that out of both my mother’s and father’s side I am the only pastor. This is the work of God’s grace.
When I realised that God wanted to use me because of where I came from I knew that I could not depend on myself, I had to depend on God for everything. So I chose a life of prayer and fasting. I cannot depend on myself or my education to succeed as a servant of God. I must instead depend on the grace of God and His faithfulness to me. God is alive and what He has allowed me to experience shows that the book we have is alive; every word in it is inspired by God. My experience as a pastor is not theory, it is very practical.

My first church is called Living Word Assemblies. That church happened to be founded by me. It was founded through zeal and not call. I didn’t know I was called to pastor a church but about eight of us came together and we began to pray and God started to show us why we were praying; it then became a church. From that beginning the church has grown to the point where now we have two services a week.

In 1984 I realised that God wanted me to be a full-time pastor. I didn’t know what to do so I told the leadership that I believed God was calling me. By 1955 I realised God wanted to pick me out of a successful church – by then the church was so successful that it was in the top five most successful churches in that land. God said to me in a dream to move out to another town, the history of which was that no church above 150 people had ever been planted there. So I shared this with my wife and she wondered why we needed to start another church when we already had a successful church. But I knew what God had told me so I decided to pray until God spoke to my wife. I did a thirty day all-night vigil. I spent those days seeking God’s direction in this new place. Four dreams came to the church members, but none to my wife. But I needed her consent and so by December 1956 I decided to fast on water and honey for forty days. I wanted God’s guidance of where to plant the church and I also wanted Him to speak to my wife. God answered in a very strange way.

My wife and my children then moved to this town. It was a very challenging work at first because no pastor had ever succeeded in planting a church there. My old brothers at the church asked me why I had gone there. I told them that in the Olympic games people went to break records; I was going to this town now to break a record by setting up a church. That place now has seen not only my church grow, but other churches have been established there too.

Since 1966 God has allowed me to fast on honey and water seven times for forty days. When you take fasting and praying out of my life I will be empty. From fasting and praying I have seen so many miracles: healing miracles, deliverance miracles. At one point I travelled to a village that was totally dedicated to idol worship as are all the other villages on the island where that village was situated. There is not a single church on that island. I say this to the glory of God. This year I completed another forty day fasting. God told me to go there for a crusade. One night a family surrendered there lives to Jesus and one particular man among them came to me the following morning and told me that he had slept very well the previous night when for three years he had not been able to sleep well. He told me that when he had got home he had felt a burning sensation all over him and he had come back to me to ask for me to pray that the rest of the burning sensation would go. I asked him what work he did. He said he was a fisherman, a farmer and a voodoo priest. I told him that the idols had to be burnt but he protested because the idols had been passed down from generation to generation in his family. I asked him if he wanted to die and if he wanted to remain sick because he would only be made completely whole if the idols were burned. Then the man told me that I didn’t know what I was asking because they belief that if you look at some of the idols you will die. So I told him that if any his gods killed me after I had burnt them, none of his families should believe the Bible or Jesus. You see you cannot go to these areas in your own strength, only in the strength of Jesus because in Him alone can we have security. The name of Jesus has power and in that name everything must bow. So we decided to burn the idols the following day.

In the morning we had to cross two rivers. If you have been faced with the challenge of a real confrontation you will know that Jesus is alive and the every power must confess that He is the Lord. I told the man that we were going. So we walked about five miles and then took a canoe, walked a few more miles and then got another canoe. When we arrived at the village, the villagers had gathered together because they knew that something that had never happened before was about to happen. Here was a Christian preacher coming to a village sold to Satan, to burn the idols. The people were saying that if we left the village alive, they would know that the gods of their land were not powerful. I said that if we did leave alive, God would stay in this village permanently. See, anywhere a child of God goes you must carry Jesus with you, and when you get there you must establish the flag of heaven. Whether you are a preacher or a missionary you carry heaven in your body. I said, as long as I am in this village, Jesus is staying permanently.

When we got to the village there was a confrontation between one of the villagers and a member of my team. One of their people got possessed. When someone gets possessed there, they believe it takes seven days before the demon will leave them. During this time they are not allowed to drink blood and they are only allowed to eat meat that they have slaughtered using their own teeth. I told the villagers to bring me this demon-possessed man. Anyone that has not experienced the power of Jesus Christ, I want you to know that He is alive. When I met this person I said in Jesus name, the Jesus that died and rose again, you are going to be delivered and baptised in Jesus name. In less than one hour this demon-possessed man was free, even though they thought it was meant to take seven days.

Anywhere God sends you you carry God with you and every power must be silenced because you are an ambassador of Jesus Christ. It is time that Islam is taken out of Asia and Africa and America. The materialistic nature of people in Western countries can be defeated by preaching this Gospel aggressively and powerfully.

Let me tell you something, if Nigeria over the past forty years can change from less than 10% of the population being Christian to over 65% by the power of the Gospel, prayer and fasting, so can Western countries. When Idia Ming was the president of Uganda, the population was 90% Islamic, it is now less than 10%. In Ghana I have seen two villages turn from Islam to Christianity. I have seen that a voodoo village can have a Christian church in it.

The Jesus of this book is real; He is alive. He is my Saviour, my King and my Redeemer. Since I gave my life to Him I can say to you today that the Lord is at work in these last days. I will tell you one quick story. In Africa somebody can sell you a piece of land even if it is not there land. So you can end up buying a piece of land from two to three owners. We bought a piece of and set up a tent on it. But another family saw that we had set the tent up and claimed that the land belonged to them. This family then took my church to court and according to the laws of the land there should be no noisemaking after 10pm. When they took us to court the judge told us that from now on two nights we could have all-night vigil. In my church every Friday night we pray from 9 until 4 in the morning. We don’t believe in short prayer.

The world tries to sort problems out by making pistols and missiles, but you can’t change Sadam Hussein with weapons. There are some territorial powers that you can defeat by long powers. Why do people not settle with pistols and knives but continue making bigger bombs? It’s because they know that pistols cannot handle the whole job. So in the spiritual world there are some problems that small prayers can handle. I come from a tradition of fasting and praying. Long prayers work.

When the community took us to court the judge gave us two days to have meetings all night and two days just during the day, which has not worked well the church. Along the line, they hired a lawyer so that they could uproot our church. We began to pray and God gave us the victory. We didn’t know that the judge of our case was in marriage problems because they could not have children. God will always use a situation to advance His cause. The devil will behave as if it is working against you, but at then end, after you have prayed, all things will work together for you good.

One night, after I had done an all-night vigil in a radio station, the judge called me and told me about her marriage problems. I asked her what I could do about it and she asked me to pray with her that her marriage situation would improve. That night we prayed on the phone for about 25 minutes and in exactly 10 months a baby girl was given to her.

I pray long because I see God working when I do. I pray that God will move in this church more than any other year. The Lord says that if His people will seek Him and will humble themselves and turn away from their wicked ways, then he will heal the land.

In conclusion, if God has called me in Africa and has used my life to establish growing village churches, why can God not use your life here? I pray that after you have heard my testimony you will rededicate your life unto God. I pray you will tell Him that you want to be His prisoner.

The Pinnacle of God's Wisdom

2009-09-06T02:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar
The pinnacle of God's wisdom is the church. When Adam sinned the angels could not understand how God could find a solution. But as they witnessed Jesus coming to earth, dying on the cross and fulfilling the law in every part, they understood the manifold wisdom of God. Jesus came to earth to die for you and me and to break the bondage of sin in our lives. We are part of the church worldwide, and in our lives we have to be sensitive to the working of the Holy Spirit so that we can reach out to others and bring glory to God.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

I want to talk about the fact that each one of us is part of God's church worldwide. The church is the pinnacle of God's wisdom. In a sense we are part of 'the manifold wisdom of God'.
These are the verses that Jesus read out in Nazareth:
Isaiah 61:1-3 (show/hide)
The church is the most important evidence of the wisdom of God. What those verses depict is the outworking of God sending His son to this earth, to free us from the bondage of sin to be the person God wants you to be. Jesus came to preach, to heal, to deliver, to recover, to set free.
Isaiah 43:18-21 (show/hide)
The church, 'the manifold wisdom of God', is here to show forth His praise. Elsewhere in scripture it says how Christians are different because they show love for each other.
Ephesians 3:9 (show/hide)
A certain person might say that the wisdom of God is evident in the creation of God, the wonder of creation. The angels knew, when God created the earth, that it was good; God Himself said it was God. The angels what the outcome of Adam's sin would be.
Ephesians 3:9-10 (show/hide)
The angels suddenly saw the whole purpose, which had been hid to them from the beginning of time. Now they were looking into and seeing the wisdom of God unfolding as the church came into being through what Jesus Christ did for each individual on this earth.
Ephesians 3:11 (show/hide)
Paul knew that God, by His Holy Spirit, was bringing in a people for Himself. I am glad Ruth referred to the number of people that are coming here. We are part of the church worldwide; Christ died for the church worldwide. The church is greater than creation, it is the pinnacle of the wisdom of God. I love looking at the life of Christ, born in a stable and crucified on a cross; it is so strange when viewed through our eyes. But he suffered all this for the joy that was set before Him. That joy was the church, you and me.
The enemy tries to sow division because he knows that the church is the 'manifold wisdom of God'. We are at a point in time where it is important, as you mix with people in work or wherever, that you are sensitive to what God wants to do in reaching out. He died to set people free.
The angels witnessed how God had figured out a way where the law had been fulfilled and the justice of God had been satisfied. He was sinless, he had fulfilled the law. And now there is the opportunity for people like Josef to have a new life, for you to have a new life. God's plan of salvation, His plan of the church is the pinnacle of God's wisdom.
1 Peter 1:10-11 (show/hide)
They knew they were foretelling the coming of Christ to this earth.
1 Peter 1:12 (show/hide)
Another translation says: "which things the angels stoop down to look into". When Adam sinned the angels had no idea what the answer could be. And they witnessed Jesus' life being poured out on earth. Now, as they looked into the church day by day, they were amazed as they understood the wisdom of God.
Luke 15:7 (show/hide)
Every time a new person is added to the church, there is joy in heaven with the angels. That is what it is all about; that is why Jesus came.
Matthew 16:18 (show/hide)
There's no way that God's church is not going to be complete. There's no way that the work He has started in your life He is not going to finish. He is our loving, heavenly father and the manifold wisdom of God is around you in each person here. That is the wisdom of God: how He can turn someone around completely from being against Him, to being totally with Him.
Are you amazed at what God's done for you? Do you marvel at how He chose you out? He did that so that you could fulfil His purposes in your life, to bring glory to His name.

Does God know you?

2009-08-30T02:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar
The parable of the wise and foolish virgins reminds us of the need to be watchful, and to press ahead with God.
Zechariah prophesied after the exile. He had eight visions, and here we have the fifth one.
Zechariah 4:1-6 (show/hide)
Zerubbabel rebuilt the Temple when they returned from exile. Joseph and Mary separately came from the sons of Zerubbabel.
In the world's eyes, might and power equals authority. In God's kingdom, the work of His spirit is vital.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

I identified with the people who spoke of the life and death situation faced in Nigeria. There's an urgency, a vitality about being a Christian here this morning for you and me.
In the Old Testament, where oil is referred to, it speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit.
Song of Solomon 1:3 (show/hide)
In 2 Kings, when Elisha came to the widow, she ended up having a pot of oil, and it was as she kept pouring that oil out that it kept flowing. The moment they got to the end of the vessels, it stopped.
There is something about what God is saying to us. There is a requirement – not a duty, but a requirement out of the love of God which He has given to us, for us to share that with other people, to be a channel through which God by His Holy Spirit can reach other people. There's something about that principle of being alert and awake so we're ready whenever God wants to speak through us.
Ephesians 5:14-18 (show/hide)
The parable we are going to look at revolves around us being prepared so that God has free reign over our lives. It's the enemy of our souls who wants us to focus on something which will derail the main purpose of us being here.
Matthew 25:1 (show/hide)
It was a Jewish custom – often weddings were held in the evening. There were ten attendants whose role was to go out and meet the bridegroom and bring him in.
Matthew 25:2-4 (show/hide)
Two different types of people. The common denominator is that each had a lamp. You couldn't distinguish between them, except that five had a reserve of oil. They made a point of gathering that store.
Matthew 25:5-6 (show/hide)
They were all sleeping. The bridegroom was later than expected.
Matthew 25:7-9 (show/hide)
This wasn't selfish. They knew that the bridegroom was on his way and that they had a separate container of oil for just such a time. They told the foolish to go and buy some, but the foolish wanted to take from the wise. This tells us that you can't rely on another person's faith. When we reach heaven, and if a question is asked of us, I won't be asked about Carolyn's faith, about the faith of someone else, but about who I am before God and what He has done in my life by His Holy Spirit. Each one of you is responsible for our own walk with God, and He loves you.
Some people have been skirting around the idea of a relationship with God. But we need to remain watchful of our walk with God. We need to get involved with God so that He has free reign. I wonder who God is speaking to right now who has skirted around this. God has been talking to you. He keeps getting inside you and pointing things out – your life needs to be right before God.
Matthew 25:10 (show/hide)
"But I thought I'd postpone becoming a Christian, or getting 100% for God until that point. I have to do this or that first." But the door was shut. You don't have more and more time for you to be on fire for God and to have your sin dealt with at Calvary.
Matthew 25:11 (show/hide)
"You know who it is, that I've been to church, that I was going to sort things out."
Matthew 25:12 (show/hide)
It's like when Jesus said to Philip "Have I been so long time with you, yet thou hast not known me?" It's as if the Lord is saying to you this morning, "Let's say today was your last day on this earth. Let's share together the times when I have faithfully come to you and talk to you and convict you so that you would turn from the way you had been living, because you know it has been wrong. There was that time, that time, that time. And each time, you said, 'Not now – I need to do this or that first.'"
Matthew 25:13 (show/hide)
Talking about the second coming.
Luke 12:35-37 (show/hide)
That's the heart of God. The father was open to the prodigal and the elder son, both. He urged them to come in and rejoice.
Here's Peter's message :-
2 Peter 3:11-14 (show/hide)
If we had a peace-ometer, are you at peace this morning? Or has what I've said got hold of you, and you know you've been pushing Him away?
How do you have that reserve of oil? I have the lamp, I'm sharing my faith with others, but what do I have to do to have that reserve of oil? This parable means it is vitally important that we keep that line of communication open with the living God. He's inside me, but I can spend my time ignoring the experience of God in your life, or I can spend your time enriching and building it.
How often are we reading the Bible on our own? How often do we spend time in fellowship, building each other up?
That reserve of oil is building up our store of holy faith. Are we programming ourselves into the Word, into each other? Are we giving and giving, and as we give, it is never ending. Praying, professing our faith, not being asleep?
This parable applies to us all. It doesn't matter what situation we're in. There are some who are desperate because they are out of work. I know specifically for you that God has not forgotten now.
What does it mean to be watchful, alert, awake? To live a life of faith is simply being a Christian. I know what God has planned for us to the end of this year particularly, specifically it will be for us to be open before God that He by His Holy Spirit will work through us as we share our faith with others, and others will come.
God is sorting things out I'm not dismissive of anyone here or who used to be here. What I am most specific about, though, is that we will lift up the name of Christ full time, and as we do that, He will come alongside each one of us and speak to each one of us, just as He is speaking specifically to some this morning. Don't defer. That's not God's heart for you. He has been faithful. And once again He is there right in front of you. "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour." It's His love which is drawing you and is pointing out things in you."
That attitude of being watchful doesn't involve taking time out. It doesn't step back. It looks God fully in the face and say, "I thank you for what you have done in my life, for how you took my sin into yourself at Calvary. You rose from the dead and conquered sin and the power of sin has gone from my life. And going forward I want to recognise each day that work of grace in my life. And each day I want to make the choice to go your way."

The Older Brother

2009-08-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar

The parable of the Prodigal Son shows us two sons: one who went astray and one who in his own eyes, had done everything right towards his father. It also shows us the heart of the Father, which was to forgive the younger son and to celebrate his return regardless of what he had done. We must make sure our reaction towards those who have gone astray is not, like the elder brother, one of anger and condemnation, believing that we are better than they, but one of forgiveness, rejoicing in their return. Christianity is outward, we must be open to what God wants to do through us to reach others who have gone astray.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

I want to talk to you this morning about that relationship which God has with an individual as a Christian. He is our loving, heavenly Father. All that He is, and all that He has He has made available to you. I'm going to be speaking about a parable. Any word in the Bible God uses to reveal Himself, through the Holy Spirit, to you.

This is Jesus speaking to His disciples, and it is as if He is speaking to you and me too:

John 15:3-5 (show/hide)

God's purpose in our lives is that we bear fruit unto Him. That could be in terms of the fruits of the spirit, or that could be God working through you so that others, in their desperate need, would find the answer in Jesus Christ.

We have in the following scripture perhaps most the famous parable. We are talking here about a certain man who had two sons. Often in this parable, the focus is on the one who went away; it is not so often on the elder brother who stayed at home.

Luke 15:11-16 (show/hide)

He took his inheritance from the father and went to a far country, little realising that a famine would hit. He ended up with no friends, no food and no joy or peace in his heart. He also ended up working with swine; it was the complete and utter pits. It is possible for someone to have a fling, and to imagine that living the world's way, will result in peace and friendship. However, as we see, this fling ended in no peace or friends.

Luke 15:17-19 (show/hide)

So he had the rehearsed confession of what he would say to his father. He realised that even the hired servants were in a better position than him.

Luke 15:20 (show/hide)

What's going to come out of this parable to us is the attitude of God, our loving heavenly Father. This man rehearsed the confession and he'd probably worked out how he would meet his father again. He didn't realise that his father had spent every day looking for him. And when he came back he found his father running to meet him.

Luke 15:21-24 (show/hide)

The robe and the ring are emblems of sonship. The shoes are to show that he is above the servants, who had no shoes. It says in Romans 5:8

Romans 5:8 (show/hide)

That means - transposing just briefly from the parable - that, when you were doing your own thing and were a million miles from God and were in sin, God was looking out for you. Their came a time in your life where He ran, as it were, to meet you. He changed you and me from nothing into something, from hell-bent to heaven-directed. I don't know if you remember the time before you came to know Him. Here this morning you may have realised that, although you are here at church, you are like the younger brother.

Now we come to the reaction of the elder brother.

Luke 15:25-28 (show/hide)

We are now going to see the character of the elder brother. Some have said that the younger son represents the publicans and sinners, and the elder brother represents the Pharisees and the Scribes. What is important though is that the Father's heart is the same to both sons.

When the younger son returned, his brother was angry because, for all of his life he had been serving his father. But now, this son who squandered his inheritance, had been welcomed back with a fatted calf and a ring and robe as if he had done nothing wrong. Here we can see the heart of the older son. He had judged his brother, deciding that he was a wastrel, and therefore, even thought his brother had returned, he could not forgive him.

Luke 15:29 (show/hide)

So he quickly assimilates a lifetime and calls it serving, he vows that he has never disappointed his father but yet has never been given a kid to make merry with his friends. This was a self-righteous, and a self-pitying position. Woe betide any of us who does not rejoice with a brother or sister who has been restored or blessed by God. When you see that, are you angry inside? Do you immediately pigeon-hole people who have, in your opinion, gone the wrong way?

Luke 15:30 (show/hide)

The elder brother's reaction was one of complete condemnation. He was angry because his brother had wasted his life with the wrong people, and yet his father had welcomed him back. If you think about it, the elder brother's comments were all focused on him: he had done everything right, he had served his father all his life, and he had not been given a fatted calf. He had no reason to be angry because he still had his inheritance, but there was something about his way of life which had made him a slave to religion. The moment his brother came it disrupted his position.

It was true that when the Pharisees and the Scribes saw Jesus linking up with the dregs of society, that they were angry and couldn't understand. But in your heart, do you get angry? Or do you rejoice with them that rejoice? When you see someone that has gone wrong, what is your attitude towards them?

Luke 15:31-32 (show/hide)

The father ignores the sarcasm of the older son, when he says that his brother has been living with harlots. The father says that it was right to celebrate his return, because he was dead and is now alive. This means that, as a Christian, you can't choose not to link up with another Christian because you think that they had previously gone the wrong way. The older brother was so bound up with himself that he didn't understand or identify with his father's grief at his brother's previous absence; his brother was dead for all he cared. The heart of the elder brother is something we all need to be careful of. Firstly, in terms of the younger brother, we need to make sure we don't take the gifts of God and squander them on a wrong lifestyle. But also with the older brother, we need to make sure that we don't become self-righteous and quick to condemn others.

The father's heart was to look out for both sons. Each day he looked out for the younger one and then, when the older one got angry, he went out to him and entreated him. I want to convey to you that what you have in God is a precious gift. It is a gift of faith.

This parable reveals that we need to be outward looking, as the father was. Not constantly comparing yourself with others and judging others. We need to be people who are constantly reaching out and waiting for those have gone astray to return home. It doesn't say at the end of the parable whether the older brother did go in. I would think that he did because there are two people here who ended up with their father. You can see through this how easy it is for the enemy of our souls to bring division. If you judge someone and refuse to forgive them when they return, you will be divided.

It is interesting that the father didn't really listen to the confession of the younger son. He didn't care because all that mattered was that he returned. He tried to explain this to his elder son, but he couldn't see and rejoice that his brother had returned. During this coming week I want each one of you to ask God who it is that He wants you to reach this week. Who is it that you've written off, that you should now be reconciled with? Pray for those who have gone astray. And in this coming week, in whatever you do, be open to what God through His Holy Spirit wants to do through you. It is Father's heart inside you and it is His power to cancel out sin and save. He is the One who does it all.

A little later on in John 15, Jesus went on to say these words:

John 15:12-16 (show/hide)

We are meant to bring forth fruit, and we will. As you think about this parable, I want you to be open to what God, our heavenly Father, is speaking to you. It is outward, it is about others. We must be open about our faith with others. I am grateful to God for the way that, at this time, He is causing each one of us to be open before Him to share that faith He has given us. Don't get tied up in the legalism of the older brother, come into the celebration with the younger brother and rejoice in Him. Come into the place where God can work through you to reach others who have gone astray. He is a wonderful heavenly Father and He loves regardless of what you have done or what others may say.

Redeeming the time

2009-08-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Peter Linnecar

Eph 5:8-17

Quite often people ask me what God's will is in their life. This letter just referred to the will of the Lord. So what is it? "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil."

External Links:Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

The parable that we're going to look at briefly tonight applies to you and me, what we're doing with our lives, and how much we value the fact that we've been given time on this earth to fulfil God's purposes.

Mt 25:14-15

The first point I want you to note tonight, is that it involved the three of them. There wasn't someone that didn't get given something. In this church, you've been given something by God which is for his purposes in your life to glorify him. Every man was given according to what he could cope with and could develop. There has been a tailoring in your life. Each one of us has been given something of God that we might be able to develop that for his glory. They were equal, in the sense that each person was given something, and each person was given the ability to make that something into double what they were given. I don't think this refers to money, I think this refers to the personality and the life that God has given you, and what you are going to do with it. They each had the potential to develop.

Mt 25:16-18

The first two were the same, with 100% increase. The third one did absolutely nothing. True, he preserved what he had been given, but he buried it.

Mt 25:19-23

They were commended for being good and faithful, given more responsibility, and told to enter into the joy of the Lord. There is something about making yourself available for God's work that gives you joy.

Mt 25:24-25

There is a smokescreen here. Basically he had done nothing with his life. He was lazy, slothful and even though God had given him exactly the same potential for life, he opted not to be fulfilled. The smokescreen is the excuse that he has come up with, which we have just read.

Mt 25:26-28

You might think that seems a bit unfair. He did actually give back what God had given him. The crucial point is this, that when the talents were handed out, it was a level playing field. They all had the opportunity to develop what God had given them for his glory. The first two did. The third one, though, instead of developing anything, lived his life for himself. He tried to package up what God had given him, bury it, and in the mean time live the life that he wanted to live. The Lord called him wicked and slothful.

Mt 25:29-30

What does that mean? It means that at the end of your life, if it has been the case that we have justified ourselves all the way through to keep God in a box, even though I've been given life by him, God has every right to say that we had the same opportunity. What's God's heart for you and for me tonight? By His Holy Spirit in me bringing this to your attention tonight, it's for us to take stock of where we're at. What are the abilities God's given you? Don't say you don't have any, because you have. You have the equivalent potential as the person next to you.

To fulfil God's purpose in your life means that your whole mindset is to do his will for his glory. It's as simple as that. What we will always do in this place is lift up the name of Jesus Christ, because all of us come together individually and then corporately to revere and honour him. It's thrilling to know that what God is speaking to us now is that he's preparing each one of us to take stock of our lives. The potential of what he wants to do through you is colossal.

We are to walk as children of light, as God walks through you, as you meet people and talk to people and have responsibilities.

The man who hid his talent wasn't afraid. Deep down, God is a true and faithful witness to us all, and deep down you know what it is that God has given you as an ability to fulfil his purposes in your life.

Gal 5:22-23

If I handed out a piece of paper to you, and we were all to list down the abilities that God has given us, what would we write? How can we be hospitable in his kingdom? How can we communicate his life to others? What is it that God has given you? Because each one of us has been given something of God inside.

Eph 5:15-17

The talents that God has given us are for his glory. We're not to waste the time that God has given us. He will outwork his purposes and draw others to him. It's going to be thrilling to see what he does over the rest of this year as each of us focuses on what his holy spirit is bringing to our attention.

Open Your Heart

2009-08-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

It is vital that our hearts are open and receptive to the Word of God. The parable of the sower is not about the sower, but about the four types of people who hear the word. We can be those who hear but are not willing to receive, or those who let it take root but not to the foundation of our lives, so that when persecution comes our faith is broken, or those who hear but are too taken with the worldly pleasures to really listen and obey God; or we can be those who have open hearts and willing ears, who hear the word and act on it. God had given us freedom, to remain in that freedom we must continue in His word.

External Links:Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

There’s one theme that I want to talk about, which is to do with freedom and what we do with it. I’m going to a parable, maybe in a different way to how you have looked at it before. During this month, I’m going to be looking at a different parable each evening.

Jesus came back to this small place called Nazareth first after being baptized.

Luke 4:16-21

That was quite a dramatic moment because, for the first time, Jesus proclaimed why He had come. Part of that proclamation was that He was going to set at liberty them that are bruised. So if you are Christian, you have been set free from the power of sin inside to make choices that please Him. Jesus has come inside you to give you the power to live right. He said what He said, He then sat down and said that this day that scripture was fulfilled.

We have freedom as to how we respond to the word. It is that use of freedom that I want to focus on now. This next scripture is a few years later when Jesus had been preaching and performing miracles in the synagogues and to the people at large:

John 8:30-32

There’s the sense that freedom is continuing in God’s word. A little later He says:

John 8:36-37

Freedom is to do with how we respond to God’s word. We have the freedom to create how we are going to hear it. It is important how we hear it. Now this is the parable itself:

Matthew 13:1-9

This parable is to do with your use of God given freedom because your freedom allows you to be one of four types of people, so that when you come to listen to preaching, your freedom has determined the soil that’s in your heart. You have made the choice, even as you came in this morning, to either hear or not hear. This parable is often referred to the parable of the sower, but really it’s the parable of the person who got it right in the way he heard God’s word. It is vital that you and I are open to what God wants to speak to us in His word. The principle is that we have ears to hear. That is why Jesus told them that they had ‘ears to hear’. Are the words sinking in, or do they just bounce off you?

Matthew 13:10-12

In other words, the more you hear this word, it compounds good unto good or confirms the opposite; it depends how you hear.

Matthew 13:13-15

There’s an active thing that He quotes there, of the way we come to hear God’s word. Quoting from Isaiah, He says that their hearts are waxed gross, their eyes and closed and they are dull of hearing.

Matthew 13:16-17

What’s matters is how we hear. The principle is that we need to have an open heart to what God by His Holy Spirit wants to say to us. It is possible for us to emphasise the freedom God has given us whereby we close off, the hearts waxes gross, the ears become dull and the eyes shut.

Matthew 13:18-19

The wayside is where it’s all compressed ground and there is no ability for the seed to take root so it just gets washed away. So the first choice is that when I come into this room I can set my heart not to hear. I will hear the words spoken, but will push it away and not let it sink it. It might be you’re at home, reading your Bible, or the thought has occurred to you that should read the Bible, but then you decide actually, no, I don’t need to. The enemy of our soul is ever ready to capture any word that you bounce away.

Matthew 13:20-21

The stony places are where there is only a thin layer of soil so no roots can grow. This is the sort of person whom receives the word for a while, and on the surface all looks good. But, when persecution comes, because there is no foundation, their faith will fade away. We have to continue in His word, because by continuing, we can endure persecution.

Matthew 13:22

So there’s a two-horse race going on with this type of hearer. They have made the choice and hear the word. But parallel with that word, the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches means that they both come to church and go out and enjoy the cares of the world. In time, the word, although they hear it every week, will be choked because the cares of this world are too important to that person.

Matthew 13:23

There’s a sense in which you and I have a responsibility with the freedom God’s given us, to be open to what He wants to say to us. God wants us to be open. He will continue relentlessly to be revelatory to you by His word because He lives you. What He wants in our lives is fruit that is pleasing to Him. That fruit is the fruit of the spirit and talking to other people so that, through our lives, other people are drawn to Him.

Galatians 5:1

Don’t get so bound up in legalism and what the world is such that you come here but are not open. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Galatians 5:13

As far as I’m concerned, when I come into this hall, it must be the case that I come in with a receptive heart to God’s word. God is specific to each one of you. I know that each one of us can look back at our lives, and see the difficulties we’ve overcome, and testify to the faithfulness of God through it all. To me, the opportunity God has given to us, to hear His word and for His Holy Spirit to come is so wonderful.

When you get baptised, as those who are getting baptised today, you are proclaiming to the world that you believe in Jesus Christ and that you have set you course to obey them. I am not going to be a dull hearer or someone who thinks they know it all. The testimony of those getting baptised today is, as far as I’m concerned, God inside me, my faith in Jesus Christ means I’m a Christian and I’m going to go forward in Him.

Yesterday, a field near my house, was harvested. I’d been looking out at this field for the past months, watching the wind and rain and thinking that there was no way there would be no crop. But, as it was harvested, there was a constant reliance on the combine harvester of the crop. There is no way, if God has got involved in your life, that you will not bear fruit. What is that fruit for? It’s for His glory; it’s to show others that He is the Lord of your life.

We don’t know what life holds, or when we will go to be in glory. But we do know that the freedom we need to exercise, day in and day out, is to be open to Jesus Christ. Who does He want to reach through you this week? When was the last time you reached out to someone in need with the Gospel? You are here because He got you here; He loves you. I know that as we are faithful to His word, and fulfil His purposes in His time, the glory will be unto Him and unto Him alone. He is a wonderful heavenly Father.

Forgiveness

2009-08-09T02:00:00.000-07:00

This morning I want to look at a parable that we all need to hear. We have to be open to what God wants to teach us this morning. I am going to talk about forgiveness. Forgiveness is vital in how we treat each other. Some people have actually written that forgiveness is as important as your belief in Christ.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

Matthew 18:1-20

The disciples have seen Jesus pick up a child and He has shown them that they have to become like a child to enter the Kingdom of God. He has talked to them about His heart of compassion for the one who has gone astray. He then talked, in verse 15, about the situation where someone has hurt you in some way. He showed them that there is a procedure when this happens.

Matthew 18:21

Peter was worried about this whole relationship of brother with brother in God. He wanted to know how many times he had to forgive his brother. He had a problem with this particular point because of his character. Peter knew that in the Jewish law it was written that you should forgive your brother three times. So, he doubled it and added one, thinking that that would be sufficient.

Matthew 18:22

The effect on Peter’s face due to this reply was such that Jesus recounted this parable:

Matthew 18:23-24

In modern equivalent ten thousand talents is about £72,000,000. In this parable, for money, read sin. So here’s someone who owes £70,000,000.

Matthew 18:25-28

In a parallel sense, all of us here when we are first born are born in sin and have clocked up a life of rebellion against God. The amount of sin that you have been forgiven in coming to God is colossal; we have broken the law in every part. When Jesus went to the cross it was to forgive you and me all our sin. He completely changed our nature so that we then have the choice not to sin and the power to go the other way; before that the default is that we can’t help but sin. The amount of sin that each one of us brings to the cross is inevitability a life-full of cross. When Jesus hung on that cross, make no mistake, it was you and me banging those nails in. But, yet He still hung on that cross because of His love for us, even when were His enemies. £72,000,000 of sin was written off because of His death; He paid a debt we could not.

Matthew 18:28-31

Here we have then a person who has been totally forgiven all that amount of money in the context of the story. In the parallel, we have been forgiven all our sin by our Redeemer who paid the penalty of our sin. In monetary terms we have had £72,000,000 of sin written off. And then, I come over to this person here has £120 of debt towards me, and I take him by the throat and command him to pay back the debt. Even though this man had been forgiven so much, he threw his debtor into prison, despite his pleadings.

Matthew 18:30-36

We have to forgive our brother from our hearts. There is a duty and command of God that we forgive one another. As we will see in a moment, unless we do that, we can pray as much as we like but our hearts will be a million miles from where God wants us to be. This is a quotation from a Puritan:

“We need not climb up into heaven to see whether our sins are forgiven, let us look into our hearts and see if we can forgive others. ”

That is the bottom line because the enemy of our souls wants us to get at each other’s throats. We cherish anger when we think of the people who have wronged us, but yet all that time, my Redeemer lives and I can see His glory. If there is a source of bitterness against someone inside you, it makes no difference how much you praise God, because it is impossible to praise God whilst harbouring bitterness against others. You must leave the person who has wronged you to God, so that He can sort them out.

So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

If we do hang on to a slight the net result will be sourness in our spirit, bitterness of heart, and God will not bless us. Now I don’t mean you should make a list of all the people you must forgive. You know in your heart whether you have forgiven someone, or whether you have held on to your bitterness against him.

Matthew 6:14-15

That is pretty clear.

James 2:12-14

In other words, we can trust God to sort things out, in the sense that, we commit everything unto Him. If we harbour bitterness against someone else it will eat into us like a cancer.

Ephesians 4:31-32

This is a direct command.

Colossians 3:13

Jesus is our example. When He was on the cross He cried out: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. ”When Stephen was being stoned He prayed: “Lay not this sin to their charge. ”

Mark 11:24-27

This attitude can develop into a whole realm of bitterness. This is obviously important because this the way Jesus has told us to live. I know that there are some who will not let go the throttling of the £120 debtor because they did what they did. This morning it is time to let it go.

Here we are amongst the children of Israel who have just gone through the Red Sea today.

Exodus 15:23-26

The waters were bitter. What had to happen was that the tree had to be cut down and thrown into the waters, only then did they become sweet. That is a picture of us allowing God’s Holy Spirit cleansing us of any malice we have against anyone. We must do this because it will cause us to view things from a bitter and wrong viewpoint. God has showed us all a tree: Calvary’s Cross, which means that the bitterness inside us can be cleansed and made sweet.

Some of you may be thinking that you don’t need to forgive anyone. Let me be clear, God is faithful, and if there is anything that anyone of you is harbouring inside, God will have already put His finger on it. We are not to dust off that thinking process which we know if we get involved with will only end in us boiling with antipathy against an individual.

Romans 12:19

So God is sorting things out in the overall sense and we can commit everything to Him. This means I’m not going to resurrect something that someone did to me in the past.

Therefore, what are we supposed to do?

Romans 12:20-22

That is the bottom line: ‘be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good’. God has brought this to our attention this morning because He wants us to live clean and right. In your heart are you asking God who He wants you to reach todayIt is the glorious Gospel we are involved in that enables us to reach those who are lost. We are servants of the living God; that’s who we’re involved in. But we can’t harbour stuff inside. I’m convinced, more than ever, that God by His Holy Spirit wants to work through each one of us, so that He can reach others who are in desperate need. The only way that the enemy can stop us is if we allow bitterness and hatred to dwell in us against others.

Actually, Peter asked the wrong question. We should not really stop forgiving our brother when we’ve fulfilled the correct number; that is not the heart of a Christian. To anybody who wants to come into this hall: you are welcome. I’m not going to harbour stuff against anyone. This place will grow because we are going to lift up the name of Jesus, and when His name is lifted up, He draws people to Himself.

The heavenly meaning of this parable is a direct input into the way you live your life each day. It’s an attitude of heart and of mind. God in His faithfulness, mercy and love has brought it to our attention because He wants to work through us for His glory in our lives, in reaching out to others. We forgive from our hearts, we forgive fully and we forgive often.

Involved with God

2009-08-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

Over this coming time, during August, we are going to be looking at different parables. Everything revolves around Jesus Christ and the work of God, and what He is doing in His church, in His time. All of us are involved in what He is doing, because of His work within us. That doesn’t mean that we have to go abroad, or have to be someone special in some way; we are all one hundred percent involved in the work of God.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »
Including Andrew Love's testimony of his family's mission trip to Africa

This parable refers fundamentally to the character of God. Let’s zero in on what you here are involved in now and what God is doing for you.

Matthew 20:1-4

A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. The householder here is God. It is God who got up early in the morning to hire labourers. He then agreed a penny for their work.

Matthew 20:4-16

Each one of us here is a partaker of God’s grace. There is no one here who can say that because they have been a Christian for a long time they deserve more of a blessing than a younger Christian. I want to emphasize that God found you and it is by His grace that you are here at all. What God is doing in our midst is stirring each one of us to evaluate what we now need to prioritise in order for our lives to in line with His will. The perspective of all this is that God is a good God and He draws us by His love. There is no one here who could look God in the face and say: ‘you never told me’. It’s His love that has, and is finding, you. What we need to do is to focus on Jesus Christ and lift Him up. Are we selfish in our life? Or is our attitude toward the life God has given us to find out and obey God’s will?

The Lord is Your Helper

2009-08-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

Hebrews 12:1-2

Deuteronomy 9:1-2

It was a known proverb. Who can stand against the children of Anak? And that proverb often took root in the minds and hearts of the children of Israel, just questioning, how on earth are we going to overcome these people!? Who can stand against the children of Anak? And sometimes in our lives we get to the situation where it’s possible that fear might grip your heart because you’re facing a situation or it’s something you’re facing and the enemy of your soul wants you to be gripped by fear.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

Caleb heard this proverb. It was widely known. And when you hear something, what the enemy of your heart wants to do is to grip it with fear. It’s as if you become paralyzed in the headlights; you can’t move. Perfect love casts out fear.

You and I have to remain focused. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. And the opposite of fear is perfect love and Jesus dispels fear.

Not just this week, but for our whole life, my heart is not going to be afraid because of who God is and what he is going to complete in my life.

There was a promise made to Caleb.

Deuteronomy 31:4-7

I’m going to keep my focus on the Lord God. Caleb had a different spirit.

Numbers 32:12

You and I have the choice in our life to go forwards in the right way or not. We are free to make that choice. Before we are a Christian, the default of your life is sin. As a Christian, we have the option and the glorious power and strength of God so that we can go forwards and fulfil his will in our lives.

Joshua 14:6-10

Forty five years he’d been waiting for the fulfilment of the promise for the land he would have. During that time he didn’t doubt God. More importantly he didn’t become resentful that this thing wasn’t happening for him. He didn’t feel bitter that God had somehow forgotten him, as it were. But he wholly followed the Lord.

Joshua 14:11-12

His strength was undiminished. What I want to highlight to you this morning that the key thing was that his focus hadn’t altered. He wholly followed the Lord. Don’t discount this because it was in the Old Testament. We’re talking about a man’s relationship with God. But I’m emphasising to you that when we read about someone like Caleb who is a witness of how God interacts with an individual., how he takes an individual so carefully and nurses that life and that life in Caleb’s terms was one where he stayed focused, week in week out, and when others might have got blessed or there was something he heard about, as far as he was concerned, wholly he stayed focused. And in forty five years he still knew God was going to see him through.

Is there a mountain in your mind that you’ve been facing this week. Something that the enemy has said “you see that won’t work out” or “God will never provide for you in the way you thought he would” or “you’re never going to get blessed”. And the enemy will use anything he can to cause our hearts to be gripped by fear.

But God is faithful and he will complete the work he started in your life and this morning, the faith that is being communicated to you, as with Caleb, now therefore Lord, let’s go for it. I want to see you glorified because I want to bring glory to your name, because I am trusting you. In everything I am trusting you and until that day when I shall see you face to face after I have fulfilled my days on earth, all I want to do is to fulfil your purposes for my life. And I want to help others to fulfil the purposes for their lives.

“Give me this mountain Joshua.” God says.

Psalms 48:14

And Jesus in the New Testament he refers to “continue in my word and the truth shall make you free”. Our call is that we should continue steadfast in God.

With Caleb it was a case of “Joshua, don’t worry about the fact that this has still got to happen. I’m still relying on God to do this.”

Joshua 14:13-15

Hebrews 13:5-6

That is true of you this morning. The Lord is your helper. The Lord is your helper. Don’t fear what man can do to you. It might be in your workplace that you’re facing something that’s gripping people with fear at the moment. The Lord is my helper. It might be concerns about your family or your children or in your marriage. I will not fear what man shall do unto me because the Lord is my helper.

He is faithful and the one who has called me. I will not fear.

So Caleb possessed the area of the Anakins.

Joshua 15:16-20

There is something about having that focus in your life. You transmit it. But the key point is for us to stay focused; I’m going God’s way, I will not fear what man will do. In any situation in my life, I’m going forward in Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 12:1-4

Verse 2: “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”. That’s focused. That’s Paul saying “This is the way to live and this is how you should go forwards in your life: Looking unto Jesus” By his holy spirit he lives inside you.

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. He completed the work God sent him to do.

Mr Russell

John 6:53-56

This is the most wonderful union we can have. Day by day we walk by him. He’s inside you. He’s never going to leave you. You belong to him. You’ve become one with him. That is the first thing we remember as we come.

But there is another thing. When Jesus spoke to his disciples at the last supper, it used to be a supper to commemorate the deliverance out of Egypt. But Jesus said,” From this day on, whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, do this in remembrance of me”. For hundreds of years they had celebrated it to remember the deliverance from Egypt but now Jesus said “From now on, you do this to remember what I have done for you.” It was always a celebration meal. It was never meant to be me and Jesus alone, thank you Lord. It was never meant to be that. It was a meal.

The power is in your relationship with Jesus and in him. And because he lives in you, the power is in you. The power is not in the bread and wine, it’s in you! There is no mystic power in the food and drink. It was meant to be a celebratory meal to enjoy and to share together. In the acts of the apostles “and they broke bread with joy and gladness”. It’s a joyful time because we remember what Christ has done in us but also it’s a time to celebrate our one with Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:10

We give thanks to God for our relationship with Christ and our fellowship with one another. Let me say this, until you know that oneness with him, you will never understand oneness with one another. Until we get our focus on him, we won’t have fellowship with one another. You’ll only see the problems and the negativity. When I have a difficulty with someone, I can look at that person and say “he or she loves Jesus as much as I do and he or she has a longing and desire to serve him as much as I do, and therefore, we are one together”. This was very helpful in seeing past the problems and the difficulties.

When your walk with him is right, your walk with your brethren is right. And you’ll be able to see past all the problems and the negativity and see the unity.

Hebrews 12:2

The joy was us!

[Communion]

There should never be any condemnation in Jesus Christ and we should never feel condemned by one another. But now we can rejoice in what God has done for us. We are all brothers and sisters. By focusing on him and not on the negatives, that is how we love one another.

God Will Bring You Through

2009-07-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hebrews 12:1-2

Looking unto Jesus. In that first verse it talks about the witnesses from times past who have exercised faith in God. It’s interesting in verse four that it says that He is the author and finisher of our faith. This means no one here can boast of the faith they have. This also means that God in His love and mercy will fulfil His purposes in us. He is building His church in His way and His time. I want to briefly look at the life of one of those witnesses and we will come back to that verse in Hebrews 12: 2 before we partake of the bread and wine.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

In a macro sense we are living at a time which is crucial for you and for me.

Exodus 14:10-13

That last verse God has impressed on my heart particularly of late. It was categorical what God said to them: ‘he Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever.’

Exodus 14:29-31

They had reached an impossibility where God, out of nothing, found the way forward for them. In any situation we find ourselves in life, we can choose the way we approach it in our spirit and mind.

Numbers 13:1-2

And so we then have a list of twelve of the tribes, preceded by the nominated persons from each of the tribes:

Numbers 13:4-16

I’m sure those people, when they were called together by Moses, got on well each other. Interestingly, in verse 16, Moses called Oshea, the son of Nun, to Jehoshua. That means that meaning of his name went from ‘he saves’ to ‘the Lord saves’. There came a part in mine and your life where we tried to save ourselves. And then there came a point where God drew close to us and he saved us.

The way God is opening up things for us in our lives is going to be tremendous when we put God first and realise that the faith we have is for Him. There is no pecking order of faith, it is all of Him. Jesus, who exemplified faith, coming to do what Father wanted, was the ultimate sacrifice in fulfilling everything that Father wanted. What we’re going to see through these verses is that the faith God has given us has been given for a reason: to glorify Him in our lives. When you look back on the impossible situation you are in now, you will see how God has got you through it.

Matthew 9:36-38

Do you do that? Do you look upon people and ask God that that person would become someone who goes into the fields so that glory might be brought to God’s name as they harvest in God’s land Or do you look at people and despise them and ensure that you remain above them? When Jesus looked at anybody in these multitudes He had compassion on them. We have to be 100% sold out for God. We are living at a poignant time for everyone here; it is God who is bringing things about.

Numbers 13:17-25

The twelve of them witnessed the same thing. Some went to different areas obviously to ensure that they covered the extent of the Lord. It’s apparent later that Caleb witnessed the people of Anak; the giants.

Numbers 13:26-27

Who sent them into the land? God did. Moses was under instructions from God.

Numbers 13:28-29

So this is the report from all twelve of them.

I just want you to see what was told to the children of Israel, by God, before they got to this stage.

Exodus 3:17-18

If they had really listened to what God had said they would have known that God would deliver the land unto them.

Numbers 13:28-29

It was known that that would be the case. So you can see, from a known number of facts, from a known viewpoint of those facts, it is possible for you to respond to what God is saying to you either the right way or the wrong way. What is it going to be? These twelve witnessed similar things. They all had the same God and knew that what God had promised they were now moving into. They also knew that they simply had to go and occupy the land and God would deliver it unto them.

Numbers 13:30-14:10

I am triple confident that the God whom we serve, that the One who has shined the glorious light of the Gospel into our hearts, is more than able to bring us through the difficulties in our lives. I think that what is now going happen, as we rest on God’s word, He will show us that He is the God of miracles and of faith. We will start going outward to help those in need. Jesus Christ is the answer for you and me. I am excited to know that what God is doing in our midst is something that will be fulfilling His purposes so that His glory will be exemplified and so that there will be others that He will drawn into His Kingdom.

I know that God has been making Himself known to you more than ever before. I think that, as you and I are open to God moving through His word, others will be drawn. Jesus is set down at the right hand of the throne of God because He has perfected God’s purpose. That purpose was that you and I should be people who know that God brought us out of the tyranny of sin. He set our feet upon a rock and has got us to a point in our lives when He is saying ‘let’s go forward together’. At the end of the difficulty you are facing now you will be grateful towards God, because you will be able to see that it was He that provided the way. Caleb knew that they could possess the land. What Jesus Christ did on the cross means that He has opened the way completely for you and for me to fulfil His purposes in our lives. He is a wonderful God.

What is it that the Lord is prompting you to do in His kingdom? Now is the time for it to happen. It is important that you and I approach circumstances with the right spirit.

There were ten people writhing in an attitude of doubt and disbelief. And then there was Caleb and Joshua with a completely different spirit. You have the spirit of Caleb and Joshua. It’s God’s spirit. It’s a miracle that that has happened in your life. What are you doing with it? It is a crucial time and it is a wonderful time as God is moving in our midst. We look, and will always look, unto Jesus and lift up His name.

The Foolishness of God

2009-07-26T02:00:00.000-07:00

By Rev. Trevor Dearing

The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. Throughout the Bible God has chosen people who, to the world, appear to be a foolish choice because they are ignorant or despised. But His foolishness is wise because, through these base people, we can see that the works they do and the words they say are from God, not of their own power. We have to flow with the foolishness of the Holy Spirit, but in order to do that we have to become weak and put our faith in the blood of Jesus Christ and the cross.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

During my ministry I have preached about everything I know about the nature and attributes of God. When I was praying God said to me: “Trevor, you’ve never preached about my foolishness. So I thought to myself that I couldn’t go in front of a group of Christians here and tell them that God was foolish. But then, my mind went to this passage:

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5

As I meditated upon this passage I realised that we cannot be saved from our sins unless we flow with God’s foolishness. I began to see that we cannot be used in our ministry or bring others into the kingdom unless we flow with God’s foolishness. So, Abraham was called to go and leave his country and he said in modern English: “Ok Lord God I will go. Where am I going?” God replied: “I will not tell you until you get there.” Abraham set off. Now Abraham didn’t have a natural son and there came a day when God promised him that Sarah would bare a son. Sarah was past it. And Abraham realised that he wasn’t doing too good either. Sarah laughed at the promise, but the baby was gone.

Later on Moses was sent to free the Israelites from the most powerful nation in the world: the Egyptians. Moses told God that he was not very good at speaking, but God told him that He would take care of that. Moses then asked what he should take with him and God replied that he should only take the stick that was in hand.

Joshua was leading the people into the promise land and Jericho, the most fortified city in the world, stood as an unsurpassable obstacle on their journey. The Lord said to Joshua that He would give him the city. So Joshua asked what he should do and the Lord replied that he should get the people to walk around it; so for seven days they walked round it. On the last day God told them to walk round the city seven times and to shout as they did it. So they did it and in the whole of history Jericho is the only city that fell because of shouting.

Gideon was told that he had too many to defeat the army of the Amalachite’s. When he had only a small army left, God said that that was the army He would use to defeat them.
When God chose the prophets He chose some unlikely people. God chose Amos who was a gardener, but was prepared to listen to do the word. Hosea was chosen when his wife was a prostitute and his bakery business had gone bust. This goes on into the New Testament. When Jesus was choosing His disciples He did not go to the universities and to those who had learnt the law. He went to the beach and chose fishermen and tax payers. He said later on that these were ignorant and unlearned men. This is the foolishness of God.

The foolishness of God is wiser than men. What lies at the heart of all this? One thing that lies at the heart of all this is that God chooses the weak things of the world, and the things which are not, so that when the end is accomplished the glory will not go to men but to God. If Moses had set the people free with a great army it would have been said that Moses was a great general. But because he did it with a stick it is recorded that God was a great God. Sarah had a baby when she was weak and old, so the glory went to God. The Lord gave Joshua the city because they simply walked round it. When the prophets and disciples were chosen people knew that their wisdom was of God because they were not learned people. Thus, they knew that their words were the word of the Lord. God’s power is demonstrated through the things which are not. Paul writes that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise things and the things which are weak to shame that which is strong.

The second great factor in the foolishness of God is that He has chosen that men and women will know Him and will do works for Him by faith. Because Abraham set out not knowing where he was going, he went by faith. Moses had only God’s word that without an army he would set the Israelites free. So, he acted upon God’s word in faith and the promise was fulfilled. Gideon had only the word of the Lord, Hosea and Amos had only the word of the Lord. Throughout the whole of the scripture, all human beings have had is the promise of God, and when they have obeyed God without understanding but in faith, God’s power has been released.

In the New Testament Jesus came walking on the water and Peter asked Jesus to bid him to walk to Him on the water. So the Lord said ‘come’. Peter then stepped out of the boat and stood on the water. The trouble with many Christians today is that they praise God from the safety of the boat, they are not prepared to walk in faith on the water.

2000 years ago the great God of the universe, who created everything, was going to come into the world. The Holy Spirit had made the whole of the Roman empire alive with the expectation that He was going to send a Saviour. How would He come? The Romans and the Greeks said that the only suitable place for the Saviour to come was in the palace of the Roman emperor. The Jews hated the Romans and they did not believe that God would come to the emperor’s palace. They believed that God would come from the skies. They believed that trumpets would sound and blast throughout all the world to announce His arrival. But, Bethlehem, though that are the least amongst the cities of Judah. A peasant woman, poor and lowly, but holy. Not an emperor’s palace, not even an inn. When God came He lay in a cattle trough and He who created the heavens and the earth suckled for sustenance. They missed Him because they did not understand the foolishness of God.

Then, God is going to redeem mankind, He is going to save individuals within the human race from the power of sin. How would God save the human race? The generals say give us better arms and weapons, and they still say it today, asking for nuclear armaments so that they can save the world. The inventors would ask for better technology. The educationalists would say that they will save the world through education. The politicians ask for new political theories. All human beings since time began have been using their brains and hands to save the human race from total destruction. But how did God save the world? How did He save you? He hung seemingly helpless on a cross with the mockery of a crown of thorns and an inscription: “This is the King of the Jews” above His head. The crowds jeered at him saying that if He was the King of the Jews He would be able to save Himself. But He cried out: “I thirst”. Then the author and giver of life bowed His head and died; that is the foolishness of God.

The word of the cross is to those that are perishing foolishness. God has made foolish the wisdom of the world. God was well pleased through the foolishness of the word to save those who heard it. When you share this word with others and say that it is the cross and His death that will save you, to them it will seem foolishness.

1 Corinthians 2:3-4

What are the qualifications for flowing with the Holy Spirit? There are two things: one is weakness and one is faith. Some years ago I was asked to take a mission at Cambridge. They had set up discussions and forums where students would be able to ask me about theology. I was there for ten days and the discussions made my head ache. And after ten days not one person had given their life to Christ. So, I decided to have a meeting and invited the students to a church. So, I preached about the blood of Jesus and the old rugged cross. I was with them in weakness and in fear and in much trembling but I preached the blood of Jesus. At the end a student came up to me and said that he had come to the meeting to hear something sensible. He said that he was suffering from depression and that he had written a suicide note and that if I couldn’t help him he was going to hang himself. He said that he didn’t want to hear about the blood of Jesus and the old rugged cross. He said that he would only believe if he could see and understand it. But I said that he must believe and put his trust in Jesus. This man was in need, he was weak, he wasn’t proud and arrogant; the first qualification. Then he said: “I believe in Jesus and the cross.” So I laid my hands on him and he fell on him. Then he stood up and declared that his depressions had gone and that he believed in the cross. The other students had seen this and then rushed forward, and scores of students gave the hearts to God that day.

I was in America one day and was talking to an eminent doctor. He said to me one day that he had a magnificent house, a yacht, that he was an eminent man but that he was a drunkard. He had tried to cure the drunkenness with medical science, but the harder he tried the deeper into alcoholism he got. It got to the stage where his wife left him and was considering filing for a divorce. This man was weak. Then one day his wife decided instead of filing for a divorce, to go to a church and pray for her husband. To her astonishment her husband joined her and told her that he was going to put his trust in Jesus. In that instant he was cured of his alcoholism.

God chose me after years of depression and sickness. I had hardly gone to school because I was incurably ill, and was expected to die at the age of 21. But there came one night when I put my trust in the blood of Jesus and the cross. That is why I am here today at the age of 75. When I got baptised in the spirit I began preaching the Gospel with power. I saw thousands of conversions and healings every year. I laid my hands on people and they were healed. But these are not special hands; they are like Moses’ stick.

There is power in weakness. If you want to get you must give. It is all upside down according to the world. Are you weak? Are you in need? There’s only one way to be saved: to put your trust in Jesus. If you think you are a real good Christian, you will be lost. It is a constant sense of need and weakness, it is dependence on Jesus. It is constant faith on what He did at Calvary. You’ve got to become a nobody before you can become a somebody in the kingdom of God.

Surrender All

2009-07-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Rev. Trevor Dearing

At the feeding of the five thousand Jesus took the five loaves and two small fishes from the boy, He blessed them, He broke them and He used them. In our own lives we must give all that we have to Jesus and He will bless all that we have given. We also have to be prepared to be broken by God because only when we have been broken and we have realised that we cannot do it by ourselves, can God take our inadequate life and use it.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

We’re going to look tonight at the only miracle recorded in all four gospels.

John 6:1-14

A sign is a miracle, but it is more than a miracle: it is a miracle with a meaning. It’s not only what Jesus did at that time to meet a particular need. A sign has a spiritual message within for Christians of every generation. This spiritual message is about how you can reach your full potential in Christ Jesus. It is about how you can know in your life a magnificent blessing that you have known before. It is about spiritual revival and how to live a productive Christian life. There’s so much in this seemingly simple account of this incident, that words hardly can be found to describe the spiritual lesson that this sign teaches. Tonight I want you to take away four actions which Jesus performed: He took, He blessed, He broken and He used. We do the same thing every time we have Holy Communion. I want to convey to you that this is the central focal act of God in the Christian life, for those who are really willing to yield themselves to Him.

So, what did Jesus take? I’d like you to go in your imagination to a little house in Galilee where a family are getting up in the morning. The little boy says to his mother: “Can I go today mum?” and she asks where he wants to go. So He replies that He wants to go and see Jesus of Nazareth. So his mum replies, asking how long he will be gone and he says that he thinks he will be there all day. Now mum’s always make sure that their sons have plenty of food. So this mum told him that if he was to go all day he would need something to eat. They found five barley loaves and two small fish and he took them with him. So the little boy goes, the day wears on and everyone gets hungry. He also remembers and is very grateful for the food. Just as he is about to take the first mouthful, a man comes up to him and asks for his food. Despite protestations, he gives the man the food because he is told that Jesus wants them. This is the moment where spiritual blessing begins. This is where all that God can give you starts, when you give Him the lot.

I had to learn this lesson myself. At the age of 19 I had just become a Christian, when my minister had said to me that I didn’t know my Bible and told me to go to a Bible School. So I arrived at this Bible School and was going through the door when a great big fellow gave me a great big hug and said: “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” and welcomed me. Soon I found myself among forty men I had never known existed, who knew their Bible back to front, preached on the streets, had fellowship meetings and all the time they were talking about Jesus. I wasn’t happy because I thought these people were fanatics. So, I decided to go home at the end of term. In the last meeting of the term the preacher asked if there was anyone who was unhappy in their life as Christian. He said that if you were unhappy it was because you had not fully given yourself to Him. He said you must abandon everything and a become a living sacrifice for Jesus. I realised that I had to do something. I thought that I should run through the door, but then this man, as if he had heard my thoughts, told me not to. He said that I should instead run down to the front; so I did. That day God got all their was of Trevor Dearing. That day I became happy.

Every year Anne and I go back to that college. I go back to the church and kneel on the spot where I had knelt when I was twenty and do it all over again. I never want to do anything else other than surrender everything to Jesus.

So Jesus took all that the little boy had. As He has done for two thousand years, He has taken all for us. For me this meant that I had to become a minister of the gospel. This is not the same for everyone. When you make that act of full surrender God tells you what to do in your life, as long as you don’t count that cross. He took, He blessed. He took the loaves of fish in His hands and gave thanks over them. It is an amazing truth that when I, at the age of 20, knelt in that little church, Jesus put His hands underneath me, lifted me up to the Father and gave thanks for an inadequate life. It is wonderful to be a blessed man, to have so given all to Jesus that He gives thanks to the Father. He gives thanks to the Father for you and for me.

I learnt after some years that the greatest blessing Jesus could give me here on earth was the fullness of the Holy Spirit. God, the first person of the trinity, dwelling in my life. This is the greatest gift: that God should dwell so fully within us that He overflows us. I had a pretty grim king of ministry for a while, with the Methodists. Then Anne got mixed up with the Pentecostals, much to my dismay. I decided that I would never go to a Pentecostal church, even though she went and took the children. She came out and she was so excited about the worship and the speaking in tongues and the healings. So I said that I would go next time. I sat in the back row trying to be inconspicuous. It was a remarkable service; a different dimension of Christianity from what I’d known. Then the pastor called forth the sick and a woman, who had been in a wheelchair for 14 years, was wheeled forward. The pastor then laid his hands forward and said: “I command you to walk in the name of Jesus Christ.” And to my astonishment she got up and began to run up the church.

At the end of the service I went up to the pastor and announced myself as an Anglican clergyman, to which he was not particularly impressed. After I gave him my testimony he said that I needed the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So he took me to the scriptures and asked me if I wanted to receive it, to which I replied yes. He took me to a back room and then he, and four others, began to pray for me, running round me and getting very excited. When they had finished they asked me how I felt and told me that their prayer would be answered. And it was. I began to read my Bible more than ever and praying more than ever. Then one night I knelt down and began to pray. I was so earnest and fervent to receive the baptism of the spirit. Then, all of a sudden, the room was filled with light and I began to speak a tongue I didn’t know. Then a finger reached out and I asked: “Who are you?” and he replied that he was Gabriel and that I was sent to heal the sick. When Anne came in she said that my face was shining, and I told her that I had been to heaven.

That little boy, with five loaves and two fishes, could have given only four of the loaves. Jesus would not have forced him to give all. But what he had kept would not have been part of the blessing. The blessing of God in your life is in proportion to that which you have given Him. Partially given, partially blessed. Fully given, fully blessed. I am grateful that God has taught me about full surrender because since that day I have been fully blessed.

The Evangelical doctrine about what it means to be broken is much neglected in the preaching of churches these days. But, when you give all to Jesus and are fully blessed, you have to be willing to be broken. This is not like when a dog is broken so that it fears its masters, but it is like the taming of a horse that must be broken so that it can obey its master. I’ve counselled hundreds of Christians and they’ve all explained to me how they have gone through a period of brokenness.

To give an illustration: Peter was proud and boastful. He promised to stand by Jesus no matter what. But before the cock crowed He had denied Jesus three times as Jesus had foretold. The last time he denied with the strongest language he could use. Then the cock crew and Jesus turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter went out and wept bitterly. The angels rejoiced because Peter had come to the end of himself and was now a man whom God could use.

God uses all manner of things to break us, to get rid of the flesh and self-importance. If we really put ourselves into the hands of God there will be a time when we know we can’t do it ourselves, when we realise we can’t live this Christian life on our own. Once we are shattered to the core He will be able to use us.

Then Jesus used the food. When He broke the food and used there wasn’t initially incredible large amounts of food. But as they gave away the food it was multiplied more and more until there were twelve baskets left over. This is the key to the Christian life: if you hang on to the Christian life and your blessings for your own satisfaction and gratification, you will lose your blessings. But, give away your blessings, and they will be multiplied.

I’ve been given a gift of healing despite my inadequacies. But I haven’t been given it so that I can say how good I am. I have been given it to give away. Give it away. We worship a generous God who gave us His only begotten son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. But if we want to blessed we have to be giving people because as we give them away they will be multiplied. Give and it will be given to you, running over. Hold on to it and you will lose it.

In the week before Good Friday I always meditate on Him. When you meditate you use your spiritual imagination. All that week I am there watching Jesus hanging on the cross, with such sorrow and love in His eyes. When I was meditating on this years ago, I had a realisation: that if I could offer all the world to Jesus, it would be an inadequate offering compared to what He has given me. And then I realised that I have something far more precious to give him: my life. Your greatest possession is not your house or your car, it is your life. He that saves his life will lose it and he that loses it will save it. I want to ask you a question. You’ve come out on a Friday night to a Christian meeting. Let me take it for granted that you are a Christian and have been baptised in the holy spirit and speak in tongues. What I will not take for granted is that you have given your life. Has God spoken to you tonight about giving your life away to Jesus? Has God spoken to you tonight about giving Him all? Take my life and let it be consecrated unto thee. You must give your life away.

The Father’s Heart: Love, not Law

2009-07-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Kent Hodge

Over and over again, we see that Jesus put people above law and tradition. If we’re to have the heart of God, we need to do the same.

When you go through the epistles of Paul, one of his main topics is our love for one another. I love the scriptures where he uses “one another”. He talks about us as on body, one family, and supporting one another. We get stronger in our support when we see people not doing well in some respect. When we see people in need, our love and our support ought to grow all the more. We need to get behind one another and garrison each other around.

We shouldn’t use the law to count one another out. The law is to lead us to Christ, to show us our need of Christ and of salvation. It’s not there for us to meet together and draw differences between one another. When we see someone failing in respect of Christian things, our compassion needs to go out all the more – we shouldn’t dismiss them as people who just aren’t up to it.

The people we invite for lunch shouldn’t be the people who will invite us back again. The Bible says we are to invite the unrighteous. We should reach out – not in a legalistic way, but we should be prepared to invite people who are different.

We ought to reach out to one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord, and we are a family. The thing which makes us a family is the blood of Jesus – we’re not the same in any other respect, but our differences don’t matter. It’s the blood of Jesus which makes us a family.

Titus 2:11-14

He gave himself to change our hearts and our lifestyle. He wanted a people different from the world. There’s something different about the way we live. We’re not like the world in the way we react to one another. In the world, fellowship is based on sameness – people need to have the same opinions and likes, or else we don’t like them. There’s something above all of that, above these other things – the love of God, the bond of perfection. I need to fellowship with people in the body of Christ based on nothing else other than the love of God.

Titus 2:14-15

Paul told Titus to be very clear on these things. This is what it means to fight the fight of faith, to fulfil your duty as a pastor.

Titus 3:1-2

This is our Christian behaviour and conduct.

Titus 3:3

The people in the world have malice to one another, especially over things they have done in the past. They keep records. They split people up into camps. God doesn’t like to be put in a box. His salvation is for all people. Sometimes we can put God in a denominational box. But we can’t do that. God is for all people and His love is for everyone. In the church, the family of God, we have a different way of live, and we have an example for the world to see – the love of God is working un our lives through the love we have one to another.

Titus 3:4-9

Many years ago my family and I were in a small town in western NSW, in the back of beyond. Ruth’s parents live there. We were at one of the church meetings at the church my in-laws go to. At one meeting, one brother – a young, zealous believer – who was trying to draw distinctions over water baptism. He was making a stand over the age someone has to be when they are baptised. He said he’d had a revelation from the scriptures, and he was prepared to separate from the other spirit-filled believers who didn’t see things the same way. He thought he was doing it for God, but there are other things in the body of Christ which are more important – that we are one family. If people have love and faith in the Lord, and it’s working in their lives, and they are true brothers and sisters, then we should receive one another even if we have minor difference. The most important thing in our lives is people, and what God is doing in their lives.

This brother separated himself and started to have meetings over how old people should be baptised. People like this think they are serving God. But that’s not the issue. The issue is people, that we love one another, and that we see what God is doing in transforming our lives.

John 13:3

John 13:4

He dressed Himself like the lowest person in the house. He lowered Himself below His disciples in what He was about to do.

John 13:5-15

I love the challenge of fellowshipping with believers who are different from myself – and I do all the time. I went to an Anglican church once – a good place with a good pastor. I love variety. I love different traditions. And we ought to be able to handle them, because the substance is Christ, not the tradition. He’s the one who died for us. So let’s not get bogged down by minor issues.

This Anglican church had three queues for wine. I thought they might be for different groups of people. I asked why there were three queues. It turned out one was for wine, one for port, and one for grape juice.

Churches are different. I go to lots of different churches. It’s a challenge, but we begin to look at what fellowship about. What is the family of God about? And we come to see it’s about Jesus Christ and His love for us. He loved each one of us equally, and He died on the cross and gave Himself for us as His church.

John 13:34-35

When we speak of “all men”, we begin at Brentwood. We’re a witness. But what do we witness of? It’s not that I got baptised on the right day and in the right way. Our witness starts in Brentwood, not by ranting and raving and campaigns and good artwork. People will know we are disciples by our love for one another. The world has all these things, but the one thing it doesn’t have is unconditional agape love, family. We have family, and that family is shown by love.

John 15:10-14

We have a friend who has laid down his life for his friends. He was in a cinema when there was a fire. He came out with two friends, but one friend remained inside, and he went back to help, and died. Even in the church today, many would say that was a waste of his life, but not according to Jesus. He was a good friend to us.

I told Ruth these scriptures were too challenging – talking about the love of God and what He says about our lives. I don’t always feel I’m up to doing it. But this is what the scripture says.

Jesus would not allow anyone to put God in a box. He came for the Pharisees, for the publicans, for the sinners. He wouldn’t let people put expectations upon Him because of their traditions. He wouldn’t allow that to happen.

Mark 3:1-2

Here we have someone who needs to be healed. He has a withered hand All the Pharisees were concerned about was whether it was the sabbath day or not – they had their traditions.

One of or brothers is in Egypt currently, preaching at many different kinds of churches. We went there not knowing what to do, and God has opened doors. I believe the Gospel is the only answer. There must be a move of God in those nations.

This man preached at a widows meeting on Jesus from John 3, and there was a lady there who came out for prayer. He said he knew God was going to do something. He stuck his fingers in her ears, and she began to hear. When the meeting was finished, he went out and people began to rush to him. Sometimes they’ve been so enthusiastic, he’s been afraid they’d draw attention to him. The people took him to a house, and an impromptu house meeting began. Then he went to a pastors’ meeting and he spoke to 13 pastors. Then he was taken to a Presbyterian church – all on the same day. He said they wanted to start a five-day meeting immediately. And the only meeting actually arranged that day was the first meeting for the widows.

I tried to encourage him to go to the Coptic church too, but he said the Pentecostals were unsure about that, because you had to kiss the priest’s hand. But there are good Christians in Coptic churches too, and if you have to kiss the priest’s hand to get in there, then do it!

Take the woman who was a prostitute. What someone has done in the past doesn’t matter. What have I done in my past? I’d be counted out on that basis. The challenge for us as Christians is to love one another regardless, and leave room for God to move in their lives.

When we receive one another as Christians and love one another, that gives God’s love space to transform a life. The thing which gets me most is God’s unconditional love for us, that while we were sinners, He died for us. That’s why I serve God – His unconditional love has got my heart.

If others around us don’t seem to be serving the Lord as much as we think they should, we shouldn’t hit them with the Law. When the unconditional love of the Lord gets hold of them, it’ll make the difference.

What I want to draw from Mark 3 is that the person mattered more to Jesus than did the law, the tradition, the sabbath, the issue that the religion people were standing on. The person, the family, the fellowship ... that this person was a child of Abraham mattered more to Jesus than the tradition. Are we not children of God in one family, and isn’t that the issue amongst us a people, and as brothers and sisters in Christ.

In all of the Gospels, it was people that mattered to Jesus, not the law. The two commandments are that we love the Lord with all of our heart – not to check up on how someone else is doing in that respect; and to love my neighbour, people, people, as myself. People are brought to the top. It’s not our traditions and laws and our righteousness which matter. My stand isn’t my righteousness – the blood of Jesus is my righteousness.

In Ephesians 2, Paul is talking about division between Jew and Gentile, which was based on the law. “They don’t eat the food we eat, don’t worship on the same day, don’t have the same traditions.” And so Jew and Gentile were separated under the Old Covenant. But under the New Covenant, its’ not the tradition, but the blood of Jesus which matters.

Ephesians 2:1-10

We are His workmanship – the one who went away and the one who remained. In ancient church history, there was a persecution in Egypt. Some people stood and died in the persecution. Others didn’t. They confessed what they were told to confess, and they survived. After the persecution was over, those who compromised wanted to come back into the church, and those who had stood firm said no. That was a big issue in church history. I don’t have an answer, but we have to give place for God to work, and God can transform and save a life, because He’s done it with me. I’ve compromised, and He’s saved me, so I know He can do it. I have to let God have space to do it.

Ephesians 2:11-12

The wall of the Jewish traditions has been removed out of the way because God wanted to make one family, making Jew and Gentile one.

Ephesians 2:13

He is our righteousness – not our stand on something. I’m not talking about abandoning our standards. I’m talking about the Gospel.

Ephesians 2:14

If God has broken down the wall, how dare we build it up again? How dare we behave as though that wasn’t done by Christ?

Ephesians 2:15

To bring that which was divided by the law ... by fulfilling the Old Testament law, and fulfilling the conditions, He removed those conditions, and His blood became the righteousness of those ordinances. So we now come to Him as one man, based on His body. It’s not our cultures which draw us together, but the blood of Christ.

The enmity was the stand, the divisions. His blood becomes our righteousness and therefore he can make one body based on peace, on agape, on His love for us.

Ephesians 2:16-17

“Far off” – the Gentile, the outsider, the one we reject; “nigh” – those within the church.

Ephesians 2:17-18

The spirit of God who comes to live in us. I don’t have access to God because I’ve done enough good things. If my access was based on that, I wouldn’t have access. But my access is based on grace.

Ephesians 2:19-22

Not through the law, but through the spirit.

Paul is an apostle to the Gentiles, and he’s talking about one body united. We have to forget the laws and traditions, but talk of the blood of Christ instead.

The publicans and sinners ... the publicans were the “church people” – those who were doing His will.

Luke 15:1-3

Jesus gives various parables. He speaks of the lost sheep, as an example of what God’s heart is. He speaks too of the woman who loses a coin, and had a heart for the lost one – and that needs to be our heart too.
v11 gives the parable of the prodigal son. Some people say the parable is concerned more with the prodigal’s brother, not the prodigal himself.

Luke 15:11-21

This must be our passion – to forget about the hundred and go for the one.

Luke 15:22

There’s been a real change of God in the heart. There was a complete turnaround, a change of heart, of nature. It was full and genuine, and the man was filled with God’s spirit.

Luke 15:23-29

The brother recounts the things which the prodigal has done in the past.

Luke 15:30-32

If the brother is really concerned for the Father’s heart, he’d know it was the Father’s heart for the two brothers to be one. It’s not pleasing the Father for us to insist on doing everything just so – what pleases Him is when people are brought together in His love.

In Hosea, it talks of the sins of Israel. Once I was about to exclude someone because of their immaturity and behaviour. And the Lord spoke to me from Hosea, and said “Don’t exclude them, but love them.” My love won’t change someone, but God’s love can work through us. We have all of us gone prostituting away from God.

Hosea 2:16-20

They have gone astray from Him totally, and His heart had been wounded deeply. And yet out of this comes the full love of God, speaking of the rejoicing and salvation to come. He would change their heart and make us lovers of God.

Hosea 3:1

God tells Hosea to take a harlot to wife. This is against the law, I think. But redemption fulfils the law – our guilt under the law. “People who have had problems in their past ... I will love them and change them.”

Ephesians 4:1-2

Forbearing one another in love. Yes, Christians have faults. They’re people. There are hypocrites in the church, but there are more outside.

Philipians 2:1

If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,

We’re all fellows on the same ship. You may say there’s something wrong with it. Well, fix it! Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Philipians 2:2

“Likeminded” doesn’t mean we agree on the same things. Some people have been taught that if we don’t agree exactly, we can’t have fellowship, but our fellowship lies in the love of Christ.

Philipians 2:3-4

The Matters which Matter

2009-07-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Pastor Kent Hodge

So many people get caught up on minor points of doctrine which end up dividing us. But God called us to love and care for one another. We need to major on the major.

1 Timothy 1:1-4

There are things which are of major importance to Christians – and they are faith and love. They had people in Ephesus who were debating the peripheral things. You can make a big issue out of small things. People can get in a twist about things and put them ahead of their brethren. But the important thing is our brother and sister in Christ, not the way we worship or whatever. To put these things ahead of the brethren is totally against God’s will. He died that we might be one. His will is that we should be happy together in the Father’s household.

In Ephesus, people were making their righteousness of things which had nothing to do with righteousness. Our righteousness is in the blood of Christ, not in the way we do things.

1 Timothy 1:4

What builds the church up is faith. Godly building is faith. Faith that works through love – that was really Paul’s Gospel.

1 Timothy 1:5

The end of the whole thing is that we love one another. Anything which will hinder that is not according to God’s will and purpose for our life. The end of the matter is that we are brethren and love one another. Jesus said the most important commandment was that you love the Lord God with all of your heart and mind, with all of your strength, with all of your being ... and that you love your neighbour as yourself.

1 Timothy 1:5

“Pure” in the sense of there being just one thing in the heart, wanting to walk God’s way.

These are the main things.

I want to talk about the brother of the Prodigal Son. We’ll get to that later on. But there are many parables Jesus gave. When Jesus spoke about the Prodigal, He was with the publicans and sinners. The sinner was the prodigal son, and the publican was his brother. As far as the Father was concerned, both were His sons, and He accepts both according to His redemption.

The most wonderful thing we have from God is redemption. God’s ability to take someone like the prodigal and by His love alone change their life and heart and make them a new person in Christ. On Sunday we’ll look at Hosea, who was told to take a prostitute to wife. It was a picture of God redeeming Israel. I want to look at how there is power in the Gospel, in the love of Christ, to change someone. I’m not talking about lowering our standards in Christ, but I’m talking about the heart of God and His redemption. Somehow His love is able to work through us in a miraculous way and reach out to people who are living wrong or don’t know Him. There’s a love in us which reaches out to these people whereas others would reject them.

The way we sometimes deal with other people, and the things we say about other Christians, are wrong. We write people off. We speak things which ought not to be said. If God is working in us, the challenge is that there is a love which is able to reach through us and touch other people’s lives.

This thing about the publicans and sinners ... Jesus dealt with this issue many times, and it got Him into trouble, because it wasn’t what the religious people expected of Him.

Mark 3:1-2

I’ve heard people talk about how they baptise only according to specific principles. A man came to me and said he was getting baptised again because they hadn’t used the right words the first time. But you’ve been baptised into Christ when you are born again and repent and turn to Him.

I remember people making a big deal about how old you should be when you are baptised, and it caused a split with other brethren. They thought their doctrine was better than other people’s.

If God was ticking people off about things like this, He would have ticked me off years ago. When we tell people off, there are three fingers pointing back at us. There has to be a different way. And that is the way of love.

I’m not talking about lowering our Christian standards. Truth is truth, righteousness is righteousness. But we’re talking about people, and God changing them as He has changed us.

Mark 3:2-4

These people were taking the letter of the law. But the law furnished us with principles. In the law it talks about a woman who is taken by force. The law says if the woman screams, it’s by force, otherwise it’s by consent. That was a principle for judges to use in courts. But the law isn’t giving the letter there. Maybe the person was unable to scream – maybe their mouth was bound. The judge has to look for the principle of consent. The reason the law furnishes the principle is that God loves the lady. To take the law and kill with it is contrary to the purpose of the law, which was to protect. If we refuse to talk or eat with people, we’re like Peter when he was sent to Cornelius, and initially baulked against it.

Mark 3:4-5

What mattered to Jesus more was the person, not the sabbath. Not the law, but the person the law was made to protect. The Pharisees had turned this around and put the law above fellowship and love and restoration and healing of our inner man, not just our body.

Matthew 12:1-4

One of the reasons for this was that it wasn’t lawful for a king to presume to be a priest. So it was something to keep people out of this. People weren’t born again in the Old Testament and had to go by these strictures. And we also have the division of powers today where the legislature is separate from Parliament etc.

But David wasn’t going against the law here. He wasn’t presuming to be a priest; he was simply hungry. David loved the law, read the word. All the Psalms are about his respect for the law of God. He could see Christ in the law. He could see the shepherd heart in the law. Because of the Holy Spirit on his life, he was able to see this. He wasn’t bogged down in religiosity, but he loved the Lord.

Matthew 12:3-5

God says He wants mercy. Brethren are to be walking in love, not to be divided by doctrine etc. We’re one body redeemed by His blood. In my own life in Nigeria, the more direct I get in my preaching, the more I have to love people.

Matthew 12:6

The Pharisees didn’t like that. They had made a religion out of law, and the temple was the symbol of it.

Matthew 12:7-8

The kingdom is faith that works through love, not a question of abstaining from certain kinds of food and so on. We have liberty, but we don’t use it in a way that might offend people. The main thing is to love our brother. The main thing in our own lives is not the meat, but to love one another. And that’s the will of God for us. We are all baptised into one body and all drink of one brook. That’s the issue. Cornelius and Peter didn’t eat the same meat, but they both drank from the same brook.

At our conference, I asked why, if we all drank together, we couldn’t have a communion. That brought a stunned response. But we were eating of Jesus together. I said I’d invite the Anglican Archbishop to do it. He has been persecuted and stood faithful and true to the Gospel. They have come through persecution. But he wasn’t available. So we didn’t do it.

What we want is one body with spirit-filled reformed theology. I love it. Let’s go on with the Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation.

We are one body and eat of one bread. That’s what matters. Basically we need to exercise patience with one another, so God can move. Give God space to move in someone’s life.

Mark 2:23-28

Mark 2:27

This is one of the things in the parable of the prodigal son. When he came back, the other son recounted all the things that he had done. And that wasn’t what the father wanted. He wanted both sons. Some people have called this the parable of the prodigal’s brother. Jesus was peaking both to the publicans and to the sinners.

The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath. The law was made to help and protect man, not to destroy him.

If we get someone who has messed up in the past, we don’t want to destroy them with the law. We want to think about how we can move on. When we take the Gospel out into the world, it’s not a perfect world. When I was first saved, I had an issue with restoration. You had to think about all the things you did before you were saved and sort them out. What God says about us is, “Let him who stole, steal no more.” God wants a changed heart and life. If I were to go back and restore everything, I’d have to leave my family. I don’t even know the people any more.

1 Timothy 1:7-9

The law testifies against sinners and protects us. But we know the law is good if it is used lawfully – and that means using it to help and protect, not to pull down.

Believing Thomas

2009-07-12T02:00:00.000-07:00

Pastor Linnecar continues to look at the truth which lies behind the man we have learnt to write off as Doubting Thomas, but who should rather be seen as Believing Thomas.

Thomas, is often referred to as Doubting Thomas, and he has that title because of the episode we know, when he wanted to be sure for himself that Jesus had risen from the dead. I referred to the earlier time when he was with Jesus.

The wonderful thing about studying the characters of the apostles is that it dawns on you that Jesus Christ manages to reach any individual, any personality. I want to state categorically that Jesus Christ is alive. It doesn’t matter what the enemy throws at you, doesn’t matter what voices you hear off-stage, what people try and cover up with, Jesus Christ is alive and is here now. How do we know that? He’s here by His Holy Spirit. He was here when the choir got here this morning to practise. He’s here because He loves you.

On Friday we looked at a time when Jesus was saying a few things and the Pharisees and others didn’t like what He said, and were about to stone Him. Jesus left that place and heard that Lazarus was sick. Then He stayed where He was, even though He knew that Lazarus was dead.

John 11:14-16

They knew that when Jesus said they would go over to him, he was walking into a den of lions. But Thomas’s reaction was that he was going to go too. There was a courage in Thomas. He knew as he walked with Jesus over those years, there was something different about Him. As they walked with Him, they tried to work out what He meant – would He bring triumph over the Romans, for instance?

John 13:36-53

Jesus always tells the truth. But here Thomas wondered whether he did know the way.

John 14:5-7

What a reply to Thomas’s question! Jesus patiently in the earshot of all the disciples said He was the way, the truth, the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Him.

So that’s why in the last week, God by His Holy Spirit has been talking to you, and has been asking you this question – “Do you believe in me? Do you realise that up to this point, I’ve guided you. I’ve been with you.” “Right up to this point, I am the way the truth and the life. You don’t have to find out some hidden thing – I am the way.”

I’m sure it dawned on Thomas a little bit more that there was something totally different about getting involved with Jesus. He didn’t say, “I tell the truth”: it was “I am the truth.” It wasn’t that there are various ways you could try: “I am the way.” It wasn’t that there are various forms of life. “I am the life.”

That’s why everything turns on you and your relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is central to everything. And this morning He wants to remind you that every prayer you’ve prayed in the last week, anything which is on your heart, He’s heard you. And quite specifically this morning, He’s here for you.

“I am the way, the truth and the life.” So when Jesus died on the cross, Thomas couldn’t figure it out. “He told me I am the way, the truth and the life.” He was now crucified. And sometimes we can’t figure things out. Sometimes we think that God has somehow messed it up. Sometimes we think He hasn’t heard us, or that we don’t deserve anything because we’re no good. But there mere thought of getting things from God because of good deeds is completely wrong.

There’s something about the way God plans our lives which shows the intent of Him who loves you to reveal Himself to you. I know some people would dismiss all this, and say, “I don’t believe all this.” But if truth were known, these people in their heart of hearts know that something inside needs sorting out. And God by His grace – somehow He organises things so we find a solution.

“But Christianity is just a crutch. I don’t need Christianity. You do – you’re weak.” Well yes, I am weak. When it came to the power of sin in my life, I needed a solution. I was getting nowhere.

There was an honesty about Thomas. With Peter it was all up-front. Everyone knew what he thought. With Thomas there was always, “That’s true. I believe it. But I need clarification.”

I’ve done quite a bit with personality profiling. It’s often used in interviews – the four different aspects of a personality. And it’s fascinating to me to see the different types of personalities there are – the DISC model. If you’re a high “C” you want to dot every I and cross every T. And we need people like that. If you’re high “D”, it’s over the top, follow me. Thomas, I think, was more of a high “C” than a high “D”. But I think he was actually quite bold, because he often spoke up what others were only thinking – “We don’t actually know the way.” “If he’s going back to Judea, I’m with Him.”

And then Jesus died, and the first day of the week, Mary came to the tomb, and then found Peter and John, and they went to the tomb, and then Mary stood outside the sepulchre weeping, and had a personal encounter with Jesus.

Already before the Holy Spirit was given, Jesus was talking to Mary, telling her He was ascending to His Father, their Father, His God, their God. And that’s why you’re here this morning. Regardless of anything you’ve done this week, God has drawn you.

We’re not told what the disciples thought when Mary went to them. But they were glad when Jesus came to them that evening. But Thomas wasn’t there that evening. We don’t know why. Maybe he wasn’t as afraid of the Jews as they were.

Jesus said to the disciples – “Here are my hands and side – it really is me.”

And then Jesus left. Twice, He said, “Peace be unto you.” When the sea billows roll, there is a peace in Christ, which this world cannot give. He is our peace. And this morning, His words to some of you are, “Peace be unto you – peace, right in the midst.”

Jesus heard what Thomas said. I know you know that. But I want to concentrate on the timing, because God’s timings in your life are perfect.

There are people sitting here who are still looking for a job. I could quote you a number of people who sat where you are, where at the right time the job was made available and it has been secure. There is nothing God will not sort out for you. He’s your provider. Those facing financial difficulties – He is your provider. Whatever your difficulties are, God’s timing is perfect. What happened last year is in God’s timing for your life.

Was Thomas being stubborn – “I won’t believe unless I put my hands into His side”? I don’t think it was like that. I think he almost didn’t dare to believe what they were saying as true. He’d been so close to Jesus.

That night, Thomas went to sleep wondering. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust what the others disciples were saying. He’d been with them for at least three years. Why didn’t God include Him in what had happened? God listens to our thoughts. We’re talking here about the character of God who is a God of love. He hears you. Even this week He’s been listening. He’s not weak.

The next night Thomas went to bed like this. And the next, and the next. For seven nights he was trying to reconcile himself to the fact that God had revealed Jesus to the others and he hadn’t been there. He wanted it to happen to him. He wanted to be certain. He didn’t dare believe until he was sure.

Don’t stop coming to church. There’s something about when we meet together, that God by His Holy Spirit through His word reveals Himself. We don’t earn brownie points by coming to church, but when God reveals Himself it’s special.

Thomas still met with the other disciples even though Jesus hadn’t revealed Himself to them. And then Jesus came again. Imagine the effect upon Thomas. Wow – He’s showed up again! He’s here – I can see Him! What am I going to do now? What’s He going to say to me after what I’ve done?

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in your life. It doesn’t matter the verbal abuse you’ve aimed at God – He’ll still keep coming.

Don’t react by saying you’ll just carry on doing it. Inside you know what I’m saying is true – you’ve been like Thomas. But Jesus by His Holy Spirit is here this morning.

When Jesus came He didn’t have a go at Thomas. He liked him. He knew he was straight and honest. Jesus didn’t speak to the others – He just looked straight at Thomas and told him to reach into His side.

“Be not faithless, but believing.” This is the bottom line for you this morning, and for me.

“Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.” That’s us. He’s here by His Holy Spirit. Same thing.

A little later, Thomas was with the disciples on the beach when Jesus appeared and told Simon to throw out the nets. Thomas specifically is mentioned as being there this time.

Thomas’s life thereafter was a continuous proclamation of the risen Christ. He ended up being martyred for the Gospel, but it’s thought that before that he preached the Gospel at various places in India.

God by His Holy Spirit causes us to see. He’s doing that even now as I speak. To see what? To see who Jesus Christ really is. “My Lord and my God,” Thomas said. Is He your God this morning? Or is your God yourself, your intellect? Is your God mere cynicism and dismissiveness, bound up in me, me, me? God doesn’t want that.

What Jesus was all about was others, others, others – the whole world. This morning, I want to encourage each one of you that in the same way that Jesus heard all that Thomas thought and said, so Jesus Christ has heard you this week. And this morning He’s speaking to you because He wants that relationship to be real to you.

I think rather than Doubting Thomas, the phrase should be Believing Thomas. He was true and honest, and God revealed Himself to Him.

The True Thomas

2009-07-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone has heard of Doubting Thomas. But that is far from the whole story.

Thomas. It got me to thinking about his life. I want to talk about one episode in his life. He started off with Jesus, and is often known as Doubting Thomas because he wanted to see the nail prints. But if we look prior to that episode, we can see something totally different.

External Links:Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

Matthew 10:1-3

There’s Thomas, number seven in the list. He was given power against unclean spirits to cast them out. He was given power to heal sickness and disease – God working through him. Sometimes I think we consider him just in the later episode and forget that he was an apostle, a disciple of Jesus Christ.

There are some here who are weighing up their future. I want to convey the fact that when Jesus called His disciples and said, “Follow me,” that’s exactly what we’re meant to do. We’re to follow Him and do what He wants us to do. No matter what the circumstances, no matter what appears to be against it, follow Jesus Christ.

Here Thomas witnessed this power that God worked through him.

John 10:22-30

That last was the phrase that got to them.

John 10:31-49

Judea was where they had been ready to stone Him. He was under threat of being killed. When the news of Lazarus comes, He stays with the family for a couple of days, and then ...

John 11:8-15

Jesus knew exactly what He was doing. To the disciples as they journeyed with Jesus through life trying to figure out who He was, what His destiny was, so they wondered why He was going back to Judea, when He had only to turn up there for them to stone Him. But He knew what God would demonstrate through the episode of Lazarus.

John 11:16

To the other disciples, that was like a bombshell. What did it reveal about Thomas? As far as he was concerned, Jesus was what it was all about. And if Jesus was to die, as far as Thomas concerned, he was with Him.

Later in the same chapter ...

John 11:43-46

There’s something about being a Christian which means, “for me to live is Christ”. That’s my life. And if Jesus wants me to go somewhere, that’s where I’m going. If Jesus wants me to talk to someone, even if it means a loss of face, it’s what I’ll do.

As Thomas walked with Jesus over three years, he took note of the good things Jesus was doing and he believed in Him, and it was real. When he revealed his heart to the disciples, it hit them. By nature I’m sure Thomas’s demeanour would have been to say the bottle was half empty. But don’t discount Thomas for his personality. It doesn’t matter what personality we have. Jesus is getting specific with you just as you are.

It grieves me when I hear about some young people concerned about what other people have said about them, giving the impression that these young people are not good enough. Jesus is totally interested in you as an individual. There’s no way He’s not interested. He’s interested enough that He wants you to be changed on the inside in such a way that you no longer live for yourself, but for Him. Others, others, others ... not me, me, me.

Jesus talked quite a bit to the disciples.

John 12:23-25

Strange. Jesus is saying, if you love your life, you’ll lose it. If you hate your life in this world, you’ll keep it to life eternal. “But I love life and want to live it and visit loads of places.” But what Jesus was saying to His disciples was, “The life I’m talking about is the life which comes from above, a life which cuts right across what you have. If you’re honest about it, you realise that you do want to get things right on the inside. You’re good at putting on a show, but when push comes to shove, you have to admit, ‘I’m empty, I try to do what’s right and I don’t.’ ”

And here in Thomas’s life, it was a case of “If Jesus is going somewhere, I’m going – for all that He’s done for me.”

Jesus is saying, “If you’re aware that life in this world doesn’t fulfil you on the inside ...” We are a worshipping being. I was reminded of that following the recent death of Michael Jackson and references to him as the king of pop. Somewhere, somehow we have a king. We all have a king. Who’s our king? It’s either the King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ., or it’s the king of self – me, me, me. And because it’s all me, I’ll pull you down.

And here Jesus is very clear ...

John 12:26

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something stirring at this time in many people’s hearts. They’re weighing up whether or not this is for real. I’m convinced that this weekend and next, it will be an occasion where God by His Holy Spirit will zero in on you, because He loves you.

He doesn’t want you that way. And ,He came back for Thomas, who wasn’t at the first meeting when He appeared to His disciples. He came back because Thomas knew as evidenced here, that there was something about Jesus Christ that was totally different. And Jesus had got hold of Thomas.

Tradition has it that Thomas later became a missionary, and some think he ended up Southern India, and died as a martyr.

This is the time that, because of His love for you, God is getting really specific. What’s it going to be going forward in your life? God wants an openness of heart. He wants us to be honest, and to cut off the peer pressure which takes us the wrong way.

If you love your life, you’ll lose it. If you hate your life in this world, you’ll keep it to life eternal. And that’s the most fulfilling way to live life to the full.

The Christian Race

2009-07-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

By Paul Frimpong Manso

In the Christian life, it is important that we start the race right, that we run right, and that we finish right. And for those who are feeling that all of this is beyond them, we should take encouragement from the fact that our God is alongside us.

I want to encourage you with words from the Word of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2

Whenever someone becomes a Christian, he enters into a race. If someone is running a race, he will need the rules and the principles that govern the race. Whenever someone enters a race, he sees the end from the beginning. His purpose is not only to cross the line, but to win the race and receive the trophy.

The Christian race is not like competing to be first, but to finish. Other people want to be first. Our goal is to finish.

The writer of Hebrews wrote to a group of Jewish Christians who had turned from the Jewish faith with its tradition and laws. They became Christians, but they began to face trials, and they wanted to go back to the old ways. This assumes that the letter was written before the Temple was destroyed. The old religion was still there. They had come to Christ, but began to encounter problems. The writer wrote this letter to encourage them in their new-found faith.

Probably we are not facing that particular problem. There’s no religion we want to go back to. But maybe other things are drawing us back. Maybe things are demoralising us – pressure from family, work, friends. We are at a cross-roads and we don’t know what to do. I’m here to encourage you that you can make it in Jesus’ name.

For the Jews it was the Jewish religion. So the author told them that God indeed did speak through their forefathers, but in these last days had spoken to us through His son, who is above all of these. He encouraged them to realise they didn’t need to go back and offer the same sacrifices again, but to hold on to Christ.

He says that all those who went before them had also gone through difficulties. They went through persecution. And he said all these men and women of faith are there as witnesses to encourage and motivate us. And they are encouraging us and cheering us on.

The people in Heb 11 are there to inspire to us. And he goes on to say that we should look to Jesus who is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

There are so many things which can inspire or de-motivate in our Christian life. But if we make Jesus our aim, then we can make it. I believe that by the grace of God, all of us will make it to the end.

There are three things involved in any race: there should be the start, the right run, and the right finish.

A few years ago Linford Christie was going to run. He had two false starts, and that was the end of his career. There are rules which govern any race. So too there are rules which govern Christianity. For you to start you need to get the basis right. You have to acknowledge you’re a sinner, you want to repent from your sins and take the Lord as your Lord and Saviour and be willing to live for Him.

God doesn’t have grandchildren or in-laws. He has children. So if your parents are in the church, you still need to become the child of Jesus yourself. If you have followed a husband or wife to church, you still need to make a personal decision. If you don’t get the right start, you feel like a stranger among foreigners. We must all at a point in time realise that we were sinners, that we made a decision to turn away from our evil ways, and made a decision to take Christ as our Lord.

As part of this, we should surrender ourselves to His teachings and be baptised in water. These things are never optional. You cannot opt to be baptised – you must be baptised. There was an exception, with the thief on the cross, because there was no opportunity. But with Philip and the Ethiopian, the latter was baptised. And the Great Commission involved baptism. So when people become Christians, they need to be baptised as a sign of identification with Christ. You need to confess Him as Lord and Saviour. You need to be baptised in water. And you need to be part of the fellowship of believers.

Some people say they’re Christians, but don’t got church. That’s wrong. Jesus gave gifts unto men – apostles, etc. These were given to prepare the saints for the work of the ministry, to make us grow in the things of God. When someone becomes a Christian he needs to take part of the Christian fellowship. Walk with Christians. There’s a need for Bible study and prayer, a need for evangelism, if there is any group in the church which will promote his growth, he should join it. And the church should provide to nurture such growth. In this church, you have everything you need to grow mature Christians.

After the right start, you need the right run, according to the rules.

As we are running we need to set aside anything which would hold us back. No one runs in athletics wearing a business suit. People wear the things which help them go faster. They do exercises. I don’t believe in do- and don’t- Christianity. But I believe as you grow in the Word of God, it will help you know what will aid you in making it. You need to cast aside the things which would draw you back, and focus on Jesus.

In Pilgrim’s Progress, we see Christian wanting to moving from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. There were many obstacles, but the Evangelist gave him the book and he followed it.

Some people want you to believe that when you become a Christian, all your problems are over. No. We’re in a battle. Sometimes we lose. But the next day we fight again and win. We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. Some things – peer pressure etc – will come against us.

There are no shortcuts in the Christian race. Sometimes it is tempting to take the easy way. There is no easy way. There was a women who won many trophies at athletics, but lost everything when it turned out that she cheated. We can cheat and deceive man, but we can’t do that with God.

We need to follow the rules. Noah walked with God. He did not run ahead or sit behind. He took it one day at a time. If you are finding the going tough and it looks as though the whole world is against you, and you want to throw in the towel, take it one day at a time.

The journey to destruction is easy and many choose it. But if you want to take the journey which leads to eternal life, it is not easy. There are trials and temptations, but with the grace of God, with patience and the help of the Holy Spirit you will make it.

You keep pressing forward. You need to focus. “That I may know Him.” You have an idea of focussing on Jesus, not on anything else. Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress had the focus to reach the Celestial City.

He who began a good work in us is able to complete it. If you abide in Jesus, you will bear fruit. The way to run the race is to focus on Jesus, remain in Him and turn away from the things of the world. We should not allow the world to dictate to us.

1 John 2:15-17

We will always be confronted with the things of the world, with pressures, because the enemy is always out to pluck people away. He always wants to get someone down. In the race there are always people who want to see the negative side. But if we remain close to God, He will help us. To run the race right, we must draw near to God, we must focus on Him, and we should run according to the rules. We should not try to be clever in our own eyes and do things our own ways. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not upon thine own understanding.” Let us learn to trust Him.

Some people believe they cannot make it. They dread the future. But you can make it. By the grace of the God, by the gifts that God has given your leaders to counsel you, you can make it. And it helps people when they come to the fellowship. As a pastor it has been one of my responsibilities to get involved in the activities. So many people come as spectators. They hear the message, hear the choir, and just sit back. But it is easy to lose out that way. But every member in the church is given a gift and a responsibility. If you learn what to do and do it – cleaning, making tea, joining the choir, doing the things we see as insignificant – those are the things which keep you in the faith and help you make it.

It impresses me the number of people here who are always around giving their time. I want to commend those, and encourage the others who think that services are all there is to it. I want to encourage those people to take part in these activities.

The right finish.

Someone can run and get to the line, but if they don’t cross the line, then they haven’t finished. It is easy to start and impress, but we measure things by the time you cross the line. Sometimes you see marathon races on TV. You see people who start in the lead, but some fall by the wayside.

1 Corinthians 9 motivates me a lot.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

We must come into Christianity with one focus – to be with the Lord Jesus. Should the Lord tarry, we serve until we die. If He come now, He will see us as faithful.

In the Christian life, you can’t go halfway and then say “I am coming back.” In Roman times, if you were enlisted for the army and went to war and died, they would inspect the body, and would give you a military burial only if you were wounded in the front. If you were wounded in the back you were assumed to have been a coward. There is no turning back.

I am motivated any time I read 2 Timothy 4.

2 Timothy 4:7

2 Timothy 4:10

Somebody could not make it. My prayer is that we do not measure our Christianity by what happened yesterday, and by what is happening today, but by tomorrow. Are we going to drop out of the race or carry on to the end?

It breaks my heart when you see people with whom we did things, but along the line they allow the pressures of this world to make them fall behind. My prayer is that the good Lord would give us the grace and strength to carry on – those of us who have started already. And for those about to start, let us get things right from the beginning. Baptism is very important, and we need to be a regular, willing, open part of the fellowship.

We need to subject ourselves to discipline if there is a need. If we don’t do that, then we are illegitimate children. There are people who want to be in the church and enjoy everything, but run when discipline comes. If you run away from one discipline to another, the discipline from the first church still follows you. Church discipline is a must, not an option.

We must do things one day at a time, with a focus on Christ, and we should be in fellowship and find something to do in the church. Some people who do nothing end up gossiping and creating confusion.

And finally there should be the right finish. The journey is not how you started, but how you finished.

Jesus hung on the Cross and said, “It is finished.” Paul said, “I have finished my race.” The lord wants us to finish the race, so He can say, “Well done, though good and faithful.” It’s not important that we should be first, but to finish.

I have come to encourage you. If you are facing problems – personal, family, corporate body – the Lord is with you, and His amazing grace and love will carry you through. He cares about you, is concerned about you, knows all your problems, and will not desert you. He is with 24 x 7. And by the grace of God you will make it to the end.

Instructions for the Christian life

2009-06-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Dr Thorpe looks at the basic instructions for the Christian walk in Romans 8.

By Dr Sam Thorpe

The Bible gives us instructions so we can know which are the good ways and which are not.

Have any of you ever done anything wrong? Have you ever felt that someone has done something wrong to you? Often we feel guilty not only for what we’ve done wrong, but because someone has done something to us which perhaps we feel we deserved. Well. Look at this ...

Romans 8:1

We are not condemned. That last phrase is not conditional. I want to talk about flesh and spirit. Hebrew writers had a habit of making parallels and contrasts. And Paul is a Hebrew. The way it actually reads is “The ones walking not according to flesh, but spiritually.” The contrast is between fleshly and spiritually. We are not condemned because we are in Christ – since those who do not walk fleshly walk spiritually. We’re there already. It’s not something to which we have to attain. It’s not a separate realm to which we have to get. Walking spiritually doesn’t mean that.

Romans 8:2

The actual wording here is “freed me”. You know how the law of sin and death operates. It’s a downward, destructive thing. People bound by the law of sin and death are bound. They have no choice. It’s a living death. But now we’re freed from that. We’re completely free from that destructive pattern of existence.

Romans 8:3

What’s the purpose of law? Several things. It reveals some aspects of the nature of God – things He likes, things He doesn’t like; things which are good for us and things which are not. Sin is an evil thing. We don’t tend to think of it that way until the law shows us – and then that should generate in us a tremendous amount of gratitude, because we have been freed from the law.

Romans 8:4

“Fulfilled” means to come true. The righteousness of the law comes true in all of our lives as we walk spiritually.

Romans 8:5

On the underground you hear “Mind the gap.” I’ve seen places where there is a sign saying, “Mind your head.” “Mind” here is like that – “pay close attention to; note; keep in your thoughts the things which are spiritual.”

The spiritual things are not in some other realm. The spiritual things are just the things God is interested in – His directions. So we’re not necessarily trying to have some kind of dramatic feeling about things. We’re just supposed to pay attention to the things of God.

Romans 8:6

So as we notice the ways of God, the things He wants, we should have a peaceful life. Holding the hand of God, we are peaceful. It’s recognising the life He has given us and living that way.

If you don’t pay attention to God and His ways, what will you pay attention to?

Romans 8:7

Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. Faith is not wish or hope. It’s not unknown, but what is known. Faith is assurance of the things we hope for, certainty of the things we don’t see. It’s not a leap in the dark. It’s assurance that everything God said will happen, certainty that all we know about God is true even thought we don’t see Him. Faith isn’t a lack of knowledge – it’s a kind of knowledge. “I know you are trustworthy and that you are there.”

God wants that kind of faith relationship of us.

Romans 8:9

Don’t determine to go out to become more spiritual. We’re just supposed to be minding the things of God. We are already spiritual. You are not fleshly. For us to think in a fleshly way is to think contrary to the way we are. We are spiritual, because the spirit of God dwells in us. If you’re a Christian, the Holy Spirit lives in you – fact.

Romans 8:12-13

“Mortify” ... “make of no power, of no effect.” Make of no effect the fleshly practices. The naturally responses we might have to temptations – make them of no effect. Sometimes being a Christian requires mental discipline – here comes a temptation, but we’re not going there. “I’m going the way God wants.”

Young people – you realise why you have parents, beside the fact you can’t cook? We have parents to discipline us. Every human being needs discipline. If a person is not disciplined by parents, then even as Christians they will have difficulties. Without discipline from parents, schools, institutions, younger people are running chaotically.

Do any of you have a strategy for temptations? Has anyone been in the military? Anyone seen a military movie? Once people are inducted and headed off to boot camp, they give them uniforms, they call them soldiers. But they don’t know anything about soldiering, so they send them to learn discipline and how to take orders. You have to learn ahead of time because you don’t have time to look for the manual when you’re under fire. You have to know how to respond – it needs to be a reflex. I had a friend during the Vietnam War who had a friend in the Navy Seals. He had been released from his service, and the two of them were in a restaurant. A waiter came by and dropped some glasses. In those three seconds, the friend had pulled out a weapon and was on the waiter. He didn’t think about it.

What do we do when a temptation comes? Do we have a strategy? When’s the best time to get up – when the alarm goes off? So many of us don’t know what to do when a temptation comes. We need mental discipline – I’m not going in that direction.

When fears come up, what do you do? What should we do? What does God like? He’s freed us from those things, so don’t go there – go here. I’m not going to the fear but to the faith, the assurance, the certainty. The same with worries or with general temptations to do the wrong things. That’s why we need to keep these things in our minds, so that it allows us to do what’s right, to recall that He takes care of us and takes charge of everything. I’m not going to follow the fear, submit to the temptations.

Romans 8:15

We are literally sons and daughters of God. “Abba” means Father – “Abba” is Hebrew, “Pater” Greek. Hold the hand of Father, jump in the lap of Father. It sounds uncomplicated, but that’s what it is.

Romans 8:17

Romans 8:26

We are never alone. We’re not set in a world to have to take care of ourselves. We’re not objects of affliction, not waiting for the devil to attack. He’s always there.

Romans 8:27-28

And we know that to the ones loving God, God makes all things work together for good, according to His purpose. He makes all things work together – you don’t have to try and do it.

Romans 8:29

He called us. He justified us – because of the sacrifice of Christ, He looks at us as though we never sinned ever.

Romans 8:31

“Sin” isn’t much used in the world any more. It’s always bad choices or stupidity. Because sin implies offence against the person of God. But if He is for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:32-35

No one can separate you from Him.

Romans 8:38-39

Any objections? See how grateful we should be, for all He has done to keep us connected and give us this freedom.

He Will Do It

2009-06-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

I just want to refer to the groundbreaking time that Paul was involved in as the church extended from Jerusalem to Judea and then worldwide. But we zero in on him arriving at Thessalonica.

Acts 17:1-7

Just note the fact that when Paul came to an area, here he starts at the synagogue and starts talking with people about Jesus Christ, who he is and what he means; who he stands for. He is the Lord, he is the Christ. The accusation in verse 7 that “there was another king apart from Caesar called Jesus.”

So it was that “the world was turned upside down” is so accurate on the strength and power of the gospel.

Acts 17:9

He was only with these people for three weeks and he formed a church, probably in his house. Here we have believers who are meeting in a house and Jason was obviously one of these people And yet in these three weeks that Paul was there, there was a real pulling together of Christ and fellowship.

1 Thessalonians1:2-6

There’s something about the word of God which is in line with his will. God can work through you, by his holy spirit.

There’s no way that there was some weak-knee-ed membership form that they signed up to. They were aware of the power of what they were preaching.

The more we go on, day by day, so it is, that God is revealing what he wants to do in this place, for his glory. The links that we are forming and the way that God is moving in your heart and bringing to your attention that he is faithful. He is being faithful and he will be faithful. To the end that his name with be glorified in his church.

1 Thessalonians 2:13

It’s the word of God, it’s the truth. And as we go forwards we will cherish the word of God. There’s a narrow way and a broad way; there’s good fruit and there’s bad faith; there’s a foundation built on rock and there’s a foundation built on sand.

How do you know if the foundation is right? It’s when the storms and the floods come. They both look the same but when the circumstances hit you, it’s then that you know what the foundation is. And this church in Thessalonica was formed when other people were totally anti-what they believed in. Their lives were changing and the Jews couldn’t stand it because these people weren’t becoming Jews. And the whole world was turned upside down.

And as Paul writes to them, he can’t stop thanking God!

1 Thessalonians 3:9-14

He longed to be there, he’d founded the church and he privately wondered how things were and couldn’t wait for Timothy’s report and it was the truth, God was taking them forwards. And it was the Lord who was causing them to expand.

“Love towards another”.

What is a church? It is a body of people because they have a common goal and purpose to worship him, to lift up His name. It isn’t a place where people are trying to score points off others.

It’s a place where Jesus Christ has the pre-eminence. It’s about who he is.

1 Thessalonians 5:14-19

You notice it’s not “for” everything” it’s “in” everything, give thanks.

1 Thessalonians 5:19-25

Who is faithful? Jesus Christ is faithful. God is faithful. If you want to stand there and hurl at him a heart of mistrust or non thanks! Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. There is no way that God gets involved with a life, injects his power and life into a life and then somehow leaves them or forgets about them or leaves them on their own. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. In other words, this faithfulness goes all the way until such time as you see him face to face. All the way through. It isn’t that you’re sort of looked after and then left to work things out for a few years. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

Practical Christianity

2009-06-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

Pastor Linnecar looks at Paul’s letter to the Romans and draws out some very practical lessons for Christian living.

Recently we looked at the verse “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.” That’s what it’s all about – it’s about the Lord Jesus Christ, who He is, and your relationship with Him by His Holy Spirit.

God is very clear about the way to live.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5

The first commandment. In the Ark Bible Club they’ve been covering the commandments. The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart.

Leviticus 19:18

Two great commandments. Jesus brought these together :-

Mark 12:28-34

In Romans 12, we’ll look at things to do with living as a Christian, living and being in a church. Paul was aware that it’s the love of God and the life of Christ in us which outworks what God wants.

Romans 13:10

It’s the life of Christ inside you. He is the one who has fulfilled the law. And it’s His life working through you by the Holy Spirit which has an impact on the world and on other people.

Romans 12:1-2

There’s a will of God for your life. He doesn’t make you try to work it out. He doesn’t dangle some carrot before you which He then pulls away. His will is for you to fulfil what He has. Don’t get tangled up in the world, in the fashions of this evil age.

Paul has some very practical things to say about living. This isn’t to turn us into some holy huddle, but to turn us outward, with Jesus Christ in everything. And so His name will be lifted up.

Romans 12:3

It isn’t that you’ve got a bit of faith and someone else has a bit more. It’s dealing with the common standard of faith. It’s not that one of us has more faith than another. It’s His faith. I live by the faith of the son of God. I want to be open so God can live His life through me. We’ll see how practical it can be. Big time. But don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought to. Everything has to be subservient to Him. We don’t puff ourselves up. He who would be best among you, let him be the servant of all.

Romans 12:4-5

A familiar metaphor – the body of Christ. Elsewhere it talks about the hand, the eye, the ear. But everyone is dependent on one another. We’re linked in with each other. There’s no way we score points off one another.

Romans 12:6-8

Seven things. Whatever God has given you to do, do it well as unto Him. Not to score points, but as unto Him.

Romans 12:9

Don’t pretend to love others. Don’t put on a smile in here which becomes a dagger drawn in the week. For those of you who know what it is to go right and you’re choosing to go wrong, reverse it.

Romans 12:10

This is practical Christianity. It’s God’s will that you need to follow. Where does He want you to be, to accomplish? How does He want to live through you through the abilities He’s given you? The key thing is His plan for your future.

Romans 12:10-11

This isn’t to do with the company you work for. You need to bring the context in. It’s the business of serving the Lord. It’s not me ticking the box for God to bless me in business. It’s a question of me being focussed for what God has for my life.

Romans 12:12-13

When was the last time you invited someone round for a meal who you’d never actually spoken to before? It would be good for us to make a point of being open with one another to that extent. I don’t want it for people to know no one beyond their own family. I’ve heard it said that we’re good at welcoming people but then I don’t know what happens. We don’t want anyone isolated at all. One major thing in my heart is that how ever we work out the structure, we don’t want to impose, but to include and take care of everyone. Big time.

Romans 12:12

I talked about prayer to the members of the senior school. I asked if they were praying for their friends. You can certainly pray that others will fulfil God’s purpose for their lives. I want the best for you.

“That’s all right for you. You have to include everyone.” Yes, but we’re dealing here with practical Christianity, for each one of us.

Romans 12:13-14

In the above verse, Paul moves the focus to those outside.

Romans 12:15-16

Don’t be a snob. Don’t limit yourselves to one group. We all have faith and life because of what He has done. We all have that common denominator. Our pathway is set in Him.

No matter when you find me, it’s His life lived through me. There isn’t a time when I hope you won’t hear what I’m saying, that you won’t see what I’m doing.

Romans 12:17

Do you want to get people back – or is it as in this verse. The word evil comes up a lot in this chapter.

Romans 12:18

You’re not looking for a fight. You don’t compromise truth, but you seek to live peaceably. You don’t sacrifice truth for the sake of peace, but if possible you live peaceably with all men.

Romans 12:19-20

1 Peter 2:15

For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

It doesn’t matter what is being said to you. It doesn’t matter if someone is trying to pull you down. I’ll continue in well doing.

1 Peter 2:21-23

We’re not meant to take things into our own hands, or find a way of getting back at someone. That’s not a Christian way of living. Instead we should follow the example of Jesus as set out above.

Isaiah 59:18-19

If there is persecution, if there are people who are trying to needle you, the whole sway of the passage in Romans is to leave things with God, and get on with what He has given me to do. I’m not trying to score points, to get my own back. I want to lift His name up. And anyway if the enemy comes in like a flood, God is the one who lifts up a standard against him. We’re following in the train of His triumph.

Romans 12:21

Colossians 1:18-20

In all things ... in your life, that Jesus might have the pre-eminence. In your testimony at work. In all things, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence. If I’m weighing up my future, I have to be honest. What am I living for? In everything let Him have the pre-eminence. He loves you, and His life lived through you will bring glory to His name. Others will ask you about Him. There are others He wants to reach through you. This practical teaching from Romans governs your actions in life.

I think it’s wonderful the way that God is sorting things out – sorting them out so that His name will be glorified. I have no hesitation in saying that God is working His purposes out here.

I’m pleased that this week I shall be meeting with the other pastors in this town. Pray for me. How can we find ways of working together?

We’re part of what He wants to do in this town and beyond. But let’s make it personal. During this coming week He wants to have the pre-eminence in you. And as you let His life be lived through you, outwork these practical things for this chapter. We’re on the same side, and we want His name to be lifted up because others are in desperate need.

He is our Lord. Absolute truth. Rock solid. He is the truth.

It’s exciting what God is going to do in your life.

A Living Sacrifice

2009-06-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

God sorts things out totally revolutionary to your thinking. God wants us to link in with each other bearing in mind that the mindset he wants us to have, he will fulfil what he wants to do, in his time, in his way, for his gloronly want to be in what he has for us.

There came a time for Samuel, where he was organising and finding out who God was going to anoint.

1 Samuel 16:6-7

God looks at things possibly differently to how you do. God looks on the heart and his ways of thinking are often different to our own.

Romans 11:33-34

In other words, God knows exactly what he is doing and he is a God of love and a holy God. He knows exactly what he is doing in your life and in the church.

Isaiah 40:25-31

You see it’s totally the opposite with God. You might be at your wit’s end or exhausted, defending the truth. Something else comes along and you need to defend the truth again: “I know my God, and what he starts he’s going to complete.”

“Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.”

Let this weekend be a time for you to focus your attention on Him. My sole aim is this: to lift up the name of Jesus Christ; to glorify his name in our midst; to point you and me to him and the greatness of his might. Last weekend we looked at how God’s provision never fails and he is sorting everything out miraculously for you.

Romans 11:33-36

“For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever.”

Romans 12:1-2

You tonight, me tonight, setting our hearts, setting our minds to present our bodies a living sacrifice which means that there is no area of my life that I am keeping separate from God. He is involved with all of me: my thinking, my speaking, my doing.

Here as you present your bodies, set apart, acceptable to God I’m conscious each day that I want to orientate my thinking for that day. He works through me. That’s my reasonable service. Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind...why?...that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. What does God want me to do in my life, for his will? What am I good at? It’s not building me up, it’s simply in thanks for what he has given me and constantly allowing his life to live through me. To live is Christ, to die is gain. Not for me to live is something which I hope works out; for me to live is Christ. Present your bodies a living sacrifice and the reason is that we might prove what is good, acceptable and perfect will of God.

God My Provider

2009-06-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

In the life of Elijah, we see God’s perfect timing in meeting Elijah’s needs at exactly the right moment. We can draw assurance from this – no matter what our circumstances may be, that same God will meet our needs too.

I want to speak about the significance of God’s provision for you, and its reality.

Isaiah 6:1-4

When God speaks to an individual, He communicates who He is. Those verses in Isaiah reflect the glory, power, might and majesty of God. We saw how God brought light in complete darkness. It seemed there was no witness in the whole land.

You can trust God as your provider. You can trust Him to guide you and your family.

Ahab was the worst of the kings since Solomon. And Elijah came to him :-

1 Kings 17:1

It was a reflection of Deut 11, where it says that if you keep worshipping the true God, but if you turn against God there will be drought. Elijah said that no matter the circumstances, the God of Israel lived. It was an incredibly dramatic moment. Ahab was confronted with the reality of the living God.

In your circumstances of life, it doesn’t matter if there seems to be complete darkness around you. It doesn’t matter what the economic climate is. Our God is alive, and He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. He’s alive.
Elijah left things at that.

1 Kings 17:2-5

It wasn’t that Elijah was told to continue in some public office, to remain with Ahab. He said what he had to say, and then he was told to go. Sometimes in your life, it would seem you can’t figure out why God is guiding you in a particular way. Elijah was obedient according to the Word of God. He went. This was particularly peculiar. God was to use ravens. These were unclean, but God was going to use them.

Luke 12:24

Jesus refers to the ravens too.

Here Elijah goes to the brook :-

1 Kings 17:6-7

Here he is by the brook, getting food from the ravens. And then the water provided by God dried up. “Have I missed God’s way? Did I get it wrong? Why has the brook dried up?” When God leads us, He does so step by step. We don’t know ten steps ahead of time. He knows each step. And as we take each step, the next one becomes apparent. If we turn in on ourselves, and blame God for the fact that we haven’t been told the whole way, and we become bitter against Him, we have problems. He’s our provider. “Did God bring me here? Yes, I know He brought me here. I know I’m in the place He wants me to be.”
At exactly the right point in time, the Word of God comes again.

1 Kings 17:8-9

In v9 “sustain thee”; in v4 “feed thee” – same word. God’s commands are real. His provisions are real. If you have lost your job, your God is your provider, and He does provide. There is no recession in heaven, no misfiring of God’s plan for your life.

When the brook dried up, he stayed put, because God had told him to be there. And then the word came. He was to go 100 miles northwest to the coast again. “I’ve commanded a widow to provide for you.”

1 Kings 17:10-11

She was on the way to get the water, and he called out for bread. And it shocked her, because she was down to the last bit.

1 Kings 17:12

God’s timing is perfect. Our attitude to the circumstances of our lives has to be right. God isn’t making a mistake with you. He hasn’t brought you here and is now leaving you to wither. Not at all!

1 Kings 17:13

There’s an interesting thought. Sort things out with God first, and then sort out yourself and your son.

1 Kings 17:14

Jesus referred to this time :-

Luke 4:25

Three years and six months there was drought. The introduction to this woman required her to organise the right priorities in her heart. “Make me a cake first, and then make for you and your son. And if you do that, the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil will not fail.”

1 Kings 17:15-16

Three years and six months is a long time. God’s economy and timing and planning is perfect. And He sees things on a timescale of eternity.

Some of you are weighing up big things. I want to confirm to you that Jesus Christ is your provider, and that according to His word He is guiding you.

At the same time that Elijah went to the brook and was told to move on to the woman ... during that period, there was another prophet in the land – Obadiah.

1 Kings 18:4

Why didn’t God send Elijah to be with these other prophets? It would have been much easier to be with other people of like mind. But God’s pathway for him wasn’t to be with them, but to be elsewhere, knowing and learning God’s provision.

Elsewhere we know there were 7000 other people of like mind – and Elijah didn’t meet one of them. But He met with God, and learnt the provision of God. Are you doing that too? God is organising your circumstances so that you will prove His provision for you.

The widow was so grateful. She knew that drought was across the whole country, and here she was with the man who told her God would provide. But then this happened ...

1 Kings 17:17

And now we see what is in the woman’s heart ...

1 Kings 17:18

In those times, the automatic assumption was that if something went wrong, it was because of sin. Maybe she used to worship Baal and felt that perhaps she hadn’t fully turned.

How’s it going in your life? When you’re looking back over the last three years and six months? He’s our loving heavenly Father.

“How come this has happened, Elijah? Things were going so well. I was anticipating seeing my son grow up.” Elijah doesn’t actually answer her :-

He’d got to know him. He’d seen the boy grow up.

1 Kings 17:21-24

Some of you here are finding things difficult – you’re wondering, “Has God heard my prayer? Does He know the way forward? Will He find that job for me? Will He make provision for my children? How am I going to fulfil the abilities God has given me in His kingdom?”

Psalm 34:9-10

Hebrews 10:23

God is your provider. He is the one who loves you. Let us hold fast to our faith, without getting into conversations which are so contrary to what you know to be true in your heart.

I want to encourage you – with us before God – you can look up into His face and you can know right now that He is faithful who promised. He loves you. And whichever way God is guiding in your life, I want you to know that the Word of God is secure and true.

Our God Reigns

2009-05-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

By Garold Andersen

God has made us to be yeast to those around us. We need to be ready to take the message of His love to those we meet every day.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

My heart is filled with so many thoughts from the Lord regarding this group of people, this portion of the body of Christ. I want us to take a few moments to consider the idea of this song. It was a song saying “We will work the fields together – one person does this, one that”. It’s the uniqueness of this relationship with God called Christianity, this following of the ways of Christ. The ways of Christ say each one of us is called individually and yet we fit together. Each of us is involved in very different aspects. I want you to consider where your involvement is – the place you work, the faces you meet. I’d like to pray:

“Father this is the field that you have given me, and I don’t know how to work in that field, but I give all of my heart to be your representative in that field. Where my talents and ability take me, I want to be your representative of your goodness, grace and compassion.”

Parable of the yeast: I don’t know if you can call this a parable. It’s a little piece of wisdom which Jesus throws out. I love the statement, “What can I compare the kingdom of God to?” From a theatrical point of view, this is very significant. Jesus often said this. What I see is Jesus, the son of God, who is doing everything He does by listening to the spirit of the Lord – “I'm only doing what my Father says.” He could have done everything Himself, but He’s trying to give us an example.

He asks “What can I use to give you a picture of the kingdom of God?” and God says, “This is what these people need to hear.”

He says it’s like yeast which a woman took and hid in 50 lbs of flour. She mixes it until it influences the entire mix. That’s the kingdom of heaven. Flour. Flour is wheat, life, bread. It’s life that is not alive. It’s crushed. There’s nutrients in it, but the grain has been picked crushed, and there it is. The possibility of something coming together and giving life is there. Yeast is something different. Yeast is a living organism. It’s life. This is what Jesus was saying. The kingdom of God is like that yeast. It’s small. It seems insignificant, but when it’s mixed into the loaf ... You can put flour together with water, and you have a dough. But you add yeast, and that little bit of dough you had has grown, because you’ve added to it something of life. The kingdom of God is about life.

What I want to leave us with is the simple idea, that you have a field of influence, but you also have this yeast, this life. I honestly believe that this is such an amazing time for this body. I think there has been a lot of transitioning, and I am filled with expectation for you. You have considered where God has brought you. The things you have learnt have been good things. They are good foundational ideas. And now you are open to say, “Where exactly do we go from here?” There is an expectation. And I want to plant a seed for what God has for you – an excitement.

The early church ... The church was in Rome, and in Rome, the early church was facing a great deal of persecution. The Roman government was based on using the worship of the gods to control its people, and now along comes a group of outsiders – Roman citizens, but blasphemers, because they believed in only one true God. The Christians faced persecution. They were sent at times to be fed to the lions, to be burnt. And something happens in Rome, because of bad water supply, bad sewage disposal. The plague enters Rome, and people begin to get sick. In the pagan religion, the idea was that the person who is sick is cursed of the gods – and if you leave that curse in your home, the curse will come on you. So people took their own sick children and threw them into the streets. The sick and the dying were lying everywhere in the streets, and you had to go other places to avoid them.

What is the need of the person lying in the street dying a horrible death? One of the leaders of the church in Rome gathered together the believers and said, “Though these people have hated and persecuted you, we have an inheritance of mercy and grace. Go into the streets and show those people love. Help them to die with compassion and mercy.”

And as they beginning to go an minister, pagan family members saw what they were doing, saw that they were taking care of their own family, and they asked, “What is this hope that you have in your lives? Who is this God that you serve?” It was one of the great moments of transformation in the Roman empire. At this point, the Christian faith entered into Caesar’s own household. Through the difficulty of the world they were in, the Christians rose to the occasion and showed compassion. And that changed the hearts of those around them. It was the beginning of the true Gospel of compassion penetrating into the world.

Isaiah 52:7

I really want us to grasp this. Isaiah is speaking truth. Within the world, the feet of the messenger who says, “I’m sorry to say you have to pay an extra $50,000 in taxes.” “I’m sorry you’re going to lose your job.” ... those are not lovely feet. The lovely feet belong to the messenger who comes and says, “Here’s a message for you – peace.” Good things. Good news. I like that message. Who in the world does not like that message? What is that message? Good news.

I want to go back to the idea of the pagan gods. We had gods for eating. We also had very strong gods who were the gods of war. And Isaiah is saying, “The news we have is that there is one God and He is not the God of war, but of peace, mercy and compassion.”

I was about ready to go on tour one year. I was performing in normal theatres. I would ask God, “What message would you give me to speak to the people?” As I would speak to people, God would give me a foundational idea of what to say. This time, God said, the message is “Our God reigns.” When God spoke that to me, it clicked. I know this message was to Zion, but through Christ it becomes the message to the entire human race. And it is not my God reigns, but our God reigns.

In the neighbourhood where you live, they may not know that. Maybe they think God is the god of war, or of religion. But the good news is that our God, the God of peace and good things is truly God, and our God reigns.” Our God reigns.

When I first began to speak to people about my beliefs, I would see them as someone distant from God. I would approach people thinking, how could I break through and reach them with the message? This thing changed my idea. It changed the position in my thinking. I was always viewing things in this way – “me and them”. But the transition God gave in my heart was this ... our God reigns. Even though you may not understand that, our God reigns. God wanted me to find a relationship with those people so I could speak to them that message – our God reigns.

That needs to be our understanding. But for many people we will meet, it’s not that easy. I want to end with a very quick concept, challenge, hope, encouragement ...

In Nigeria there are young people who are having visions and dreams – and those visions and dreams ... God is very specific. He works through humans. He said He looked through the world to see if He could find someone to stand in the gap. God made us kings and lords of this planet, and He’s asking if we’ll partner with Him. Ask Him for His power and mercy on your neighbourhood. Those visions and dreams are coming because of prayers – beyond a shadow of a doubt. These people are being discipled and are going back to the field from which God has called them, with a message – our God is not the harsh Allah, but the God of peace, grace and mercy.

Daniel faced a very interesting situation. He grew up at a time when the children of God were a mess. This is so significant. The church that Daniel was a part of – they were a mess. And yet, in the midst of this, some people were mentoring Daniel and his three friends. Those four young men had a foundation which was a rock. We need young people who have foundations in their lives which are rock solid. We need people like that who can be world leaders – leaders from this body. World leaders, who understand peace, good things, life.

Daniel and his friends were taken and were brought into the kingdom. In ancient cultures this was done for this reason. I conquer a tribe. But I don’t want to bring them all back to Babylon. So I look for the best young people and bring them as hostages. And now I infiltrate them with the yeast of my culture. So now your next generation of leaders will be from my cultural perspective.

Daniel and his friends were given food to eat and did not know how it was prepared. They didn’t know if blood had been mixed into the wine, as it often was. The children of God had been told that life was in the blood and they should not eat.

Daniel asked permission from the chief official. God granted Daniel favour and compassion. But he said, “You’re asking me to put my neck on the chopping block. You want to eat only vegetables and water. But my captain will notice, and you’ll be skinny. And my captain will ask what is going on, and it will be my neck.” And Daniel says, “Just test your servants for ten days. Test our appearance. And deal with us afterwards based on what you see.”

After ten days they looked healthier than all of the others.

And God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of wisdom.

I want to look at a verse which tells us the heart of who Daniel was. When the king has a dream, and can’t remember it, Daniel is given the dream and the interpretation. He reveals it to the king, and the king says he’s amazing. But Daniel says God is amazing – but God gave you the dream.

Eventually Daniel becomes one of the main leaders in Babylon and influences Babylon with the yeast of God’s kingdom. But He did it by serving, bringing news of good things.

I pray with all my heart that I can leave you with this simple picture, and this challenge. There is truly a power of life which is the yeast of the kingdom of God. It is the power which brings people back from the dead. So many people have lives which, behind the busyness, are empty. And the yeast of God’s kingdom is real and is life. We must begin to be like the people I spoke of in Rome, who take out of the goodness of God’s blessing and life. This is what you already do, but I believe God is calling you to do even further. The yeast is not doctrinal ideas. It is the yeast of life, the yeast of heaven – heaven, life, goodness, compassion, mercy.

I believe in the world right now there are many changes happening. And we can either remain in a place of safety, of saying, “I’m a Christian, praise God, and I come together with nice people and we do nice things.” That’s good. But the challenge now is that we should rise to the occasion. It’s not something difficult, but it is something real. Believe you have the power of the yeast of the kingdom of God in your life. And take that yeast into your neighbourhood. And live the power of that yeast in the world. Have beautiful feet. And be people of good news of great joy.

The message is not that you get to go to church every week. The good news is life and peace. Daniel wasn’t removed from persecution and difficulty. But it is the good news of life.

Micah 6:8

Love mercy, love compassion, walk humbly with God. It was humility which opened the heart of the officials around Daniel. Serve your community with this yeast of power and life.

God is Never Finished with us

2009-05-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

By Garold Andersen

I want to remind you of how wonderful ministry is. A little outreach from people can bless someone so deeply. The kindness that we can extend to people is a body of living water. It doesn’t have to be extreme, it is simply kindness. If you give a cup of water in Jesus’ name, your reward will be eternal.

External Links:
Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

My background is theatre, so when I communicate from the Gospel I like to bring it to life. I think this is one of the most theatrical moments in the Bible, in 1 Kings 18.

The people of Israel have been pulled away from worshipping God. The prophet Elijah said God was going to cause a drought in the land, and it happened. In Chapter 18 Elijah comes back and meets with the people of God who are serving the gods of the land they are in. Baal was one of these gods. They had a god for everything. And Elijah was calling them back to the one true God. he comes to the people and says, ‘Who do you want to serve? All these foreign, stone gods? Or the one true God?’

Then Elijah tells the prophets of Baal to sacrifice to their gods, and if fire comes down and consumes the sacrifice, it will prove that their gods are real. They tried everything they could. They danced; they even began to cut themselves, but nothing happened. Then Elijah pours water on the sacrifice, prays, and fire consumes the offering, the water, and the stones. Then Elijah destroyed the prophets who had been misleading the people. He then prays for rain, and rain begins to come.

Now we get to Chapter 19. Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, so she sent a messenger to Elijah.

1 Kings 19:2

She would sacrifice her own life to destroy his.

1 Kings 19:3-5

Imagine that you are at this scene, and Elijah knows that God is real. He knows what God has spoken to him, and he brings the word of the Lord to the people. But the words of Jezebel struck fear in his heart. As he ran something happened in his heart. He thought he had failed God.

Sometimes when we’re facing the things that we believe God has called us to, we think we only have one chance. We think that if we fail now, it’s over. Elijah has just experienced the power of God in the greatest moment of his life, and the fear of the enemy gripped his heart. Now he says to God that he is worthless.

Consider the response of God. Elijah is asleep, and all his energy was gone. He feels fear, failure, depression, and he is sleeping.

1 Kings 19:5

What’s the most spiritual thing that can happen to him now? An angel tells him to get up and eat some food. We think ministry is the moment where Elijah is calling down the fire from heaven, but now the angel is ministering to Elijah simply with kindness.

1 Kings 19:6-7

In the reality of what this scripture is saying, in Elijah’s exhaustion, he needed food. Sometimes the greatest ministry is to find out what people need.

I once met a couple in Germany who were having terrible problems in their marriage, and my wife went to their house, and they were living in a construction zone. Their floor was cement and the carpet was a roll in the corner. The sink wasn’t working so the wife had to wash the dishes in the bathtub. What these people didn’t need was counselling of some spiritual kind. They needed someone to fix their sink and lay their carpet, and so we did. It transformed their lives. Sometimes ministry isn’t something supernatural. It’s giving someone a ride somewhere. It’s something simple.

Elijah is refreshed, and he knows where he’s going. There has been this fascinating miracle with fire coming down, and now fear is in his heart so he runs to the wilderness. He could run on to Mount Horeb to meet with God, but he doesn’t want to because he feels like he’s really let God down. And this God brought down fire from heaven.

God had told him to come to Mount Horeb to meet him, but Elijah sat there wondering for forty days.

1 Kings 19:9

I often find a question comes into my heart from God when he has a task for me to do. God isn’t going to give Elijah an easy answer because the answers we need are already within ourselves. Questions bring them out of us.

In France we have a house where we invite people who are going through difficult times. It’s a ministry of hospitality and asking questions. When people are really stuck and they don’t know which way to turn, they need to listen to the question.

Elijah finally arrives at the mountain, and God speaks to him and says, ‘What are you doing here?’

1 Kings 19:10

Elijah’s response doesn’t answer God’s question. He talks about all the terrible things that have just happened to him. But God is asking what he is doing here. What is this moment about and how do we go on from here?

I find it so beautiful that the angel ministers to him through food, and the first thing that God does is ask him a question.

1 Kings 19:11-12

One pastor in America, A W Tozer, said that nothing twists or distorts the soul like a misunderstanding of who God is. When we fail, if we understand who God really is, that he is a God of compassion, love and mercy, we are drawn to him. But in this moment, Elijah thinks he is the fire, the earthquake and the wind. God was certainly able to use these things to demonstrate his power, and to lead the children of Israel, but when Elijah comes here feeling so desperate and so down, he lets the wind come, and Elijah realises the power of the wind is not the nature of God.

1 Kgs 19:12-13

Now his heart has been prepared, because in that soft voice he heard the voice of God. Elijah realises it’s not over.

It’s the same question, and Elijah gives the same response, but something has changed. Because now Elijah isn’t trying to defend himself, he is talking about the nature of God towards him.

1 Kgs 19:15-16

There are many people who have said Elijah disappointed God and so God was replacing him. But no. This was the highlight of Elijah’s life.

God said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And then God tells him what he is doing here. He was here to receive the next orders. He wasn’t over. He was getting ready to set up a system that was going to take over from the corruptness. Elijah had not failed, he had done a great work.

If we see God as the heavy task master, we are so fearful of coming to him. Elijah was encouraged by the angel and he faced his fear. He faced the wind and the earthquake and the fire. But God wasn’t in that.

It is so important that we understand the heart and the nature of God. One of the greatest things that Jesus did when he spoke to people was to communicate to them who God is.

Luke 12:36-37

The God that we serve, the God that Elijah went to face, is not a God who is looking to curse us. He is a God who calls us to do great things. When fear is in our heart, God is a God of mercy and compassion. He is a God of service. Elijah came to hear the voice of God, and it is in a whisper that gives him courage.

I don’t know what dreams and thoughts that you have had in your life. I don’t know if you think that you have missed your opportunities. I want to remind you that the reality of God is to be ready with service in your heart. We might think that we’ve failed, but we are ready to do the next thing. The master brings the food and serves us.

Elijah saw a God of power. But he comes down upon his knees to whisper to his children and to ask us questions and to encourage us. That is our awesome God.
God is never finished with us.

Leaders Serving God

2009-05-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

It is vital that we are sensitive to the will of Christ, so that we in no way hinder what God is doing in the church. We need a leadership team that consists of people who are willing to wholeheartedly lay their lives down for the church. Certain characteristics are lay down by Paul, of the type of person that God wants in leadership; we must make sure that, as we prayerfully consider, we choose people whose lives are in line with those characteristics.

External Links:Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

Firstly I want to refer to the foundation we have in Christ. The one thing that was the foundation of Paul’s testimony was the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian, it means that everything has become new. You have a different way of looking at things, a different reason for living.

If I’m a Christian it means that He is the Lord of my life; I am a new creation in Christ. The future is how God will work what He wants to do in His church. As time marches on the church will be added to. The church is people. There are a lot of people outside of the church worldwide who have a great need in their life. It’s true that for some people, when they meet you, it is as if they are meeting a representative of the Kingdom of God. You know what God has done in your life and through you He can meet other people who need help because they are without God.

2 Corinthians 5:17

God is building His church in His way and in His time. It is God that gives the increase, not he that plants or he that waters. We are labourers together with God. When we talk about sharing our faith, the sharing of our faith is to do with what God wants to do in meeting the needs of others. Anyone who is involved with leadership in a church is simply in line with what God wants to do in His church. This morning I’m going to refer to various aspects of church leadership. One thing which is apparent, as you read the New Testament, is that there is no set template. I can’t turn to a chapter in the Bible and say here are the verses, this is what we must do today. What there are though, in Scripture, are specific guidelines and principals, bearing in mind that this is all set in the context of what God wants to do.

I’ve explained before that when the apostles were alive, they could refer to what Jesus had told them. When they got older and the church grew, it went from Jerusalem, to Judea, to the uttermost parts of the earth. As the church grew buildings weren’t immediately built. There were just houses, people’s houses, in which people gathered. As the church grew, Paul and Peter, wrote various letters to ensure that there was an input to steer things the right way; to ensure that Jesus Christ was the one that was uplifted; that He was the focus. Obviously, as people were added to the church, there was a growing need for some sort of order. So various things needed to be done to ensure this happened. You find that in different letters Paul wrote, he wrote of specific situations to put right what had gone wrong. For example, in the problem of the widows:

1 Corinthians 7:8-9

1 Timothy 5:11-14

From Corinthians it would seem that it were better for widows to stay single, but in Timothy it shows that it is better for them to remarry. So, he spoke specifically according to the situation. Elsewhere it talks about whether women should have a head covering. In Corinthians Paul’s conclusion was that it was better that women should have a head covering in the church. That was just what Paul thought was appropriate in the religion and customs of that time, so that the Gospel could be furthered.

1 Timothy 2:8-15

That is all to do with a particular situation in the church that Paul wrote to Timothy about. Does that mean that, if you are woman here, you have sinned because you have opened your mouth? No it doesn’t. Some people lift that up out of context and consider it to be very important. The letter to Timothy was written for a specific reason:

1 Timothy 3:14-16

Paul wrote this because he was worried that he was not going to be able to see Timothy. There’s something about the church, which is the bride of Christ, which is of utmost importance to the future. The church is where it’s at as far as God displaying His glory. It’s the church, by God’s Holy Spirit, the love of God. ‘Behold how they love one another’, it was said of the early Christians. There was a common cause between them, and a willingness to lay down their lives for each other.

The second book of Timothy was written to address the issue of the false doctrine that had been brought into the church. Paul wanted Timothy to know how to deal with those people who had brought in the false doctrine.

In the way that Paul wanted Timothy to know how to organise things, it was the more the case that he wanted Timothy to appoint leaders. In similar vein, he wrote letters to Titus, to appoint leaders to all the churches in Crete. In Timothy, when Paul wrote to him, he outlined various pointers that he should note when choosing leaders. We want to get the right people to be part of a pastoral team. There are a few verses in Timothy which point what a pastor should be like:

1 Timothy 3:1-12

So there are certain characteristics of the type of person that God wants to be involved in leadership. Paul also wrote Titus, saying similar things:

Titus 1:5-10

This isn’t someone who is chosen at random, this is someone who has a heart for doing what God wants, someone who is prepared to lay down their lives for the church. We don’t want someone who is appointed, and then feels it isn’t really something that they want to do wholeheartedly. Jesus Christ lay down His life for the brethren. I want the leadership to become less of me, and more of others. The fact that there is a team means that there is an accountability built in there. The bottom line is that there needs to be the right people in leadership.

1 Peter 5:1-4

In the letter to Timothy Paul told him not to appoint a novice. He didn’t say that to Titus because that weren’t actually that many older people in the church at Crete. So you can seen that Paul was keen for it to be right in each place, according to the contextual situation of that place. I do not think that there is a set number of leaders per size of church; no, you want the right number of leaders. It is paramount that everyone is cared for in the church, so it is obvious that as the church increases in size, the leadership group will also increase in size.

The review group also discussed the role of women:

Romans 16:1-16

There are nineteen men and nine women mentioned there. They were probably not all in leadership, but it does show that women had a role to play in God’s church. If we are thinking about the leadership, must it always be male? There are particular things that Paul attributed to particular locations, but overall the ultimate authority in a church should be male. So, I think we should make sure we nominate people who have the right qualities, male or female. But I do think, that the males in the leadership will have the final word in a decision.

I don’t want for us to hinder God’s purposes in any way. I do not have a hidden agenda. The agenda is: to lift up Christ and share our faith with others, so that He may draw people to Himself through us. We may start with a small team and then that will be added to later, as God wants.

This is all set in the context of our desire to be sensitive to what God wants to do, so that He may fulfil His will.

Matthew 16:18

‘The gates of hell’ in those days referred to death. It doesn’t matter what voices are being sounded against it, God will build His church.

Ephesians 4:15-16

This applies to each one of us. We must not have any thoughts of scoring points off each other; we must love one another. That means being willing to lay down your lives for each other; it’s not about me, it’s about others.

Servanthood

2009-05-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

As far as the apostle Paul was concerned, he was keen to do anything where the gospel was not hindered. He didn’t want to hinder, and categorically, I don’t want to hinder what God wants to do going forwards.

External Links:Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

Colossians 1:19-23

He was a minister of the gospel. I didn’t want to let anything be known to you, people of Colossus, but Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ is where it's at and the work of the Holy Spirit is reaching out to Jew or Gentile, whoever it is, reaching out with the gospel of Christ.

Colossians 1:24-29

That’s what made him tick. He was the apostle, Paul. As far as I’m concerned, what makes me tick is for God’s name to be glorified here and his word to be preached here openly; and for you to be able to bring people here to hear, so that people who are in great need of a change, a solution to their life, can come and have their hearts and minds changed by the power of Jesus Christ and the work of his Holy Spirit.

I just want to outline the role of the members of this team.

Acts 6:4

So this person needs to be fully acquainted with the word of God. There is a responsibility involved in being a member of this time in giving themselves to prayer and preaching the word. It doesn’t have to be to a large group, it can just be to one person or a small group.

So prayer and ministry of the word.

1 Timothy 5:17

Now that implies that in that time there are those who preach and doctrine but others who don’t; so it’s a team which is responsible before God for the spiritual direction of the church. They want to be completely sensitive to God, what He wants them to do.

1 Timothy 3:4-5

So it matters to a member of this team, how you all are. We’re all one in Christ but it so happens that various people want to care for you in such a way so that you fulfil what God wants to do in your life. I don’t want to be a hindrance if God wants you to do something.

There is care.

Hebrews 13:17

“for they watch for your souls”. So I and the future members will do this; not in a forbearing way but in a caring way.

Hebrews 13:7

So there is a case of living an exemplary life because you want to care for the flock of God so that they in turn will pick up something, not from me, but of God within me.

Acts 20:28

“to feed the church of God”. I want to get before God because I want to do it right and not communicate something that I’m not meant to; so that God can communicate what he wants.

1 Timothy 5:1

James 5:13-14

Well once we’ve got a team, that will be the team that one will call for. There’s a sense in which, knowing the Bible and his word, the leadership also work as a protection and pastoring of the flock and keeping them safe from someone who might come in a spread wrong things from a biblical point of view.

Acts 15:6

Acts 15:22

We’re talking about a spiritual sense and direction of the church.

It will be the leadership that I’m talking about who will be the ones who set the direction of the church.

1 Peter 5:1-4

Feed the flock of God, willingly, not to make money out of it, not in any other way but being willing and a servant of all. And it’s the servant hood, Jesus’ example; that’s the heart we want. We all want to be someone who puts others first, but particularly the ones who are going to be the pastors, it is those at heart who are prepared to lay down their lives for everyone.

We want the right people to become part of the leadership team.

The Qualifications for an Elder

2009-05-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Pastor Linnecar shows how we can draw out from the life of Timothy details of the qualifications for eldership – and how those qualifications also apply to us as individual believers.

If you’re a Christian, you know that as you live your life, the Lord God, living inside you reaches out through you to those He wants to speak to. Some people have come this morning to have a specific need met. You have come to the right one – not the right place, but the right one – Jesus Christ.

External Links:Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

I want to talk about the character of Jesus Christ and what it means to be someone who has Jesus Christ living inside – a new person with Him inside.

We are in the process of sorting things out for the way forward. I’ve been doing a lot of reading to do with leadership and with the character of an individual who wants to be and is being like Jesus Christ. It’s His life inside.

If you’re not a Christian, then today it might be a different slant to realise that Christianity is a relationship with the living God, made possible because God works in an individual’s life. We see many glimpses of the nature of Jesus.

Ephesians 5:25-27

Jesus Christ gave Himself for the church. When we consider what the church is, it’s people, not a building. In the early church, there were no buildings – people met in houses. It wasn’t until a few hundred years later that there were specific buildings. Church was the people, and Jesus Christ gave Himself for the people. He gave Himself for the church, and the result was that over time there will be a glorious church – one fit for glory because He will have sorted everything out, and the people in the church will be ready, as will those who have already died. God is sorting things out in our own lives. We may face various pressures, and these are all to do with Jesus Christ preparing things and getting things ready. A glorious church – no spot or wrinkle. He was holy, pure and without blemish.

When we look at the structure of the church, the nature of Jesus Christ is sacrifice, putting others first before ourselves.

As the church developed, from Jerusalem, to Judea, to the whole world, so they appointed people to oversee the church in each locality. In any locality where people gathered together in His name, so through the Holy Spirit, He Himself was there. And as the church developed, they needed the right kind of people to take responsibility for the church going forward.

Acts 14:23

There was an ordination of elders / pastors / leaders / overseers. They prayed with fasting, because they wanted to get it right. And they commended them to the Lord.

This weekend I want to bring attention to the fact that we want to have a pastoral team. So far, we have a pastor – myself. And the Review Group have met three times, and at this point we’ve accepted we need that team. So over the next meetings, I will be describing from scripture, what the qualifications are of someone who should be part of that team. I cannot do it all. So a team is needed – in the same way as they appointed people in Acts 14.

There is no “thou shalt” in the New Testament as to how you should do this. But there is enough in scripture for us to get it right. We definitely want to make sure that God by His Holy Spirit is able to do what He wants to do here.

It’s all to do with what God wants to do through you, reaching out to those in need. We don’t want to create an empire for ourselves. But we are aiming to glorify the name of Christ in everything we do. We want to lift Him up and to let Him fulfil His purposes in what has happened and as we go forward.

We have various groups (Jam, Logos, Ark, Heritage) and that went well – we studied scripture, and people want to get it right for their lives. Not only want to, but will. God doesn’t play secret squirrel. He doesn’t deprive you of the things you need. When Jesus Christ gave Himself for the church, He gave Himself utterly and completely.

Over the next two meetings, I’ll talk about what it means to be an overseer / elder / pastor. We want to get this right, and in the New Testament people prayerfully considered this. Often they fasted. As far as I’m concerned, I think it would be good to suggest a day when we specifically consider and pray about this matter. It’s an important thing.

I want this morning to consider the life of someone who helped Paul – Timothy. In Timothy we’ll see the character and traits of someone who was an overseer.

Acts 16:1-3

Note: “well reported of by the brethren”. When it comes to thinking about an overseer, or a pastor, it has to be that the report of that individual – by the brethren, not those who aren’t Christians – is a good report. It’s no good getting a report from those who perhaps are having a go at the church. Jesus said blessed are you when all men speak ill of you. You’re bound to get a bad report. But this is from the brethren.

When Paul wrote later, he helped us understand the character of the right kind of person.

1 Timothy 3:7

Make sure there is a good report from those who are close to the person. And he must have a good report from those outside. It’s no good electing an MP on the basis of trust, if you then find he’s been taking money.

1 Timothy 3:2

“Apt to teach” doesn’t mean it has to be someone who teaches like this on a Sunday. You might advise someone in a small group. We’re not saying that people have to be a teacher to a large group, but they have to be apt to teach.

Various verses describe Timothy.

1 Corinthians 4:17

Timothy was faithful in the Lord, and Paul was confident that Timothy would communicate his ways which were in Christ. He had a particular way of talking to people – the character which esteems others better than yourself, which looks for the work of God in a person.

1 Corinthians 16:10

You won’t find Timothy putting things ahead of the work of God. He won’t be besotted with anything but the work of God.

2 Timothy 1:1-5

Timothy was a man of unfeigned faith. If you bore through to the heart of Timothy, there was a faith in God, big time.

2 Timothy 3:14-15

Someone who is overseeing needs to know the scriptures. Someone who is part of the pastoral team needs to understand that this book is the one upon which we are dependent. We are dependent on Jesus Christ – in the beginning was the Word and the Word was in God.

1 Thessalonians 3:1-3

Brother, minister of God ... to establish and comfort. Timothy was concerned for the people of God and for the church. His heart was to care for the people. And when he spoke to someone it was to help that person increase their faith in God, to point out the way God was involved.

In Philippians 2, we get an idea of the nature and spirit of Jesus Christ. He is the senior pastor of His church – He is in control, He is building His church, the bride of Christ.

Philippians 2:1-5

As we go through this, you’ll see ... caring, loving other people. As far as Jesus Christ was concerned, He laid down His life for other people, for the church.

“... being of one accord, of one mind. / Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory” Let’s not have anyone doing anything to score points.
When you think about someone is your immediate thought, “How can I help that person?” or do you think, “That confirms what I thought. I must pass this information on.”

Philippians 2:5-8

“This is about Jesus, but it’s not applicable to me.” But Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit lives within you. “Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.” He made Himself of no reputation. But didn’t we say earlier that someone had to be well reported of? What we’re saying is that Jesus Christ set aside His glory. He told the disciples that the greatest among them should be their servant.

The key word in verse 8 is that He became obedient. The character of Jesus and of any individual in a church is that they should be obedient to what God wants, laying down their lives for the brethren.

Philippians 2:9-11

“To the glory of God the Father” Set yourself this coming week to bring glory to His name, to have God live through you, to make you sensitive, to help someone. Someone may be facing particular pressures. God is your Father. He will make provision. Let’s stop thinking about ourselves, but about the ones He wants to reach through us.

Philippians 2:12-13

For those of you who are taking exams, it’s incredible pressure at this time. You can pray to God to organise things in your life, so that in the pressure of it all, God’s peace can rule your heart. It doesn’t mean you sit there and look at the paper dwelling on God’s peace – you do have to write the answers. But it’s God who works in you, even in exam time, to will and to do of His good pleasure. “I want You to help me get the grades I need to fulfil Your purposes for my life.”

Philippians 2:14-17

The character of Jesus Christ – laying down your life for others. And the more Paul talked about the character of Jesus, so Timothy came to his mind again. He was with Paul when he wrote this.

Philippians 2:19-24

An overseer / pastor is someone who naturally by the Spirit of God will care for the people, will have a heart for the people. We can apply that to an overseer, but what about in your life? What would Paul say when it comes down to “All seek their own”? I don’t want to condemn you, but I’m encouraging you to consider what is the priority of your life. What could I point to in my life to say that I’m seeking not my own but the things of Jesus Christ? I’m not filling my head with wrong music just ahead of the meeting; in the week I’m not cramming myself with wrong thoughts, not so bound up with “me” that no one else gets a look in.

Before we are a Christian, it’s all about me and mine. But when Paul thought of Timothy, he knew he was speaking about someone who put God and the people of God first.

You may say that was Timothy’s job. You may say as pastor, it’s my job. But we’re talking about the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ in you. Let me urge you to think about how you want God number one in your life, how you will prioritise your time appropriately.

Philippians 2:13

God loves you and He wants you to live and be right. And He is the one who is working in you actively, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. He’s not against you.

It is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. As we go forward together as brothers and sisters in Christ, so I have complete confidence in God who will outwork His purposes. And I have a continuing sense of how God is so careful to make sure that as there are those whom He would draw to Himself through you, so He will fulfil His purposes here for His glory.

Think about the character of Timothy, and about the nature of who Jesus is. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. There was no subordination in the Trinity. God was in Christ.