Strengthening Your Core | Spiritual Fitness | Nicky Gumbel | 10 February 2013

exciting day today we are in a series on discipleship we're looking at the subject of emotional and spiritual health and also we are combining that this is a second in the series last time we looked at the subject of don't forget to stretch this week we'll look at looking at strengthening your core last week we had a look back at some of the activities of HTTP that your you give towards and this time I want you to some extent lightly different we're looking at two donors to people who are members of this congregation explaining why they give why they give to http and of course if you give to HTTP that HTTP supports alpha and William Wilberforce trust and caring for ex-offenders and family life and all the other charities you're giving to as you give to HTTP so here are two donors explaining why they give who else has changed in the world this is amazing and I think alpha is about to double quadruple and its effectiveness and influence I think you haven't seen anything yet the thing that excites me about giving to HTV is that you can see the difference it's making in people's lives week on week one particular example sticks in my mind Paul Cowley was mentioning how they got ex-offenders onto the ex-offenders program I went from being one of Britain's youngest most dangerous business within a maximum-security prison is that dangerous the English prisoners it can't walk in your darkness as riot shields and riot gear and they have to feed you for wear hutch in the door with locks because it can have physical contact we're so I walked walking on an alpha course and I said god I hate Who I am we're here I said god I hate Who I am who are we call they have a comment on my life so that's one person's life changed and so it really tried to bring home to me how even very small amounts of money can have such a big impact personally I give by standing order and one a monthly basis and the reason why I give is because of what I've seen work in people's lives through the Alpha course and the William Wilberforce address I've had run brothels all over the country I lived in hotels smoking crack all the time and that's how I thought life was my friend from Bambury came to stay with me she wanted to go to church my stall I'm not going I'm not going there yes you are so I was kind of dragged screaming and kicking to church while she was jumping about and praising the Lord I was like wandering around the back looking at leas blips and now as you do and I'm I found one it said recoveries with now on the streets in London I have a sealed pension it profits I'm sure my mansion the churches on the nitrc surface which I'd never heard of before I'm gonna come and I was just blown away by the place that the likes of the volunteers you know they were brilliant and I got and I thought well you know why you use doing this you should be outside you own yourselves now no you're looking after the Ganga Trump's you don't know what we are you know what we've drawn by over there but you willing to sit next to in all of me no no I don't know anywhere else where the organization generates so much good for that money I can see now more than 20,000 students were reached for a ministry I can say that if every believer in India runs alphago's our country will be saved in no time though so much is happening what I see is all of us put together all the stories we have so much more today proverbs 3:9 and 10 honor the Lord with your wealth with the firstfruits of all your crops then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine or as the message version puts it on a god with everything you own give him the first and the best your barns will burst your wine vats will brim over honor the Lord with the firstfruits what does that mean what is firstfruits setups what I want to talk about today of course in the Old Testament it was the first fruits of the harvest that they were giving but what does it mean for us to give the first and the best this is all about priorities I remember when we were first married this is in the days before the married prep course and so on we went on a marriage weekend and they gave us these cards which we were to rank in order of priority and the five cards said God work ministry wife children husband wife children and so on but those were the five things we had to rank in order of priority and I got it completely wrong I got God right I put that first that wasn't too difficult to work out but then I don't what what's next why is children no does not let's go for ministry number two and then I thought what now number three well we didn't have any children so they couldn't be terribly important I put them at the bottom number five they were office Fira so I've put wife third I think I thought that was quite important first I put work and then I put Jordan at the bottom and what they explained to us and what really helped me and it's helped me in my life since is that yes of course God is first but second is your husband your wife above number three is children but you know the best thing that a man can do for his children is to love his wife and the best thing a woman can do for her children is to love her husband that's an even higher priority and then work is our primary ministry if you are at school your school work is your primary ministry if you're a student your student work is your primary ministry and then your minute know that not the ministries aren't important your ministry in the church and so on is is unimportant but these are the big five if you like but they are these are our priorities now another illustration that really helped me was in a book that I read by Stephen Covey called seven Habits of Highly Effective People and habit number three he says is put first things first and he uses this illustration and many of you will have probably seen it so forgive me if you have already seen this this illustration but I found it so helpful and this is a visual aid and as you know I never use visual aids so it has the potential to go horribly wrong but here is a visual aid and I've got my assistant my lovely assistant max is going to come and help me do this visually so max so what will you have here this is this represents your life and my life and when this is full we've got no more room in our lives so this rice represents all the stuff in our life oh look I don't know the phone calls the chit chat the the stuff that takes up so much time all the stuff that yeah it just comes like waves on us and these rocks represent the really important things in our lives and so often what we do is we have all this stuff and then we try and fit in the really important stuff so that you know if you put your relationships got time with God yeah how do how do we get that in and then a relationship with our you know family relationship with our husband wife children or if you haven't got a husband what finding a husband or wife is that is a very important priority and we try and fit these things we try and move the other stuff out the way and try and squeeze all this stuff in its the things that are are maybe not urgent but they're really important in our lives the things that we are ministering well obviously our job is a hugely important piece that goes in here but holidays recreation time to recover time to recuperate all these so as you can see max is having real problems get getting in that that's some finding a wife you can't quite get that one in there and you have these two that that's his work so this is this is one way that some up we struggle with our our lives and this is where you kind of have all this stuff and you try and just kind of prioritize your schedule to try and fit everything in but then there's a different way of going about this and this is we get another one of these verses and this is this is another way of looking at your life and it's very obvious this but another way of looking at your life rather than just prep prioritizing your schedule you schedule your priorities you put the big rocks in first you put your relation time for your develop your relationship with God you put family friendships relationships in there you put your your your job your ministry the important the urgent thinks there so the important things that are not necessarily urgent things that really train you for your all these kind of things and then the other stuff all the other stuff can basically come in around that and it's amazing how much of the other stuff actually we can fit in if we do this all the other stuff in our life hope we're doing pretty well aren't we yeah it doesn't even matter of a few rice bits go over the top because this looks there's some bits so we probably don't even need in our life but here we are we've got everything in brilliant well done my lovely assistant so when the right of proverb says to honor the Lord with the first fruits with the first and the best what does that mean in terms of these priorities how do we how do we order our products I want to look at three areas where we need to honor the Lord with the first fruits with their art the first and the best in order to live lives that are spiritually and emotionally healthy so here is the first area this is about how to have a healthy day so in for a penny in for a pound since we're going for visual aids I've got another visual aid as well here we go this is your day and there are two ways of going about this so this is how some people go about their day this is zero their day starts at zero and they go downwards from zero as they go through the day and then they get home and they crash and they recover enough to be a zero the following day that is living life in the negative zone that is an unhealthy lifestyle this is the alternative this is a positive this is a healthy lifestyle this is where you build up your spear and emotional resources it doesn't necessarily have to be there's not there's not a legalistic diagram but let's say I mean for me that's the very first thing I do in the morning for me like it's like breakfast physically I need breakfast in the morning but also emotionally and spiritually I need time with God that be different for you all of you but it's kind of like worship and reading the Bible that can feeds me the Bible to me is like spiritual food that replenishes me pray I like to be able to pray about the stuff that's coming up I don't want to go into meetings and seeing people who haven't prayed about those things and I find that this time is at this time it's building up those reserves those that energy and then during the day it kind of goes like that it's like you know you can you can go up again you can press on the lot so you can't pray during the day or this is not going to be legalistic but it's kind of this is how it goes and then the following day you're back up there but this is however you do it this is life living life in the positive now of course some people they say this the first and the best and for me they say is not first thing in the morning I'm not my worst they say first thing in the morning for me it's two o'clock in the morning that I recharge and that's when I'm at at my bed it doesn't matter but the point is we need this stuff this is the the energy the GAT it's like sometimes I'm a little bit impatient and when I'm driving a car driving my car I see that the tank is on empty but I just don't have time to stop off and fill it up and some people go through life they never take time to fill up before they live their life this is healthy lifestyle that's honoring the Lord with the first fruits of our day so that's the first area second area is of that that's having a healthy day second area is a healthy week how do we have a healthy week what is what does it mean to honor the Lord with the first fruit first and the best of your week well let's take this one to represent your and my week so some people's weeks is like this they start at zero Monday to they go through like that gets worse and worse as the week goes on and then they crash at the weekend and they recover it 2-0 whoops nearly not that over this is this again is unhealthy lifestyle this is not where we're meant to live in in constant deficit so what is God's provision isn't it amazing that the Resurrection changed everything and one of the things the resurrection changed is the day when God's people worshiped him and rested and relaxed and which day did Jesus rise from the dead the first day of the week the first day of the week is when you build up your spiritual reserves for the week ahead so for as it's Sunday that's the day that's why all of you guys you're doing the right thing you're here you are worshiping God you are building up your spiritual and emotional reserves with worship and work and rest and relaxation and refreshment those of you watching this on video we love you too next week come and join us here and there may be very good reason why you're watching this and we're always thrilled that you are watching it but you guys who are here you've done the right thing because you this is about community it's coming together with one another worshiping together refreshing one another and having the energy now Kenny this is not legalistic of course it goes you know you can go to a pastor it and go up like that when you go to out for you can do whatever it is but the point is that you have the first day of the week it's how how we honor the Lord how we give him the first and the best and this is the way to live and emotionally and spiritually healthy we know I told you last last week that the I read this book on the emotionally healthy church and I did some of the tests and I found that there were areas that that I was didn't do really well on and I told you last week though that one of those areas for me was was grief and loss and that I'm actually getting professional help to help me be more healthy in that in that area but there are other areas would I have to work on - to be honest I had to work on this because I struggled to get a day off and I but I'm determined to try and live a healthier lifestyle his daily these are areas unhealthy that I have doing the tests I was so thankful my wife Pippa did the tests also and I can tell you although she marked herself very low she still came out totally emotionally and spiritually healthy so I have an emotionally spiritually healthy wife hallelujah so this is where I'm trying to get to a healthy week as well so third area where we are we are to honor the Lord and this is the one that the verse specifically refers to is his honor the Lord with the firstfruits of your with your wealth with the firstfruits of all your the amplified version here says income give him the first and the best Churchill Winston Churchill said to you we make a living by what we get we make a life by what we give and until we get our giving sorted we're never going to get our life sorted and again there are a healthy and unhealthy ways that we can have with our finances so let me take again this this to represent our finances it's all about getting the rocks in first the big things they're really important things into our lives first the really important things for our day the really important things for our week the really important things for our finances and again some people's finances not so healthy so they they start the with their paycheck takes them to zero and then the rest of the month they're going down like this in debt and then the paycheck comes in and they're back to zero again the whole time they're operating in below this line they're operating in the negative now course debt is nothing wrong with with certain types of debt mortgages are are helpful ways to spread out spending over a lifetime student loans are Nessus neccessity in in these days there all kinds of of debt which just eases our life but this is debt that we are in control of your credit cards are a form of debt there's nothing wrong with using credit cards in fact modern life is almost impossible without credit cards but it depends on how you use those I would urge you to to to pay your credit card the moment that bill arrives never pay interest on your credit card that's a downward spiral pay all your bills don't wait for red reminders pay your bills the moment that they arrive don't don't don't live in debt if you can possibly avoid it but of course not all of us can avoid and some people get themselves some people you know they come to faith in Christ and they are in situations of debt debt is not a sin but it's area where we need help sometimes and I said to you last week that this area of grief and loss was an area where I was getting professional help and and I've done it quite openly and I'd encourage you if this is an area where you need help to get help and don't worry about who knows about it it's okay there's nothing there's nothing terrible about this and I crossed light is there is a resource that we have there's two things the money course if you want to if you're worried about money or you need help with it it's just a great course to learn the money mat manage your money better but there's also this cross life which is a debt advice thing for those struggling with unmanageable debt and you need professional help and the situation we would like to get this is the situation where it's a much healthier way you you receive your paycheck and that's what you're using and you're operating in this area of health but this the key thing about operating in this area is to get your priorities right and to get the big rocks in first so to use this analogy that the key thing is to get into here the big things in your finances and I would suggest that what this verse is saying the very first rock that goes in here not the last not okay have we got room not when I've done all these things have you got room for one extra Rock which is giving that's the wrong way to do it and you'll never have it you'll always find it's like that situation it'll be the rock that's left here if you're giving the leftovers but what this is saying is make sure the very first rock that goes in is you're giving to God honoring the Lord and then put in the other big rocks might be your mortgage payment might be your your your gas bill it might be whatever it is that you have to you have to to pay but put those in and then the other stuff will all fit in but if you just let all the other stuff fit in you'll find that you're giving to God is the bit that gets left out and that is unhealthy is a in terms of the people of God that's not the way that we're meant to live so how do we do this how do we we honor the Lord with the firstfruits of our income what is the what is the new testament sated it to us about this well first of all it says that we should give regularly you in 1 Corinthians 16 Paul talks about setting aside a sum of money that's why I encourage you all to give by standing order that's the way you can regularly give this away differ and I give we give by standing order I don't want there to be a month when we've forgotten because this is a high high priority so it's we give the New Testament says give regularly then it says give proportionately what proportion should we give it's that the firstfruits what was the firstfruits in the Old Testament that if you look at the background to this they gave 10% of the harvest and that was the law and as Christians we are free from the law we don't have to give you no tithe but the but what the early Christian said is this is so amazing isn't God amazing he's freed us from all that legalism and stuff but they said well we wouldn't want to give less than 10% as a result we want to give more than 10% and I think that's a good you know it's a good it's a good test in a way it's a good good I find it helpful not legalistic it should be 10% of your gross for 10% of your net is all kind of legalism it's just give generously I wouldn't want to the amount that we give to be less than 10% of anything because God has been so good to us and we want to honor him with the firstfruits of all our income I'm talking to two members of our congregation here if you're if you consider yourself a part of this community we give two we give our hours to http vast majority to http because nobody else is going to give two H to be apart from members of HTTP if you are not a member here may I encourage you please when you get back to your church to your community please would you do this would you give generously would you give regularly proportionately to your church you know the church in this country is so underfunded what could happen in this nation if people everybody gave in this kind of New Testament firstfruits the first and the best honored the Lord in this way sacrificially that's the the next thing that the New Testament says the that the Macedonian Christians out of their severe trial and their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity for I testified that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability you don't have to be rich in order to give in fact poor people give proportionately more than rich people that is statistically the case but if you don't give when you're poor you'll never give when you're rich and then give strategically Jesus said where you where your treasure is there will your heart be also give your heart will follow you're trying to give to the things that you care passionately about this is the the reason that we give in the in the way that we do because we care passionately about the things that we're giving to I care I was an atheist and I am so grateful to the people who told me about Jesus because that changed my life that's why I'm passionate about alpha I'm not actually passionate about alpha at all I'm passionate about people meeting Jesus and alpha is just a way if we find a better way we're gonna drop alpha and run the better way because this is about people encountering Jesus but I'm passionate about that because I know Jesus changed my life that's what I want to invest in that I'm passionate about I walk past as you do I'm sure you see these people in the street living rough on the streets of London in the freezing cold and yet we don't want to just give them cash because we think they may not use that for the best purposes so that's why we have this night shelter this is why we have we have this drop-in shelter so that they can be fed and looked after and find some warmed to sleep and helped to be get back into a job and get back into accommodation because we care passionately about that so I care passionately about caring for ex-offenders we have 40 ex-offenders in our congregation and I love them and I love the fact that Jesus has changed their life I want to see that multiplied all over this nation I love the addicts course you just to see because we all struggle with stuff in our life and I love these the fact that these people say I really need help and I want to see those people have the depression course the the stuff that's that's combating trafficking because I hate the traffic I hate to see what's happening to people's lives it's just such a cruelty such an injustice we want to fight injustice I hate some of the things that are happening in our nation a way that we seem to be drifting away from God's standards so I'm passionate about leadership because everything rises or falls on leadership and we need good leaders in government in in the church in every area and commerce in culture that's why I'm I'm passionate about family life I just see that the the damage it does to families breakup is so tragic when it happens and so often it's it's not actually necessary many of the people the reason that the so many marriage many of marriages break down is that people are just incompetent at marriage because they've never had any training what else would you go into in life without any training in all your jobs you get training before you do anything even driving a car they don't say it look just drive it will give you some training before you have to pass a test before you you can even drive on the road marriage is far more important than driving and yet you say no no you just go into it you don't need any training at all just go and have a go and then we're surprised that so many people mess up that's why I'm passionate about marriage preparation because it's changing marriages and its meaning that children can be brought up in a secure home so passion about the marriage course of parenting courses these things are so important in our society and that's why that's what I want to invest in that's what I want to I'm just thrilled to be able to invest in things which really make a difference in children in youth in students this really really matters and I want to encourage you if you if you never given before we never given regularly before start start small if necessary I've taken that Pilates recently I used to think Pilates was not firm it's bit of a sexist thing to say by using Pilates was not for me and but I've learned differently I've Pilates is very important for everyone so I've taken that Pilates but it's it's you know when you start they the first thing I'm still do the plank have you ever tried doing the plank it is agony they said just we'll just do it for a minute I lasted seven seconds but then I did it another time and another time and another time and I built it and now I can almost do a minute and I think you'll find if you start giving you get the hang of it and you think yeah wow this is a real blessing the more I give the more I seem to be blessed and what my life seems to be best the more freedom I feel the less whole money has on me let the more excited I am but all the things that God is doing through what I'm giving I love this I want to give more we try to give more every gift there we try to give more because we found you can't outgive God the more you give the more blessed you are this is an amazing thing and this is what it's all about and I love I just love the the stories I love to see what happens to people's lives this what it's all about because ultimately it's all about the one Eddie's given me permission to tell you his story Eddie is one of only two people I have ever banned from coming on alpha and they're the same reason in both cases alcoholism and not just alcoholism we of course we welcome people who are alcoholics but people who are disruptive who disrupt we have nearly a thousand people on the course and if they're disrupting all the other people that it's just not fair on the other people and Eddie was very very disruptive here's a picture of how Eddie looked when he was disruptive or when he first came on on the course and here's a guy who came from Glasgow he left school at 16 with no qualification he was abused by his uncle at home he came to London slept on the streets got involved in crime went in and out of prison heroin addict for 13 years just his life was prison streets drugs alcohol prison and then one day one of the other guys who was living on the streets he looked come along to the homeless shelter at onso square and he came into the homeless shelter and this and they said well would you like to come on the Alpha course initially he was very disruptive but then he came back and he said okay I'm gonna I'm gonna behave behave myself and he came he came on the course and he came on the weekend and on the weekend Paul Cowley prayed for him he invited Jesus to come into his heart he was filled with the Holy Spirit he was set free from his drug addictions his alcoholism all the stuff that had wrecked his life and here's a little DVD of him talking about the difference it's very hard to understand he's got a very very strong Glaswegian accent but his Eddy got Laurie lament we do you know covered 80 the first area of admin feet planted had been stable give me love give me but when attendees or I'm evil capable Melanie not a drink for ten months no I joined for about a year I don't even look at in the future much I don't spike the bear yesterday today's great Zumba I'm not drinking but carried only way I was a potato yeah they'd all be dead in 10 years time or 20 years time affair years time but I've got an opportunity where I can change and I can give something back and get sold back to the community and get some practices notice the number of times he said give give back to society I want to give now he's giving money he's in his enough we got him accommodation and he's out of his benefits he's starting to give not it he volunteers he gives his time and he started to give his money as well and I love Eddie I mean I love these guys it's just so amazing to see the Leadership Conference last year was full and we had to write the debenture holders say could they release their seats and we also wrote to the Queen and said would she be kind and releases the Royal Box which holds 20 people and she wrote back and not I didn't abide she someone on her team wrote back and said they would release the Royal Box for our most distinguished guests so we've put into the Royal Box our ex-offenders and homeless people they're our most distinguished guests so Eddie came to the Leadership Conference and he sat in the raw box and this is the amazing thing that God is doing this is so exciting and this is all grace this is all God's amazing grace I ended last week talking about grace and that that that's what it is all about this is about all amazing things God does for you and me and we give out of what he's given to us it all belongs to him in the first place but we demonstrate that by giving the firstfruits the first and the best to him and as we do so God promises this is the his amazing promise that as we do so then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine last week I talked about well is it I bit about amongst other things about vulnerability and it's interesting because I've spoken here for the last 25 years or so and I've never had a response like I had to last week's talk in all the 25 years and I realized that what I was talking about is the fact that that we may try and press people with our strengths but we connect through our vulnerabilities and I was talking about it as having a new kind of openness about the stuff that's really going on in our lives being honest with one another and I says this is something that the Holy Spirit is doing among us as a as a community and I think it's connected I sensed what the Holy Spirit was saying is that there there is a kind of connection between the openness of our hearts and the openness of our wallets and that these things go together as we open up as we begin to open up our lives as we open up our finances then this would be true for you individually God will bless in an amazing way but it'll also be true for us as a community that as we do this together we as a community will find that in some amazing way God meets all our needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus amen let's pray Lord we thank you so much for your amazing grace and thank you for your generosity towards us and Lord today we want to ask you to show each one of us what you want us to do how we can live and emotionally and spiritually healthy lifestyle healthy days healthy weeks healthy finances in Jesus name Amen you

Channel: HTB Church

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Keywords: HTB, Sunday Talk, Spiritual Fitness, Nicky Gumbel, Gift Sunday

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Length: 40min 0sec (2400 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 11 2013