18th January || Prophesy || Libby Woodward

I'm in a crack on for those of you that weren't here last week,

Pip was speaking on healing and how God heals today and how we

absolutely believe that that's fine.

And today I want to talk about God speaking in the vineyard.

We have a phrase called the meat is on the street and that is

that the point of Sundays, the point of gathering is to worship

Jesus and to be equipped to live our lives and to build

community. And so this bit is the equipping

bit. That's why last week we were

talking about healing to train you, to equip you to go out and

spend the next 6 days of your life meeting the people you

meet. Walk like walking alongside

them, living with them, working with them and being able to

usher in the Kingdom of God to be Jesus's hands, feet to the

people we meet already. I'm off my notes and for those

of you that here normally will know that I'm starting a little

bit later than normal. So God speaks.

So today that's what I want to speak about in the vineyard.

We are people who believe that God still speaks today primarily

and ultimately God speaks through the Bible, speaks

through Scripture. Scripture is the inspired

trustworthy word of God. It is foundational for what we

believe, and it is within the framework of the Bible that God

also speaks to us through our thoughts, our impressions,

through pictures, through promptings that are consistent

with Scripture. Like Joe shared she'd had a

dream last night. Matt shared that he'd been

reminded of a verse in Scripture.

God is speaking, but it's always in line with the Bible.

If you don't have a Bible or you live with someone or you work

with someone or you get on the bus with someone who doesn't

have a Bible but you think might read it if you gave one to them,

then we have Bibles on our information desk.

We'd love you to take and give them away.

And if you are in relationship with someone who English isn't

their first language and you want it in a different language,

let us know and we'll try and get hold of it for you.

That's my Bible plug. I think the Bible's really

important, and if you don't read it, you really should.

You're missing out. OK, that's not in my notes

either. One thing to believe.

It's one thing to believe that God speaks.

It's another thing to live like it matters.

One of the ways that we live like it matters is by learning

to listen to Him. And I often need reminding of

this. I've got 2 ears and one mouth.

What does that mean, Libby? You need to listen more than you

speak. And so that's a good reminder

for me. In Vineyard Kids, we talk about

chat and catch. We chat to God and then we catch

what He's going to say to us. How many of us practice that

when we're praying? Or is it just a monologue of us

downloading to Him? Which is absolutely fine, but

it's a good reminder to know that He wants to speak to us.

OK, So what is prophecy? Prophecy and words of knowledge.

If you've been kicking around the church for a while, you

might have heard both of those phrases.

I'm kind of talking about it all together today.

And we have Old Testament prophets, often called seers.

They would give specific messages, often about the future

to specific people for for or a specific person for about a

specific thing for a specific time.

That was a silly sentence to write, wasn't it?

How many specifics can I get in there?

In the New Testament, the Spirit of God is poured out on all

people and we all have this ability to prophecy.

We believe in the priesthood of all believers.

We talk about in the vineyard. Everyone gets to play and

prophecy. It could be about predicting the

future, but it could also be about what's going on right now

to give somebody encouragement. We don't have one specific

prophet that we go to to hear from God.

We can all hear from him. We all get to play.

So prophecy in its simplest form is receiving and sharing

something God brings to mind for somebody else.

It's knowledge, perhaps that we wouldn't have unless it was

given from God. Or it could be something that we

know or see in the natural, and God highlights it.

He draws it to our attention and He wants us to speak it to

somebody as an encouragement that is strengthening and

comforting. One of the first times I

realized that I could hear God speak, I was 18.

Forgive me if I've told if you've been here and I've told

this story before. I was on a youth with a mission

trip in Turkey and it was we were all kind of 18/19/20 and we

were getting on it. We're about to get on a bus to

go on a nine hour bus journey to another city.

And we were praying about where we might stay that night.

And we were praying and I just had a picture of a map in my

mind's eye, had a map of Spain. And I was like, well, that's

weird because we were in Turkey. And so I said to the group, oh,

I've just got a picture of Spain in my head.

And we had this little notebook that we wrote down all the words

that we felt God had given us. And this was the first time

really I'd spoken out and gone. I think, God, I think I've just

seen something in my mind's eye. And anyway, later, later on that

day, we were in the city that we were heading to and we'd been to

a number of different hotels that were all full.

They didn't have room for us. So we ended up going to this one

hotel, but to be honest, looked a bit dodgy from the outside.

And we were all slightly like, this is a bit weird.

And they had two rooms left, one that all the girls could squeeze

in and another that all the boys could squeeze in.

And so we went upstairs thinking, well, we haven't got

anywhere else to stay, at least we'll stay here tonight.

And we walked into the room that the six of us girls was going to

sleep in. And on the wall was a massive

picture of a Spanish bullfighter.

And it said Espanol along the bottom.

And it was like, Oh my goodness, God knew.

And for us it was like, well for me it was, it wasn't that I was

special, but it was a significant moment in me

realizing that God could speak to me.

And secondly, it enabled us to chill out and we stayed there

for the whole 6 days that we were in that city because we

were like, obviously this is the room God had for us.

Something shifted in me. It made me realise God was

willing to communicate. I just needed to be aware and

listen to his voice. I needed to recognise it.

So the Bible and prophecy. The Bible reveals ultimate

truth, absolutely truth about God.

Prophecy offers specific insight within that truth, maybe for

particular people and particular moments.

Scripture is for all Christians everywhere, always everybody

that follows Jesus. Prophecy is often a particular

word for a particular person at a particular time.

And that's why prophecy needs to be weighed and tested.

And we offer it with humility. Scripture is always the word of

God. We're not aiming when we learn

to hear from God. We're not aiming for certainty.

We're aiming for faithful listening.

So why prophecy? Grab your Bibles if you've got

them. You might want to make some

notes on your phone or a piece of paper if you'd like to.

I'm just going to mention three verses in line with reasons why

we prophecy, why we as a people think that this is important.

Firstly, because relationships need two way communication.

Think about your best friend or somebody you live with.

It would be a pretty dysfunctional friendship or

relationship if only one of you spoke, wouldn't it?

I know that in a high house I speak quite a lot, but good

relationships have two way communication.

Jesus is recorded as saying by John in John's gospel, John

John 10:27

chapter 10 verse 27. Jesus says this.

My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.

If we belong to Jesus, if we have said yes to him and we are

following Him, we can learn to recognize His voice.

He can learn to recognize his voice.

Chloe, who is part of our church, she is a sheep farmer,

amongst other things. I think.

I believe I'm looking at Jazz and Alex because, but I believe

that her sheep even recognize the engine of her car, don't

they? So like sheep are cleverer than

you think. So that gives us credit, right?

If we're going to recognize the Lord's voice, Chloe's sheep

recognize her car when she's driving down the driveway before

she even speaks to them. We can recognize his voice if we

listen to him. It doesn't mean it will always

be obvious, but we can practice. It means we need to tune in.

I don't know if you've ever had a conversation with someone from

maybe from another country and their accent is quite thick.

You can in chatting to them, you can tune into their accent,

can't you? And you can understand them more

easily. And I think that's a great way

of, of picturing how it is that we learn to listen to God's

voice better. The more we listen, the more

familiar his voice becomes. So why do we do this stuff?

Firstly, because if we're in a relationship with Jesus, we need

two way communication. Secondly, he wants to speak to

us. He calls us friends.

He wants to speak to us. Jesus says again.

John records in John 1515. I no longer call you servants, I

call you friends. Friends share life with each

other, don't they? They communicate.

I heard this week for those of you that watch Celebrity

Traitors, any of you that are watching Traitors now,

apparently Amanda Holden, who is Alan Carr's best friend, knew

that she that he had won traitors because they speak

every day on the phone and for two whole weeks he didn't call

her. So she knew he'd been in the

whole time, so she guessed that he'd won.

Isn't that cool? Well, if you don't want

traitors, that might mean nothing to you.

Apologies. Just wipe that bit from the last

minute of my talk. Friends want to talk to each

other and Jesus wants to talk to us.

God delights in our attempts at listening to Him and hearing Him

speak. So why prophecy?

Because we're in a two way relationship with the Lord if

we're following Him. Because God wants to speak to

us. And secondly, because prophecy

is strengthening, encouraging, and comforting.

Who doesn't want a bit of encouragement and comforting, a

bit of building up the New Testament in one Corinthians 14,

three, Paul writes this. The one who prophesized

strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them.

That's the purpose of us in this context, but also if you're in

the Tesco's car park or on the bus or in school or at work in

college, we can always hear God speak, and we can hear him speak

for the strengthening, encouraging, and comforting of

those people around us. I wonder whether we're brave

enough to ask him to speak to us for other people.

Ultimately, this is not about a performance.

It's about love. It's about showing the love of

God and that we and everybody else that we know knows that God

loves him so much. He wants them to hear him speak.

He wants them to be strengthened, encouraged and

comforted. OK so if if this is new to you,

you might be thinking well how how does God speak?

We've had a couple of examples this morning with Joe talking

about the dream, Matt remembering a bit of scripture

and being drawn to it. I'm just going to look at 4

common ways that God speaks to us.

The 1st is we might see it. I mentioned when I was in Turkey

and I saw in my mind's eye this map of Spain.

If I was to ask you now to imagine a grey elephant with a

pink earring, you would probably all be able to imagine that in

your mind. That's in your mind's eye.

And I like that's how God speaks to me.

Most regularly, I see a picture. I don't actually see it

physically. I see it in my imagination.

But it might be that we see something in our mind's eye.

It might be that we look at something in the natural and it

takes our mind off on a tangent and it could be a tangent or it

could be the Lord. You might see something in the

natural. OK, so we see things.

We might feel it. In fact, Loretta just spoke to

me now and she said I've got this feeling and she's feeling

things. And I think both of us agree

that the Lord is speaking to her and to us through her feelings.

It might be if you're praying about something or for somebody,

you feel something. There's this overwhelm of

emotion. Maybe it could be tears, it

could be pain because you're feeling the pain and the tears

of somebody else. Or it could be just God's

emotion over this person. He loves them so completely and

maybe they have absolutely no clue and your heart is breaking

for them. Or it might be you feel anger.

There's a situation that is wrong and you feel angry about

it. God is speaking, but it might

also be that we have physical sensations and maybe you've got

a pain in your right elbow, which you don't normally have

and you think that's a bit odd. Or maybe there's somebody that

you're in the, in the vicinity of that's got a sore right elbow

and God is saying, I'm holding this and that's my left, isn't

it sore right elbow. And God is saying, I want, I

want you to pray for them because I want, I want to heal

them, but I want you to step out and offer.

So we might see it, we might feel it, we might hear it.

It might be that we hear an audible voice.

I think in my life, I've maybe heard an audible voice that I

think was God, maybe just once. But I know other people that

hear audible voices fairly regularly.

It might be that we hear someone say something and it like

shimmers or it stands out or we're like catches our attention

and in listening, that's when we say, Oh God, did you want to say

something about that? It's like it's highlighted to

you. And then we have the choice of

engaging with the Lord in that and going, Oh, was that you?

Or was it just that they shouted that that phrase and it caught

my attention either way. Or it might be that we so we see

it, feel it, hear it, we might know it.

You know, we all have a Noah. I don't know what I don't mean.

A child or an adult called Noah. You have a Noah, but we all have

a Noah KNOWER in US, don't we? When we just know something,

maybe we can't articulate why. We just know it.

And that it's like the deep conviction, this kind of

internal kind of system that we're like, we just know

something. And the more we step out in when

we have that and we think we know something, the more we are

prepared to step out and check to see if that might be the

Lord, the more it might be. So for example, I was at an

event once and I was praying for a lady and I just, I just knew

that she was out of a relationship with her daughter.

I don't know how I knew that she hadn't told me that.

I just, as I was praying, I was like, Oh, I've just got this

sense that. And then obviously that's like

could be really sensitive and I didn't know this lady.

So then it became a, do you have any children?

And I just asked questions around it because I was like, I

don't want to go in and say, Oh, I think the Lord's saying you

need to have reconciliation with your daughter that you're out of

relationship with because that's full on and I don't know her.

And that would be pretty awkward.

So I asked some questions. As it turned out in that

scenario, it was right. I mean, I didn't say to her, oh,

God told me. She just said, Oh yeah, I've got

a daughter. And actually we don't really get

on. And then I was able to pray into

that with her. But I wouldn't have asked that

question if I hadn't have thought she's got a daughter

that she's out of a relationship with.

And I've only learned to say those sorts of things because

I've practiced and most of the time got it wrong, just to let

you know. So we know it in a deep, or it

might be that we know Scripture and because we've read it, we

just know it. And then as we're praying, a

verse pops into our head or a person in the Bible comes to

mind and we're like, oh, I think the Lord wants to say something

about this. So it's about being really

natural and really normal in a weird kind of a way, because

that's us, right? Let's embrace the weird.

But it's being naturally supernatural.

We don't have to hype it up. We don't have to put on a posh

voice or a biblical voice. We don't have to talk in King

James English. You know, if I hear any of you

saying thus saith the Lord, I'll come over and go, no, no, no,

no. Like, because we don't know for

sure, do we? Unless we're reading from the

Bible and it says Jesus said, then we know the Lord said it.

OK, But if we've just got an impression or something, hearing

God speak can be so gentle, so ordinary, and more often than

not, it feels like this might just be me, but it could be God.

So I might share it anyway, particularly if it's

strengthening, encouraging, and comforting.

You know, I don't think that we're aiming at certainty, but

Jesus is looking for obedient hearts that will hear him for us

personally, but for each other as well.

OK, before we do some practice, we're going just two things to

keep keep this healthy and safe, OK?

We want to practice hearing God speak and we want to encourage

one another, but we want it to be healthy and safe.

So two things. If you have a word or a picture

or something that you think you want to share with somebody,

then we need to be humble about it.

We don't, we have none of this, thus saith the Lord, but we have

AI think the Lord might be saying or I've got this picture,

I don't know if it means anything to you.

So we're humble about it. And if it's not strengthening,

encouraging and comforting, then we don't share it.

If you think you've got something for somebody that is

not strengthening, encouraging and comforting, but you think

it's the Lord, my encouragement is to write it down and pray.

You don't need to tell anybody. If you think that it's

important, then you could speak to your small group leader or

one of us as leaders, and we can pray about it too.

But we don't prophecy about births, deaths and marriages.

You can write them down. My brother was not in church for

a very long time because the second time he went to a church

when he was at university and the girl came up to him and

said, God's told me, I'm going to marry you.

He was like, well, God hasn't told me and he left, OK.

If you think that the Lord has spoken to you about birth deaths

and marriages, write it down and pray, OK, Let's avoid those.

Not because I don't think God does speak about them, because I

think he does. But we are in the business of

being New Testament Christians. And Paul says it's got to be

strengthening, encouraging and comforting.

And we don't want anybody to turn their back on Jesus because

someone has said something that was a bit unhelpful in that

time. OK?

So to keep it healthy and safe, if you're giving a word, be

humble and be sensitive. And if you're receiving a word,

it's your job to weigh it. If it's not strengthening,

encouraging and comforting, just walk away.

But my encouragement would be if it doesn't resonate immediately,

if it doesn't immediately think, Oh yeah, that makes sense, then

write it down and maybe we can come back with it.

But check, is this in line with Scripture?

Is this biblical? Does it ring true?

And if you're not sure, because you're new to read in the Bible,

speak to somebody that might know.

If you're in a small group, speak to your small group.

You're a small group leader. OK.

We are going to practice this. And I believe that the kids are

here. So the kids have been doing this

as well downstairs and they have had a variety of pictures that

they've been looking at. They've been using things that

they see in the natural to give encouraging words to us as

adults. So do you want to explain or?

OK, so we have been thinking about how God speaks to us

downstairs in kids as well. So we've chosen some pictures

that we are going to have a little look.

We've asked God to speak to us. We've chosen some pictures that

we just want to show some of you because we think that God might

speak to you through some of those pictures.

We do need the pictures back afterwards because I borrowed

them. But if they resonate with you,

take a little photo of it. All right?

And then give us back the pictures.

That would be great. So guys, look at your picture

and then take a look at all the people that are sitting here.

And as you look at the people sitting here, ask God, who's

that picture for? Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You have a good look at everyone here.

It doesn't matter if you don't know who the person is.

It might be that as you look at them, you think, oh, I think

that picture is for that person. And I want you to be brave and I

want you to go and give that picture to that person.

All right, off you go. Look at your picture.

See who you think that picture might be for.

And as you receive the picture, we'd love you just to see the

Lord speaks to you through that picture.

And we're going to pray together as part of that.

Yeah. All right.

Anyone else still got a picture to give out?

We all done. OK, over to you.

OK, so if you give it a picture, then take a picture of it and

then we'll have to give it back to Pip.

But hopefully the Lord will speak to you through that.

What I'd love to do is why don't you all stand up and, and we're

going to do this and I appreciate it might be this

might feel a bit scary and if you'd really rather not, I'm not

going to force you, but I'd love it.

If not right now you would. It's a bit awkward in the

chairs. I'm sorry.

I'd love it if you just looked around the room and I'm going to

pray for the Holy Spirit to come.

And I'm going to ask him just really quickly to drop in a

thought or a word or a picture or a feeling for somebody else

in the room to drop it into your minds.

You're practicing hearing from God.

And then I want you to be brave to go to that person that you've

seen and just offer it. You don't have to.

You don't have to make up long prayers if you don't want to.

You don't have to give any explanation.

It might be that you just see a stuffed crust pepperoni pizza

and you go and offer that to someone.

And that person might be totally blessed because they were trying

to decide what to have for lunch today and you've made the

decision for them. I'm making light of it because I

want you to just try. OK, So, Holy Spirit, would you

come now? Would you speak to us as

individuals for each other in this room?

And then as the Holy Spirit just speaks, what pops into your

mind? What words do you hear?

And then look around the room. What person catches your eye?

Or maybe you had a name. And if you don't know people's

names in the room, but someone that you've got a name, then ask

somebody and they might know if there's someone in the room.

And then, as long as it's strengthening, encouraging and

comforting, why don't you go and give that person that word?