Mark Pugh | Dressed for Success | Garments of Praise

[Music] and those in the room i'm not wearing my usual attire today because we invited people to maybe wear something a little different as a demonstration of our preparedness for coming with garments of praise today and i gotta say i felt a little conscious walking from my car to the city center wearing this beautiful top which i passed a friend of mine from chennai in india bought for me it's not the complete outfit he bought me some white trousers as well and i've got to be honest there are two problems with them first of all i tried them on and i couldn't get them over my calves so and secondly they were see-through so i hope you understand that i made what i believe is the right choice this morning in not wearing the full outfit but i love the dynamics some people wear in different sort of costumes different parts of the world and i love that we are a family of nations here at the church and it's a great joy to be a part of such an international family this is the last week that you will look towards the stage and see the scaffolding i understand so scaffolding comes down this week our ceiling is now safe so um that's been repaired um it's been an expensive job but it's one that's been important um to complete for the um avoidance of everybody needed to wear hard hats on sunday so we're grateful for all this time where they've been able to work on that and get that ready to go i had a pastor friend of mine who was doing a series called rebuild and he called me he said i wish i thought of the stage set like you had i said it's not a stage set it's just repairs taking place but um we're looking forward to hopefully getting a little bit more capacity back in the room as well as scaffolding comes down when you complete a series particularly a series that's gone on for nine weeks which is longer than our series normally lasts that um there's a danger that at the end of it people cheer not because they've enjoyed it but because they're just glad it's over so i hope today that um there will be a sense of joy around what we've looked at together which has been about the clothing that christ gives us a new wardrobe that he gives us as followers of jesus and to be honest just as i felt conscious walking through the city this morning wearing an indian shirt wondering what people would think of me it just felt a little bit conspicuous the reality is when we wear clothes that god has given us we do feel conspicuous we do feel like we stand out we do feel that people might look and pull a face and say why are you wearing that but we're gonna see and remind ourselves that the clothing that christ gives us is not an optional extra it's not an additional wardrobe it's meant to replace our wardrobe previously it's not a physical wardrobe it's spiritual clothing that we are called not just encouraged but we are commanded to put on let's look at our key text together which is colossians 3 and maybe just attend to this mic with you because i can hear it feeding back thank you colossians 3 verses 12 to 15 it says these words since god chose you to be holy anybody chosen to be holy this morning yes you have been chosen by god since he has chosen you to be holy people he loves you must look at the emphasis there you must clothe yourselves with tender hearted mercy with kindness with humility with gentleness and patience make allowance for each other's faults forgive anyone who offends you remember the lord forgave you so you must forgive others above all clothe yourselves with love which binds us together in perfect harmony and let the peace that comes from christ rule in your hearts for as members of one body you are called to live in peace and this is what we look at today and always say after me always and again always look for the asterix with the exclusion clauses about the circumstances and realize there is no asterisk and say again after me would you always and always be thankful when you say always be thankful and again always be thankful see what we where it projects and persuades us of our new identity in christ jesus and we've looked all of these things so far that i've just read through isaiah 61 verse 3 in the new king james version it says these words to console those who mourn in zion to give them beauty for ashes notice the swap there the oil of joy for mourning notice the swap there the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness notice the swap there those that wear that swap that get rid of the old wardrobe and wear the new they will be called trees of righteousness the planting of the lord that he may be glorified now before i look at the garments of praise this morning and we are going to end a bit later on with a sense of rejoicing and alignment to the things of god in a new gear in a new level in just a few moments time but before i look at the garment of praise there are some things i need to take you on a bit of a background journey almost like a pre-seminar before the talk that i think will help you first of all these key texts that we've been looking at over this series from colossians 3 were written in an interesting context there were two things i want to draw your attention to one of them is that paul who wrote this letter to the church to the colossian church he was writing from his prison cell that's a very interesting place to write from and say always be thankful secondly he never met the people he was writing to this was a group of people that he had heard from someone else that there were challenges in this community and one of the challenges they were facing there were people that had infiltrated the church and they were introducing new teaching wrong teaching and paul was concerned about this wrong teaching and he wanted to help them understand the truth he replies in this letter with some of the clearest and the most descriptive language about the supremacy and the sufficiency and the centrality of christ and there was a reason why he did that because these false teachers they weren't denying jesus but they were lower in him he wasn't quite as central or as required as the gospel says he is and you see the main battleground in your heart and in my heart is not that we believe in jesus it's not that we have a faith or we call ourselves christians the main battlefield of our hearts as followers of jesus is that he is central that there's no other throne only one throne that we bow before in worship and that's the battle of following jesus is the daily there is a battle to stop other thrones pitching up in our lives it's not so much a game of thrones but the war of thrones within us is he the only throne or is he a throne among thrones and paul addressed these teachings that didn't deny jesus but they watered jesus down today there are many false teachers around some of them have got youtube channels some of them write books some of them host conferences and we have to have our radars up just because someone sells lots of teaching doesn't mean to say that we should take everything they say we are called to be mature in the lord just because hundreds of thousands of people have watched the youtube video doesn't mean to say that everything in that youtube video is to be digested we have to measure everything against the word of god and the same responsibility exists for you here this morning regarding what i say just because god has called me to be the lead pastor of rediscover church doesn't mean to say i'll always get it right or my views are always the thing that are the the right thing it's important that we grow to maturity so that we can weigh things up that's what spiritual maturity is not to become cynical and not believe anything anyone says but to always measure up against the measurement of god's word if i say anything that is not in here then it doesn't matter how much you like me it doesn't matter how nice i smile or doesn't matter how much you enjoy we discover if it's not in here don't build your life on it and also come and talk to us about it as well not in a way that we're going to battle it out but i just would love to hear because you might have something to correct me on the main battle in our lives through all the false teachers all the false teachings is to make sure that jesus is high and lifted up and above all else but be aware that most false teaching doesn't introduce the names of other gods it just diminishes the centrality of the one that we worship for example jehovah's witnesses they will say yeah we believe in jesus yeah we believe he's a son of god but if you go to john's gospel chapter one in their in their bible and their translation and their version it says in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god is what we have but they say the word was a god see you notice the watering down there you know it's the redaction of the significance mormons they will say that jesus is god he's the firstborn spirit son of god but he's not part of the trinity in their belief you see you notice the watering down there the muslims they will believe that jesus was a prophet and he said good things that he wasn't a bad man they will elevate with with reverence the words of jesus but he's one of a prof of a number of prophets and you notice the trend the trend to water down the trend to lower the trend to reduce off the throne the centrality and the supremacy and the importance of christ and that's exactly what paul was addressing to the church in this letter and that's the challenge that we all face in our lives today is jesus central is he central to everything is god is he trustworthy is he true is he faithful it's the word of god he's the first and the last he's the king of kings he's the mountain mover the waymaker he's the one who just opens doors that no one else can open he's the one who's supreme he's the one who holds the stars in space he's the one who keeps the universe without any scaffolding held together he's the first and the last the beginning of the end the alfred and the mega the joy and the peace and the life and the hope he's the resurrection and the life he's away the truth that's our god and anything that waters him down don't believe it don't hear it but i think our radars are fairly good at picking up those things but as well as us discerning teaching that will seek to water down or redact the significance of jesus in some way there's another more powerful and more subtle influence that seeks to infiltrate your heart and my heart to reduce the significance of jesus in our life and this powerful thing that keeps knocking on the door of our life is our culture is our world culture knocks on our life and seeks to set up other gods culture has always been a powerful force in fact i'm going to read a verse from romans 12 verse 2 which i'm going to read it from the new living translation which may not be quite so familiar to you but it says this don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world but let god transform you into a new person by changing the way that you think then you will learn to know god's will for you which is good pleasing and perfect our behavior and our customs and address before the lord is meant to be different to this world the niv which you probably will be more familiar with says it this way do not conform to the pattern of this world there is a pattern that pattern is not changing as time goes on that pattern is always to get the people in the world to either establish a throne in their life that has some other god or if you're following jesus the pattern is to get you to put multiple thrones in your hearts so that jesus is watered down that has been happening since mankind began much of the old testament is a picture of this very battle we see the battle with the patterns and the behaviors and the customs of the world around them you remember god established the people of god he said i will be their god and they will be my people do you remember that declaration of commitment that god has over the people of god and then he says i'm going to take you into a land and it's a land flow of milk and honey and what do the people say all the nations around us have a king they have a palace we want a king and god says i'm your king and what do they say well we know that god but we love a king like the other nations god says no you wouldn't and they say yes we would oh no you wouldn't oh yes we would and the craziness of it was that you see there's no one who can take place on a throne that's ever going to be as good as god there's no one that's as loving as god who's ever going to sit on the throne there's no one as faithful as god who's ever going to sit on the throne there's no one who can protect the people as good as god who's ever going to say on the throne and god said if you have a king they will do some good things but they will also do some bad things and that's the story we see time and time again mapped out and we see that there's some ugly scenes in the old testament where they invade a nation and they're told don't take any of the goods from that nation because other nations had idols do you know where an idol is in those days it might have been manifest in a carving of some sort a god made in image whether it's carved out of wood or car or formed out of silver or some other precious metal but at the end of the day it was made by people and the nations around the people of god were full of idols and god said don't have those idols don't have those gods and there were times it seemed like the decision of god was quite brutal as to some of the things they needed to do to mark out their borders to say don't adopt those patterns of the world it's not just about having a king on the throne now but it's about adopting the idols and that we see they didn't obey and we see in the land that there were asherah poles and there were gods of baal there were other foreign gods that were brought into homes and you might say well we don't have idols today i've visited quite a number of your homes and i've never been into one of your homes and seen in the corner a little shrine with some yeah that's that's the god that i created if you have one you've hidden it well for me when i have come round i don't think those are where the idols are particularly of prominence today but i do think there are idols in our hearts i do think there are other gods of this world and the pattern of this world that we adopt and we share thrones with in our hearts we don't deny jesus we don't backslide and say i'm not having anything to do with jesus we just build a few more thrones and maybe we'll compartmentalize and that's the person we go to for this and that's the person we go to for that but let me tell you that while people say that society has largely gone away from god i want to dispute that i believe our society is more religious than it's ever been but the person on the throne the idol is self that's the biggest religion of our day and people are feeding the god of self continually feeding their own desires their own wants and it's not a new phenomenon we read in the book of judges that they did what seemed right in their own eyes and let me tell you something that's desperately and sadly true in about idols is that they will always fail to live up to the expectations we set upon them and we have got a society that's full of identity crisis why is it full of identity crisis because they worship in the god of self and they find it's desperately falling short of the ability to satisfy their lives the god of self just exists everywhere and it exists man-made images in our life and it's powerful and it affects me a number of years ago i was taking a train journey from when i lived in the north of england and i was traveling down for some meetings in london and i booked my train ticket in advance and when i got to the train station there were a few things that is worth you noting about this uh moment and one of them was that i had a backpack with me with a computer that i needed to write an article for a magazine that i used to write a monthly column for and i needed to get that complete by the end of that day but i was going to meet in london all day and so i had planned that my train ticket was a seat with a table and a plug socket so i had it planned what a great idea i'll use the three and a half hour journey to write this article i should get it nailed in that time second thing it's important to know that when i arrived at the train station the platform was packed and as the time of the arriving train got closer people were jostling their position a little bit you know some people try and do that politely don't they and they just you know find ways of worming their way through crowds you know a bit of moonwalking and just you know trying to make it look so others are a little bit more demonstrative and they elbow their way forward but i didn't need to participate in any of that because i had a ticket with a reserve seat so i just thought let them battle it out it's fine i'll just let them all get on the train i'll be a lovely christian come on no you first you go so this train arrived hardly anybody got off and i could see through the windows that there were loads of people already sitting on the train and i look and see all the people on the platform how they all going to fit on but it's not my problem because i've got a ticket with a seat with a table with a plug socket that i'm going to finish this work and so everyone makes their way into the train and i just casually walk on before the doors close and i walk into the carriage that's the one that's printed on my ticket and i walk towards the seat with a table in front of it that's on my reservation and i look and they're sitting on my seat is a lady that must have been about 120 years of age and she looked fragile and she was sat there just casually looking out the window and as a follower of jesus with three and a half hours worth of work in my backpack i'm thinking what do i do i thought throw her off but of course we if you've been a christian in a while you know that's the wrong thing to do so what you do is you learn to do nice to express bad things in nice ways so i went to the lady and i just bent down and said excuse me um i'll be having a nice day um have you reserved this seat and she said oh no i haven't um i'll move it was free when i got on the train i'll move and i thought jolly right because i could see now with the trainer run out of seats where people standing thought absolutely i've got three and a half hours worth of work in my bag yeah i went through all the effort of phoning a call center in india to book this you know please you should move but i'm a christian so i said it's fine you enjoy the seat enjoy the journey and inside i was assassinating her so i thought well i'm sure there must be another seat on the train somewhere so i walk through the carriages and and i and i can see there's a few more carriages ahead and i saw a member of staff from british rail walking through and i said excuse me um someone sat in my seat see that lady over there 120 year old she's in my seat but don't don't disturb her no no leave her there are there any more seats on the train he said there are two in the very end carriage so i thought braille i'm gonna get this work done so i begin to make my way to the end carriage and on the way i see people standing so i see this guy and i say hey mate never met before but i hear there's two seats in the end carriage follow me we'll get them so he follows me we get to the end carriage the door's open he sees one he sits in it i look around for the other and there is no other i've now got two people on this train i want to kill but i'm a christian so i'm smiling and externally i'm presenting it as if it's all together and jesus is so wonderful and inside my heart is just eating up and i'm thinking how am i gonna get this work done i spent the three and a half hours standing holding up hold watching that lady eat her salmon sandwiches hello you know in many ways it felt that it looked like jesus was the lord of my life but when that train pulled into the station in paddington and i stepped out onto the platform after helping the lady over the step by the way looking like i was a great christian and the spirit of god just spoke to me about the stench of my heart the selfishness the me me me that's on the throne you know sometimes we don't dethrone jesus we just add some more thrones and i on that station repented said god i know i've preached it if you're not lord of all you're not lord at all i'm sorry and i find that there's a battle for the throne of my heart on such a regular basis the train seat was just a manifestation of that battle in my heart i wonder what your manifestations are like but i do believe that god has empowered us all to win that you see and i'm back to the scripture here in colossians three always be thankful because what we praise we magnify see if i'm constantly worshiping at the foot of me and my wants and my feelings and my hopes and my desires and my dreams i magnify that throne but it says always be thankful and it's not saying just be a person that's positive it's being a person of praise that wears that garment of praise continually in our lives praise evicts the impostor gods from the throne room of our hearts the idols of our culture are dethroned when we praise our exclusive king of kings and lord of lords the kingdom of god is inclusive for all but the throne is exclusive to god and this is so important that god included it in one of the ten commandments exodus two verse three says you must not have any other god but me battle for our praise is the battle for a throne now lots of people have been saying to me over the pandemic i've recalibrated stuff i've recalibrated things have changed i've made some decisions i've evaluated i've reassessed my life and i've recalibrated some have recalibrated their job and their careers some have recalibrated their hobbies or their daily patterns others have recalibrated relationships but i want you to know that unless you've recalibrated your heart your recalibration will lead to disappointment it's not change that makes a difference it's enthroned in the lord that makes a difference in our lives that's what we recalibrate other gods promise so much and disappoint so profoundly please hear my cry when i say this your career will never satisfy you your new life in the countryside will never satisfy you your new holiday home by the sea will never satisfy you only a life lived with the unrivaled unequaled king of glory seated exclusively upon the throne of your heart only then will you know you are truly satisfied that's why from the prison cell paul could say always be thankful i'm seeing a fashion across the world of christians saying during the pandemic we've been able to worship from home being able to read god's word from home i don't need church i don't need to gather with other believers and i and i sort of get it and i understand it and you know and i think one of the beautiful things is that people have discovered that they shouldn't just be fed once a week and attended on a sunday but i also want to put something of a counterbalance in because i do believe you probably could manage worshiping from home you probably could manage studying the scriptures you probably could get lots of teaching from youtube you probably could try and reach your neighbors with your hope but whilst i agree that in theory that is possible i appeal to you that the idols of this world are likely to consume your hearts eventually unless you're in relationship with the family of god unless you're in relationship sharpening one another encouraging one another building up one another exhorting one another just challenging one another church is not our idea is not a denomination's idea it's god's idea and it can look different in different contexts it doesn't all have to be big gatherings or small gatherings there's nothing more righteous about meeting a home than there is to meet in an auditorium there's nothing better or worse about the one or the other what is important is our hearts are surrendered and that jesus is sat on the throne of our lives and i'm not concerned whether you wear a mask i'm not concerned with your singing tune or out of tune i'm concerned as your pastor is jesus exclusively sat on the throne of your heart because some of you struggle to worship on a sunday not because we don't sing the songs in the key that suit you not because we've not sang your favorite but some of you struggle to worship because you've got multiple gods in the throne room and you need to be dethroned i appeal to you the idols of this world the patterns of this world have always sought to divide and rule and there's never been a time where the church needs to come together and stand strong together never been a greater time in the nation that's needed this than now i thank god for brothers and sisters that help recharge my batteries are you just on friday we we've done a lot of our staff team stuff you know online over this pandemic and proximity being in the same room as each other has not always been possible in fact it's been impossible for a lot of the time but on friday we had a day together in our prayer room downstairs and one of the most significant comments was isn't it great just to be in the same room and i think we all left encouraged inspired by each other's stories we've been doing these garden parties and in lots of the garden parties we've sat around in a circle and people have shared some of their story and we've left it wasn't it good to hear them talk about their faith and see the centrality of jesus in their life and you leave encouraged and inspired i want to encourage you to not be cut off from the family of god in conclusion our praise are always being thankful our praise points to the king of kings exclusively on the throne when we have jesus as our king we never lack resource we have a faithful king who has bountiful provision when we have king jesus exclusively on the throne the prison walls don't hold us captive our hearts are free when we have king jesus on the throne we don't get intimidated by the power of our enemies we have an all-powerful king bam would you come and join me our praise and our thanksgiving points to him and says he is my king is he your exclusive king this morning are there idols that need to be cast down are there patterns of this world that have been influencing and watering down the significance of our god let me tell you in the old testament story it's often quoted as one of these stories around praise where the israelites were called to step into victory over the great impenetrable city of jericho and we read that god asked them to do this in a very unusual way because these walls were so intimidating the power of the enemy was so intimidating there was no way of breaking through in the natural certainly he would have taken a great plan and strategy and much force to have broken through that wall but they are told by god to march around the wall once a day for seven days and on day seven to march around seven times but who was at the front of that line was significant and we see it often in the scriptures we hear that there's praise that goes ahead because i believe one of the significant things is that when we put always being thankful at the front when we put our praise at the front when we put our decision to thrown king jesus at the front everything else comes into context it doesn't mean to say we don't have enemies it doesn't mean to say we don't have troubles doesn't mean to say we're not in prison cells it doesn't mean to say we don't have to have our radars up for false teaching it doesn't mean any of that stuff disappears but it sets our perspective and our understanding really clearly because what we praise we magnify what we praise becomes bigger and dethroning the other gods the idols and enthroning king jesus and as they marched around those walls and they saw the enemies gathered on top of the walls looking down wondering what they were doing they marched around in silence for seven days but on day seven the seventh time they walked around they were to lift up a shadow praise to declare that god there is no one like you there is no king on any throne in this world that is like you there's no one more powerful you than you there is no equal there's no one who can compare with you church we need to remember who it is we're serving [Music] we're not serving a bankrupt god we're not serving a god who's without resource we're not serving a god is without vision for the world we're not servant of god is without power he is all all-powerful almighty all supreme and when we praise him we magnify you let's stand together just close your eyes as you stand [Music] if there are other idols would you just lift your hands and say god i repent and i cast down everything that sets itself up every stronghold that has set itself up in my mind and my heart to compete with the supremacy of christ i lay it down i dismantle it [Music] jesus comes alongside having made a public spectacle everything that sets itself up in opposition to christ triumphed by the cross [Music] jesus we declare that whatever our circumstance whatever our experience whatever surrounds us we declare there is no one like you or god there is no one like our savior [Music] you are all powerful almighty all sufficient and we lift you up what we praise we magnify hallelujah [Music]

Channel: Rediscover Church

Views: 38

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, Christ, God, Holy, Spirit, Devon, Exeter, Exmouth, Crediton, radio, music, Rediscover, Elim, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Evangelical, Church, Chrisitianity, faith, mental, health, suicide, addiction, depression, anger, anxiety, help, hell, heaven, peace, joy, hope, happiness, family, friendly, love, culture, freedom

Id: qagLIO2-4fA

Length: 39min 25sec (2365 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 08 2021