#Making Room

Oh, Happy New Year to each and everyone of you.

And I trust that your Christmas has been wonderful in the sense

of this presence of God being close to each one of you, no

matter what it's looked like, whether it's been full or quiet.

Yeah, I just trust that Jesus has been close.

And for those of you who don't know, I'm Claire.

I'm one of the pastors here at Verso.

And today is really special. It is the first Sunday of a

brand new year. I know we all love a new year

don't we? A re regroup so to speak and a

restart. But it's also a special Sunday

for us. As many of us in the room will

know, it is the last Sunday of what we have fondly called our

in between season. Because next Sunday Verso

Church, you will be so excited to know that we are going to

Commission the wonderful Chuck and Taron.

I know right? Praise God, we've made it to

January 4th and we are super excited for this next turn of

the page in our story as a Verso Church family.

And this season didn't. It began back in September when

Mark and Steph moved to Australia.

I got to chat with them this Christmas.

They say hello to each and everyone of you.

They're doing well. And if you were here, you'll

remember that we started that season praying Psalm 23 over us,

asking Gods, trusting God to be our Good Shepherd.

Remember that we invited Him to lead us in this season side His

still waters, and to help us to learn to feast on the table that

He sets before us even in times of uncertainty.

That we would be secure in His mercy and His goodness.

And from that grounding we started our series on pressing

into and onto Jesus, allowing the Holy Spirit to form us as we

did. And we had an incredible series

where we started. If you remember, I brought my

shovels. You know, I like a good prop.

As many of you know, I brought the shovels with me.

And we talked about this invitation of God to dig the

well of prayer in this season. And no matter how big the shovel

in each one of our hands, the invitation was for us all to

start digging, to exercise our muscles of prayer and allow God

to change the shape of who we are.

And then we explored, didn't we? Through a series, many different

dynamics, Incredible people spoke and we learnt about this

increasing hunger for his presence, for prayer, for

stillness, for lingering, for worship.

And I, I was thinking this Christmas, just back on this

season, like just what God has done in US, rowing us in this

hunger for him. We've had our space online,

we've been fasting together, we've seen the new prayer room

opened. You know, we've seen Christmas

Eve. I don't know, I was so excited

on Christmas Eve. We probably saw 15 to 20 people

give their life to Jesus in this room on Christmas Eve.

Come on, I know thank the Lord this morning.

And then just on New Year's Eve, we had over 400 people hungry

together and worship and see the New Year in in prayer and his

presence. And then and we took a couple of

weeks, didn't we then to look at mission, how God is working in

US and through us to extend the places and spaces that we allow

people to counter Jesus, reverse O care to the ends of the earth,

which we've heard about this morning, to stepping into new

partnerships that would kind of look at bringing God's justice

in the world. And we rocked into heaven into

Christmas series and we looked our heaven invades earth

shockwave of the eternal into the ordinary and how God is with

us and haven't we known him with us in this season and a few

months, You know, we in those few months.

I just want to say this morning as we come to kind of closing

this chapter as one of your pastors, that we are so grateful

for the way that you have journeyed in this time.

You heard that challenge in September to not be stagnant, to

not sit back, to not just wait and see what happens.

You have pressed in and onto Jesus so beautifully.

And I want to say thank you. Thank you for being a church

that's walked faithfully together.

You've loved each other well and you've been full of grace, full

of encouragement. And, and I love that as we've

done that, God has grown this hunger in US and he's marked as

afresh with prayer and worship and devotion.

And, and I think there's been a real gift, hasn't there, in this

kind of in between season that perhaps felt a little bit rocky

to start with. You thought, gosh, what are we

going to do in this time? But I think God's given us this

beautiful gift where he's reminded us that unless the Lord

builds the house, we labour in vain, right?

He's reminded us that we posture ourselves on Him and His

leadership and Him alone. And when we do, look what

happens. He keeps moving in our midst.

And so this time has not been empty in any way.

It's been formative. And I believe it's not a mistake

that God paused us in this time to prepare us for what's ahead.

I want to say this this morning. I know that as we turn into the

next phase of transition and of change again as a new year

comes, like there's just a whole nother wave of things that rises

in US. And just as we said in

September, I want to just remind us again in this moment that we

can be both excited and expectant.

We can be a little bit nervous. We can be a bit unsure.

But here's the deal. The Lord makes space for however

you feel this morning walking into this next chapter.

And His invitation stays the same.

He just invites us to keep pressing into and onto Him and

trusting Him with everything that we have.

And as we do, we get to bring the bits that make us nervous

and we get to exchange them for His expectancy and for who He

is. And so I just want to pray for

us as we kind of close in on this chapter and we get ready

for next week. I just want to invite us to

stand as a church and ask the Holy Spirit to just seal what

he's done in this time and to prepare us for what's ahead.

So Holy Spirit, we thank you this morning that you are

present with us. We thank you for the gift of

your presence. It is a literal miracle.

It's something that blows our mind.

And we, we don't take it for granted that we do not walk this

life. And God, we thank you for this

season. There has been.

We thank you for your purpose in it.

We thank you for what you've done in US.

Would you seal it in our hearts this morning?

And Lord, we pray that we would know this isn't an end.

It was just the beginning what you've planted in US.

Would you bring it to fruition? Would you expand it in US?

And Lord, would you take us this morning as we come and would you

not leave us here? Would you keep moving us forward

in Jesus name? Man, man, it's stuff church

wonderful. Well, it's January.

I, I have to say that I was like pressing the the brake a little

bit as I was heading towards new Year.

I was like, I could use another week, I think another week to do

nothing, maybe a few more PJ days.

But one of the things I love to do and perhaps my husband

doesn't love about me is that when we get to the Christmas

holidays and I'm looking at January, I get into the mode of

thinking about holidays. I need things to look forward

to. I need to see past grey long

January and have things that I'm planning.

And, and it got me thinking about some funny moments and I

was thinking about, I got back into a place of thinking about a

camping trip that we took. I took with my four young

children by myself without my husband like a Wally.

I thought, oh, this is a great idea.

I'll go away in the summer holidays with four children

under the age of 10 along with two other mums.

And that gave us 10 children and three adults and three large

tents to put up by ourselves. And I'm just going to give you a

favour. If you are a mum in this room

and you are planning a camping trip by yourself, don't do it,

OK? Just don't do it.

It's not a good plan. But it's funny, isn't it?

When we I was thinking about this and it made me smile

because of the scripture that the Lord placed on my heart for

us this morning. And you will understand why.

But let's read it. It's Isaiah 54, one to three,

and it says this seeing barren women.

You are you who never bore a child, burst into song, shout

for joy, you who were never in labour, because more are the

children of the desolate women than of of her who has a

husband, says the word. Enlarge the place of your tent,

stretch your tent curtains wide. Do not hold back.

Lengthen your chords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread

out to the right and to the left your descendants will

dispossessed nations and settle in desolate cities.

And Isaiah is a prophet and he is prophetically speaking here

to Israel. And Isaiah 54 comes after the

Suffering Servant chapter of Isaiah 53.

And Isaiah is calling upon Israel to see that their current

circumstances are not the end of their story, but their

fruitfulness is coming. And it's it's the fruitfulness

of their future. That means that he's calling

them to sing, to worship, even now, as he goes on to call them

to prepare for what is to come. And what Isaiah does in this

moment is essentially he releases something over them.

He's calling them to lift their eyes, right, to worship even

before they see the breakthrough, even before they

see the fruitfulness in the physical.

And then he calls them to prepare for what's to come.

And you might think, well, Claire, we have not had a story

that's barren and we haven't versa has been fruitful and

growing. And it's been a beautiful story

that God has been unfolding in our midst.

But as I prayed about this one off Sunday at the beginning of a

year at the beginning as we step into a new season of transition,

and I prayed about it. The Lord just laid on my heart

that this scripture, and it's been really significant in our

history. For those of you who've been

around a while, you will have heard this before, but I felt

like the Lord wants to release something in the room this

morning as we walk into a new year personally, which is

unknown. Every single one of us does not

know what 2026 will look like as we walk into changes that will

come in our personal lives. Hopefully, if we are disciples

of Jesus, we are changing, but also as we walk into a new

chapter as a church about how we are to posture ourselves in

preparation for what is to come. And the promise is that it, what

is to come, will be fruitful and it will be good and it will go

beyond our imagination. Amen.

And so I want us to look at three things this morning that

the Lord just highlighted to me as I sat in the Scripture for us

as a church. In fact, I'm going to pray

again. Yeah, Lord, we just invite your

Spirit to come and move in this room to open our hearts to

receive what you would have us hold onto from your word this

morning. Increase our openness in this

place, tender our hearts this morning, lift us out of the fog

of a Christmas holiday and Sheen as to what you want to say in

Jesus name. The first phrase that that

jumped out of me as I was sitting in the scripture was

that phrase. Enlarge the place of your tent.

Stretch your curtains wide. Now, if you look at the original

Hebrew of this, I want us to dig in a little bit to what these

words mean. And the word for enlarge

actually means to make wide to createspace, to live without

constraint. And at first glance, when we hit

see see that word, sometimes I think we just go immediately to

the action of like making something bigger, of growing

something, expanding something, picking something up and

stretching it. But I want us to keep digging

into this and you'll see what I mean in a second.

The second word was the you're. And if you look at the you're in

the Hebrew, it's quite interesting that the grammar

nerds in your midst will be fascinated to know that this

your word in the original was a second person, feminine,

singular possessive suffix. I was like, right, Lord, I'm not

a grammar expert. However, what I learnt was that

Isaiah is addressing Israel, which he has put into this image

of a barren woman who will soon have many children.

And the you're given the, the, the type of tense that it is

means that it's not a generic you're, but it's an intimate and

personal one directed at this woman.

It's the your own space, your own heart, your own life.

And in Hebrews thought that possession often implied

identity and responsibility, not just ownership.

And God was speaking directly to who she was, not just what she

did. And then the word tent, in its

literal meaning, a tent was a portable, temporary dwelling,

right? It was the place that they

lived, but it was also an emphasis in that time of their

dependence upon God, rather than a permanency on themselves.

It was the centre of family life, protection, the place of

hospitality, their inheritance. And a tent could easily be

expanded, unlike a physical stone building.

But the tent in the Old Testament times was also the

place where they went to encounter God.

And so if we put all of that together, what we start to see

is that it's not like our Western mindset often thinks,

make it bigger, get to action. Let's go after these things like

let's stretch it. God was saying, enlarge your

tent, make room without constraint in you for you to

encounter God and to offer hospitality to others.

The presence of God dwells in us, but God's invitation, as

he's calling them to prepare for fruitfulness, was to enlarge

their hearts to make room for his presence in them, not

someone else's. Turn my turn, your turn my

heart, your heart. In fact, Andrew Murray says

this, the soul that gives God room will find God enlarging the

capacity of the heart. And in order we, we, we need to

get this right, right. Like it's even what Freya said

this morning. She didn't know I was going to

talk on. But you know, the the posture of

our heart comes first, and then we are empowered to stretch the

curtain wide, or as one version says, the canvas of our

habitations, our lives, the body of our church to create spaces

for others. And I felt like the Lord willing

to remind us on this first Sunday of the year is that He is

calling us in preparation to keep enlarging the space inside

of our hearts for more and more and more and more and more of

His presence. Because as Proverbs says, above

all else, guard your heart, for everything flows from it.

And so as we walk into a new year, I want to ask you, you

know, this is prime time for us like resetting and rethinking

and setting goals. And I'm going to get really fit

this year. And I'm going to do this and I'm

going to do that. And I'm going to put this to

action. I'm going to get more effective

at this and I'm going to become better at this.

And I want to ask you, where in your plan for 2026 is this call

to action to make more room, more space in your heart for the

presence of God? How are we ensuring that we are

growing in our formation, A formation by God, and not just

putting constraints on the space He takes in our lives, but

putting constraints on being formed by a world and enlarging

the space to be formed by God? Because God is most interested

in our transformation over our usefulness.

Usefulness, effectiveness, becoming more of who He's made

you to be, flows out from a transformed life that's found in

the presence of God. John 15, Remain in me and I will

remain in you, and apart from me you can do nothing.

And that is true this morning for us personally, but I believe

it's something that God is calling us corporately to

explore. How are we going to make more

space for Him in this place? How are we going to step into

this together? You know, we've prayed through

the autumn and we've gathered together and that doesn't end

with this chapter closing. It's just a continuation of

growing and growing and growing and asking God to lead us to

become more hungry and more longing and more devoted and

more compassionate and more and more and more and more.

And we do that by giving him more space.

And so I want to ask you, how will that look for you this

year? Practically?

What's one step that you could take to put yourself in a place

of experiencing more of the presence of God #2 There's a

really strong little sentence in the Scripture and it says this.

Do not hold back. Isaiah speaks to them and he

says expand the place of your 10, stretch out your things.

And then he says do not hold back.

And I want to have a real and honest moment with you as one of

the passes that's journeyed with you to this point so far as we

are about to walk into a new season, when we get to welcome

Jack and Tara, and when we get to welcome more of the Lord and

we get to trust what he's stewarding for this next season.

We know that change doesn't come without resistance in US, right?

We, we're not human beings, don't love change.

Let's be honest. We don't love change even in our

own lives. He's really excited to exercise

more this year. No one loves change, right?

We, we are resistant to it, but the Lord here, he speaks through

Isaiah and he says, do not hold back.

And I want us to think about what holding back looks like

because to do not hold back, we need to understand what holding

back looks like in US. You know, I talked about this

back in September. You know, it's that place of

being slightly guarded. I'll just wait the jury's out,

see how this thing turns out. It's subtle.

It looks like wisdom. Sometimes on the outside in our

heart, it's holding back. Sometimes holding back looks

like tightening our grip on what we've known.

Because familiarity feels safe. And it feels like I feel valued

in the place that I know how things are going to be.

And there's something God-given about wanting to be safe, but it

just needs to come from Jesus, not from us curating familiar

circumstances. And it also looks like

resistance everything. We start to resist everything

but the thing. The scripture actually calls us

to resist in times of change. The enemy loves to convince us

that we need to resist everything but the thing him

that the Scripture tells us to resist.

Now, hear me on this like that. James 17 says that resist the

devil and he will flee from you, right?

And it's one of the only places that we've talked about

resisting. And he has a really fascinating

way of getting us to put resisting in the wrong place in

times of change. When things feel uncomfortable,

we start to resist the uncomfortableness.

We start to resist each other. We start to resist being

involved in case I get hurt. We start to resist curious

questions or difficult conversations.

We resist doing things slightly differently or being open to

doing things slightly differently, not because we

actually disagree or choose to, but because sometimes different

just feels like wrong even when it's not.

And I could go on, but you get the picture.

Holding back looks like resistance inside of us.

And God first calls them to enlarge their heart to make more

room for Him. Why?

Because that is our way of protecting ourselves from

resisting the wrong thing. And so I want us to see this

morning here and hear my heart. First, though, holding back is

really subtle. It's hidden in our hearts.

And it often looks like subtle tightness.

Holding tightly to what's been familiar, holding tightly to the

things we don't want to lose, holding tightly to the things

that make sense to us. And I think God would remind us

this morning that as we move into a fruitful future, into

more of what he has for us, he's saying do not hold back.

Do not hold back because do not hold back is him saying trust me

with the future. What we understand is that do

not hold back means that we don't.

He's not. He loves us enough not to let us

walk like that. In holding, in asking us to not

hold back, He's asking us not to forget the past, not to

dishonour what has been before or treat what we've been doing

as wrong or insufficient. He's simply saying trust me

fully with what is to come. And it's a posture that we get

to choose in this moment. God's invitation in change in

all seasons is through a growing heart posture to trust Him more,

to be more grounded in Him as our deepest security, to lean

into His Spirit so that He can transform us from the inside

out. And I think He's just asking us

to hold things lightly. Corrie, 10 Boom, is a hero of my

faith, and she has something that I love.

She says I've held many things in my hands and I have lost them

all. But whatever I have placed in

God's hands that I still possess.

And ultimately, when we hear enlarge your 10 and do not hold

back what God's invitation to us as we move forward is one of

faith. Faith is believing for what not

is as though it is. It's to be fully alive in us as

we surrender the control as we give him all the whole right to

our lives and we say we're not going to grip things harder in

our uncertainty. We're going to hold our hands

open to you, God, in this season.

And that posture, one of being humble and surrendered and open,

prepares us for what's ahead. And we are going to stay

prayerful, staying connected to the Father.

We're going to be flexible, open to the Spirit.

We see the enemy's tactics through change.

We're not going to take offence. We're going to ask curious

questions of one another. We're going to notice the

resistance that comes up or any objection in US and we're going

to abandon the outcomes to God, not as passivity, but as

allegiance as John Mark Romer says.

And we're going to be a people that are expectant, trusting God

to move as he sees fit, not just how we see fit.

And together with God, we're going to entrust him to lead us

into the fruitful future ahead of us because we're the Spirit

of the Lord is there is freedom. And when we refuse to hold back,

we increasingly make room for God.

We make room for his Spirit, and we allow him to work with

freedom in our hearts, our lives, our plans, our desires,

our hopes, personally and in us as a church, we're in for an

exciting adventure ahead. And I don't know about you, but

I know that place when fear starts to try to grip us.

And I just felt like the Lord wants to breathe over us freedom

in this room this morning. He wants us to see fear and

resistance and and that place of offence for what it is.

And I know I'm talking about the tough stuff this morning on this

first Sunday of the year, but when we see it, we name it, we

rebuke it, and we choose to walk in the way of the Spirit, which

is to be loving and grace filled and kind and gentle and

expecting in who God is. Amen.

And thirdly, this Isaiah doesn't stop with enlarge your 10 and do

not hold back. He says lengthen your cord,

strengthen your stakes for you will spread out to the right and

to the left. As God is describing a people

moving into increasing fruitfulness and as we walk into

2026, I believe this is the promise that God has spoken over

us as a church. What is ahead is even greater

than what is behind. It goes beyond what we could

imagine and the times we are living in the posture of this

moment, the number of people coming to faith.

I'm going to be really honest with you, on Christmas Eve, I

had low expectations, if I'm honest, that people would come

to faith in this building. And I went home and I just cried

before the Lord. Like this is the hour people are

hungry for Jesus and we are postured in our city in this

place for a purpose. And God is preparing us in here

in this space for what he is about to bring through us.

And so as we go into these days ahead, they're a day of promise.

They're a day of fruitfulness. We will spread out to the left

and the right and into the nations.

And there's this huge promise. But notice what came before the

promise. Lengthen the chords and

strengthen the stakes. And when I was a teenager, we

had a family friend who ran a marquee business and they used

to, we used to go and help as teenagers.

It would not happen in 2025 because of health and safety,

but we we used to put our trainers on, get on the field

and we'd often go to some of the big festivals and help with

getting these Marquis up. And it was hard work, but an

adventure. But I learnt quite a lot about

what it takes to put a huge marquee up that can hold 10,000

people. It takes a large team of people,

but the tense strength isn't found in the fabric, it's in the

tension between the chords and the stakes.

And interestingly, when you stand around a marquee putting

up and everybody's on their beasts, there is this beautiful

teamwork that happens where someone has to release a chord

for the other cord to be pulled tightly.

And then you have to wrap them around these stakes, which have

been driven in with consistent effort of pushing deeper and

deeper. And the bigger the marquee, the

deeper the stakes had to go. And if the stakes didn't go deep

enough, the wind would loosen those ropes around them and the

tent would go down. And if the cords weren't held at

the right tension or weren't long enough, the tent would

collapse inwards. And it got me thinking how

Kingdom growth is just works the same way God forms us as a

people in Jesus who are committed to partnership in the

Spirit. But it carries all of us showing

up just like a team that puts up a marquee.

I want to tell you right now, Chuck and Taryn are amazing.

They are gifted, wonderful, wonderful leaders who we cannot

wait to walk with. But the fruitful future Reverso

is not simply on their shoulders.

Every one of us in this room has a part to play.

Every one of us needs to be consistently driving the stakes

of prayer into the ground. Every one of us needs to be

consistently pressing into the presence of God to be formed and

shaped by who He is, so that we get to bring the gift He's

placed in each one of us for this time that He has brought us

here. And interestingly, as we do

that, we are released in freedom to loosen us cord from this

direction for it to be tightened.

Over Here we learn to hold loosely because we recognise as

the Spirit moves, things shift and change, not because one

person's effort isn't needed. Actually, we need one person to

release in order for one person to pull tighter.

Over here, revival is God's work, but preparation is ours.

And we're going to be rooted, rooted and grounded and built up

in 2026 because we are preparing for what God is going to do in

our midst. And God is able to do

immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine according to His

work, His power at work within us.

And notice that it's His power at work in US.

The inside out brings them more than we can ask or imagine as we

allow God's space to move in US and the freedom of His Spirit to

internally expand us, to grow us as a body to That all comes

before that external fruitfulness.

And I just think it's remarkable, the gift this past

season has been at reorientating us in worship and lingering in

His presence, in listening in prayer, in succeeding and

fasting and learning to hold a posture fully engaged in him,

contending for this beautiful, fruitful future that is ours.

And that's the same in our own lives, our own disciples, as it

is for us as a church. And so as we do all of these

things and we hold this posture, we're going to walk into a

season, I believe, of increasing harvest and increasing growth.

And I pray I read this this week and it made me smile.

Philip Brooks says, do not pray for tasks that equal your

strength. Pray for strength that equals

your task. And my prayer over us as a

church is that we would pray that the Spirit of God would

equip us for the task of his fruitfulness, his Kingdom coming

in the here and the now, here in Saint Albans, in Hemel and

Hatfield. And I want to exhort us as a

church this morning to let's keep making increasing space for

God in our hearts, our lives, so that we can be increasingly

surrendered to him. Let's refuse to hold back.

Let's see how the enemy loves to grow subtle resistance in US and

convince us that different is wrong and that different or

change means bad things. Verso, do not hold back.

Let's press on with increasing freedom in the Spirit.

Believe in God for the goodness that He wants to show us in the

land that we are living in. In this next season, every

single one of us is needed. So do not let the subtle lie of

the enemy convince you you are not needed in this next season.

You are needed. We all get to play, we all get

to be involved, and we all, I believe, will grow in our

commitment to the faithfulness and the active participation in

stewarding together what God has for us in the future.

Are you up for that? Enlarge the space of your tent.

Do not hold back. Strengthen your stakes, lengthen

your chords. And we are going to see God move

to our right and to our left and to every nation of this world

because of our simple yes to keep pushing in and pressing

onto Him.