Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] I don't know what you've been up to over the past few months. I've been traveling a little bit. I think probably one of the most embarrassing things that have happened to me over the past few months was that when we were taking a week holiday in Aviemore up in Scotland, some of my kids said, shall we go ice skating?
[00:00:22] And I can't think of anything worse.
[00:00:26] I can't think of anything I'd least like to do other than go ice skating. But we drove to the ice skating rink and we got out of the car and Nita was going to go and sit on the side and look after the coats, and some of the others were doing that, and I was planning on doing the same. And I had this vacancy of thought for a few moments and I went up to the counter and I said, I'll have a pair of skates, please.
[00:00:49] And they charged me 16 pound for a pair of skates to go ice skating. So I walked to the changing area and I changed my shoes and I put the skates on. And then I knew things weren't looking very good because I couldn't even stand and it wasn't even the ice at that moment. So I thought, this is Mark. Concentrate, concentrate. Nita's like, what you doing? You ice skating? We need to drive home after this. You need both your legs, you know, what are you doing? And I sort of tentatively make my way to the entrance to the ice skating rink and. And then I hold it onto the side and I've just managed to make it. And I put one foot on the ice and it slides.
[00:01:30] And I turn around and think, no, no, I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it. And I go back, I say, can I have a refund, please? And they said, we don't do refunds. I said, only one skate went on the ice. So they gave me eight pound refund, half price.
[00:01:43] And the moral of the story is, you're either in or out. Don't be half measures. And I pray this morning as we come to the word of God, that you'll be fully in today. No one gate, no, just hanging around the edges, fully immersed in what God wants to say to us today. And I'm going to take you to a verse, a couple of verses in Jeremiah, chapter 32. This is a word I've been speaking in various places around the country. And I want you to hear this this morning, rediscover, because this is a word for you this morning. And it says this Jeremiah 32. Verses 38 and 39 they will be my people and I will be their God.
[00:02:22] I will give them integrity of heart and action so that they will fear me always for their good and for the good of their descendants after them.
[00:02:35] I love here that this rhythm that runs throughout the Scriptures where God declares over you and me that he will be our God and we will be his people.
[00:02:49] He is obsessed with you and I knowing the wonderful privilege of that relationship.
[00:02:58] I love that he was the one who took the initiative. He was the one who declared, I will be their God and they will be my people. You might say that you found God, but you didn't find Him. Your eyes were just opened to how much he was chasing you because he started it. He's chasing you, he is drawing close to you. And I love that he is continuously declaring that over our lives. And he is not a God that is selfish or jealous in as much as when he says, yet you will have no other gods before me. His reason for saying that is because he so knows that the best relationship that you and I can dance in is the relationship of he will be our God and we will be his people. There is nothing else in this world that is anything other than a counterfeit to that relationship that he calls us to. You see, our identity is firmly rooted in the very nature of that relationship.
[00:03:59] Now, I have been traveling around, inviting our churches across the UK to a time of consecration. Consecration is a time of making sure that God is the absolute, utmost relationship in our life. It is the declaration of these verses that says, and we will be your people.
[00:04:21] I, over the years, have seen some sites of things that have been upcycled. You know, there is a fashion for upcycling. Some of you are very talented at it, and you are very good at seeing some things that other people declare rubbish, and you are very good at making them into something that looks beautiful and useful. But some of the weirdest I've seen, and apologies if you've got this in your garden, but I was driving past some houses in South Wales and I saw that somebody had discarded a bath from one of their old bathrooms and they had put it in the garden and filled it with earth and had flowers growing in the bath. Now, it's a very novel idea, but I know that that bath wasn't created for that reason. It got weirder because there was a toilet as well in the garden with daffodils growing out of this toilet. I'm pretty sure as clever and as novel an idea that was, that that's not why it was created. You see, you and I, we can adapt all sorts of things to our lives that might look pretty, might look interesting. But there is a reason why you and I are made. And God is constantly committed to helping you and I to discover that reason why we were made.
[00:05:32] In our kitchen at home, we've got a range of drinking glasses. We've got sunglasses that are everyday glasses. Some of them have got chips in. Some of them are just odd glasses. And they're the ones that if you're family, you come around and you drink out of those. But then there are other glasses that are for guests, special glasses. And woe betide anybody that's not a guest that uses one of those special glasses. Why? Because they are kept for special purposes.
[00:06:03] Your life and my life has been designed for a very special purpose. And we should not sully ourselves with an understanding that we are anything less than special.
[00:06:16] Special in the hands of God. Special for the purposes of God. Special for this relationship with God. He will be our God and we will be his people.
[00:06:28] This is a faithful commitment that he makes. When you woke up this morning, you did not have to ask the question, does God want to be my God today?
[00:06:39] Does he want to commit himself to me today? Does he want to be faithful to me today? You didn't have to ask that question. Because every morning you wake up, his mercies are new, his kindness is guaranteed. His love endures forever and ever and ever. His mercies are new each day.
[00:06:57] And we can know as we wake up to our day that he is absolutely 100% committed to the special purpose that you and I were created.
[00:07:08] Though we are faithful, though he is faithful, we are often unfaithful. And that is why he keeps calling us back and says, come on, I will be your God and you will be my people.
[00:07:22] There is an unchanging promise here. There is an unchanging promise of his commitment to us.
[00:07:30] We live in a world that contains, among many things, joys. We sang of joy earlier on. I do think when we sing that song, we probably should dance a bit, don't you?
[00:07:42] It doesn't quite feel right. I have got joy in the morning. Joy.
[00:07:49] You don't agree, do you?
[00:07:52] Next time we sing that song, somebody start a conger off around the place, will you? Someone just like, just get out of your rose and just like, let joy. And you might say, well, I don't actually feel like it. Well, we're not saying I feel joy. We're singing I've got joy. And sometimes you've got things that you don't feel like you've got. But God says, rejoice in the Lord. Always, again, I say, rejoice.
[00:08:18] There are trials, though, that we experience in this world. There are troubles, we do have feelings. There is suffering, there are wars, there are disappointments. But even in the midst of all of these, God's commitment remains the same. He will be our God.
[00:08:32] And this is illustrated powerfully in what I am going to take you to a few verses before the ones I have just read. Because the context that the prophet Jeremiah wrote those words wasn't a good context.
[00:08:46] And some of you are facing. You are in really difficult contexts. You have got all sorts of things going on in your life. And I want to reveal to you today that God is at work even in the midst of those.
[00:09:00] In fact, sometimes it seems to get tougher before we get the miracle. And I am going to give you an example of that in a moment. You see, the context of when Jeremiah wrote those words was that the city he was living in, the city of Jerusalem, was under siege.
[00:09:16] There was a powerful army that was laying siege to the entire city. And they were more powerful than the army that was within the city.
[00:09:25] They were going to be overrun. I can't imagine the level of insecurity that must create within a city when you are surrounded like that.
[00:09:34] But to compound matters worse, the king had asked Jeremiah the prophet to give him a word.
[00:09:44] To give him a word. The word he wanted to hear was the word that said, and the Lord says, the armies will be defeated and you are going to be free. That is the word he wanted. But Jeremiah didn't give that word because God had a different word for the king. And the word was, you are going to be overrun.
[00:10:04] You are not going to keep hold of this city. We are going to lose this territory. The king didn't like that. How many of you know that when you want a prophetic word, you always want a nice one, don't you?
[00:10:19] They should be encouraging.
[00:10:22] But be careful about shopping around until you get the word you want.
[00:10:28] I see that happening all too often today. People use the prophetic like a slot machine and they keep putting the money in until they find one that works for them. They keep searching around churches until they find a church that gives them the answer they want. And I just want to encourage you, just open your heart to the word of God and say, God, whatever you want to say, I want to hear it.
[00:10:51] Don't put words in his mouth. Let him put his word in your mouth.
[00:10:57] But the city was under siege. And Jeremiah, as a result of giving this negative or perceived negative, undesired word by the king, had been put in prison.
[00:11:08] So that's where he was, right in this. In a prison, in a city under siege that was going to lose its place, going to lose its ownership. Everything was going to change.
[00:11:19] And something unusual was about to happen as Jeremiah was in that prison cell. So some verses before the ones that we opened with, we are going to read the story that leads us into an offer of something very unusual because a relative comes to see him in prison and he makes an offer to him. He makes an offer that Jeremiah should, in all senses have turned down.
[00:11:51] Imagine somebody offered you to buy their house or their land in a country that was at war.
[00:12:01] That doesn't sound like a very good investment for me. We've got estate agents here in the room. I'm pretty sure they would significantly lower the value of a property that was being sold in a war zone, because it doesn't sound like it's going to gain value.
[00:12:19] And this relative turns up at the prison and says, jeremiah, I've got an offer for you. Would you like to buy this land?
[00:12:28] He should have said no, but he didn't.
[00:12:32] He should have said, this isn't making sense, but he didn't.
[00:12:37] And then we're introduced into a number of verses that tell us about this transaction that takes place. You see, all of us have at times invitations from the Spirit to step into an opportunity that doesn't seem to make sense.
[00:12:58] We have them all the time.
[00:13:00] There are things that don't seem to gather the common sense that would normally prevail at such a moment.
[00:13:09] You are sat in one of them, this building.
[00:13:16] I don't know if you remember a year and a half ago when we had Apostle Aroma Sai join us, Nigerian Apostle that came and spent the weekend with us.
[00:13:29] And over that weekend, something happened in the hearts of the church.
[00:13:35] I felt God had spoke to me in advance of his arrival and said he was going to be like a defibrillator that was going to just shock the spiritual heart of the church. And it felt like that happened, didn't it? Those of us who were here at that time, there was something powerful that was deposited into the church. In fact, in the following weeks, our prayer gatherings tripled in size, tripled in length.
[00:14:05] How many of you know that's a move of God when that happens?
[00:14:09] There was something powerful and profound that took place. And then one Sunday, many of you were here for this Sunday, in our old building, at the end of one of our services, we just began to close the service with some songs of worship.
[00:14:24] And they didn't end for another hour and three quarters.
[00:14:29] The service just continued. And the worship was passionate.
[00:14:34] And it sensed like we were in the courtrooms of the Lord.
[00:14:40] And probably an hour and three quarters after the service would normally have finished. I estimate still about 80% of the church was still there. You'd all forgotten about your parking. You'd all forgotten about the food that was in the slow cooker at home. You'd forgotten about a whole bunch of things that normally concern you because you were captivated by the presence of the Lord.
[00:15:02] And something really weird happened as a result of that.
[00:15:09] You know, we had been looking for a new building for a long time. Probably the previous seven to eight years, we had been looking for a building and we had a few opportunities that just didn't come to anything. And we were. If I am honest, if anybody asked us, are you still looking in front of the building? We would have said, yes, of course we are. But I think we were probably facing a lack of faith and expectation. And we learned to live with the unideal circumstances of an overcrowded building. We learned to live with it.
[00:15:40] And then we sensed in the elders that God asked us to do something that did not make sense because we were holding multiple services.
[00:15:53] And it was very difficult managing multiple services when the services were going on an hour and three quarters after the end of the service. It doesn't work. And we're like, God, how are we going to manage this? And we felt prompted by the spirit. Many of you remember these days, it was only a year and a half ago where we said, we are going to do away with the two services. We are just going to have one. Even though both services, certainly the second one would have been full. The first one would have had lots of people. It is not going to work. The numbers do not work. But we feel this is an obedience. We feel like God is asking us to do this even though it makes no sense.
[00:16:34] And I remember some of the conversations with you. Where are we going to sit? How are we going to do this? Some of you came to church a little bit earlier to make sure you got a seat. Other stood around the edges and we sort of made it work, but it did not make sense. And it created a worse problem than the one we had previous.
[00:16:53] Why was that?
[00:16:55] Why has God shown an interest in not having two services? I don't think that is a principle I don't think churches should cancel their multiple services. It was just an act of obedience for us. Why did he do that? Let me tell you why he did that was because we had learned to live with okay and God wanted something bigger for us.
[00:17:16] And often God has to take us to a more difficult place to let us know that okay is not okay, that he has exceedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask, think or imagine. And if we are happy with okay, we are not going to with desperation, step into the new that the Lord has. So there are times when God has to take us to a cul de sac, to a dead end space because he wants to birth a miracle in us. And we will not step into the miracle unless we are in a dead end space.
[00:17:51] And interestingly, as we were facing the restrictions of that difficult season of time where the numbers just didn't fit or didn't work in the life of the church, we began to pray more than ever. God, we, we need a miracle. We need an answer.
[00:18:10] And I remember getting a call from one of our wonderful members here, Sean McGoughlin, who has been really helpful and instrumental in helping us secure this place. He phoned me up on a Sunday night, said Mark, I wonder about the former range in Matalan.
[00:18:26] I said, well give them a call. He phoned them up on Monday morning. They just put them back on the market that day.
[00:18:34] And so within a couple of days we were in here looking around and we agreed like an outline rent for this building and for the building next door. And would we have done that if we weren't in a cul de sac?
[00:18:52] But let me take you back a step because before that call came from Shaun, we were in one of our elders meetings. We always, and I still today, wherever I am around the country, usually join in our video calls on a Thursday morning at 6:30. And we were praying and I tell you what, we were praying, we said, God, it feels like it must have felt for Moses at the moment when they had escaped from Egypt and in front of them was the Red Sea and behind them were the Egyptian armies chasing and they felt stuck.
[00:19:34] Can you imagine Moses and the Israelites saying, God, you brought us here, this isn't right. Why did you lead us to a dead end?
[00:19:47] Why have you brought us to a place that is worse than the conditions in Egypt? God, we feel like that.
[00:19:56] And we prayed these words, God, we need your help to give us a staff so that we can raise a staff to declare just as Moses raised a staff and the waters Parted. We need a staff that you will empower so that you will make a way where there seems to be no way. That's a good prayer, isn't it?
[00:20:18] There are two people in the room who thought that was a good prayer. That's a good prayer, isn't it?
[00:20:25] So that was our morning prayer meeting, 6:30 with the elders. The church didn't know any of the story at that point. We hadn't mentioned anything. I had another phone call with Sean about this building. We were just stuck.
[00:20:38] And then that afternoon, wonderful lady in the church, Fran, she had arranged to see me probably about six weeks previous.
[00:20:49] And then she had to cancel because she was unwell. So she rearranged with my diary a time. And that was the afternoon after we had that prayer meeting with the elders.
[00:21:01] And she turns up in my office. Nita, just pass me what she brought into the office, will you?
[00:21:10] She walked into my office holding this that afternoon and she said, the Lord has told me you need a staff.
[00:21:21] Now if that meeting had happened six weeks previous, I would have been, thanks for the stick.
[00:21:29] I don't know what I am going to do with it.
[00:21:32] Am I going to injure myself and needed to walk around? What is the purpose of this, Lord? Lord, why have you given this?
[00:21:40] I'm not saying the Lord, I don't know the theology. I'm not saying the Lord made her ill so that she could have the appointment six weeks later. But basically God has a really good way of working out the timing.
[00:21:50] And she walks in the day that we've been praying, God, we need a staff and she brings a staff. Now, it is just a piece of wood, but I tell you what, the promise that that represented was significant.
[00:22:05] And I held that up in my office and said, God, I declare that you will make a way where there seems to be no way. You will part the waters. You will find the way through this. You will cause there to be a miracle. You are the God who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly. Above all we can ask, think or imagine. That's what God does.
[00:22:26] And then the call was shorn. Then this place.
[00:22:31] And many of you will know the story of this place. We'd agreed to pay an annual rent on this building of 86,000 pound.
[00:22:41] And then they contact us, the owners, and they say, without any discussion, any complaints from us, any negotiation. They say, we've been thinking about the amount we were going to charge you and we would like to drop it to zero.
[00:22:58] That's amazing that anybody would do that.
[00:23:02] But it's particularly amazing when you find out that the owners are a financial investment company.
[00:23:08] You see, God is a God who makes a way where there seems to be no way.
[00:23:15] But it often gets worse before a miracle.
[00:23:20] In fact, it often looks like God is leading you to a worse place before there is a breakthrough.
[00:23:28] Because we will meander around the average and the okay, unless we get desperate.
[00:23:37] And when we get desperate, we cry out to God and we say, God, I don't know what to do, but I fix my eyes on you and I trust you. And I declare that you are able to do far more exceedingly, abundantly than all we can think or imagine.
[00:23:53] You see, Jeremiah was in prison for speaking the word of God.
[00:23:59] He was in a nation that was sieged and he gets an offer to buy some land.
[00:24:04] Let's read this transaction that took place.
[00:24:07] Jeremiah 32:9, 17.
[00:24:11] So I bought the field in Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and I weighed out the silver to him. Seventeen shekels of silver.
[00:24:22] I recorded it on a scroll, I sealed it, I called in witnesses, and I weighed out the silver on the scales. I took the purchase agreement, the sealed copy with its terms and conditions and the open copy, and I gave the purchase agreement to Burak son of Naraya, son of Hacia. I did this in the sight of my cousin Hanamel, the witnesses who had signed the purchase agreement, and all the Judeans sitting in the guards courtyard. I charge Burak in their sight. This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, says. Take these scrolls, this purchase agreement with a sealed copy, and this open copy, and put them in an earthen storage jar so they will last a long time. For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, says. Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land. After I had given the purchase agreement to Burak son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, O Lord God, you yourself made the heavens and the earth by your great power and with your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you.
[00:25:32] I want to encourage you today to buy a field.
[00:25:36] Whatever you are facing, however, you are surrounded. Whatever is going on in your life, buy a field in the future. Promises of God.
[00:25:46] See, because Jeremiah knew that they would be exiled from this land, he knew they would be overpowered. But he knew they were coming back. He knew that they would be returning. He knew that God's word over that nation that declares, I will be their God and they will be my people. He knew they were coming back.
[00:26:06] And there comes a time in all our lives when we have to buy a field by faith for what God is going to do.
[00:26:14] Some of you right now are feeling quite distraught because there are some promises you've had over your life and you think it's just getting worse. It seems like the answer to the promise is further away than it's ever been by a field.
[00:26:29] By faith.
[00:26:31] Hold on to the promises of God by faith because he is never unfaithful to his word.
[00:26:42] Now we get this detail in this conveyance in story, in the middle of this siege, we are getting the details of a contract.
[00:26:55] We are getting the solicitor's details about the purchase of this land.
[00:27:00] What a strange thing to place in the middle of a war zone and a story of God's promises.
[00:27:08] But there is a purpose. I haven't got time to go into them in detail, but we read aspects of this transaction that are pictures of God.
[00:27:19] It says that they weighed the silver weighing in. The scripture represents fairness and justice.
[00:27:27] God is just and he will weigh things fairly.
[00:27:31] Listen, if you have experienced injustice in your life, the best place you can cling onto is God because He will weigh things all fairly.
[00:27:43] Hold on to him.
[00:27:45] The justice systems of this world will fail.
[00:27:49] The economies of this world that we cling onto will fail. There is only one, just and true, and his name is Jesus.
[00:27:58] Hold on to him. He weighs all things fairly.
[00:28:01] The silver represents redemption. That is the buyback. That is the reclaiming of something. That is the transaction.
[00:28:11] We have all been weighed and we have all been found wanting. There is no one that is free from sin. We've all been weighed by the purposes of God and found that we've fallen short of the value and the standard of our lives. The mess that we've made has been found wanting in all of us. But Jesus, death and resurrection on the cross paid the price for you and I to be bought back and we can know complete victory. Then we read that there are two copies of the deeds. There's a sealed copy and an open copy. The sealed copy. Do you know, I find in my life that there are times when I'm called to buy a field by faith and not to make it public.
[00:29:00] You don't go on Facebook and advertise a new campaign about this faith step you're doing. You hold it by faith in secret with the Lord. You hold it in a place that makes sure that no one else other than the Lord will be aware of this.
[00:29:19] As we were looking at the further details of taking this building on, there was another occasion where we were being Asked by Elim's management board about our plans and they basically said that you can't afford this building.
[00:29:40] And they pointed to a figure on our plan. It was probably one of the smallest figures on the plan, but they pointed to it and they said, you don't even have that amount, do you? It was just over 30,000 pound.
[00:29:55] Said, no, no, we don't have that.
[00:29:58] Again, none of you were aware of this? We hadn't told the church about the building at this point, but in our elders call we prayed, God, we need you to make a way where there seems to be no way. Lord, once again we hold up the staff and we trust you. And then our wonderful finance officer, Martina, stand a second. I don't like a lot of fuss, but this lady is doing an amazing job in this church. Just applaud her. You're brilliant, Martina.
[00:30:25] Thank you, Martina. I don't know if you remember speaking to me and saying, Mark, someone has just come to me and I don't know what people give in the church, but Martina said, someone has just come to me and said that they want to make a substantial gift.
[00:30:41] Oh, how much is it?
[00:30:44] It was the amount on that list that we were praying for.
[00:30:48] It wasn't that we put an appeal together, it was one of those secret prayers, the concealed promise.
[00:31:03] And we trust you.
[00:31:06] I have concerns that a lot of you younger generation, can I be particularly targeted that you have not had the opportunity to experience some of the miracles that past generations have had because you can now go to overdrafts, bank loans, credit cards in order to get provision for things that you need or you want or desire. Even if I go back 30 years ago, a lot of our ministers in our churches who trained 30 years ago at our Bible colleges, in those days there were no student loans and there were no student grants to fund their way through three or two years of Bible college. They had to do something, they had to pray the money in.
[00:32:04] I was with a minister recently and he was telling me a story of his time in Bible college.
[00:32:11] And they had been through the first two years and they had done really well, but they had just 1,000 pound left in their bank account and they needed two and a half thousand pound for the remainder of the year.
[00:32:26] And so they brought it to the Lord and said, Lord, we need an extra one and a half thousand pound to get us through the year.
[00:32:35] And you know what they felt God say to them?
[00:32:40] I would like you to give the thousand pound away to another student.
[00:32:46] No, no, no, God, that is the Wrong answer that. God, I don't know how good at accounts you are, but that actually means that we're then going to be two and a half thousand pounds short. Not one and a half thousand pound short, but they really sensed the spirit of the Lord doing this in their heart.
[00:33:07] So they gave the thousand pounds secretly to another student.
[00:33:12] That person had a testimony, they had an anonymous gift through the letterbox and it was probably the answer to their prayers. But now they were in a worse place.
[00:33:22] They were in a bigger cul de sac than the one they were previously God, our needs bigger than it was.
[00:33:30] A few days later, that student or that couple that had been stirred to invest the last that they had, they get called into the principal's office.
[00:33:43] And the principal says, you may not realize this. And by the way, no one knew that they had given this gift. No one knew they had been praying this prayer for the finance. But the principal said, every couple of years we get awarded as a college an amount to give as a prize to a student who satisfied certain requirements. And the faculty have met and they have decided this year the winner of that prize is you.
[00:34:06] So here is a cheque for two and a half thousand pound.
[00:34:14] Now, when that student experiences that miracle, it did not just get them through their college.
[00:34:23] Now that man and his wife together in ministry over the years, whenever they faced a need in church, in ministry, they have known that God will supply all their needs according to his riches in glory.
[00:34:39] Because they bought a plot of land that did not make sense.
[00:34:44] And God brought an answer.
[00:34:48] And this is not just a younger generation thing, but I appeal to younger generation because this world revolves around finance.
[00:34:59] This world is so dominated by the things that it offers.
[00:35:06] And God has a better and a bigger way.
[00:35:10] It's a way of trust, It's a way of faithful obedience. It's a way of looking to him.
[00:35:19] And I believe that once we discover that God is the one who is able to supply all our needs, it changes our perspective.
[00:35:30] So I want to encourage us to have a sealed deal with the Lord. Other people may not be aware that we are even praying. It is in secret, but the Lord is with us.
[00:35:49] But then there was a public or there was an open covenant and seal that was in this as well. And I do believe it's really important in our lives to have counsel, godly counsel.
[00:36:05] There are very few decisions I have made in my life that have been significant. Certainly no decision I have made that Nita and I have not been tightened in unison together on prayerfully.
[00:36:18] But Most of the big decisions have involved other people as well. Counsel that we submit our thoughts to and our ideas to, and we ask them to pray and share their thoughts. And we lean in and we listen.
[00:36:32] See, if you treat your walk with Jesus as this little private space that never invites the counsel or the input of others, I'm sorry, but you will not fulfill the purposes of God in your life fully.
[00:36:48] Because the Christian faith is not. God says, I will be your God and you will be my people, not my person.
[00:36:58] It is not saying, I am going to be your God and you are going to be my person. I will be your God and you will be my people.
[00:37:03] Because it is a community, it is a relationship.
[00:37:08] And I believe that there is an open copy that God invites us to.
[00:37:12] I could go on and talk about the other things, the jars of clay, and God has placed his promise in these jars of clay.
[00:37:18] I could talk about the witnesses, and I could talk about the testimony throughout the ages of the body of Christ, pointing to the finished work of Christ. I could talk about the prison. You don't need me to talk about the prison. But you know all about times of confinement and the symbolism that we can find hope even in times of limitation. Faith stands against the circumstances around us. I could talk about the seal and how we have been promised to be sealed by the Holy Spirit. I could go on, but I want to remind you that whatever circumstances you find yourselves in, whatever culture wars there are around us, whatever hostility we face, that Jesus has made this promise.
[00:38:03] I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not stand against it. It's a promise.
[00:38:12] And Jesus has bought a field.
[00:38:16] It's his church.
[00:38:18] And he is saying, just like Jeremiah bought a field and said, we'll be back.
[00:38:23] The promises of God will be fulfilled and we will be back. That Jesus bought his church and he is saying, I am coming back. I am coming back for my church because he fulfills his promises.
[00:38:36] A few years ago, a number of us had the opportunity to go to Israel.
[00:38:41] Of course, these promises are in the first instance, to the people of God, to the Israelites.
[00:38:48] And then we see the kindness of the Spirit that invites us into that wider family of God Gentiles grafted in. But we were in Israel and we were at the space and the place that it's understood that it was called the gates of hell.
[00:39:08] It wasn't very scary as an environment, as a cliff face, but it was a place that they used to carry out the most atrocious of things, sacrifices that were just Awful.
[00:39:27] It was one of the darkest places.
[00:39:30] If you can scan your mind around the places in the world, or even in the country, or even in this city that you think are the worst, the darkest. And you think, I'm not sure God can do it there.
[00:39:43] What Jesus did, He took his disciples to the darkest place they knew. And he said, I'm going to build my church. And not even these dark places. Stop it.
[00:39:53] It can't. Stop it.
[00:39:56] And I believe that Jesus, this promise of building his church, that you and I are a part of that promise, you and I are a part of that invitation.
[00:40:10] We invest ourselves into partnering with the spirit of God in that promise by faith filled obedience into the promises of God. We choose to buy land in war zones. We choose to pray for prodigals when it doesn't look like they're coming back. We choose to contend for answers when all we see are problems. We choose to be generous when we feel poor. We choose to give ourselves to the promises of God even when it feels like we don't have much going on around us. We choose to conquer with joy around the room, even when we feel sad. We choose to be full of the goodness of God even when we're struggling.
[00:40:54] That's how we, by faith live our lives.
[00:40:57] Every time we feel confined, we buy a field by faith. We buy into the promises of God. We invest into what he invites us to.
[00:41:08] And that's the invitation to you today. That's the invitation to rediscover.
[00:41:13] And as we start this December month. I can't believe we're in December already on this December 1st, this Advent season.
[00:41:21] And we see that Jesus stepped into the darkness.
[00:41:26] He stepped into the hopeless war zone of this world. And he brought light. And he declared, let there be light right at the very beginning of creation. And he came into this world as a baby. And the light has overcome the darkness.
[00:41:45] And those who follow as children of the light will also know the victory of the light in their life as well.
[00:41:55] But I want to encourage you to choose to believe the word of God and the promises of God, even when it feels ridiculous.
[00:42:07] I pray that my life and your life will choose to trust in him.
[00:42:17] So what is the Lord asking of you?
[00:42:22] What fields, opportunities, invitations? Is the spirit of the Lord speaking over your life?
[00:42:32] That just does not feel rational.
[00:42:37] The Lord is not trying to bend your logic.
[00:42:41] He is trying to help you to realize that he is a God that supplies, provides, leads, guides, and he can do exceedingly, abundantly, above all we think or imagine.
