Learn how to engage your world with Michael Ramsden

thanks for joining us for an informational Sunday sermon this message is from our hammersmith congregation for more information on our church or to see how you can be involved please visit every nation called out UK now what we're looking at here as we wrestle with these verses in in acts 17 is and the two things that I've been asked particularly to focus on its first of all is that Paul saw something now that word dare to see carries with it very much the idea of discernment it means to see with understanding today we have insight so often without understanding every exit every time something happens on the news we have a dozen experts up there giving us their opinion all of them offering some kind of insight yet doesn't seem to cohere together at times it's even contradictory we have insight but without understanding and that's something that doesn't take you very far and the idea of Paul's seeing here is much more than just seeing something in terms of physically seen it it's seen something in terms of its meaning its significance what is this signal what does this mean that is what he saw he was able to see and discern not just facts practices what people were doing he could understand its meaning and we are in desperate need to try to understand and discern the times in which we live I've just finished reading a novel by a guy called issue guru I don't feel familiar with him at all Japanese writer now lives here in the UK only tends to write a book every six to seven years or so his latest novel is entitled the Buried giant very different to any of its former kinds of writings but as very insightful as normal very very very slow-paced book and as you're going through you're wondering where is this story going well what's happening here and he set the story in early Britain early Christian Britain and the question the main problem is is that people are seem to be forgetting things all the time they just can't remember their past and even events which have only happened maybe a few weeks ago seem to be slipping from people's grasps and memory and it's just constantly going away and the question is why what is it that they that's causing this to happen why is it that they can't even have a grasp of understanding of their own family they sold a couple why is it they can't remember their children and without trying to spoil all the end of it the way the novel ends is they then suddenly faced with a with a scenario they can do something which will restore people's memory they'll finally remember who they are and where they're from and now they have a colossal problem and the closer problem is this and it's put into the words of into the mouths of one of the key characters of the novel where he says once we recover our memory and remember who we are and quick tongued men come and make ancient grievances rhyme with current concern war will destroy everything what he's saying is when we remember our history where we're from and the things that divide us rather than things that unite us and split us when we recover arm he'll historical memory we will be at war with each other and we will destroy each other and just look at the world we're living in now every nation disintegrating now into lots of separate nations we all want to break down into small subgroups everybody defining themselves remember the past events which happened 50 years ago 100 years ago 200 years ago ancient grievances which we feel were never properly dealt with or restored all of a sudden we're coming back and the world is disintegrating and splitting around us in the last few months I've had the huge privilege I was invited I'm just after the UK election to come and speak to newly elected MPs and members from the upper house and various other people in the chapel some Mary's undercroft which is forms part of the foundation stone in the British Parliament so the British Parliament is foundation there's a there's a chapel underneath it and so the British housing department actually rests on the foundation stone of a church which is you just think about the symbolism of that and I said what do you want me to speak about they said we want you to speak on reconciliation few months after that I was over in Asia I had to leave the country unnamed speaking in a this in a closed-door session to the cabinet of the country the rulers the people controlling it and I said what theme do you want to speak on they said we don't want to speak on reconciliation a few weeks after that I was down in Australia speaking to the Australian Parliament for the National parliamentary prayer breakfast and the place was was was was it was the largest gathering that ever had in the history of the movement of the prayer breakfast there in Australia and I said what do you me to speak about and they said we want you to speak the issue of reconciliation and in every one of those countries I met with senior business leaders over here in the UK over in the Far East and then down in Australia who between them collectively controlled trillions of investment dollars and that's a lot of money even if you're a banker that's a lot of money and everyone I spoke to they said would like to ask you questions about what and they were all looking for reconciliation because they're looking at it it's integrating world that's falling apart politically economically socially at the level of our identity at the level how we define ourselves collectively and they're asking how is there any hope that takes us through this we are in desperate need to for discernment to see to understand the significance at the moment we're in because the kinds of things which are dividing us right now are the kinds of things that lead to wars between nations and civil wars within nations and we're in an incredibly important time so we need to see and we also read that Paul was concerned he was provoked within him you can't be provoked about something unless you're in love with something else what provokes you what upsets you the most deeply is when it offends your your strongest commitments your deepest loves your your the clearest relationships that you have so if the clearest and the deepest and the strongest and the most loving commitment have is to yourself you will feel provoked whether that's angry or upset or concerned when something comes against you if it's your family you will be most provoked when you see them now certainly coming under a pressure or attack or something happening what it that which you love that's what you have fallen in love with so deeply is the thing which you feel most provoked about when something comes against you and Paul the guy who who is being described here is so in love with Christ so in love with Jesus so in love with the one true God that when he sees idols everywhere he is provoked within him the love comes first the provocation is something which is derived from that prior commitment now there are so many things that I could say here now in so many different ways in which we could take this and build try and build a picture here for you I'm gonna try as far as I can just to throw out a couple of things for you to think about and then I want to just look at practically how we might go about going to go about engaging and I hope that's going be hope that's gonna be okay with you as you've noticed I'm now I've been speaking very slowly up until now so I'm gonna increase my speed of delivery and it will make sense don't worry if it doesn't make sense just take some aspirin and it all go away what is the world in which we which we now live what are we what are we provoked about why what should we be provoked about I am when the so-called Arab Spring broke out I was invited to be part of a small private consultation with various there's 14 of us in the room various government leaders a couple of sort of security analysts and the question was where is all of this going I was invited into the room because I was one of the few people who thought is going to end in bloodshed rather than in some kind of huge democratic revolution and so I was there to provide the counter perspective against the 14 people who felt this is going to go well and I'm sitting and I'm listening there but the opening line the opening short speech was given by the British Foreign Secretary who'd actually just a couple of weeks who actually stepped out of that role we sat around the table and he the first words out of his mouth shocked me they shocked me to my core here's here's what he said he said hypocrisy is the new global unforgivable sin it's a new global unforgivable sin he says people have access to their leaders lives as never before they can measure and weigh their words against their actions in their lifestyle and in the Middle East right now young people through in Internet and all of the digital click that's just one you know half a second away can suddenly see the opulence the sexual activity the lifestyle of their leaders and compare it to their rhetoric and they are angry they feel they they've been betrayed at every single level he says and we are not even yet beginning getting close to understanding the level and depth of their I was so surprised to hear him say that his very next comment was and we have totally failed to understand the theological significance of what's happening around us right now I'm looking at this guy thinking wow I I had no idea that you even you even could you even felt this a few months ago I was in in Pakistan while I was there there was a protest movement which where students were marching from Lahore to Islamabad being led by the former cricketer who's now name is just very momentarily escaped my mind Imran Khan and I'm speaking to a law Faculty of sixty people thirty of them are under forty and thirty of them are over forty and I say can I ask you a question I gave them this line I shared that line about hypocrisy with them everyone under the age of thirty one hundred percent immediately identified with it and felt it justified whatever extreme measures would be taken to deal with it and everyone over the age of 40 trembled at the thought of what may happen if things disintegrated further and violence became more common we are living in a world where we're struggling with the feeling of hypocrisy now the way we've resolved the issue of hypocrisy in the world however has been disastrous for the church because classically when we talked about hypocrisy in this world what we meant was this hey there's our standard up here and your life is down here and you need to get your life up here to measure with the standard in other words that's how you deal with the issue of hypocrisy but there's another way of dealing with hypocrisy and that is you take the standard which is up here and you drop it down to that and now the problem of hypocrisy is totally gone away hasn't it you're advocating what you're living it's the same and we have so far dropped down to that level that we're struggling we're completely struggling so we live in a culture which feels angry the hypocrisy it sees while at the same time unable to define the standard by which it wants to denounce that hypocrisy which it encounters because the standards collapsed we excuse ourselves from it we hold our enemies to it very very closely and so as a culture we feel provoked but we don't know why and as a church we feel confused because we've feel that we should be upset about things and we wonder whether actually we should be upset about them at all now I want to take just one example and hopefully this won't go too long although I can already feel time running away with me so this might be very dangerous to do this but I want to take just one example because I think it illustrates and speaks to this and also to our culture more powerfully more than any other one that I can give you and that is to do with sex there's an awful lot of talk about sex at our culture right now and if you ask the average Christian church member is this a big issue the answer is yes you bet it is my 15 year old daughter was talking to one of her 15 year old friends goes to one of those prestigious schools in the United Kingdom her friend went to the feminist Society a few days ago the feminist Society there were twenty five fifteen year olds than sixteen year olds in the feminist society and they convened the meeting and here's how the meeting went well we all watch pornography and we know it's fine but the question is we want to talk about today is what's the most healthy way to watch it now this is the feminist Society now when I was a university student there was no way that conversation took place within the feminist society now within the Rugby Club maybe possibly but within feminist society that's not the conversation that took place back then our culture has shifted and most Christians feel stuck because they're saying well maybe we shouldn't feel provoked about this maybe this isn't a big deal maybe it doesn't really matter and why github hung up on all of those kind of stuff anyway and indeed the church itself there are many churches around the world it needs some huge churches around the world who AC saying we've got all of this wrong we need to completely rethink this kind of thing through because we all struggle and fail in this area that's true we all fight entertain ideas and sometimes fall into patterns of behavior which we know we're wrong so who are we to say that anything else is wrong because we feel hypocritical so first of all what we need to is drop the standard to make us feel better and the second thing is isn't very confusing this this isn't a big issue that we've made it into we just need to relax about it and let it go well if that's a correct understanding of what the scripture says about it and what God gave how God thinks about it then that's fine the question is is it now I don't have time either this is dangerous ground to go into because I did am eight hours of teaching of this a while ago it's always hard to condense eight hours of teaching into like a one eight minute point I'm setting myself up to fail here aren't I already as a preacher I can feel it but this is part of the issue that Paul is trying to address in the book of first Corinthians in the book of first Corinthians Paul writes to the church he says guys you have five major problems which are facing you right now he says I'm going to speak to you and I need to and through speaking to you I'm going to speak to everybody else as well and then he highlights what those five problems are the first one is to do with Christian unity the church is divided as a matter of fact he puts it very strongly in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians he says there were disputes amongst you that word there is eros from the Greek god Eris the goddess of war Paul literally says the goddess of war has been released amongst your church and congregations that's a strong image and then we're going to speak to them on the grounds of the Cross of unity what unites the church together the next thing he does is he then talks about men and women and sexual relationships that's the second issue he picks up on the third issue he picks up on is how do Christians live in a pagan society how do you relax then the next issue he comes to is men and women in the life of the church and the last issue who comes to us the resurrection and they all pair off do you see that cross and unity resurrection men and women and sexual relationships men and women in the church and then right at the middle what does it mean to be a Christian in a public pepper and a pagan society now some people don't like the book of Corinthians I'll just make this as a passing comment because if they feel it it's confusing does that make sense you're reading you know one chapter and it's talking about spiritual gifts right you know men and women the life of the church and then you've got another chapter on love and then you have another chapter on spiritual gifts and it feels like a bit of a jumble does that make sense you're why can't he focus so in fact it feels like that all the time he's talking about men and women in relationship and then he got this like this huge it seems like like you know discourse and then he comes back to men and women their sexual relation would be the thing he focus now what Paul does in each time as he takes a problem negatively he gives the theology to solve the problem then he comes back to the problem positively and that's why it's jumping around it's very very carefully constructed now what's fascinating when it comes to the issue of sex he says to them you guys are doing things and celebrating which you should feel ashamed about but you don't feel ashamed about it your sexual practice he says has moved so far from what God has taught you feel no sense of shame and your even advocating it from the pulpit you're saying to the church hey it's fine don't worry about it and then he takes in each time he deals with these five things it's not so he doesn't do it abstractly he takes a concrete example a concrete example to try and ground what he says and the concrete example he says is look there's a man and there's a and and his father in your church and they're sleeping with the same woman you remember this this is 1 Corinthians 5 now what's amazing is what Paul is saying is he's picking up on an example there's only one other example in all of Scripture where you have that same scenario there's a name was chapter 2 there's only one place in all of Scripture where you have the same scenario a man and his father both sleeping with the same woman and it's and then he all uses exactly the same argument he says guys you're doing this and you're celebrating it but in the Hebrew in the Old Testament in Amos you have a very interesting play now I don't if that picture is avaible can be shown behind me but if not I'm going to hold up my own little visual aid now I don't see if you can see these two little Hebrew words I've written in my notebook just while we were worshiping now they might look very similar to you they look similar this one down here is how with a soft H and this here is how with a hard H the only difference between them is this little gap you see it between the two if you take this word and you put the Hebrew U and then yeah you have the word hallelujah praise His name if you close that gap it becomes a hard age hallelujah profane his name what he's saying is your life how you live sexually should be a hallelujah before God it should be a praising of his name but you've turned it into a hallelujah you are profaning his name by what you do and then Corinthians what Paul does is he says look let me explain to you why this is so important I don't have time to unpack the pathway which is take way too long but Paul says here's why what you do sexually is important it affects the cross it affects the church it affects Communion it affects the Trinity and it affects the resurrection so let me ask you as Christians is the cross important theologically is the resurrection important theologically is the Trinity important theologically is communion with God important theologically is the church important and the answer is yes as a matter of fact Paul is ringing the loudest theological bells he can he can and then what he says is he says look the way you're thinking about it is this your thinking food for the stomach and sex for the body and you're making a comparison that make sense I'm hungry I eat I have a sexual desire I have it met and that's the level at which you're thinking and he says no it's not like that food for the stomach yes okay that's fine you are hungry you eat that's entirely legitimate but he says there is a difference between the stomach and the body when you eat only the stomach is involved and on the day of resurrection your stomach doesn't go with you which means if you have ulcers and you die and you're raised to life and you enter the kingdom of God you won't have stomach ulcers anymore you won't need that kind of stuff let's supposing you're one of those people who exercises too much and so you'll really really fit you'll when you get to heaven you know what I take that with you you and have a resurrection body and you'll be at the banquet of the math.round with the lamb you all look like me so so with the stomach does that make sense what Paul is saying that doesn't go with you buddy says when it comes to the so much of the body the body will be raised and it will go with you and here's what he says what you to sexually affects your body and in some very real sense on the day of resurrection it's going to cause a problem if you haven't honored him with your body so honor him with your body can you see what he's saying you have desires here you're hungry new thirsty and you meet them well look that's okay but you have had desires here sexually and you think it's okay just to go ahead with them it's not because the impact on your body is different and you can't draw a parallel with the impact on your stomach we need to desperately even as a church start being provoked about some of the things we see in our culture we're not provoked by them you can see it by the things we're having to watch on television the films were happy to be entertained by the stories that we connect with the way that we live our lifestyle where we go for some of you who are sat here there are real issues that God needs to deal with you today today because you're putting yourself in a very difficult place dangerous place before God and he needs to deal with you today so that you can recover what he intends we so that you may feel that provocation again that you may be provoked by certain things which you see instead of it entertaining you all of a sudden like no it shouldn't be that way and I'm not just sharing this with you because I have two teenage daughters although I do which is partly why I'm sharing it with you we live in a in a culture where our standards have collapsed we're crying out for justice but we have no standards to enforce we're disintegrating as a society we wonder what values you will you bring us together but there are no you values to unite around and there's no one who will draw us together we have to recover this now closely connected to this as is it sort of it's related in with this is is the collapse of commitment we've seen in our culture a couple of years ago I was here in London they were putting down a memorial stone Perseus Lewisohn in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey it was a really British experience I have to say I've got to speak at this conference beforehand and then you know where the the speakers and the guys in charge of Westminster Abbey they say okay we're all going to walk past the stone first you know together with the Mayor of London I think and first of the dignitaries and you know and then everyone else will be able to walk past the stone but he says you will all be allowed to linger I says but whatever you do don't touch the stone now the reason he said that wasn't for any kind of superstitious reasons but if you ever go to one of those old Anglican churches you'll see that many of the grave the memorial stones are curved and the reason is they wear away doesn't make sense so many people walking on them so many people just touching it you know to read it eventually you know millions of hands they just wear the stone away so this stone was really hard I mean really hard so hard the guy the stone engraver didn't realize how long it will take him to engrave it so the stone was only partially engraved the rest of it was colored in with multicolored chalk to create a 3d effect and actually it was really convincing if you looked at it you would swear it was engraved but actually it was a 3d optical illusion my sense you know different shades and so it looked like it so he said if you touch it that illusion will be shattered through all the other thousands of people who come so don't touch the stone and just at the end of that that event I there was this retired Army General he said I would like to take you out for lunch and so we're sitting he's asking me all these difficult questions and after a couple of hours I said I'd like to ask you a question he said that's okay I said to him what here's my question I said when I was 15 I knew what I wanted to do with my life and I was committed to achieving it now God change those plans but that sense of commitment stayed with me I said forget about being 25 I now meet people who were 35 and they have no idea what they want to do with their life they're just drifting through willing to try anything but not committed to anything just flitting from one thing to another I said my question is this how do you brief leadership in the absence of commitment and this guy's that back in this chair said Michael you don't know this about me but for the last few years of my active military service I was in charge of officers selection and training for the British Armed Services and this was our number one problem people came in to this world it joins us I'll give it a go but I'm not really committed I'll just do whatever I want if I don't like it after 18 months I'll go to leave do something else he says I'm trying to raise up serious leadership is impossible he says I don't think we ever came up with a satisfactory answer well we finished our lunch and I'm now in London I'm shopping I'm waiting for my family to come down and join me we're spending the weekend in London because I'm speaking in the church the next day down here and I get into conversation with this guy in a shop and I recognize the accent so I said where are you from he says well I'm American they said I thought so I said you here on your own he said no no my wife is with me but she loves the theater I hate the theater he said though she I'm waiting for the play to finish I've got an hour to kill that's what I'm waiting for my wife to a I've also got an hour to kill so we start talking I said to him what do you do he said what I'm retired now he said but I used to run the LAPD Los Angeles Police Department so I smiled and I said I know exactly what you do I've seen the movies and yeah his reaction was the same as yours so we get talking and after half an hour I say to him can I ask you a question I was just having lunch with this British Army general and I asked him this question I set it up in the same way and I asked him the sector can I ask you the same question how do you breathe leadership in the absence of commitment we're both sat down in chairs at this point in the store we were in and he just leant back in his chair and he said for the last five years of my career I was in charge of officers training for the LAPD he said we spent millions of dollars trying to solve this problem he said we flew in motivational speakers we flew in analysts we flew in all kinds of experts to come and speak to us he said that we never solved it is this the greatest problem we have now as we have people trying to exercise leadership and they don't command the respect with the rank and file underneath them these as far as I can see it's a problem without a solution to people living 5,000 miles apart and they're both dealing with the same issue commitment where is it we talk about our political leaders and the greatest question we often ask them is well what do they stand for which is why when someone stands up and stands for anything regardless how ridiculous it is we all fall in love with them because at least they stand for something everyone else it's just impossible to figure out where that who they are what what do they represent we're struggling our culture is we have never had so few states people States men and women as we do now we've never had so many effective leaders and the thing that provokes me as I look at the churches the church should be the one place that is draw breeding leadership once and when the nature of commitment is and how many of us are really committed to God's call in our life above and beyond everything else whatever it may cost us you know it's very interesting in the Gospel of John when Paul Jesus says I am the Sheep sorry I have the Sheep yeah that's something I'm gonna have to have analyzed later with a psychologist to figure out what's going on spiritually my own life but when when when Jesus says you were the sheep and then he says I am the shepherd I am the door I am the gate I am do you remember that well some people read that part of John chapter 10 let's say well Jesus was a bit confused or maybe the writer of Gospel of John was a bit confused and he cobbled together lots of contradictory sayings that Jesus said in lots of places and I did a cut-and-paste and a pretty bad job that that stuff totally misunderstand what Jesus is saying totally misunderstand it the Shepherd's in the major cities would have to take their flocks further and further away from the cities up into the hills to feed them during the summer months you have to go further away in order to find the grass now eventually you get to the stage where you could spend your whole life just walking up and down the mountain so the Shepherd's would build walls pretty high and they'll put sharp jagged rocks all across the top of the walls to stop wild wolves and dogs jumping over the wall make sense to get in to eat the Sheep and there would be a gap through which the Shepherd could usher all the sheep so during the summer months he would take the Sheep and he would usher them in you know through that gap does that make sense so they're safe so where did the shepherds sleep at night and the answer is well in the one vulnerable place that there is he slept across the gap so when Jesus said I am the gate by me the Sheep come in and go out he meant that literally he is the gate he will lay down his life for his sheep he will sleep in the one place the most single vulnerable place in order to protect that which he has been entrusted with Christ is so committed to you and I his love for us is so deep he both intercedes for us and came into this world to rescue us from the mess that were in and willingly lay down his life no one took it from him he freely laid it down in order that you and I may live if you want to of commitment for leadership you've got it right there but in the absence of a world that says committed to anything in order to be committed you need to know by what standard you make the commitment we've talked about that you also need to be involved in the process of being committed to something I wonder how many people in this room are not in a committed relationship with someone else because they're too scared of of making those promises now I mean I don't know you guys haven't been here for a long time let me just a couple of words to you single people you do need to seriously think about this whole commitment and marriage issue for two reasons one it's not fair that you should be for happies for so long now did I say that you have no idea how far and how deep love goes until you commit yourself to someone it's entirely possible you're missing out on what God intends for you because in the absence of a standard that you're clear about and the desire to keep yourself pure before him you're just not willing to make that kind of commitment you need to sort it out I'm a bit nervous giving this challenge the last time I gave this challenge was at a church called HDB in London I was down there a few months later they said thanks for that message I said oh how did it go they said we had 22 people give their lives to Christ and we also did 12 weddings stop messing around with virtual men and women trying to satisfy an inner hunger that only gets deeper the more you feed it and find what it is to have a real relationship that will meet with you we should be provoked in our culture at the fact that people can't make commitments to each other anymore now having said some of this let me just try to land this practically because the time really is running away we'll be finished by 1:00 don't worry the trouble with all of the issues that I've talked with you about all of this cultural analysis that we're doing is and wolfies already touched on it it's easy isn't it to become angry negative sit around in a coffee shop or over a meal complaining about everybody and everything isn't it terrible isn't it awful how can this be everybody's gone wrong apart from me phony people everyone would just simply got on get on get on my message we'll all be fine and everything becomes it's a new form of narcissism and it's the worst kind of narcissism it's a superior narcissism it's it's over everything and just judges everybody so how do we go about practically engaging I've mentioned community it's why don't we just stick in first Corinthians here's one of the most interesting verses in all of 1st Corinthians I think then chapter 1 verse 1 and it says Paul an apostle called Apostle Paul called to be an apostle of Christ by the will of God and our brother Saul Sinise now when's the last time you heard a message preached on Sosthenes did you want to know who he is who on earth is he that Paul says I have been called by God by the will of Jesus Christ our Lord their Lord and I'm saying hi on behalf of him and behalf of me and Sosthenes does that make you want to know who on earth is Sosthenes I mean is there right at the very front a church in Corinth which was divided amongst itself a church in Corinth that was struggling with its sense of sexual purity a church in Corinth it didn't know how to live publicly in a pagan world given their Christian commitments a church in in in in Corinth that was drunk on its own sense of importance and pride and he starts off greetings in the name of Jesus Christ is a Christian I can understand that and Sosthenes well when Paul went and preached the gospel in Corinth he was invited into a house by a guy called T sheis justice and Paul went to tissues his house and preached and the guy called Crispus took his whole family who was the leader of the local synagogue to come in here Paul and Crispus and his whole household get converted and baptized so the Jews elect a new leader of the song of the synagogue called Sosthenes now Sosthenes gets everybody together to bring a united attack on the Apostle Paul and what they do is they launch a law case against Paul and they bring it before a guy called Gallio now Gallio was one of the most powerful judges in the ancient world not only did he hold a position of power in terms of this judging Ct occupied which was huge but his brother was a guy called Seneca who was a tutor of the Emperor Nero so this guy has good family connections he is directly connected to the Emperor himself so before one of the most possibly the most powerful judge in the ancient world sovereign ease now brings his legal case to be judged by Gallio and Gallio refuses to have anything to do with it and even before they come in he throws out the case literally onto the steps of the courthouse and he says this has got nothing to do with me you sought it out and the crowd is so angry that the court cases failed they don't dare Peter Paul Paul's a Roman citizen and if they attack him galio is there and they're gonna be in big trouble so they turn on Sosthenes and they beat him to a pulp and they leave him unconscious on the steps now you may say to me Michael that's an awful lot of information to get out of 1 Corinthians chapter 1 how do you get all of that information and the answer is well it's in the book of Acts if you read from acts verse 8 into chapter 18 verses 7 all the way down to verses 17 you can read the whole story ok that's how we know all of that stuff the question is when Susan is left half-dead on the steps what happened next and it's not too difficult is it to imagine the Apostle Paul who's been commanded to love his enemies Tagg graciously towards all people instead of gloating and triumphing over Souls and his loss walks over and extends a hand of fellowship to him picks him up takes him home feeds him shares the gospel with him prays with him and now sulfa niece comes to Christ and so now when Paul is writing to the church in Corinth that struggling to maintain its purity struggling to main its legal standing in a hostile legal Roman Empire struggling to keep its sexual purity struggling to understand the significance of the cross in a world that seems completely against it he starts off by saying remember Sosthenes he hated us he did everything he could legally politically physically to come against us God stepped into his life and saved him and rescued him God turned that situation around now let me talk about the problems you face and about how God can turn those around as well the response of the church to this kind of Opposition has always been the same when it has been faithful to what Christ commanded it is always manifested itself in love and compassion it's always involved in going to those who come against us or hate us or want to use power are the kinds of worldly power to undermine us it is always involved hospitality bringing people back into our homes it's always involved talking to them it's always involved praying for them and it's always involved inviting them you want to come where are you on that spectrum now sometimes we have to get some things sorted out in our life before we can even begin sometimes we have to deal with the issue of holiness in our life in a decisive way and say God I need to settle this with you I have to come out of this because that's what's holding me back other times is saying I need to make that commitment to you lord 100 percent whatever it may cost me it may be being say now I need to be willing to go out to my detractors those who are against me and be gracious to them it may mean just going next to your neighbor it's interesting that the Bible tells us to love our neighbors and love our enemies possibly because very often they're one on the same person if it's too good for you invite your neighbors and your enemies you need to be praying for them this is why their story is so important we do not pray for what we cannot imagine to be true and if you've written off parts of society you can't even imagine them turning to Christ you're not praying for them to turn to Christ so if you've written off your boss or your neighbors or friends or your family you're not praying for them can promise you that you need a bigger picture of the gospel and a bigger picture of what God can do you need to be willing to talk with them this church will train and equip you to talk to people right and you need to be willing to invite them will you come to Christ come to church come out and meet some of my friends one of the things that you need to do now because of the way I've structured this and because the time is running out I want to just come back to however where we started and just offer a prayer and I realize it's not an easy thing but we're family there's a safety here if you are sat and you know I needed to start at Ground Zero again I just need to come before God and say God I need you to help me from here I need forgiveness from this I need deliverance from that I need to be better to make a commitment to if you're at that place where you know you need to just deal with that in your life before here as we set as a step and it's only a starting point because after I pray for you gonna have to go talk to somebody okay so I realized this is a hard appeal I want to pray for you I really do because God has so much for us out there some of my friends in the Middle East who work with us are being preaching open air in war-torn areas and they're seeing thousands of people coming to Christ another group that I've been working with for the last few years been leading Taliban to Christ last year those Taliban church planters in their country where neighbouring countries have seen forty thousand people come to Christ just in the last year these are hard areas and we live in a hard area but it's not harder than that it's different there's not more difficult we need to make a start so here's what I'm going to ask you to do I want to ask you just to close your eyes for a moment and bow your heads now if you're a guest here you may you don't know who sat next to you so just be careful and you may want to put your hand on your purse or your wallet because we live in a fallen and depraved generation nothing sacred or safe anymore just while you take that moment just asking you as you sit as you're here in the presence of God God are you asking me to make that commitment to you all over again this morning specifically because you've either you're in the process of moving away from him and that needs to stop you to come back to him or because you know there are major issues in your life and they need to be dealt with and this is gonna be just step one in a journey to make sure they are dealt with I want to pray with you and for you now I'm gonna ask you this is a sign there's nothing magical about it but just as a sign that if that's where you are just to raise your hand as a sign of saying lord I this prayer it has to be for me I need this for me and then I'm gonna pray for you okay yeah I can see right down here in the very front and also right up into the middle section and across to the back over there okay so as you are here with your hand just hold it open before the Lord and this just pray together father for each one who is here who knows the pain and the difficulty that comes from being removed from you through what we say a thing can do either I pray Lord they may know your grace and love a freshman and you in their life Lord you brought them with a price the price was a high one you bought all of us Lord at cost with your own life and your own blood Lord we're sorry for what we have done what we pray for that forgiveness for that renewal once more Lord we long to be set free or from the sin that plagues us and Lord as I start here today but I want to receive newness of life forgiveness from you and father I pray for each one that they may leave from this place and open up law to another believer whom they can trust that together or they may walk the path of discipleship and discipline with joy and freedom in you I pray this in Christ's name

Channel: Every Nation London

Views: 23,258

Rating: 4.8666668 out of 5

Keywords: Every Nation, Every Nation London, Hammersmith, Slough, Stratford, Jesus, Bible, Paul, Acts 17, provoked, commitment

Id: 4gIOM8czMaM

Length: 43min 35sec (2615 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2015