12th January 2025 All Age All Nations - Start here, Start now

Morning. Everybody. You're looking good today. People got some Christmas jumpers,

some new jumpers. I can see some new jumpers I've

never seen before. Maybe they just came out of mothballs.

I don't know. I'm glad to see Anya here. I'm

going to point to Anya. If you've got any questions

about the next thing I'm about to say, ask Kania.

Twenty twenty five is a special year. I asked the

question last week, and some of you may not have

seen it on WhatsApp. What's special about the number twenty

twenty five? One answer would be one plus two up

to nine squared equals twenty twenty five. Also one cubed

plus two cubed all the way up to nine also

equals twenty eight twenty five. And it's a perfect square. Yeah,

twenty twenty five is forty five square. The last time

this happened was in nineteen thirty six. So why am

I bothering to give you all this mathematics. If you've

got any questions about mathematics, ask Gania. Now she's got it.

He's got a great degree in maths from well Holloway.

But all I want to say is it's a special year.

It's a special year. It's a precious year, and he

has meen got got us off to a great start

by saying, you know, a fresh start now, A fresh

start does not have to happen because it's a new year,

a fresh You could have a fresh start this week.

You don't have to beat yourself up and say I

didn't do it last week. Some of you will think

about going to the gym. The gym loves at this

time of year, going hey, you get a special deal,

come to the gym, get fit. And I've spoken to

some people who work in the gym who say it

lasts about three months for many many people, but the

gym makes quite a good chunk of money out of it.

But my point is this, let's not just start because

it's a new year. Let's start because we need to start.

Let's yea if we need to restart, if we need

to reboot. How many people have got a computer or

use a computer? Okay, lots of people. What do technology

What do the technology department say when you've got a problem?

What's the first thing when you ring up the help desk?

What's the first thing they say? Turn it off and

on again. It's a restart. It's a very very simple thing.

It's basically clear out everything that was in it and

start again. And I want to say that to us Church,

let's just clear and rubbish out of the way. Isaiah

forty three. Verses eighteen and nineteen were what we focused

on last week and our ash in our fasting day.

It reminded us to go back to seventeen, which said

forget the former things. Forget the former things. You know,

that's one of the things we need to do when

we make a restart is forget the things that don't

matter anymore, leave them behind, pack them up. Some of

you have spent this week packing up your Christmas decorations

and putting them away. You won't see them again for

twelve months. Some of you are saying hallelujah because he's

all the dust and everything else. Not that we don't

want to celebrate Christmas Church, by the way, but you

know so I want to My title and my theme

for today is not just fresh start, but start now.

Whenever now is for you? Now is now? I wait

ten seconds? Now is now? It just keeps on moving,

So now moves, And so I want to mix in

a whole bunch of things. I want to share a

whole bunch of things. But let me start with Two Corinthians.

Two Corinthians, Chapter two Corinthians, Chapter five, Verse seventeen. Therefore,

if anyone is in Christ, he is or he or

she is a new creation. All things have passed away,

all things have become new. Not some things have become new.

All things have become new. Therefore, is anyone in Christ,

he is a new creation. Church, you are a new creation.

As believers in Christ, you're in a new Kraine. If

you don't know what that means, then come and talk

to me afterwards what it means to put our trust

in Christ and say, He's my savior. He paid the

price for me on the cross at Cavalry. And therefore,

as I put my trust in him, the old things,

the old man, the old woman has been left behind.

And I step into a new clothing, a new dress.

I walk differently, I dress differently, because all the old

things have passed and the new things have come. But

it goes on to say this, but you keep your

head in all situations endure hardship. Sorry, Michael, that's me.

I pressed it already. But you keep your head in

all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist.

This is instructions from Paul to Timothy. Discharge the duties

of your ministry. I don't know what your ministry is,

but whatever it is, do it with passion. Do it

a little more. You know you will feel more satisfied

if you step into the clothes that you're meant to

be wearing. If you're a evangelist, talk to someone about Jesus.

If you're someone who serves, serves someone different. If you're

someone who's been called to make finance for the kingdom,

keep on making some finance and keep on giving it away.

Do you know what My definition of a millionaire is

not someone who's earned a million, but someone who's given

away a million, given away a million. So keep our

heads in all situations, but do the duties that were

charged to do so. Whatever the gift is that you have,

use it. It will go rusty, it'll get dusty, it'll

stay in a draw. So let me talk as I've

talked a little bit about money there, let me just

jump to a Oh I can't see some of my slides.

What's happened? Okay, thank you, dere If you didn't hear

that coming from the front. Turn it off and on again?

Was the encouragement there the budget one. So as we

step into twenty two five, one of the things that

I want to do is just to encourage us that,

you know, God has been gracious. We'd moved to Strode

three months ago. We've had some teething difficulties. We having

teething challenges and we've had to press in, but we've grown.

Last week, unintentionally, we ended up being back at Virginia Lodge.

A miscommunication. The college hadn't expected us, so we ended

up back at Virginia Lodge. Do you know what if

you'd all been there as well, and there were visitors

last week, even though it's kind of still school holidays,

there were visitors last week. We would not have fitted

in last week if you'd have all turned up. And

so that's why we had to move. And next week

we will put more chairs out. Next week, We've got

a fantastic worship leader called Wally Adanuga. Wally Adanuka is

a good friend of mine. He's a better friend of

scholot O Shinoiki, who some of you know, and I've

preached with Wally Wally's a worship leader. He is a

fantastic worship leader. It's going to come on lead worship

and preach. If just just look up Wally Adanuga and

you will find him that there are literally hundreds of

songs that he's written. He's on the Hosannah label if

you like Hosannah. But he's going to becoming a leading

worship We will put as many chairs out as we

can get into the room safely to be honest, because

there will be visitors, I'm sure. And that's just an

example of as we step into twenty twenty five, we're

going to do some new things. We're going to start

doing some new things. We're going to start equipping people

in teams to do stuff. We're going to start pressing

into being the church that God's called us to be.

But that requires a little bit of finance. So I'll

just share with you last back end of last year,

roughly Robs our treasurer. Judy is our bookkeeper. We roughly

turned over in the calendar year just under forty five

thousand pounds. I'm believing that we need to be setting

a budget for about sixty five thousand pounds for this

calendar year. That's a stretch. That's a faith thing. But

you know what, if we fill all these seats, we

will have to do other things. We will need an

Alpha course or something like that, a new Believer's course.

You need different ways of doing food and fellowship. I

know we've got a fellowship fee staff to church today,

but what happens when we get to thirty five people

who want to go to the fellowship feast? Ah nice

problem to have. There's an example in Scripture feeding five

thousand that it happened before we can do it again.

Thank you Rob. Somebody else agreed with me that we

can see miracles and training and equipping people. We will

train and equip people. We will go away and do

things together. There's a Lifelinks UK conference in April. The

ladies are going away later in the year. There's a

half day they're doing with val Bird from Canada in May,

and the men will be going away. The men are

going to go and do something social as well later

in the summer. But there's a whole bunch of things

that we will be doing. So you know, that's just

to give you a bit of a stretch thought and

some things to think about. So what do I mean

by being part of our CF Well, I believe we

will grow in the room, but will also grow outside

the room. You know, some of our online Bible studies

have people that you have never met, and I have

never met physically. Zo Zoso, who's part of the Ladies Groups,

who currently lives in South Africa. She's been on faithfully

on our Bible study, very very regularly. They kept her

and her husband and their daughter came and visited us

over the summer. It's great to see them. But you know,

they used to live in Scotland. Now they live in

South Africa. You know, we will grow, not just in

the room, we will grow as an online church. And

I am fascinated by a couple of things that God

lines up. So let me give you an example. Letty

was down to MC the Sunday before Christmas put something

we planned months ago, wasn't it? LETTI I think he

was in the road for months. And we had a

student who had graduated that week from Peru. From Peru,

and he brought his whole family. His whole family, many

of them couldn't speak English. So Letty up the front

spontaneously translated into Spanish for them. How could we have

planned that? We didn't, but God did. God knew And yeah,

we now blog on our services. Sorry, we weekly blog

in English, Spanish, Tamil, Hindu, Persian. I've forgotten one Hindi. Yeah,

and here's an interesting thing. The new security guard of

this building, who will be looking after us each week

is for Lankan. So I'm going to send him a

message just to send him the blog each week and

just see whether he reads it in Tamil. You know, God,

God opens doors in lots of very creative and amazing ways.

So where are we going to start and what are

we going to do? You want to give me the

next scripture? Micah, because I can't see anything on my phone.

Are you rebooting? Okay? Timothy wrote this. I have fought

the fight. I have finished the race. I have kept

the faith. Do you know how many people like doing exercise?

A few people? Okay, I'm told you feel better at

the end than you do at the beginning. Something about

endorphins and all those things flying through your body and

making you feel I've done it. It's good. That's why

park run has grown so significantly now, because doing it

together is less painful doing things together is much less painful. Church.

I want to encourage us all to get into the

habit of doing things together. Let me give you an example.

Let's say you had it stirred in your heart to

go and knock on someone's door and visit them and

just pop in for a coffee. You might let them

know in advance and just say, hey, I'm popping around.

Why not take somebody with you and be a blessing.

You could talk on the way if you're walking, you

could talk in the car if you're driving. But do

you know what, if we do it together, it's so so,

so so so much easier. And Paul wrote this, I

have finished the good fight. I have finished the race.

It's good to finish. It's good to finish well as well.

And why is it good to finish? As it goes

on to say, now there is a store for me,

the crown of righteousness, which is the Lord, the righteous Judge,

which will award to me on that day, and not

only me, but also to all who have longed for

his appearing. If we know Christ, we're looking for his return,

if we're excited about his return, then our eyes are

probably ready. Are you ready for someone new to come

and sit next to you, Cherry and gave us a

great example to be warmer to sit next to somebody.

That's true, you will get some of the radiant heat

coming from their body. So why do we sit apart?

It's an interesting question. Why do we always fill up

the back rows of church first? It's not just church.

It happens in cinemas, it happens at work, it happens

in business meetings, happens all over the place. Why do

we fill up the back seats first? Yep, could could

be real, could be shyness, yes, absolutely, But think about

the people who turn up late are always flustered because

maybe they got stuck in traffic, or they got last

or whatever. So if we turn up late, we want

to make it feel as easy as possible. They could

just slip in the back, sit down on a seat.

So let me encourage you regulars. Please move forward two

seats further forward than you normally sit in, just as encouragement.

I'm not asking you to sit in the front road.

That's what people like Cherry and Well, okay, if we've

run a race and we've finished well, Sometimes we don't

finish well, and I want to look at that, and

I want to look at what the Bible says about that.

What do we read there? We're told you were running

a good race. Who cut in on you to keep

you from obeying the truth? Who cut in on you?

What stopped you doing what you should have done? What

stopped you finishing the race? There are I think her

name was Liz mccorgan. She was running a marathon in

I don't know where it was. She car, I can't

remember where it was, but she needed to go to

the toilet rather in a hurry, so she just literally

she didn't just slipped off the road, found a drain

and dealt with it. Excuse the graphic story there, but

do you know what? She was going to finish the race.

She was going to finish the race, and she wanted

to finish well. Sometimes there are things that happened that

are unexpected, and because they're unexpected, we think, oh, I'm

going to we give up. Sometimes that's the moment for

a fresh start. It's not that we've it's not that

we're restarting the race, but we are restarting in here.

We're going, Okay, I want to give up, but no,

I'm choosing to press in. Okay, I've had enough. No,

I'm choosing to go on. Okay, I haven't got enough energy,

but God's going to give me more. I haven't got

enough finances in my bank to make this, but I'm

believing because God said, then I'm going to press into

that and I'm going to make that step. You've heard

me tell stories before now, but one story that I

still instinctively remember. It would be very different for me today,

I imagined. But when I was a student at Warwick

University of East Anglia, I used to go to different

churches and I found a church to settle into and

I went one Sunday morning, and as it came to

the offering time, I felt the Lord say, put a

good offering in today, and I thought, okay. So I

put my hand in my pocket and one pocket and

took out the money that I had in that pocket,

and I felt the Father go mm hmm. I said,

but the rest is my bus fair to get home again,

and I just felt him just nudge. I'm not saying

this is necessary for you. I'm just saying this is

what happened for me. I emptied my pockets that day.

It wasn't a large amount of money, but it was

an attitude of heart. You know. My start was okay,

that's my best offer. And then when he went oh,

I went, okay, I can't do it with the microphone,

but both hands, both hands, you know, both pockets the lot.

Now you might think, okay, so cold walk home. Because

it was February time, I remember, it was like it

is today. And here's the thing. After church, a gentleman

came up to me and said, Dave, would you like

to come back to our house for lunch? So I

went back to the house for lunch. Of course I did.

As a student. You never say no to free lunch,

do you. So I went back to the house for lunch.

Do you know what they said, at the end of lunch,

can we take you home? Yes? I didn't have to

walk home. Do you know what I really do wonder?

I don't know, but I really do wonder whether if

I hadn't have emptied my pockets, whether he would have

asked me back for lunch. I don't know. I don't

know whether God's like that, But all I'm saying is

I just know that I gave all that I had

in that moment, and it was a fresh start. He

started in my head. It started in my head. Well

that's all I can give because of A B and C,

because of the bus fair And then when I went, okay, yeah,

but I can walk, so the whole lot went. It's

just a simple thing. It's a refresh of the mind.

Start now, start again, start fresh. So what kind of

things cut in on you? Doubt? Doubt cuts in us.

If we say we're men and women of faith, doubt

will cut in on us on our regular basis. God,

you know, the enemy loves to pick on us. John

ten ten, I think it's in the slides. Further on,

John ten ten says the enemy comes only to steal,

kill and destroy. Now I love this scripture, but not

because of the first part. You might you probably say, Dave,

you've quoted this far too many times. But actually, if

you read the second part, it says, but I have

come that you might have life and have it to

the full. So okay, it acknowledges the enemy and says, yes,

he loves to mess our lives up. He loves to

trip us up, he loves to cause us to not

finish our race. But Christ has come that we might

have life and have it to the full. Anybody want

a full life? Oh there's some people who didn't. Okay,

maybe your hands were stuck in your pocket. Have life

and have it to the full. So, and I'm going

to keep this. So what do I mean when I

talk about calling our CF home, whether it's online or

face to face. First place is you love us. You

love us and you want to be with us in

some way or other. Maybe you can only come once

a month. You love us, but you still want to

be there. Number two, you want to pray? You know,

a Christian should pray. A Christian should pray because we're

in touch with the most powerful being in the universe,

and he wants to talk to us, and he wants

us to talk to him and prayers. How we do that? Yeah?

Sometimes God will speak back to you, sometimes audibly, sometimes

to somebody else, sometimes with scripture, sometimes who a dream.

But God will speak back to you, you know, And

I honestly believe the more we talk to him, the

more he'll talk to us. So keep on talking. Note

some of us go, but he knows everything. Anyway, Why

do I need to tell him anything? Well, he just

wants us to acknowledge what's important to us. He knows everything.

So what's important to you? Who is it you want

to pray for today? We will bring different people and

circumstances in different situations to him. So we love this place.

We want to pray, We want to give financially and

from time, and we want to serve. And that's true

for those people online who are part of our CEF.

We have people around the world now who are part

of who we are as a church. And some of

those people help us with stuff online. We have a

guy in New York who helps us with thumbnails, just

a simple thing, that's all he does, just helps us

with thumbnails. For anybody doesn't know what thumbnail is, it's

not my thumbnail. It's a thing on a computer, a

good picture on a computer. But Tommy helps us with that,

and he dials in on a regular basis. So when

I talk talk about starting now, I want to s yeah,

let me finish. So love, us, pray, give, serve. Those

are the four things that's really how we can. And

you can do that whether you're physically here, whether you're

regularly here, whether you're joining us online. And so to

start is to start now. And so let's go back

to our scripture for the year Isaiah, chapter forty three.

I think it begins at seventeen eighteen. Sorry, do not

remember the past events, paying no attention to the things

of old. Look, I am about to do something new

even now it is coming, do you not see it? Indeed,

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers

in the desert. I want to kind of draw my

words to a conclusion today by just encouraging you to

paint some pictures with God. So I'm going to ask

us all to close our eyes. I saw people joining

us online from Turkey, Norway, Egypt, Germany, South Africa, some

of the countries that I saw joining us in our

service this morning. And our reach is getting bigger, Church,

so please get used to multinational connections. I just wanted

to ask you to close your eyes and what till

you imagine a barren place. If you want to make

it a desert, that's fine. If you just want to

make it there's nothing growing there. If you want to

make it the thunder and it's very snowy, and then

I want you to imagine how it could change, how

it could change, what would burst forth, what will be

the first plant that appears, what will be the first

thing that you see, what would be the first sign

of growth, What will be the green shoots that sow?

Water is Landed seeds are there. Seeds are amazing things.

Seeds carry the DNA of their full design, not just

how they're going to start, but how they're going to finish.

A defective seed will produce a defective plant. And so

when we see seed in the ground, I know this

to be prophetically true. There are many, many, many people

listening online and those in the room who have seed,

prophetic seeds that have been sown in your life that

have not yet been watered. And it's not because it's

about timing. It's about God's timing. There will come a

time when watering will come and there will be a

springing fourth and if there's a springing fourth, that will

result in streams in the desert. Just want to encourage

you now to take that image and think about a

place in your world, a place in your situation, a

place in your ministry, a place in your family where

you see a little bit of desert, you look at

it and go, this could do with watering, well, this

could do with a clear pathway through it, paths in

the wilderness. Because that's what I'm going to pray for.

I'm going to pray for that right now. So you've

imagined somewhere in your situation. It might be work, it

might be a friend, it might be family, situation, might

be your own personal life. It might be that you've

done some things wrong over Christmas that you're not proud

of and you don't know what to do about it.

Do you know what? Return to Christ? Turn again. That's

what repentance means, to turn again, to turn away from

the wrongdoing and look back to Christ. God forgives us

if we repent. So if we want to see fruitfulness

in our lives, let's turn back to God. Let's lift

our eyes up and look. Let's pray for the rain

to come. Let's pray for the rain to fall, and

let's look for the signs of revival. Let's look for

the signs of new fruitfulness. Let's look for the new

signs of a new style up. So let me pray. Actually, no,

let me make it personal. I'm not going to ask

you what it is. But if you have a picture

in your heart right now that you're bringing before the Lord,

would you stand? Would you stand? If there's a picture

that you're you know it's a place of desert, there's

a place of no fruitfulnesses something that you just want

to bring back before the Lord and say, look at this.

If there are people who just want to learn, that

includes you at home as well. If you just want

to stand where you are, say, Lord, I've made a

bit of a mess here, I've got this wrong. I

need some help. Lord, forgive me. Anybody else want to stand?

And then I'm going to pray, Father, thank you that

you've created us to be visual people. Father, give us

fresh dreams for the days ahead. Father, I pray for

those parts of our lives that are not what they

should be. Father, if they're not submitted to you, then

help us to turn again. Father. If we you've stepped

away from the path, then Lord, let your light shine

and draw us back to your path and let us

get back on track. And Lord, if there's things that

we can do nothing about, Lord, we want to bring

it to the foot of the cross and say, have

your will, have your way, do what you need to do,

Lord God, to complete this. We pray in Jesus' name,

And so Father, we Pray for your light to shine,

your rain to come, and your spirit to be released

into these circumstances and situations in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.

So what do I mean? Fresh start? You can sit

down again. Thank you everybody who stood, and for those

who stood at home you can sit down as well.

So fresh start