26th July 2020

[Music] good morning church and i hope you've all had a good week it's great to see you this morning and i'm hannah and i'm going to be leading worship for you this morning and later on darren's going to bring the word of god i just wanted to open by reading psalm 100 and it goes like this sing to the lord all the world worship the lord with joy come before him with happy songs acknowledge that the lord is god he made us we belong to him we are his people and we are his flock enter the temple gates with thanksgiving go into the courts with praise give thanks to him and praise him the lord is good his love is eternal his faithfulness lasts forever glory and power be into the ancients of days from every nation all of creation [Music] [Music] as your kingdom shall not pass [Music] blessing and honor glory and power [Music] from every nation all of creation but for the ancients of [Music] [Music] as your kingdom shall not pass [Music] ancients [Music] will be [Music] face [Music] [Music] it's a call to arms a call to disarm lay down your sword and pick up your staff because pacifist never meant passive jesus's love has never been passive serving the poor could never be passive and he was the one who showed us how roll back 2 000 years sweat tears pain a choice he felt he hurt he gave he chose love and what do you choose what do you choose because love is a choice and we all have to make it and pain is inevitable in this journey of faith and all that we have is all that he asks for this task we've been given are the poor worth saving are they dirty worth seeing are they worth the time the pain the irritating conversations the ups the downs the undulations the people who want help but just won't help themselves are they worth it we worth it oldly to say enough is enough just as he said that's enough that's enough oppression poverty self-inflation that's enough ignoring the needs of a nation that woman with two pennies gave everything she had what does that mean what does it look like it looks like a man with ten quid donated by a friend saying i'm gonna bring all this injustice to an end it looks like faith whilst in fear faith on a cliff top it looks like i don't know how i'm gonna do this but i'm doing it anyway and jesus need fear was it enough to die is it enough to live are we going to be the kind of people who say we love jesus but turn a blind eye to the people who need us seeing the pain and saying that's enough salt and light light and love he said i came to set fire to the world let's light it up that world which is your street your neighborhood your people that world which hides the need the suffering shame we're not kicking down doors we're opening them up with a spirit not of fear but of power and love we're speaking up to defend the rights of the poor and needy for the poor will be raised from the dust and lifted if you feed the hungry and take care of the oppressed then your light will shine in the darkness i know that the lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy and are we not his instruments we his instruments his chain cutters those that dictates hostage god sets free and on the day that it counts the king will say whatever you did for one of the least of these it's time for change and we have the power but change comes in many forms slow and steady like an oak tree growing loud and dramatic like a volcano like a revolution it ebbs and flows it builds and it breaks and it does but what it shows is that that was enough [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] stronger than the power of the [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] me [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] remains one day [Music] on me [Music] me [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] it never gives up never [Music] [Applause] out on me [Music] you never give up you never give up on us jesus [Music] father thank you that your love will never fail and will never run out on us god you are our father and our friend and a father and a friend shouldn't let you down or ever leave you and you're the ultimate one and we know that you never will so god it was with your peace that we have been blessed and it says this in colossians 3 it says the peace that christ gives is to guide you in the decisions you make for it is to this peace that god has called you together in one body and be thankful christ's message in all its richness must live in your hearts teach and instruct each other with all wisdom sing psalms hymns and sacred songs sing to god with thanksgiving in your hearts everything you do or say then should be done in the name of the lord jesus as you give thanks through him to god the father so church i just pray that you would know in this moment god's peace that his holy spirit will fall upon you and that you can sing these words with complete truth and conviction when peace [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] it is wow it is well with my soul [Music] it is it is [Music] is [Music] this day [Music] is [Music] my sin oh the flesh [Music] [Music] is praise the lord praise the lord o my soul it is [Music] i love you lord oh your mercy never fails me [Music] until i lay my head i will see all the goodness i've got [Music] until my life you have been faithful [Music] till my life you have been so so good with every breath that [Music] [Music] your voice [Music] i've known you as a father i've known you as a friend and i have lived in the goodness [Music] and for my life you have been faithful and all my life you have been so [Music] [Music] is is running after it's running after me with my life laid down i'm surrendered now i give you everything it's running after me [Music] everything your goodness is [Music] you have been so good and i'm [Music] of the goodness of god [Music] a widow about to lose her sons to a debtor was desperate for the prophet's help her last possession was a jar of olive oil elisha told her to collect as many jars as she could then god did more than she could imagine get ready to be blessed as we see god's ridiculous provision poverty is on my mind james baldwin um a american novelist who was black and lived through the first half of the 20th century certainly knew something about poverty and injustice and he wrote these words anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor poverty is on my mind you know if you're poor you're more likely to die from covered you're more likely to be less educated and therefore of course have less access to jobs that might help you transform your life in this nation in this day and age if you are born poor you are still more likely to die poor of course i'm speaking from a western perspective where well quite frankly we're we're blessed compared to some parts of this world you only need to look at the news to see what's going on in india in the moment as in uh they struggle to deal with kovid in a nation of great poverty and they just don't have the resources to deal with it brazil same situation it's not okay is it that this poverty exists it's not okay that where you are born or which house you are born into determines the course of your life different religions have different views when it comes to poverty hinduism has a caste system essentially it's okay that poverty exists because it's just the natural order of things islam would say that poverty is a result of a lack of piety a lack of faithfulness in somebody's life buddhism well uh sees that suffering is caused by craving and nothing so bad as uh poverty being that the suffering caused by craving after things of this world and of course the way you deal with that is you suppress your cravings confucianism would say that you can avoid poverty as long as you're diligent if you work hard you won't be poor all of those religious world views see that poverty is caused by our internal feelings our internal thoughts or our individual actions you know work harder or want less and poverty won't be a problem is this how we see people in poverty that it is their fault that they're poor that they're not working hard enough or they're just greedy and they don't need the things that they think they need perhaps that's true for some in society to be honest who are poor because they've made foolish choices our society encourages that doesn't it really we live in this sort of commercial world of of easy credit you know buy now pay later and it will convince you to buy these things and you will be happy by the fast cars and you will have a great life live in lovely houses and everything will be wonderful but is it true for everybody is that really how we see poorness for everybody today we're gonna we're gonna talk about a widow a widow that was in a desperate situation she lived in a society where she had no equality where she was not treated well where she had no income and had very little that she could do about addressing that problem where she was trapped in the society that she was born into and i think the good news that i just want you to be clear on as we get into this is that whereas i think sometimes think well what what does god care about the individuals what does god care about the poor well here we find the elisha in between dealing with kings battles nations uh events that would change large landscape here we find him being brought by god to meet a widow in her desperation she has worth all of us were made in god's image all of us are equal to god from the most powerful to the humblest our circumstances don't define our value to god wealthy or poor is nothing really we are all equal to him we all have equal love and here we find in the bible god stepping into that reality to to help this widow and and remember it's god's view that we are to address this poverty that we see that we are to address these sorts of injustices it is a sinful world and there is injustice in it that needs sorting james chapter 1 verse 27 says religion that is pure and undefiled before god the father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world the christian world view of poverty is different god's view is different don't forget at the beginning of the bible we we see what his plan was his plan was for that garden of eden that that place where man was meant to exist in in paradise in perfect provision in a land of plenty where we didn't need to strive we didn't need to work but what we had was good and was given to us therefore of course it is sin that is the source of poverty in this world poverty is a result of the flawed nature of existence that happened when sin entered into it and of course that's one of the jobs isn't it that he's given to us his church is to address that to make the world more like the world that he created it to be to fix injustice to fix poverty to support the widows and everybody else in society trapped in their circumstance but for the widow there was not yet the christian church it wasn't there to help and to support and to fix so the widow was desperate perhaps you're watching this morning thinking well i don't have any debt my bank account's looking pretty good and the life's okay so is is this message going to be for me at all well i mean i guess the first thing i'd say is if if you are lucky enough to be blessed like that then maybe god's blessed you for a reason you know one of the one of the solutions to poverty is is god will bless people with money who can then fix these problems and to do something about it but i think when i think about the bible passage that we'll look at oil is the chosen thing that is going to be the solution and and i think that was intentionally chosen by god oil is nothing by itself but it can be used for many purposes it was wealth it was a transferable commodity that you could buy and sell and so for some this morning it is going to be about a lack of money or provision in your life that god wants to talk to you about but oil was healing as well it was used uh to treat people and and maybe this morning your poverty is a lack of good health there is something in your life that you're saying god i need it i need your help i'm desperate for you to fix this oil was also used for anointing you know symbolically recognizing the spiritual significance of somebody that you know they are chosen for god they have been anointed and maybe for some of us this morning it is faith the thing we are desperate to god for is that sense of a spiritual chosenness that we don't feel that we don't know or we we were desperate for him to be in a situation we just don't see it maybe our poverty this morning is sin i think the reality is for all of us there is a poverty that's caused by sin in life the cost of all those wrongs that we do that we just can't pay back and we just can't get out of debt for and we would were desperate for god to provide a solution to let's get into the scriptures so 2 kings chapter 4 verse 1 says now the wife of the one of the sons of the prophets cried to elijah your servant my husband is dead and you know that your servant feared the lord but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves and elisha said to her what shall i do for you tell me what have you in the house and she said your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil have you ever noticed how often in scripture god something comes from man's nothing moses's staff for example is his basic staff that he used to look after his sheep when he's on the mountain with garden uh he asked god how will people know that i've come from you god says what's in your hand that staff becomes the thing that god uses think about the little boy with a packed lunch she went see jesus preach uh an unbeknownst to him just by the offering of that little lunch it became the most famous lunch probably in history think about little boy david who you know just a little sling that he used to keep the lions away from his sheep became the thing that god used to bring david into his planned place jesus's disciples humble fishermen they just had nets but jesus used that very thing didn't he to help him understand what it was they needed to become in order to build his church it is not what you have but what god can do with it that defines it god created everything from nothing beginning of the bible there was nothing and god spoke and god's word brought everything into existence our something can become everything if we give it over to him how easy though is it to compare our something and and to feel like it's not enough you know to spend too much of your life on facebook or into instagram watching everybody else's lives go past their little cherry-picked moments and and to be thinking you know what god i don't have that i don't have what they've got can you give me what they've got because what i've got seems like nothing compared to to theirs i remember um for me early on in uh what actually became my call to ministry although i didn't understand at the time we went to hillsong's conference in london which is held at that 02. if you've never been it's brilliant just uh you know tens of thousands of christians coming together in this one stadium and worshiping and spending time listening to to god and of course when it comes to filling a stadium there's a certain sort of preacher who can preach to a stadium and the year that i went um a guy called t.d jakes was preaching now you may never have heard of him he's probably not everybody's cup of tea but he's kind of your classic uh black american gospel preacher and an honest for me that was that was i was blown away i've never really heard anybody preach like he did before he just captivated you and helped your attention probably as long as he needed to um but for me when i you know sensing god's call to preach that that was a bit of a barrier god i can't preach you know look at td jakes look at what he's doing look at the gift that you have given him look at the tens of thousands of people who prepared to listen to him and i'm not that person i can't do what that person does but i am several years ago now a couple of years after the conference i i listened to him uh talk in an interview with somebody else and they were talking about his his early part of his uh preaching ministry and what i didn't know is he'd started off in just a little humble countryside nothing chapel somewhere in in the southern state of america and and he talks about his early days where you know he was he was everything in the church basically he cleaned it and you know he decorated it and he just did everything and and he'd often talk about going to services where that you know prepare really hard and he'd turn up and there'd be two or three people attending and he'd preach the message anyway and he talks about one occasion where he turned up and he prepared this message from god and there was nobody there so what did he do well he preached it anyway because god had given him a message and and he wanted to preach the message and what he said stuck with me he said well but those were my learning years you know it was it was by preaching the message that i got better and so what did i do when nobody was there well i just preached harder and i preached better and i made myself a better preacher you see i was looking at his destination there in um in the o2 arena thinking oh i can't arrive at that destination but i missed the journey and how often is it that that's how it is for us that we look at the destination of other people and we say god i can never get there but we we miss entirely the journey that they had to go on before they arrived there's no destination without that journey and many of us look at you know people of great faith and we think well look at what they're doing for garden and i can't do that because i haven't got that faith i haven't got those skills and abilities but i don't think we can miss the point in the in the message this morning that like for the widow she's about to see a miracle sort of miracle many of us would go god if i saw that sort of miracle in my life that i would be set that would be great and and then i'd start doing amazing things for you but but that miracle comes off the back of a time of real struggle a real heartache you know she's got to the point where she's thinking her children are going to be taken from her because of the poverty and the hopelessness of our sis her situation see with with god it's not if i get more i'll pour more that's not how it works that's not how it's going to be for us it's not like god i can i'll i can step out and into faith and i can believe in your provision once i see that provision arrive you're probably looking around in your situation at the moment and like the widow thinking well i don't have anything but you don't have nothing you have some thing some small overlooked insignificance in your life is what god wants you to use so that you can see his blessing come that might be a resource in your life it might be time it might be a skill but you have a treasure within you or around you that god has given you to see his goodness come into your life i think this message this morning for for some of us is those who look around and think well i've only got a little i've just got a humble small portion but check your oil because it might be that very thing that god wants to use verse three then he said go outside borrow vessels from all your neighbors empty vessels and not too few and so the widow is brought to a point of decision isn't she elisha i need you to do something for me i need god to provide and of course it was her obedience to the instructions that she were given that unlocked that blessing she didn't hold back she probably felt like a real fool stepping into those words stepping into the unknown going to her neighbors and and and asking for empty vessels when she needed something more than that i think one of the points that i think is worth just holding on to is that we can't know that god will catch us until we step out into a place where we need him to catch us she couldn't know that god was going to bring a blessing until she went out and gathered the thing that god was going to use to bless her into and and for me i am a a time of my life i have literally just finished the last day in school of my 15 years of teaching career and i have enjoyed it and it has been stable and we have been financially secure and we are stepping out into a new life of ministry for god and and one absolute rock for me through this has just been the testimonies from people i have heard about god's provision our church is full of stories that where god has provided for people and i want to thank the people who have shared him with me because it has been more helpful than you probably knew and and that is that is just the reality that that we experience is that when we step out for god when we depend on god because we're about his work then god provides the thing we need verse 4 then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels and when one is full set it aside so she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons and as she poured they brought the vessels to her when the vessels were full she said to her son bring me another vessel and he said to her there is not another then the oil stopped flowing how many pots do you think she gathered do you think she borrowed just one or two you know just went next door to the neighbor that she knew the best who who knew her situation just followed one or two from them because you know i don't i don't want to embarrass myself i don't want to go and ask other people i don't want to ask you know the neighbor opposite because well you know me and her don't get on we don't see eye to eye she'll just be sneery about it i don't you know i don't want to put myself out there do you think she just went to her friends or do you think she went to every single person that she could god's blessing here to the widow was of course only limited by what she gathered if she had had little faith and gathered few pots she would have got little oil if she had had greater faith and gathered more pots she would have had more oil god's blessing was only equal to her expectation because she expected a lot god provided a lot and so this morning what is your expectation about what god will provide sometimes i find myself in prayer praying small you know prayers like god bless me and god give me peace and god watch over me and god be with me and they are good prayers they are okay prayers to pray but they're not ambitious if that's all i pray are they you know me saying to god god bless me you can just hear god saying well okay darren i have blessed you it says that in the word i promise my blessing of you but but but let's do something with that blessing let's step out and let's really see how i can bless you you know god give me peace and god's going well darren your life's pretty comfortable and you live in an easy existence you've got a lot of peace in your life but let's let's see what that piece looks like if you step out into the scary unknown when you step out into difficult times when when you take me out into places that i need to go let's see what my peace feels like then i think sometimes my prayers need greater expectation of god you know how often have i found myself praying for revival and we've all prayed that haven't we we've been in church we'll be saying god pour out your spirit on this nation bring this nation back to you again but i think sometimes in reality god probably is looking around and he he wants to say to us but all you've done is filled the church with full pots where are the empty pots that i can pour my blessing into we pray sometimes for big oak trees you know but we miss the fact that god has given us little acorns that we need to grow into those oak trees we need to fill our life and fill our churches with empty pots so that god really can show us how he's gonna bless us verse 7 she came and told the man of god and he said go sell the oil and pay your debts and you and your sons can live on the rest i think sometimes we miss the fact that god wants us to have joy in him and and that he has joy in us remember eden that was that was the world of his making that we would dwell with him in intimate relationship in a place with no pain no hurt no striving no no poverty no injustice that things would be good do you remember what the widow's problem was you know that she was so in debt that her sons were going to be taken from her but his provision here was more than just paying the debt the leftover was enough to sell and to live on the excess of his blessing is enough to live on the excess of his blessing was far more than the widow could imagine or even pray in hope for we are all born into that poverty of sin that is the legacy of this broken world we all do wrong we all for fall sure we all owe god a debt that can never be paid and of course god is only a just god he's only a correct arbitrator of of goodness if we have to pay that debt and we can't pay that debt we could never pay that debt and so we need god to lift us from that debt and of course that's what jesus christ did on the cross he paid that debt the debt we could never owe the poverty that we exist in that we could never get ourselves out of jesus stepped down into human form and paid it for us but he didn't just lift us from debt he poured out an excess blessing john 1 verse 12 says but to all who did receive him who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of god a relationship that we never had never hoped for as beyond our wildest expectation is now ours through christ we are now children of god god has poured out on us an excess blessing his excess is enough to live on now and in the ever more so this morning what do you have what is the treasure in your life that god wants to use prepare in faith for that to be used and when god blesses you expect and anticipate an abundance of his blessing [Music] amen lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon and be gracious face towards you i give you peace [Music] lord bless you and keep you make his face [Music] face [Music] i [Music] lord bless you [Music] and keep you [Music] make his face shine upon and be [Music] the gracious turn his face towards you and give you pain [Music] um [Music] um [Music] um [Music] man [Music] may his favor be upon you in a thousand generations and your family and your children and their children and their children may his favor be upon you in a thousand generations and your family and your children and their children and their children as [Music] he is with you in the [Music] he is for you he is for you [Music] [Applause] i'm [Music] his favor [Music] [Music] he is [Music] he is for you [Applause] um [Music] [Music] is for you the king is for you he is [Music] i wanted to share with you guys a bit about my week this week so um darren's been preparing his sermon and he talked about um when we went hill songs and heard tt jakes and it's really funny because when he talked about it in his preparations it made me realize i didn't remember any of the the talk at all all like apart from one tiny thing and it was all to do with this dollar bill this dollar bill he talked about this dollar bill and i felt it was so important so i just felt compelled so compelled to go and find this talk it's interesting he says that our faith is like the legal tender of heaven and he says so take a 20 pill and you can crush it up and scrunch it you can rip it up and sell tape it back together you can throw it on the ground and you can crush it under your foot with the heel of your shoe but nothing none of that can change the fact that that 20 bill is worth 20 dollars and then he likens that to us and he says it is so like the fact that no matter what trials and tribulations and difficulties we go through in life our faith will be the same our faith can be the same and our faith is worth the same the value we as our value is worth the same to god so let's pray dear god i thank you for your message today i thank you god that you are loving kind giving that you are our father and that nothing stands in the way of your action in our lives thank you god that we don't need to have a lot that we don't need to feel we have it all together or that we know our next steps forward because you god you know and you want to bless the little bit that we have left just like the widow's jar of oil for the god and you want to grow that little bit that we have from a small acorn into a big oak tree oh yes please father god please grow all those acorns in each of our lives right now that are there that we may each one day see the oak trees we don't need that big instant miracle but we do need your action in our lives father god and i thank you god that you are with us through every trial and tribulation and test that we never walk through those tough times alone that actually father when we seek you we can even know that you are there holding us through those times father when we're in those times and we can't even feel you god help us know the truth the truth of your word the truth of the bible that shows us that when people are at when your people are at their lowest step that you come to them that you are with them and we don't need to go out looking for you or looking for a miracle looking for that thing that will make our life better because actually god just like the widow you and the oil in her house you have already put it in us you have buried that treasure already in us thank you god that it is there and help us to see that buried treasure in ourselves help us know that we have value that our faith in you has value that we are loved by you not because we deserve it but because you are an amazing gracious and kind loving god that because jesus died for us that we are able to be seen as your children that we are your children a child of god thank you that we are not alone in this world in times that seem so scary at moments and at times when we don't understand and we're not with each other that we're not worshiping together at times when we don't see people face to face when we can feel so alone thank you god that we are never alone and that you will hold us strong through this trial and through this hard time thank you god that if our faith is all that we have left even when we've lost family even when we've lost health when we've lost our ability to be who we thought we were in ourselves father that actually if faith is all we have left then my goodness faith is enough to bring about those oak trees that you want to give us and i just pray for each of us as we go into our week that we go into our week knowing your presence is with us knowing that as we go about doing things that we don't normally necessarily even do going about doing maybe things that are harder than usual or stepping out for you god in ways that we don't usually i just pray that we know we are not alone and that our little bit that we have left that little bit is enough for you to use for your kingdom in this world in jesus name we pray amen you

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Length: 65min 40sec (3940 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 26 2020