Renewing The Vision [PART 2] | Live Courageously | Mark Pugh | Sunday 19th July

[00:00:03] Heavenly Father, we thank you for the active work of your presence among us. [00:00:10] We thank you for the active work of your word within us. [00:00:15] And we pray that the Spirit and the Word today will bring alive your truth to our hearts and it will accomplish all you desire to accomplish in us this day. I pray in Jesus name, Amen. [00:00:31] We're continuing a series I started last week called Renewing the Vision. [00:00:37] Last week I announced a reset, a share that we've veered off course in some way from our core vision and our assignment as a church and that we are realigning for those in tech world. We are switching the computer off and on again. [00:00:54] Our focus will be clear, our structure and activities towards that end will be understood. [00:01:00] And I'm reminded that a vision that God has set for us a number of years ago, that vision that I reminded us of last week to reveal the glory of God to the southwest and beyond, is a vision that we've not yet fulfilled. [00:01:16] It's never been a vision about a few people involved in leadership in a church fulfilling something that, that we all cheer them on. It's always been a vision that involves all of us, requires each of us. [00:01:30] And at this time of reset and this time of realignment, we invite you to reflect in the same way that I expressed last week, that I've reflected, that the elders have reflected. [00:01:46] We invite you, each of you, to reflect on how closely your life is outworking the vision of God and to reset and realign accordingly. [00:02:02] Today we're going to start to put some further flesh on that because recommitting to the vision can sound like a nice idea to agree with, but then forget by Tuesday. [00:02:15] I don't want that. [00:02:17] I want something that changes how you and I actually live our lives. [00:02:23] Not just this coming week, but every week. [00:02:28] As part of this vision, we have set up in the past a number of key values that help us work out how we correlate the everyday of our life to help propagate this vision forward. [00:02:43] And there are three values that capture this within our life. There are three core expressions, things that we believe are fundamental. They're like the uniform, if you like that we wear all of us together at Rediscover as our way of demonstrating the vision of God. Maybe we could call them our DNA. [00:03:05] One thing about DNA is it's present in every cell in our body. [00:03:12] There's no part that it's remiss to be. [00:03:16] And the Bible describes the church as a body and it describes us as the body of Christ. [00:03:24] And we believe that every member of this church, whether you've joined in the last couple of weeks or whether you've been here for decades, we believe that God has called all of us to carry this same DNA in every cell of our lives of this church. [00:03:42] So for the next three weeks, we're going to unpack together our values one at a time. And these three values are summed up in three simple phrases. [00:03:54] And that is something that those of you who've been around will maybe recall and be familiar with. But we're going to look at how they apply into our life. [00:04:02] They are live courageously, love extravagantly, and thrive authentically. [00:04:11] These are not slogans. These are benchmarks to reflect how your life and my life measure up and make how we make decisions in our life and where we're off on those things that we realign as necessary. [00:04:29] Today we're going to look at the first of those three values of live courageously. And I want to say from the outset of this talk that this is not a talk about being braver as a personality trait. [00:04:45] There are some people in this room who will naturally be daredevils. [00:04:49] You were always the kid with the broken bone in your body in some way. You always took risks. There was always some misaligned adventure because you just seem to have a courage about your life. [00:05:02] This is not about that. [00:05:05] This is not about those who naturally just are brave and those who are more timid. [00:05:12] Some of you will be naturally bold and some naturally cautious. [00:05:18] And this isn't a word that's aimed at changing your temperament. [00:05:23] This is a word that's aimed at reflecting and changing our obedience. [00:05:31] You see, courage biblically is never about how you're wired. [00:05:39] It's about what you do with fear. When God has spoken a word to you, that is the definition of courage. [00:05:50] God speaks something to you, and fear speaks something opposite. And courage is the obedience to listen to God's word, not fears. [00:06:04] And I'm going to bring a bit of a sort of a key text that's going to help with this, because there's one command that God gives more than almost every other command in Scripture. [00:06:15] It's repeated. [00:06:17] And when God says something once in his Word, it's to be listened to. But when he says it repeatedly, he's not just saying this is more important because it's all important. But he's saying, I recognize the propensity of my people is to lose this. And I'm going to keep repeating it because you need to keep hearing it. [00:06:39] And this is a word, a Command that appears many, many times. I've not counted them myself and gone through, but I understand. I'm told that there's 365 exhortations in the scripture, one for every day of the year, to be courageous. [00:07:01] You see, a few months ago, I spoke about don't camp at the edge of the promise. [00:07:08] That there are promises that we're not meant to just live around the edge of. We're meant to cross over into. And to do that takes courage. See, Joshua had just watched Moses die, and he inherited a call bigger than he feels he's ready for. [00:07:29] There's never been a moment in my life when I have ever felt ready for what God's asked of me. [00:07:36] And I suspect I never will feel ready to do what God's asked of me. [00:07:41] There's always an inadequacy. There's always a sense of having to stretch. [00:07:47] It always requires courage. [00:07:50] I have never felt ready. And you might look at those who take part in these services and think, well, they're obviously ready. It's easier for them. I want you to hear the truth of we don't feel ready. [00:08:05] And you should hear that as an encouragement because you can step into the promises of God even when you don't feel ready. But it takes courage. [00:08:17] If we don't have courage, we camp at the edge of the promise. [00:08:22] And we see that Joshua, he's not ready for this moment. In his own understanding, he is going into a land he hasn't yet taken. [00:08:32] Against giants he's never fought before. And God says to him three times in nine verses. In Joshua 1, verses 6, 7 and 9, he says these words, be strong and courageous. [00:08:47] Then he says, only be strong and very courageous. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened. [00:08:58] Do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. [00:09:06] Notice this is not an exhortation. This is a command. [00:09:12] It's not a suggestion, it's not an idea. It's not an ideology. It's a command. [00:09:19] If you've ever served in the forces, you understand the power of command. [00:09:26] We live in a very. [00:09:28] In a society where when people say things, they are suggestions. [00:09:34] But when you've worked in a military environment, you know that even if you disagree, you follow the command. [00:09:41] This is a command. [00:09:43] God doesn't say, try to feel courageous. [00:09:48] He commands courage the same way that he commands love or holiness. [00:09:56] And this tells us something important. [00:10:00] Courage is not the absence of fear. [00:10:05] Courage is the obedience in the presence of God. [00:10:12] Because you have decided that God's word outweighs your feelings. [00:10:20] That's the very courage we're talking about today and our values. Break it down into five specific shapes. [00:10:30] Let's walk through these five shapes together. [00:10:34] First of all, living courageously requires us to be spirit filled. [00:10:41] Our DNA statement goes on to say, we rely. [00:10:47] It's a really powerful word, rely. [00:10:50] Like if you rely on the buses, you are saying, I need them to get to my job. [00:11:00] If you rely on something, if you rely that this has the ability to hold my weight, the consequences are significant if you don't achieve and if you distrust it, you will find some other way of creating strength. It says this, we rely on the active empowerment, the wisdom and the provision of God. [00:11:23] Courage doesn't start with willpower, it starts with dependence. [00:11:31] And that probably sounds backward to most of us because we assume that a courageous person is a self sufficient person. [00:11:44] But Scripture says the opposite. [00:11:47] Zechariah 4, 6. And we had somebody visiting us a few weeks ago that began to sing these words over this church. And it says this not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts. [00:12:08] Zerubbabel was staring at a mountain of a task that he didn't know how he was going to fill it and he didn't feel he was prepared fully for it. Rebuilding the temple, no resources, hostile opposition all around him. And God doesn't give him a strategy. [00:12:30] He gives him a spirit dependence. [00:12:35] And the challenge that some of us have been trying to live in a way that we're brave in our own strength, that we talk ourselves into being brave. [00:12:47] We surround ourselves with positivity. [00:12:51] We read books of people who have been courageous and we think, I want to emulate them. [00:12:57] But that's not where courage comes from. It comes from a reliance and a dependence on the spirit. [00:13:06] It's exhausting. If you're trying to do it in your own strength. [00:13:10] You will try and grit your teeth through a trial or through a difficult relationship or through a challenge in your workplace or a physical diagnosis. [00:13:22] And you will say that you're gritting your teeth by faith. [00:13:27] That's not what this is. [00:13:30] Gritted teeth is not the same as spirit filled dependence and courage. [00:13:37] Spirit filled courage says, I am not enough for this and I'm not trying to be enough. [00:13:45] I'm relying on the active empowerment of that isn't mine, it's his. [00:13:52] Could we be a church that is so reliant on the work and the person of the Spirit? [00:14:00] I believe he's called us to be that. I believe he's called you to be that. [00:14:06] See, being a Spirit filled church is not how we do our services. [00:14:09] It's how the members of the body invite the work of the Spirit into their lives. [00:14:17] And I found that God often places us. He places me in situations that stretch us. [00:14:24] Not because he's trying to break us, but because he's trying to help you and I orientate towards living a Spirit filled life. [00:14:37] Jesus told his disciples that they were to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. He gave them a big mandate and a big vision, but he told them not to do it until they received the Spirit. [00:14:53] You and I can't fulfill the purposes of God unless we're filled with the Spirit. [00:15:00] The purposes of God don't begin with go. They begin with wait, receive, and then go. [00:15:08] Secondly, living courageously requires us to be word aligned. [00:15:15] Our DNA statement goes on to say, we build our lives on God's unchanging life giving faith, building truth. [00:15:29] I'm desperately sad that there are churches in our nation that have looked at the Scriptures through their own experiences and their own preferences and their own cultural interpretation. [00:15:46] And they have modified, they have adapted. [00:15:53] We are a Pentecostal church. We believe in the work of the Spirit. But we are an evangelical church. We believe in the authority of this word. [00:16:04] And I'm grieved when I hear of churches that have stopped believing in the authority of this word. [00:16:16] And while it may get some plaudits from a world around that says at last you're modernizing, you're changing, there are, I want to hold on to the one who is unchanging. [00:16:32] I want to hold on to the truth that is unchanging. Because seasons come and go. And if you want a fashion faith, you see, this is not a fashion faith. You know the thing about fashion? When you look at photographs of you looking cool 20 years ago, your photographs don't look very cool because it changes. [00:16:53] This is not about you wearing fashion. This is about you standing on a rock. [00:17:00] This is about you holding truth in your life that will never change. You won't look back at the photographs of following this truth and think, ouch, that looked uncomfortable, that looked out of sync. You will look back and you will say, this word never failed. [00:17:19] And I'd like us to pray for churches that have. [00:17:24] I'm not going to name them. [00:17:26] There are many in the nation that have gone through this and they've redacted things that they don't like. [00:17:34] And some of that story is that maybe they've had an experience in their family that has deeply provoked them and they feel like they're choosing family. [00:17:46] But all the statistics reveal to me that churches that go soft on this Word, they go soft and they lose their edge and they begin to decrease in their number. [00:18:06] And I'd like us to pray that the same spirit that we've invited to come and breathe onto the embers of our life and bring fresh fire. [00:18:14] I'd like us to pray that God will fill those churches with fresh fire and bring them back to bow the knee before the Word of God. Can we just pray a moment? Father, we ask. [00:18:26] You know every story, you know every congregation, you know every discussion that's ever happened around compromising youg Word. [00:18:36] And we ask that yout will, as yous look on us with mercy. We haven't got it all together, but we ask that yout will look with mercy over these churches. [00:18:46] And we ask, O God, that your spirit will breathe upon them. [00:18:51] And we ask that you will bring them back to the lordship of Christ, to the submission to your Word. [00:19:01] And we ask, O God, that you will do that in churches across this nation, that there will be a fresh renewal of a commitment to the Word of God in their lives. In Jesus name I pray. [00:19:15] Amen. [00:19:18] We build our lives on God's unchanging life giving faith, building truth. [00:19:26] When a pilot is trained to fly a plane, there's something they experience called spatial disorientation. [00:19:37] When there's fog or when there's conditions that they can't see the horizon, they've done some tests and they've worked out that there's often some tricks that the mind plays on them. [00:19:51] They might feel like they're veering left, but they're veering right. They may feel like they're inclining, but they're actually declining. [00:19:59] Pilots call it the leans. [00:20:02] It's disorientating enough that if uncorrected, it can bring planes down, even with experienced pilots at the control. [00:20:12] And there's only one remedy taught in every flight school across the world, and that's trust the instruments, not the feelings. [00:20:24] Trust the altimeter, trust the compass. [00:20:28] Trust those dials that are in front of you that tell you where you are and how you're flying, not your instincts, not your feelings. [00:20:40] See, when you and I feel something, we often can experience this sense of the leans. [00:20:50] We can be disorientated. [00:20:54] I know there are people in this church that the fog of life has surrounded you, and you have woken up one day with a chaos and a challenge and a difficulty that you never expected to wake up to. [00:21:08] And there are two sorts of people in that environment. [00:21:12] One person, their world begins to try to orientate around this new feeling, this new chaos, this new inability to see their circumstances like they could the previous day. [00:21:29] And it can be deceptive. [00:21:31] But then there are those, and there are many of you in this room that at that time you go to the dials to the truth and you tell your feelings, to surrender to the dials to the truth. [00:21:51] Those are the people who get through the chaos of this world. [00:21:57] If you want to navigate a way of hope and a way of promise in your life, you have to know the truth. [00:22:05] And knowing the truth is not reciting it, it's embracing it. Knowing the truth in an airplane is not saying, well, I know that that says that we are descending right now. Knowing the truth says, I know that says we're descending and I believe it and I'm going to do something in response. [00:22:23] That's what knowing the truth means. [00:22:25] It means living in proportion or in response to what you're understanding, even though your feelings say otherwise. [00:22:37] See, our feelings get disorientated. Doesn't matter how strong you feel in your life, when chaos comes, our feelings get disorientated. [00:22:46] Fears fill our lives. [00:22:49] And we need the instruments of truth. We need God's word. Jesus told a story about this, about this word alignment. [00:22:59] You see, your feelings on a given day are not neutral instruments. They're affected by how you slept. They're affected by what you're afraid of. They're affected by what just happened in your marriage or what's taking place in your job. God's instrument of the truth of God's word is the only thing that doesn't change with the weather. [00:23:21] Word aligned Courage isn't a person who never feels the leans. [00:23:27] It's a person who's decided in advance that I am going to trust what God has said. I'm going to fly with the instruments that he's given me in his word. Jesus said these words in Matthew 7. [00:23:42] Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man or woman who built their house on the rock and the rain fell. That's the disorientation, that's the chaos you weren't expecting. And the floods came. That's when it overwhelms and it begins to come up and surround you and wrap around your legs and the winds blew. That when it begins to feel absolutely chaotic around you and it beats on the house that you had built, on your security, on your strength, and it beats at you, and it beats at you. [00:24:17] But the house did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. If you want to found your life on the rock, you have to build your life on the truth. [00:24:29] And we are called to be a church that builds our life on the truth. And if society around us says you are wrong, you are not able to do that, there's new laws coming, that means you're not able to do that. Then we say, I'm sorry, but we are building our life on the rock. [00:24:49] That's what we're called to. [00:24:51] You see. Notice the storm hits both houses in that parable. [00:24:57] Courage doesn't exempt you from the storm. It determines whether you're still standing when it passes. [00:25:04] And what determines that isn't how confident you felt walking in. [00:25:09] It's what you built your life on before the storm arrived. [00:25:15] Word alignment isn't a boring add on to courage. It's the load bearing wall of our lives. [00:25:21] Emotion fueled courage collapses the moment the feeling fades. [00:25:27] But word built courage holds because it was never resting on the feeling in the first place. [00:25:37] Thirdly, living courageously requires us to be stewards and not owners. [00:25:46] A DNA statement goes on to say this. Everything we have and every opportunity is entrusted to us for serving his purposes, not ours. [00:26:04] This is where courage gets deeply personal because it touches what you hold onto with your life. [00:26:13] Those things that are the most precious to you, your family, your home, your job, your business, your friendships. When you hold those in your hand and they are the most precious parts of your life, this calls you to see how you see those things. [00:26:38] Jesus tells a story of three servants that were entrusted with varying numbers of talents. [00:26:46] Two of them take a risk with what they've been given, and one of them, out of fear, buries his talent to keep it safe. [00:26:58] Jesus says to this man in Matthew 25:25, I was afraid. Or this man said to Jesus, rather, I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. [00:27:12] Now that servant is not condemned for losing money. [00:27:15] He's condemned for burying it, for letting fear turn stewardship into hoarding. [00:27:24] And I want to be direct here. [00:27:27] The opposite of courage is not always visible cowardice. [00:27:32] Sometimes it just looks like caution dressed up as wisdom. [00:27:37] It looks like keeping your gifts close. [00:27:42] It looks like using your time, your resources, your risk tolerance, safety. Buried when nothing can go wrong. [00:27:52] The problem with burying it where nothing can go wrong is that you bury it when nothing can grow. [00:27:59] In 1 Corinthians 4, it says, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. [00:28:07] Faithful isn't safe. [00:28:10] Faithful. [00:28:12] Everything you have, your time, your home, your money, your influence, your Sundays, if they all actually belong to God and He's only entrusted them to you to look after on his behalf, then courage means holding it with an open hand, enough to take risks of courage with what he has given you to steward. [00:28:37] What has fear got you burying right now that you should be investing right now as a steward? [00:28:47] Fourthly, living courageously requires us to be leading with humility. [00:28:54] A DNA statement goes on to say this. [00:28:56] As followers of Jesus, we use our daily influence to make his name famous. [00:29:05] Not your name famous, not rediscover's name famous, but his name famous. [00:29:12] And I think this might be one of the most countercultural shapes of courage in this whole list of living courageously. Because our culture tells us that our courage looks like a certain yourself, stamping yourself into the environment and the situation strongly. [00:29:36] But Scripture shows us Jesus Christ, on the night of his deepest crisis, what did he do? [00:29:44] He took a towel and he washed the feet of his disciples. [00:29:51] Now, the culture of this world teaches us things as well. [00:29:56] The world has written its own Bible, it's written its own values, it's written its own codes, and they change all the time. [00:30:05] But one of the things in the Bible of the world, in the culture of the world, it teaches us that we should desire fame, we should thrive on attention, that we should be seen to be head and shoulders above everyone else around us. [00:30:24] But in this word, Jesus teaches something very different. [00:30:30] He lived pointing people, not to himself, but to His Father. [00:30:36] We read in Philippians 2, it says, have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in form of God, did not count equality with God, something to be grasped. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. [00:30:55] Living your life, dedicated to pointing your life towards someone else's life is the call that's on you. [00:31:07] It's a call that's on this church. And it's a call that takes real courage. [00:31:12] Pride is easier, safer. [00:31:16] It protects your image. [00:31:18] But humility exposes you. [00:31:21] It says, my reputation isn't the thing I'm protecting. [00:31:25] His name is what I'm protecting. [00:31:28] Every single one of us has influence in our life over a family, a team, a friend, street work colleagues. The question courage asks is, am I spending that influence to make my name look good or his? [00:31:46] And then fifthly, finally, living courageously requires us to be faithful filled. [00:31:54] Our DNA statement goes on to say, listen to this carefully. [00:32:00] We innovate, we take kingdom minded risks and we refuse to settle knowing there are many more God inspired adventures ahead. [00:32:19] We believe there are many more God inspired adventures ahead and that is why we innovate. That is why we do not settle. [00:32:30] Peter is the only person in scripture who we understand walked on water and he only did it because he was foolish in the best sense enough to ask. [00:32:46] In Matthew 14:28 we read and Peter answered him, lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And he said, come. [00:32:58] So Peter got out of the boat and he walked on the water and he came to Jesus. [00:33:07] Everybody remembers that Peter sank, but nobody else got out of the boat enough to Sink. [00:33:14] There were 11 other men who stayed dry and safe and had an unremarkable experience that night. [00:33:22] And there was one man who took a kingdom minded risk. [00:33:26] He wobbled and he still ended up closer to Jesus than anyone else on that boat. [00:33:33] In 2 Corinthians 5 we read for we walk by faith and not by sight. [00:33:40] In this church we have people stepping out of the boat all the time. [00:33:45] We have some of those big stories we have. Today our Cranbrook church is celebrating its third birthday. Happy Birthday. Rediscover Cranbrook. [00:33:59] We were with Norman and Ellison this week that three years ago started that and they were talking about the cost, the sacrifice, the challenge, the courage. And they have done a remarkable job at helping lead that precious community. [00:34:15] But it's not just expressed in planting churches. [00:34:20] This faith filled life is expressed in so many ways in our life. In fact, walking on water looks very different depending on the context. [00:34:32] For example, your walking on water may be following a prompt of the Holy Spirit to start that conversation with your work colleague with a little nudge of a word of knowledge. [00:34:44] It could be a little prompt of the Lord about pivoting your business in some way. And that takes courage. It's faith filled. [00:34:55] It could be a prompt of the Spirit for you to bless the someone else, bless them with encouragement, bless them with financial resources. Even though you may not feel like you have a comfortable pot to do that from. [00:35:11] That may be your faith filled adventure for today and there may be another tomorrow and another on Tuesday. [00:35:22] It may be that that faith filled adventure will cause you to to sell up your house in the next few years and to relocate to a new town or village to be a part of a church planting team. [00:35:35] It may be that. It may be that God is going to cause hearts in this place to have a heart for another nation and you're going to get an Airfare ticket. You're going to train and prepare for that moment when you get on that flight to arrive in another nation to introduce them to your Savior. [00:35:56] There may be many different ways, but however it is, you and I are called to carry the DNA of being faith filled. [00:36:06] The boat you step from will vary. The water you walk on will vary. But what will be common, it is an obedience. Stepping out of trusting in the voice of the Lord. [00:36:20] If you're happy in the boat, the Lord is going to rock your boat. [00:36:29] Not because he wants you to drown, but because he wants you to follow him on adventure. [00:36:38] This is not called to be a cruise ship church. [00:36:44] We are not called to entertain you, to feed you, to love you, to make you feel really special. [00:36:52] Listen, you are really special. We want to feed you, we want to bless you, we want you to enjoy coming to church. But it's not why we exist. We are in small boats together. It is rocking literally. Not because there's a rock band on the stage, but but because the Lord is shaking the boat and he's saying, I want you on the water. I want you to walk by faith. [00:37:19] And if you're part of Rediscover, you should think about that really carefully. [00:37:24] Because if you want comfort, you need to find somewhere else to fellowship. [00:37:31] Because the Lord has need of you. [00:37:34] The Lord has assignments for you and he has an assignment for this church. [00:37:41] See every one of these five spirit filled word aligned stewards, not owners. Leading with humility. Being faith filled costs us something. [00:37:53] Courage that costs nothing isn't courage. It's just a nice word. [00:37:57] We use it to describe something that is comfort disguised. [00:38:04] But if you and I together as a team in this place, if you and I as leaders together in this place, all of us, I look around this room and I see you're all called to lead. You're all called to walk on water. You're all called to hear the voice of God. You're all called to build your life on truth. [00:38:25] You're all called to it and your life matters. [00:38:36] There's nobody called to sit at the back and spectate. [00:38:42] Sorry about those who sat at the back. [00:38:46] You're called to adventure. [00:38:49] You're called to live courageously. [00:38:53] And this is the thing. [00:38:55] If we are going to reveal the glory of God to the southwest and beyond, these values need to be lived out by every single one of us every single day. [00:39:09] And in closing, I want to ask you five honest questions and I want to invite you to allow them to search you. [00:39:17] Don't just nod along. Here they are on the screen. [00:39:21] Where have you been relying on your own strength instead of the spirit's active influence? Empowerment. [00:39:29] Secondly, is your life actually built on God's word or is it built on your feelings about God's word? [00:39:37] Thirdly, what has fear got you burying that God has entrusted to you to risk, not to protect? [00:39:47] Fourthly, is the influence of your life making him famous or you famous? [00:39:54] Fifthly, where do you need to get out of the boat Again, God's command to Joshua wasn't feel ready. [00:40:04] It was be strong and courageous. [00:40:08] And it didn't end there. He said, for the Lord, your God is with you wherever you go. [00:40:16] That last phrase is like the engine of the command. [00:40:20] You're not being asked to generate courage from nothing. You are being reminded that the ground you're standing on already has his presence on it. [00:40:33] Church, are you ready to live courageously? [00:40:40] I'm not, but I'm going to. [00:40:47] So let me rephrase it not are you ready? [00:40:50] Are you going to be obedient?