Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Father God, we thank you so much that you saw this day coming.
[00:00:12] Lord, I believe that your calendar is full of exciting moments where you look ahead and you say, I can't wait for that.
[00:00:19] And these moments when we gather in your name, Father, and we just come before you with humble, open hearts saying, God, would you do something for fresh in me? Lord, I believe that you never turn us away. You always answer that cry.
[00:00:34] And so this morning, I pray that as I preach, as I share what you've laid upon my heart, Father, would you do something wonderful with us? Lord, I pray that each person in this room would hear something that they need to hear in order to transform life and lead us closer to you. In Jesus name, amen.
[00:00:52] Amen.
[00:00:54] Amen. I want to start by just sharing a little bit of my journey over the last five or six years or so.
[00:01:02] How many of you have found yourself praying that prayer? Break my heart with what breaks yours. We sing that song, right?
[00:01:11] And it's a brilliant song, asking God to tune us in to what moves him and to allow us to. To realign our lives, to get in step with what God's priorities are in this world. It's such an important thing to do, and this is something that I've sought to do throughout my christian walk. But I think it was probably maybe five or six years ago, as I was praying this prayer, God, break my heart with what breaks yours. I found that there was this holy frustration that began to brood within me. I was leading Totnes united free church just down the road, and I loved it.
[00:01:49] Cut me down the middle. I'm a pastor, you know, through and through. I love it. And I love teaching. I love journeying with people. I love seeing God do things in people's lives. I love it. It's who I am.
[00:02:00] But there was this holy frustration. I was doing my dream job, working amongst some wonderful people, loving it in so many ways. But there was a little element to what I was doing that started to gnaw at my spirit. And it was this. In that particular context, in that particular church, in that particular role, I could not escape spending about 80% of my week in admin and in doing, basically keeping the show on the road, managing the teams, managing the building, managing the programs, leading and overseeing everything, which is an incredible privilege. Right. But there was a little bit. I could only spend maybe 20% of my time journeying with people, really walking with people, really listening to people, being attentive to people, sewing into people. It was just so admin heavy. And also what I noticed is I probably spending 90% of my time with christians, and I had to get really creative to try and get into the spaces where people that didn't yet know Jesus could build a relationship with me.
[00:03:09] And that just. That reality started to eat away at me and eat away at me and eat away at me. And one day, the Holy Spirit gave me this picture.
[00:03:18] And what I saw was, like, this vast ocean, and there were people literally fighting to stay on the surface, trying to tread water as best they could, grabbing hold of bits of driftwood, holding onto bottles, and anything that they could find that was a little bit buoyant, and they were just treading water. And through the middle of this big sea of people, I saw this luxury cruise liner. It was just like this beautiful cruise ship.
[00:03:45] And there was worship coming out of this cruise ship. It was amazing. And I just saw in my mind's eye this very comfortable and I safe and joyful group of people on this cruise liner.
[00:04:01] And as I was watching, I just thought, that looks amazing. The quality of the worship is stunning.
[00:04:07] Everything that was going on just felt like an amazing place to be, and it was just moving through this sea of drowning people. And I felt the Lord say, this is the priorities of some of my church, some christians, especially in the west. This is what it looks like. We're in an environment where people are spiritually drowning, grasping for something to hold onto. They don't even know in how much peril they are, and yet they are drowning. They are right on the edge of death.
[00:04:43] And yet my church is so often preoccupied with the quality, the programs, the luxury church experience in a safe in crowd.
[00:04:57] And that is what absorbs so much of our attention. That's what we look for in a good church. You know, how good is the worship? How good is the oratory from the front? Is it full of TED talk, quality preachers? You know, is it gonna be, is there great programs where I can have a brilliant social life on the side? You know, and there's nothing wrong with all of that. I love all of that. That should all be firing on all cylinders, okay? Because that's a part of the joy of us being together.
[00:05:23] And we admire those gifts. We love being led into worship. We love the anointing. We love the preaching. We love all of that that should be there.
[00:05:31] But it's that blinkedness to the fact that so many people are drowning in our community spiritually, that really hit my heart.
[00:05:42] People would never look over the side to see what was going on. Instead, they were focused on what was happening in the in crowd. Are you with me? And it was. It was this holy frustration that then sort of erupted into this visual, visceral thing that then I could not push aside.
[00:05:59] It's a powerful thing. It's a powerful image. And I started asking myself, well, firstly, the question came to me. The big question, is the father looking for the flashiest cruise liners or the most effective lifeboat cruise?
[00:06:13] You know, I found myself wanting to get out there and pull people out of the water, and I was looking for a way to do that. And I asked myself, what does it look like to serve God full time, but focused on reaching the lost and the struggling spiritually to tip that 80 20 balance, to spend 80% of my time journeying with people and shining a light, and 20% of my people, of my time in administration, and to spend 90% of my time with people that don't yet know Jesus and 10% of my time loving. Spending time with people that love Jesus as much as I do. What does that look like for me?
[00:06:48] That's why I'm a chaplain in the Royal Navy.
[00:06:53] As I really got on my face before God and said, God, what does this look like? It was amazing how the Lord just moved options off the table for me.
[00:07:01] One of them was moving the option off the table of carrying on, doing what I was doing at the time. And the one thing that remained was this opportunity to join the Royal Navy and go after a generation of young men and women who don't yet know Jesus.
[00:07:18] And what I want to share with you this morning is I have been absolutely astonished by the openness and the spiritual curiosity in the younger generation.
[00:07:30] I went to Dartmouth to do my officer training, which was. That's a whole load of stories there, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna let that horse ride by.
[00:07:39] I went there expecting to find quite a lot of antagonism towards my faith. I mean, these are graduates. These are thinking young men and women who are joining the military. You might imagine that they'd be quite hostile to faith. Not a bit of it.
[00:07:54] At the very least, there was a response, respect for my life, choice, that I had stepped into this vocation, that I believe what I believed. I believed it enough to orientate my life around it.
[00:08:07] Very least, there was respect and listening, but there was a whole lot of spiritual curiosity, and there was also what I would describe as a desperate spiritual hunger in many of them as well. It was extraordinary.
[00:08:22] I was there days before the questions started coming.
[00:08:26] People just wanted to know. Sometimes it started with, so, you know, how did you become, you know, get interested in becoming a chaplain? As simple as that. Sometimes it was much deeper than that of, you know, as I've watched you, I've seen that your faith is real to you. Where do I start? How do I pray?
[00:08:45] How can I make a start in prayer? You know, amazing, amazing conversations. They would often come around mealtimes where we'd be sat in the junior gun room and we'd all be there and somebody would ask a question. And as soon as we started sharing on this level, you could hear a pin drop. The whole table would just turn its attention to the conversation because there was that curiosity there. Sometimes it was like yomping across Dartmoor or cooking ration packs. And the question would come and people would just sort of gather in like moths to a flame because they were really interested to hear what was going on. And by the end of my time at Dartmouth, we saw twelve people baptized in the chapel there. There was another seven or eight that said, I really want to take a step of faith. I really want to come out and say that I'm a believer, too, but I want to do it amongst my friends and family from where I come from. I really want to come out as a Christian back in my hometown, so I'm going to wait to do it there. But there was a clear move of God, and now I'm at Lympston working with these young royal Marines, some of them ridiculously young, doing one of the hardest courses on earth, and they're only like 1617. I feel like a detached youth worker most of the time, but an amazing opportunity there. And next Sunday I have the privilege of baptizing nine of them. Isn't that amazing?
[00:09:58] Amazing.
[00:09:59] There is a genuine spiritual hunger amongst men and women in the emerging generation. Don't let anyone tell tell you that people are not interested in your faith or that the emerging generation has no spiritual curiosity. It's just not true. It's not true. And we need to be leaning into it, we need to be praying into it. And the more I have let God focus my life on this burning passion to reach the lost, the more I feel like I can understand it.
[00:10:32] Let's move the slide on one more.
[00:10:38] I want to get your imaginations going.
[00:10:41] So in 10,000 years time, we could have, like a reunion. We could have a rediscovered Newton Abbott reunion in heaven, right?
[00:10:55] Everybody gets together. We're going to have a mass barbecue somewhere in heaven just to remember the good old days. Do you remember those years. Do you remember that decade when we saw church just fly and we reached out to all the young people in Newton Abbott and we saw we had to outgrow our building twice. And this is what the story is going to be, I believe. Right?
[00:11:17] And we're going to talk about the good times. We're going to talk about those times where we went somewhere extraordinary in worship. We tasted heaven. Do you remember?
[00:11:26] You know, and when we look back on that time, this time is going to feel like the blink of an eye, 10,000 years time. We're going to remember these years, and it will feel like it was over and done in seconds because of our perspective of eternity will be growing. Right. It's hard for us to do that right now, but then we will see it. What do you think is going to be? Well, as we look back, we're going to think is our main priority for this time.
[00:11:53] For this time it will be. How many people we managed to share our faith with. That's true. What's going to really matter, the most important thing that we could possibly conceive is how many people we brought with us into eternity. That's what's going to matter in this little window of opportunity that we have.
[00:12:14] That's going to be the most important thing. And just imagine being able to look across the room or look across the table and to see somebody there. That has become the very fullness of what God intended them to be. As they've gone through this life, they've begun that sanctification process. They've begun to change. They've begun to refine. But now they are in the presence of God, and sin has dropped away, and they've stepped into the absolute fullness of who God intended them to be. And they are a glorious, shining son or daughter of the living God. And you look across and you say, I remember when I brought you to faith.
[00:12:46] I remember when I pulled you from the ocean. God enabled me to be in the right place at the right time with the right passion shining from my life. And I was able to bring you home with the help of God. Or God was able to do that with the help of us. You know, how rewarding is that going to be? That's the gift that keeps on giving century after century after century. We're going to be so glad that we took that opportunity, that we were brave enough to walk across the room and say something about Jesus.
[00:13:20] That's what's going to matter in 10,000 years time. That's the future perspective.
[00:13:26] It's important.
[00:13:32] I wonder if there's a little bit of us in that moment. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't with this person. Have been lost.
[00:13:40] I don't know how that works. All I know is that Jesus uses you and me to do the job.
[00:13:49] And Jesus modeled it.
[00:13:52] Jesus modeled it.
[00:13:57] Jesus had this eternal perspective.
[00:14:01] He could see all of it.
[00:14:03] It dictated his priorities.
[00:14:07] I still can't quite believe that Jesus public ministry was about three years long. I mean, how much can one person achieve in three years? It's just insane.
[00:14:15] But if you look at Jesus priorities over those three years, what really mattered to him?
[00:14:21] And you see that there is this search and rescue passion of God that follows him through his ministry. You read the gospels and in every page. He never stops moving. Have you noticed that Jesus never stays in one place for too long? He's always moving from place to place to place to place.
[00:14:38] His ministry is characterized by this search and rescue type of ministry. Has anyone been watching the chosen hands?
[00:14:47] That's not enough of you. The chosen. It is a dramatisation of the life and ministry of Jesus. It is brilliant. Honestly, you'll find yourself in tears watching it. Get it. It's an app. You can get it on your phone or your iPad or whatever you use.
[00:15:04] The chosen, write it down, watch it, binge watch it. It will do you the world of good. It's brilliant. But what it does show is how Jesus is moving on, moving on, moving on, moving on. It's divine appointment after divine appointment after divine appointment. And part of that is because he never stays in one place. He's always looking for someone who is ready to be saved.
[00:15:26] I mean, just one example when he wanders into Jericho, he's moving through Jericho and the crowd's all there lining the streets, and he sees one little guy in a tree called Zacchaeus, okay? And he knows as he's walking through, he knows that I'm here in Jericho for that guy. Something in him, his holy spirit. Alarm clock goes off. He gets that nudge. There he is. That's the one I'm here for. He says, right, come down. I'm coming to your house for tea. Okay? He goes to Zacchaeus house.
[00:15:59] Does he know that this guy is like the local mafia? I don't know. Does he know that he's defrauded pretty much everyone in town and nobody can stand him? He's like an illegal tax man. I mean, it's not going to win you any favors, is it?
[00:16:14] Let me read what it says. This is Luke 19 from verse nine. This is after Jesus has sat and just shared the beauty of the gospel with this man. He says, this salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to do what? To seek and save those who were lost.
[00:16:43] That was Jesus perception of what he was on the planet to do, to seek and save those who are lost. And I absolutely love that that salvation came to his. That sense of being saved, being pulled out of the mess of his life, happened on that day in the presence with Jesus, where this guy had this massive transformation. And he said, this, this what's happened in this man's life, this is a perfect picture. But what I'm here for, I'm here to seek and save the lost.
[00:17:16] It's his primary, one of his primary vocations.
[00:17:21] So he's always moving. So he pops into the pool at Bethesda, finds one person that can't get into the pool, ministers to that one, and walks out. There must have been tons of others in there. He goes after that one person that he knows that can't walk, raises them up, walks out. He always stops at the gates of cities as he's coming in. So many of the stories happen as someone cries out at the city's gates as he's coming into the city. He pauses at the wells. He crosses over the lake.
[00:17:49] Always on the move, always thinking, there's something over there. There's something on the horizon that's calling me forward. I think there's a few times where Jesus crosses the lake, and the disciples seem confused. They're like, really? Okay. Well, you know, it's getting late. I'm not sure we've got any bread, but you want to go over there? Yeah, we're going over there. You'd have thought they'd have learned by sort of year two, year three of the ministry that God was up to something. But no, normally they're like, really? Well, I was just thinking I might just have something to eat in an early night, you know? But Jesus wants to go, and so often he will cross the lake. And what happens? There's one person on the other side.
[00:18:25] There was the time when they crossed the lake, and there's this guy who's been living amongst the tombs, and he's been cutting himself. He's still got the shackles on his wrist where he's broken his chains because no one can restrain him. And he's naked and bleeding, and he comes out screaming at Jesus, what do you want to do with me, Jesus of Nazareth? Because he is so traumatized. He is so in the grip of the enemy. He's got demonstration, like, dripping out of him.
[00:18:54] And after Jesus has had this huge power encounter with this man and set him free, there's this beautiful picture at the end of that little encounter where it says, and the man was sat, clothed and in his right mind. It's just like this picture of pure peace that's come to this man's life. Incredible, incredible transformation.
[00:19:13] I love it. And so what does jesus do? Does he stay with this guy? Does he build a monastery on the coast and stay put? No. By the end of the day, he's back in the boat moving back across the lake, and the guy says, can I come with you? And he says, no, you've got to go to your hometown and tell them about what I've done for you. And then he heads back across the lake, and as soon as his feet hit the sand, you've got Jairus there with his saying, my little daughter is unwell. Would you come? He's terrified.
[00:19:39] And he's moving then towards Jairus daughter because he believes that this is his next divine appointment. And then who comes and touches him in the crowd but a woman with an issue of blood, and she has wasted all her money on doctors, and she now needs one touch from the king that will change everything.
[00:19:55] So she reaches out and she touches him. And what does jesus do? He pauses. Okay, where's my one? Where's my one? There's one. There's one. There's one. Who are you? And this woman eventually steps forward because it's a shameful thing in that culture, what she's done to come and touch a rabbi when she's ceremonially unclean.
[00:20:13] And she says, it was me. I touched you. Because he felt it. And jesus cared enough to pause and just stop this emergency.
[00:20:22] Like paramedic move towards this little girl. He stops it all, and he focuses on this one and he has this conversation with her and he says, go in peace. Your faith has healed you. He restores her dignity. By this point, they're coming to him saying, the little girl's gone. She's dead already.
[00:20:38] But Jesus knows that's my next appointment. That's my next one that I'm going after. So he doesn't care about their views. He doesn't care about their report. And he goes and he raises up the little girl from death.
[00:20:50] He is constantly on the move, constantly looking for the one. This is how Jesus is whenever jesus spent time in prayer with his father, he always emerged from prayer fired up for going to the highways and the byways and look for the one. Have you noticed that there's a direct correlation between the times that Jesus disappears because he wants to hang out with his dad and how he emerges from that place and goes on to do the next thing? Let me just read you one of those times. This is in Mark, chapter one.
[00:21:31] Says this. Mark, chapter one. And from verse 35, before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went to an isolated place to pray.
[00:21:40] Later, Simon and the others went out to find him. And when they found him, they said, everyone is looking for you.
[00:21:49] It's a bit confrontational, that.
[00:21:52] But Jesus replied, we must go on to other towns as well. And I will preach to them too, for that is why I came.
[00:22:00] So, having hung out with his dad all morning from daybreak, and then finally they track him down, he comes out with this kind of reaffirmation of the purpose of him being on the planet, which is to go to the other towns and villages and preach there also. That's why I'm here. He said.
[00:22:20] So Peter and the other disciples, what are they preoccupied with? They're preoccupied with the crowd. They're preoccupied with this, with his celebrity status, I think where people are coming from, all over Galilee, they're meeting in mass numbers. They want to see the guy, they want to come and see this person that can open blind eyes and set people free and do all this stuff. And there's this movement, there's this momentum to it, massive show on the road. And the disciples are a bit embarrassed because they all come and say, we're ready to see Jesus. And they're like, well, we don't even know where he is. And they're feeling that pressure of ministering to the in crowd, right, the followers.
[00:23:00] And they were a little bit ticked off when they can't find him. Jesus must have been a nightmare to work with because he didn't care. He just went off and hung out with his dad. Yes, that was his priority. But when he came back, he was not about to say, look at the crowds. Isn't this amazing? He's like, let's go find someone obscure in a village down the road.
[00:23:20] Isn't that extraordinary? That's the pearl of great price that was always on his heart.
[00:23:27] What did he say about the 99 sheep and the one? Do you remember?
[00:23:31] It seems counterintuitive to leave the 99 in the field or on the hillside and go after the one that's lost. And yet there is something in the heart of our God that cannot resist. And he knows that is the way the kingdom comes. That is the way the kingdom overspills into new territory all the time where the light of God suddenly will shine in a new area and people in that area will see it's not by ministering to the crowd of preaching to the choir, ministering to the crowd of people always that are on the inside. We have to have that priority of the one down the road that doesn't yet know Jesus.
[00:24:06] That is Jesus priority. That's how he modelled it. And the early church ran with it.
[00:24:12] You see this wildness of Jesus, this desire for Jesus to go after the one laid upon the early church as a mantle. It's almost a bit like Elijah with Elisha, where Elijah, Elisha puts on Elijah's coat and seems to walk in that same grace as Elijah and he strikes the Jordan and it parts and it's all really cool. It's a bit like that with Jesus in the early church. They seem to put on this mantle, they seem to put on this passion that Jesus carried for the ones and the twos in the obscure places. And they run with it. And you see Philip going to Samaria of all places, where the Samaritans live.
[00:24:51] You know, if you're a jew, that's a really weird place to start. But he was like, no, there might be somebody over the border that needs Jesus.
[00:24:58] So all of that prejudice, all of that racism that they've been steeped in from birth begins to drop off because there may be somebody over there that needs Jesus and he's compelled to go by the Holy Spirit. And then you see Paul and Barnabas. They want to go through the entire roman world because there may be someone over there at the extent the other side of the roman empire that needs Jesus. And so they go and they get shot, shipwrecked and they get stoned and they go through all their stuff because there might be somebody at the other end, there might be somebody that they need to reach. And thank God they went. Thank God they met Lydia in Philippi and planted the first church in Europe without which you and I might not be sitting here today because they cared that much and they needed to go.
[00:25:46] I love the way that that mantle passes. And then you've got all these legends that I just love through the early church. How many of you have read stories of the celtic church? Hans?
[00:25:58] I'm a bit of a celtic church nerd. So when I preach here, I'm going to be bringing celtic church stories because there's just too many good ones, right? These guys were fiery, fiery, passionate christians. And I'll just tell you one story about St. Brendan. So St. Brendan and his coracle, things get a little bit, you know, in the midst of time, I'm not sure how much is exaggerated or what, but the stories are brilliant, so I'm going to run with them. But anyway, St. Brendan, he was this fiery monk that built a monastery on the west coast of Ireland.
[00:26:36] And this place was like a prophetic 24/7 prayer center, basically. It wasn't sleepy, it wasn't dead, it wasn't just farming and a little bit of compline and all the rest of it. These guys were. They led a prayer movement that was like 24/7 prayer that spanned decades. They were passionate christians. They were deeply prophetic. God would give them dreams and visions and send them to places, and then they would go out from that crucible of fiery faith into the rest of the British Isles and Ireland, and they would send out these mission parties. One of the things they used to do, I can't resist. One of the things they used to do is they used to try and seek out the most evil place in a surrounding area. They used to go and try and find a place of pagan sacrifice and buy it, and they'd buy it and they'd clear out the old altars and all the rest of it, and they'd mark out the parameters of it, and then they would get on their faces and pray in that place and they would ask God for an open heaven in that place. And because the locals were so used to bringing their sicken and they're dying and they're messed up to that place to try and get well. They would come to this little humble thing that they built this little shack on this spot, and they say, well, maybe you can do something for us, because you're these new people that are claiming that, you know, this power and people would just get saved, people just miracle after miracle after miracle. And then the stories would span the area and you claim the whole area for Christ. This was one of their things they used to do. Anyway, Brendan is there one day hanging out with his father, standing on the shore, looking at the horizon, and something deep is laid upon his heart.
[00:28:09] What if there is someone over the other side of the horizon that doesn't yet know Jesus?
[00:28:14] At this point, they didn't know where that went, okay? They didn't know how far it went. For all they knew, they just fell off the end of the earth. They thought it was flat at that point, so he just said, but what if there's someone that I can't see that was beyond there? And this burden was laid upon his heart? Brendan built a coracle, which is a wooden boat covered in leather that was tanned with, I think it was oak bark. He built this massive coracle. It was like sort of ship size, small, ship size leather boat. And him and 40 of his mates set sail, and they had a thumping great big sail on it, no rudder, because they wanted the Lord to dictate their journey. They believed the wind would carry them to the shore where they needed to be preaching Christ.
[00:29:05] 40 days they fasted, and then they just consecrated their voyage in the name of the Father, the Son and the holy spirit. Pushed off from the shore and waited to see what happened next. That is a passion for the lost right there, isn't it? This is in the 6th century. This is our spiritual heritage.
[00:29:24] We have got some amazing people that have gone before us. The early church ran with it, and I'm just checking time. No, I'm good.
[00:29:35] The early church had a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Do you know what it was?
[00:29:39] It wasn't the dove like we often use. It was the wild goose.
[00:29:46] That was their symbol for the Holy Spirit. That's how they tried to describe the Holy Spirit. And I think it's brilliant, because a wild goose is by nature wild, right? It's always on the move. It's always going from place to place to place, and it's kind of.
[00:30:01] They're kind of scary.
[00:30:04] You know, you come across a flock of geese, you know, when they're unhappy with you, it's quite. It's quite full on.
[00:30:11] They've got a kind of. They've got a kind of sharp side, but they've also got this incredible sense of torture. And they move with the seasons, and suddenly you see them all flying and, well, they're going to Africa or something. You see them flying in formation, you know, in that v shape, and they're honking away, talking to each other. They got a really strident honk. They kind of announce their presence as they're coming, and then they just sort of change the atmosphere.
[00:30:35] This was their symbol of the Holy Spirit, because they believed that the Holy Spirit was always on the move. He was always arriving, showing up in new territory, unashamed to say, we're here, and honking away, letting people know that they were in town, and this was their view of what the Holy Spirit was. Like, and I quite like that, don't you? Rather than just like the gentle dove, meek and mild, that comes and lands on your shoulder. And I'm all for that, because there is something about the relationship with the Spirit where we don't want to offend and grieve the Spirit. We want to host the Holy Spirit and be careful about that. I love that view of the Holy Spirit. You see it at Jesus baptism. But I also love this wild idea that I think maybe some of us in the west, in the church, have lost where the Holy Spirit wants to break new ground, where the heart of the Father has ideas for where he wants his spirit to move and he wants us to go. And the Lord has already gone before us into areas that we don't really expect them to, but the wildness of God has already broken ground in that area and we get to step into it. There is something about the Holy Spirit that is like that. And Jesus explained it. Jesus explained it. There was a time when Nicodemus, who was a member of the Sanhedrin, was a bit scared to talk to Jesus in broad daylight, but he came knocking on his door in the nighttime. And Jesus, very kindly and hospitable, hospitably opens his door, makes him a cup of tea or whatever he does.
[00:32:08] And they sit and have a fireside chat sometime in the night. And Nicodemus comes with all his real questions, but what about this? But what about that? Trying to work out whether Jesus is the messiah because he's surrounded with negative voices, but he's seen enough to know that there's something going on here.
[00:32:27] Jesus has this wonderful conversation with Nicodemus, and as part of this conversation with Nicodemus, he says to Nicodemus, you must be born again.
[00:32:39] You must be born again, that you've got to start your life with a brand new life. And Nicodemus is confused. He was like, well, how does that even work?
[00:32:48] And Jesus says, no, you've got to be born of the spirit.
[00:32:52] You've got to know a brand new life at work in you. You've got to start again and allow this eternal life of God to get right inside you and to transform your life.
[00:33:02] And then he says this random phrase which is like, well, why is this amongst that? He says, the spirit of God blows where he wills. No one knows where he has come from or where he is going.
[00:33:16] So it is with how people are born again, with how the kingdom moves. This is how God is. This is how the kingdom is. So alongside each other, you've got the spirit blows where he wills. No one knows quite where he's come from or where he's going. There's a wildness and an unpredictability to the Holy Spirit and how he works. And then you've got this need for people to be born again, to find life, to allow eternal life to come and invest in them, for God to give that gift to them and their need for people to be saved.
[00:33:50] These two things go hand in hand. The wildness of God and the need for us to seek and save the lost and to see people born again.
[00:33:59] So do you believe that God has called us to partner with him in this search and rescue mission?
[00:34:19] How many of you sometimes feel inadequate for that task? Hands? We do sometimes, don't we?
[00:34:27] I'm not here to give you another thing on your to do list, and I'm not here to give you a guilt trip either, because it's so easy to go there, isn't it? I can't remember the last time I shared my faith with anyone.
[00:34:41] That's not what we're here for, and that's not my message at all to you. And it's not God's message to you today. Okay?
[00:34:49] This is fresh moment time. Okay? We get to just listen to God as we are, knowing that we are fully loved as we are, full grace as we are. Our performance thus far is what it is. And God loves us anyway. Okay? All right? And he also knows how busy you are, how overwhelmed you are, how inadequate you feel, how ineloquent you feel whenever you find yourself talking about your faith. He knows all of that, okay? He accepts that. And he still chooses all of us. Right? We're still all qualified and in the club of reaching out to other people. Okay? You're accepted. You're a candidate for him. Okay? Make that really clear.
[00:35:29] I believe that there's a few things we can do that make reaching out for the lost so much easier. And the first thing is this. Pray for divine appointments.
[00:35:42] Jesus, it's like the Lord was setting him up every day.
[00:35:48] He was constantly stumbling across the person that was ready to receive. Did you notice that?
[00:35:54] And I think that's God going before him. That's God like, literally lining up these scenarios, making sure that woman ends up at that well, just at the time when Jesus is going to come past. I just believe that this is God working behind the scenes, ushering people to Christ, who are ready, who have those questions already burning, who know that they don't want to live their life the way they is anymore. They're done with living for selfishness means they want something more. God has a way of bringing those people into our path, but we've got to be praying for that. That's got to be something that we are investing in as well. If you are hungry to lead more people to Christ, start praying that God will bring the people that are ready to go, because he will. He will. Have you ever had that experience where you prayed that in the morning and by the afternoon, you know your heart will go off, that you're speaking to someone that seems to wide open? It's like, yep, see, this is how it works. That's the first thing. So that you're not having to manufacture it, you're not having to drum it up. You're not having to be the best communicator the world has ever seen in order to talk people into the kingdom, because nobody comes in that way anyway.
[00:37:03] You're just being at the right place at the right time because God has set you up. Okay? So that's the first thing. Pray for divine appointments, Jesus style.
[00:37:11] And then number two, position yourself where lost people are.
[00:37:15] This is the whole piece about not staying in a holy huddle, not staying in a bubble of Christianity, not staying in a luxury cruise liner, but find a way to get amongst it where people are hurting, where people are lost, where people are struggling, where people are fighting to keep their heads above water.
[00:37:35] Find a way to get amongst it.
[00:37:38] We just sang, you know, you give beauty for ashes.
[00:37:42] You turn our morning into praise, into dancing. You transform life. Well, we've got to be where the people are that are experiencing ashes and mourning and lostness.
[00:37:52] We've got to be there. Otherwise we have no way of shining our light. Okay, so it might be joining a crochet club, it might be joining a gym. It might be just taking time, rather than doing lunch at your desk, to actually go and be where other people are, to eat with them.
[00:38:10] Wherever your workplace is, there's so many different ways that we can do this, but intentionally be amongst people that don't yet know Jesus. I've found that to be a tremendous blessing in the last six months that I've been in the Royal Navy. Just being amongst people that don't yet know Jesus, it's amazing how many of them are open and are one in Christ.
[00:38:30] So that's the second thing. Position yourself where lost people are. Number three, ask the Holy Spirit to help you shine. So rather than having a sales pitch, rather than having all the answers to everything in the cosmos, if you are passionate about your faith. If your faith means something brilliant to you, if people could, people will see it.
[00:38:52] Billy Graham once said, I wish I'd spent more time hanging out with Jesus so that people could sense his presence upon me when they met me. That is the sort of evangelism that I believe is so much easier and also so much more authentic. When your joy in God is perceived by others, when you exude this sort of spiritual peace and deep security, when you know who you are, when you they can see that you have an intimate relationship with the living God. There is something so attractive about that.
[00:39:28] When you're living that way and you're just excited and proud and open and free with your faith, I guarantee the questions will come.
[00:39:38] Those who are hungry come out of the woodwork. They just start to appear, and you don't have to kind of get them there. It's like those who are already predisposed to get saved are attracted to your light like a moth to a flame. I believe this is one of the best ways. So pray for divine appointments. Position yourself where people are and ask the holy spirit to help you shine.
