Church Online | 5 September | St Peter's Brighton

hello and welcome to church online it is such a pleasure to have you with us today yeah thank you so much for joining us my name's alex and this is lizzy and we've got an incredible service lined up we've got worship being led by martin and ellie and then we've got the incredible niligera coming to to share the word with us today but lizzie do you want to pray for us yeah um i'd love to encourage you if you if you're able why don't you stand let's worship together i'm going to pray as we as we head into worship yes father we thank you for this opportunity to worship together in all of our different homes all across this city and world and father we pray that your holy spirit will meet with each of us as we take ahead into this time of worship together hello welcome thank you so much for joining us let's worship together let's sing come on people [Music] come together strangers neighbors our blood is wild children of generations of every nation of kingdom come so don't let your heart be troubled hold [Music] so take coverage [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus [Music] our redemption [Music] is [Music] [Music] hold your head up i don't feel [Music] is [Music] remember [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all comes again it comes again [Music] creation [Music] his name is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] wow [Music] [Music] [Music] is is [Music] [Music] light of heaven friend forever his kingdom comes [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah lord god we want to thank you for who you are you are amazing psalm 121 it says i lift my eyes to the mountains where does my help come from and [Music] today we cling on to that we cling on to the fact that you're in control that you know everything that's going on you with us you love us you are for us you are the son of god [Music] thank you jesus thank you [Music] god from god [Music] light from light living [Music] king of kings perfect land [Music] royal [Music] great [Music] [Music] of god jesus [Music] lord of life [Music] saving grace [Music] is [Music] [Music] lifted high [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] jesus wow [Music] wow wow [Music] bye [Applause] [Music] all right [Music] [Music] [Applause] god [Music] of god [Music] jesus tears oh the fire's gonna fall on us [Music] oh the fire's gonna fall oh the fire's gonna fall every heart will see the love of god [Music] oh the fire's gonna [Music] oh the fire's [Music] [Music] of thunder the earth begin to quake as your glory reigns from heaven our hearts begin to break for the healing of the nations we're calling out again [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] is the fire's gonna fall on us [Music] [Music] [Music] now we see a great redemption as our hearts return to god [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] let me go [Applause] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] wow oh [Music] [Music] yes [Applause] all the fire's gonna fall [Music] just let the fire let the fire fall on earth so lift up your hands lift up your eyes oh [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hi everyone hey hey oh thank you crowd in the front it is so nice to be gathered here today um i'm so excited to be sharing this word a word that i believe god has put on my heart for the church for the body of christ and i just want to like jump straight into it we're going to be talking about spiritual apathy today i'm going to be talking about what it is how we can recognize it in our lives and how god deals with it depending on the season that we're in and also just depending on the journey that we're right in life so to start off we're just going to look at the main passage today so it's from the book of john john 11 17 to 44 so it's going to be up on the screen somewhere and just to give a bit of background in this story we have three siblings so we have martha mary and lazarus they're a family and their brother lazarus actually ends up being sick so mary and martha who are sisters to lazarus they send out a message to the lord and say lord the one who is sick the one who you love sorry the one who you love is sick come over here but what jesus does he actually takes like two days before he departs to go on the journey he wastes two days and by the time he actually gets to the village where lazarus is it's four days and lazarus is dead at this point he's in his tomb so let's just read that together so on arrival jesus found lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days now bethany was less than two miles from jerusalem and many jews had come to martha and married to comfort them in the loss of their brother when martha heard that jesus was coming she went out to meet him but mary stayed at home lord martha said to jesus if you had been here my brother would not have died but i know that even now god will give you whatever you ask jesus said to her your brother will rise again martha answered i know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day jesus said to her i am the resurrection and the life the one who believes in me will live even though they die and whoever lives by believing in me will never die do you believe this yes she replied i believe that you are the messiah son of god who has come into this world after she said this she went back and called her mary aside the teacher is here she said and is asking for you when mary heard this she got up and quickly went to him now jesus had not entered the village but he was still at the place where martha had met him when the jews who had been with mary in the house comforted in her notice how she got up and went out they followed her supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn them when mary reached the place where jesus was she saw him and she fell at his feet and she said lord if you had been here my brother would not have died when jesus saw her weeping and the jews who had come along her also saw her weeping he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled where have you laid him he asked come and see lord they replied and jesus wept when the then the jew said see how he loved him but some of them said could not he who opened the eyes of the blind have kept this man from dying jesus once more deeply moved came to the tomb it was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance and he said take away the stone he said the lord martha said have you not you notice in here that martha is the very vocal one with jesus she has something to say all the time to the lord um so martha was a sister of the dead man by this time there's a bad odor for he has been there four days then jesus said did i not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of god so they took away the stone then jesus looked up and said father i thank you that you have heard me i knew that you always hear me but i said this for the benefit of people standing here that they may believe that you sent me when jesus said this jesus called in a loud voice lazarus come out the dead man came out his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and cloth around his face jesus said to him take off the grave clothes and let him go so that's the story of mary martha in lazarus and at the beginning i said i'm going to be speaking about spiritual apathy and you're probably wondering what what is the relation here to this story but first of all i just wanted to share a little bit of just what's been going on in my life i found myself just a few weeks ago read in the book of psalms there's a part in psalm 18 where david is singing to the lord saying lord i love you you're my strength you are my fortress you are my deliverer and i just examine my life in this moment like whoa david is singing from a place not just where he knows about god but he's worshiping him from having experience of god he's worshiping from having that strength from the lord and i looked at my life and i i realized that i was singing songs and i was praising jesus just from having knowledge about him and that's not a bad thing but what i noticed in myself is i reached a point in my faith where i started to become tired i started to become weary i even started to lose interest in the pursuit of god and this began to affect my worship and you see i'm not talking about losing interest in trying to find out oh lord what's my calling what's the next stage in my life when are you going to answer this prayer that i've been asking for my family i'm not talking about losing interest in that i was very much concerned about that but i realized i lost interest in pursuing jesus for himself because i realized that in my life i wasn't experiencing i wasn't drawn from the strength and the power of god i wasn't calling on him to be my deliverer i was calling on the things that he created for me and those are the things i found hoping trying to find hope for my future and not in god himself and this is this is what spiritual apathy is and the thing about is we all face it one way or another we sometimes end up in our wherever you are in your fifth journey you'll find yourself in a place where that once zeal that you had what for the lord is starts to like dwindle away and you're just going through the motions just singing the songs i believe god is real he is my strong tower but you're not experiencing it in your daily life i found myself in that place but one thing i started to realize at that it was in that moment it's in this moment where we're spiritually apathetic it's in these moments and i'm not being pathetic apathetic it's in these moments that i feel like god is calling us to actually come to him in our authentic selves this is when god is saying come up be vulnerable bring who you are bring how you feel about me and let's start there let's start dealing with that now because i want to show you who i really am i want you to truly experience the power and strength of god and now you're probably thinking how does this relate to martha mary and lazarus let me show you i'm gonna just we're gonna go back to this passage and just look at the way look at the way jesus interacts with martha with mary and with lazarus as i said before martha was going back and forth with the lord she was like lord if you had been here my brother would not have died but she goes but i know you are good but i know i know now god will give whatever you ask and jesus said to her no your brother will rise i said i know he will rise in the resurrection so this is it for him mary now she has theology of who god is she knows about god she is not very sure that god in his resurrecting power can raise her brother up she knows who god is but she doesn't know if he's the god of now for him and it continues and god is like yes i know if you believe i believe you the messiah i believe you're a god and the god who came to this world now i want you to look at how jesus interacted with mary a little bit different when mary reached the place where jesus was she fell to his feet and all she said is lord if you have been here my brother would not have died and when jesus saw her weeping he didn't go back and forth with her and say i am the resurrected life believe in me all he said is where have you laid him and come and see they replied what made how jesus was interacting with mary in this point is she just wept at his feet and jesus said walk with me to your pain show me where your pain is and then we have lazarus jesus doesn't even go near the tomb well he does but all he says he just shouts lazarus come out there's no interaction there's no oh i'm so sorry i'm knocking at the tomb i'm so sorry i left you for four days but here i am he just simply shouts get up lazarus come forth and i'm just wondering is there maybe if we look in our lives who here is a mary where you just need to sit at the feet of jesus and cry and who here is a martha where in the season that you're in god is challenging the theology that you understand about him he's like i know what you know about me but i want to reveal more of myself to you because i know you can handle it and who here is the lazarus where jesus is like have faith get up you know the truth you know the sound of my voice i we have we have been in this together get up and i think it's just so beautiful how god interacts with all these people so differently depending on their personality we see that mary's the one who loves to talk and convene with the lord and mary's the weeper and lazarus we just got up i just love how god responds to them but one thing i also notice about this verse is all they did is they just came to the lord with what they had with their questions with their tears with just rising up from the dead all they did was as they came to the lord and maybe there's some of you here who are in a season of maybe being in lazarus where jesus is calling you to rise up and stand but you're like no no god i want the merry experience god i just want to cry and i just want you to hold me and god is like no no no no i've given you faith for that and maybe there's some of you here who are a martha oh sorry some of you who are married but god needs you to be a martha god needs his challenge and your theology about him he is saying i want to teach you more about me i want to reveal more about who i am to you and even yes what you believe is true but i have more for you or maybe there's some of us who are just are just the end of ourselves and just the need of god and as i mentioned earlier there is i was reading the book of psalm and i was just i'm just gonna give you a little bit of behind the curtain of what happens in heaven when we call on the name of the lord and i don't know if some of you have read this passage but i was really struck by what happens in heaven when we call on the name of the lord when we cry to him so psalm 18 verse 6 we're just going to read that together and i just want to encourage you in this moment just to look at the words if you want close your eyes meditate on what the lord does when we call on his name in whatever form we bring whether we're loud about it whether we cry about it whether we have the faith for it but we just need the courage this is what happens in heaven this is david i'm writing this in my distressed i call to the lord i cried to my god for help and hear this from his temple he heard my voice my cry came before him into his ears the earth trembled and quaked and the foundations of the mountain shook they trembled because he was angry smoke rose from his nostrils consuming fire came from his mouth burning coals blazed out he parted the heavens so that's what i'm saying this is what happens when we call on the name of the lord he parted the heavens and came down dark clouds were under his feet he mounted the cherubim and flew he soared on the wings of the wind he made darkness his covering his canopy around him the dark rain clouds of the sky out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced with hailstones just picture this this looks like a marvel movie to me and just i mean imagine jesus from heaven being like my child is in need i am bend in heaven to come to them that is the god we serve let me continue out of the presence until the brightness of his presence clouds advance with hailstones and boats of lightning the lord thundered from heaven the voice of the most high resounded he shot his arrows and scattered the enemy with great boats of lightning he routed them the valley of the sea was exposed and the foundation of the earth laid bare at your rebuke imagine now the foundation of the world being exposed we haven't even discovered the depth of the sea for this is god's response when he hears our cry just think about that he reached down from on high and he took hold of me he drew me out of the deep waters he rescued me from my powerful enemy from my foes you were too strong for me they confronted me in the day of my disaster but the lord was my support and he brought me out into a spacious place and he rescued me because he delighted in me that last bit got me he rescues us simply because he delights in us his delight what delights the lord is you simple what delights the lord is what you bring to him in whatever form whether that's tears whether that's questions whether that's your faith and all god is asking for us is just to come come i know earlier when i talk about spiritual apathy it's like oh that that's the law oh my goodness yes i i need jesus but look how simple it ends he just comes because he just simply delights in us and that's the end of my talk but i just i really want to take this time just for the just to give space to god i don't know if you're a martha today or lazarus or mary but i just want to give an opportunity right now to come to god in what in whatever expression whether that is your tears whether that is your questions or whether that's you saying god i hear you i hear you calling you've been calling me out for time i've been hearing you but today i'm saying yes so i'm just gonna first pray first and then we can just go into ministry yeah if everyone rises up please yeah dear lord we just thank you so much thank you lord that you are here thank you god that you chase after us thank you lord that you will bend heaven when we call on your name all right now lord i just want to pray if there are any martha's here today who are just battling with god going back and forth with the questions i pray for you right now that your heart may be soft and to hear him when he speaks back to you i want to pray for the martha's here for the mary sorry to end i want to pray for the mary's who are just in need of crying to the father who are also maybe in need of just taking the lord to the source of your pain and i want to play for the lazarus here who just need that courage and that faith to say yes god i hear you i'm coming out and if any of those things resonated with you and you would just love prayer and you're like actually i need i need someone to lay a hand on me and just pray if you're willing this is a safe space we are family we're here to gather and to pray and to encourage each other you can just come to the front and we have a team of people who would love to pray for you [Music] do not fear god is with us so come on come on come holy spirit [Music] fall alone [Music] like a fire [Music] [Music] me [Music] [Music] living flames [Music] [Music] show [Music] crying for heaven to come to [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] in flames [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] father god your will be done christ in us your kingdom come spirit lead us now as one set your church on fire again father god your will be done christ in us your kingdom comes [Music] send your [Music] is [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] friends [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] did [Music] amazing well guys that brings us to the end of church online today and thank you nelisha for that word um but guys there is so much to get involved with over the next few weeks yeah there's loads happening if you are a student and you're coming to brighton welcome and we'd love to come and meet with you if you are already in brighton come and find us at the 5 pm service look out for myself or james and holly and we'd love to get to know you go out for a coffee or even if you're just new to some pizzas come and connect with us at any of the services follow us on our instagram which will be coming up down below and also our students instagram which will also be coming up down below so you'll be able to find us all there and yeah and then in a couple weeks we've got prayer week yeah um guys prayer week is going to be epic we believe that prayer is changing the world it's changing brighton and guys we want you to get involved and prayer week kicks off next sunday at the 5 p.m service okay so we are going to be rather than doing kind of church online as this is we are going to be streaming live from 5 p.m it's going to be a prayer and worship event and welcome to come to the building but also tune in online we're going to be kicking off prayer week it's going to be epic can't wait um yeah it's going to be awesome um but guys that brings us to the end of this week if you started school this week well done good job well done very good um we'll we'll see you soon we'll see you next week bye

Channel: St Peter’s Brighton

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Rating: 4.3333335 out of 5

Keywords: st peters brighton, st peter's brighton, sunday check in, St Peter's Brighton, St Peter's Church Brighton, St Peter's Church, Church Online, Church Service Online, Archie Coates, Jonny Gumbel, Brighton, Bright City, St Peter's Brighton Worship, Church online brighton, Sam Coates, Brighton Church, Church Service, Character in a crisis

Id: GivXfKBjLwM

Length: 48min 59sec (2939 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021