28th July 2024 - Teaching Service

I'll share what's on my heart.

We've been doing a theme this month on dealing with

the unseen, dealing with the hidden, and I want to

talk today about the hidden battle. The battle that people

don't talk about. Are the things you don't talk about?

Are there things that go on inside your head that

you don't talk about?

There is? For me?

Yeah, Sometimes my head's full of thoughts. Sometimes they're good,

I might be willing to share them. Sometimes they're not

so good. I know there are people in the room,

and I know there are people listening online who've been

through disappointment. Something happens and then you were disappointed, and

because of that disappointment, suddenly it's a bit like am

I standing on rock? Or am I standing on sands?

What is reliable? What is the secure? And you know

the story of Jesus talked about the wise man building

his house upon the rock and the foolish man building

his house upon the sand. And we know that song.

You're probably you're already singing it in your heads. The

wide man building his house upon the rock, you know,

And what happened the rock stood? What happened to the

rock that the house that was built on sand? It

came down when the rains came and I can already

see people doing the action game. Rain came down, Yeah,

floods came up. Anyway, you're probably singing that in your

head now, even though it's online and at home. But

what are we building on? Jo when doubt creeps into art?

Anybody here ever been up aer climbing wall? Anybody climbed

a rock face? Yeah, a few people. It's exciting, isn't it.

It's exciting. The adrenaline starts to flow, and your legs

start to shake a bit if you're not very good

with heights, and you climb higher and hire, and then

you reach maybe for a handhold, and you can't quite

reach it, and suddenly you sense your balance going and

suddenly your confidence goes completely, and then your legs start

to shake. And what happens on climbing walls on a

very regular basis, climbing instructors would tell you this is

people freeze. They climbed halfway up the wall, they confidently

got to that level. They were already attached to a rope,

so if they fall off, somebody's going to hold them.

But they freeze because suddenly they believe I cannot do this.

I cannot do this, and the muscles, you know, the

muscles literally freeze. I've been there, I've done that, you know,

and literally I can't move and it's almost like you're

frozen in ice.

You say I cannot move. Now.

Ultimately, the instructor will say, okay, just relax, just talk

to me, and eventually, maybe sometimes freedom will come back

to your hands and you can start moving again.

Sometimes all it means is just let go and the

rope will let you down.

But the point I make it the point where we

get to where say I can't do this, and I.

Am believing and I believe this to be true.

There are people in the room, and there are people online,

and there are people will listen later who are in

a moment where you're saying.

I can't do this. That's a moment when we have

to trust the anchor.

We have to trust the rope and say, Okay, I'm

going to jump off and we're going to go down again.

Maybe we're going to start again.

Maybe you're going to reframe, maybe you're going to go

a different route, or maybe the father's saying stay here

and wait and you can climb up further. The instructor says,

it's okay, you're safe. We've got to move from a

place of unbelief to a place of belief. And that's

an unseen thing. If I said to you, show me

your belief, all you can do is show me your

belief in action. You cannot show me your belief. Your

belief is in here, it's in your heads and in

your hearts. Your belief is inside it's only when you

put your belief into action. For anybody who's ever been parachuting,

parachuting is a dangerous sport. You jump out of a

plane and you try to fly like a bird, and

then you open your parachute, and if it all works,

you come down safely. But do you know what the

moment you jump out of the plane, you are saying,

I trust the parachute, I trust the person who packed

the parachute, and I trust the instructor who taught me

how to do this, that.

I know what I'm doing.

You took a step of faith when you stepped out

of that plane, When you stepped out of that helicopter

or that glider, you took a step of faith. Your

belief went into action. Do you know most of us

do that every day. It's not hand gliding, it's not parachuting,

it's not climbing. It's just taking a step of faith.

A step of faith is often something we've never done before.

We've never been there before, we've never been here before.

I think I'd be reasonably confident in saying we've never

been here before. As a church. If you looked at

the people in the room, many faces are familiar, but

it's one or two new ones. So I can confidently

say this group of people has never met before. So

we're in a new place. We're in a different place.

So I will to encourage you to take steps of faith.

They start with Two Corinthians, chapter four and read from there,

and it says this, so we fix our eyes not

on what is seen, but what is unseen, since what

is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

I think I shared a few weeks ago I love

building sand castles, and having been in Cornwall.

Recently, I got the privilege of building a sand castle.

When the tide came in, it washed away all my

hard work, and when the tide went out again.

There was no evidence that I'd even done anything. Yeah.

Well, that's quite right, Absolutely, Roy, did I not take

a photo? Because actually, one of the great sayings says,

if you're going to walk in the country, if you're

going to visit somewhere, leave footprints and take away memories,

take your camera with you. Absolutely, And I think there

were pictures taken.

I just not with me.

But the point I'm making is the many things that

we do, you wouldn't even know we've done them. And

that's okay sometimes, but do you know what the lasting

things are.

Photographs are memories.

The eternal things are things that last into eternity. In

the Book of in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, it

talks about putting on the armor of God. Why does

it talk about putting on the armor of God, because remember,

I'm talking about an unseen battle here in Ephesians, chapter six,

verses ten to thirteen.

Having put on the armor, finally, be strong in the

Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor.

Of God, so that you can take your stand against

the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh

and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against

the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces.

Of evil in the heavenly realms.

Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that

when the day of evil comes, you may be able

to stand your ground. And after you have done everything

to stand, is it easy to stand?

Oh?

Yeah, our bodies are designed to stand. It's great that

we can stand. If anybody's ever been on an exhibition

stall or been a salesperson at an event and you've

had to stand on a concrete floor for eight hours,

you get to the end of the day and you go, oh,

that was tiring. Because we don't tend to spend eight

hours standing. We tend to sit, stand, lie down, walk around.

Standing can be tiring, but standing is a positive choice.

When I say take your stand, this is not just

are you standing, it's saying are you standing?

Are you ready?

As the Olympics has kicked off this weekend, as some

of you turned your television off and said I don't

want I'm fed up with sport already, there will be

some There will be some boxing going on, there will

be some taekwondo, there will various different arts. And one

of the questions is are you standing ready to face

your opponent? Because if you're not. They'll come and they'll

knock you over and they've won. The enemy loves to

come and knock us down. The enemy come, loves to

come and have a go. So I want to encourage

you to take your stands, to plant your feet firmly in.

And I'm not just talking about the way you physically stand.

I'm talking about spiritually where you stand. Are you standing

under the authority of scripture? Are you following the guidelines

of the Lord? Are you responding to the Holy Spirit?

Are you pressing into the opportunities that God is bringing you?

Because these things are truly impactful in terms of making

a difference. Because do you know what, if discouragement comes,

we stand and we face it and we go. Okay,

I can see that chapter would be discouraging, but I

choose a different path. I choose to look up and

I choose to look at the opportunity that comes. Let

me name a few things. And I'm right in the

midst of this right now. And I'm not wanting sympathy here.

This is not my point, but I'm just saying I'm

Some people have been made redundant this year, some people

have lost their jobs. Okay, well, yes, that's painful, it's difficult,

But do you know what God, He's going to take

somewhere else. He's going to lift you up. He's going

to lead you on and walk. Stay on his path.

Stay on his path. When discouragement comes, lift your eyes

up beyond the circumstances and say, I'm still walking.

I'm still standing.

Maybe a health prognosis, something that this happened, maybe a

relationship's broken, and.

You're go, what's the point.

The point is God loves you, and he has a

plan for you and a purpose for you, And despite

what the enemy might throw at us, and despite what happens,

as it says in Jeremiah twenty nine, I have plans

for you that are good and have purpose, and they

bring these things together. So when that circumstance comes, then

we can make declarations like in the Book of Romans,

and it says forms and I'm going to hopefully, I'm

leaning you can all declare this, but let me read

it first of all before I even ask you to

do that. For I am convinced that neither to death

nor life, nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor

the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor

anything else in all creation will be able to separate

us from the love of God that it is Christ,

Jesus Our Lord.

Basically nothing.

If I want to summarize that those verses, nothing can

separate us from the love of God. Now, I don't

know whether you're comfortable with reading this, but I would

like to let me again just say this.

Just look at these words.

Is this something you could believe that you could put

into practice because it's scripture, and Scripture's powerful scriptures, God's

truth and guidance to us. It declares and proclaims so

many things. So I'm going to read it again, and

if you want to join with me, even at home,

if you want to join with me, I want to

proclaim this and I want you to say it for yourself,

So don't say us. I want to make this really

personal this morning. So let's read this together for those

who want to. For I am convinced that neither death

nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor

the future, nor any powers, neither height nor death nor

anything else.

In all creation will be able.

To separate us from the love of God that is

in Christ Jesus, Amen Father. I pray that this would

be truth for us, My Father, I pray that Lord

you would open doors for those who are staring at

shut doors. And even as I'm praying this prayer church

right a sense, the Father says, Okay, for some people,

they're staring at a shut doors, saying the doors shut.

You've probably done this in the natural once in a while.

I can't get in, I can't get in. Have you

tried opening the door? Just since?

The Father says, take a few steps, walk this way

and see and in some cases there'll be electronic doors

and as you walk up to them, they will literally

open before you. And I'm saying this is a declaration.

I'm not just talking about how doors work. I sense

that the Father would say, just take some steps of

faith and doors will open for you. Because there's an

unseen battle going on, and it starts with what we know,

what do we believe, and therefore what do we do.

This is the time of year, so Father, let that

be for us. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen. I love athletics.

I love watching athletics, and I know something a bit

about sports psychology, and some of the sports psychologists would

say this if you're running the one hundred meters and

it's a hundredth of a second whether you win or lose.

Then they say, you've actually got to see yourself crossing

the finish line, and they see things like, imagine yourself

crossing the finishing line, imagine yourself pushing your chest forward,

because it's the chest crossing the finishing line that sets

who finished first or second. And I am absolutely sure

there will be races one at the Olympics in the

next few weeks where the difference will be somebody who

hadn't imagined it and somebody who had, and the difference

was just that, that's all it was. There's a hidden

battle going on. Are we believing God is for us?

Are we believing God is with us? Are we believing

God is with us?

Now?

In Colossians chapter two, it says this, when you were

dead in your sin, when you were dead and in

the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ.

He forgave us all our sins, not some of our sins.

Now the enemy loves to come along and whispering, it's

only fifty percent done. See this habit. You had this

choice that you make this past event. God's not big

enough to deal with that. God is big enough.

He sent his son Jesus to pay the price for all.

And so when we were dead in our sins, and

when we were dead in your sins, and in the

uncircumcision of your flesh, the separated part, God made you

alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having

canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against

us and condemned us. He was taking it away, nailing

it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities,

he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them

by the cross.

The cross speaks.

As Christians, we believe the cross is a symbol that

impacts our lives, and it's not a cross where Jesus

is still hanging there. We have to remember there are

some important parts of the gospel message. At first, he

says Jesus was willing to do what his father wanted

us him to do, and that was to pay the

price for you and for me. There is a consequence

of sin, There is a price to be paid. And

so Christ went to the cross, and he died, and

he was taken down from his body was taken down.

From the cross, so it's an empty cross.

And placed in a tomb, and the stone was placed

across the tomb, and then we know the Easter stories

of how the ladies came to dress the body on

the day after, on the day following, and they came

and the zone had been rolled away and he was

not there. Because it's not just an empty cross, it's

also an empty tomb. And the empty tomb speaks of

a resurrected Christ.

Christ paid the price for you and for me, and that.

Needs to get deep in our souls, in our beings,

because it changes our worldview. Our faith is not something

that was dead.

I guess he was dead for a few moments, but

he is living. He has written from the.

Dead what is our struggle all about? But it says

this in Ephesians chapter six twelve, for our struggle is

not against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers,

against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world,

and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Do anybody feel like sometimes you're fighting I don't know,

a bubble giant, A bubble giant, something that's that's that's big,

but you can't get your whole arms around it. If

you've ever done that kind of wrestling where you put

on those big supersuits, you know, those blow up suits

so that you're a giant person, if you ever try

trying to get hold of your opponent is exactly like

that bubble min like a micheline man. You can't get

hold of them because they're bigger than you can reach

around them. You can't wrestle with them, so you just

end up running at them and knocking them over. And

it's all great fun. But you know what, sometimes I

sense the Father says, I just want you to put

this down. And instead of physically having to knock the

giant down, just have to pick up one of the

stones that God gives you and launch it in the

right way, and Goliath will fall as Goliath did. For

God loves us and is your plan for us, and

the battle needs to be one. And so I want

to encourage you if you're wrestling with someone, share it

wrestling with something, Share it with somebody so that you're

not your own.

Husband's wife, family, brothers.

We've just renamed our men's group from a men's Breakfast

to Bob.

Bob, Yes, Bob. Yeah, that's a strange name for it. Guys.

What does it stand for? Brother? Band of brothers? Band

of brothers, Yeah, Bob. So when we say we're.

Going to Bob on Saturday, you'll know what it's all about.

Thank you, band of brothers doing it together.

Now, one of the things I firmly believe as we

move forward as a church is we need men who

are praying together and they're praying about things that matter.

And ladies, it's not that you're not important, but if

you look at any church, you will generally find there

are less men than women. And the men are not

praying about the things that we need to be praying about,

and we're not doing the things that we should be doing,

and we're not seeing the victories that we should be seeing. Now,

why is pornography And I'm not going to go into

detail on it, but why is pornography have such a

stronghold in the world today? Why are the way men

and women relate, you know, talk about male violence upon

women is at his highest level, certain in.

The UK it's been for a long time.

It's because we've got a wrong model and a wrong

picture and young men are educated wrong about how to

respect women. In my opinion, it's just my opinion, and

I think it's important. I think it's important that we

model family, we model the right relationship.

We modeled what it is to be.

A man as an example, just in the same way

we model what it is to be a woman as well.

So there's a battle going on and a battle to

be one. So share it with somebody and I encourage you.

Let me give you. I've used this technique a number

of times. I'll say it again until I'm bored, until

you're bored with it possibly.

But it's this.

Sometimes people say, hi, how are you today? And do

you know what your day's gone?

Great?

And you go, actually, today's brilliant. I'm having a fantastic week.

And you tell people and then you can celebrate together

and you can lift one another up. You know, sometimes

actually you're having a pretty crummy week and you're willing

to talk about it. So when this how was your week?

You know, actually it was pretty grummy, and you get there,

and please, when you ask your friends how was your week,

please be ready for that kind of.

Answer because you asked them.

If you ask people how their week are and they

basically regurgitate upon you the dread week they've been through.

You know, sometimes our response is, oh, I'm sorry, let

me go make a cup of tea. And that speaks

volumes to people. It speaks volumes to people because we're

not ready. So let me encourage you and say, if

you ask somebody how they are, celebrate the good things

and be ready for the there. But sometimes when that

question gets asked, we put on a mask, and we

put on a mask because we don't want to talk

about it right now. This is what I call the

third way, and I've called it the third way many times,

and it's this.

If you ask me how I am.

And because it's so raw, it's so real, it's so now,

I cannot tell you. Or maybe the moment's inconvenient. There's

lots of children running around and I can't tell you,

or maybe you know, we're busy, and I would just say,

do you know what, Actually, it's really crummy right now,

but I can't talk about it right now. That third

way opens the door. That third way opens the door

to continue to be real. It opens a door for prayer,

It opens a door for future possibility. So when somebody

shares with you that actually it's a pretty crummy week this.

Week, and actually I can't talk about it right now.

Please just say thank you for being willing to even

share that with me, and then say, do you know what,

I'll give you a call in a couple of days,

I'll message you.

We'll just find out how it's going from here.

Because that kicks off prayer, that kicks off accountability, because

they've just trusted you with the fact of having a

crummy weeek.

So please don't just leave it there and forget about it.

Put a little note in your diary or remember it

and just say.

Do you know what, I'm just going to touch base

with them again, and they might still go, do you

know what, I'm still.

In the middle of a crummy week. Okay, well, are

you going to pray some more?

Now? There will come a moment when somebody will say,

thank you for praying, thank you for asking. No one

else knows about this, and they'll share and the reality

will be the battle is being overcome because you're not

alone and you're not doing it alone. So let me

just give you that as a piece of wisdom. I've

done it a few times. I've encouraged other people to

do it sometimes what is the purpose of the battle.

Further on in Ephesians, chapter chapter three, verses ten in

the Evel, and it says this his intent was that now,

through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God should be

made known to the rulers, authorities, and the heavenly realms,

according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ,

Jesus our Lord. You know, continuing to proclaim who Jesus is.

I know it's not politically correct. I know we live

in a world where there we places. There are people

in this room. If you went back to your home

country and stood on the street corner and declared and

proclaim Jesus Christ's Lord, you could be arrested and put

in prison. And for people listening online, that's probably true

for some of you and some of the people we've

touched over many years would be in that kind of situation.

But you know what, we need to keep on proclaiming

who Christ is. We need to keep on giving people

a message of hope because Christ not only died for

you and me, but everybody else out there.

And let me map this back to.

Where I started before a even started sharing any word

this morning, and that's this, Okay, why would we move

to a bigger building. We'd move to a bigger building

because we want more empty seats. We want more empty

seats because we want those empty seats to be filled.

Church is not about the people are in the church,

although that we're equipping. The purpose of leadership in the

church is to equip the saints for the work of

the ministry. Says that in Ephesians. For that's what the

gift ministry is for, to equit the saints, you and

me to do the work of the ministry, to share

the good news, to teach, encourage, to bring hope, to pray.

I could keep on going.

So one of the reasons why we need more seats

is we need more people. We want more space to

invite people. I am absolutely sure that there has been

a moment where you probably went through this thought and

you thought, oh, I could invite them to come to church.

But there's seven of them.

If they turn up at church on a Sunday, there

might not be enough seats for them.

I don't ever want.

Want to be a barrier for you thinking whether you

should invite some of the church or not. To be honest,

I'd sit on the floor. I personally would sit on

the floor if it meant that a guest could sit

on a chair. I hope maybe that's you too. I

am so excited when I see new faces. I'm so

pleased when I see people coming back again. There's obviously

something in us that is making a difference. And John

wrote this in his John wrote this in his letter.

Since he said this, my dear children, you come from

God and belong to God. You've already won a big

victory over the false teachings that are going on. For

the spirit is in you is far stronger than anything

that's in the world. That's the message translation, my dear children,

We've overcome the world. And I kind of close with

taking this back to the bigger picture because the battle

that goes on is one of the things that influences

the way we stand.

Is our world view. And if our worldview is it's

all natural.

And the spiritual just sits behind it, and primarily it's

a naturally driven world, then that's going to drive you

to certain behaviors. On our midweek Bible study a few

weeks ago, we had a lady who shared and just.

Said, how do you share faith with doctors?

That was the kind of question I think I'll be

a summary has been a kind of I'm summarizing, making

a bit simpler. But how do you share faith with doctors?

Because doctors are taught you look at the symptoms, You

address the symptoms. Police doctors in the room. Because I'm

not a doctor, so please correct me if I'm not right.

But you look at the symptoms, you try and then

assess from those symptoms what you think it is, and

you treat them accordingly. And sometimes you have to send

them away for tests and other things and say, we

don't really know yet. Let's we think it might be this,

let's go and do some tests. You know, for people

who start in the natural it's it could be, could be,

could be maybe maybe maybe, and you might have a disease.

But you know what, God can heal. God does heal.

God does do miracles. And in the same way that

we can walk in the natural worldview, God's a creative God.

If you wanted me to summarize the Bible in two words,

let me see if I can do this. Summarize the

Old Testament in one word, summarize the New Testament in

one word, I.

Don't know how you would try and do that for me.

The Old Testament is all about creation, about God created,

God made, And then what's the New Testament. It's about

Jesus and it's about he redeemed his world. So it's

about creation and redemption, creation and redemption, creation, And I

know it's much much bigger than that, much more complicated

than that, do you know? If you want a starting

point from a worldview, it's a great place to start.

You know, then you're straight into Okay, what did God create?

Why did he create it? What's the purpose of creation?

How did he create it? When did he create it?

Why did he create it? You know, there's there's some

simple questions that you can get straight into a deep

conversation with friends and family.

Greater is He in you and he that is in

the world.

If you can walk with this simple mindset, you can

take a stance. You will not get locked on a

climbing wall. You will not get to a place where

you get frozen. You say I can't do this, because

what comes again is yes, I can, because God will

help me. God does not want us to be frozen

on the climbing wall of life, inactive, ineffective, useless. He

wants us to be moving forward, or maybe on some

climban was moving sideways. Maybe that's appropriate to get to

the top.

Well, let me pray.

Let me pray with this in mind, and I want

to encourage you to close your eyes, whether you're at

home listening later in the room, and I want to

declare some scripture over you with our eyes closed, God

is able to do immeasurably more than we.

Ask or imagine.

Now, if that's your if you believe that, as opposed

to you've heard somebody else say it, If you believe that,

I'm going to ask you quietly to pray. Where you

are or something that you've wrestled with for weeks, months,

maybe years, I'd like to take you back to a

place where you are anchored.

It's a bit like you've.

Been nailed down on a bungee and you cannot go

any further forward because as you go forward, you get

pulled back because of this circumstanced situation.

It might be a work.

Situation, it might be a relationship situation, but there is

some way that you feel tied to something that is

not allowing you to step into destiny and purpose. God

is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.

And greater is He that is in us than he

that is in the world. With those two truths in

our hearts and in our minds, I'm going to pray,

and I'm going to let you pray. I want you

to pray into that circumstance that you can pray it

quietly under your breath.

The Father's going to hear you. But let's pray. And

so Father, we stand.

We choose to stand firstly with the confidence that our savior,

Jesus Christ died for us. He paid the price for

our sein than our sickness. He set it from the

impact of death. He sets us free because of the

price he paid on the cross and the victory that

was won through the and demonstrate it through the empty tube.

And so, Father God, we walk into the fullness of

who we are. We walk into the We walk into

our destiny with confidence, and we put our hand in

your hand and we do it with you. Father God,

empower us by your Holy Spirit, open our eyes to

the things that we need to know and understand.

Lord, would you enlarge our vision?

Would you enlarge our capacity to walk in a new way. Lord,

would you give us strength and hope for tomorrow. Lord,

would you release a dimension of who we are in you,

that we start to realize that even a Goliath that

stands before us, as Goliath stood before David, is not

something that we should shy away from. If it's a

battle You've called us to take us to dowd and

in Lord, we want to be ready to do that.

We want to take up whatever it is that you

give us and use it for your glory and see

lives changed, see bodies healed, see circumstance, breakthrough in circumstances,

to see healing, even even the dead raised. Could I

say that today, Lord, God, we would see miracles just

like Jesus did because he said to his disciples, and

we are his disciples, as the Church, you will do

greater things than I've done. And Lord, my mind's already

blown when I just read what your son Jesus did

on this earth and what your Holy Spirit is doing

through the church today.

In Jesus' name, Amen's