Led by the Spirit

If we've not met before, my name's Chris.

I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm going to be speaking this

morning. I've got into a new little habit

on a Sunday morning of I have a coffee to start with, and then I

refill it with hot water when it's just about finished.

So it's a sort of murky look. Can you see this?

It's really nice. It's one of those things you

know, sometimes you'd like. I only ever drink green tea if I

met A maybe like an Asian food place and it tastes brilliant in

that context, but I don't tend to have it elsewhere.

This is becoming a Sunday morning thing for me, kind of.

It's quite nice. Too much coffee gets me too

amped. So it's quite a nice, good day.

So my name's Chris. I've been speaking this morning.

Hi Tom, nice to see you. And my, the theme for this

morning is being led by the spirit.

And I'm conscious that often when I speak, I'm, I'm sort of

laying out plans and sort of strategies and sort of this is

where we're going. And, but actually some of the

talks that I like listening to the most are talks when you're

just kind of soaking in what is it like to know Jesus and what

is it like to follow? What is it like to follow God?

And so I'm, I'm trying, my aim is that this talk will be more

in that sort of space. It's not a kind of an action

plan, a kind of strategy for the city.

It's a really I wanted to speak into the just a life of walking

with Jesus, a life of following God.

And I'm hoping that as we do that we'll just, we'll just be

encouraged and different things will speak to different people

and, and it will be an encouraging time in being in the

kind of the world view, the mindset, the Spirit of God

together. We're doing a bit of a review

actually, as elders at the moment on we go through kind of

different areas of the church doing review different areas.

Maybe we're looking at our teaching and our, and our talks

and something that came out of our meeting on Wednesday was

the, the, the idea of a talk on on a Sunday.

It's not, it's not a sort of a it's not quite like a Ted talk

in terms of information, but the, the, the desire is it when

we get together as church like this is that I'm not just

winning you over with my clever ideas, but actually together.

We are sitting in the in the presence of God in the in the

Scriptures. And there's something of an

encounter with God that we are looking to have looking to, for

the life of Jesus to become real to us, the Spirit of God to be

speaking to us in our present time.

So inspired by that, I'd like to pray, Lord, that as we have this

time together now in your word and as, as I, as I speak, I want

to pray that for us as a, as a church family, visitors and,

and, and, and regulars alike, that this is a time when you,

you feed us, you encourage us, you inspire us, you deepen us,

you strengthen us. Pray that this is a moment of

encounter with you that brings us life in Jesus name, Amen.

So I'm going to share a few things and then I'd love to

finish. We'll finish, I'll finish

speaking at least by 12 at the latest, and then we'll have some

time to, to pray and love to have some time to pray together.

So the theme of this. Oh, thanks, Andrew.

It's a nice moment of quiet as we're going into the new year.

Or, you know, some of you just heard Charlie's news for the

first time and might be, might feel the weight of that.

And, and yeah, I, I certainly have, and I've been tracking

with him for some time. I found what he said this

morning about, did you hear what he said about when we're

triggered, it can be like a sort of, he talked about a bull's eye

on a dartboard. And, and, and we can kind of try

and avoid those, those pain points or those triggering

points or actually they're places that we can meet with God

in quite profound ways. And, and I think that's, that's

increasingly been my experience as I've been walking with Jesus

and I shared with shared with you as a church back in

November, Alice and I shared that we'd actually been quite

discouraged towards the instead of third, second-half of last

year. We were already we're battling

with discouragement personally in ways that we hadn't before.

And, and to kind of update on that, I, I think now I'm feeling

wonderfully strong in my faith in a, in a kind of a gentle and

a quiet way. And I think what I think what

that, what that time of there's some time of darkness.

Really for me, what that time did is it sent me into needing

God, seeking Jesus in a, in a kind of refresh and a more kind

of humble and a broken way, probably deconstructed some of

my pride and some of my self-reliance and just a sort of

simple coming back to Jesus, You know, he lived and he died and

he rose from the dead. And these things are true and

they carry me and they transform me.

So, so I, I coming into 2026 from in a kind of gentle and

sort of humble sort of, I've always even had a sort of weak

place of like of actually hopeful expectation of, of

walking this year with God and, and, and I'm excited about that.

And I'm and I'm and I'm really up for it and say I want to look

at a couple of passages that give us insight into what it's

like to be led by the Spirit of God, which is certainly my

desire, desire this year. And the first one is from the

Old Testament. It's from Zechariah chapter 4.

Zechariah 4 · chapter mention

Yeah, chapter 4, verse 6. And I've got it, I've got it on

the screen here. You can find it in the Bibles on

the table if you'd like to as well.

So this is this is what's going on here.

Bit of context. Israel is in quite a broken down

state as a nation. They I wonder if I do, should I

do a really quick run through of the Bible creation?

So Adam and Eve well created Noah's flood.

Things go wrong. God speaks to Abraham and says

to Abraham, I'm going to make you into a mighty nation and

bless the whole world through you.

That's the start of Israel. Abraham has Isaac and Jacob and

and they're going to go on from there, the generations and then

Israel goes on and they say we want to have a king.

We want to have a king that the nations around us and so God

says, OK, I'll give you a king, but it's not ideal.

So it starts off Saul is Israel's first king and and he's

quite a a self self focused man does a lot of damage for Israel.

Then David is the second king and he's really a a king in the

spirit of or later see more fully realised than Jesus.

That's a man after God's own heart.

And Israel really flourishes through the time of David and

then his son Solomon. And that's the kind of the

golden age of Israel when it's people are coming from other

nations around the world to visit Israel.

But in the subsequent generations of kings, Israel

repeatedly turns away from worshipping God and it does

things as what it sees right in its own eyes.

And this is sort of self destruction that comes from a

nation doing things and according to their own wisdom

without worshipping God. And after time, after time, God

says, if you keep on doing this, you're destroying yourselves and

you're going to be taken away into exile.

And so that happens. So then Israel is then taken

away into exile. They're going to Babylon and,

and, and the, the wonderful city of Jerusalem is destroyed.

The temple is destroyed. But God's whispering through the

prophets all the time, I'm going to bring you back.

I'm going to bring back a greater restoration.

I'm going to deal with the problem of the human heart,

which is always the problem which was needed to be rectified

and these whispers that point towards Jesus.

And in the meantime, he also says, I'm going to bring you

back and I'm going to make another temple in Jerusalem and

I'm going to restore you. And this is all the precursor

before we get to to the end of the Old Testament.

And then Jesus comes and in this ultimate fulfilment, But in that

time of saying to Israel, you're going to come back and build a

second, another, another temple. The nation actually is in quite

a vulnerable and weak place, you know, very different to the time

of David and and Solomon when it was so powerful.

And it's into that context that this prophet Zechariah is

speaking and he's encouraging the people of Israel, saying,

saying, walk with me. And I'm going to I'm going to

restore you. I'm going to rebuild this

temple. And I'm also going to do

something fuller in humanity through the coming of Christ

that he's whispering about. So this is the context here.

There's a man called Zerubbabel. He's a priest who's leading the

building of the temple. And Zechariah says to him here,

he says, this is the word of the Lord to you, Zerubabbel, not by

might nor by power, but by my spirit says the Lord.

So with our question of like, what does it mean to be led by

the Spirit? I've been studying this passage

and looking at this passage and I think I've often looked at

this just sort of skim Reddit and thought, ah, it's not by our

own efforts that God does stuff, but it's this kind of cosmic

sort of ray gun by which the Holy Spirit will ZAP things and

sort everything out. And so that that's the, that's

the kind of key to the Christian life.

That's how. But actually, on a bit more sort

of a closer inspection of, of this passage, that's not really

what's going on. God's not saying I'm just going

to cosmically do it for you by this plasma gun of my spirit

sort of thing. But looking at the, the Hebrew

of these words. So this is originally written in

Hebrew and the word might, which is I think I can bring it up

here, the word might in Hebrew is hail.

Hail. And what might means is, is a

kind of military strength, wealth, social power,

institutional might. It was the kind of might that

that King David had that Solomon had in those days when they

could just, they could just they, they brought in treasures

from around the world to build the temple like the most

precious stone, the most precious timber and stuff came

from all over the place to to build this.

It was, it was a real it was an empire, you know, at its peak at

it was doing doing so. But but interesting there.

He's saying not by that. That's not the means by which

you're going to build this temple Zura bubble and the and

the second. So there's the there's the

military might in the form of a tank.

And then nor by power. And this word power is KOA in in

Hebrew. I'm sure that's how you

pronounce it. And it means it means kind of

the personal and to the political power and capacity and

strength and ability. So the sort of ability of an

individual to to sort of win you over.

So I've got like a little persuasive looking person as an

image as an image there. And and so he's saying not by

not by military might, not by the great power of this

incredible oratorial or charismatic leader or, or, or,

or crafty politician, but by my spirit says the Lord.

And what he goes on to say is that is that in in verse verse

8, then the word of the Lord came to me.

The hands of Zerah bubble have laid the foundation of this

temple. His hands will also complete it.

So how is the way the spirit is going to complete the building

of the temple? It's through this person Zerah

Bubble, who actually is is in quite a position of weakness and

he hasn't got this great army and great resource behind him

and he hasn't presumably got quite the same winsome

personalities maybe King David had.

I don't I don't know, but God is saying that the Spirit of God is

going to work through zero bubble to complete this building

of the temple. And I just, that's my first

passage that I wanted to look at is that, and I find real

encouragement that there's and the God, and we see this

throughout the Bible, don't we? God will often take people to

quite weak places of weak weakness in order to, and we see

that same many times in the stories in the Old Testament.

And we see it in the people that he chooses to use in the New

Testament. And the way he uses them is, is

that weakness is not a an absence of God, but it's a but

it's a place of opportunity for God.

And so I think part of being led by the spirit is and it, and it

also is everybody had to probably, you know, really crack

on with the kind of nuts and bolts of the difficult stuff.

It wasn't like, great, I'll just rack up this temple 2.0 easy

job. You know, we see there's a lot

of battling, there's a lot of discouragement to overcome.

And there's, there was a material drama, challenge,

effort, energy draft that was required in the building of the

temple. And, and, and sometimes we can

say that that can't be God. It was too difficult.

You know, we if, if it's the Holy Spirit, it must be easy.

There must be this sort of, you know, turbo charged.

But I find encouragement here that actually God works through

us in a, as in a place of weakness, often in a, in a

broken and challenging world being led by the Spirit.

And then the second passage I want to look at is in Acts

Acts 10 · chapter mention

chapter 10, when Peter has this vision, that is the starting

point for the church expanding beyond just the Jewish world

into people like me. I'm not Jewish, probably most of

us here aren't Jewish, but Peter had this vision which propelled

the church into the rest of the world.

And it's, it's a cool, I like that.

That's one reason that I like this is because I've been to the

place where Peter had this vision and I've got some

pictures here. This is this is Tel Aviv beach

and Alice and I went with filming Biblios, her Bible

course in 2018. We had this brilliant time

buzzing around Israel, visiting all the different locations for

filming. And this is I think our last

day. Tel Aviv beach is just up the

road from Jaffa or, and this is, so this is probably like from

that beach view, I don't know, 20 minute walk, just sort of

South. And this is the altitude Jaffa.

And this is Simon the Tanner's house.

And Simon the Tanner, as we'll read about in a minute, was the

man who's where Peter was staying when he had this vision

of a net being let down with all these impure animals.

And God was saying to him through this vision that the

church, the message of Jesus that is no longer just, I'm not

confining it just to the Jewish community anymore, but it's for

that, but it's for everybody. And I found this to be one of

the most powerful places that I went to, went to the tomb where

they think Jesus might have been buried and, and lots of other

sites around and Israel. But I found this, I don't know,

maybe it's because it's the point where I get to be included

as a non Jewish person. But I found it a profound

impact. That roof, that flat roof up

there was the place where where this stuff happened.

There's Alice doing a talk just next to it.

Let me read. Let me read this.

Oh, actually to say So what I want to do as we, I'm just going

to read it, read the passage shortly, but I want to look at

it as we're looking at being led by the Spirit.

I find quite a helpful thing that these five WS of guidance.

And I want to just look at this passage through the lens of

these five WS of guidance. And so I think I've got them up

here. Here they are.

And I put them on here in the order that they come up.

I think in this passage, the first one is the working of

circumstances, Second one is the witness of the Holy Spirit.

The third one is the word of God, the Bible.

The 4th 1 is the way of peace. And then the last one is the

wisdom of the Saints. And so we'll look at how they

they come up. And another piece of context

before we go into this passage, which again I find really

encouraging, is that the point at which Peter has this vision,

has this revelation is he's no longer like a kind of a new

believer in Jesus. He's no longer he's not like

fresh from his fishing boat and just starting to followed Jesus

just starting out life as a Christian.

He's actually been a Christian for many years been a

significant he's he's one of the key leaders in the church in

Jerusalem at this point. He's preached on at Pentecost

and he's seen thousands of people become Christians.

He's healed that crippled beggar in in front of the temple in in

Acts chapter 3 amazing miracle. He's overseen a lot of a lot of

Acts 3 · chapter mention

other various challenges. He's been in prison through his

faith and he's been miraculously freed from prison.

So he's been walking with God in this way, walking with Jesus for

many years. And, and still he hasn't got it

all right. Still he hasn't, He's still,

he's still learning. And I think this again, this is

a joy of being led by the Spirit of God, by a joy of following

Jesus that we're always, we're always growing.

I, I think Christie looking at Christie and Celebrate Recovery.

You know, I think you that that community does this so well.

It's a life of continually being transformed, continually being

changed. And, and, and we see that

happening to Peter here. So let's read the passage.

Let's read about this revelation that happened on this rooftop in

Jaffa. I'll read it out to us.

Acts chapter 10 from verse 9. About noon the following day, as

Acts 10 · chapter mention

they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went

up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted

something to eat. And while the meal was being

prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and

something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its

four corners. It contained all kinds of four

footed animals as well as reptiles and birds.

I'll just comment on this point that these are animals that are

historically they're unclean within the Jewish religion.

So within the Old Testament it was, it was wrong for Jewish

people to eat these. These are ceremonially unclean.

Verse 13. Then a voice told him, Get up

Peter, kill and eat. Surely not, Lord, Peter replied.

I've never eaten anything impure or unclean.

The voice spoke to him a second time.

Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.

This happened three times and immediately the sheet was taken

back to heaven. While Peter was wondering about

the meaning of the vision the men sent by Cornelius.

Cornelius was a Roman, he was not a Jewish man, and he came

sent by a vision from God to come and find Peter.

So verse 17, while Peter was wondering about the meaning of

the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where

Simon's house was and stopped at the gate.

They called out asking if Simon, who was known as Peter was

there. While Peter was still thinking

about the vision, the spirit said to him, Simon, three men

are looking for you, so get up and go downstairs.

Do not hesitate to go with them, for I've sent them.

Peter went down and said to the men, I'm the one you're looking

for, why have you come? The men replied, We've come from

Cornelius the centurion. He's a righteous and God fearing

man who is respected by all the Jewish people.

A holy Angel told him to ask you to come to his house so he could

hear what you have to say. Then Peter invited the invited

the men into the house to be his guests.

So looking at this passage, my murky coffee, it's really nice.

So looking at the passage with five WS of guidance, the first

one that comes up I think is the working of circumstances and

going back to this location where Peter's Peter is staying

there he was that on that roof and that house there that

there's. So this is probably maybe like I

can't remember, maybe like a 45 minute drive from Jerusalem.

So it's on the coast of Israel and, and interestingly, it's

quite a gentile area. So there'd been lots of people

around who weren't Jewish. And interestingly, Peter is

staying at the home of Simon the Tanner and the Tanner.

A Tanner is someone who prepared skins, like animal skins,

leather. And and again, for a Jewish

person that was really unclean. You don't go near the the the

processing of like dead bodies of leather because because you

would become ceremonially unclean.

So it would but interestingly, God's got and the other thing

about Jaffa is it's support that's on the edge and it's a

place of launch really into the rest of the world is the

Mediterranean. So so Peter is already

positioned in a place where he's connecting and closer to people

who aren't Jewish than than he normally would be.

And if for some reason he's staying in the House of this,

this, of this Tanner of this man who again, Ceremonia, it feels

like God is setting him up to be propelled out from just the

exclusiveness of the, the sort of Jewish context with which

he's in which he's grown up so faithfully and say, well, and

then we also see that, and I haven't read this bit just for

for time really, but that that, that and Cornelius, this, this

Roman centurion has already set out to come and find Peter to,

to ask him to, to, to tell him about tell them about Jesus and

reveal Jesus to them as a household.

So there's an interesting working of circumstances, our

first W that are going on there. Secondly is the second W is the

witness of the Spirit. And let's take a look at the way

that the Spirit speaks to Peter. So just looking back at our

passage here, about noon the following day, as they were on

their journey and approach the city, Peter went up onto his

onto the roof of his house to pray.

So he, Peter here is keeping the kind of Jewish rhythms of the

Jewish people would typically pray three times a day.

And this is his noon, his midday time of prayer.

So he's got this prayer rhythm and he goes up, goes up to pray.

And as he was praying, the Spirit speaks to him in a

vision. And I was interested in the way

that he kind of has a dialogue with God in this, in this, in

this vision. He's, he's, he's told get up,

kill and eat. And he kind of responds.

Surely not. I've never eaten anything impure

or unclean. It's, it's got a sort of, it's

got a sort of softness and a kind of an inquiring heart to

this. He's not, he doesn't shut it

down, doesn't kill it off immediately soft to the voice of

God. And I noticed that I can

sometimes I think just be quite hard to the voice of God.

And I can dismiss it as being, oh, that can't be God.

I think I was saying to Charlie and Meredith on Monday, I think,

I think this week just gone. Just I was praying in the

morning and I was, and I was saying to God, really, I'm just

quite disappointed with with, with how I've been as a as a

parent, as as a, as a father to my kids.

And I was just, I found a lot of life just in in just expressing

my emotions to God just quite freely and quite openly and just

like saying where I'm at. And so, and I was just kneeling,

kneeling on the floor in our bedroom, just saying God, I'm,

you know, there are things I'd like to have done differently

and I'd like to have. And, and as I was just there

kneeling on the floor in my bedroom, just praying, I felt

God's begin. The voice that I've come to

recognise as the voice of God just began to speak to me and

say and just encourage me about how I've been as a father.

And my instant reaction to that was go away.

That can't be, that can't be, that can't be God.

It must be myself just trying to sort of placate myself and, and,

and if and if I look at that, those things that I felt God was

saying are actually things that others who name me well have

said to me about my parenting. And actually I would agree with

them. And I think that they do make

sense. But I was interested in myself

how easily I could just swap that away and dismiss that as

being Oh no, that's just too nice.

And so I'm interested. I take that to this passage and

I think, you know, I wonder what Peter's level of sensitivity was

to this grown up is how old was he here?

Maybe I don't know, somewhere between, I don't know, 25 and 35

maybe. You know, he'd grown up never,

never eating anything impure or being around unclean stuff.

This is a whole change of worldview to him.

And yet he had this, he had this softness, softness to to him,

Word of God. So the third, the third W of

guidance, the word of God is that when we when we think we

might be hearing prophecy is it is it lines up with the lines up

with the teaching of the Bible, lines up with the revelation of

Jesus in the Bible. So it's a question here.

Peter's hearing this abstract thing, which is completely

contrary to his, to his upbringing and his religious

training and history. Why should he therefore accept

this as being God speaking to him?

It could just be it looks like it's a bit abstract and AWOL

actually, if we compare it to the word of God, which obviously

wasn't the New Testament, obviously wasn't written at this

point, but he was there with Jesus as it was all happening.

We see that that throughout the life of Jesus, Jesus was

constantly showing, showing the people that his message and his

life wasn't just for, wasn't just for Jews, wasn't just for

Israel. I'll just rattle a few a few

examples. Jesus birth the Magi, the wise

men come, they weren't Jewish. He goes.

Jesus goes into Samaria and meets the woman at the well,

reveals himself to her and she reveals Jesus to her whole

village. He praises the faith of the

Roman centurion. He heals the centurion servant

and said that many would come from the east and the West to

enter the Kingdom. He travelled across Galilee into

a Gentile area and and healed someone who is demon possessed

and sent them out as a witness to their own community.

Responded to the persistent faith of a Canaanite woman and

granted her request. Made a Samaritan the hero of his

parable of the Good Samaritan cleansed the temple and said it

was supposed to be a place of prayer for all nations.

He welcomed Greeks who sought him and spoke of drawing all

people to himself through the cross.

He ended his ministry by commanding his disciples to make

disciples of all nations. So the word of God spoken by

Jesus revealed that actually what Peter was seeing here

wasn't just some abstract and AWOL and different thing.

It was completely consistent with the with the revelation of

Jesus way of peace is our is the 4th West of guidance.

And throughout this description of events, Peter comes across,

he comes across as pitiful and he seems to sort of wonder at,

at what's going on. He wonders at the at the word.

And then when Cornelius comes to the house, he, he welcomes him

in and he's hospitable to him. And so let's, let's, let's,

let's say you can see that Peter has this peace and sense of

rightness about what's going on in his spirit.

And then the 5th W is witness of the Saints.

We don't just discern the spirits leading on our own as

individuals and say that God says this to me, I'm right off I

go. But we, we do, we do it in

community. And in this passage here, we

don't see that straight away, but we see in Acts Chapter 11,

Acts 11 · chapter mention

after it's all happened, he goes to Cornelius's house.

The Holy Spirit is poured out on the on the believers there.

They come to experience all that Peter's experienced really.

And then Peter goes back to Jerusalem shortly afterwards and

the believers there, the the believers that basically rebuke

him, say, what are you doing? You're going into a non Jewish

house and you're meeting people, Peter people there.

And he, Peter explains all that's happened, explains the

vision, explains everything. And, and, and they basically say

verse, Chapter 11, verse 18, when they heard this

explanation, they had no further objections and they praised God

saying say that even to Gentiles, God has granted

repentance that leads to life. So there's a quick whiz through

of Acts chapter 10. And I just like seeing the way

Acts 10 · chapter mention

that God reveals himself to Peter, the way he speaks to

Peter, the way he leads him in this passage.

And I want us to have some time to pray.

So I want to just be quite quick in this last bit.

I've got a prophetic word to share with us from Liz Evans.

And some of you might know Liz, she's been investing in us as a,

as a staff team over the a bit the last year we've been Alice

and I've been tracking with her since about for about the last

five years or so. She's a prophetic lady and I've

I've learnt a lot from her. We had a good time with her

recently in November, we had a, an encouragement evening for a

prophetic encouragement evening for hopes boat and life group

leaders. And, and within that she shared

a prophetic word for us as a church.

And I just asked if she would summarise it in a little 5

minute clip that I could share with you now and wanted to speak

into it a bit more probably at the AGM in a few weeks time.

So really just just sort of playing it to you at this point

without giving much sort of explanation or context.

You'll probably have some questions coming off the back of

it. But again, leading in the spirit

for us in community, this is a bit this is just I think it's 5

minutes long. I'm going to play this as we

come in to land if I can find it on my on my WhatsApp.

Here we go. Liz Evans, here she is.

OK, so here we go. Here's.

The recording that you asked for, I realised that God has a

habit of speaking to churches and in Revelation there are 7

letters, but in those he kind of tells each of them.

I see what's going on, I see what's happening around you.

You're really amazing at this. There's kind of this that we can

tweak, and when we do, really when we do, amazing things are

going to happen. So when God spoke to me about

Hope Chapel in a fairly obvious and easy piece of scripture, the

Ezekiel 47 river that came from the altar, which is the place of

prayer, it made huge sense that He would use that to speak to

you. I mean, praying is a beautiful

thing and I know it gains you all incredible results.

And initially we brought that to the Hope boats.

But Hope is also a boat. And there are certain specific

things for the church in this passage that the Lord has been

showing me. And interestingly, mostly there,

with the exception of 1, I think you've already been speaking

about them. So these three things that I

think you all need to be aware of is that the first one sounds

very obvious, but there needs to be a substantial shift in order

to realise it. So the first one is of course

the out of the place of prayer, the altar, comes the place of

substance and presence, that the source of life, the river of

life is flowing. It makes the salty things fresh

and brings life. But it's really dependent on

going deeper. The Angel measures off 1000

cubits, so one is the number of source.

But you put zeros on anything and it's more impactful.

If I were to give you a cheque for 1 LB, you'd probably not be

very impressed, but if I added a few zeros, you would like it

much better. So there's a promise in the

invitation to measure off 1000 more cubits that you're going to

go deeper in encounter and in experience and carrying the

source of life with incredible effect.

So it's really important that we help you go deeper in encounter

with the source, with God. That's something that we can

help you do, but we're going to have to put time aside to do

that. Each person can also do that by

going into the place of prayer themselves.

The second thing that really came across to me in this

passage and that God seems to care about is to make sure that

your community is working well. Because if you guys are going to

be well, we're going to have to have the Ephesians 4 joints and

supply working well so that the body builds itself up in love.

And this is in the passage in the symbol of the Nets.

There's been a bit of a fraying of Nets and some people around

the edges are feeling a little bit disconnected.

It's not only important that we pull the community together

because God was speaking to me about how important that is.

It's really important so that other people can come in, then

they can feel secure. So we need to address the fact

that some people are feeling a little bit disconnected and the

Lord's seen them because he's addressing the net.

He's addressing those joints and supply.

So, so far we've got bringing you into a powerful place of

encounter so that you can carry the source of God and move with

the source of God is a better way to put it in greater measure

that when he moves, you're moving because his power and

authority and purity is what's going to make the salty things

fresh, both for you and for those around you.

The second thing, of course, is that we need to address the

community so nobody feels left out and so that there's an

effective net, a web of relationships, of joints and

supply that includes everybody, including those who God is

bringing. And this is really on his heart.

So if you're listening to this and you're one of those people

who's been feeling a little bit disconnected, God is on it.

He cares about you and things are going to be adjusted.

But there was a third thing that he spoke to me, and that was in

the symbol that alongside the river there were two different

sorts of people. They were fruit trees and they

were fishermen. And here in the passage, we have

two different types of people effortlessly being who they

were, supplied with everything they need, and they're just

doing their thing. And this is about identity, that

each of you has a unique identity that isn't just broad

Bush. I was looking out of the window

this morning and I was watching the birds.

There were great big birds sawing by.

There were those Magpies doing really clumsy flying.

They're clumsy little birds when they fly.

And they were little cute songbirds.

But each bird had a function and each bird had a song.

It didn't matter how big or how small they were.

And this is key, your identity is key to the body and it's key

to you effortlessly singing your song, being confident in who you

are so that you can bless everybody around you, especially

you. So the three things that we need

to address for hope are just firstly, to praise you all for

being this incredible place of prayer.

Secondly, we need to make opportunities so that you

understand how and where and so that you can come into a place

of encounter with the source so that the power and authority of

God is flowing where you are and to you.

The second is to address matters of connection and supply in

community and bring everybody in.

And the third is to bring you into an understanding that Jesus

in Scripture says you were called this, now you're called

this. And that's a reflection of our

stories that things happen to us and maybe people give you a name

or you take on an identity which isn't effortlessly happy, that

isn't effortlessly secure, but the identity that God birthed is

effortless and beautiful. So we need to help you

understand what is the name that He gave you and how can you live

confidently in that. And those 3 shifts are going to

mark a new day for hope. Thanks Liz.

So I just wanted to share to that to you just fairly rawly

and then with some more chance to talk about it and process it

at a late at a later date. But yeah, as we come into land,

I guess the key things that I've seen as I've been reading these

bits of Scripture and and, and, and, and the life thinking about

the life being led by the Spirit of God.

This this thing we saw in Zechariah around God working in

US and through us despite our weaknesses.

And, and then in in for Peter. I just love the these kind of

rhythm and his lifestyle of prayer, the way that he's

constantly learning and growing. And he's not sort of fixed on

what he doesn't claim to have the full and complete revelation

of everything. But he's he's being led by the

Spirit of God in in his daily life in ways that expand God's

Kingdom and, and just see wonderful change around the

world. And I, and you know, I always

feel that we as a, as a church, Liz just spoken to that a little

bit there some of our church identity.

And we've got this, I think a calling within the kind of

greater Bristol area to, to bring something quite

significant. We bring something quite

significant. We're fairly small as a church,

but we people often say our hope sort of punches above its

weight. And I think there's, there's

things that we do in our prayer, in our, in our daily lives and

our work around the city and in who we are a repentant people

who are constantly being changed.

You know, we, we have quite, we have quite an impact.

So I'm excited this year about pressing into more of that and

I'd love to pray a prayer for us now and then have a bit of time

for us to be prayed for, pray for each other to be to be led

by the Spirit this year. So Lord, I want to just just

pray for us as as hope first of all, and again, say this year,

maybe be a church that's led by your spirit into the adventures

into the the works of faith that you've got for us.

Holy Spirit, we invite you to keep on speaking to us.

We want to hear your voice, we want to be led by you and we

pray that you use us this year. Amen.

So really mindful of just kids being collected at 12:10.

We've got at least 5 minutes for those who've got kids to collect

and a couple of options. I actually, I just primed Tom

and Ruth asking if you'd be up for praying for people.

I wondered if you'd be up for coming towards the front here.

And I'll be here as well if anyone would like to come.

And we prayed for at the front by any, by any one of us three,

we'd love to do that or just pray with someone around you.

Or if you'd prefer just to sit and just process with God for,

for 5 minutes, if that's your style, then do that.

And I'm just thinking, I just want to be prayed to be filled

with the Holy Spirit, to be led by the Spirit of God this year.

And let's have 5 minutes doing that when we get to 10 past.

Just keep an eye on it. If you've got kids and little

gems particularly to go and whisk them out, great, there we

go.