Anyone need a Faith Lift? - LIFECENTRAL CHURCH ONLINE

so [Music] it is so good to be back and to be with you guys and for those of you in the room and those of you online we are going to be singing again in a few minutes okay it's so good to hear people sing isn't it some of you are looking around thinking no you you weren't standing next to this guy i'm joking it's so good to be back my name is leon and i want to say a big special shout out to all of you in the room here and for those of you watching online as well and especially for you guys at hagley okay that's one of our locations hagley uh if you're watching and hopefully that you are then you are really we're just so pumped up that that you're getting going again in hagley and in rowley as well what's going to happen with our locations is that hagley and rowley are going to meet together alternate weeks over the next couple of months we're hoping to be back all of our locations every week all together in person that's the goal okay we're doing it step by step but also i want to say a special shout out because this week we are launching two micro sites and if you don't know what a micro site is you need to come on tuesday evening and we will explain that to you but to those of you watching in clevery mortimer you are really welcome we are really excited to be connecting with you guys and those of you watching in bronze grove as well again we are so excited about what god is doing hey wherever you're watching from if you're online why don't you pop it in the chat where you're watching from because we've been so blown away by how many people are just connecting with us on in the online stuff around the world it's just amazing and uh this week uh we start a brand new teaching series called uh reset and i don't know about you but have you ever you know this technology thing like your phone or your ipad anyone ever get frustrated with technology or is it just me like it's brilliant when it's working well like this tv was working in the run-through and now it isn't and so we love it and so someone as i'm even speaking is going to do a reset on this piece of technology because you see what happens with technology is that it gets slow and it gets sluggish and a virus comes on it all malware comes on and you need there you go you need a a reset and there is two kinds of reset there's a soft reset and there's a hard reset the soft reset is to switching it on and off again no off and on again that's right and the hard reset is restoring it to its original setting to the factory setting to the original design a little bit like what's happened to my face okay because um yeah we okay all right okay okay all right okay it was a bit of fun it was meant to be a bit of fun i don't know whether it was the last lockdown that sent me a little bit crazy and i thought i'm gonna grow a beard and then it was white and i'm like how did that happen but it does it's the aging process and then at some point i thought i'm just gonna keep growing it and then i knew that god wanted us to talk about reset so i thought well i'll use that but it just kept growing and then when i was likened to okay father christmas gandalf moses uncle albert from only falls in horses i thought it's gone again the tv's gone again it needs a reset guy i thought you know what i need a reset my face needs a reset and so it happened last night it's way easier to reset your facial hair than it is to reset your life isn't it it really is but you know what i want to do and i don't know whether i can do it now because the tv is not working but i want to talk to you about something called the great reset because there's a whole bunch of people um called the the world economic forum here they are and they develop this thing called the great reset so they're a bunch of basically economists and strategists and they're that they're gathering together and they reckon that coming out of kovid 19 is the moment for us as a planet to reset we have never certainly in my lifetime never been more disrupted than we have this last 18 months politically economically and socially and here's one of the quotes that the guys say the pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect reimagine and reset our world and i love those words those are words we've been using those r words as well to reflect to reimagine and to reset our world and guys whether you're watching online or whether you're here in the room whether you're a christian or whether you're not i think all of us need a reset and i don't mean a soft reset where we just go back to normal but a hard reset where we go to the original design that god has for our lives but you know here's where i would diverge from from these guys you see they talk about um economy all the time like the global debt is the highest since the second world war global economy is shrinking by three percent and what they say is this if unaddressed the world will be less equal and more fragile i've got news for them it already is less equal and more fragile and what they talk about is that we need a great reset of capitalism and capitalism is okay but i think we need something much bigger than a reset of capitalism our climate needs a reset our political system needs a reset our communities need a reset our lives need a reset but not a soft reset not just switch on and off again and go back to normal but a hard reset going back to the original design how did you god design this world to be and it's so interesting me talking about reset with the tv going off again i don't know but you know the reset the word reset's really interesting because it's not just about technology it's also reset means to reset a broken bone you know like when your bones come out when your shoulders come out of its out of his socket it needs to be reset the other meaning of reset is from the world of jewelry to place a gem into a new setting or thirdly to set again or differently to set again or differently and when you look at these words reset i don't know how many of you guys here today or watching online would say you know what coming out of kobe 90 and we know kobe not even is still with us and we're navigating that but coming out of this season into a new season does my life need a reset has something been ripped out is something been broken or dislocated does something need resetting again or differently and i believe the guard wants to help us in these next few weeks to reset and to go back to the original settings and so i i thought about how to look at this and you know i haven't spoken for nine weeks all right so i've got a lot to say so you might be here a long time this morning all right let me just give you a heads up on that i'll try to keep to time but it will be a challenge and i thought do i go down the route of practical examples where we need reset you know like when relationships break down we need to reset when our finances are in trouble we need to reset when we get hurt or disappointed we need a reset and i thought do i go down that line and that's great and we we love practical teaching or do i look at eternal principles and let you guys work it out in your lives and i've decided i'm going to go down that route so we're going to look at some eternal principles in other words things that don't change and we're going to say these are the things that god has put is hardwired into us as human beings and to us as a planet and if we would live on these kind of principles then actually we'd be able then when relationships break down when our finances are in a mess when we get hurt or disappointed we be able to reset our lives based on the eternal principles of god and we're going to look at a chapter in the bible of the next few weeks okay uh called one corinthians 13 and uh whenever we look at the bible all right whenever we look at any any book in the bible and if you're new to faith this might help you you're going to ask four questions we're going to look at the author the audience the agenda and the application in other words the author who wrote it the audience who received who heard it first what was going on in their lives and their context the agenda what's the message trying to communicate then the application what does it mean for us today so when we look at that one corinthians is a letter written by paul the apostle paul he wrote it around a.d 5657 from a city called ephesus and to to the newt early church in corinth this this really metropolitan um really cool city in the roman empire but it was a little bit freaky and there was all kinds of weird stuff going on and the audience the people that received it they were new christians and they were trying to find their way in the world and whenever paul wrote his letters he always had two things in mind he always was very encouraging but he was also wanting to correct and to challenge so we had this balance between commending people and challenging people to encouraging people and to exhorting people to course corrections and in the application what does it mean for us today and we're going to look at that today but you know what he does in the book in the letter of corinthians for 12 chapters or so paul addresses different issues and he encourages and he challenges and he commends and he corrects and he does all this then at the end of chapter 12 it's almost like he puts his pen or his quill down and has a little bit of a change attack and he says this incredible line but now let me show you a way of life that is best of all in other words i've been looking at issues and practical examples but i'm just going to come away from that i'm going to show you a life a way of life is best of all other translations the most excellent way a superior way to live that is beyond comparison and then when you turn over into 1 corinthians 13 you get to what we often often call the love chapter we had a wedding here yesterday and you've all heard one corinthians 13 read at a wedding it wasn't written for a wedding it was written for a life the way of love paul says is the most excellent way and we're going to spend two to three weeks looking at love but before we do that we're going to go right to the end of one corinthians 13 because there's a there's an incredible verse and this is like the mount a mountaintop verse three two years ago in june 2019 i was in tanzania i had the privilege of going to tanzania and um we sponsor about 160 children as a church in a community in tanzania through compassion which is phenomenal that all happened during lockdown incredibly generous and incredibly life-giving but you know as i left tanzania really early in the morning um we were in a town a city called arusha which is at the foothills of mount kilimanjaro and as we were flying up out of the cloud this is the picture that i took that's the top of mount kilimanjaro above the clouds and the photograph does not do it justice on my little phone out of the window because it was like just just majestic above the clouds and what paul does in one corinthians 13 is he gives us these three mountaintops they're majestic because they're eternal and they're timeless and they're the things that we need to reset in our lives and he puts it this way he says this put the next screen on thanks the three things will last forever these three mountain tops will last forever faith hope and love and the greatest of these is love and i want to suggest guys that these three things are things that you and i need a reset of in our lives you know i've heard thing this phrase which i love we're going to need coming out of kobe 19. we are going to need as a society as a global community we're going to need reservoirs of resilience we're going to need reservoirs of resilience we're going to talk about that phrase the next few weeks and i want to suggest the deepest reservoirs of resilience are faith hope and love and today we're going to talk about faith next week which is the anniversary of 9-1-1 20 years anniversary of 9-1-1 we're going to look at hope okay and i've been reading so much over the summer i've read about 13 different 14 different books and there's so much i want to speak into about hope but then after that we're going to take two or three weeks looking at one corinthians 13 and looking at love but today this is the question that i have for you today so anyone need a faith lift anyone looked in the mirror recently and thought i need a faith lift see what i did there anyone thought you know what i need something to lift my faith maybe you're a teacher and you're about to go back to school this week and you need a faith lift or maybe your parents and maybe your kids and and you're going to to school or you're going to college or uni and you may might need that faith that or maybe you're you're you're going navigating going back into the office having worked at home or or maybe you you're in a tough situation and right now you need a faith lift you know faith is a lot like a credit card it's like it's in your wallet or your purse and you don't even think about it until you need it and then when you need it and you look for it and it's not there all of a sudden you're scrambling around aren't you like where did i have it last when did i use it last week was it faith can be a lot like that you know many of us maybe if you are a christian you say oh yeah i've got faith yeah but but it's a bit like a credit card like you think it's there somewhere but when you need it then you'll you you'll really like looking for it because it's a little bit like that and so i want to look we're going to look at one corinthians 13 in the in the future okay so we're just looking at that one verse but i want to look at another passage of scripture this morning and it's hebrews chapter 10 hebrews chapter 10 the back end of hebrews chapter 10 verse 35 to 39 now this thinking about when this was written this was probably written a couple of decades after corinthians okay and this is written to early christians who now are not only trying to find their way in faith but they're under persecution from the roman emperor nero now for centuries uh christians thought that paul wrote hebrews most modern scholars don't believe that paul wrote hebrews i personally don't believe he did either we don't know who wrote it barnabas is a is a candidate luke is a candidate my favorite is priscilla priscilla is a genuine candidate to be the writer of hebrews and wouldn't that be amazing if actually it was a woman that wrote hebrews and because she's not mentioned there because in the world at the time you wouldn't mention a woman in that kind of situation wouldn't it be amazing if actually our faith which i do believe passionately our faith is a lifter of women there are people in our community in our world right now and they are living under horrendous circumstances simply because they're women or they're girls and we need to pray for them we need to pray for them but it isn't amazing that jesus and the new testament were the people that lifted up women and empowered women and and rejoiced in women and gave women roles in leadership and all of that wouldn't it be incredible if priscilla had written this we don't know but i have a sneaking suspicion anyway the writer of hebrew says this in hebrews 10 35 so do not throw away this confident trust the phrase throw away means throw overboard or cast aside like an old garment don't chuck it away in this confident trust and confident trust that phrase literally means freedom openness you guys have been looking for nine weeks over the summer the summer of freedom and andy did a great job last week eight ways that we can stay free and the right of the hebrews is saying don't throw away the freedom that you have the confident trust remember the great reward it brings you patient endurance is what you need now so that you will continue to do god's will then you'll receive all that he's promised for in just a little while the coming one will come and not delay and my righteous ones he says will live by faith but i'll take no pleasure in anyone who turns away but we are not those who turn away and that phrase turn away means shrink back it means withdraw it means retreat to cover they won't retreat they won't shrink away from god to their own destruction we are the faithful ones whose souls will be saved guys we need a reset of faith and i don't know where your faith level is right now as we begin this new season but i believe i believe that god wants to invite you into an encounter with him to reset to help reset your faith and to give you a faith lift the call here in the book of hebrews is not to shrink back because of what we don't know but to move forward because of who we do know amen not to shrink back because of what we don't i don't know what's happening in the world i don't know you know i i said to you before one of my three word phrase through the last 18 months that i've used more than ever in my leadership is i don't know i ain't got a clue what's happening with the virus what's happening with the culture what's happening with the economy what's happening with our society i don't know but what what the writer here says and what god says is don't shrink back because of what you don't know move forward because of who you do know and what i want to do today is i want to give and before i do that sorry because when you then turn from hebrews uh chapter 10 into hebrews chapter 11 you get that incredible passage that incredible chapter that we all know where the writer talks about all these men and women who serve god by faith and they all have two things in common number one their lives please god because of their faith and number two they all found faith in really uncomfortable situations helen keller who um as a as a baby lost to her hearing and lost her sight she went on to to be uh to be the first person to get a master's degree who was hearing and visually impaired she became an activist for people with disabilities and an incredible woman and she said this and i love this faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light isn't that amazing just hold it there for a minute on the screen faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light you know this is why this week we have a prayer week going on here in church i'll talk about in a moment it's so important that we pray the start of this season because because you know it's not going to be our strength that's going to help this world emerge you know into the light it's going to be faith in god and it's going to be god's power as we engage faith so what i want to do today and i'm going to have to be quick is i'm going to give you five things about faith to give you a faith lift today and then my hope and prayer is as we respond at the end and as we worship jesus at the end that actually there will be a reset that there will be a lift of faith in every single one of us five things about faith number one faith is fundamentally all about trust take a look at the screens [Music] do [Music] [Music] i don't know how many of you have had that experience over the summer i know it's been a bit of a disruptive summer maybe you have been away or you've been to a pool somewhere or and that whole thing about jumping into the pool but how many of you remember uh the first time maybe you're a parent or a grandparent i'll give it up for grandparents grandparents rock absolutely do you know what tally my granddaughter saw me today and totally freaked out because she hasn't seen me without the beard she totally totally like ah but that moment of being a parent or grandparent in a pool encouraging your little one to jump in anyone remember that experience and it's so funny you know if you watch it because what happens is that the little kid stays on the side and let's say it's dad it can be mom or granddad or yeah granddad it's in there and say let's say granddad or dad either one granddad is in there and you've got your arms out and you just want them to jump in and then then they're so scared aren't they and then eventually they do but it's not a jump it's more like a fall isn't it they just like fall in to your arms and then a little bit you then move back a little bit and you encourage them to take a step and then eventually as they get a little older a little bit more confident that they then don't need that they then jump in or they run i nearly fell over there they run and they jump in eventually as they get more confident and more assured they don't want you they want you to push away eventually they jump in and jump on you and eventually they push you under and then eventually as they get even older they say dad or grandad please don't come to the pool with me again especially if you're going to wear those shorts because they're really embarrassing and what happens is now dad or granddad or mom or grandma or whoever it is they don't want you to do something they just want you to trust them they just want you to trust that your arms are strong and your heart is good that is exactly what faith is faith is fundamentally all about trust the greek word used most for faith in the new testament the one that we've read today is the word pistus it's an unfortunate word but it literally means to be persuaded to fully trust in ancient antiquity the word meant it was a warranty guaranteeing safe delivery in other words faith is all about jumping in the pool knowing that god's arms are strong and that his heart is good and i wondered through this pandemic how many of us have pulled back from trust have pulled back from faith because we're not quite sure whether his arms are strong enough or whether his heart really is good but i want to say i want to give you a faith lift today his arms are strong and his heart is good and faith is all about trust you've got to take the jump and here's the thing whether you kind of fall into the arms or whether you're one of the more confident types that run and jump in whether you're one of those people that you know the poor when you're on holiday and you you can see them can't you and they're like oh it's a bit cold and you know like dip your toe in or whether you're the person that comes out from breakfast and doesn't go anywhere near just runs and dives straight in it doesn't matter how you get in it really matters that you get in and ultimately faith is all about trust but number two faith is not a static event but a dynamic experience and i've been challenged on this one you know in ezekiel 47 in one of the books in the old testament there's this vision that ezekiel gets of a river and and he gets taken into the river and and the river goes up to his ankles and then it goes up to his knees then he goes up to his his thighs and then and then eventually he can't stand and he has to swim and that's a picture i believe of what faith is meant to be faith is not a static event that happened faith is a dynamic experience where we're growing deeper in trust and where we're moving in our relationship with jesus you know it's not enough for us to say oh yeah i've got faith it was 1987. when i made a decision no no that's a decision but faith is a dynamic experience we're always meant to be taking steps of faith we're always meant to be coming to those bits those parts where we're out of our our comfort zone and where we're where we're swimming in who god is many of you know that over these last couple of years we've been on a journey as a church as a leadership and allison my wife um you know has been an elder for many years and always been involved in the ministry but she's always had her her career outside of the church as a nurse then as a counselor and then in his last season as a university lecturer and uh we felt god stir something in her and we've seen that over this last 18 months and so we've been on this journey about her maybe stepping more into into leadership um you know on the church team and joining the church team um but you know at the start of the summer when we went for our break uh we went with the thought that actually um she began negotiating at work to reduce her hours so that she could do 15 hours uh on on the church staff team that was all that the church can afford is 15 hours and that's fine and so that's what we were looking at and then about week two or three um of our trip or of our break we felt god speak to us to jump we felt god speak to us to make a face step and so alison handed a notice in and uh she left her work on friday and starts 15 hours here at the church tomorrow and here's the thing about that for us that's the biggest financial step of faith that we've taken for some time alison was earning more recently than she's ever in her whole life so for us it was a faith step and it was a bit of a trust step to say god we believe this is you we believe your arms are strong and your heart is good we don't want all of our faith steps to be in our memory we want our faith steps to be in our reality and i don't know when the last time was that you took a faith step but i believe in this season to reset our faith it needs to be a dynamic experience not just a static event and so this week we have this week of prayer and we want to invite you into that and hopefully if you had an email you'd have got a information about the week of prayer and there's a brochure you can download with loads of information i want to encourage you on tuesday night on tuesday night we are going to be launching microsites okay in clebury mortimer and in bronze grove and we hope beyond that as well and we want to pray for people we've got a bunch of people coming over from clebury we're excited about that people from bronze grove come in and we would love we're going to be praying for hugley and for rowley a whole load of our staff are in new roles in this season we're going to be laying hands on them because we can do that now legally take the clue and we're going to be praying and commissioning people into this new space this is about faith that doesn't just rest on our memory our history but actually is a dynamic experience right now and as you come and as you engage with prayer this week i want to encourage you to be asking god god would you reset my faith when was the last time i took a step of faith when was the last or maybe your faith is up to your ankles right now so maybe for you it's like hey i want to go a little bit deeper what does it look like for me to go up to my knees what does it look like for me to go up to my waist what does it look like for me to swim and to trust you knowing that your arms are strong and that your heart is good number three faith is not just a decision to make but a muscle to work and i love this one because i made a decision okay of faith in may a long long time ago next may it will be 40 years ago that i made my first commitment to jesus of faith now faith is a muscle to work not just a decision to make i made a decision nearly 40 years ago but my faith would stay really small unless i worked it like a muscle i had a funny thing over the summer um i cycle uh quite a bit uh not long distances but i go out quite a lot and i'm on the drive in my gear and ready to cycle and my next door neighbor paul we're good friends and he's ready to run and we look at each other and we both started laughing because it was obvious that neither of us wanted to go so basically we were both standing there i'm on my bike and he's running and we're doing things on our apps on our phone and we're adjusting things and neither of us wanted to go and we just laughed because we both said like we don't want to do it but we know that if we don't do it nothing will change like and it's exactly the same with faith if you don't activate it it will atrophy you wonder why your faith feels small you wonder why your relationship with jesus feels thin you wonder why you don't feel close to him it's because you've not been operating the muscle it's a muscle it's not just a decision we've got to keep working this muscle and i want to give you three habits that i wonder if some of us and i know i have as well have allowed to get out of whack and we need to reset these are three habits that will build your muscle of faith okay here's the first one and it's basically it's this daily devotions the first minutes of your day and the reason why this is important now i know some people are night people and some people are morning people and i've always taught that i'm not going to teach that any longer because the bible really teaches clearly you begin your day with god that doesn't mean if you're if you're not a morning person that that's when you read hours and hours just give your first minutes to god you see when you wake up what's the first thing you reach for i do reach for my phone but the reason i reach for my phone okay is to switch the alarm off if there's an alarm on it or secondly to go on new version and do the u-version word of the day okay now that's the first thing i do then when i get up and everything else then i do some other devotion but even if you just do that it takes about three minutes but what it does is at the start of your day it sets the tone right and and you say jesus today this is your day and i want to give you the first minutes of the day now let me just save something funny that happened to me okay when i was preparing this about 10 days or so ago um i noticed that my you version like the the daily you know kind of thing it does this thing called a streak in other words it tells you how many days you're on and i'm quite a competitive person okay and competitive with myself and i was nearly 400 days of competitive view version i was feeling quite good and then i wrote this talk and then two days later i went back on and it said streak zero i'd missed the day no i got got to nearly like 400 and then i'd miss today and then i was like ah i don't know what i mean i've missed a day you know and alison said you do know that's not the purpose of reading the bible yes yes you're right i know you're right you're so wise and profound but i've missed the day but you see the purpose isn't for us to do a streak like that i'm going to rephrase that okay but we'll edit that out later on the purpose isn't to do that it isn't to get through the bible the purpose is that the bible will get through us so you know what i did is i started again and now i'm on a streak of eight days and it is not about that but it's about starting your day with jesus that's what jesus did he started every day with the father you can read it and read read chapter mark chapters one to five every day he just goes away he starts the day with the father why because that gets your life reset secondly secondly percentage giving the first pounds of your income and i know some of you're going to say what what what let me just explain this this is so important you see god is not after your wallet he's after your heart and where your treasure is that's where your heart is and so percentage giving and i don't care what your percentage is for me it's ten percent as a start but for you can be whatever that means the first i give to god not the leftovers at the end okay and here's the other one many people say i don't want to do that i want to give where i see there's a need i understand that jesus and the new testament writers would say to that that's what pagans do when you give only where you see there's a need that does nothing to build your faith all it does is stroke your ego but when you give us a percentage giving to god first you're saying god all that i have is yours anyway and i want to give a percentage of it to you first because you're first in my life and by doing that we're surrendering control of the one thing that we often put our faith and our trust in that isn't god and that's our money percentage giving so important then thirdly thirdly and i love this one as well corporate worship the first day of your week now i know in the last 18 months that's been really hard and we are so grateful for online ministry and we will keep going online and if you're online we love that you're connecting with us and you are valued and loved and we love it but i think there's something really powerful about corporate worship which will grow and build effect you see something happens personally when we gather together corporately jesus says where you're gathered in my name i'm kind of there in a very special way in the midst of them in a way that i'm not there when it's just you on your own and even when you're not it's just you and youtube there's something about the dynamic of being together and i can tell you what i could cry this morning just being here with you guys and listening to you sing and in a moment we're going to sing and worship again and there's something that encourages my faith but here's the other thing when we come together corporately we have to navigate sit in ne that's my seat do you know what i mean or i want to sit there and all of a sudden the corporate dynamic of relationship challenges us and it does something to us and ultimately it reminds us that we are never ever called to a solitary faith we are always called to a communal faith faith is lived out in the context of community and i want to say to you we need to reset in this season some stuff of making the first day of your week that corporate act of worship whether it's online for some of you or whether it's in person and i want to say those of you who are online hey if you live close to us or to hagley or to rowley or to one of the microsites maybe you want to dip your toe in the water a little bit and try being in person as well because that's such an important decision you can make okay we're gonna have to crack on number four faith is ultimately not about a something but about a someone faith is ultimately not about us something but about someone and i love this little verse look at this i can do all things through a verse taken out of context okay you see the verse that i'm thinking about i can do all things in philippians through christ who gives me strength we take it out of context so much like we do with lots of verses you see what we think then is is we get our mindset all wrong and what we need is we need a reset of our mindset we need a reset of our mindset you see when paul said i can do all things through christ who gives me strength what we think that means is that faith means there's nothing we cannot do because god is with us wrong we think faith means um you know that there's nothing that god won't do for us wrong faith means that everything will work out like i want it to because i have faith wrong that's not what paul says paul says i can do all things through christ who strengthens me that's in the context of suffering and difficulty in other words when you're going through the tough times you can have faith to go through it not around it and actually it won't necessarily turn out like you want it to because faith isn't about something faith is about someone faith is about someone you look at that in hebrews chapter 11 all of those people you know many of them didn't get what they wanted or what they expected but they died in faith they lived by faith they were commended because of their faith i love this story in daniel chapter three where daniel's three friends are thrown into a fire and the king there is saying bow down to me and they say we ain't been down to you we're only going to bow down to god and we think about our brothers and sisters in afghanistan don't we and other parts of the world who this is a reality for them right now and it says this if we're thrown into the blazing furnace the god whom we serve is able to save us he'll rescue us from your power your majesty but even if he doesn't love that even if he doesn't we want to make it clear to you your majesty we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up and what they say by that is hey listen listen we're in the fire okay because of our faith but faith means we believe that god can rescue us that's pisses okay that's that's trust that's we believe that your arms are strong but then they say this but even if he does not we're gonna worship him anyway why because his heart is good his arms are strong and his heart is good so we're going to jump regardless of how it works out and i know there are people here in this room and there'll be people online and life hasn't worked out like you wanted it to allison and myself have been so aware the last couple of weeks because of walking through a situation of incredible grief and tragedy and loss that many of you will be aware of in our community now in our family here of how life can turn out not like you want it to faith isn't about how life turns out faith isn't about something guys faith is about a someone and i know that some things that happen to your life and my life they don't make a lot of sense but i'll tell you what without god they make no sense at all and so faith isn't about something it's about a some one and i love this quote by a guy called paul tilly doubt is not the opposite of faith so if you've got doubt today that's not the opposite of faith it is an element of faith i love that you see if you don't have any doubt then you know you wouldn't need faith would you do you know what i mean like doubt is not the opposite it is an element of faith and over the summer and i'll talk about this a little bit more on tuesday we we had a coach uh either a sabbatical coach has helped me through this and he gave me three questions to look at number one who is leon outside of life central church in other words am i just to something that does stuff secondly what grief is jesus invited me to process with him and thirdly what dreams is god inviting me to dream with him now i didn't really get to the third one i spent a lot of time with god on the first one and on the second one and we realized through that and i realized through that that there's some grief and pain and loss in my life that i wasn't processing i was just getting on and doing stuff in fact the very second week of our holiday or of our sabbatical was a week of holiday which uh allison and myself um we were going with josh and eiler son and daughter-in-law and the little one tally and they hadn't had a holiday and baby was born in lockdown and so they're both nurses and we really wanted to give them this holiday and so we bought this cottage great cottage and cornball we went down on the saturday they were working and then they were coming down on the sunday but on the saturday they were pinged and uh the baby was pink nursery so to speak so they couldn't so they had a decision do we do we just go because other people were going or do we do the right thing and stay and miss the holiday and to their credit they did the right thing but we were devastated devastated because we were so looking forward to this holiday and i realized now that actually there was other grief that this was kicking into there was other pain another loss that this was kicking into that my reaction to the experience was disproportionate to the experience and it's been really rich to let jesus take me into a place where actually it's about my relationship with him it's about a someone not about a something holidays come and go life doesn't work out like i want it to i've got to get over it and faith isn't about something faith is about a some one final thing i want to say and then we're going to watch it faith starts where you are not where you want to be you see if you want a faith lift today it's going to start guys when you recognize where your faith is at you know when you go to the theme park and you look for that thing on the theme park and you find that big map the most important thing is not the thing that you're looking for it's that little three-word sign that says you are here if you don't know where you are it's irrelevant where you're going and faith starts not where you want to be but where you are and i think that jesus invites every one of us to take a step of faith to take a jump of faith to trust him again to exercise our faith to start some habits of faith you know to to to move beyond the the focus on the something and to and to reset ourselves to the someone and it starts where you are if your faith is tiny start where you are if your faith is here start where you are if you're up to your knees start there but come to jesus today and say jesus would you reset my faith would you lead me forward would you help me to trust you even more you know i love the story about peter who messes up on the night that jesus is taken away and he denies and he swears and he runs away and he fails and he messes up and then jesus is crucified and buried and and he's resurrected but peter doesn't know that and jesus meets peter and he gives him a reset doesn't he and he gives him a reset and the reset isn't where he wants to be the reset is where he is and so jesus says do you love me peter well yeah you kind of know i do well then just start there and just follow me in other words make it about someone not about something you've messed up you failed you've disappointed you've let me down that's fine we'll sort that out we'll deal with that just start where you are not where you want to be and i wonder how many of us today need to say this is where i am god my faith is is more of a memory than a reality my faith is more of a static event than a dynamic experience my faith is more about what was yesterday rather than what is today and today this is where i am but i want a reset of faith and i want to invite you into that today trust his arms are strong and his heart is good so how can you respond maybe and i don't want to categorize everyone maybe you can choose to discover faith today or maybe you could choose to rediscover faith today and you know guy if you're if you're in the in this kind of group and maybe you're watching online or maybe here in the room and and you've never discovered faith you've never done what i did almost 40 years ago and made that decision and that initial leap that initial trust you can do that or maybe you've done that but you need to rediscover faith you know i've been so blown away by even the tragedy of life that can happen to people can be something that can reawaken and reset that that faith dynamic in people's lives sometimes when i meet people and and that's been recently as well this is the most awful experiences and yet in the middle of it all you found faith again you've rediscovered faith maybe that's you one of the ways that you guys could do that is by exploring the alpha course so we're launching a new one on the 27th of um september or monday evening it's going to be online the next one we're going to do some in-person ones next year but this one's going to be online maybe if you've never discovered or if you want to rediscover fate you could do that you could go on the website or you could take your phone out you could text lcc alpha to 6077 and we will be in touch we can go on the website and do that but you know the third thing that's gone is choose to uh reignite your faith to reignite your faith and that's where i want to kind of leave it today and i want to invite you all into a moment where in worship we ask jesus to reignite our faith again why don't we stand how are we going to do that how how does how does he reignite our faith you know one of the things that i think about faith is that i was brought up thinking that faith is all about what i do and you know as a kid at sunday school you know the story of david and goliath and i love that story story of faith isn't it that david throwing the rock at the big giant goliath and we always think to ourselves oh yeah who am i in that story well i'm not goliath but i'm definitely david actually i don't think we're either of them in that story you see i think david is more a representation not of me but of jesus because he's ultimately the one that goes out and defeats goliath he's ultimately the one that goes out and takes the giant down who am i i'm the little one hiding behind a rock until it's all over but then i'm the one that when david has fought goliath he comes back and says hey it's clear it's all here you just need to receive it you just need to have it you just need to trust you just need to step out in it i've already done it and so you today we're gonna sing champion in a moment and as we sing this song champion let's remind ourselves that our faith is not in us our faith is in our champion amen our faith is in the one who stood on that on that battlefield of you like of the cross and and brought down the goliaths of sin and death and brokenness and loneliness and hatred and all of that and he did all that so that you and i could now jump into the pool and trust that his arms are good and his heart his heart is good and his arms are strong and so i want to pray for you today and if that's you and you want to reignite your faith and you want to you want to maybe get that reset of faith i want to encourage you just to reach out to him today wherever you are as we sing this song we have a prayer space uh out there a new prayer space it's out there in the atrium the other side of the atrium you can go and someone will pray with you and for you during this song or after but i want to pray for you in this room as well and so let's just bow our eyes for a moment and maybe if you're watching online as well and if today you say yeah this is where i am i need a reset of my faith i need a reset of my faith there's something stirring inside of you and you need that reignition that reigniting of your faith i want you just to put your hand up right where you are just as a way of reaching out to god thank you and maybe online as well you want to signify somehow maybe a thumbs up or something thank you i want to pray for you you know that your faith needs a reset right now just just keep your hand up i want to pray for you guys and then pray for us father thank you so much for your incredible love that you sent jesus to be our champion and now lord we receive all that he's done for us and we ask you to reset and reignite our faith again in jesus name amen amen let's see [Music] i've tried so hard to see it took me so long to believe it you choose someone like me to carry your victory perfection could never earn it you give what we don't deserve you take the broken things raise them to glory you are my champion [Music] [Music] i [Music] [Music] who has conquered it all now i can finally see it you're teaching this is my big so now i can now i can finally see it you're teaching me how to receive it so let all the stripes this is my victory [Music] you are my champion ty is for when you're [Music] i am oh [Music] yeah you really gave it all he really gave it all for us [Music] [Music] crashing down i have the authority jesus has given me when i open up my mouth miracles start breaking now i have the authority jesus has [Music] [Music] of my jesus has given me everybody in the heavenly [Music] [Music] you are my champion giants for when you stand and defeat every battle you've [Music] in the heavenly [Music] conquered [Music]

Channel: LifecentralChurchUK

Views: 867

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: church, meaning, purpose, life, calling, lifestyle, Jesus, God, Spiritual Growth, God’s wisdom, Make better decisions, faith, decisions, peace, worship, giving people hope, evangelism, telling people about jesus, good news, latest news, Sunday, hope, lockdown, jesus, why do christian believe in Jesus?, Church, life central church, lifeCentral, my next step, online ministry, reset, trust, discover faith, rediscover faith, reignite faith, doubt, reset your mindset, choice not chance

Id: nH4PdcNiafc

Length: 52min 16sec (3136 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021