31st July 2022 Celebration Service Dave Food - Today is the day to start

Dreams and visions. And this is our thirty first of July. Tomorrow is

August. Is that good, scary, Yes, summer is here. So

we've been looking at dreams and visions over these last four weeks and this is

the lasting our series on dreams and visions. And i'd really let me pray

as we gather around the word, So we focus on the word. Father,

I pray that Lord, you'd help us to hear something from you.

Father, I step aside as it were, Lord, as I speak,

But Father, I pray that there's little of me and more of you.

Father, I pray that you'd speak to our hearts. You'd speak into our

circumstances. You'd speak into our situations, and you'd speak with a voice so

clear that it rings like a bell through our week, through our month,

maybe even through the rest of the year. Father, you caused us to

be, You called us to be dreamers. Lord, you've given us visions.

Lord, there are many examples throughout scripture where you spoke to people in

dreams and visions. And so Father, we continue to open our eyes,

our spiritual eyes, to what you want to say to us in this season.

We pray that all in Jesus' name. Amen. I do wonder whether

this should have been the first one in the series, but I think it's

a good way of closing out. Today is a great day to start.

Procrastination is one of the biggest problems in the world. That's a long word,

isn't it. Procrastination taking time to do things. Anybody got things on

their to do lists that have been there for more than a week? Yep,

my hands up. Anybody got more than a month, anybody got more

than a year? Okay, people are being honest. The hands are many

hands have been out all the way through there. So I guess sometimes we

feel guilty, Sometimes we feel ashamed, sometimes we feel frustrated, and why

don't we start. We're going to be looking at a little bit of that,

because you know, sometimes we have a dream, we have a vision,

and it's just a dream. It's on a piece of paper, it's

there, it's something, but nothing seems to be happening with it. And

so I want to encourage us today to start to just get started. Some

of you who know me well would know anybody. We'd actually let me test

this. Anybody know what my favorite book or series of books are apart from

the Bible. Okay, I haven't told you to normal. Yeah, the

Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Yes, absolutely well, I've known

Norman in a long time. And right at the beginning of the Hobbit,

if you've not seen it, I won't want to spoil it too much.

But right at the beginning, he goes on a long journey, and there's

a statement where he says, Okay, this long journey will start with the

first step. And there's a I believe there's an African proverb that's similar and

Chinese one as well, that each long journey starts with the first step.

So let's have a look at getting started. Let's first look at One Corinthians,

chapter two, verses nine to ten. But as it is written,

no I has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart

of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But

God has revealed them to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all

things, yes, the deep things of God, not that I have already

attained or already am perfected. But I press on that I may lay hold

of that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of. For me, God

has spoken. God has spoken. Let me go back to the first bit

there. No I have seen, no ear has heard the things which God

has prepared for those who love him. I means God has stuffed for us

things for us to do, things for us to be involved in, things

for us to press into, and in pressing into things, that means starting.

If some of us like pictures, some of us can read ten pages

of words, and we don't get it. We see one picture. Ah,

I get that. And there's a saying that I believes in English.

It probably translates into others as well. A picture paints a thousand words.

I say to some of my students who I teach, I say, if

you can put a diagram into an essay, it saves you a lot of

words. It helps to bring clarity. And God speaks to us in pictures.

Many of us would picture something. We would picture it in our mind's

eye. And no eye has seen, no ear has heard the things which

God has prepared for us. God has plans for us, preparations for us,

things for us to do. But it means that we need to start

somewhere, need to start with something. We need to do something. And

as we do that something progress begins. In Philippiums, Chapter three, verses

twelve to fourteen, it says this, brethren, I do not count myself

to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are

behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press towards

the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

This is one of the examples of the things that stop us pressing forward forgetting

those things which are behind. How many of us are car drivers? Yep.

So I want to just imagine sitting yourself in your car seat right now

and you're driving down the road. I know we're told to look around,

we're told to be observant of the environment that we're in. But how much

time do we spend looking in our mirror that tells us what's behind, compared

to looking through our windscreen of what shows us ahead. We do not spend

sixty seventy eighty percent of our time looking into the rear view mirror. We

spend most of our time looking forward. And I believe that's also a great

illustration for the way we think. Should we think a little bit about the

past, Yes, But we shouldn't spend eighty percent of our attentions talking about

how it used to be. There's a number of people I can think of

who who I meet with them, and they're telling me the same story again

and again and again, you know, about a broken relationship, about a

job they used to have or something they used to do. And I think

this record seems to be stuck. They seem to be stuck. And they're

not forgetting the things that are passed. They're not pressing forward, they're looking.

All their attention is how it used to be. Another problem with how

it used to be is that's in the past. If God wants to bring

it back to that, that will be in the present and in the future.

But you know what, if we always talk about how it used to

be, we're not open to the fresh and new things of God. And

so let's forget them. Now, what kind of things am I suggesting that

we should forget what tup them in here? Somewhere here we go. Let's

let's look at some things that we can leave behind. Let's leave our failures

behind. I've tried when somebody says, oh, I had this dream of

doing this thing and starting a business, many people have an idea of starting

and be like I had this dream of starting a business. I tried once

and it failed. I give up. You know, one of the things

about entrepreneurs and people who invest in who are doing well the people we were,

you know, the Richard Branson's of this world, if you look into

their history, they've had many, many, many failures. They've had many

failures. But the difference between an entrepreneur is successful and one who isn't is

they've learnt from their failure. Okay, that didn't work, let me try

something else. So let's leave our failures behind. Let's maybe leave a memorial

stone for them and remember them as something important. But let's leave them where

they belong, and let's learn from those things. Let's leave our worries behind.

Many people will allow fear to lock them into a place where they do

nothing, And fear comes from worrying. Now, sometimes there are natural things.

You worry about your children and how they're going to do. You worry

about your health. But you know what, the one thing we can do

is place our destiny back in God's hand and say, God, you know

you know me really well, you know my foibles, you know how I

made, You made me, and so actually it's better to place my whole

being, my future, my destiny in God's hand and say, Okay,

there's some stuff that happened, there's some things that I would worry about,

but I'm looking forward now, and as I look forward, I'm looking forward

to the future that God has for me. And the future that God has

for me is a good future. In Jeremiah twenty nine, verse eleven,

he says, plans I have for you, plans for you to prosper.

And prosper is not just about money in that scripture, it's about having a

life that you can live to the full. Let's leave behind and our resentment.

It's so easy to spend time focusing on what other people have, what

they might call the Jone syndrome. I don't know why it's called the Jone

syndrome. But when we look over our fence and we see they've got a

better car than us, or a better a better front drive or whatever,

it's so easy to start to well, I couldn't do that. Well,

Actually, we're all on different paths, and we all got different experiences.

And actually it's the richness of the tapestry of community together that actually we can

share those things together. Let's leave our guilt behind, the things we should

have done differently, the things that maybe we did wrong. You know,

the best thing that we can do is repent when we get something wrong,

to turn from it, to say I'm sorry, but to turn from it.

That's what repentance is. Repentance is not just saying you're sorry. That's

turning from the habit, the way that led you to make that choice.

But then let's having been forgiven, let's leave that guilt behind, saying with

let's leave pain behind where we can. Most of you know, I had

a bike accident when I was fifteen years old. I was riding home from

Scouts one day on a rainy Friday night and rocked Volvo. Taxi pulled out

in front of me, didn't see me. I hit the taxi. I

left my teeth in the roof, I lost a fingernail, and I hit

my knee. Forty years ago, of course, two thousand pounds worth of

damage to a Volvo, and you know I got up. I was,

you know, okay, I've lost a couple of teeth and a fingernail,

but it all seemed okay. But I had problems with my knee. From

then on. There was something that had been irritated in my knee, and

that got dealt with both God and by surgery as well. But because it

was a painful place, whenever anybody came through that knee, I kind of

tried to protect it. I turned differently. Whenever the doctor wanted to check

my knee for whatever reason, to check my reflexes, I I would flinch,

even when it had been dealt with, because I had the memory of

pain, you know, And if, for example, you have some you

had some pain in your body and it got dealt with surgically or miraculously,

whichever way it got but it's been dealt with, we still sometimes walk as

if the pain might be there. We have a pain memory, and so

I want to say, leave pain behind where we can. Let's walk in

freedom, let's live in the liberty. Because if we can leave these things

behind, we will walk differently, we will choose differently, we will behave

differently. People around us will respond to us differently. Bosses will respond differently,

our families will sometimes. If we've left some of this stuff behind,

it's such a drastic change that people go Wow, what's happened to you?

That's part of the testimony of the gospel. That's part of what God can

show us. Isaiah forty three says this forty three verses eighteen and nineteen.

Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold,

I do a new thing. Now it will spring forth, Yet not

manyana, not tomorrow. Now it will spring forth. Now, that doesn't

mean it's completed. We live in a world where we want instant grassification,

and sometimes it starts with a little thing. It starts with beginning to make

room for the new idea. Think about people you know who either expecting a

baby or have just had a baby. Now, once they know they're pregnant,

then there's a bump growing, but they're also making room in their minds.

They're also making room in their home for the baby to arrive. You

know, they now have to have a nursery. They they have to have

a room with a cot in it. They now have to think about lots

of things. And then as that child gets older and starts to walk,

then you have to start to think about toddler proofing every cupboard because the child's

into everything and it doesn't matter how many times you say no, they're still

They're intrigued because mommy or daddy was in there. They want to get in

there, and so they make room. They know that something new is coming,

and they make room. And so when we read a scripture like this

from my science says now it shall spring forth, that begins. It begins

in our heads and in our hearts, it begins in our thinking. Are

we going to make room? If we know God's changing something, are we

making room for that change? There's something that I can say, And I'm

not particularly sporty, but I do know that if I said run right now,

most of you would go what Certainly no one would have run straight away

because you're all thinking, you're not thinking. It's a race. If you

were standing at the start line at the beginning of a race and the gun

went off, some people would already be running, and other people would be

going, oh, the gun's gone off, I better think about running,

and some people would be chatting to somebody else, and then it's oh,

it's the gun gone off. Oh everybody started running. We better run as

well. And so we need to make room for change. We need to

make room for our dreams. I think sometimes one of the reasons why dreams

don't get started is because we've not made room for them. I was talking

to somebody about six weeks ago, maybe seven weeks ago now, who wanted

to start their own business. They've got a real passion to do dying and

ty dying and those kind of things hand created silk clothes. But they know

they do clever and artistic things with them, and they do. They'd be

doing it in their spare time for four or five years, but they want

to make room. I said, well, why don't you ask your boss

whether you can work four days? He basically said, I don't have time

for this day. I said, well, what if it's really that important,

why don't you think about asking your boss to work four days a week.

He said, oh, I couldn't do that. He said why not,

because they wouldn't let me. I said, if you asked, He

said no, I said, why why not ask? I've worked four days

a week for most of the companies that I've ever worked for, and one

company I worked in based in reading, something went a bit like this.

I'd be in a meeting and people would say, oh, can we meet

next Tuesday? And so I can't. It's my non working day. And

they'd go, excuse me, non working day. What do you mean by

non working day, you're on holiday. I said, no, I'm not

on holiday. I only worked four days a week. And here's the interesting

question. I got asked, so so so I still get asked many times,

so how did that happen? And I said, well, I just

asked. In the time that I was at this company in Reading, and

I was there for nearly three years, five or six people I know of

went to part time working. One to look at one because he wanted to

share the childcare with his wife of his newborn toddlers, who went to three

days a week for a period. Someone who wanted to look after a dying

mum. That was somebody wanted to go to Rwanda and they wanted three months

off to go to Rwanda to work with gorillas in the mountains. Somebody else

who wanted to do missionary stuff. But they asked the company went, yeah,

that's great, we'd love to see people celebrating them. So I said,

well, the first thing you got to do is make some room.

Make some room, and then those things will happen. So behold, it

shall spring forth. Shall you not know it? So it's it's the Other

thing I want to say here is that it's not just about making room,

but also having some impetus and some energy, and so that room may not

just be about time and time and space, but it may actually be a

physical location. If you've got your job and you're working at one desk at

home and you want to start another business, maybe you need to start another

desk, another part where you're so that you're changing from this. Otherwise it

all becomes a big blur. And I don't know what you're like. But

I live in a world where sometimes things, when they become blurry, they

become messy, and suddenly I don't know what I'm doing. I'm busy doing

stuff. So we'll leave these things behind. Let's look at them again.

Let's leave behind Let's leave behind failure, Let's leave behind worry. Let's leave

behind resentment, guilt, and pain. And it goes on to say in

Isaiah thirty eight sixteen, Oh Lord, by these things men live, and

all these things is the life of my spirit. So you shall storm me

and make me live. I sense that there's something of when we don't allow

dreams to blossom, something dies, or something gets constrained. Julia, and

my wife is the gardener in the family. I just do what I'm told

as far as that's concerned. I generally take stuff to the tip. That's

my job. But what I do know is that if you've got a garden

that's growing, well, lots of stuff grows, and then some things grow

more than others. They start to overshadow something. And then underneath trees you

think, find nothing growing. And then what you do when you trip,

when you trim back something, it lets the light in, it lets the

water in, and suddenly things burst forth again. You think, where did

that come from? When it was there already? The seeds were there already

in the ground, but it wasn't getting watered. It was overshadowed by something

else. And I think the same can be true for our dreams as well.

Sometimes some of our dreams just get overshadowed by something else. And so

what should we lay hold of? What can we choose to do again?

We can choose to find faith again, faith in certain areas. I'm not

saying we're not people of faith, but faith for something, faith for someone.

Maybe there's someone you felt God wanted you to come alongside, and you

gave up because you didn't see any fruit out of that. Let me encourage

you think again, just see if God's saying try again. Have some faith

for that conversation. Let hope arise again. Hope is a powerful thing.

Hope is very much focused with the future. We don't talk about hoping for

the past, do we. Hope doesn't belong in the past. It belongs

in the future. It's about looking forward. And one of the ways that

connects us very really is to love again, to love what we're doing,

to love what we want to do, to love those dreams, to love

our family, to love those who are precious to us, and in that

we find purpose and destiny again. And in finding purpose and destiny we begin

those first steps. And so in Isaiah fifty eight, verse eight, that

says this, then your light shall break forth like the morning. Your healing

shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you. The glory

of the Lord shall be your rear guard lights breaking forth. I think I

may have told a story similar to this before now, But I'm not a

great person for concealed space type spaces. But as a scout many years ago.

I did go caving a few times. I didn't go into the ones

where you had to squeeze in and go underwater any those kinds of things.

But we went down some caves near Wookie Hole, and we went into this

cave and we went through some tight squeezes, or tight for me anyway,

tight enough. I didn't want to go anymore any tighter. And we got

to this big open space and you could see the torches of our headlights kind

of shining off into the distance, and it felt like we were in Saint

Paul's Cathedral, you know. We were chatting away and talking and you could

hear it sounded like there was a thousand people in this cave because it was

all echoing off the course. And then we got to the middle of the

cave and the guy who was leading the trip, he said, Okay,

let's all sit down now, he said, and let's just allow our breathing

to settle, because we were huffing and puffing. He said, let's stop

talking for a while, just to enjoy the silence. And I'll be honest

with you, it wasn't silent because there was water dripping in the background.

And then as we sat, and we were there for five eight minutes,

and sitting there in silence, something like that seemed like hours. I then

realized that the noisiest thing in the cave was the other people breathing. I

could hear everybody breathing. And then he said, and now what I'd like

us to do is to turn our lights off. So he've got all of

all of us to tell. He left his light on till the last one.

He said, in a moment, I'm going to turn this last light

off. Now, we'd all turn our lights off, but one light was

still giving us enough light to go. This is okay, he said,

in a moment, I'm going to turn my torch off as well. Do

not panic, because you will be in the darkest, darkest, darkest place

you've ever been, and your first responsible to panic, you'll want to turn

your light back on again. I want to encourage you to get used to

the darkness. I want you, I want you to understand what's going on

here. And so he said in a moment, he said, just enjoy

the silence, Just listen and see what else you can hear. Because once

we turned our eyes off, suddenly our ears seemed to become sharper. We

seem to be able to hear more things, and I'd hear a little kind

of burbling. So he turned his light off, and my first respond was

a genuinely, it was like, okay, this is really I put my

hand in front of my face and I couldn't see it. It was that

dark. And so they were sitting in the darkness and we sat there.

Now, remember we'd already sat in silence for nearly ten minutes, and then

we sat in the darkness. He said, Okay, now I want to

encourage you to be silent again. And we were silent again, and it

just seemed like the space grew around us, and we started to hear noises

and started to imagine things. What's that? And why am I telling you

all this story? I'm telling you all this story because this next moment,

he said, in a moment, I'm going to turn my light on,

he said, And when I want to encourage every one of you to do

is put your hands over your eyes. He said. I want you to

put your hands over your eyes, and I'll turn the light on and then

just allow your fingers to let a little bit of light in, a little

bit of a time and gradually go accustomed to the light again. He said,

if you have your eyes open, then you will not see for quite

a while because your retina has got large because there is no light getting in.

So it's enlarged itself as large as it can be. So try and

get some light into it. And so if it's just allowed, the light

to turn on. And we've probably all had this experience where we walk from

a dark place to a light place and we suddenly we can't see. So

anyway, he turned the light on, and I wasn't that good a scout,

to be honest. I didn't close my eyes, I didn't cover up.

I just thought, oh yeah, and then I realized I couldn't see.

And it took me probably fifteen minutes for my eye to get back to

where it needed to be. Just one light, just one light in the

darkness. And so when we read here, your light will break forth light

the morning. I want to encourage you think about that story that I told

you to think. Whatever light you bring can break forth into people's circumstances,

can break forth into your dreams, can break forth into your workplace, your

family situations, and light changes things. Light gives us perspective. Light shows

us things we couldn't see before. Light highlights things. That's why we have

spotlights, light shows of things we need to sell. Light keeps us safe.

That's why we have spotlights on cars. And So what do I want

to say this morning? What do I want to share with you? Let's

take that first step. Let's leave behind the things. Let's go back to

those three slides. Then let's leave behind these things. Let's leave behind failure,

Let's leave behind worry, Let's leave behind resentment. Let's lay hold of

hope and love to gain purpose and destiny. And then let's our light shine.

So I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna pray about three things. I'm going

to pray about maybe where we need to leave some stuff behind. So for

those who are listening online and listening later, those who are listening in the

room, if you need to leave something behind right now, as I've been

talking, you've just seen this one thing. I'm not going to ask you

what it is that's between you and God. But if that's you, would

you stand. Let's close our eyes. Let's close our eyes and we're going

to pray. We're going to pray about these three areas. So if there's

something you need to leave behind, you know what it is, Just take

a step, take a step of that day. Just acknowledge it that you're

kind of going. Ah, God, I recognize that you're pointing this out

to me right now. I'm going to leave it with you and God to

sort it out. But if that's you, would you stand if there's something

you need to leave behind, Father, God, I pray for those who

are standing amongst us, those who are standing at home, those who are

standing later. Father, would you help us to draw a line in the

sand, to draw a line in our day, and to leave behind the

memories and the thoughts of the way it used to be. Father, I

pray that we'd all take a step over that light, and you're stepping over

that line. We'd make room for a new thought towards that person, for

a new idea, towards that dream, for a new space for possibility.

And so, Father, help us to leave behind the things, even if

they're valuable, even if they're precious. Lord, if they need leaving behind

because they're constraining us and limiting us, Father, help us to do it,

and help us to step forward in faith. We pray in your mighty

name, Amen, if you just want to sit just so that it's just

clear, you might might want to stand again. But I now want to

talk not just about leaving behind, but laying hold of something, because if

we put stuff down, there's now capacity in our hearts, in our hands

to carry something new. And if you sense that God is encouraging you to

pick up something new again, or you want to make that choice again,

would you stand at home in the room stands to lay hold of and take

hold of that which you're making room for. And so Father, I pray

that or there would be place, there would be focus standing who can love

again in this particular area, Who can believe again for this particular thing,

who can hope again for this particular moment. Even as I'm praying, I

just see packets of seeds, packets of seeds that you know the promise of

the seed is there the seeds. In some cases, the seed is still

in the packet. In other cases, the packet has been opened, but

they've never been planted. In other situations, that seed has been planted,

but it's never been warted. It's always been overshadowed by something else, And

so by making room, suddenly there will be a bursting forth. So,

Father God, help help us. Lord, help us, Lord, to

lay hold of all that you want us to lay hold of. Help us

to make room and take hold of that which you want us to carry.

And Lord, when you want us to put it down or give it away,

Father, would you help us to let go of the things that you

want us to give to others, hand on to others, share with others,

that we continue to make room for the newness and the freshness of all

that you have for us in Jesus' name a man. And then the third

thing was this which is light in a dark place. In the Gospels,

Jesus says, we don't. We don't light a lamp and then put it

under a bowl. We don't have a city. A city is on a

hill, so it can be seen from afar. I just want to pray

one final thing, and that's that maybe where our lights have either been dimmed

or squashed or maybe hidden. If you sense that's you again, would you

stand Maybe you're just making a choice. Maybe you're just making a choice and

saying I'm gonna I'm going to choose to take a stand at work. I

had a friend I prayed with just before Christmas who was in an office and

that the language in the office was foul. And he said, I don't

know what to do, and we got to pray together, and I said,

look, why don't you just take an opportunity next time it happens,

when when the atmosphere changes, just to just to say something, not to

say you're a Christian, not to say hey, I don't like this.

And we prayed and that made room in his heart and room in his mind,

and the next time it happened at work, he just he just stood

up. He said, does anybody want a cup of coffee? And three

or four people and that just was enough to break the conversation a coup and

somebody came with him to come and help make the coffees, and he just

turned to them and said, you know, I really don't like those kinds

of conversations. So I just wanted to change the atmosphere. So I just

offered a cup of coffee, and the guy he was with said, do

you know what, I don't like it either, and it just started the

beginning of a conversation. And now weeks later the atmosphere has changed. Be

a light in a dark place, Bring light to people's circumstances and situations,

and see what God can do. So, Father, I pray the Lord.

When we are on the hill, when we are already visible, Father,

would you feed our light, would you feed our spirit? Would you

bring us hope? Would you enable us, Lord to be who you've called

us to be? And as moths, as it were, were drawn to

that flame. Father, help us to be ready to talk, to share,

to love, to care. And Father, when we're choosing to put

ourselves in a place and maybe be a bit different, Father gives the right

words to say, show us what to do, show us how to serve

and to love, and bring your kingdom into the darkest places that we find

ourselves. In Jesus' name, aw Man