Soul Survivor Watford | 21/11 | Jesus, Lover Of My Soul

[Music] yes [Music] [Music] i keep running away three nights in darkness three days in the grave [Music] without your grace lord that's where i was [Music] [Music] in is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so um hey folks welcome can i just apologize to those on live stream you've been on for two minutes i think nearly two minutes and uh we we were busy sorting something out so sorry you've had to wait and um the the church live if you could come and find seats uh we are we have started now um so that means come little ones that are at the back chatting if you could stop chatting and come and sit down that'd be really really helpful thank you um lovely well just want to welcome you and welcome those of you that are watching either live on live stream or you're going to be watching us uh a little bit later on it's great to have you with us and great to have with us those of you that are here live uh others will join us as we go as they always do um if you are visiting us uh for for the first time uh we're not gonna embarrass you just love to know who you are can you just put your hand up if you're visiting us for the foot oh there's a few of you around okay well we really hope you feel at home and uh we're very informal we're very relaxed and what we're going to do is we're going to worship jesus together and we're going to mostly go from song to song and the words will come up on the screen and the idea is that we come to a place of intimacy uh with with jesus if you don't know the songs you'll pick them up very quickly um they're very very simple um tom wrote some of them and uh and then we're going to have a bit of family time and uh family notices that's what we call notices family time and then uh we're going to hear an incredibly boring talk uh that's going to go on forever and uh what i suggest if you're watching on live stream you might want to make lunch during that time and then uh we're gonna see what else the lord wants to do among us so i want you on live stream to put type in underneath who you think the speaker this morning is and uh it shouldn't be difficult um you should you should have guessed by now just type it in that's wonderful so why don't we worship jesus together let's all stand and uh let's pray and father we love you and we want to express our love to you now you're wonderful you're the savior you're our king and lord we we never take ourselves very seriously but we really do take you seriously we honor you king jesus our redeemer amen [Music] my jesus my savior lord there's none like you all of my days i want to praise [Music] my [Music] never [Music] power and majesty prays to the king mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound forever i love you forever i have [Music] my jesus my savior lord there is none like you all of my days i want to embrace [Music] [Music] let every breath all that i am never cease to work [Music] earth let us see power and majesty breaks to the king mountains bow down and the seas [Music] [Music] it [Music] shout to the lord let us [Music] and see prays to the king mountains bow down and the [Applause] [Music] of seas name i sing for joy at the work of your hands forever i love you forever [Music] it in is alone my hope is found he is my life my strength my song this cornerstone this solid [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] and [Music] on righteousness cross as jesus died the wrath of god was satisfied for every sin on him [Music] [Music] they're bursting forth in glorious [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] no fear in death [Music] jesus [Music] or [Music] i'll stand [Music] in the darkness we were waiting without hope without lights till from heaven you came running there was mercy in your eyes to fulfill the lord's [Music] praise the father praise the son praise the spirit [Music] praise forever to the [Music] to reveal the kingdom coming and to reconcile [Music] side knowing this was our salvation jesus for us thank you jesus the father praise the son praise the spirit three [Music] who prays forever [Music] in the morning that he rose all of heaven held his breath till the storms [Music] [Music] for all the come to the father are restored and the church of christ was born down this gospel [Music] it of is christ who has resurrected me [Music] praise the father [Music] glory oh praise forever [Music] praise the son praise the spirit three [Music] is [Music] [Music] is his praise shall be [Music] all that's [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] his name is jesus [Applause] he is [Music] is his praise shall be [Music] forever [Music] [Applause] name is [Applause] [Music] jesus reigns victorious [Music] forever glorious [Applause] [Music] his name is jesus [Music] he is victorious [Music] oh praise the lord oh my soul praise praise the lord [Music] don't praise the lord [Music] who praise the lord [Music] i still amazed in the presence of jesus [Music] and wonder how he can love me [Music] wonderful [Music] how wonderful oh [Music] he made them is [Music] [Music] shall ever be [Music] is love for me [Music] this place [Applause] to sing of his love [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] me the lay between us how high the mountain i could not climb in desperation i turned to heaven and spoke your name your loving kindness saw through the shadows [Music] jesus christ [Music] [Music] [Music] step down from glory [Music] i am forgiven [Music] is jesus christ hallelujah praise the lord is [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus christ [Music] hallelujah praise the lord you set me free hallelujah death has lost its grip on me you have broken every day there's salvation in your name jesus christ [Music] nothing came the morning that sealed the promise [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] began to breathe [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] set me free jesus christ [Music] praise the one you set me free hallelujah [Music] salvation in your name jesus christ jesus christ for jesus [Music] oh man oh man if you'd like to um take a seat uh just want to welcome all those of you that we didn't welcome at the beginning and that's a lot of you um uh yes there's a a lot of you here this morning um there's now spaces uh if over here if you would like to um grab a seat um before i i give them the the notices that i need to give i just need to um i just need to say there's been some unkindness um in this church uh over over the last 24 hours and uh i just need to stamp we need to stamp it out um it's not funny it's not good and it's not gracious the number of you who have come to me with smiles on your faces to say 4-1 is just out of order and not don't you clap and not i nearly lost my straight face there and the number of you that have come to me since the la end of the last service to tell me with absolute glee that oligonosolsky has been sacked is just breaks my heart i just need to say who is he that's genie jeannie is our non is our person in the church has never understood what football is um but there we are we love her anyway he was the manchester united manager until this was shut up anyway anyway it is despite that i love you and uh it's great to see you just a few things to tell you about uh first of all we have um oh yeah uh if you've got children that aren't next door and if uh they're getting um [Music] antsy there's a family room there and the den behind there both have lovely settees i've sat on them all they're very comfortable there's toys i've played with most of them they're very good and there is the the live stream is streamed live to both those places so you can see and hear also we've got a grounds maintenance day this coming saturday the 27th of november you can come and help tidy up the outside areas and the gardens around both warehouses and there are gardens around little little places and if you like gardening or if you just can help it's going to take place from 9 30 a.m till 1. even if you can come for an hour or two that'd be really helpful just to um yeah just to tidy up around and to do stuff like that then we are starting on monday the 6th of december uh on mondays from 9am to 1pm cafe number seven it is called i got told off for saying cafe at number seven um but i've said it right this morning it's cafe number seven and it's going to be next door for anyone for the community the number of people who walk past in the week and are looking for the driving test center is unbelievable and to be able to invite them in on a monday morning and say you look nervous have a cup of coffee uh let's pray for you off you go and also the number of people just on friday uh we were in number seven and and someone came came in and said um is this a coffee bar i'd like a coffee and we said it is a coffee bar but we're closed right now um but it'd be lovely to be able to have folk coming and people in the church um so that's starting the 6th of december uh also on the 6th our monthly prayer worship seek the lord deeper nights whatever we call them happening eight o'clock uh young adult weekend away is sold out but there is a waiting list um and uh that would be if you would still like to go that would be good and the lights are going on and off but i don't think there's anything we can do about that uh and i think yes um just for those of you that are here and those of you that are watching we have a number of resource resources that are coming online uh our sole survivor family of churches website is up and uh you can come and have a look at that the first six churches are up that are part of our family of churches and there'll be lots more that will be coming on that we'll be putting on in the coming weeks and there's a bit about each church and there's lots of other video resources in that and we also have a sole survivor family of churches youtube channel to add to our other three youtube channels we're the only church that manages to have four youtube channels but there we go and um that's got lots of resources uh for church leaders and others as mainly if you're um watching from home and that might be of interest i think that's it there are no more notices um so we're going to take up the offering now oh no there is one more i forgot um there's you've seen this on your um seat serving on a team now those of you that have been coming for the last few weeks you will be starting to feel right now that every time you come here we're asking you for something and there's a good reason for that it's because we are asking you for something every time you come here and um now we've we've been taking your money now we want your talent and your time now i just want to say at the beginning seriously uh we're very aware that coming out of covid a lot of folk uh are exhausted and it's a funny thing we're exhausted even though we were in lockdown for quite a bit of it it was exhausting and uh we're um we focus struggling with stuff wondering about what what's the future looking like do i really want to commit myself to loads and loads of things do i want to get as busy as i was we really really do understand that we really do and so we love you if you don't choose to serve in any particular way but we will love you more if you do choose to be on a team because uh for as a church we're now virtually back up to normal what we were before i mean last week there were over 900 at church um on the on the sunday and this week looks like it's going to be about the same and we've got various teams that we could really do with help with even if it's once a month so i'm just going to tell you and then tell you how you can uh find out more or join we've we our soul kids team at 9 15 service 11 30 service and 4 o'clock service we have the privilege of having over 150 children in our church and they really do need looking after they really do and we've got lots of you have volunteered for the team but with 150 children we need a large team and uh we not we're nearly there to get the naughts to twos up and running but we're not quite there yet we just need a few more to help now all the services so if you can just once a month at one service that would be so helpful then for the morning services the 9 15 and the 11 30 we've got two teams that kind of a function fairly together a welcome team and a hospitality team and our welcome team is the team that when people walk through the door they get welcomed they get uh shown to seats if they don't know where to sit down but they're greeted with a smile and honestly if you come to church for the first time some of us have forgotten what it's like and you come in and you're a stranger and you don't know where to sit because usually the the visitors come a little bit later uh not half an hour early and uh and there's no one to welcome you you can you can feel ill feel ill at ease so it's a wonderful way of helping folk to feel welcome that's why it's called the welcome team and then the hospitality team is around food and drink and that speaks for itself very very important team in the life of our church and uh it's uh we want we want to start serving um you know refreshments and the breakfasts and various other things uh in between services and before services and after services and during services and maybe sometimes instead of services and so we need um i don't mean that last one so um we just need some volunteers maybe once a month to say i can just help on the hospitality team and then for the 4 p.m and 6 30 p.m services those two teams go together and so they become one team and i just want to say um our 6 30 service which we only restarted a few weeks ago it seems to be growing rather rapidly and um last week i think we had 175 or 176 our 630 service and again we just need for those services uh some folk that will make people feel welcome that will make people feel um like they're at home and uh you can join that and then uh we just got a couple more uh what's called the traffic team or car parking team and uh the the traffic team is basically the first people you will see or you should see when you arrive and again if you're new and it's great came road there's actually a lot of car parks around that can be used but you won't know that if you've just just arrived so the the car park the traffic team are there to guide traffic to help people know where they can park and to be the first smiling welcoming warm hospitable face you know when the car parking team when they they say um look you can just go and park there they say and would you like me to run to a coffee shop and buy you a coffee would you like me to get you a croissant uh can i can i give you my umbrella because it's wet i don't mind getting wet for you and that's what they're like aren't they guys at the back not that's what we'd like them to be um and that's the aim i'm teasing i'm teasing so um that's the the traffic team again once a month can make all the difference a bookshop team that doesn't really matter that's not important and then um uh and then uh do you know i did that at the 9 15 service and you weren't there and it was heartbreaking wasn't it and so now i've done it and we've got a reaction um if you want to help with the bookshop help genie and the team uh running the bookshop um then again uh please go in it can be once a month you'll be trained up and it is important because the bookshop sells mine and andy's books and uh it's vital it's vital that someone buys one of our books at some stage um yeah and we'd like to open it for the other services so you might oh yes so you might i just says 9 15 and 11 30 there but if you'd like to volunteer for one of the other services then we can open it for those services as well then also the pac-down team now this is one that is on my heart at the end of the 11 30. if there can be a few volunteers just occasionally we put out all these chairs but the four o'clock service is a lot smaller than this service so we have to put a whole bunch of them away again and it'd be lovely to get some regular help uh to pack down and um because some of us that are involved in four four services a day uh it doesn't leave much time to have lunch uh on a sunday so if you can be involved in any of those that would be great and so what we'd like you to do is prayerfully consider again and fill in the form at the back and uh just tell us a little bit and then put it there's a box there and there's a box at the back and nicola and others of the pastors will be at the back ready to answer your every question on different teams and what they are and what they do so um do consider that and the last thing i'll say at the end of this service there will be as well as coffee there will be pastries served for the first time for a while and pastries will be served to those who have filled in the form for those who haven't filled the form it's a rich tea biscuit um and i'm half joking uh but um but yeah do stay and uh have a pastry i think they're the things that we needed you to know and just before we take up our offering um is there somebody here uh you're visiting you're visiting from somewhere else and you're considering uh a move or a change of life and uh you've you've come here and you've been wondering and you've been asking the lord lord um [Music] is this on an area of your life that needs changing i think it's a move actually and um is that you all right well we'd love to pray for you um because the lord um [Music] do you mind if i share yeah not to embarrass you um but life's not been terribly easy and he knows and he loves you and uh there's been a loneliness and um that the lord is going to show you where home is um he really is and the lord's going to show you and he's going to put you in a place uh that is a place where you know you belong and there can be a healing uh that that can begin and um what would be great to to do is um if nicola is just going to come and just pray for you a little bit otherwise we're going to be doing other things so no one's going to notice all right um and um you guys at the front here um i i could have this wrong but i just think the lord wants to really encourage you um that um there's there's so much more he has for you so much more and uh in some form of leadership i don't know if that makes any sense at all but that might not be a formal leadership role but your influences and others get influenced by you and um and uh the the lord's calling you to bring healing uh to to to people and uh uh and he's gonna he's gonna put people around you um to do that and uh i think it's something that you would never have dreamt of but is something that that actually it's deep in your hearts and he loves that you love him and he loves that you want to serve him and he loves that you you've stuck with him um even in a a bit of a but there's been a bit of a bumpy road uh for you and um and you've stuck with it you've been faithful and the lord is going to use those difficult times he's going to turn it around and the lessons he's taught you you will discover that you can you can bless others and you can bring healing to others if that doesn't make sense throw it out but it does oh i'm glad i'm glad that'll be um 10 pounds um um directly to me not in the box okay um i shouldn't do that because you know there's someone on live stream that's going to think i'm being serious and i'll get another email i so look forward to your emails um particularly the couple from dundee thank you sorry i should have said that i'll stop all right i've stopped okay god bless you we love you we love you we love you all of you um wherever you're from let's stand with the suit with those who are oh i shouldn't have said that at all come those that are taking the offering come immediately immediately run and everyone else stand and what we're going to do is we're going to worship as we give and then um andy is going to come and share from god's word [Music] come let us worship our king come let us bow at his feet he has done greatness [Music] see how his love [Music] overcomes me [Music] you have done great things we dance in your freedom awakens alive oh jesus our savior your name lifted high oh god you had some great faith [Music] you've been faithful to every storm you'll be faithful forever [Music] [Applause] [Music] we know that god you degraded [Music] and break every chain on you have done great things we dance in your freedom always alive oh jesus our savior [Music] heavenly father we are so grateful for all that you give us just take these tokens of our love for you so that we can share it with other people in jesus name amen amen uh well good morning from from me my name is is andy if you're here for the first time i'm part of the team here at the church as well and uh yeah um so i'm gonna i'm gonna launch straight in there are there are two pictures um two big pictures that we are given in the bible of our relationship with god and what it's like and the first of those is the picture of him as our father and we're his daughters we're his sons we're adopted into his family and i don't know about you but i like that image and that's that's one that i gravitate back to but there's a second one and it's one that we talk about a lot less but it's as i've been discovering a core picture for um for our relationship with god and it's this picture of um of marriage that uh jesus is the bridegroom and we are as it were the bride that he is the husband and we are the wife uh in this sense that he is the lover of our souls and even as i describe that to you um you may well be reacting internally that that is not an image that necessarily sits easy with us not only with the blokes but probably particularly for those of us who are blokes it's not something that we would naturally gravitate towards it can seem a little sloppy it can seem a little sentimental it can almost seem irreverent as well to speak of the holy god uh in this kind of this language of a bridegroom and another's his bride and being married to him uh it may well be that you're here and you're not yet a follower of jesus and and you've come along just to find out how strange christianity is or isn't and we're talking about jesus as the lover of our souls and you thought i thought it was weird and now i know for sure um and so welcome uh so for all of those reasons and and and probably more this is an image that's it's right there at the heart of the bible but but we we can shy away from it and i've been discovering it um for for a while now and it feels to me like discovering it for the first time and um i think i kind of always thought of it as a little bit of an edge thing this is like an image that's on the edge it's in half a verse somewhere in the bible and some people take it out of context but it's absolutely not and uh i don't if you've ever seen one of those magic pictures that are sort of like illusions where it's like it's a picture of a rabbit but it's also a picture of an old woman do you know what i mean and it's like you're looking and looking and looking you see the rabbit you can't see the old woman and then someone points out oh this bit's her face and at that point you know we get it and then when you see the old woman it's like you can't unsee her she's all that you see um for me it's been a little bit like that it's been i i haven't really seen this in the scripture and now what i'm finding is this is this is everywhere i look and uh just to give you give you a few um examples of it in the old testament the great picture of god's relationship with israel is one of a marriage and so he marries the people of israel and the sin of israel the main sin uh in the old testament is that they worship other gods it's idolatry but the idolatry of israel is is described in language of adultery it paints this in many places in the old testament this graphic picture of israel as an unfaithful wife to her husband god and then in the new testament john the baptist the one who introduces us to jesus who kind of like paves the way for him he introduces himself him as the bridegroom jesus is the bridegroom john talks about himself almost like an usher at a wedding then jesus himself he talks about himself in the language of he's the bridegroom and he tells these stories these parables that are pictures of a wedding a wedding banquet or a time when 10 virgins go out and they're waiting for for the bridegroom to arrive so it's right there at the heart of the new testament and even more so it's what the new testament is pointing us towards what it's building up to because in the book of revelation this picture of our future that the language of god coming to earth and making a new heaven and a new earth is the language of a wedding it's like the wedding feast of the lamb where again jesus is the bridegroom and we the church are his bride and then this is in the letters so in ephesians paul talks about husbands and wives and he talks about marriage and then he says this is a profound mystery but i'm talking about christ in the church so it's everywhere strange as it may seem the picture of a bridegroom and the bride a husband and a wife two lovers who are one in flesh is a picture for us of our relationship with god and so if we can if it's possible let's park the strangeness of the image just to one side and let's allow it to speak to us of of how he feels towards us because as i've gotten into it i've realized there is some incredible truth here that we want to we want to digest and one of the best places to go uh to do that is a book called the song of songs and if you've never come across it it's in the old testament and it's it's really a love it's poetry it's really like a love story and so think of the great love stories of our time romeo and juliet posh and bex richard and judy all depends what generation you're from ross and rachel mike and a kebab these these these great romances that we become obsessed with right so all of those romances they pale into insignificance in comparison to what you're reading about in the song of songs because it's the story of love between a king and his maiden and it's a celebration of human love and we can learn so much from from the book about human love and love in our own relationships but but it's also been read rightly so for centuries as a picture of an allegory a picture of the relationship between christ who is the king and the church who is the maiden and the love that exists between the two and uh once you start reading it you can see that you are really off to the races pretty quickly because it starts with the maiden and she just like right from from the off talks about how much she desires the king so it says in chapter 1 verse 2 let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for your love is more delightful than wine take me away with you let us hurry let the king bring me to his chambers that's in verse four so by time we got to verse four she's already saying i want the king to take me to bed that escalated pretty quick um it's it's the it's the maiden's longing for the king that speaks of our longing for jesus our longing for god and a little bit there's a part of me that that absolutely connects with that because a big part of me because you think you see this in the scripture we know we're to long for him we know we're we're to desire him so in um in the psalms it says it's just in different words it talks about one point the psalmist says as the deer pants for the water so my soul longs for you elsewhere it says better is one day in your courts than a thousand anywhere else we're told that we are to love the lord our god with all our heart all our soul all our mind all our strength that we're to to long for him the invitation was never to just a satisfactory working relationship it was always to a love affair and this idea of our wanting to see his face our longing to hear his voice it's like yeah okay we don't live there um always but we know that's where we're meant to be as his people that's what we're meant to be so we can perhaps connect with on on that level but you know what what has really blown my mind as i've as i've read this book again has been not the bits where the maiden us speaks of her desire for him it's actually been the bits where the king he speaks of his desire for her us that way round and uh when the king is talking to the maiden it's out of the depths of who he is and he's telling her uh how he feels towards her how much he desires her not long after i moved to watford i was living on the meridian just down the road and i was cycling home 10 o'clock one night and i saw this lat who was about 15 sitting on a fence crying and that didn't happen very much i i went over to him and i just said to him how are you and he obviously wasn't doing very well and then he told me a bit of his story and he told me that he'd he'd never known his dad his mama died a couple of years before his both of his older brothers were in jail he was being looked after by a social worker who didn't want to know and his girlfriend who lived down the road had just dumped him which is why i was sitting there crying and i i didn't know what to say to him but i'll never forget what he kept saying to me over and over was i just want to know that someone loves me i just want to know that someone loves me and the truth is however much we can pretend it's not the case and however many things we use to hide it the reality is in all of us as human beings there is that longing and there is that cry i just want to know that someone loves me and the greatest and ultimate answer to that is that we come to know a god who is love in his very nature but isn't it the case that for so many of us not always but sometimes quite often we feel insecure in his love we doubt it and we question it and and it's like we've come to know him and yet there's still that part of us that thinks i just want to know for sure that somebody loves me well if you can relate to that if that's where you're at if you ever have questions or doubts if you have insecurities about the love of god for you may i suggest reading this love poetry and hearing the words of the king spoken to the maiden as god himself jesus speaking to you because when we do this it becomes very hard to doubt his love so here's a few examples of some of the things that the king says to the maiden so this is in uh chapter 2 verse 14. and this is obviously like love poetry from two and a half thousand years ago or something so the lyrics are a little bit dated they might not be the images that we might have chosen today to describe the people that we love but uh here it is anyway so uh chapter 2 14 the the king says to the maiden my dove in the cleft of the rock in the hiding places on the mountainside show me your face let me hear your voice like a modern equivalent of that might be if there's a boyfriend who's absolutely head over heels for his girlfriend and they're sitting there together and she's just staring at her phone on instagram and he turns to her and says my love my dove would you look at me lift your eyes from the screen and look into my face and she might look up and say what do you want and then he just says i don't want anything i just want to look at your face show me your face i love your face uh it might be like you know there is he texts her one night and just says can you call me please call me so she rings hello what do you want i just want to hear the sound of your voice can you just talk to me tell me about your day i don't care what you're telling me about i just love to hear your voice your voice is so sweet to me now can you imagine a boy feeling about a girl in that way a man feeling about a woman in that way well the image is that god himself jesus feels like that about us really he wants me to show him my face he thinks my voice is sweet really yes really and when the penny begins to drop on this then do you know it transforms so much because it goes from i need to pray because it's a good thing to do to i'm going to show him my face he wants to see it he desires it it goes from i need to i need to worship because i should because you know that's what christians do too he longs to hear the sound of my voice he desires that it's sweet to him his desire is for us in this way and then uh here's another bit she the maiden describes her her lover the king running towards her and this is what she says in verse 8 listen my beloved look he comes leaping across the mountains bounding over the hills my beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag look there he stands behind our wall gazing through the windows peering in through the lattice my beloved spoke and said to me arise my darling my beautiful one come with me if you're a blokey i don't know what the look is that you're going for but in those days to look like a gazelle was that's that's where you wanted to be right and so this is he is a gazelle like um look at him he's dancing on the mountains but like that's the image right and so and if you've ever watched any david attenborough programs there's always gazelles running around mountains on those and so you get the what's the what's the picture energy grace uh effortless passion seemingly they're running and uh and she's saying this is how he approaches me what do we think about when we think about god approaching us for some of us what can come to mind again perhaps not always but often enough is he's reluctant oh it's you again you know he comes but it's but it's slow and that's absolutely not the picture from this from this image it's energy it's it's desire uh it's it's almost effortless grace i think of you know the opposite of hesitation think of like the father in the story of the prodigal son when he sees his son in the distance and he runs towards him that's how god feels towards us he runs towards us and as i am kind of like meditate on some of this stuff and ponder it one of the things that comes up in me is this just can't be true can't be true because i know what i'm like and i see everything in the mirror so how can he desire me in this way there's no way that can be true how can he be attracted to me and i wonder if in part that comes up in us because we think of our relationship with god in these terms in the way that we think of all other human romantic relationships and the way it works uh in in human relationships is we try and make ourselves attractive so that they'll be drawn to us right but you've got to be attractive for them to want you know for them to be attracted and it's most dating these days happens online so you come up with the perfect profile the wittiest profile you can imagine you find the best picture that has ever been taken of you in the history of your lifetime and you post it even if it's 10 years old and and and then you go on the first date and on the first date you wear your best outfit you tell your five jokes you relate the four funny things that have ever happened to you in your life and you hope that you seem attractive enough for them to come back for a second date and then what your ultimate aim is is for them when they really work out what you're like to still be attracted enough to want to stay and we think that's how it works with him uh we can think okay i've got to be attractive to him i don't want to put him off and so i just got to make sure that you know i'm on my best behavior and a lot of the time we know that's that's not what we see in ourselves so we struggled to think how he could be drawn to us and again imagine it like a couple dating they've just started dating two to three weeks ago and you know he rings her up and says i'm just around the corner surprise you know like what would any human being in that situation be if you're in your house i've got to tidy up right running around like a headless chicken putting the dirty dishes in the cupboard and like hiding the laundry and trying to make your life look like it's semi-organized before he knocks on the door before he's peering in through the window and the lattice and all that stuff he's like he's coming you know like and we can think that with him in the way that he approaches he's coming we've got to look good we've got to get busy tidy up the mess hide it all away otherwise he might not be interested it's that if that's where we're at we've missed the heart of the gospel completely i've got to get my mess sorted so that he'll be drawn to me do we understand what the cross is i know i i do and i don't that the whole message of the cross is not that he saw we were sinful died for us then realized actually they really really are sinful i hadn't quite tweaked that i now regret that sacrifice i've made that was not that's not the gospel the message of the gospel is he sees us in our mess he knew before we were ever conceived how much how much sin was going to come out he knew before we were ever born what a mess we would make at times of our lives that the worst aspects of our personality are not a surprise to him they do not catch him off guard he knows our houses are messy and he understands that our souls are messy too he understands that our minds are broken and dirty he sees all of that and still like a gazelle leaping down a mountain like a father running for a son he hasn't seen he's gone and made a mess of his lives like jesus christ coming from the throne of heaven to the cradle in the dirt and ultimately the cradle of the grave he comes towards us that's that's the whole message and we sit here thinking he's not attracted to me because of my mess this week i think that i've got to come back to this book again and read the god who fell in love with me and trust in the goodness and the truth of it and my question off the back of that is okay so you're drawn to me in that way and you see it all and you still come running it's not that he doesn't care about sin he despises it he just loves us that much you still come running my question is why why and you know what the answer is um you know it's like the story goes on and there's a lot of like language in here that you're like is that i'm reading this and i think does that mean what i think it means as they get towards the bedroom chamber is he saying what i think he's saying is she saying what i think she's saying i remember mike telling me that you know when he became a christian and he was just reading through the bible for the first time he got to song of songs and he was like what the heck someone has spiked my bible um there's all this stuff in there about caressing and enjoying each other's bodies you read it for yourselves but it's is that what they are they talking about what i think they're talking about yes the goal of all of this is is intimacy it's closeness and the language that paul uses in ephesians he says for this reason a man will leave his father a mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh this is a profound mystery but i'm talking about christ in the church and he's taking that image of the most profound intimacy that can can exist between two people in a marriage and he's saying that there's an even greater intimacy than the oneness of flesh that can exist between human beings and it's the oneness of spirit that exists between us and jesus our savior his goal is not that we might just do stuff for him although we will work with him in this world his goal is love his goal is intimacy his goal is you he desires me and he desires you and if we can absorb this the implications of it are so far-reaching and the maiden she she gets it and so there's a few places where she says stuff like this i'll just read this to you verse seven uh chapter seven verse ten she says i belong to my beloved and his desire is for me she she was so confident of his love that she could say something like that um just imagine if you were able to wake up in the morning and know absolutely no be on the shadow of a doubt be on the even the faintest whisper of a question in your heart i belong to him my beloved his desire is for me can you think about how we would pray differently if we just knew that his desire was for us how we would serve him better if we just would we're just at peace that we belong to him and his desire is for us it is it is and a question to finish is you know what is the practical application of this talk having done all of that you know what's the practical application got to have a practical application the practical application is this for us all of us to enjoy it imagine you won a holiday to the caribbean and first class you know you travel there uh you get out it's beautiful sun you remember the sun really does exist and it's heat and you remember what that felt like you hadn't felt that for so many years and you know you go to this amazing five-star hotel and you walk out onto the balcony and there's the view and there's a you know bathing in the sunshine and stuff you wouldn't at that point say what is the practical application of this holiday would you what you would do is you'd be like i've won yeah i'm going to enjoy it i'm going to i'm going to get out on the sun lounger and i'm going to bake in the heat till i'm as pink as it can be i'm gonna i'm gonna soak this up i'm gonna enjoy it the practical application is we get to enjoy him and commands such as love the lord your god with all your heart mind soul and strength all they are is they're an invitation to respond to his love for us which came first to the fact that he already loves us desires us even with all of his heart all of his mind all of his soul and all of his strength we get to enjoy him this is how he feels about us i belong to my beloved and his desire is for me oh man wonderful and andy there um has just um he's just put the theology around the biblical stuff around what god's been doing among us the last few weeks if we're honest he's been pouring out his love by his spirit on our monday prayer and worship nights here on a sunday when we've had visitors and and what we've what we've been talking about over the months really about about the amazing love of god and uh the reason for that he we've been talking about it he's been doing it and now there's a bit more of the theology around it is because many of us uh we like i said earlier there's a weariness amongst many christians right now amongst many people in our country in the western world because of what we've been through um and and there's there's been some disappointments there's been a bit of disillusionment there's some questions about the future and what life might look like going ahead even this last week hearing about what's going on in europe i don't know about you but i've thought for the first time in a while oh my goodness this winter might not be so great and it's like can we bear it and and all of those things and the truth is jesus is alive he is lord and he is love and his desire is for you and me and all we can do is receive it as andy said so wonderfully and enjoy it that's what we're gonna just do now for a little while we're gonna in a moment sing a final song of worship but i just want to invite those of you in particular where life has been a struggle and and maybe you felt bad that life has felt a struggle because you know physically you're doing all right but actually internally it's not been easy and you want to say lord meet me bring bring back to life that which seems damaged or seems to have died a little bit it may be that you've come and you know you've got decisions to make and you just don't know you don't know you don't trust yourself i think that's it for someone you don't trust yourself the lord wants to meet with you the lord wants to meet with you because he is big enough and you don't need to pretend he wants he our voice is sweet to him however whatever we think of it it's what he thinks not what we think and so i invite you if any of that is you to come as we sing our final song of worship and we would love there'd be folk here that would love to pray for you not not they don't need to know everything they just need to invite the spirit uh to meet with you why don't we stand together let's stand together and just particularly i think there is some here you you've been struggling with a a low level anxiety for a long time and you're fed up with it and you just don't know what to do about it it's just this low level and it just keeps being there in the background and it is sapping you of energy and life if that's you as well please come forward i really believe the lord wants to meet with you so why don't you just start coming now don't wait for someone else just stand somewhere here at the front those that will pray will wear masks we've got masks at the front and we'd love to pray for you if you know that's you that's it just come if there's others just come just come this is a safe place this is a safe place that's it that's it and if there are others don't be afraid just come right forward and there'll be folk that would love to pray for you both sides that's it and what we're going to do now is we're going to worship and as we do if you would like prayer come as well the lord is here let's worship with our final song [Music] this is my desire [Music] to see you on lord with all my heart i wish [Music] and all i have within me i give you praise [Music] is [Music] i give you my hearts i'll give you my soul i live for you breath that i take every moment i'm awake lord have your way in me [Music] oh this is my desire to [Music] lord with all my heart i worship you [Music] within me god i give you praise [Music] [Music] lord i give you my heart [Music] breath that i take every normal time away is [Applause] [Music] away now we're going to continue to worship and pray at the front here the lord's doing some lovely things but we're going to officially close there's coffee at the back and pastries let's keep the conversation at the back do consider any way that you might be able to serve in the church and talk to the team at the back and fill out the form but right now let's say the words of the grace together let's say them together may the grace of our lord jesus christ and the love of god and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with us all evermore amen amen go in peace to love and serve the lord we're getting there great god bless you see you very soon let's keep worshiping here let's keep hanging out with jesus [Music] son of god [Music] raise the dead and come the sea give thanks to his name [Music] praise the kingdom [Music] [Music] jesus our savior [Music] then he died [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] praise the king of majesty praise the lamb who died for me praise the price [Music] sing forever [Music] [Music] see he reigns in glory now every word [Music] he rose above time and space yet in his heart we have a faithless [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] praise the lamb who died for me [Music] jesus [Music] you jesus king jesus hallelujah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] king jesus [Music] praise the kingdom praise [Music] [Music] we'll see forever jesus [Music] pray [Music] [Music] there's no one like jesus [Music] [Music] i'm with you [Music] the only one i love i'm no good with no one else [Music] [Music] [Music] fear

Channel: Soul Survivor Watford

Views: 24,129

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Id: cr8ABSB9JQg

Length: 95min 50sec (5750 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 21 2021