Church Online: Sunday 12th September 2021 | LIFE Church

[Music] got a feeling deep inside my soul nothing in this world comes i was driving i'll give you control this is love great love hit the bottom but your grace came through found me broken make me new [Music] all the praise i gave it all to you this is love great love [Music] this is love the greatest thing i've ever known this is love i just can't get enough i just can't get enough [Music] i just can't get enough [Music] new directions set inside my veins yes i know that something's changed found the dream of living in your grace [Music] this is love the greatest thing i've ever known this is love i just can't get enough [Music] i just can't get enough i just can't get enough [Music] this is better than the trends that fade oh that happened lasting anyway [Music] [Applause] [Music] there's nothing like there's nothing like [Music] is [Music] i just can't get enough [Music] [Music] let there be peace [Music] everlasting overwhelming peace complicate i steal the raging seas holy spirit help this world in need let there be hope strength for every week and we resolve [Music] comfort foreign let the voiceless rise and sing a victory song father your kingdom come god that you will [Music] let there be grace love as jesus has displayed teaches for our friends and for our enemies we pray [Music] father your king [Music] let it be on earth [Music] let it be [Applause] [Music] over the city streets over our families in all of creation let your will be done [Music] every heart can hold every soul restored heavenly father let your kingdom come [Music] let your will [Music] heavenly father let [Music] [Music] [Music] hey good morning good afternoon and good evening guys welcome to church online with myself israel and my beautiful wife everyone good morning guys so good to see you yeah it is good to see you i didn't say that but yeah i i mean that yeah um so uh good to be here with you today and um we weren't here last week yeah but we were we were not um we were not left wanting i will say that we had we had a great experience with um the monteros yes we had jess and we had ricardo holding the fort doing an awesome job we hope you hope you had a great time we had a message from steve yeah i watched that back during the week awesome as always um but yeah you're so welcome to um to be with us today and we've been waiting for for a week to hang out with you i'm um i'm kind of just forgetting what i need to say because i haven't been on the job for a while but yeah i like just know that we are so thankful that you're with us today and we hope you enjoy today's service yeah absolutely and like we say most weeks we encourage you to share this service with your family and friends it's so quick it's so easy just hit the share button which is um a curved arrow on the um youtube page and just share it however is easiest for you whether that's messenger whatsapp email imessage whatever it is there's absolutely no reason why you can't share um church with family and friends despite the fact that we are online so we encourage you to do that right away right at the beginning of the service um because we've got quite a lot um packed into this service today it's going to be absolutely fantastic morning it is going to be a great time i know already we've got in the chat we've got eunice joining us from singapore yeah good evening eunice we've got um stephanie and trinidad and tobago i don't know what time when he's there is it evening afternoon i don't know morning probably morning and we've got liz joining us from beautiful huddersfield good morning so good to have you guys on the chat and we know there's a lot more of you that have joined us but may maybe aren't on the chat just know that the chat is a live chat we actually jump on that as soon as we come off this and we go live to the bradford auditorium so feel free to jump in there ask any questions in there if you have any um yeah any questions at all that you need answered oh we've got someone from the netherlands hello um if you've got any questions at all that you need answered go put it in the chat because it's either myself or izzy or one of our team that are always on the chat every sunday so that is a great place to put in your prayer requests your praise reports any questions if you want to know what song we're singing or what scripture that came from anything at all if you miss anything just pop it in that chat there and we can help you by um answering it straight into the chat but of course if you have any other questions that we can answer for you throughout the service you can also email us if you'd prefer to wait to the end of the service so um church online at lifechurchhome.com is the email address that we use and we check that throughout the week and um any requests that come in through there whether praise reports or prayer requests um or just questions about life church in general we make sure we try to reply to all of those and of course we keep everything confidential so please feel free to send in any prayer requests if you have any that we won't be sharing that with anyone it would just be me and izzy and our team just praying for you guys and if you have um good news afterwards when you've got some great news send that through as well and of course again it's confidential but if we'd love to share it because we think it'd encourage other people who are part of our community we will make sure we check with you first to see that you're happy with us to share that and anything that needs to be confidential will remain confidential even when we share it definitely does that make sense the one thing i got was confidential and that's the email address in your prayers and your praise yeah absolutely you've got you want to stand with you i know sometimes it's like i'm just tired of praying the same prayer over and over and over again god hears it but sometimes you get tired of praying and you just need someone else to like help you i do that a lot yeah i'll just say text a few friends can you guys pray for this for me please we're here to do that for you let us know email us all your prayer requests we'll stand with you and we'll pray yeah absolutely it's going to be a great service today um we have communion let's give you the heads up so you want to run around wherever you are hopefully not in the car you can't do too much running there but get some um bread and some uh you can get wine if you want but uh juice or water i'm just going to take time today to have communion together as a community yeah we're going to be joined with the bradford campus we've got pastor shah will be joining us to preach today yeah um and we'll have some worship as we always do just a few songs and we sing just love songs that we sing to the lord it's going to be a great time um we are running out time but i think we'll be okay more time yeah it's okay we've got time all right we're okay yeah let's i wanna i wanna talk about two life-changing things today two life-changing things for me okay and for both of us okay one of them is alpha which is an awesome course that is um something that it's of course it helps anybody on any stage of life whether you know about jesus you want to know about jesus or you've got these burning questions that you've always wanted to ask about jesus yeah it's perfect course people do it time and time again yeah we've done it once already but uh if you want any information we're about to start that and it's going to be online so you can join yeah absolutely so if you email us this week we'll send you some more information on that that's the alpha course yeah also life groups are about to start up again yeah so can i just say before you go on with you alpha course is great if you are at the beginning of your christian journey like it's fantastic any part of your christian journey but especially if you're at the beginning part of your christian journey because we it does talk about lots of different topics right from the beginning um of like you know the questions you have when you first come to know christ and you're not really sure about christianity you're not really sure about god and the holy spirit and jesus christ and all of those questions you have so some i noticed that a lot of weeks some people ask some really like some great questions but i'm like actually that would be you would be able to have that answered in alpha and it's a great group discussion and there's a video for each week so it's just a really really good way to have some questions answered and to discuss some of these with other people as well so if you are if you have a lot of questions that you feel like um you know what doesn't get answered often or i'm i'm still wondering about this and that alpha is a really good place to start and i think it's a really comfortable setting to start um having those discussions in as well so we encourage you to sign up for alpha if that's if that sounds like you definitely and it's going to be online and it's a great way to connect to other people online so we can all connect to other people in our community and what i love is you don't have to as we say with our life group you can you can just put your screen off you know if you want to you don't have to talk talk as much as you want show your face as much as you want but i really encourage you get involved with alpha that's the email address there and also live groups right yes life groups um yeah life groups are about start 21st of september and a lot of them are still online um we have our weekly prayer meeting on a wednesday i know from time to time that's still online so that's great to join in as an online campus but we have yes there's not enough time for me to talk about all the groups that we have but if you're really keen to join in and you know take that next step and become part of the life group email us with that email address underneath we will always have our end of the month yeah life group which we will be having next week after the service yeah so if you want to be part of that any more information you like that you're good okay yeah okay you're good only god is good all right you can we're gonna have our life group next week yeah so you can that's the same email address we'll send you the zoom link and that's only for people it's like i would say it's like it's not a members only club but it's an exclusive live group just for online campus so if you're watching now and you can hear my voice that's for you yes we want to see you there next time yeah absolutely and that's just the short time we spend after after church um on the last sunday but this is just this month we're gonna do it next year um and we're just gonna spend some time just chatting um giving you guys a chance to talk to us but then if you're not comfortable you don't have to do anything but it's a really great time of community and we love doing that each month so i can see you looking at the time yeah i'm just like it's like 10 00. it's going to be a rocket is a big service today yeah it is ready so we hope you're ready you've got your communion and we'll see you at the end bye good morning church how good is it to be in god's house together this morning welcome to everyone joining us online wherever you are why don't we stand up from worship together let's go [Music] shame who could carry that kind of weight it was my tune it was my two oh [Music] till i met you i was breathing but not alive [Music] i know my failures i try to [Music] hide too [Applause] [Music] me [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] and now you're is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] into your glorious [Music] [Applause] day [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] but chains break out the weight of your glory i need a shelter i was an orphan now you call me a citizen of heaven when i was broken [Music] [Applause] [Music] my eyes are open and when you call my name [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] into [Applause] [Music] together this morning worshiping jesus come on let's give him a shout praise [Music] and sing in the darkness and in the darkness we were waiting [Music] to a virgin came the word from the throne of endless glory to a craving [Music] spirit free [Music] praise forever to the king [Music] to reveal the kingdom coming and to reconcile the laws [Music] knowing this was the salvation jesus [Music] [Applause] free [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Applause] [Music] [Music] for the soul [Music] is is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] breathe [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay [Music] god [Applause] [Music] praise forever to [Music] [Music] [Music] your presence with spirit guides [Music] sing praise forever [Music] and again praise [Music] thank you jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] father of kindness you have fought our grace you brought me out of darkness you have filled me with peace oh give her a mercy or my help in time of me lord i can't help but since [Music] [Music] you [Applause] [Music] and all your promises are yes and name and all your promises now all your promises is [Music] [Music] every curse oh blessed redeemer you have said this free [Music] lord i can't [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] for all your promises i amen all your promises all your promises [Music] [Applause] [Music] forever you will be [Music] know your promises is [Music] how good is god right [Music] he's got it all the control no matter what we feel like [Music] my confidence is your faithfulness [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] forever [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and all your promises are yesterday [Applause] [Music] hey church how good is god you know one of the things about god is that he is not like us and that means that he doesn't break his promises there is not a promise that he has made that he has broken because he is faithful to all that he has promised us through scripture and what he's spoken over your life he will see to completion and this morning in our service we're going to share in what's my favorite part of church and that is communion it's the remembering of what jesus has done for us and more than that it is declaring again and again and again that these these promises of christ are faithful that he holds us and he carries us so on your seat when you came in there is something that looks like this and if you want to hold it up for a moment i just want to share some scripture with you from matthew's gospel it's just before g you can stay standing you can sit down by the way it doesn't matter but as you hold this in your hand i want you to remember the night before jesus was crucified and scripture tells us that he sat down to have a meal with his disciples and at the meal they had bread and they had wine and jesus took this bread and he broke it and he gave thanks scripture says to god and then he gave it to his disciples and he said take and eat because this is my body broken for you and in this communion that you've got there is a wafer i don't know if you can see it because it's quite small but that represents the body of jesus and more than anything this represents that when jesus went to that cross not only was his body broken but by that body breaking he broke the power of sin and the power of death over each of our lives that whoever would call upon the name of the lord and have the salvation it is broken and then the gospel goes on and it says that he took the cup and he gave thanks and he gave it to his disciples and he said take this and drink for this is my blood the new covenant and what that means is that he is sealing a promise for us and there's a lot of things that we can talk about when it comes to communion but i think today we just want to go back to that most basic of places because we all know that as we live through life no matter what we declare about god there are days when the enemy throws what we have done back in our face and he tries to keep guilt and shame and condemnation upon us but as we take this communion this morning we are reminding ourselves and each other that there is nothing that can steal what jesus has done for us as you eat this bread you are declaring the brokenness of sin and death over your life it has no power there is no guilt and as you drink this cup you are declaring what it means to be in this covenant to have this promise of god let's do that this morning and let's not let guilt and shame carry us anymore because your sins are forgiven and god loves you amen amen so we're going to go into a song now and as we do in your own time you can eat this bread you can drink this grape juice and we're going to sing together to this god who has saved us let's go for it death could not hold you without her before [Music] the praise of your glory for you are raised again [Music] is [Music] is [Music] the praise of your glory for you are raised [Applause] [Music] yours is [Music] name it is the name of jesus christ what a powerful name it is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] what a powerful name of jesus of jesus [Applause] [Music] that is above every other name it is above fear it is above death it is above anxiety it is above any political name it is above any celebrity name it is above anybody who seeks to have a name your name is above it all it is all powerful almighty just the utterance of your name shifts the atmosphere just the mention of your name makes the enemy tremble just the declaring of your name makes the darkness have to flee your name is the name above every other name there is no rival for your name there is no equal to your name there is nothing and no one that can ever be compared to the one that is named jesus so we say your name jesus and we say it again jesus and we say it louder jesus and we exalt the name jesus and we give honor to the name jesus and we magnify the name jesus and we declare the name jesus oh god thank you for giving us a name that in our darkest moment we can mention giving us a name that when we feel no one understands we can call apart you gave us your name and then you called us after your name you said you are mine and i am yours i am the lord god almighty and you are the heirs to the kingdom that is greater than any other kingdom god we cannot even wrap our mind around why you would choose us with all our failings and all our frailties you in your divinity did not turn away from our humanity but in it all you said i will pay the ultimate price just for them and god today there are not enough words to express our gratitude we thank people for acts of service in stars and that wait on tables we thank people for a kind word as they pass us but oh god forgive us for we have allowed our thankfulness to be dwindled by the comparison of gratitude around us you deserve all the glory you deserve all the honor you deserve all the praise [Applause] thank you god god thank you for your word it's like nobody else's word thank you every time we open it the light goes on thank you every time we declare it things find the right alignment and god i just pray as we dive into your word for a few moments god go deeper in our lives god root out anything that should not be there clear out the distraction holy spirit make way where there seems to be no way this is about you god this is all for you god and we want to know you more god thank you god for your word we honor it today in jesus name amen and amen thank you guys you may take your seats church presence of god is in the room and where his presence is anything is possible and just as you're home watching online and we are here in this room gathered his presence knows no bounds no limitations he can go wherever we declare his name wherever we invite in him so right now in this room we're inviting him yet again to invade our lives through the power of his word you all know church that i am a lover of this book this book saves my life this book helps me in the times when nothing else can help me this book is medicine to my soul this book is what i stand on when i don't know where else to stand i love the word of god and so i'm not going to give you opinion today on my version of events today i'm going to give you the undiluted word of god and if you'll take it and if you'll digest it today i promise you something will change within you i want to talk to us today about our site our site because i think some of us have a problem and we don't realize it's a problem some of us have lost our vision in the season we have been through and it's time to get your vision back we have been through a an area in a time and a stage and circumstances that have begun to dwindle our ability to see but today my prayer over you all week as that this morning today it will be like a light bulb goes on i don't know if you've heard the hill song song i think it's hill song i don't know all the words but all week in my house i've been singing open up the windows let the light in let the light in let the light and open up the windows let the light in and my kids are like why are you opening the windows and letting the light in i'm like i know i haven't been able to stop singing it all week because that's what i believe god wants to do today he wants to just open some windows in your life and let the light in and you're going to see something so clear and you're going to feel a relief and you're going to feel an illumination that you have not felt for a long time because god is able to do that if we let him open up the windows and let the light in you know you can be like me i guess and go through seasons of life like i recently i am now in a season of life and i'm like wait a minute who shrunk the print in my bible like like like literally anyone else with me like like you know that somebody is messing with my bible like like i don't know how they did it they stole it off my nightstand they did some weird thing to it and then when i opened it all of a sudden everything is smaller it was not that small before don't you tell me that it was it was not that small before it was large before it was very clear to read before and i don't know who messed with my bible print but somebody did well that's my version of what happened right but we all know that is not the truth and only the truth will set me free from my frustration and the truth is the print did not get smaller your eyesight got worse right you are getting old you have old person's eyes syndrome starting in your life and although i want to blame the print and tell everybody it's the prince fault the truth is it's nothing to do with a print it's everything to do with my eyes and i want you to consider today maybe in your life you are thinking that the wrong thing is the problem that what you perceive is the problem is actually not the problem it's not that the marriage stinks it's that your attitude maybe stinks it's not that the kids are getting worse it's that your patience is running dry it's not that this is the worst day of your life it could be it's the beginning of the best day of your life maybe what we think is the problem is not the problem and the only way we're going to discover that is by opening up our eyes and letting god show us what it is that's actually going on he's the one with the perspective we do not have he's the one that sees what we cannot see and so we must constantly be on a quest to seek god and ask god what do you see god help me see help me open up the windows and let the light in the more you seek him the more you will see him it's a fact of life and so we've got to get back to fixing our eyesight problem the bible says that the eyes are a window to your soul and if we don't take care of our eyesight we will have soul sickness in our life it says in matthew 6 your eyes are windows into your body if you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief your body fills up with light but if you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust your body is a dank seller and if you pull the blinds on your windows what a dark life you will have the bible's letting us know listen sometimes our soul is sick because our window is dirty our window is cracked our ability to see is not clear and so we have to learn how to clear the windscreen of our lives so that our soul can actually be filled with awe and wonder what did we just do a minute ago in worship we just stopped for a moment and we filled our soul with wonder and i began to pray about how majestic he is and how powerful he is and i began to pray about how great our god is and i began to speak the truth of who we serve and whose we are and all of a sudden something shifts inside of you why because you're opening up the windows of your eyes and you're seeing the magnet magnitude of god and the majesty of god and your body begins to fill up with light it's a physical thing that actually happens because what you're looking at is the ah and the wonder and you're like whoa why have i not seen that before well i'm telling you it was there on monday and it was there on tuesday and it was there when you were having a bad day on wednesday and it was there on thursday and it was there on friday and it was there when you were losing your rag with the kids on saturday it was always there but what we put in front of our eyes fills up our soul i think and to look at how you began to begin to lose your eyesight you know just a little research not for me for a friend you know what are the things that can cause your eyesight to go worse just in case i ever needed to help steve with his and so that's you know being a helpful wife did some research because he's older than me and just you know so just saying i'm in denial you can all tell but i i found some interesting facts in the natural that affect your eyesight right these are some of the things that you should address if you want to actually preserve your eyesight for longer so today you're going to get a spiritual message and i'm going to help you with your eyesight in the natural check out this list number one too much screen time damages your eyesight number two low hydration damages your eyesight diet affects your eyesight lack of sleep affects your eyesight working in dim light affects your eyesight and skipping regular eye tests affects your eyesight now let's just think about that now not about these eyes but about these eyes because i believe exactly the same list is causing us to spiritually lose our sight too much screen time reading anything and everything that's out there on social media spending hours of our time on facebook being in in environments where we're watching the news i'm getting more and more depressed by the moment that we watch the news they're listening to people fight on the television about all kinds of stuff reading headlines that cause us to be anxious and fearful more than we're reading these headlines that don't cause us to be anxious and fearful we are filling our eyes with all of this stuff from some of us we just need to realize spiritually you got too much screen time going on it's all out of balance in your life the things that you spend your time looking at the things that you spend your time reading things you spend your time in are affecting the vision within you spiritually low hydration he is living water to us all some of you are thirsty and you're drinking all the wrong stuff spiritually and you need to understand that he is living water and when living water is running through your life you begin to see things a lot clearer poor diet some of our spiritual diet is desperately need in help we are living off fast food we come on sunday we get one hit we get a big mac from whoever's preaching and then we hope it gets us through the week it will not get you through the week you have to have a diet of the word of god in your life lack of sleep spiritually some of us are not able to rest we don't know how to rest in god we don't have to trust him we're anxious we're trying to do god's job for him god's like you're okay last time i checked i'm quite capable and i'm saying like i don't need you to figure all this stuff out for me i'm god you not so what i need you to do is trust me what i need you to do is come with me by still waters what i need you to do is let me give rest for your soul working in dim light we are all working in a place where darkness is encroaching we're working in a place where where the enemy wants us to have no light we're working with people that are so messed up and so tormented and so confused and so lost we as those that know christ are working continually in dim light so you've got to understand it will affect your eyesight unless you are fixing the things that this is telling us we have to fix and we are skipping regularities so today i'm going to give you a spiritual eye test like god to help me am i seeing this right am i seeing the circumstance the way that you see it am i seeing that person in that relationship the way that you see them am i seeing these things that i'm handling the way am i seeing my finances the way that you see it am i seeing this this area of conflict the way you see it god open my eyes we have to regularly check in with our almighty eye doctor so that he can adjust us all throughout the bible people would lose sight and when they lost sight spiritually they would make poor decisions david lost sight and filled his eyes with bathsheba and the more he looked at bathsheba the more he lost the plot of the call of god on his life the more he stood walking around on the rooftop looking at what he should not have been looking at the more his soul began to darken and the more the choices began to weaken and he had to have an opening of his eyes moment that came through a lot of loss and a lot of pain elijah's servant was stood freaking out on the front line of the morning came out the tent was with his cup of coffee and he was like oh my lord and he began to freak out and as he began to freak out what he realized what elijah realized is oh no no all i need to do here is is help open your eyes because if i could just open your eyes you would start freaking out i don't need to explain anything see some of you are trying to explain everything and the only way you're going to be able to fix it is by people having a spiritual eye-opening experience and when your eyes are open you don't have to explain anything anymore and so elisha said oh lord open his eyes and then all of a sudden he's looking at the same thing he was looking at before but now he sees there are more for us than there are against us we are surrounded and so all throughout scripture you see jesus helping the disciples to open their eyes guys this is what's really going on guys this is what we're called to do guys this is this is not the the way that we act open your eyes jesus himself in the garden of gethsemane had to have a moment where he said oh god help me open my eyes and when he opened his eyes he realized the joy set before him and focus shifted to your future and mine and nothing changed but his eyes were opened and so we have to pray often and it should be a regular prayer in your walk with god god open my eyes i want to see what you see open my eyes i want to be able to understand what really is going on open my eyes so i can see that there are more for me than against me open my eyes so i can see the joy set before me open my eyes so i can see the wind that is in my future instead of the failure that i currently feel steve referred last week to the scripture that says taste and see we're talking about the sea part today you've got to see you've got to taste but you've also got to see that the lord is good there's a strange story in the bible and you know me church i love strange stories and so i always try and look for the ones i'm like whoa that's a really strange story and it's a strange story it almost reads like like jesus is having a bad day like this story i'm about to read you it's like jesus did you not have your coffee like did you not did you not have your breakfast this morning did you not do your power workout did you not go and do whatever it is crossfit like jesus what's the problem here because because because jesus is about to go and do a miracle but it seems to be that when he does the miracle he fails on the first attempt so he has to do a second attempt on the same person's miracle it's the only time in scripture that we read that jesus goes twice with the same person to pray a second time for the same miracle he prayed for the first time so when you read it like what was going on that day jesus you know you're powerful and it involved opening someone's eyes he was about to heal a blind man and we know jesus can heal blind people because all throughout scripture we read that he'd say to people eyes be open and their eyes will be open and they go about their day you say to the blind guy you're healed in jesus name and they just walk away and be able to see so we know that this was not like oh i don't know what to do with this one he knew exactly what to do with this one but that means that when we read it we have to understand there's a different lesson in this story than in the other stories in this story we're supposed to learn something that's different than just someone having an eye physically open there's a spiritual opening of eyes to do with this story that i want us to check into just for the next few moments so that we can embrace the same process that this man had to go through to be able to see clearly some of you you see but you don't see clearly and my prayer is that you'll embrace the process so that you can go from blindness and then maybe you're going to get an awareness but eventually you're going to get a fullness and a clarity to see a focus for your future we're in a series called recenter today i want you to find your focus again and when you have your focus you find your center again so the story is in mark 8 and i'm going to turn to it with you and this will be what i want to just pull some principles out for you today as jesus goes to heal a blind man and it seems to go wrong but we'll see that it seems to also at the end go right and so jesus heals a blind man it says this in verse 22 of mark 8. it says they came to bethsaida and some people brought a blind man and begged jesus to touch him and he took the blind man by the hand and he led him outside the village i'm gonna stop there like like jesus we brought you a blind man and like we heard on the grapevine you do this so you know can you just open his eyes like job done take you 10 seconds jesus just say the word that's what they were expecting they brought this guy to jesus like he needs a miracle cassie so jesus just do your thing but jesus responds already in a strange way because he doesn't talk about the blindness he doesn't involve in a conversation about the blindness it says that jesus took the blind man by the hand and began to lead him outside the village like jesus we didn't ask you to take our friend for a walk like we do that all the time like like we don't need you to take him somewhere he's blind he needs to see so so jesus did you did you not hear us we didn't say take our friend for a walk we said open his eyes and jesus is like oh no this is going to be a process because the thing was that bethsaida had a reputation the village that jesus is taking him out of was a place that in mark 11 verse 21 we have the passage that tells us woe to you bethsaider because if half of the things that you have witnessed happened in other places they would have all repented and changed their life [Music] so we know that the village is in is a village where people are not repenting and they are not receiving who he is we know he's in an environment where he hears and remember this when you lose a sense your other senses overcompensate so he can't see so his hearing is at a whole another level and his whole visual experience is shaped by people's words what is deafening to him defines things for him so when you're surrounded by a village of people that constantly talk about their rebellion and their negativity and their lack of faith and their refusal to repent and their acceptance of of they'll take the sign but they don't want the savior their acceptance of well i know he's kind of a guy that fixes stuff but i'm not ready to lay down all my stuff and change my ways jesus knows the context of where you're asking me to open your eyes is not where i'm going to do this miracle i have to take you out of the village you have to take my hand and i'm telling you god wants to open some of your eyes today but the first step of the process is you have to take his hand he's like i'm going to open your eyes about your marriage and i'm going to open your eyes about that sickness i'm going to open your eyes about the thing that keeps you up at night but i can't do it whilst you're living here i can't do it while you're listening to all the noise of the village so you're going to have to take my hand and come with me to a place where i can begin to help you see clearly holding someone's hand is kind of a intimate thing right you like have you noticed all you old couples in here married couples you know have you noticed how when you first dated you held hands all the time like got that feeling when you hold your hand and squeeze each other's hands like now you're like i can't remember the last time i held his hand right because you just you know you're busy you've got kids and stuff and you're like you're like and then he gives you your hand you're like oh it's sweaty and you know you're like you're like did you wash your hands did you sanitize your hands before you hold my hand like you know like like life kicks in and we're not like oh my god we're like sanitized then maybe and so so we like like but but holding hands is like something that's intimate and and also something that's dependence right so so when your kids are little you're holding their hand all the time because you don't want them to step out in the traffic or you don't want to take you don't get lost and so you and and the bigger the crowd the tighter the grip because you don't want to lose the one that's reliant on you so jesus is like you're going to hold my hand but you can't hold jesus's hand if everybody in bethsaid is holding your hand because they normally lead him so now i have to make a choice do i hold the hand of the people that always lead me or do i let go of their hand and let go of this and hold on to this guy's hand who i've only just met and now we're going away from everything that's familiar and all the people that normally tell me what to do i'm now walking with this guy who's saying nothing i can't see i mean i'm like you know what i'm saying like this is the journey that you have to go on to open your eyes we can't open my eyes lord while i hold on to negativity and i hold on to doubt and i hold on to my gossip and i hold on to my anger and i hold on to my you know i'm not moving i'm stuck in my ways you know open my eyes lord god's like that's right but can you just open my eyes while i stay here i was like somebody like i just can't see and i'm just saying take the hand take his hand what does that look like you have to walk with him you have to hear him you have to get in a quiet space with him you have to begin to cut out the noise you have to lessen the screen time you have to hydrate your soul you have to change your diet you have to start to take his hand so he takes jesus's hand just like you and i have to take jesus's hand and he begins to lead him outside the village when he gets outside the village it says in the next verse that the second part kicks in and it says after they go outside the village you ready for this when they're outside the village he spit i mean just you know the guy can't see let's just let's just be the guy for a minute can't see a thing like knows all his mates like yeah we got you mate we're gonna take you to jesus you you're like like yo it's gonna be fine and the guy's like and he's like where are we going i don't know where we're going i can't hear my friends anymore where am i go and then he's like jesus stops and then all right like like what is going on like like i don't know who this dude is and he just literally spit in my face because safty take his hand you have to trust his hand you don't get to say what comes next you have to trust that the one whose hand you took he's gonna work all things together for your good even if you don't actually understand in the moment that that could ever be a good thing jesus how can you spitting on me ever be a good thing like like this is not something that people say is a good thing but jesus was about to have people spit on him when he would carry a cross for you and me maybe just maybe he was saying when you see them spit on me open your eyes and realize there's something bigger going on and there's just moments when if we really do want to see we have to just trust him so he spits and then he takes the same hands and kind of rubs the spit over the guy's eyes and then here comes the eye test it says that jesus spit on him and put the his hands on him and then jesus asked do you see anything this is such a different way to do a miracle i mean jesus before you just go blind eyes open and we're done and everyone's home for dinner this is like a drawn out process we've gone for a walk now you're spitting on me and now you're asking me a question because opening your spiritual eyes often is not that quick it is a process because you have been in dim light for so long you've been looking at other stuff for so long you've filled your life with other things for so long it takes a while to see how jesus sees and so i love this this is so awesome to me i love the bible it's awesome right just like it's just awesome do you see anything the guy looks up and went uh i see people and they look like trees walking around so what you could say is jesus i mean you're having a bad day like like like you malfunctioned when it came to this miracle like like like you almost got in there good job jesus but but but he thinks that people are trees and so not but i love this conversation because what jesus is saying is you were blind a moment ago now you're seeing something but i need to ask you what you see because in a minute you're going to see perfectly clear and i need you to remember the difference between partial sight and full sight i need in the moments in your life where you think you see right to remember i have to go again because i don't think this is exactly how the picture looks in the moments where you think you see where you think you know you have to go again and say i think i see something and he's like what do you see tell me what you see and it's like god wants to ask everyone today what do you see well you know what i see that my marriage sucks and i see that i don't love him the way i used to love him and you know what what i see is this is not the dream anymore this is a nightmare thank you for being honest i'm glad you told me because i can see that's what you see right it's like if i went for an eye test i went down to boots and said i need an eye test and they pull the chat up right they say what do you see and you're like a y w r and then it gets lower and lower it's like they go out the room to go get something and when they're out of the room you run up and you go okay xyz okay x y z they're like yes perfect well done now i might feel like yay for me but no one's gonna write me a prescription to fix what i can't see because i just lied about what i couldn't see right [Applause] so what we do is give me a map what we do is we we we go well you know what i have a mate and he might be able to help me out like i'm pretty sure if i wear these like it's all going to come clear but these were made for me in fact i see three of you right now these were made to correct his vision not my vision and so and so i i think jesus knows you're about to go back to bethsaida right and you're going to say some stuff and they're going to try and hand you their version of stuff and i just need you to know when you get there no that's not what clear vision looks like i want to give you the prescription that means you're going to see clearly what do you see i see guys that look like trees it's like good but not quite good enough and then when you trust his hand when you take his hand you trust his hand then you have to stay under his hand because jesus goes okay we're going to go again and he says once more jesus put his hands on the man's eyes and then his eyes opened his eyes opened and his sight was fully restored and he saw everything clearly i mean imagine when you've lived your life in darkness he thought the first miracle was good i mean i can see at least i can see something i couldn't see anything before but god's like oh no no if you stay in my hand if you stay in my hand see sometimes we have partial sight because we have an impatient spirit sometimes you just have to linger longer you have to stay longer you have to study longer you have to wait longer you have to press in further you have to seek deeper because it's in that place where you stay under his hand that that sight begins to be fully restored [Music] you know jesus spent a lot of time going round after he was crucified when he was in his resurrected body when he went on purpose around appearing to people because he realized the loss of the cross had begun to affect their vision of him and so he needed them to not have the circumstance shape the perspective and so he showed up and the women in the garden that knew him were like are you the gardener he's like let me fix your eyes then he shows up in the room where they're fearful for the future the disciples he's like touch the sides then he does an extra visit to thomas because he's like you need to see clearly again before you can go out and minister for me like like you spent a lot of time appearing so that people could make sure that that what they went on to do next was not with partial vision not tainted by the cross not tainted by denial not tainted by doubt not tainted by what everybody else said but but to see him clearly and even in the bible it says man you are blessed because you see me but how much more blessed are the ones who believe but haven't seen me that's us time's gone but there's just one other part that you just have to took away because after restoring sight jesus says the simple thing jesus sent him home saying go home but don't even go into the village it's like he's saying go home because now you see home right now you see the circumstance right now you see what god is doing right but don't go into the village go home but don't go back into fear go home but don't go back into the gossip go home but don't go back into the strife go home but don't go back into the temper go home but don't go back into the place where you're fearful go home but don't go into the village because the village is where you ended up having everybody else define your world but now i have opened your eyes and you can see i just think god across the globe needs the church to open their eyes we've lost sight of the beauty of the house we've lost sight that the fact that we're called to be family we've lost sight that we're supposed to love each other and stand together we've lost sight that his word is the only truth that we need in our life we've lost sight of his power and his presence we've lost sight of what we can do in the world we lost sight of our call and our commission we've lost sight of the fact that we're the hands and feet of jesus so we've got to open our eyes again get back into the r and wonder again got to see jesus even in the person that is judas even in the one that is the person that you feel i can't see anything you know steve laughs at me all the time because i have this thing and when i text someone he always says to me why are you always smiling when you text you know it's really hard to write a angry text when you're smiling like like like it's really hard to argue with your husband or wife when you're holding their hand try it like when you're about to argument go home my hand it's really hard really hard and it's just something i started doing years ago i'm like i'm just gonna sit here and i'm just gonna try and see oh jesus i'm gonna try and see what jesus sees and then if what i'm about to say is is what jesus sees then it's worth saying and if it's not delete do you know how many texts i delete delete delete delete because until you see it you should be really careful not to say it and if what you see is partial you have to say god i need your hand on my eyes again because i don't want half vision i don't want short vision i want to see clearly open my eyes so that's what we're going to do we're just going to ask him to open your eyes someone beats you about your finances you are freaking out and he wants to open your eyes and show you he's the god that owns the cattle on a thousand hills that when you sow into the soil of the kingdom god is always at the other side of the seed it's only going to sleep better tonight because peace will come where you've been panicking some of you you're going to see your partner not as the antichrist but as someone that actually just needs your love and your grace and your kindness and maybe you're going to see that your enemy is actually not your enemy it's just someone that maybe didn't see what jesus needed him to see and maybe you're going to see that the sickness that you're in fear about you're going to see it through the stripes on his back like we're just going to open our eyes for our kids for their future hopes last sunday in this house as a permanent resident and she goes and i have to see it either as i'm so sad which you know i'm tempted or i have to see we raised a great woman of god and she loves jesus and she's going to go on and have a great future and be a blessing to others i have to see the jesus landscape otherwise i'm going to hold on too long to what god's like i got this so i don't know what it is for you your kids your marriage your finances your sickness i don't know i'm gonna ask us all to stand even if you're at home i'm gonna ask you to stand just close your eyes just like that blind man whose eyes were closed they were literally closed you couldn't see and i want you to just imagine with your eyes closed jesus saying take my hand take my hand like let me lead you somewhere let me take you away from the noise let me take you away from the holiday let me take you away from the stress with that wayward child let me take you away from the let come with me out of that village of fear out of that village of anxiety come with me and in this moment you get to choose whether you will take his hand and if you're going to take his hand there are some other things you're going to have to let go of [Music] and then you have to trust his hand god i don't understand why this is happening right now trust his hand god i don't understand it just doesn't feel like it should in our home in our marriage trust his hand but god the business the job the unemployment trust is hand then he's going to ask you what do you see and that's where you get to be honest with him god i i see fear i am frightened i i see anxiety i i see the problem i i don't see a way out god i just see a dead end just be honest with him [Music] and as you're honest with him stay under his hand as he goes again and opens your eyes so i don't know what area this is right now for you but i know that there's moments where you just have to reach out your hand and respond and so i'm going to ask you right where you are just with your eyes cause if you're saying god i'm taking your hand god open my eyes in this area just lift your hands as a sign so i'm taking your hand god i'm i'm gonna let some stuff go god i i want to trust you in this area with my kids or whatever it is god god i'm lifting my hands and saying god open my eyes god you see all these hands raised right now god you see every single hand and you know exactly what this represents you know the circumstance you know the situation you know where their life feels dull and dim you know where there's confusion you know where there's fear you know where there's anxiety but god we take your hand today we are lifting our hands to say god we take your hand god the one that opens eyes that no one else can open and god because as you ask us in this moment what do you see god i pray honesty from all of our hearts god i i see fear god help me see faith god god i see doubts help me see trust god god i see that this is the worst thing but god help me see how you're going to turn it around as a victory god i see lost but god help me see gain god i see pain but god help me see promise holy spirit i pray right now as we lift our hands that you begin to open eyes god i speak over our house that eyes would be opened the clarity would come that we would open up the windows and let the light in god i pray for illumination today i pray for hope to be ignited today i pray for joy to come back today i pray for peace to be a portion today i pray for faith to arise today oh god do what only you can do god do what only you can do come on just in your own you need to make your own moment with god just like that guy get away from the noise and just let the worship team just begin to lead us just for a moment and in this moment you and god have your own conversation come on lead his team [Music] give me wisdom you know just what to do [Music] give me visions [Applause] [Music] give me [Music] you know just what to do [Music] [Applause] [Music] and i will love you [Music] [Music] sing hallelujah [Music] hallelujah [Music] hallelujah [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Music] forever [Music] my [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] hey [Music] thank you god [Music] god i look to you and when i look to you i'm not overwhelmed it's as simple as that church i know it sounds so simple it wouldn't work but honestly when i look to him i'm not overwhelmed when i focus on him i don't feel fear when i look to him the storm has to be silent when i look to him i see hope for my future when i look to him i'm not overwhelmed and maybe just maybe today you just forgot to look to him you look to everybody else you're boring everybody else's glasses but god wants to help fix your vision and that only works when you look to him maybe today you're in the room or maybe online and you have never looked to jesus you have never said jesus if you're real i am choosing to look to you maybe you have looked for all kinds of answers in all kinds of problems places drinks drugs relationships you've tried to look everywhere else because you felt overwhelmed but none of it has helped it's numbed the pain but it has not taken it away there's only one that can take the pain away there's only one that can change the trajectory of your life and his name is jesus you've heard about him all day we've sang about him but when you look to him you're not overwhelmed in the same way anymore because you have him inside of you so maybe you've been at church and attended here for a while or you're visiting but you've never prayed a prayer it says jesus if you're real i need you in my life and that's what he requires from you that you look to him and say those words and at that point he forgives your sin and your life begins to have the light come in again so i don't know if you're in the room and you're like i've never really prayed that prayer oh you're far from god and you need to come back today are you watching online and you've never said those words well right now is your moment to look to him so if you're saying today i need jesus i need a savior i need my sins forgiven and all i'm asking is that you just as everyone else is praying right now just lift your hand so that's me today i am overwhelmed by life i am overwhelmed but i need to look to jesus today your hands just saying i need that moment today just just your hands are raised around the room you're just acknowledging yeah i need to pray that prayer and at home wherever you are at home praying that prayer we're all going to say this with you to help you in this moment just put your hand on your heart and let's all repeat these words church after me to help people look to god dear god today i look to you i ask you god that you would open my eyes to see like you see gotta ask for forgiveness and a brand new start today i choose to make you lord of my life i look to you and i will not be overwhelmed in jesus name amen and amen come on let's give all those people a round of applause so good so good pastor jock's gonna jump up here with me come on pastor jock who loves pastor joc that was that was pathetic who loves pastor jock i'm gonna hand to you pastor jock thanks thanks come on let's thanks for amazing words so good i'm gonna hand online back to izzy and ivan why don't you go ahead and just take oh fabulous thank you guys so much for sticking in there with us and thank you pastor xiao for that word so good we hope that really encouraged you and i think i would encourage you further not to just let pastor charles word be all you feed on for the rest of the week actually take your notes and re-read them throughout the week maybe use them as the base for your devotionals this week or whatever time you find to spend some more time in the word and with god so you don't have to like you know flip open your bible and put your finger down and hope you find the right verse just use what you've already learned today and continue learning more about that maybe go back over the scriptures maybe read the whole chapter instead as um for context but keep using that what pastor charles has just shared with us as the base for what you spend more and what you spend more time this week learning so i really hope that's encouraged you today but it will continue to encourage you throughout the week so yeah that was a great word wasn't it so good so so good yeah good to see pastor back i know it's great to have her back i'm sorry you asked me to do something else if we said that prayer for the first time today even if it's the second obviously if you said that prayer today um with the intention in your heart that you were coming back to god or you were accepting christ as your savior for the first time firstly well done yeah it's a very brave step to take and we commend you for doing that um and secondly just email us let us know that you've done that we would love to get in touch with you to help you walk this out we don't have any way of getting contact with you unless you get in contact with us first so please please please email us church online at livechurchhome.com so that we have a way of contacting you and we can have a bit of a chat we can pray with you we can just to find out where you are in your life if there's anything we can be believing for for you if there's anything we can be praying with you for but would also encourage you that if you did say that prayer for the first time rather than just try to do it on your own sign up for alpha like we said at the beginning of the service if you missed it alpha is an incredible place just to explore all aspects of the bible so it's structured it's group discussions it's led by someone who knows what they're talking about and it's a great place for you to ask questions and just speak to other people about questions that you might have um about the bible about anything about the bible so if that's your first time that's either firstly email us so that we've got your contact details and we can get in contact with you to pray with you or just chat with you and secondly sign up for alpha so that you can um actually start exploring a little bit more about what the word says and what who jesus is and who god is and the holy spirit is in a group setting that's really safe and comfortable to be a part of it's good i love you i love it i love your hair today thank you baby you made a lot of effort and then i slept on it yeah it wasn't curly when i woke up um and yeah as he once said that's the email address if you want to sign up for alpha do you want to let us know that you prayed that prayer today if you need any prayer whatsoever or if you just want to tell us um when god comes through you're gonna say if but when god comes through and answers your prayer let us know we call that um christ remind myself what we call that we call that a praise report yeah yeah so let us know it's the same email address and also that's the same email address for our life group yeah which we'll be having next sunday after the service that is exclusively just for people watching today on church online their home you've got it because people watch and they might still be part of a there might be a physical yeah a physical campus maybe on holiday this is specifically for people who call church online their home because they may they're most likely not close to bradford leeds belfast or warsaw so they can't actually go into a physical building and you know build their community there so please if you are part of any of those um campuses you have life groups you can be part of and if you aren't part of these campuses you can't actually access any of those campuses because you don't live close to any of them then please come and join us for the church online life group next week sunday straight after the service yeah you're so welcome and we are ready for you putting the seats out and everything online campus beauty of online campuses everything means that you're just you're on the front row every time yeah every time you tune in but yeah we can't wait to see you next sunday um i want to take this opportunity just to thank everybody for their giving through this season yeah um it goes a long way there's so many projects yeah that happen um throughout the week that we can't all physically be a part of yeah but our church life church is is very much about giving and about making things happen in the community um there's so many things that we give to for more information on why we give what we give to um where it's related to any scriptures in the bible you can visit the website yeah our page is there lifechurchhome.com forward slash give so life church home forward slash give g-i-v-e or you can go to um the what is that thing called against the qr code yeah yeah don't ask me to tell you what the q and a stand for but that is that's what we call a qr code in the corner and i will not put my device over to as i usually do but you can just take your device your phone your ipad and you can just take a shot of that qr code that'll take you through to an app that will make it super easy for you to give yeah but i know not everybody is like keen on the app so there's there's several ways that you can give and they're all featured on the livechurchhome.com forward slash give url yeah but as you said if you have any questions about giving or want to know a bit more about anything you've seen today in the service you can email us with our usual email address church online at lifechurchhome.com sorry i feel like i've come back to um school after the school holidays all i've done is take a sunday off yeah i know no excuses so yeah church online at lifechurchhome.com and um it's been such a great service today yeah yeah um is there anything else you want to share no we talked about alpha life groups giving the email address mm-hmm um yeah i can't think of anything else which maybe we should pray with yeah everyone before we go for everyone before we go and then you guys can get to your sunday lunches or dinners or breakfast oh yeah it's 5 30am stephanie's like 6 a.m now it's like time for breakfast absolutely okay let's pray darling let's do it lord thank you for today we thank you for each and every person who's watching this service today or throughout the week we ask lord that you continue to speak to us through your word that you would just just give us a better vision of your peace and your truth and your love in our lives help us to just keep thinking throughout the week about the message from pastor charles today and lord just have your way in our life we thank you that you've gone ahead of us this week monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday you've already gone ahead of us so lord we just we just thank you for that help us just to trust you and to know that you you are our rock through whatever troubles this week brings lord we just ask for a just a fresh anointing of your joy this week yeah wherever we are in life wherever this week finds us fill us with your joy and your love we love you so much amen amen all right church we will sit yeah wait to look when i open my eyes okay we will see you next week just make sure you can't see trees you next week sunday um and have a great week anything else no that's it all right we'll see you next wednesday bye [Music] got a feeling deep inside my soul nothing in this world comes close i was driving i'll give you control this is love great love hit the bottom but your grace came through found me broke and made me new [Music] all the praise i gave it all to you this is love great love this is love the greatest thing i've ever known this is love i just can't get enough i just can't get enough [Music] i just can't get enough [Music] new directions set inside face yes i know that something's changed found the dream of living in your grace this is love great love [Music] this is love [Music] i just can't get enough i just can't get enough [Music] [Music] i just can't get enough [Music] this is better than the trends i'd fade oh that happened lasting anyway and everything i'll follow you instead this is love great love [Music] there's nothing like there's nothing like there's nothing like in love there's nothing like there's nothing like there's nothing like in love there's nothing like there's nothing like there's nothing like there's nothing like [Music] is [Music] i just can't get enough let there be peace [Music] everlasting overwhelming peace complicate i steal the raging seas holy spirit help this world in need let there be hope strength for every week and we [Music] let the voiceless rise and sing a victory song father your kingdom come god that you will be done here as in heaven

Channel: LIFE Church

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Id: RLEFJiWSJpQ

Length: 104min 20sec (6260 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021