Groups Live - THE CALL TO REBUILD - Week 3

and welcome to week two of groups live and it is so great and to have you with us again sorry week three getting myself too excited um we are so i'm delighted to have you with us and sam is going to be leading us in some worship we always start with 15 minutes of worship and then we've got some great speakers lined up and so as we start let's pray heavenly father we thank you that you are the same yesterday today and forever we just pray that as we worship you now that you would in inhabit our homes and that we would encounter you afresh that we would meet with your spirit that we would experience your love and that we would know you more deeply lord just and come and be with us as we worship as we study your word together in jesus name in my amen lord open the eyes of my heart i wanna see you i want to see you open the eyes of my heart lord open the eyes of my heart cause i wanna see you i want to see you to see you high to see you high and lift it up [Music] shining in the light of your glory pour out your power went off as we sing holy to see you high and lifted up shining in the light of your glory [Music] let's open the eyes of my heart lord [Music] open the eyes of my heart i wanna see you lord i want to see you make that your prayer tonight yes open the eyes in my heart lord open the eyes of my heart [Music] up shining in the light of your glory lord pour out your power and lord as we sing holy [Music] you'll be shining in the light of your glory yes lord let's pour out your power window as we sing holy holy behold this holy holy holy holy holy holy jesus your holy holy holy i wanna see [Music] we love you cause you holy holy holy i wanna see you see you high and lift it up shining in the light of your glory is pour out your power and lord cause we sing holy holy [Music] so here i am to worship here i am to bow down here i am to say that you're my god you're all together lovely all together worthy all together wonderful [Music] light of the world light of the world you step down into darkness open my eyes let me see [Music] the beauty that made this heart adore you hope of a life span with you [Music] so here i am so here i am to worship here i am to bow down here i am to say that you're my god you're all together lovely all together worthy all together wonderful to me [Music] king of all days is king of all days oh so highly exhausted glorious in heaven upon and humbly you came to the earth you created all for love's sake became poor so here i am to worship here i am to bow down here i am to say that you're you're my together love me all together worthy all together wonderful too so here i am so here i am to worship here i am to bow down here i am to say that you're my god you're all together lovely all together worthy all together [Music] wonderful cause i'll never know how much it cost to see my sins upon that course i'll never know how much it costs to see my sins upon i'll never know i'll never know how much it costs to see my sins upon that course i'll never know how much it cost you jesus to see my sister upon that course so here i am to worship here i am to bow down here i am to say that you're my god you're all together [Music] together worthy all together wonderful to me yes you're all together lovely all together worthy all together wonderful yes you're all together all together all together all together wonderful too you're wonderful to me oh so faithful all the faithful god you are you want to follow [Music] that's why we say my hope is built on nothing less [Music] than jesus blood and righteousness [Music] i dare not trust the sweetest friend yeah but all he trusts in jesus name christ alone [Music] through [Music] when darkness seems to hide its faith i rest on his unchanging grace in every high [Music] oh my anchor holds within [Music] love through the storm he is lord he is lord of old christ alone yeah [Music] [Music] through the [Music] he is lord through the storm he is lord through the storm jesus you are [Music] when he shall come with trumpets down oh may i then let him be found dressed in his [Music] righteousness stand before the throne when he shall come when he shall come he'll trump himself [Music] died before throne christ alone cornerstone we made through the storm he is lord lord of is all the storms it's through the storms he is lord through the storms he is lord through the storms jesus you are lord you are lord of and so lord we thank you for being our cornerstone thank you for being our rock in times of trouble and uh we look to you right now lord jesus for strength for guidance and thank you for loving us and for caring for us come holy spirit amen welcome to everybody it's wonderful that you've all joined tonight we're so excited for the for the third one of these wonderful groups live i'm very grateful to samuel oh samuel you were awesome thank you samuel yes you were absolutely so great to have you here at hdb on the team thank you very much that was beautiful it's wonderful so tonight we're looking at haggai chapter two and this book is so relevant to the situation we find ourselves in today because as you will know uh the book of haggai is in a situation of post exile so so many people have made the point that the the pandemic we've been through in the last 18 months is feels like a time of exile and a time of loss grief anxiety fear all the things that they experienced in exile and in 520 bc as you will know the people of god were able to return from exile and but what happened when they returned was their enthusiasm to rebuild flagged partly because of opposition and the prophet haggai comes along and he challenges them and uh but by telling them encouraging them and saying as we've been looking at in the last couple of weeks i'm with you he says guys i love you everyone i love you i'm with you but then then he challenges them to get their priorities right so tonight we're looking at chapter two and mark is going to do our reading hi everyone so great to see um just a couple of very quick um notices as we start if you're in a group and that's formed just for this we would love to know about you please just pop onto the website and htb.org forward slash groups just register your group then we can keep in contact with you send you the questions in advance all of that sort of stuff and secondly as we sort of have mentioned over the last couple of weeks next monday and our next sort of video series that we would love you to try out and following groups live is going to launch so all 10 episodes of that are going to come on and it's based on a book that nikki wrote mainly for people who've just finished alpha but it's a really in-depth look through the book of philippians it's called a life worth living if you go to this um same youtube channel you can watch a little teaser trailer and that we released yesterday not now at the end or at the end of your group um but but please do get excited and talk about in your group about maybe that might work and for you we love you and to try it out and let us know what you think um enough of that um haggai chapter 2 starting to read at verse 10 and the title blessings for a defiled people on the 24th day of the ninth month in the year of darius the word of the lord came to the prophet haggai this is what the lord almighty says ask the priest what the law says if someone carries consecrated meat in the fold of their garment and that fold touches some bread or stew some wine olive oil or other food does it become consecrated the priest answered no then haggai said if a defiled person by contact with a dead body touches one of these things does it become defiled yes said the priests it becomes defiled then haggai said so it is with this people and this nation in my sight declares the lord whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled now give careful thoughts of this from this day on consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the lord's temple when anyone came to a heap of 20 measures there were only ten when anyone went to a wine vat to draw 50 measures there were only 20. i struck all the work the work of your hands with light milled you hail yet you did not return to me declares the lord from this day on from the 24th day of the ninth month give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the lord's temple was laid give careful thought is there yet any seed left in the barn until now the vine and the fig tree the pomegranates and the olive tree have not borne fruit from this day on i will bless you uh pips you're on me that dreaded thing you're on mute um thanks mom um our first speaker tonight is sophie perry sophie um was or perhaps is a banker but he's taking a little gap from that at the moment um she's married to will who is one of the clergy on on our team um and they have a little son called johnny not so little getting quite big who's 21 months um and so if he's also doing some studying at the moment in biblical counseling so she's a woman of many talents and we're delighted sophie that you're going to speak to us tonight thanks pips it's great to be here and with everyone so this is the third sermon that haggai preaches to god's people and i love this passage partly because of the reminder of jesus's costly grace and secondly because it's got a quiz in it and who doesn't love a quiz um so before i share i thought it'd be helpful to just walk through the first few verses so haggai starts his third sermon with a quiz for the priests to explain something really important so if we look at verse 12 we see him asking the priests and these priests were experts in the law two very basic questions from the laws that we can read in leviticus and this is the easiest quiz ever it would be like asking a plumber how you flush the loo so in verse 12 we read if someone carries some meat that is holy and that touches something else does it pass on its holiness and the priest's answer no of course not and then his second question in verse 13 haggai asks if a person who's defiled another translation is unclean which is hugely serious in the law if someone unclean touches something else or someone else does that uncleanness pass on and the priest answer yes so it's clear verse 11 if something holy touches something else it doesn't pass on its holiness but if something unclean touches something else it does pass on its uncleanness and what her guy is talking about here is contamination which for us all after a pandemic we know all about that we know that viruses contaminate if a healthy person was to walk into a covered ward their health does not spread but if someone filled with a covered virus walks in somewhere that virus contaminates and spreads another example when my lovely husband walks onto our very clean carpets with his muddy boots does the cleanness from the carpet make his boots clean no unfortunately not unfortunately his muddy boots pass on to the carpet uncleanness spreads it contaminates and that's why verse 14 is shocking and the reason haggai gives this quiz is to really underline what god is saying in verse 14 because he says so it is with this people and this nation declares the lord whatever they do and whatever they offer is unclean so god is saying that these people themselves are unclean contaminated by sin and therefore anything that they build or offer is also unclean now these are god's people who think they're doing so well you know they've come back from israel they have listened they're building this new temple and now suddenly god is giving them a big reality check and here for me reading this um and studying it and getting taught by otherwise by wise people i'm reminded for myself of my sin and that there is nothing i can do to get holy or right with god because sin totally contaminates and that's why i'm so grateful to jesus and how this sermon that haggai spoke points us directly to him because his final words in verse 19 give us that hope where god says i will bless you so even though god has declared them totally unclean he also chooses to bless them and if we look in the new testament um if we look at mark chapter 1 verse 40 we read about how god how jesus meets this man with leprosy so this is a man who has this skin disease that is so contagious now the normal laws of contamination should apply right he's got leprosy it spreads anyone who touches him that sickness spreads but what do we see jesus do we see that this sickness didn't spread to jesus instead jesus is the one who goes towards this man's uncleanness and this man's sickness he reached out his hand and he touched that man and said be clean and i am so grateful to god that he is the one that goes towards my uncleanness that even though he knows my sin that jesus who is the perfectly clean one washes us clean he passes his own cleanness onto us and as i think about us as a church community and church family looking to rebuild i so feel like that um that reminder and encouragement to rebuild a culture of confession that we need to be examining ourselves remembering that without god's mercy we stand contaminated by sin but that because of his wonderful grace we can confess with confidence knowing that jesus walks towards us and washes us totally clean so yeah those were kind of my thoughts my thing so good sophie that is amazing absolutely fantastic and very clear yeah really really good gifted yeah it's very good indeed well our next speaker is the reverend fernando carrillo and um what can we say about fernando except he's got a very interesting story which i hope he'll tell us yes um and um he spends a lot of time working out in the gym which i'm sure he can show you his muscles and he's at the 6 30 always gathering people i mean fernando is a people gatherer he um just gather people just flock around him and he's an extraordinary evangelist too so we're delighted fernando you are the second speaker yes tonight oh thank you so much pippa and it sophie you did such a brilliant job it's going to be hard to to follow you one of the ways that i love to look at the book of haggai is in three ways i think haggai begins by telling the people of israel to look out he tells them to not be pro capo with their own agendas but rather to be focused on building god's kingdom he tells him to look in haggai challenges the people to look inwards to cleanse themselves of impurity in order for god's purposes to come about and then he tells him to look forward haggai encourages the people to trust in god's promises as a means of hope and when i look at the book of haggai i think of it as a prophetic call to what jesus calls us to do in the new testament jesus in matthew 6 and at hdb we were starting a new series in matthew 6 jesus in matthew 6 in matthew sorry matthew 6 though he says seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all things will be added onto you seek his kingdom look out his righteousness look in and all things will be added to you look forward so today we're looking at this topic of holiness which was crucial in the old testament but is also very important in the new testament and in partic in particular this call that jesus is telling us to look at to look inward and to seek his righteousness in the beatitudes jesus says to us blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled and as we know in the new testament our obedience doesn't make us holy and it doesn't lead to god's blessing on us it's jesus who was the obedient one who took our sin and made us holy so that we would be accepted by god in second of corinthians 5 21 it says he who knew no sin was made sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of god the apostle paul writes praise be to god who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in christ so in christ in the new testament under grace god loves you because of what jesus has done not because of what you do i want to begin by saying that you there is no condemnation for those who are in christ you are completely forgiven if you accepted jesus into your heart the right response to failure is not to dwell on it and to beat ourselves up but to stand up and go to the throne of grace so we will be restored and embraced every single time so why is holiness important in the new testament well the i want to just quickly talk about two things for the the next three minutes is why do we live holy and how do we live holy so i want to start by saying why do we live holy in the new testament well the apostle paul was asked this same question in romans 6 which i'll encourage you guys to all go and read afterwards in your groups the jews were saying to him well if this message of grace is here then shouldn't we continue to sin and paul says by no means because grace doesn't free us to sin it frees us from sin but paul gives them two answers he says to them first of all you don't sin because you've been given a new life the second thing he says you don't sin because sin opens the door to the enemy in your life when we sin we go in again we start going against our nature and our conscience that's the first thing we've been given a whole new life and the second thing when we say no we open the door to the enemy it's like sin becomes easier to do it starts to wreak havoc in our lives a few years ago i got into a relationship and it was probably a bit too soon for me to get into relationship because i i had come out of um let's just say a colorful teenage years um when i was 19 i i came out of rehab when i was 17 i was in prison i was just heavily involved in drugs and i was a complete mess but jesus came in and changed my life and i was on fire for jesus and i was pursuing him with everything i had and then i met somebody that i really liked and i was like okay we're going to pursue holiness but unfortunately we didn't set the right boundaries and before we knew it we were living lives that weren't honoring each other and weren't honoring god and the result of this was that my heart just started to get hardened towards god i wasn't going i was going against the new life that god had given me i was going against the new nature that god had placed on the inside of me and it became easier to sin and harder to obey god i didn't even enjoy the sin anymore i don't know if you guys have ever noticed that now that when you ask jesus to come into your life and you try to do the things that you used to enjoy it's almost not even fun it makes you sad almost i want to encourage you to listen to that voice don't fight against it because i fought against it i thought oh no i can overcome it oh it'll be fine or we can we can sort it out no it just began to slowly but surely harden my heart and ruin my life and then the second part i wasn't only just tempted now in one area i started to be contented more in different areas because i opened the door to the enemy in my life i started to watch things i shouldn't watch i started to drink too much and when we fought i i almost relapsed and i remember in that moment when i nearly relapsed thinking how on earth did i get here well i look back at what paul said i had opened the door to the enemy in my life i started off with small sins with small lapses and before you knew it i was doing things that i never thought i'd do ever again but more than all of this i i just found it so hot i knew that god still loved me i knew that i was forgiven but i had no peace i had no joy i find it nearly impossible to pray to read my bible to go to church to love others i was a mess and this is exactly what the enemy wants to do in our lives when we sin he wants to ruin us from the inside out until finally i got some help because sin grows in secret sin grows where there's shame so i want to invite you guys this is how i've learned to how to live holy how i'm still learning i'm not an expert at it please for the expert ask mark ask mark ropa he's the expert on how to live holy i'm i'm just a young young trainee learning but these are a few things that i've learned but of course we need to read our bible every day i hope you're all reading the bible in one year um and praying every day that goes without saying but i found that it's important to have people who live our lives with us if we're a silo by ourselves it's very easy to fall but if we're surrounded by people it's much easier to live the life god has called us through so three ways find people who go before you i think it's so important to find christians who are accountable to find a mentors find a spiritual advisor who knows absolutely everything about you and keep short accounts i meet mine every wednesday and he's so english i'm now an expert i love lap san souchong tea i have sourdough bread and i sometimes we have earl grey and it's fantastic i have marmalade on the sourdough and it's great but keep short accounts have somebody who knows absolutely everything about you who can advise you who's gracious who's kind who'll walk with you someone who goes before you then find people who live beside you invite your peers to speak into your life to call you to your best self i love that proverb that says faithful are the wounds of a friend but profuse are the kisses of an enemy live your life so with people who who are living alongside you who are living beside you who can speak into your life who are calling you to your best self who can remind you when you're going off course and finally live a life with people who walk behind you i find that it's so important to have people with discipline and pouring into it's so important to have people in our lives that we're responsible for because in those moments when we feel tempted sometimes those people will just cross our minds and we just think oh my goodness i i could possibly do this if it was just me but i couldn't do this because i know um that i'm responsible for these people's lives and it really does help so three things that i found on how to help us on how to live holy find people who go before you find people who live beside you and five people who walk behind you and i've found that there's that trying to live a holy life it's it means sacrifice it means laying down our lives to follow jesus it means um dying to ourselves but there's nothing more life-giving than knowing that we're living our lives at the center of god's will for our lives living a life of peace knowing that there's nothing hidden living the life that jesus calls us to when he says seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all things will be added fantastic thanks fernando thank you sophie two great talks and i think we should pray because i think um you've touched on a number of areas and it would be good to allow the holy spirit to lead us to guide us to speak to each person and but also we want to encounter jesus tonight just as sophie was talking about jesus going towards the leper and saying be clean it was in an encounter with jesus that he was cleansed and that's what all of us want to do tonight we want to hit sense jesus going towards us lord that's what we pray come holy spirit come jesus walk towards each person we pray who's on this school watching this on youtube every small group here and thank you that whereas in the quiz it was clear that it was impossible for someone to file to be cleansed by just a clean person around in the new testament it's so different because of the cross and resurrection of jesus and tonight we can come to you lord and i want to encourage you to do this in your home wherever you are right now picture jesus in front of you and picture that as you confess you say lord i'm sorry for the things i've done thought said jesus says be clean and he says from this day on i will bless you and i want to encourage you right now to receive his cleansing and his blessing on you his peace thank you lord that you exchange our filthy rags for your robes of righteousness thank you for that beautiful exchange that we come to you with all our brokenness and failures disappointments and flaws and you do a wonderful exchange taking those filling us afresh cleansing us putting on that robe of righteousness so that we can stand with our head held high knowing that we are close with the righteousness of christ upon us covering us thank you lord and i want to pray for everyone watching that they that you will guide us by your spirit to those who've gone before who we can see as models to follow that you will provide for us all of us friends who will walk beside us encourage us and that you'd use us for those who are behind that we'd be able to encourage and build others up and i particularly want to pray a blessing on every person from this day on the lord says i will bless you and we want to pray that blessing on every person listening watching right now your blessing blessing of cleansing forgiveness being cleansed from all the defile defilement of the world that we live in and of our sin and all the stuff that we want to get free from in our lives the blessing of forgiveness the blessing of cleansing the blessing of peace with god all the blessings jesus came to bring to you life in all its fullness taking your burdens from your shoulders your anxieties your fears and giving you his peace the blessing of peace peace of god which is beyond all understanding fill your hearts and minds with the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord and the blessing of god almighty father son the holy spirit be with you always amen back to you mark wow everybody thank you so much it's been such a um powerful evening just from a personal note um sophie and fernando are two of my favorite people and i know them really well and i know for a fact how much time and effort they've put into these and seemingly short talks and so so do put some love for them um in in the chat because they've they've they've really worked really hard on that and it's been such a blessing it was so good and some questions are going to drop in the chat your leaders should have them already emailed out to them one is a bit ambiguous i just want to explain it really quickly it simply says share your testimony and just as the team were wrestling um around what to get you to talk about and by the way you can talk about whatever you want to talk about and if something struck you talk about that don't follow our questions um but verses 15 and 18 of this passage and and the prophet is encouraging and the people of god and to consider how they were when they first started building the temple and if you know if we are the lord's temple then we just felt that was a call to maybe just reconsider how you felt what that moment was when you first came to faith and so we would just love it if you could maybe you know set aside 10 minutes at the end of your time just to go around the room and for each of you and to just share the story of how you came to faith and to use that as a fuel and to a life of holiness um can't wait to see you again next week um haggai um last little bit of chapter two week four of groups live um again some amazing speakers that we're really excited um about can't wait to see you again sophie fernando nicki pips thank you so much thank you so much everyone see you sunday if not before don't forget all the services are open again now filling up uh the 11 30 was very full this sunday and all the services are beginning to fill up at brompton road onslow square queensgate courtfield gardens delgano and so luke's red cliff square so you've got plenty of choice 11 different services hope to see you on sunday god bless [Music] where i belong this is [Music] [Music] oh [Music] now and forever [Music] and wonderful [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] 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Channel: HTB Groups

Views: 6,577

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Id: 82d8bxzXL9g

Length: 46min 24sec (2784 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021