Andrew Sercombe/ Firm Foundations. Fresh Faith. / Seeking God in Prayer and Worship

Good morning everyone.

How's everyone doing?

Watch out, Jen.

Oi.

Who is here?

Who is here in February?

Our Vision Sunday and saw our very own Felipe ride a bike into church.

I think we've got a photo of him.

There he is.

Come on, give me a hand.

Show me a hand.

Who is here in February for our Vision Sunday?

Very good.

Well, if you have no idea what's going on and whether you think the senior pastor usually rides his bike into church at the beginning, that's not a normal occurrence.

At the beginning of the year, we celebrated, as Sally said, Firm Foundations, Fresh Faith, our Vision Series, as we look back and remind ourselves of God's goodness, his grace, and his faithfulness.

And so I thought it would be helpful today to remember not only Phil Gordon, who looked amazing as he rode his bike in, dressed up as Charles Hemings.

Now Charles Hemings uh 75 years ago rode his bike through the Apple Orchards.

Uh, is it Orchards?

Orchids.

Orchards, I've got that right.

I always get that mixed up.

In Blackburn North, sharing the good news of Jesus to children.

And over his ministry, over the course of his ministry, what he birthed was a growing ministry to the generations that has ultimately led to seeing this church established.

The Blackburn North Baptist Church and now New Hope Baptist Church.

The story of a bike being ridden throughout this neighborhood is the seed, is the foundation for this church.

And it's worth remembering.

It's worth reminding ourselves.

And over this part two of our series, we are remembering.

We're going back, we're reminding ourselves of God's gracious, kind work.

There's something important about reminding ourselves of the story that we're part of.

And so over the next three weeks, that's what we're going to be doing.

We're going to be reminding ourselves of God's goodness, his faithfulness, and his generosity in the past, in the present, and so we can have confidence looking into the future.

And so I'm looking forward to our birthday party on the 25th of October.

Food trucks, rides, activities, joy, life.

Make sure you come, come ready to celebrate together, and come ready to enjoy food and festivities afterwards as well.

It's going to be a special day together.

But for our three weeks, as we journey together, we're going to be anchoring our series, this part two of our series, in one verse that we read in Hebrews chapter 13.

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

In Hebrews 13, chapter uh chapter 13, verse 7, we read these words.

Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you, consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So over the next three weeks, we're going to celebrate Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And this morning I'm going to start with our yesterday, our past.

You know, the stories of our past matter.

The stories of this church matter.

The stories of what we find ourselves in matter.

This week I celebrated my 32nd birthday.

And um and actually found out that uh Tim Spencer and I share the same birthday.

And uh we're actually the same age, uh, which is incre uh that was something else we found out about.

It's a mirror, it is a miracle.

And uh something that we do in our family, as I'm sure many of you do, is we take a moment to celebrate uh the life when we have a birthday in our family and we celebrate stories.

We go right back.

The kids, I'm not sure if the kids love it, but um because we go right back to when they were little, but we we remind them of who they were and the journey that they're on, and we celebrate them and their stories because stories matter.

I remember uh quite a number of years ago when we first moved back from England to Australia, so 10-15 years ago, uh, we had a family reunion uh with my grandfather on my dad's side.

My grandma had passed away, and my family scattered right around Australia, so it was quite a unique opportunity to gather together as a family.

And uh my grandfather was there and his kids and uh all their partners and all his grandchildren, and we gathered together and we sat for two evenings, over two evenings, and he shared his story, his journey, his life.

He left uh England uh with five kids.

They ended up having eight kids, so there's a lot, there was a lot around sitting around him, and he told the stories of how leaving Devon uh as a dad with a heart and a call to serve the indigenous in Western Australia, which he faithfully served for 50 years.

And he shared stories, and over two two nights we heard the stories, they were powerful, and they that they they went deep into my heart.

I know that his stories are my stories, and those stories shape me.

See, our stories, the stories of our past are important because they inform, they shape our present and our future.

It's true for us as individuals, and it's true for communities.

It's true for the people of Israel as the writer to the Hebrews articulates, you can take that photo down now.

The story of the people of Israel, our story as Christians in the great story of God.

He reminds us, he says, remember your leaders.

Remember, look back to the past because the story of the past is important for the future.

And I'm gonna read another part from Hebrews this morning, Hebrews 11.

We're gonna be dancing through Hebrews 11, 12, and 13 this morning.

And so our key text is Hebrews 11, verses 1 to 5.

Hebrews 11:1–5

I'm sorry, 1 to 6.

So if you have uh your Bibles, feel free to open them up.

The words are gonna be on the screen behind me.

And this is what the writer to the Hebrews says.

Now, just just to say, I'm gonna say the writer to the Hebrews, we actually don't know who wrote Hebrews, some speculate it being Paul, others speculate as other key leaders within the early church movement.

In truth, we really don't know.

And so it's anonymous, but a rich letter that has been uh held in Scripture for almost 2,000 years.

And this is what we read in Hebrews 11.

Now, faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

This is what the ancients were commended for.

By faith, we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what is visible.

By faith, Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did.

By faith he was commended as righteous when God spoke well of his offerings, and by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.

By faith Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience death.

He could not be found because God had taken him away.

For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

In seeking to build faith for our present and future, the writer to the Hebrews looks to tell stories of the past.

He seeks to remind the readers of which we are about the story that we are part of.

And we all have a past, we all have a story that informs who we are.

The great story of God, our story as individuals.

We all have a history, everyone has a past.

You know, I could just invite you just to think of some memories of your past that evoke some emotions, good and bad.

If I think about some of my first memories, uh, they are memories of me going on holidays with my extended family, traveling to Western Australia, traveling to the Northern Territory.

They're good memories.

They are my earliest memories, they are happy memories.

I have the memory, one of my earliest memories is actually praying uh the prayer to Jesus and accepting him into my life, making him Lord of my life.

I was three or four years old.

I still have that memory.

They're good memories.

I'm sure you have some good memories of your past.

But we also have memories that are that are not so good.

You know, memories of embarrassment, memories of regret, memories that evoke feelings of disappointment and shame.

Do we have those?

And perhaps they are more ready in our mind.

Perhaps they're more prevalent, they certainly evoke strong emotions.

I know for me, I've got plenty of memories, embarrassing moments that are quick to hand, that even as I think of them, they evoke a sense of great embarrassment, disappointment, and shame.

And the tragedy is that often it's these memories, these events in our past that tend to override and hijack our life.

It's these emotions and these memories that tend to filter how we see the world, not just our past, but they filter our present and they inform, they infiltrate, they shape how we see the future.

Kurt Thompson, in his book, The Soul of Shame, retelling the stories we believe about ourselves, says this.

We are storytellers.

We yearn to tell and hear stories of goodness and beauty, and this is the echo of God's intention.

We long for our stories to be about joy, not just reflections of what we believe, but who we are, who we long to be.

But shame wants very much to infect every element of the mind in order to distort God's story and offer another narrative.

Do you find that?

I know I find that.

Shame has a way of working its way into our past, our present, and our future.

But the good news is, as we find here in this story, in the stories that the Hebrews writer gives us, is that there is hope.

There is hope for our past, our present, and our future.

And the way in which the Hebrews writer seeks to instill hope and confidence and a sense of life in the readers and for us today is reminding us and speaking back to stories of the past.

Hebrews 11, verse 2.

Hebrews 11:2

This is what the ancients were commended for.

Hebrews 13, as we read, we read, remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you.

The Hebrews writer points us back to the heroes of faith.

Now, I'm not going to spend time going through all the heroes.

You can go to Hebrews chapter 11 and it goes on, we got to verse 6, and then there's a whole list of heroes of faith.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Now it would be very easy for us as we look at these names of all these amazing people, going, how does that help me?

As I look at my own story and my own failures in my own life, how can looking at these heroes of the faith help me?

Well, I just want to encourage you, because I actually think this is the heart of the Hebrews writer, that actually you can see them as heroes of faith, and they are, but they're heroes of faith because they're heroes of grace.

Because their stories are of faith found in a gracious, loving, covenantal God.

Let me just go through some of the hall of grace for you this morning.

You can go back and read these, and this is certainly not comprehensive.

We look at Noah.

Noah who obeyed God when the world around him was heading in the opposite direction, but also the Noah that had a significant drinking problem.

We look at Abraham, the great father of faith, who trusted God and obeyed his word to go and live in covenant relationship with God, but also lied not once but twice about Sarah because he was afraid, who instead of trusting God took matters into his own hands and had a child with his slave Hagar, resulting in the devastating ongoing conflict that we see to this day between Arabs and Jews.

Moses, the great leader who led the people of Israel out of slavery, but was wracked with insecurity and guilt, and was also guilty of the small charge of murder.

Rahab, who showed great faith and courage in hiding Israelite spies in Jericho, but lived a life as a prostitute.

And King David, the great king of Israel and a man after God's own heart, who committed adultery and murdered one of his closest fighting mates.

And as we look through this list, these heroes of the faith, they're really, really heroes of grace.

I mean, as I as I just list the uh the sheet there of all the charges, I I reckon most of us, if not all of us, could say, I I haven't done that.

I I can I can confidently say that I have not murdered someone.

And even with that charge, even with that charge, David, Moses, listed as a hero of the faith.

I could go on into the New Testament, just add a few.

You could add Peter, who had, you know, the who was the mouthpiece and the pillar of the early church, who had a terrible knack of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and denied Jesus, his close friend, not once but three times.

Or I could point you to Paul, the great evangelist and church planter who established the early church, who also persecuted many and oversaw the imprisonment and death of many early believers.

The list goes on.

The Hebrews writer says, We can have faith.

I'm pointing you to the past because I want to encourage you.

I'm telling you the stories of the past.

Because even in the brokenness and the pain and the shame and the fault and the weakness and the failure, there is grace.

There is an invitation into life.

I'm here to tell you, to remind you, to say to you again whatever your story is, whatever your journey is, whatever your background is, whatever your past is, there is hope.

There is always hope.

Can I have an amen?

There's always hope.

And the hope is as we read in this passage, the hope is in Jesus Christ.

Because of Jesus, God redeems our past, and He changes, He changes our story.

He changes my story.

He changes, He can change your story.

Jesus is the great transformer, the great changer of stories.

I love this whole idea that He can make something beautiful out of my life.

He can make something beautiful out of your life.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 11.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

I'm reminded of the song that my parents love singing.

I grew up singing.

They love the gaithers.

Anyone here?

Come on, just show your age.

Do you love the gaiters?

Anyone, just put your hand up.

It's okay.

Come on, firm foundations right there.

Something beautiful, something good.

All my confusion, he understood.

All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife.

But he made something beautiful of my life.

That was lovely for about 20% of the church.

I'm just stoked that I remembered.

That was an act of faith right then, people.

That was going right back into my dark childhood.

I'm gonna need therapy now.

You know, Jesus sees beauty in you that you can't see.

He makes something beautiful out of our lives.

He can make something beautiful, but that's his purpose.

That's why he came to redeem and restore and to make beautiful us.

Us, us, broken us.

I'm reminded of uh the old ABC kids show.

We're really going back into the archives here.

Mr.

Squiggle, did anyone grow up watching Mr.

Squiggle?

Come on.

There's a whole bunch of young people now just going, Mr.

Who?

And I reckon if you watched it today, you'd be going, that that on all so many levels is just the weirdest wrong thing ever.

This puppet, this puppet would drop down, and he'd have a pencil as a nose.

And kids would send in a bit of paper with just random lines and dots on it, you remember?

And then they would hand this random piece of paper to Mr.

Squiggle, and as the hostess was talking and asking him questions, Mr.

Miss Jane, Mr.

Squiggle would be doing these ones.

Some of you are gonna need therapy at the end of this.

Upside down, upside down.

And you'd have to turn the picture, and all of a sudden, these random lines and these dots turn it upside down into a coherent, lovely drawing of something.

Mr.

Squeagle could see something that nobody else and I couldn't, all the kid, we couldn't see.

Upside down, upside down.

God can see things that we can't.

And his heart and his love and his purpose for every one of us is to make something beautiful out of the random lines and dots in the past of our story.

The Hebrews writer points us to the stories of the past to remind us that God has done it then and he is doing it today.

How does he do it?

How can we be made new?

How does he make something beautiful out of our life?

Well, he does it by coming.

Hebrews writer says that Jesus stepped down from heaven to earth and came and walked amongst us.

After Hebrews 11, after lift the list of all of these great heroes of grace, the Hebrews writer says that great word, therefore.

Therefore, because of all of this, because of all the stories, therefore in Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Jesus goes to the cross for us.

Jesus goes to the cross.

What does the Hebrews writer say?

He goes to the cross of shame.

Why is it a cross of shame?

Well, in that time it was.

The cross was a symbol of slavery.

How could the king die on a symbol of shame?

It was a symbol of shame then, but it's more than that.

The cross is the symbol of our shame, all our shame, my shame, your shame, the whole world's shame is held at the cross as the God, the perfect God extends out his hands and dies upon that cross of shame.

God absorbs our sin.

God absorbs our past.

God absorbs our present and our future.

He absorbs all of our brokenness onto himself in order that we can have life, freedom, and a future.

That is what God has done for us.

It is the most profound, beautiful act of grace.

And his story becomes our history.

It's his story as he invites us in, becomes our history.

I'm reminded of uh this the last uh few pages of C.

S.

Lewis's um The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe, which I'm sure many of you have read.

And Aslan is talking to Lucy and she's confused.

How could Edmund be set free?

How could you be alive, Aslan?

I thought you were dead.

And how did all of this atonement work?

I don't understand.

How can your death, and now you're here raised again, allow Edmund, who has sinned, who has shame and a past, be set free?

And the words of Aslan, the words of C.S.

Lewis, read like this.

It means, said Aslan, that though the witch knew the deep magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.

Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time, but if she could have looked a little further back into the stillness and the darkness before time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.

She would have known that when a willing wit victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the table would crack and death itself would start working backward.

The cross is working backward.

The cross works backward in your life.

He is making things beautiful in your life.

And the only way that we can do it is to receive it.

This is where faith comes in.

To actually receive his goodness and his grace, to actually say, I can't do it, God, I I can't earn, I can't strive, my my religiosity will not get me there, my good works will not get me there.

All I can do is receive your grace, your love, and your kindness.

And this is really hard.

You know, we live in a cancel culture right now.

We love to observe and see other people fail and fault, and when they do, out they go.

Partly, I think, that the reason why cancer culture exists is because it salves and soothes us.

Because if we're really honest with ourselves, we know that we too are broken.

We just haven't been found out.

But the reality is, is we know who we are, don't we?

Even if other people don't know, people see us, they know us, and I'm here to tell you, as we've read in Hebrews, God knows us, He does know us, He sees us.

I find it, and this has been part of my journey.

I became I came to faith very young.

But my story and my journey has been all about learning how to receive grace.

It's an ongoing journey.

I remember I got into my late 20s and things were falling apart.

My past was catching up with me, and I was the oldest child.

I tried to keep everything bubbling along.

I I tried to present to the world and to God and to anyone who'd looked that I had things in order, that I had things together, but inwardly I was falling apart, and it was a journey.

God was drawing me to a place of surrender.

He was drawing me to a place of understanding that actually all I can do is receive his grace.

I reckon for some of you maybe here this morning, you've been a person of faith your whole life, but still receiving grace by faith is a challenge for you.

It's an ongoing story, it's an ongoing invitation that we are called, we are invited into a place of grace.

I love one, John chapter 3, where John says, this is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence.

John 3 · chapter mention

If our hearts condemn us, if our hearts condemn us, when we look at our hearts and we understand our brokenness and our pain and our shame, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows what?

He knows everything.

God is greater than our hearts, he's greater than your heart, even when your heart condemns you.

He is greater than your and my heart.

His story can be our history.

So our redeemed story gives us and enables us to live with confidence into the future.

Because he is the God who is working into our past, we can live, as the Hebrews writer says, we can live with confidence in the present and the future.

I love this word confidence.

Why don't you just turn to your neighbor and say confidence?

And say it confidently.

Come on.

If you don't say it confidently, say it again.

Confidence.

It reminds me of another song.

When we were driving to school earlier this year, all four of our kids were going to school for the a new school for the first time, and it was February, and we're driving them there, and they are nervous and they are worried.

And so I, as a loving father, relevant dad, I went to Spotify and I turned on Julie Andrews' I Have Confidence from the sound of music.

And I turned it up loud and I said, kids, just channel some of this.

Get this into you.

And we're not going to be singing that one.

You want to live with confidence?

Even when you know who you are, even when you're aware of your own faults and failings and weaknesses and shame and brokenness and all of it.

Do you want to live with confidence?

A confidence in knowing that God is greater than our heart.

We can.

Hebrews tells us this.

How do we do it?

How do we live with confidence?

Will we fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith?

We are following in the wake of another.

Fix our eyes on Jesus.

Trust in him, walk with him, focus on him, live our faith, live a life of eyes up, faith on him because he goes before us.

Maybe there's an encouragement for us.

An encouragement for us this morning to fix our eyes afresh on him.

I reckon there's a whole bunch of remembering and reminding going on for us this morning.

Remember your first love.

Remember that you've the faith that you had.

Remember that it's all about grace and not works.

It's a reminder to fix your eyes afresh and anew on the person of Jesus Christ.

Because we lose vision so quickly.

We lose vision so easily.

And we lose vision incrementally over time.

I don't know if any of you have seen the optometrist recently.

I'm just gonna get I will get this thrown up, uh Isaac.

If you've ever been to the optometrist, maybe this is a public service announcement for you.

Maybe you can't see uh what's up there.

You don't just wake up one day blind.

I'm wearing contact lenses, I'm short-sighted, I have been for most of my life.

So if I took my contact lenses off right now, I wouldn't be able to read that chart and I wouldn't know who you were.

But it happened over time.

I remember as a teenager.

And it's so easy to incrementally lose focus.

And perhaps the reminder for you today this is your optometrist appointment, your spiritual optometrist appointment.

That one's for free.

The Hebrews writer says, don't lose heart.

Let me tell you, there's an enemy who's wanting to distract and destroy you.

There's an enemy that's wanting to remind you of your past.

And as one pastor said, when the enemy comes, when the devil comes to remind you of your past, you remind him of his future and your future.

Keep your eyes on Jesus and do it together.

The whole premise of Hebrews is saying, you are part of a great story.

You are part of a great community.

What a gift and joy it is that we can gather here on this Sunday.

We can gather together in small groups, we can gather together in different parts and places, we can lift our eyes and we can remind each other of who we are.

There is something beautiful about being together.

There is a gift about gathering together because we remind ourselves of who we are and the story that we are part of.

Right at the end in Hebrews chapter 11, landing after the big list of all of these heroes of grace.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

The writer says these were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us.

That plan is Jesus Christ, so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

He's saying that Noah, Moses, David, Rahab, all of them together, working together, it is better.

We are all joined together in this great story, and one day we will be made perfect.

The community, the story of this church, the story of new hope.

That's why we're doing what we're doing.

Part two Firm Foundations, fresh faith.

It's because we are reminding ourselves that we are part of a great story as we journey with Jesus Christ.

And there is more to do.

There is more to see.

There is a good present and a future for us as a church as we continue to fix our eyes on Jesus.

I also want to say, and this is the gift of the community and the gift of the church, is that community is the place where we find healing.

Community is the place where we find restoration.

Community is the place where we can begin the journey of finding healing from our past.

We do it together.

The context might be on a Sunday morning, the context might be in a smaller group, the context might be walking with a counselor.

There's a whole range of ways in which we do that, but we do not heal alone.

We do it together.

Kurt Thompson said in that book, The Soul of Shame, our vulnerability ultimately to potential abandonment, of which shame is the herald, is simultaneously both the source of all that is broken in our world as well as its redemption.

What's he saying?

Well, our brokenness and our pain and shame is it comes from being in community, sin taking place between one another.

But almost paradoxically, it's also the place in which we find healing.

This is the place in the context we find healing.

I want to say, there'll be a number of you, maybe many of you, sitting here today and saying, you know what?

The church has hurt me.

There are people in the church that have hurt me, whether it's this church or another church, and I'm sorry for that.

We are imperfect, we are broken, we sin against one another, we hurt one another.

But as Kurt Thompson says, this is also the place where we ultimately find healing and hope.

And my prayer, my deepest prayer is that we as a church here at New Hope will be a context and a place for healing.

A healing for those who know Jesus, and a context and a place for healing for those who don't.

For those who are on the margins on the outside, for those who desperately need to meet Jesus.

We have our past stories.

This community, New Hope, has its past stories, and we're going to celebrate Christ's work in them over the coming weeks.

Next week, both our morning and evening service, we've invited back some of our oldies.

I don't know if I can say that.

Don't say that to Daniel Bullock because he is preaching next week.

Daniel Bullock, who was part of the church here and now, um, the director of ministries for the Baptist Union Victoria will be preaching next week.

Jess Groschek will be here next Sunday night.

People who are part of our past to encourage our present, and then we will celebrate in two weeks' time all that God has in store for us as a church.

I want to land in response by taking hold that last verse in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, in the reading that we had.

Hebrews 11:6

And without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists, and he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

He rewards those who earnestly seek him.

I want to ask you this morning, are you seeking after God?

Are you seeking God this morning?

God rewards those who earnestly seek him.

I want to take just a moment to speak to you here this morning.

If you are seeking God, perhaps you've you've come to church, perhaps this is your first time to church, or your first time to church in a long time.

Maybe you've returned back to New Hope.

And you are seeking, and you are searching.

Perhaps you your heart and your mind is filled with with shame and regret from your past.

Maybe it's taken all your courage to walk through the doors of a church, and let me tell you, walking through the doors of a church is a big deal because you are desperate to meet Jesus.

Maybe you don't even know that you don't even know why you're here, but God sees you and He knows you.

I want to speak to those here who don't know Jesus yet, who haven't received his grace and forgiveness.

You are seeking Jesus.

Perhaps you don't even know that you're seeking Jesus, but today you've realized you are.

I want to create a moment for you to meet Jesus, to receive his mercy, to receive his love, and to receive his grace because he is good and he loves you.

He loves you so much that he died for you, and he wants to lift off you your guilt, your shame, and your sin.

The invitation is just to make Jesus Lord, and that's a big step to say, I'm stepping off the throne of my life, I'm surrendering my life, I'm done, I can't fight anymore.

God, I'm giving you my life.

I'd love to create that moment, that invitation for you to meet Jesus and to find that great reward today.