Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Okay. Well, it is a real privilege this morning to welcome Mike Robbins and Sheila, his lovely wife, to rediscover church here in Newton Abbot. And I'll let Mike introduce himself. I know many of you will know Mike anyway from the last time he's been with us. So I want us to give us a real let's honor people this morning. You know, we love honoring people. Those in the Bible says, you know, honor those who work hard amongst you. And Mike has been serving for decades and decades and decades. And you want me to stop there? I'll stop there. But let's honor him this morning by giving a really great welcome as he comes to bring the word to us this morning. Thank you, Mike.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Oh, what a privilege to be here, eh?
Yeah. I'm Mike, married to Sheila. Sheila, my beautiful wife, is with me today. In typical Sheila fashion, I said, pray for me when I'm up there. And she's already prayed.
Like, you got the covering. You got the anointing. Hey, you happy?
What an amazing, amazing building you guys have got, isn't it?
Come on. You're gonna fill this place as well, right?
I saw a sign. We saw a sign when we were driving in here. It said, plants galore. Did anybody else see that?
Like, I reckon the good Lord's already spoken. Plants galore.
Come on.
There's a new mission statement.
I'm married to Sheila.
We've got four children. You already know this, I'm guessing. We've got three beautiful grandchildren, granddaughters who we love very dearly.
Pastored in Newquay for many, many years. Known Dave and Alice for years as well. Really great friends with them. Lovely to connect up. We'll have that coffee one day, won't we? Definitely. And other friends as well. Holly here and various other folks. Guys on the church planting thing. Now, what I was going to do is I was going to say to you guys to start with, look, if I don't recognize you, never be offended with that, because, number one, I'm as thick as right? So I find it very hard to register faces. But the second thing is that I've had a really weird month, and I didn't know whether to share this or not, but I'm going to. Anybody ever heard of a guy called Hans Zimmer? Hans Zimmer? Got any Hans Zimmer? Great writer, music writer. Written lots of the movie theme tunes, and he wrote one for Sherlock Holmes that's called Discombobulated.
Discombobulated. Discombobulated. No, that's right. Discombobulated.
And that's exactly how I feel. Do you know how it started? Right, so it started. I'm not going to be long with this, but it started.
And I want you to look away. Now. I was in the bath after doing the garden, right.
Absolutely wiped. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to put some Radox in the bathroom because apparently it's good for your muscles. So I get the Radox, put it in the bath, put the powder in the bath.
Not understanding that you got to stir that stuff in, right.
And so you never used it. No. Well, take note of this because if ever you do, this is really important.
So what happened was, was I just chucked the stuff in the bath and what it did, because I didn't stir it and it just sank to the bottom as a big, slimy green mess.
So when I get up to get out of the bath, my feet go out from under me, right? And it was. The only way I can put it was it was like the Titanic.
Literally everything went into slow motion. So it seemed like three or four minutes and it was literally a nanosecond. I go down and all I can see is a tsunami moving away from me towards the taps.
And so I'm watching all this and I'm thinking, what could possibly get worse than this? And as I kind of thought that the tsunami hit the wall at the other end and then came back towards me, now it gets slightly worse because to the right hand side of me in the bath, lent up against the bath. Not in the bath, but lent up against it was my iPad.
Yeah. Oh, you feel the pain. That's so beautiful. Rediscover. You're a lovely church.
Anyway, cut a long story short, it kind of didn't blow it up spectacularly, but it made a significant mess that I was at without my iPad and have literally just got this one back. So I actually bought a proper old school Bible with me just in case.
And then. Oh, God.
And the car, the car had just been scratched by somebody, just got it back, drive up to London, speaking at some Chinese churches and come out the hotel to get ready to go and speak at these churches.
And I'm thinking to myself, I'm sure I'll park the car over there. It's only two weeks ago and I'm looking round and my car's not there.
Yeah, come on.
Discombobulated. And as I kind of walk around the car park, I think, I know I've got the app. So I get my app out, look for my car and it's apparently parked three roads away, so I phoned the police. Anyway, cut a long story short, it's been stolen.
We all have times like that where we feel disorientated and I just want to slip that into the conversation this morning. I've got a lot to share and I really want to get into the word, but we can have a lot of stuff hit us all at once, right?
And through all of that, we got to keep our focus firmly on Jesus. I have a brand new. So listen, they delayed giving me my iPad for two and a half weeks. I was beside myself, literally. Like, my world circulates.
This is how sad I am. My world circulates around my iPad. So I phone them. Have you sorted it? No. Sorted it? Nope. Sorted it? Nope. Right, I'm going to do a complaint then if you don't sort it out. Long story short, when they sorted it, I phoned the nice guy at the Apple shop and he says, oh, an hour ago, they just released a brand new one.
Let me say this. God is in whatever you're going through, whatever you're facing today, please look into my eyes. He is with you. He's got it sorted. Everything's going to come good. It might seem like everything is hitting you, just like the tsunami that's hit the tap end of the bath is coming back towards you. You can see it's all in slow motion. He is with you.
He's with you.
I want to bring you the word today.
And it is a specific word that I feel to bring.
As you know, as I said earlier, Sheila and I ran a church for 26, 27 years, then joined Compassion. Amazing organization.
And I know you guys, many of you guys here support Compassion. Keep doing it. It's a great organization. You're changing lives through that organization.
But we were blessed to see our church grow. We had several buildings, I think we had eight building programs in our years there, and literally multiple millions of pounds to buy buildings and sort stuff out. We really saw the favor of God and we grew, and so on and so on and so on. And as the church grew, I began to realize, wow, running a church is so easy.
Everybody got on. Do you know what I mean? Everybody. We never had an upset in our church.
Never had an upset when we tried anything new. Everybody just, we're in this. Pastor Mike, where are we going today? In fact, when I used to drive into church, there were rose petals thrown in front of the car from people as we were driving in. And they'd be saying, what can we volunteer for today, Pastor Mike? We need something to do.
That was a dream I had. Sorry. Yeah, that was the dream.
But each year we'd have what was called a strategic review. And in that strategic review, we would realign the church through a week of prayer and fasting. And the reason we did that was because we can figure out very quickly why God called us into being.
And we start getting fixated on instruments, on buildings, we start getting secondary. Things become primary in those times. And so the goal of that strategic review and that prayer and fasting week was to give everything back to God.
I'm so glad you're meeting here.
I really hope you get the impact of what God's doing in you as a church.
You are a privileged people that God is going to grow and continue to grow. And it's that that I really want to speak into.
Sing. Barren woman, you who never bore a child burst into song. Rediscover you who were never in labor. Because more of the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent. Stretch your tent, curtains wide. Don't hold back. Lengthen your cords, Strengthen your stakes. For you're going to spread out to the right and the left and your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. I hope you're in a prophetic mood this morning because I genuinely feel there is a spirit of prophecy in the house today. And he wants to speak to you to give you words of life and for your future. And plants galore may not seem so funny in a few years time when you are sending out church planters to go out there and establish new church plants in desolate cities that are going to waken them up. Amen.
Come on. If I was in Africa, they'd be throwing chairs at me now.
They would.
What is our primary purpose as a church? Help people meet Jesus. What is our secondary purpose as a church? Help them grow. Paul Scanlon said this. Get saved, grow up.
There it is. Get saved, grow up. You can't get it much simpler than that.
Rediscover. You have the same mandate. You're going to grow. You're going to become a big church.
Some of you are going to struggle with what I'm saying here. Some of you are going to say, well, we like being small. We like it when we know our friends. We like it when we have our same seat every week. And so on and so on and so on. But I'm here to tell you today that you're not going to have that privilege in this church.
There's too many people that God is wanting to draw into your midst. Too many people out there that need salvation, that want to come and be part of this family.
And you're going to have to give up much, you're going to have to sacrifice much. And some of it's going to be your own thoughts, your own ideals, your own things that you like, your own comfort zones. But you're going to have to give those up because it's bigger than you. And it's not about you. It's about. It's about them.
It's about them.
You know, I don't know whether I've shared this here or not, but a few years ago, our church grew quite dramatically.
It went through a very significant growth period and we ended up with a lot of people on staff. I think we had, I think at our peak. Now, I might be exaggerating here, I hope not. But I think at our peak with part time, full time, we had 25 people working in the church. I remember somebody once telling me what the salary bill was and it was like, don't ever tell me that again because I never want to hear that number again.
And I hit the wall through that time. The stress that I went through was significant because I'd signed up when I joined leading a church. I signed up to preaching on a Sunday a couple of times, doing some great, some great Bible studies and that probably that will be it. That was like the ministry that I saw. And suddenly I was managing teams and I was dealing with policies and procedures and there were budget meetings and different kind of business aspects of the organization that I had to manage. And to cut a long story short, round about 10 years ago I hit the wall and I found myself. Somebody kindly paid for us to go to Australia.
You always need people like that in your church, folks. They paid for his debt. Maybe that's another prophetic word for somebody here.
And I found myself. We found ourselves on a plane going to Australia.
And during the night, when we landed in Australia, during the night, I had a dream.
And most people, when you have dreams, you'll have Jesus turn up, right?
I had a little short Welshman turn up called Wynne Lewis in my dream.
And Wyn had died a few years before, but he was very instrumental in Sheila and I going into ministry. And what we ended up doing, he really took a chance on us.
And in this dream, it was very profound.
He said this.
He said, boyo church has Got to be big enough for people to see it.
Can you let that sink in for a second?
Church has got to be big enough for people to see it.
Bear in mind, I'm stressed. Our church has grown, we're big, I'm creaking under the pressure of it all. I'm dealing with all kinds of stuff that I honestly can't be faffed with, but I've got to deal with it because I'm running a church.
And as soon I woke up, the instant he said that and the scripture that came into my mind was, a city on a hill can't be hidden.
Rediscover. I want to speak that over you.
City on a hill can't be hidden. I don't know what God's going to do with you. I've just heard you're not a church plant, you're a church that's been planted. Is that right?
So you're going to go into your maturing phase now, where you're going to continue to grow, but things are going to change within the church.
Jesus says, city on a hill can't be hidden. Notice he says this. You are the light of the world.
Now, he's not talking singular. If you look up the Greek, he's talking plural. You are the light of the world.
Rediscover Newton Abbott. You are the light of the world. He refers to a city. What is your city? City is a community of people. It has a culture.
You got 28,000 people approximately living around here. In Newton Abbott, you have 94,100 in your wider area. I hope you're taking note of this. As far as I can see, there are disability issues. 21% of people that live in this area, in this region, have disability issues. 45% of the people that live in your community have zero religion. They will put themselves down as no religion. The vast majority here have UK identity. 96%. Nearly 5% of your community say they have bad health. 35% of of the households in this area are deprived in at least one dimension. And your unemployment rate is round about 10%. Listen, Newton Abbott needs Jesus and you are the best shot God has at reaching this community.
You are it. There is no cavalry.
If we don't get church right, if we don't flow with the spirit of God, we're never really going to capture everything that he wants to do with us. You are are a city of refuge.
This place is for them out there, not for you in here.
And God's bringing them in even as I preach you Know in the Bible, 48 cities of refuge given to the 11 tribes, six designated as cities of refuge.
Kadesh, Shechem, Hebron, Bezer, Ramath and Golan scholars tell us that the cities of refuge are a type of Christ. I want to take that slightly further and argue that I think we can easily see in Scripture that it's a prophetic picture of the church. The church is a city of refuge. Rediscover is a city of refuge.
You've been preaching on the lost recently, is that right? The lost parables.
Yeah.
So those parables. The lost parables.
Anybody here ever heard of a guy called Campbell Morgan? I'm going to get the message in there. I promise you I will get to the message. Anybody here ever heard of a guy called Campbell Morgan?
Oh, man. Yeah, you need to read Campbell Morgan. He's. He is cla. Was class.
So he.
He was at Westminster Chapel. He was mentored. Martin Lloyd Jones.
And I've got books on my bookcase that.
Some of My most precious books. But he talks about those lost parables and he talks about the lost sheep, and he says the lost sheep was lost through its own stupidity.
Sheep are not known to have good brains. Right.
By the way, with a flock. Just saying, just. Just point that out. But he says sheep, sheep are. Sheep are basically stupid. And so the sheep got lost because of its own stupidity. It didn't know what it was doing. It couldn't make rational decisions, and it just ended up getting lost. And so Jesus gets the sheep and then he talks about the lost coin and he points out, whilst the sheep is lost through stupidity, the coin is lost through carelessness.
Somebody was governing that coin and they lost the coin. And the coin lost its currency. It lost its ability to purchase.
It became unfruitful. The reason it was created was compromised because it was lost.
And then finally we read about the son. The lost son. The lost son wasn't stupid. The lost son wasn't just careless. The lost son was downright rebellious. He made decisions that were bad and contrary to the Father's will.
Three lost things, three different reasons for being lost. And in any congregation, or we can have those three things. In fact, we can go through those three things in our own lives.
All of us will have been through one of those at some point in our lives.
And in this room today, you might even be going through some of these. And at the end of this, we're going to have an appeal. And today I just put it out there. Today is your day to change and shift and Move and get into gear with the new thing that God has for you to redeem this life that God's given you.
The church is a city of refuge.
C.S. lewis said this. The church exists for nothing else but to draw men to Christ.
The purpose of the church is not just songs and not just a great environment.
The purpose of the church is to reach the lost.
We were in a prayer meeting for a building yesterday, Sheila and I, and I had that very forcefully spoken into me. I was reminded of it very forcefully. It's not about us, it's about them.
He loves them, you've got your ticket, they don't yet.
And so the success, if I can use that term for this church, is based and rooted in that simple truth that he wants to reach those who don't yet have a chance.
Those who are lost, those who are lonely, those who have no hope, those who are sick and don't have anybody to pray for them, those who are going through abuse.
We had a building issue in Newquay. So we were growing, everything was going great. As I say, you know, no problems in our church.
And so what we did was we extended our original building to seat 150, I think it was, and then that kind of got filled up and then we bought the house next door and we thought we'll spread out to the right and the left, buy that. And we bought the hall to the right, that's my left, the hall to the left, the house to the right, the garage behind the house, we bought those. And the plan was that we were going to flatten our building and build a brand new thousand seater auditorium. That was the theory that we had.
And so we got the architects in, they started drawing up this stuff. We didn't do it in the end, by the way. We ended up buying a clapped out 600 seat Victorian church, which was a whole nother journey, let me tell you. But while we're talking to the architects, right, one of the things I hate in churches is pillars. Yeah. You ever gone to a great meeting, you get stuck behind a pillar and it's like you spend all your time kind of peering around a pillar trying to see what's going on. So I said to the architect, when you build our church, our new church, I don't want any pillars, all right?
And I can remember him saying to me, he said, how big do you want the church then? So I said, well, it's going to seat a thousand people. He said, you don't know what you're talking about. You can't Have a church that's going to seat a thousand people without pillars. Why can't I have a church that has a thousand people in it without pillars?
I need a single span roof.
And he said it's impossible in the environment you're talking about.
Why?
Because the roof and floors needed support.
Pillars were the only answer. And the moment you talk about pillars and consider pillars in the house of God, you move away from the natural and you move into the prophetic. And so that's really where I want to go to today. If you've got your Bibles, we're going to read 1st Kings 7, 1322, 1st Kings 7, 1322.
And I'm going to pray before we read it and ask God to prophetically speak into our lives and into the life of rediscover and into us as individuals. Because we are rediscover, aren't we?
Everybody in this room is rediscover.
And say, father, open up our hearts and our minds that we might be able to receive from you the prophetic word of God. We love your word, but Lord, we especially love it when the logos becomes a rhema, when the word leaps off the page and takes root in our heart. Your word is a living word we read. And so today, Lord, we strip away all preconceived ideas, all the stuff that we've heard of or thought before. And we want to come to your word today afresh. And as we hear your word, as we read your word, speak it into our lives and reveal your perfect divine plan to us. In Jesus name we pray this.
Amen.
Amen.
Here we go. 1 Kings 7, 13. I'm reading from the ESVI because all my Bibles disappeared in the tsunami. Here we go.
And King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre.
He was son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali. And his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze. They're building the temple, by the way.
And he was full of wisdom, understanding and skill for making any work in bronze. He came to King Solomon and did all his work. Here we go, verse 15. He cast two pillars of bronze. Did you get that? Pillars.
He cast two pillars of bronze. Eighteen cubits was the height of one pillar, and a line of 12 cubits measured its circumference. It was hollow and its thickness was four fingers. The second pillar was the same. He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on top of the pillars. The height of the one capital was five cubits and the height of the other capital was five cubits There were lattices of cheker work and wreaths of chain work for the capitals on top of the pillars, a lattice for one capital and a lattice for the other capital.
Verse 18. Likewise, he made pomegranates in two rows around the one lattice work to cover the capital that was on top of the pillar. He did the same with the other capital.
Now, the capitals that were on the tops of the pillars in the vestibule were of lily work, four cubits.
The capitals were on the two pillars. And also above the rounded projection which was beside the latticework, there were 200 pomegranates in two rows all around. And so with the other pillars capital, he set up the pillars at the vestibule, the entrance of the temple. He set up the pillar on the south, get this, and called its name Jakin.
He set up the pillar on the north and called its name Boaz.
And on the tops of the pillars was lily work. Thus the work of the pillars of finished. How many of you know that God doesn't do anything with no reason? There is a purpose behind two pillars that are talked about in such depth.
And the reason is, is because they are prophetic, because they're important. We look at the pillar to the south, what did he name it? Remind me. It's called Jakin.
And the one on the north was called Boaz.
Jakin means he will establish.
Boaz means in his strength. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about this.
He will establish in his strength.
Every time they walked into the temple, they walked through a prophetic statement that spoke over them. He will establish in his strength.
When you walk into this building in a metaphoric, spiritual sense, you are walking into the temple where the ecclesia, where the people of God are. You're walking into that prophetic statement over your life. You have to get this.
He will establish in his strength.
What's your need?
What are you going through? What is it that you're facing? What is your difficulty? What is your impossibility? My friend, as you walk into the presence of God, you're walking into that prophecy that he's going to establish it. It's not going to be done by you, it's not going to be doctors, it's not going to be done by the bank manager, it's not going to be done by your wife, by your husband. But it's going to be done in his strength. Doesn't even need your strength to do it.
I really hope you're getting this.
He will establish in his strength what are those pillars made up of? What do they look like? Nothing is done for nothing in God's economy. They had nets or network at the top.
What does Jesus say to Peter? Peter, you're going to be a fisher of men.
They have nets at the top. They have chain work around them as well. What is chain? This is rediscover. You're going to be fishers of men.
Chain, chain work. What does that mean? That means unity. You're going to move forward together.
One of the little foxes that comes into churches if you're not careful is disunity. Now, I know it's not here because I know that everybody here loves each other and you're all getting on really great. But. But I'm saying to you that when you grow, you have to work harder at these things.
Unity.
What else was there? Pomegranates. What are pomegranate? Pomegranate. I can't even say it. What are. How'd you say it?
Pomegranates. That's the word. What are pomegranates? Pomegranates are fruit. It's fruitfulness.
You're going to be a fruitful church.
You know, pomegranates were the fruit of the promised land.
They weren't native to where they were at that point.
You're going to be a fruitful people. What are lilies? Lilies represent purity. I'm a Wesley fan. Holiness movement. There's only one movement, really. When the Spirit comes upon you, he sanctifies you. God's holiness just becomes part of you, part of me. But we look at lilies. Who's the lily of the valley?
It's Jesus.
So there are way better teachers than I could ever dream of being who can teach these profound truths. But the point I'm trying to make is that the house of God rediscover Church has prophecy resting over it. Through he will establish in his strength. There are networks going around you. You're all part of unity. You're going to be fruitful in the kingdom of God.
This is the house of God, like living pillars, says the Word. Be yourselves built into a spiritual house for a holy, dedicated, consecrated priesthood to offer up those spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable and pleasing to God through Jesus Christ.
One of my favorite scriptures is Jacob and Bethel and that whole thing there. The house of God. Bethel. You know that means, right? The house of God, Beth. The house Elohim El is God. And it's a clear type of the church here and the place of the promise of Descendants, all the people will be blessed through you and your offering. In other words, God wants to pour out blessing upon the house. Why? Because we're blessed to be a blessing. We're blessed to. To take it out. We're blessed to go and bless others.
What did Jacob do at that awesome place where he saw the stairway between heaven and earth? Early next morning, Jacob took the stone he had, placed it under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil over the top of it. It became a pillar again. Representative, in my humble opinion, of the church and the power of the church, and why pillars are so important in the church. You're keeping up with me. You all look very serious here. Do you want me to do a dance? Brighten you up a bit? Do you want a little dance? Could you get the past to come up and do a dance again?
That's one of the most awesome dances, literally, I've ever seen that should go viral. If somebody videoed that, please let it go viral.
So just a few things, then. All right, number one, Jesus is the pillar of the church. He's described in both Song of Songs and Revelation of having legs as pillars. His legs, our pillars, are marvel, set on basis of pure gold. His appearance is like Lebanon choice as its cedars. That word pillar only appears in the Bible twice. Once here and once in Revelation 10:1 where it says this, I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud like a rainbow, with a rainbow above his head. His face looked like the sun. His legs were like fiery pillars.
So pillars speak of stability, uprightness, support, solidarity, and faithfulness. There's Jesus right there, right?
That's what they are, what holds things up.
Structure is important.
And as there's structure in the natural house here, there's structure in the spiritual house that God is constructing through rediscover support.
Things that can carry weight, things that can hold the spiritual structure of what God is creating with rediscover.
You know, there's a profound Christian philosopher who sadly fell from grace. But he tells of a lecture trip to Ohio State University a few years ago, and on the way, they pass the Wexner Art center, and the guy who's driving him explains to him that the building was designed with a post modernist view of reality. If you ever study post modernism, or even now, it's post postmodernism, you'll see something of how important this is in terms of the philosophy of the age and the people we're trying to reach.
And the philosopher said, as he looked at it. There was no pattern to the building. He said. Staircases went nowhere. Pillars supported nothing. The architect designed the building to reflect the postmodernist view of life. It went nowhere. It was mindless, it was senseless.
And he said, I turned to the man describing this building as he went past it, and I asked, did they do the same thing with the foundation?
And the man said, no, of course they didn't.
You have to have a good, strong, sound foundation for any building to grow and stay stood.
No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Christ Jesus.
You can't build a great marriage on your partner.
You can't build a great business on the FTSE Index.
You can't build a great life on credit.
You can't put your hope in hope alone. You can't build a great spiritual life on a preacher or a pastor or a system or a process. You can't build a church on good ideas, popular notions and stuff like that.
These are staircases that go nowhere.
The only foundation we can ever have is Christ.
The pillars that support all our endeavors are Jakin and Boaz. He will establish in his strength, Jesus is the pillar and foundation of the church. Second thing is this. We can be pillars of the congregation. Any church need spiritual pillars. And this really, I guess, is the nub of what I felt God wanted me to bring. In the Old Testament, pillars are named as people. Jakin, Boaz. In the New Testament, people are named as pillars. It goes the other way around.
Paul said of the Jerusalem church.
He said, James, Peter and John are reputed to be pillars.
Before we consider this deeper, consider other pillars that can be found in churches. First of all, there are technical pillars in churches.
Here's a definition of a technical in other words, they just look good. There's a couple. I noticed there's a couple when I pulled up the drive. Couple of cracking pillars, but I'm not sure what they do.
And the definition of a technical pillar is this. A big, thick thing that holds everything up and restricts vision.
There are technical pillars in churches that hold back the things of God that are there just because they're there. They don't carry any weight, they don't carry any support.
Then, of course, there are false pillars in Windsor. 1689, St. Paul's Cathedral. Designer Sir Christopher Wren finishing his latest project. And his latest project was a new town hall. This is a famous thing.
It's in Wikipedia. So it must be true. The building was complete with one exception.
Wren had designed and built Meeting Rooms above an open area called the Corn Market. And the authorities said it had to have four pillars put in place just in case to support the floors above. And Wren refused. And it went into a real battle of wills. And in the end, they eventually built these four pillars. You can still see them today, years after Christopher Wren's death. The ceiling needed to be repainted. They put up scaffolding. When they put the scaffolding in and they got up to the top of the scaffolding, guess what they realized that none of the pillars actually reached the floor above.
Christopher Wren had left half an inch just to prove his point from beyond the grave, that those pillars weren't needed. They were decorative, non functional.
Don't be a decorative, non functional pillar in this church.
We don't need decorative, non functional pillars. We're all on our journey. I appreciate that. And there's a time and a season for everything.
But there's so much gift and talent in this building right now.
You can change the world.
I just wonder what God's going to do with you then. Of course, we have sleepy pillars now. I don't want to make too much of a play on words here, but if we go back to Bethel and Jacob, it says when he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. And taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and went down to sleep. Well, fell asleep. So pillar, pillar. Work with me, pillow pillar.
Yeah, I'm here all week, folks.
He was representative maybe of a sleepy Christian. And that's what I was. But that night he had a dream. And that night it all changes. And this is the exciting thing with God, promises given, it outlives him. And that pillow that was a symbol of sleepiness becomes a memorial stone and a pillar to the grace and glory of God. Early next morning, Jacob takes the stone he placed under his head, set it up as a pillar, poured oil on top of it, and he called that place Bethel. A pillow becomes a pillar, and that which becomes a place of rest becomes a place, a place of support. And maybe today in this place, maybe God's calling you to step into a fresh place of support in this church. As God builds this church, as he builds the spiritual church, maybe today is your day where you step out and you take the pillow that you've been sleeping on, you say, enough of that. I'm going to anoint it with oil.
This is going to become part of the house of God. Bethel. I rename this sleepy pillow into Bethel.
Simon.
Sorry James, Peter and John.
Pillars.
One lesson I've learned is that churches need pillars, people that carry weight.
Let me begin to draw to a close.
A pillar is strong during a shaking.
A good pillar will stand a shaking.
Good pillars are earthquake proof. When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm, says the psalmist. A pillar is strategic.
When Samson wanted to bring the temple of Dagon down onto the Philistines, what did he do? Do you remember?
Remove one of the pillars.
Pillars are strategic.
Pillars are strategic. Third thing is this. A pillar has a true foundation. Everyone who hears these words of mine says Jesus, but does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. Fourth thing. A pillar overcomes whatever hits it. It stays loyal and true.
Do you know what Jesus says of overcomers? Him who overcomers. I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. In other words, whatever it is you're going through at the moment, whatever issue you're facing, whatever difficulty you have, that's going to become a strength in the house of God, because God's going to use that to his glory. And you're going to be an encouragement to others that are going through it as well.
To him who overcomes, he becomes a pillar.
Pillars are supportive. This stone I've set up as a pillar will be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will give a tenth, says Abraham. A pillar is a witness. Joshua set one up at Gilgal to commemorate the Jordan crossing. When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, what are these stones? Then you let your children know, saying, israel crossed over the Jordan on dry land.
Pillars being built. A pillar is bolted in. It becomes part of a joined structure. I could go on for hours with this stuff. I'm not going to. You'd be very pleased to know. But we're in this together. We join together. You don't have a pillar on its own just doing one thing. It goes into generally a portal frame. That portal frame, or whatever it is, will carry the entire structure of the church. And as we all stand together, as we all take our place, as we all become part of the structure of rediscover church Newton Abbott. So rediscover church Newton Abbott grows. It can get bigger without killing the pastor and killing the ministry team, because it's growing as one and it's moving in everything that God has for it. Can we stand on our feet for a moment or two? Come on, let's stand and get excited about this.
Do you ever get excited here?
Go and prove it.
Oh, man alive.
I just really feel can the worship group. That'd be really super cool if you guys could make your way back then because.
Oh, can you play something just gently? Do you guys do that? I'm not sure if you're thinking, but you do that, don't you? You can do that. Thank you. I knew you could.
So what I really want to do now is invite us all to hunker into Christ.
I'm genuinely not here just as a speaker. I genuinely believe I'm here as somebody who's got a prophetic message for you, for us, as the house of God. Not setting myself up as better than anybody else. I'm absolutely, probably worse than most people in this room if you really get to know me. But what I'm saying is this. I'm here representing God in this moment. And he's here because he wants you to hear his voice.
And the ability to listen rests with the listener, not the speaker.
All right, if we can just play gently, that'd be great.
Come on. He's going to establish in his strength. We read that you've walked into a prophetic environment where the Holy Spirit is Jacob and Boaz. You passed through Jacob and Boaz as you came into the building. He's going to establish in his strength.
What is it you're struggling with?
Come on.
What's your impossibility?
Come on. Right now. He's here in this place. He will establish it in his strength. Some of you have been working hard to make stuff work when really what you need to do is rest in his presence and receive from his hand.
I need you.
I need you.
Come on. Make that your song today.
I need you.
Come on, press in. Push through the crowd. Touch the hem of his garment because he's here in the house today.
Come on, push through. Push through. I need you.
I need you like dew in the morning.
Come on, push through. You need a healing in the house of God today. Come on, push through the crowd. If you need a financial release from God today, push through the crowd.
If you need a restoration of a marriage or a relationship, Push through the crowd. Today isn't the day to sit and observe and listen. Today is the day to push through. Touch the hem of his garment. He's here. He will establish it in his strength. It's in the Bible.
Every time you walk into the temple, you walk through prophecy. Come on, I need you.
Do you guys sing in the Spirit in this church?
Come on, let's sing in the spirit, in this church. And I need you.
Come on. Cut loose, church. Cut loose.
Fill me. Fill me afresh, Lord.
Come on. Fill me afresh, Lord. I need you.
Come on. Walk away from whatever it is that's holding you back.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: Come on.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: For freedom. Christ has set you free. Don't let yourself be bound again by a yoke of slavery. Don't think as the world thinks. Think with the mind of Christ. He set you free.
It's written consistently through scripture. You are free. Come on, church.
Yeah. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
O my God, I need you.
I need you, Lord.
Beautiful. Just slightly quieter for a second. Keep going. Keep going.
Father, in the name of Jesus, right now we reclaim enemy that they ground that the enemy has taken from us. Today in this place, we recognize that you're going to establish stuff in our lives. You're going to establish the dreams of your heart in our lives.
You're going to establish it. You're going to establish it in your strength.
There's nothing we can do to make it happen other than lean into you and lean into your scripture and lean into your promises.
We thank you for those around us. We thank you for the experts that you put into our lives. We don't despise them, we trust them. We thank you for them. But today our foundation is Christ.
On Christ, the solid rock I stand.
All other ground is sinking sand.
In Jesus name, come on. For I say Amen. Reclaim your promise.
I say amen in a minute or two. But you got to connect up with Jesus in this. And when I say my amen and you say your Amen, you're going to connect it with Jesus. You're going to hear your voice. Not my voice. It's not my voice he wants to hear. It's your voice and speak it out. Don't think an amen, Speak. Amen.
Here we go.
On the count of three, we say amen. One, two, three.
Amen. Give the Lord a thank offering in the house of God today.
Two minutes.
