Lifeboat – The Navigational System

Right as you start making your way back, let me introduce we

are starting a brand new series today.

We are starting a series called Lifeboat.

And when you as you think a lifeboat, that is the sort of

thing I want you to be thinking of.

Not these kind of little rubber dinghies that are on the side,

big cruise ships. I want to be thinking of a

search and rescue crew who are going through the stormy seas to

rescue, to search for people. And over the next 5 weeks, we

are going to be embarking on a journey through our 5 core

values. We like to revisit this this

every, every so often going through our 5 core values.

And we're going to look at our 5 core values through the lens

that the church, that we as the church are called to be our

lifeboats. We are called to be a rescue

team. And so as we look through our

five values, each week, we're going to be looking at a

different aspect of a lifeboat and then using that as a

metaphor to describe one of our five values.

And this week, we're going to be doing our first value, which is

biblical truth. And I want to think I want you

to think of biblical truth as the as the navigational system

or on a boat. You see, we have been we've been

designed, we've been designed to go into the storms of this

world. We've been designed as a church

to go in as as Kofu ended our time of worship saying that

actually that we want to pray that how we act when we love

Jesus, when we put him first, that positively effects those

around us because that's what we're designed to do.

We are designed to to to go into the storms of this world and be

rescuers. We're designed and the way that

we are kept on course, the way that we we navigate this world

is through this through his scripture.

You see, Jesus tells us, he asks us to listen and obey his words

in the Great Commission. He tells us to go into all the

world and tell everyone what I told you, what I told you, and

so that they would obey it. And Jesus designed us, has

designed us, not to be on our own, but to be part of a crew,

to live our lives as part of a crew, to live our lives in, in

community to we are designed to live, to live in membership.

We are designed to be joined to a local church that we are

designed to do life together and, and, and for us what, what

it means to be in membership of this church.

Actually, what we do quite often is is Jen and I, we, we've done

several, we call it foundations courses where we take people for

several weeks and we just go through our vision and values as

a church. And at the end of that we say,

are you on board? Do you want to sign up to that?

And now we haven't been able to do that last term.

And actually what we're going to do, we haven't got a date yet

set, but at some point this, this term, over the next few

weeks, what we're going to do is we're going to say, if you are

new to this church, if you've, if you've been around me for the

last few months to a year and we haven't done foundations with

you, we're going to invite you to come back for, for lunch

afterwards. And then I'm going to just

expound a bit more on what it means to be a member of this

church and then ask you to say, are you in or not?

Because basically what it means to be a member, what it means to

be a member of anything, but what it means to be a member of

this church is that you are a Christian who is committed to

serving the body. And it means you want to.

And now that looks differently, different people in different

situations. Some of us are more able than

others. Some of us are in different

seasons and we're able to do more and some are able to do

less. But the commitment is there that

you're, you want to serve the body.

Secondly, that you are committed to give that you want to give

finances, you want to trust God with your, with part of your

finances to, to this this church.

Thirdly, that you are committed to unity, that you that the

Bible says that we are to use our our mouths, use our voices

for the good of others to speak well of others, not not fluff

them up, but actually to speak, speak truth to one another, to

encourage one another. And fourthly, that we're

committed to showing up. We're committed to being around

one another, to being here. And it's really hard to be to be

in a community if you're never actually in that community.

So we we say, and I will talk about this more for those of you

who who are able to come, but we're committed to serve,

committed to give, committed to unity and committed to show up.

You see, being part of a church is like being part of a crew on

a lifeboat that we are. We're not here on Pamper Cruise.

We're here. We're designed to be deployed,

to be launched into the churning, shundering sea.

And our mission, every single one of us, our mission is to, is

to embark into these waters to find lost people, people who are

drowning, who are, who are cast adrift, who are in the sea, who

are hopeless. And the problem is if we just

set out is that as our mission, but we have no, no anchor

points, no, no navigational system.

Those of you who've been on boats, those of you who maybe

you've done a cross channel crossing, maybe to Ireland or to

Man or to France, or maybe you've even been fortunate

enough to go on a cruise. You all know that it doesn't

take too long before 1:00 on that boat when there are no

landmarks, the shoreline disappears completely.

And you have no idea. And especially if it's if it's a

grey day, if it's stormy, there is no way of telling which ways,

which which ways. NE southwest.

Where's land, Where's shallow water?

Where's, where's rocky seas? There's no way of telling.

And to the sailor, they depend on their navigational system to

guide them through these these these seas.

And if they ignore it, they have a very real risk of being

completely shipwrecked or being lost at sea.

You see, taking God's word seriously isn't optional for us

as Christians. It is.

It's not a case of, well, I might have or I might not.

Actually taking God's word seriously actually is a matter

of life and death for us. It is our navigational system.

And so quick throw out there, when did you last look at it?

When did you last spend time poring over it, studying it,

taking time to let it influence you?

When did you last take time to maybe just even just listen to

it being read to you? And today I want to, I want to

look at Luke chapter 8. But before I get there, I'm

Luke 8 · chapter mention

going to go a page before in my Bible, Luke chapter 6, and it

Luke 6 · chapter mention

says this about the words it says Jesus says why do you call

me Lord, Lord and not to what I say that might be some of us

here, we will tell people I'm a Christian.

We say here what, Yeah, I'm a Christian, but Jesus, but you

don't do what I ask you to. You ignore my words.

You haven't even looked at it. He says, As for As for everyone

who comes to me and hears my word and puts it into practise,

I will show you what they are like.

They are like a man building a house who dug down deep and lay

the foundations on a rock, when a flood came and the torrent

struck that house, but it could not shake it because it was well

built. But the one who hears my words

and does not put them into practise is like the man who

built a house on the grounds without foundation.

The moment the torrent struck the house, it collapsed and the

destruction was complete. See his words, they're not just

suggestions. And when Jesus says those who

obey my word, I don't know if you've any of you've got a Bible

like this. You see in my Bible, I'm opening

the Gospels and you see there's black words and there's red

words. Now, someone decided at some

point that the words that they deemed that Jesus actually said

that came out of his mouth as he was going around Galilee and

Judea and all their surrounding areas, those we'd write in red

and the rest of the Bible will write in black as if they're

more important. We need to listen to these words

more than we do the rest of the Bible.

And that's not true. That's not true.

Every single word in our Bibles from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22

is inspired by God. It is his word, and it is there

for our instruction. It is there for our correction.

It's there for our for for our encouragement.

Peter tells Timothy, See, we are called to study it, to look at

it, to read it, to be in it and and, you know, put Paul and not

Paul, Peter would say of Paul in Scripture.

Some of it's really hard to understand, especially some of

that stuff that Paul writes. It's really hard to understand.

But that doesn't mean that we shelve it.

It means that we have to take extra care to study it, extra

care to, to ask questions of it, to ask others about what, what,

what is it talking about? I don't really understand.

It seems to say this thing here and it seems to say another

thing over here. What, what, what is going on?

It just takes a bit more work. You see, most people,

unfortunately, Christians included, don't live their lives

on the rock, don't live their lives on the word that Jesus

spoke. They lived their lives on what

we use with our analogy, we'll use the waves.

Culture, Jesus might say shifting sands.

See, waves are never the same. They're always moving.

Culture, it's always changing. And if we try and gauge what is

true, what is right, if we build ourselves, we build our lives,

we build church upon what culture says is good and true,

we're lost. We're going to be running around

in circles. We're going to run out of

energy. We're just going to be lost

completely at sea because because it changes all the time.

Think of some of the stuff, crazy stuff that our government

thinks is good and true. Now you go about 20 years ago,

no one even thought like that thing.

The culture is changing all the time, but this does not.

People also they, they, they. Rather than building their life

upon the work of Scripture, upon Jesus in His Word, we build our

lives on our guts. Follow your heart.

How? What does it say?

Follow your emotions. Well, the trouble is that if

you're in a stormy sea, your emotions quite often are jump

overboard, which is an awful thing to do.

I mean, we are to build our lives on something that is firm.

You know, we've had Tomi Tolu recently, have given birth to

two wonderful babies. And now if you know, if anyone

who's had had children, you know that that before that child is

born, when there are no problems, when everything's

calm, when you're thinking clearly, you make a birth plan,

don't you? You say, this is what I want.

This is what's going to happen. You know, at this stage, we're

going to go to the hospital. We're not going to go to the

hospital. We're going to ring the midwife.

We're going to do XYZI want I want it to happen this way.

I want this, that and the other. And if if things go wrong, well,

maybe do this and you make those decisions in the calmness

because when you're about to give birth is not a good time to

decide life and death situations.

It's not you you need to do make it in the calmness.

And then then, and it's the same thing with life.

We need to build our life on this.

And then when things go wrong, when the storms come, we're

already on good foundations rather than going, oh, oh, I

never thought about this. My gut says I should do this.

Let's go that way. And we end up falling overboard.

See, the truth is though, that when we ignore God's words, when

we ignore the navigational system, quite often what happens

is we don't straight away go onto the rocks.

More often than not we will find ourselves a couple of degrees of

course, and before we know it we are miles and miles and miles

away from what God had for his best for us.

I mean, think of you can name church movements, churches that

started off so well and then they started basing their truth

not on this, but on what culture said was true, what their gut

said was true and they end up being miles away.

They even have sometimes have people follow them.

But Jesus says that is awful. That is awful when people follow

them. He says to the Pharisees,

actually he says the same thing. He says woe to you, teach to the

law and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you shut the door of

the Kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

You yourselves do not enter, nor you let anyone else, anyone

enter who is trying to. Woe to teach to the law of

Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel.

This is where we can get if we're not following His words.

You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when

you have succeeded, you make them twice a child of hell as

you are. Woe to you, you blind guides.

See what she's saying is that if we ignore His word, we might

have a real heart for the lost. We might have a real heart to

see people saved. He wants people to go to heaven.

We want people to, to live for eternity.

But if we're not following his words, then we might speak to

people. They might love what we're

saying, but we're, we're, we're, we're not just leading our,

we're leading ourselves to death and them because this is true

and not what the world says. So I said, I want to, I want to

read Luke 8 to you. And so I'm going to open it.

It says, it says, it says, it says.

While a large crowd was gathering and the people were

coming to Jesus from town after town, he told them this parable.

A farmer went to sow his seed. Some fell along the path.

It was trampled on and the birds ate it up.

Some fell on rocky grounds, and when it came up the plants

withered because they had no moisture.

Other seed fell among thorns which grew up with it and choked

the plants. Still other seed fell on good

soil. It came up and yielded A crop

100 times more than was sown. When he had said this, he called

out. Whoever has ear to ears to hear,

let them hear. His disciples asked him what

this parable meant. He said the knowledge of the

secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others

I speak in parables so that though seeing they may not see,

and though hearing they may not understand.

This is the meaning of the parable.

The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the

ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the

words from from their hearts so that they may not believe and be

saved. Those on the rocky ground are

the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but

they hear it but they have no root.

The ones who receive the word, no sorry.

They believe for a while, but in time of testing they fall away.

The seed that fell among the thorns stands for those who

hear, but they go on their way. They are choked by life's

worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.

But the seed on the good soil stands with those with no, with

a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by by

persevering produce a crop. See, Jesus begins this parable

by saying there's a farmer and he's scatter seed.

Now in the, in the, in the Greco Roman world, they didn't have,

obviously they didn't have machines like we have, which

plant seeds perfectly in the right place to produce the

maximum amount of yield for their crop.

They just had a guy with a bag and he just threw it, just threw

it randomly, randomly all around.

And you know, you'd get patched of seeds going in some places.

You get no seed in another place.

Some seed like you said here, some seed would fall on Stony

grounds, fall on a path. Some seed would would fall among

weeds and a bit a bit would fall among on the good soil.

I think it was from reading some stuff on ancient cultures, I

think it was about 1/4 of the seed that was actually sown

actually made onto good soil and actually produced a harvest.

So they weren't indiscriminate of where they put it.

And what Jesus says is the seed. It is his words.

It's his words. Jesus gives it freely to all.

We all can receive his word. We can all receive.

We can all hear from God, but the the different soils they are

how our heart responds to that word.

So Jesus identifies his his his word, his word.

It's it's like the the data that you input into your into your

navigational system. It's good, it's pure, it's

perfect. But the soil is like us looking

at that navigational system and we either ignore it, pay a

little attention to it, or we focus in on it and learn

everything about it. And he says that there's four

different types of ways that people respond to his word.

He says first, the hard path. He says that's the the closed

system. Is it though, that these are

people who hear the truth, but due to life circumstances, due

to their attitude, it doesn't penetrate even an inch into

their hearts? These are those who have the

navigational system, but they've switched it off.

We believe that we know how to navigate the dangerous seas

better than the Creator does, and the result in that is death.

There is no life in that response.

The second response, he says there's rocky soil and that's

the that's as we've looked at a bit already, that's the

emotional navigator. This is the one who who

navigates by their guts, their, their, their, their, they love

it. Sailing's amazing, Sun's out,

calm breeze. It's amazing.

I'll do this all my life. I'll live for you, Jesus,

forever. And then the waves get up and

the winds start blowing in and it's like, no, I'm not doing

this anymore. There's nothing.

I'm not. I'm not going for this.

And there's no life in that. There's no life.

The third soil is the thorny soil.

I want to spend a bit of time on this one because this represents

the distracted crew member. And I think that sums up a lot

of the church in our nation, the distracted crew member.

These are these are those who who might hear God's words.

You know, they might, might even read it from time to time.

But honestly, most of the time they're looking at social media

with a compass in their hand. You're getting completely

distracted. Now this is this is, this is the

person who knows that God's word says your energy, your time is a

gift from me. And you know, that's true, but

I'm tired and I don't really want to serve.

And so I'm not. So I'm not.

This is the person who says, who says, I know that everything

I've given my job comes from you, God.

But fuel prices have gone up. You know that car insurance is

due. And I really like my sky

package. And God will understand.

God understands. And so you don't use what God

has given you for His Kingdom. This is those who when someone

hurts you, when someone says something, rather than

forgiving, you choose not to forgive.

Actually, when someone else says something negative about them,

you join in. You join in.

You join in to bring people down.

You know who should lift people up?

You know should concourage, You know who should challenge poor

behaviour. But you don't do any of that.

It's easier just to in little circles to find people who you

can, who who think the same as you and bring others down.

You know that leads to death, but it's easier.

This is the person who who knows that God calls us to live in

community, that the early church's example model to us is

they met together in each other's homes and then on the

first day of the week, Sunday, they came together and

worshipped God. This is the person who says,

well, I've, I've got stuff on. I really can't move that class.

That's on a Wednesday night now Sunday's my only day off, rather

than I'm going to give that to God.

You see, the reason why we do that, the reason why we ignore

his book, the reason why we ignore what Jesus says, the

reason why we quite often choose decisions that lead to death

rather than life, is because we've forgotten who we are.

We've forgotten who Jesus has created us to be.

We've forgotten our very reason for being.

And I love it. In one pizza Peter tells us, he

tells us straight, this is who you have been created to be.

In one Peter 2 Peter says this. He says, now to you who believe

this stone is precious, there's Jesus in his word.

He's talking about this stone is precious.

So if you believe in Jesus, he's saying he should be precious to

you. He is precious to you.

And therefore everything that he has said should be precious to

you, he says. But to those who do not believe

the stone the builders have rejected has become a has become

the cornerstone and a stumbling that causes people to stumble

and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they

disobey his words. They disobey the message, which

is also what we were designed for, he's saying.

People wonder why, why life isn't working out for them.

They wonder why, think why they keep stumbling.

It's because they're ignoring his words.

His very word has become a stumbling block to them, he

says, But you, those who have placed their their lives in

Jesus hand, those who have have said, Jesus, you are my Lord and

Saviour. Peter says you are a chosen

people, you're a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

You are God's special possession that you may declare the praises

of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful

light. Once you were not a people, but

now you are the people of God. Once you had not receive mercy,

but now you have received mercy. See if if Jesus is your Lord, if

Jesus is your Saviour, he says, he says that there's no

obligation to read his words. There's no, there's no

obligation to live how he calls you to.

It's actually we get to, we get to, we get to live for him and

we get to, we get to live for him because it's who we were

created to be that actually we get to And as we do, as we've

brought in that word, as we as we do, as we, as we live for

him, others are affected. Others are affected with where

they're called to share his wonderful light in this Dark

World, in the, in the shunnering waters of the dark sea.

We are called to share his word and that that can be with our

voices, but that can also just be being living as Christ, as

your Lord and Saviour. Others see, and I just want to

give a really quick example on that.

I was, I was reminded of this the other week.

I don't know if anyone's ever seen this.

It's a couple years old now this study, but it's it's a study on

Christian parents and how how they live effects their

children. Now, you may be there thinking,

I am not a parent. How does it affect me?

Well, look at it this way. The way that you live, the way

that you conduct yourself, the way that you take this seriously

effects those closest to you. It really does.

And it says, you know, it says here for Christian parents,

people who call themselves Christians when neither parent

is active. What I mean by active, what it

means by active is they're not serving, they're not giving,

they're they're not not regularly attending a a church,

they're not part of a church. For them, the study found 0% of

their children grew up as sold out loving Jesus.

Now 19% would say they love Jesus, they follow him, but zero

percent, The percent that we actually want, 0% actually end

up following because they've not been modelled it.

For those with with a mum who is active, who's loving who's

who's, who's active in the church, but dad is completely

absent. We see that 2% in this study

found were were committed to Jesus, 37% might go to church

but only 2% are committed, sold out for Christ.

For those where it is, where the dad is committed but mum isn't,

interestingly jumps up to 44%. And I just want to just make a

note here. OK guys, You are called in

scripture to be the spiritual head of your home.

And now the world might tell you that what you do and say doesn't

matter. What business is it of yours,

what your children are doing? What business is it, what

they're looking at on their phones?

What business is it of yours? What they're, what they're

watching, who they're hanging out with.

Well, this study says actually men, especially if you are

leading your home, if you're showing them how to follow

Christ, that has a massive impact on your family.

And then if both parents are sold out following Jesus, it

says 80% will say that they're Christians.

Interestingly, 33% it goes down a bit and now the reason for

that, I looked that up, I want to know why does it go down?

Surely it should go up the RE and I'm sure it's maybe the

reason for that is, is that unfortunately many Christians

are sold out for Jesus, but they don't tell their kids why.

And that what this is the reason why that goes down when both

parents is, is because when dad chooses to, but mom doesn't or

mom choose to and dad doesn't, the children see that there's a

choice. There's a choice in life.

We get to follow Jesus or we don't.

Where when both it's where, if in your family, it's you go to

church because you have to what, why, why?

And there's no teaching. There's no saying we, we go to

church because we love his family, because we love Jesus.

We want to be there and worship with him.

We, we give, you know, we give our money.

You know, we give up. Tell your kids that you give,

tell them. I mean, if you don't, don't tell

them you give don't like them. But you know, if you give, tell

them that you give and say why, why, why?

You know, because, because actually, you know, I know that

we say that we struggle with money sometimes, but actually we

trust God more than we trust our bank accounts.

That has a massive impact. And that's the the reason for

that drop is for parents who follow Jesus.

It's kind of the typical missionary family who are sold

out for Jesus, but they lose. They don't evangelise their

kids. So don't be that.

Is it the reason why this matters is because if we are not

following the word of God for not following his words, we not

only will end up cast adrift shipwrecking our lives, the ones

we most love will also be shipwrecked as well.

You see in in sailing before they had had GPS in modern

navigational systems, how did sailors defined which way was N

SE, W the stars? Yes, and especially the North

Star. Why?

Because it's north. Why the North Star in

particular? What doesn't it do that the

other stars do in the night sky? It doesn't change.

It's always north as you go through the seasons.

Obviously it's because we're moving through the, you know,

the universe, whatever. But yeah, as you go through the

seasons, as you go through the day, you go through the night.

The stars, they move around, don't they?

But the North star, it stays in the same point.

And so to navigate, they needed a fixed point.

This is our fixed point. When we feel bad or good.

It does not change when politicians change.

This does not change when our bank account is good.

When our bank account is bad, it doesn't change when we get good

news from the doctor or where we get bad news from the doctor.

This book does not change, you see, and we are called to take

it seriously, which means that we trust it.

We are called to be a sailor who despite what they see outside

with the storm raging in the that the waves rolling over the

deck, we are called to take this seriously and follow it.

That means that that when you look at your bank statements,

you go, there's not much in that God, I'm going to give you a

pass this month. We go, no, this book says I'm to

be generous. And so we give and it'll be

hard, but we know that that's the road that leads to life.

When someone really annoys us and we just want to hate them,

we say no. That's my gut talking.

That's not God's words. If I, if I, if I hate them, if I

don't forgive them, that road leads to death.

But if I forgive them, if I, if I work things out, the scripture

tells me that road leads to life.

See, when we, when we follow Jesus, when we follow him, we

are called to be those of the last soil.

We're called to be good soil. We're called to be good soil.

We're called to be people who trust, who trust this, who trust

what God says, who trust God's words.

You see, when, when we follow Jesus and his words, what Jesus

is saying is, is that we produce fruit, that there are effects,

there are ripples from us following Jesus.

Then it's, it's bigger than just us.

It says that that those those who were the sea, those who were

the ground, whether who received the word that they they they

grew up and they produced a crop 100 times more.

I mean that seems impossible. What he's saying is is that that

when we follow Jesus, when we stay true to his word, God is

producing fruit through you. And yet some of that you will

see some of it you may never see until eternity.

I there. I believe there'll be many

conversations in eternity. That's where we realise that

thing we did that affected someone we never knew, that

might have even affected generations later.

We were talking yesterday and I was just noting that there are

churches in London now, in South London, who are still benefiting

from Spurgeon. I mean what, 100 and 5200 years

ago. I mean a long time ago him and

him and his ministry was about. But there are people still

benefiting. I believe if we follow this and

then we will find people in eternity who in 100 years time

are still benefiting from the fruit that has been reaped from

what we have, the lives that we have LED.

You see, see, don't, don't mishear me.

We are not saved because we read this.

We're not saved because we produce fruit.

Jesus says that we are saved. And using this this lifeboat

analogy, we are saved because Once Upon a time we were lost at

sea. We were drowning, we had no

hope, but Jesus came and he sent his lifeline and he pulled us

ashore. That is how we are saved.

We are saved because of Christ, not because of what we did or

because of what we will do, but because of what Christ has done

and who he is. No other reason.

We are saved through Jesus Christ and Christ alone.

But just like this, this piece of barley that's been planted by

this seed, barley naturally produces a head of a head of

corn. It naturally produces fruits.

And So what Jesus saying is, is that if we follow him, we're not

saved because we do good works, because we produce fruits.

If we follow him, we will just produce good fruits.

It's who we are. It's who who we're called to be.

It's what we do. You see, we we're just like a an

apple tree. An apple tree produces apples

because it's an apple tree. Christian you are called to.

You will produce fruit because you're a Christian.

If you are say there's not and Jesus doesn't say there are some

Christians who are fruitless and they're a waste of space really.

And, and there are other Christians who produce fruit.

No, no, what you're saying is if you're a Christian, if you

follow him, if you, if you study his word, you will just produce

fruit because it's who you are. It's who you are called to be.

You know, and, and, and life may get hard at times and if things

get expensive, time may be short.

But we worship a God revealed in his scriptures who has not just

overcome the world. We have an amazing illustration

in Scripture of the the chaos waters and a boat really

struggling in those chaos waters.

And then we have Jesus, our God who hasn't just overcome.

He just walks on the chaos waters.

He takes a stroll on them, all evil, all injustice.

He tramples it under his feet, but he not only walks on it.

If we follow him, he says, take my hand and we get to walk on it

too. That doesn't mean we don't go

through hard times. That means that we are more than

conquerors. It means that we get to

overcome. It means that when money is

tight, we can trust. We can supernaturally trust when

energy is short. We can supernaturally trust when

all you have in your own self it is tiredness and you're not

really wanting to be around people today.

Actually, God, the hope of glory is in you and you are able to

encourage and love, not because you're good, but because the

King lives in you. He has enabled us to overcome.

See, we are called to bring life to this lost and broken worlds.

But what we're going to be looking at in this series is, is

we don't just save people so they can have a nice time on the

beach. You are saved people and saved

people saved people as what we are called to do and we can we

start by knowing what we're saving them to by knowing the

Saviour, by knowing his word, by focusing on his navigational

system. Like I said, our first value is

biblical truth. That this that I want to be a

person. I want you to be people.

I want this to be a church that that that bases its life upon

his scriptures. And maybe you're sat here today

and you know that you're not building your life on these

scriptures. Maybe you know that you haven't

lived your life on Christ the rock and you're adrift today.

You can find mercy today. You can find grace today you can

say, Jesus, I want to follow you on and put my life upon you,

upon your foundation. And for the rest of us, like I

said, to be we're, we're, we want.

I don't want just a load of people sat in seats coming every

Sunday. I want people who say I'm on

mission with you. I want to, I want to give, I

want to serve. I want to, I want to be united

with you. I want to show up.

But regardless of how you feel, where you think, think that you

are, whether that's for you right now, every single one of

us today, Jesus saying, will you commit to building your life

upon his words? Will you commit to building your

life upon the truth revealed in Scripture?

Don't just read it. Don't just hear it, but live it

out. Study its coordinates, trust the

instrument, and you will not only avoid going, being cast

adrift, shipwrecked on rocks, but you will lead yourself into

the life that Jesus has for you and many, many others.

Can we pray? Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, I want to thank you for your word.

God, I want to thank you that even though some of it is really

hard to understand, Lord Jesus, some of it we need to, we need

to, we need to Mull over and Mull over Lord Jesus, Lord God.

But the fact remains that it is good.

Lord Jesus, it is your very word spoken to us, Lord Jesus, and I

want to thank you that you have given us this word so that we

can build our lives on the firm foundation, Lord Jesus.

And I pray, Lord God, if there's any here that haven't built

their lives on your firm foundation, Lord Jesus, if

there's any here who once wanted to, but if but have gone astray,

maybe those who've got and got distracted by the wind and the

waves, who've been choked out by the weeds or God, what they've

become more interested in, in, in money and job and, and other

things. Or Jesus, I pray, Lord God, that

you would bring them back to you today.

Lord Jesus, I pray, Lord God, that we would be a church that

is united after you, Lord God, and as we prioritise getting to

know you through your scriptures, that we as a church,

we as a people would produce a harvest 100 times greater than

we are. Amen.

Amen.