#Called and Commissioned - the gift of consecration.

What a joy to be in the room this morning with all of your

lovely faces. And I was struck in worship this

morning afresh of what a privilege it is to come into a

space like this and to worship freely and to get to under pack

the Bible together. And I think I can quite easily

wander in on a Sunday morning and just go through the motions.

Love it and it's good. But what a privilege to stand in

a nation where we get to do this every week freely.

Yeah, what a good God if you've been here for a while, or if

you're brand new. We've been in a series called

The Call, and Mark has been looking at the story of Jesus

and the calling of the first disciples in Luke 5, and

specifically the moment where he called Simon into the boat and

caused him to throw the net into the sea.

And as we've unpacked this together, Mark has been, we're

looking at these three calls within it, the call to Jesus to

be with him, the call to holiness and the call to the

Great Commission. And the last few weeks and

specifically, we've been looking at the hallmarks of the call and

and it's turned into quite the series, hasn't it?

We are. I think we're about 5 hallmarks

in as it stands. And if you've missed any of it,

I encourage you to jump on YouTube and catch up.

But this morning we're having a brief pause and you get me

instead. And we're going to look at a

scripture that actually the Lord put on my heart about five years

ago as I was praying for the body of Christ.

And and I felt like he spoke a prophetic word to me about this

chapter. And I've sat in it lots and lots

of times since. And and so I bring it this

morning kind of as a stirring of dry bones in our midst, right,

like an activation type message. It's not got three points.

You'll be glad to know. It's got one very long point, so

I want you to open your Bibles with me here to Joshua, Chapter

Joshua 3 · chapter mention

3. And to give you a little bit of

context, here in the Old Testament the people of Israel

have been on a wandering journey in the wilderness and they've

been brought out of slavery in Egypt into freedom with a vision

of the promised land. And it's been almost 40 years

when we enter this part of the story and and the original group

that actually were brought into freedom, none of them are alive

at this point. There's a new generation that is

walking apart from two of them. Moses has been leading them, and

they're through all the twists and turns of the journey, a

journey which is, say, the 40 years.

But it could have been 11 days, I'd like to point out, which

just UN kind of ravels the twisting and turning nature of

this journey so far. And they've followed God with a

pillar of cloud and fire. By night, they've experienced

his patience, his miraculous provision, his correction, And

through it all, they've ultimately been on this journey

of learning what it looks like to truly worship God.

And now, here at Chapter 3, Joshua has just stepped into

leadership of this people of Israel, and his first major task

as a leader comes here in Chapter 3, where suddenly the

land that they've been promised is insight.

And before them, there is also this enormous, impassable river,

the river Jordan. And the Jordan is flowing at its

absolute peak. It's flooded, it's forceful.

And, and just for even greater context, there's estimated 2.5

million people in this camp of Israelites that need to get

across this river. And I want you to imagine that

scene with me for a minute. The tension that must have

existed in that camp. The excitement at finally seeing

what they've been promised and the disbelief at the size of

that river, The wandering of promise and the frustration of

reality as they sat there for three days and stared at this

river. And here we enter chapter 3,

verse 3. Let's read it together.

It's up on the screen three days after the Israeli army officers

went through the camp, giving these instructions to the

people. When you see the priest carrying

the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, move out from

your positions and follow them. Since you have never travelled

this way before, they will guide you.

Stay about half a mile behind it, keeping a clear distance

between you and the ark, and make sure you don't get any

closer. And then, Joshua told the

people, consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do

great wonders among you. In the morning, Joshua said to

the priest, lift up the Ark of the Covenant and lead the people

across the river. And so they started out and they

went ahead of the people. And the Lord told Joshua, today

I will make you a great leader in the eyes of all the

Israelites. They will know that I am with

you, just as I was with Moses. Give this command to the priest

who carry the ark of the covenant.

When you reach the banks of the river Jordan, take a few steps

into the river and stop still there.

And Joshua told the Israelites come and listen to what the Lord

your God says today. You will know that the living

God is among you. And it goes on in this chapter.

And guess what? They do what God asks them to

do. They step into that river

Jordan. They stand still under the

presence of God and the Jordan splits before their very eyes.

And that entire camp of 2.5 million people cross the Jordan

into the promised land on dry ground in flood season.

And as we read this story this morning, it'd be easy to think,

oh, this is so unrelatable. I am not in a desert and I'm not

standing before a Jordan River, and what has this got to do with

me? But I believe that here at Saint

Albans Vineyard or Verso Vineyard, St.

Albans, as we're soon to be known, we're in a pivotal moment

as a church in the life of our church.

And I think we're in a pivotal moment in the global church and

as a result, the life of our city and our towns and our

communities. And there's a sense of momentum

building, a sense of good shaking in our midst where the

Lord has been setting before us fresh vision under greater

understanding of what His Kingdom is about.

And he's given us this dream in here of this this group of

people that we want to see more spaces and places for people to

encounter Jesus. We want transformation, Jesus

transformation to to infiltrate into our communities.

And I get really excited when I think about what that would

mean, what that would mean for our communities, what that would

mean for us as a nation if we saw revival Jesus, revival in

our midst. And yet simultaneously, if we're

honest, we are facing a cultural moment that feels like the

darkness is swelling, that the complexities, the crisis, the

brokenness, the relentlessness of war and violence, it's in

flood mode. And at times it can feel like

we're at an impasse. And if I'm really honest, there

are moments where I I question the Lord, I'm like, is the good

news really going to make a difference in this moment?

It's OK to be that honest with God.

He's not afraid of it. And and at some level, I

recognise myself inside those Israelites.

And I think we can as a church, you know, we turn 35 this year

as St. Albans Vineyard and we've been

journeying, right? I've not been here for the last

35 years, but there are many, many stories of God's provision

of his miraculous work in our midst, of people who fervently

have loved Jesus in all the ways that they can.

And there's been times when we got it wrong, and there's been

really hard stuff in our story where we've made mistakes.

But it's been part of the journey and God's kindness of

growing us and maturing us and leading us to this very moment

that we stand in today. A Jordan River kind of moment

where he's been getting our attention afresh.

Today, today, here, right now, where we have to press into the

tension that we live in, in this moment.

And we have to allow him to give us fresh eyes, to grow our

hunger for His presence, and to realise afresh what is truly the

only sure thing in this world. And the best way to walk forward

into the impossible is where God is king of our hearts, and where

we stand before those seemingly impossible things of our time

and our personal lives, with an understanding that His presence

is the only way forward, the only one that can lead us.

And he instructed those Israelites in verse three and

four to posture themselves in a way that their eyes were fixed

upon the ark of the covenant, the presence of God not rushing

ahead of it, not lagging behind, but to be king of their hearts,

be quiet, because they've never been this way before.

And it struck me that this reminder was coming to a group

of people that have been following him already for 40

years. But I think this morning the

thing that the Lord wants to grab our attention with is

actually in verse 5, Consecrate yourself for tomorrow.

The Lord will do wonders among you.

What was Joshua commanding them to do in this moment?

What was their part to play in the moment?

Before they would see the wonders of God?

Joshua walked into this group of people who had no doubt had an

array of thoughts and ideas and strategies of how to get across

this Jordan River with confidence and boldness.

And he calls them back again to the act of dedicating themselves

to worship, to truly worship God, to consecrate themselves.

And what did that mean? It meant they set to the work of

putting God back into his rightful position in their

lives. Recognising and acknowledging

afresh who he was and despite what they could see in the

physical. Choosing to surrender the

wrestles of a humanist and surrendering it again to give

God back his seat on their their lives.

Allowing their actions, their words, their attitudes of the

moment that they were in. And saying I recognise where

I've let my things take the lead and I want to put you back in

the lead scene where they had to let him come in and see where

sin had entered the camp. Grumbling, gossip, unbelief,

idolatry, even the good things that they had loved, that were

taking first place. They had to be surrendered in

this act of consecration. Essentially this core to

consecration was an act to choose him again as king and

Lord and lover and friend. And it was a process of making

their lives holy, of purifying and dedicating themselves,

giving them back to God all that was in them.

And in Old Testament times, they had to do this by literally

going back to their tents and washing their clothes and

abstaining from activities that were good and a normal part of

their life as a demonstration of their intent and dedication to

purifying themselves. Now we because of Jesus dying on

the cross and rising again, we don't have to go through those

rituals today here, but I think there's something even in that

to consider, you know, John Mark Cromer says this consecration is

giving up the things that others considered normal to fully give

yourself to God. Consecration, in my definition

in essence, is about your increasing unconditional

surrender to a living, loving and active holy God.

Consecration is about your increasing, unconditional

surrender of every room of your life to a loving, living,

active, holy God. And where does it start?

It starts with your choice. God's already there, arms wide

open. We just have to choose it.

And I think God's invitation for us this morning, you know, we

didn't, I don't know, maybe Mark planned it this way.

But. But I was thinking about this as

a prepping. You know, we are on the the week

before we enter the new chapter next week, we step into a new

name and we turn the page in our story and we step forward in

faith in all the promises that God has placed upon us.

And I think God today is saying, consecrate yourselves again and

again and again and again. Diligently be the people that

show up in the secret place. Never graduating from needing to

see God afresh every day encountering His Holiness.

Not from a place of striving, but of one that says I'm here.

God come and meet with me. That place where we bring

everything that we see and we feel and we think to the living.

God again. And we allow the Holy Spirit in.

To convict us, to change us, to challenge us, to refine us, to

become increasingly surrendered as we become like Him.

And I think this often, when I was a kid and I'd read the

story, the big moment was the moment that the river Jordan

opened up, right? It's the big miracle that calls

for our attention. But I believe this morning he

would call us in this room to the diligence of the night

before holiness moment in this story.

And I want us to see afresh the power of the miraculous that

unfolded in the 40 years of wandering and learning to keep

themselves in continual consecration and worship.

And to God, it's this night before holiness where we decide

to go home to our tents and to allow God to speak in the middle

of our ordinary lives. For however long we've known Him

outside of this building, and outside of amazing worship times

and prayer times and gatherings in the corporate where we get to

experience the Mirac, the miracle that the presence of a

living, holy, loving God wants to be with you.

And in the safety of His presence, we can show Him our

true selves and allow Him to come in and redirect and shift

and show us where we're out of alignment and where we've let a

crack enter in and and we've started to believe the subtle

lies of the enemy that are going to take us off track.

It's this night before kind of holiness that invites the slow

work, diligent work of the Holy Spirit in our lives where we

keep choosing God on the days when we feel like it and when we

don't, on the days when we prefer to lie on our previous

understanding because it would just be easier that way.

When we acknowledge that there is more and more for us to

encounter in Jesus. It's this night before holiness,

where the quiet, hidden, nitty gritty work of our hearts again

and again and again is found not in the crowds, not in the

corporateness, but in the hiddenness of tents.

Our homes, our individual surrender.

To faithfully engage in the kind of rhythms that encourage us to

keep confessing and keep repenting and keep surrendering

to the kindest, most loving and powerful God.

Where he's not condemning us. He's the biggest cheerleader of

holiness demonstrated in our lives, and he wants our whole

lives as a demonstration of worship unto who he is.

The holiness of God transforms people one by one, and that

brings preparedness for us to witness and step into the

wonders that he's going to do in our midst tomorrow.

And it's where our confidence grows and our faith grows and

where we walk into these moments, like this pivotal

moment where the river Jordan opens and God increases the

influence. You know, the Israelite people

went from a people to a nation. The minute that they walked

through that Jordan River, God trusted them again and he

increased their influence. You know, I'm a hero of the

faith, and his name is Gypsy Smith.

He's an old, old geezer, long time ago.

But I've read about him as I've read about revival.

And I love this about him. He was uneducated.

He had none of the tools in his hand to be someone that stood on

a big stage and brought crowds and crowds.

And he used to get asked all the time because he was.

He was someone who ended up preaching the gospel to the most

people ever in human history before Billy Graham.

And he. And he's the people used to say

to him, why do these crowds gather?

Where do they come from? What?

What is the secret here? And he said the secret is that

when you need to go home, you need to get on your knees and

you need to get a piece of chalk and you need to draw a circle

around yourself and you need to cry out.

Revival and let it start in this circle.

And Joshua demonstrates this in this story for himself.

You know, he walks in as a a young leader to lead this

Israelite camp into a crazy moment before the Jordan River.

And it begs the question, where did that confidence come?

Where did that authority come to lead people to encounter Jesus?

And you have to go back through Joshua's story.

But in Deuteronomy 3114, we see this moment of transition where

Moses passed on to Joshua the leadership.

And where what happens in that moment is Joshua enters the tent

of meeting, which in the Old Testament is the place that

people had to physically go to encounter God.

And in that tent of meeting, Joshua presents himself as he

comes, and he encounters God, and he gets himself right.

And then God commissions him into his role of leadership.

And that's why Joshua can walk into that camp of Israelites and

speak with confidence. And in these days that we are

in, we have been commissioned by God here in this place, to

multiply the spaces and places for people to encounter Jesus.

And we can't just wish for it. We can't just hope for it.

We can't just expect the person next to us to do the work so

that we all get to participate. It comes back down to this.

We all need to show up in the secret place, in the hidden

place of our ordinary lives, and be a people that are dedicated

to increasing surrender to a God that we love and honour and

trust. And for some of us in the room,

that looks like simply acknowledging.

I actually, just I don't really like meeting with Jesus on my

own. I quite like it in the

corporate, but I struggle on my own.

For some of us might be this morning that we admit, actually

it's a bit dry and God feels silent, for some of us might be

loving it. But there's more.

There's even more. But just as they stepped into

the river of the impossible and God said stand still, God's

invitation to us as he draws us to consecrate ourselves is one

of not striving and not perfection and not judgement and

not I've got to get this right and this is A to do list that

I've got to keep adding to, he says.

Just give me your yes and step in and stand still in my

presence and watch what I will do in your heart.

Oh, so just a little side Now I want to just kind of notice

something that struck me as I was digging into this story

about language. Joshua was called into the

presence of God. We are called unto Jesus.

That is our true calling. And out of our giving, yes to

that relationship, he commissions us into the work of

the Kingdom. Classically, if you've been

church a while, you will hear people say, I am called to

leadership, I am called to lead worship, I am called to be a

teacher. I am called we are called into

all these fears and different things that we do.

And here in my heart it's just language and it's slightly just

somatics, but it's been helpful for me to make this

distinguished understanding. Actually, if you look at the

Bible, the word call is only ever really seen as God called

us to himself and he uses the word Commission to send us into

the world to do the Kingdom work.

And why is this important? Because we merge the voices of

God and our callings and and we end up really subtly.

I think the enemy loves to do this.

I think he loves to come in and he makes the the voice of Our

Calling, the things that we are commissioning to be the one that

grabs our attention because it's exciting and we see fruit and

and when we do that, that becomes first place in our life

and God is saying no, no, the calling is to me and if you give

my yes there, I will Commission you to do exactly what you're

supposed to do. And why is it also important?

Because tomorrow, if you wake up and you lose your job or

something happens to you and you're flat on your face in bed

and you can't do anything for the next six months, your world

is not shaken. Because you understand that your

purpose is to say yes to the call of God, to be in

relationship with Him. And then he will Commission you

flat and on your back in bed to do the work of the Kingdom from

right where you're at. Amen.

Amen. And you see this repeating

throughout Scripture. The secret place, the calling of

relationship with God, leads to a commissioning you.

I I could give you endless examples, but I want to go even

to the Great Commission. You notice it again in the Great

Commission. We love to quote the Great

Commission from Matthew 2819. Go therefore and make disciples

of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and

teaching them all the things, all the things.

And we skip the verses that preceded.

If you go back to verse 17 you will see that it says Jesus

called them and when they saw him they worshipped him.

And all authority is given to me.

Jesus says and then he says go therefore and make disciples.

They came to him, they worshipped him, He re

established who he was and out of that place they go and they

make disciples. We could only go where we've

been willing to go if we want to see this multiplication of

spaces and places for people to encounter Jesus.

It starts with you and me making space and encountering Jesus

even when no one else is around. We cannot lead others into the

places that we are not willing to go ourselves.

And you know if you know me, if you if you're one of my friends

or you follow me on Instagram. You will know that about 18

months ago I started this crazy journey of trying to grow cut

flowers. I fell in love with gardening

and my kids love to tease me that I've turned old and that

this is the thing you do when you turn 40 you grow flowers.

But I I basically moved house and entered this house that's

got a huge garden and and I was drawn into this process and and

I I'd I'd I'd never been successful at growing anything

like I was not a green fingered kind of person.

I was like looking at this garden.

I was wrestling through all the weeds and I was thinking I just

really love it to be filled with beautiful flowers next summer.

And so I entered this journey as a complete novice having

literally no idea what I was doing and I quickly learnt that

all kinds of stuff. I had to start reading Monty Don

watching BBC gardeners world. You know all the things I've got

these gardening flower books and and you know and I was doing my

best to to learn all the stuff and and I learnt some things.

I learnt that seeds actually I I don't in school that seeds

needed light for germination and they do but actually lots of

seeds need to be put into the soil deep in the darkness in the

hidden place so that that exterior shower can be broken

off. So that life can come out and

they can germinate and respond to the light and grow and

blossom. It blew my mind.

I was like, how does this work? And so and I and I started to

just have a go. I started the process.

I started showing up in this garden every single day.

I was like running out in the snow last spring to put blankets

over my seedlings because I didn't want them to die.

And I was like, you know, doing the work, learning about soil,

the way you dig soil it all, it all makes a difference.

Did you know? And how we grow cut flowers And

I slowly but surely shocked my family.

I think that I actually got to, I did start to grow things and

they were looking good and they were looking promising.

But The thing is that God showed me this stuff afresh about

consecration in this process of growing cut flowers.

I would say that growing cut flowers has been the most

spiritual activity of my life in the last 18 months.

Because God has shown me that to get those flowers which I got

the most beautiful flowers growing at exportionate levels

to give away and it was a joy to give them away.

But the process to get there was found in me literally going into

the garden every single day. And the more that I did it, the

more I recognised where the seedling was not looking OK.

And it might need a little bit of this or it might I need to go

back and Google and see what I need to do.

And I also learnt that you you have to cut back flowers.

So the more you cut grown flowers, the more they grow and

it and it was so counter intuitive.

But the biggest part of it I was recognising that the more I

spent time with the seeds that I was growing, the more I

recognised where things were off track or there was a danger of

slugs underneath, or there was. But I had to be there every day,

just in the garden, being present to the to the soil,

present to the flowers showing up.

And I fell in love with the process.

And actually, a few months in, I couldn't care less whether the

flowers were coming. I just loved the process of of

the journey. It was noticing the small things

and recognising my gardening did not have to look like Monty

Don's gardening and my rhythms for being in my garden didn't

have to look like my neighbour's rhythms for being in her garden.

But I just had to show up and I had to choose to walk out in

rain, in snow, in sunshine, in freezing winds, to do the work

that would mean I saw the fruit. Adam, I don't know if you're

around, but if you want to come up now and I want to ask us as

we come into land here, how are you doing?