21st April 2024 Infill Service - Dave Food - Building Community the Church

Stoke, Contrent and it was very sunny, wasn't it. And we had

a great time. Thank you for praying for us. And I'm hoping there'll

be more people there next year from from latif as we push into growing church.

We've been talking on a theme this month on growing building community, and

for me, church is community and church's touching community, and so I really

want to talk about building community the church. Let me start with a scripture.

It's from month Thessalonians, chapter one, verses two and three. We

give thanks to God always for you, all making mention of you in our

prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, your labor of love,

and your patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of

God, our Father. And this is Paul writing say, I'm remembering you,

I'm praying for you. I know the church he's growing, I know

there's stuff going on in church, and he's praying and he's saying, you

know that there is such an encouragement here. I'm going to keep on praying

that you grow, that your faith is built, that what you're doing in

love will be expanded. Now who has enough love? Who in the room,

who at home has enough love. I'm not putting my hand up.

I'm asking the question now because I don't know that. But do you know

what there's a place where we run out of love, isn't there? It

might be true for parents, you know your children are just stressing you too

much. It might be for your husband or your wife, or family or

friends. They're just pushing it. Sometimes people push your buttons, don't they

They say things and you go oh, and sometimes you bite your tongue,

and sometimes you just you put your fingernails in your hand because you want to

say something, but what you're going to say isn't going to be a blessing,

so it becomes hard. Do you know? And you know that can

happen in all levels of relationship. We run out of love. And that's

why we need a supernatural download of love. Lord, give me some more

love. So I've got some more love to give. Because church is a

community. Church is impacting community. I just like you to think about I

just like you to pause wherever you are and think about the word community and

what does it mean to you. You probably jump to where you live,

you make maybe you'll jump to thinking about where your children's school, or maybe

where you work, because work is a community too. I know it's with

a particular purpose, but it's still a community of people. If you don't

if you don't believe me, then think about there will be groups of people

who go for a drink after work, or they go out for a meal

once in a while, or they'll celebrate a birthday later on. Today,

we're going to celebrate a birthday because it's some can We've got a cake ready.

That's not of community. That's part of celebrating. So church is a

community, but it's also impacting a community. And so church is not a

separate community. You and I are the church. So we don't leave church

here. Church is not a building, Church is not running. Church is

not Virginia Lodge. This is just the place we meet. And one of

the things people who been asking you, you know, last Sunday we were

packed, weren't we We were packed, And if to be honest, if

everybody who turned up on a Sunday turned up this Sunday, we wouldn't have

a seat spared. We'd have to put out even more chairs. And that's

a great place to be. Yeah, we do, absolutely, but we're

already preparing for that. We're already talking to somebody about a different building for

Sundays, you know, and we're already exploring that there's something we're looking into,

you know, in the very near future. Because I believe we're growing.

Not only do I believe, I can evidence that because there's people here

who haven't been for a while, who don't know other people in the room

because they're new. Great to have new faces, Great to have people who

God's bought plugged in and we're moving forward. So church is a community,

but it's also a community that impacts a community. I believe church should reflect

the principles of God's kingdom, you know. And many times I ask myself,

what would Jesus do in this moment, And maybe it's a long way

from what I would do. Maybe it's a long way from what you would

do. You know. Maybe you want to punch somebody right now in particular

circumstance, they're winding you up, and you want to give them a bit

of a slap. That's probably not what Jesus would do. I mean,

he did do some pretty drastic things, but I think he'd want to show

love. And so the principles of the Kingdom impact community, and our community

of church should be impact in the communities that we live in. In Luke

twenty four of us is forty five to nine, it says this as we

read and he opened the understanding that they might comp hand the scriptures. Then

he said to them, thus it is written, and thus it is necessary

for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,

and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to some

of the nations. Did I misread that? I did that deliberately. I

just wanted to make sure you're paying attention in church. You are paying attention.

There are people saying, Dave, you got it wrong. Yes,

not to some nations. So that even means nations who do not proclaim Christ.

There are even nations in the world who do not recognize Christ at a

national level. And yet it says he preached to all nations beginning where beginning

in Jerusalem, and you are witnesses to these things. One of the things

about community is we become a witness to other things happening in the community.

That's why in the British legal system, I don't know whether you've ever I

had the privilege of being on a jury, but you're there as a representative

of community to bring to help to bring a decision. You know, the

judge will look to the jury and say, Okay, what's your decision,

and they will have gone and they will have deliberated. And it's a reflection

of comunity. And I'm not saying that we need to be judges. God

is our judge. What I am saying is we are witnesses to stuff and

things. You know, when I was a child, if I was naughty

in the high street of the village that I lived in, some of the

people who were neighbors or people who knew me, So, Dave, what

are you doing. We live in a bit of a different world these days,

But you know what, I still believe the principles of the Kingdom should

be influencing the world that we live in. And I'll finish offer in look

twenty four with this Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you,

but tarrying the city of Jerusalem until you are in Jews with power from

on high. This is Jesus talking about the promise of him coming, dying,

rising again. But then the Father says, I will send a comforter.

Jesus said, the Father will send a comforter, the power from on

high, the Holy Spirit, and for me. Building community takes various steps.

It takes us a step. Firstly, as a church, we're ever

ready in evangelism. Now. Scripture talks about being ready in season and out

of season. Now, what's out of season ready? Have you ever had

a knock on your door and you're stood in your pajamas or you're dressing gown,

you're not ready to open the door. You might open the door a

crack, and maybe it's somebody trying to deliver a password. You know,

if somebody turned to you, you were standing in a queue in Tesco's,

and maybe you're wearing a badge, maybe you're humming a song. There's something

that the person in front of you turns around and says, you seem to

be happy today. What's going on in your world? You know? Or

why are you so happy? I get that asked from time to time,

or sometimes I've had people say, what are you smiling at me? For

bit of a different response. But I'm just trying to be polite and nicely,

you know. But in that moment they're asking a question. In that

moment, they're asking of you something, Why are you so happy? In

that moment? I believe we should be ready to give a glimpse of the

kingdom, a glimpse of something of who Jesus is in our savior, what

he did for us, because we can do that anywhere, anytime, any

place. If I poked you right now, so tell me something about Jesus.

What would you say? Thank you, brilliant, great, Off we

go off, we got something. He loves me. I would encourage every

one of you to have something ready to say, just a phrase. If

somebody said, you know you believe in this Bible stuff, Yes, I

do. It's changed my life. Don't have to say any more than that

because it'll probably provoke a question, how did it change your life? What

do you mean change your life? Isn't everybody good? But we can.

Once people start asking you questions, it's much easier. And here's one thing

that I'd love to encourage you with. Sometimes you'll get asked a question you

don't know the answer to. It's okay to say, I don't know the

answer to that, but let me go away and find out You've got to

go away and find out. But that means they're probably going to give you

their phone number or their email, will agree to meet with you again.

That's good as well, So let's be ever ready. In evangelism, we

as a church need to equip the church. Ephesians talks about the fivefold ministry

profits, apostles, teachers, evangelists, pastors. The role of those men

and women is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, equip

us for going out into the marketplace, equip us to do what we need

to do. And part of the way we do that is to encourage everybody

build relationships, make connections. Let me ask you a question. Have you

made any new friends in twenty twenty four? Are they Christians or not Christians.

I'm not asking you to tell me, I'm just asking you to think

about it. But you know, it's very easy to get into a Christian

bubble and the only people we know are Christians. Well, okay, we

can encourage them, but we don't need to share the gospel with them because

they're already saved. I'd encourage you find a way of making friends with people

who don't yet know Jesus and then yeah, yeah, absolutely. We love

people, We love our friends, We bless people, and I want to

encourage family because you know, scripture talks about people should not be alone.

You know, part of our CF is being a family. One of the

reasons why we say if anybody wants to come and join us for lunch after

church, we're going to go for lunch somewhere. Part of that is so

that people don't need to eat alone. One I didn't know this until actually

this week. I had a question on a quiz program I was watching and

said, who was the newly appointed member to the cabinet. And I can't

remember the name of the person, but I was surprised by the outside new

role in cabinet have been created. It it was the Minister of Loneliness,

and I thought, wow, So that shows the state of our world that

we need someone in the cabinet who's paying attention to loneliness. And we could

all evidence. We could all think of people who you say, I've had

I haven't seen anybody all week. You know, I can think of people

who said to me, I haven't spoken to anybody all day. You know

it. Post COVID, a lot of people are working from home. Do

you know what if you work from home when you're staring at a computer screen,

you crave meeting a real person, you do, Yeah, you want

to get away from the screen. So I want to encourage people in relationships.

I want to enable family. I want to say, let's adopt people.

If you haven't got a place to call home as a family, make

our CF your family and to do that. And one of the things we're

doing as church at the moment is saying we need more leaders. We are

growing as a church. One of the things we prayed for was it was

a prayer point. I think in February we prayed that God would grow our

Sunday school. We've got more children in church now than we had then.

Now, now that's brings a challenge because that means we need more Sunday school

teachers. Okay, and to be a Sunday school teacher, you know,

to be good and diligent. One of the first things we need to do

is to get you see our be checked so that we know that you're safe

to work with children. Then we can help to plug people in. You

know, God's bringing younger children our Sunday school at the moment's for four to

thirteen year olds. That's who it's aimed at. But God's bringing some younger

children. We're going to have to work a way out of maybe having a

creation or something else. You know, that's growth lead us for that kind

of stuff. So you know, God's empowering us and preparing us. In

Two Corinthians thirteen fourteen, we need grace, Boy, do we need grace.

It says this, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the

love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

We need to commune with one another. There's unity that comes in communion with

one another and communion with Christ through the Holy Spirit. And so church is

not just a community. If it was just a community, then we gather

and we play football. And we can play football. There's nothing wrong with

football. But the key Christ to church is Christ centered community. If we're

not mentioning, if we go through a whole meeting and Christ does not get

mentioned at all, whoops. I remember we had a small group going on

one particular Wednesday, I think it was in Churchsey and conversation and one of

the ladies that we got to the end and I said, okay, we'd

had a great conversation. We hadn't had any prayer. We had a great

conversation. And I said, okay, we've heard some challenges, we've heard

some provocations. What are you going to do with what you've learned today?

And one of the ladies how they don't spoil the atmosphere, And I said,

okay, what are we going to do with what we've learned today?

I said, because if we just had a good conversation, we're not going

to change. Sometimes we need to take a principle, an idea. We

need to be provoked by the spirit, and we need to make a decision.

We need to make a choice. So church is a christ centered community.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, all authority says this

in Matthew twenty eight is his great commission. And Jesus came and spoke to

them, saying, all authority has been given to me in the heaven and

on the earth. Go therefore, because all authority has been given to him,

He's commissioning them, say go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.

I'm not even going to play the game of some there baptizing them in

the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Baptism. It's a great thing to do. It's a fantastic thing to do.

And goes on to say, teaching them to observe all the things that

I have commanded you, and lo I am with you always, even to

the end of the age. One of the principle. One of the privileges

of traveling to conferences, you get to spend two or three hours in a

car with with somebody. So, you know, we had two cars go

to the conference we've just been to, and we were talking all the way

up there about things of church and and one of the questions somebody asked me,

who's not been here that long, said Dave, how do we do

baptisms? Are running a Christian fellowship? And I said, well, we've

done it in lots of ways. We've baptized some people in the river many

years ago. Maybe not maybe maybe not wisdom in the current climate with all

the news that's out there, so maybe that's so. When we used to

meet in man Across school, they've got a swimming pool. We've hired the

swimming pool. We baptized people in there. We've also got friends who've got

an outdoor heated swimming pool themselves, and we could baptize them in there.

That's another possibility. And also in the past, Saint John's as an Anglican

church, has a full bone baptistery in their floor. Quite interesting different and

so when they've got baptisms going on on the Sunday, we pay attention because

maybe we need to baptize some people on the Saturday before. So there's lots

of ways we could do baptism. We don't need to have a baptistery in

this building. I don't think the council would like us if we dug up

the floor and built a pond in them, a pool in the bottom.

But yeah, baptism, it's a very natural part of a journey people come

to Christ. I want to be baptized. I want to be filled with

the spirit. Our theme for June is a couple of months away now,

is going to be all about baptism, baptist water, baptism, baptism of

the spirit. Because church is not just a community with Christ at the center.

Church is a community of Christ's centered followers, empowered by the Spirit.

And when we give it all to God. We can read this, we

can say this. He's in charge of some of it. He's in charge

of it all. Has the final word on something, has the final word

on everything, and is somewhere near the center. No, okay, let

me read it properly. Now. I'm playing with you because I just want

to make sure you're with me, because this has a significance. Because sometimes

we say, we say the words Christ is at the center, and then

we move him aside when things are difficult. Well yeah, yeah, okay,

but I don't really want to follow you in this particular thing, in

this particular way. When the Father speaks to us, sometimes there's a battle

between our flesh and our spirit, his spirit in us because there's a warring

that go on. I want to my flesh wants to do this, and

the father's nudging me in a different direction. Sometimes that requires sacrifice. He

is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At

the center of all of this, Christ rules the Church. The Church,

you see, is not peripheral to the world. The world is peripheral to

the Church. The Church is Christ's body in which He speaks and acts,

by which He fills everything with his presence, and God placed all things under

his feet and appointed him to be the head over everything for the church.

Some of you may not be familiar with this particular translation. It's actually the

NIV. But I just find it fascinating that we bring that clarity. God

placed all things under Christ. We look to Christ as the head of the

church. Christ is the center. We need to be a little bit more

christ Like. Now, have I got there? No? Have you got

there? Probably not? I don't know. Only you could tell me,

or God could tell me. But as we try to get more like Christ,

people will see things in us, they'll see Christ in us, and

they'll say, why do you do that? What made you say that?

It's a scriptural phrase that I love that I hope you will find helpful that

says I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. And I'll

end with a story that I think illustrates this. You may have heard me

tell this story before now, But a friend of mine leads a church in

part of our Lifelinks network and leads a church in the northern US, in

the area of Montana, in that part of the US western northwestern and a

small church, and you know, but America's big. Everybody drives somewhere.

You don't unless you live in a city. You drive somewhere. And her

husband and they had a big driveway. They had a truck and a car

and another vehicle as well as an suv. I think they'd call it anyway.

One of the cars needed some work on it, so he jacked the

car up onto the jacks and he's under the car trying to move. I

think it's called a sump bolt. Who was trying to let the aill out

and it wouldn't move, so he got the got the wrench on it.

It was really pulling, really pulling, and it was up on these jacks,

and he pulled and pulled the pull and he pulled and he rocked it

so much the car came off. The jackson was now lying on top of

him, and he's under the car screaming. You know, there's you know,

and people have big gardens and they went people around and people are in

the houses. So he's shouting out and his wife hears him shouting out for

inside, comes out and sees her husband's trapped under the car, and she's

trying to get hold of the wheel arch and you know, she's a little

lady. I think fight, I think the pastor Tommy. She was about

five six four, but you know, she's just trying to do what she

could. And she was crying out, but there were no neighbors that seemed

to be able to hear their call. And she said this simple phrase,

she said, God help me. And she said the car got lifted up.

She said, I don't know whether it was me, whether God gave

me supernatural strength, or whether God sent an angel, but the car got

lifted enough enough for her husband to roll out, and the car fell on

the grounds. And he had a badly bruce chest. He had a badly

bruce chest, but he hadn't broken any ribs at all. Do you know

what, in our moment of need, in our circumstance and situation, we

can cry out to God. So you don't have to be in church to

pray. You don't need a PhD in prayer. I can do all things

through Christ, who strengthens me. Now I am absolutely certain in talking to

this past this lady did not able to expect to pick up a car.

Now that's not something I'm asking God to help me with. But in that

moment of need. She cried out, and God somehow helped her. An

amazing testimony, an amazing story. God is able to do it immeasurably more

than we ask or imagine. So let me pray because I'm hoping that if

I'm hoping that church will be more like God's Kingdom, I'm hoping that the

people in church will be more like Christ. I'm hoping that the people who

come to church are looking for Jesus because they see something of Christ, Jesus

Christ, our Savior in you and me. There'll be something that you and

I say, There'll be something that you and I do, and it'll create

a question and say, where do you do that? We had a guy

in church. He's gone to be with the Lord now Terry, and he

works in the in the in the cement industry, a tough industry, and

every time they had a coffee break, he'd go and sit down and get

his Bible out and he'd read his Bible. Do you know what? There

were people who started asking questions because they saw him behaving differently. They saw

him doing things. He hit his thumb with a sledgehammer once and the guy

witnessed it, and it wasn't deliberate. It was an accident. And the

kind of thing you most people would do is they'd probably swear in that moment,

and he didn't. He just went oh, and then he stuck his

stumb in his mouth and you know, to try to get And the guy

said, well, why didn't you swear? Terry said, I didn't need

to. I didn't need to swear, you know, Just that simple act

started a conversation with Terry and his friend, and over a number of coffees,

he ended up coming to a men's breakfast once just because of this sledgehammer

incident. It led to a conversation, It led to another conversation, It

led to some witnessing. It led to I want to know more about this

place that you fellowship. Terry brought him to the men's breakfast. So,

Father God, as we meet in your name, as we meet in this

place, Father, would you fill us again and again equip us to be

your church. We pray, enable us to be more like Christ, help

us to follow Lord God his example, his way. And I want to

pray for I just want to pause in the midst of that prayer and say

you right now, those at home, those listening later those in the room,

you might think something very specific where you know there's a tension between what

you want to do and what the Father's asking you to do, what would

actually be modeled. I just want to encourage you, and I'm going to

pray for you. I'm not going to ask you to stand, but if

that's you, just make a mental note and say, Lord, I want

to resolve this tension. I don't want to live in this tension anymore.

I want to I need your help to help me to be more like Christ,

to be a bit more representative of your kingdom and your kingdom principles and

your kingdom purposes. And so, Father God, I pray right now,

Lord you'd help us to connect with you. It'd help us to connect more

readily with You and your Holy Spirit. And Lord, you'd show us more

of Jesus. Amen. Amen. So we're going to come back to worship now,